The Chosen People: A Compendium of Sacred and Church History for School-ChildrenYonge, Charlotte M. (Charlotte Mary)
Religion
The Chosen People: A Compendium of Sacred and Church History for School-Children
Yonge, Charlotte M. (Charlotte Mary)
Bible -- History of Biblical events; Church history
He was not as yet baptized, but he was a hearty believer, and he tried
in everything to make the Church prosperous, and to govern by Christian
rules. From that time all the chief powers of this world have professed
to be Christian, and the Church has been owned as the great means
appointed by God of leading His people to Himself. Constantine's mother,
Helena, though in her eightieth year, set off to the ruins of Jerusalem
to try to trace out the places hallowed by our Saviour's suffering. All
was waste and desolate, and no one lived there save a few very poor Jews
and Christians in wretched huts. The latter had never lost the memory of
the places where the holy events of the Passion had taken place; and the
empress set men to dig among the ruins on Mount Calvary, till she found
the Holy Sepulchre, and not far from it, three crosses, and the nails
belonging to them. She built a most beautiful church, so large as to
cover the whole of Golgotha. The sepulchre itself formed a round vault
within, crusted over with marble, and lighted with silver lamps. The
true Cross was kept in the church, but the nails she brought home as the
most precious gift she could carry to her son. She also beautified and
made into a church the cave of the Nativity at Bethlehem, and she built
another church on Mount Carmel in memory of Elijah. From her time it
became a habit with devout persons to go on pilgrimage, to worship at
the holy tomb and in the Cave of Bethlehem; and a new city of Jerusalem
rose upon the ruins of the old one, though, of course, without a Temple.
Rome was so fall of the tokens of heathenism, that Constantine feared
that his court would never be heartily Christian till he took it to a
fresh place; so he resolved to build a new capital city for his empire.
This was the city called after him, Constantinople, the city of
Constantine, on the banks of the Bosphorus, just where Europe and Asia
nearly meet. The chief building there was a most beautiful church,
dedicated to the holy Wisdom of God, and named in Greek St. Sophia. The
Bishop there was termed the Patriarch of Constantinople. There were
already five patriarchs, or great Father Bishops, to rule over divisions
of the Church at Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria, and Rome. The Patriarch
of Rome was called the Pope. All was peace and prosperity, and the
Christians were so much at their ease, that some finding that they
missed the life of hardness, which they used to think a great blessing,
went apart from men, and lived in caves, quite alone, working hard for
very scanty food, and praying constantly. These were called hermits. But
there soon were troubles enough rising up within the Church herself, for
a man named Arius, a priest at Alexandria, began wickedly to teach that
our blessed Lord was not from all eternity, nor equal with God the
Father. So many persons were led away by this blasphemous heresy, (which
means a denial of the faith,) that it was resolved to call together
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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