CONSTANTINE II Constantine the Great son Ancient Roman Coin Sol Cult i54899

  Constantine II  'Junior' - Roman Emperor :  337-340 A.D. Comstantine I the Great son as Caesar  Bronze AE3 20mm (3.63 grams) Thessalonica mint  330-336 A.D. Reference: C.- - RIC.23  CONSTANTINVNOBCAES - Laureate, draped and cuirassed bust right. SOLIINVICTOCOMITI Exe: .TS.A - Sol standing left, raising hand and holding globe.

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Royal/Imperial symbols of power

Ruling dynasties often exploit pomp and ceremony with the use of regalia : crowns , robes, orb (globe) and sceptres , some of which are reflections of formerly practical objects. The use of language mechanisms also support this differentiation with subjects talking of "the crown" and/or of "the throne " rather than referring directly to personal names and items.

 

 

Roman Imperial repoussé silver disc of Sol Invictus (3rd century), found at Pessinus (British Museum)

Sol Invictus ("Unconquered Sun") was the official sun god of the later Roman Empire and a patron of soldiers. In 274 the Roman emperor Aurelian made it an official cult alongside the traditional Roman cults. Scholars disagree whether the new deity was a refoundation of the ancient Latin cult of Sol , a revival of the cult of Elagabalus or completely new.The god was favored by emperors after Aurelian and appeared on their coins until Constantine .The last inscription referring to Sol Invictus dates to 387 AD and there were enough devotees in the 5th century that Augustine found it necessary to preach against them. It is commonly claimed that the date of 25 December for Christmas was selected in order to correspond with the Roman festival of Dies Natalis Solis Invicti , or "Birthday of the Unconquered Sun", but this view is challenged

Invictus as epithet

Invictus ("Unconquered, Invincible") was an epithet for several deities of classical Roman religion , including the supreme deity Jupiter , the war god Mars , Hercules , Apollo and Silvanus .[8] Invictus was in use from the 3rd century BC, and was well-established as a cult title when applied to Mithras from the 2nd century onwards. It has a clear association[vague ] with solar deities and solar monism; as such, it became the preferred epithet of Rome's traditional Sol and the novel, short-lived Roman state cult to Elagabalus , an Emesan solar deity who headed Rome's official pantheon under his namesake emperor .

The earliest dated use of Sol invictus is in a dedication from Rome, AD 158. Another, stylistically dated to the 2nd century AD, is inscribed on a Roman phalera : "inventori lucis soli invicto augusto" (to the contriver of light, sol invictus augustus ). Here "augustus" is most likely a further epithet of Sol as "august" (an elevated being, divine or close to divinity), though the association of Sol with the Imperial house would have been unmistakable and was already established in iconography and stoic monism. These are the earliest attested examples of Sol as invictus , but in AD 102 a certain Anicetus restored a shrine of Sol; Hijmans (2009, 486, n. 22) is tempted "to link Anicetus' predilection for Sol with his name, the Latinized form of the Greek word ἀνίκητος, which means invictus ".

Elagabalus

The first sun god consistently termed invictus was the provincial Syrian god Elagabalus . According to the Historia Augusta , the teenaged Severan heir adopted the name of his deity and brought his cult image from Emesa to Rome. Once installed as emperor, he neglected Rome's traditional State deities and promoted his own as Rome's most powerful deity. This ended with his murder in 222.

The Historia Augusta refers to the deity Elagabalus as "also called Jupiter and Sol" (fuit autem Heliogabali vel Iovis vel Solis ).This has been seen as an abortive attempt to impose the Syrian sun god on Rome; but because it is now clear that the Roman cult of Sol remained firmly established in Rome throughout the Roman period,this Syrian Sol Elagabalus has become no more relevant to our understanding of the Roman Sol than, for example, the Syrian Jupiter Dolichenus is for our understanding of the Roman Jupiter.

  Sol Invictus

Aurelian

The Roman gens Aurelian was associated with the cult of Sol. After his victories in the East, the Emperor Aurelian thoroughly reformed the Roman cult of Sol, elevating the sun-god to one of the premier divinities of the Empire. Where previously priests of Sol had been simply sacerdotes and tended to belong to lower ranks of Roman society, they were now pontifices and members of the new college of pontifices instituted by Aurelian. Every pontifex of Sol was a member of the senatorial elite, indicating that the priesthood of Sol was now highly prestigious. Almost all these senators held other priesthoods as well, however, and some of these other priesthoods take precedence in the inscriptions in which they are listed, suggesting that they were considered more prestigious than the priesthood of Sol.Aurelian also built a new temple for Sol, bringing the total number of temples for the god in Rome to (at least) four[21] He also instituted games in honor of the sun god, held every four years from AD 274 onwards.

The identity of Aurelian's Sol Invictus has long been a subject of scholarly debate. Based on the Historia Augusta , some scholars have argued that it was based on Sol Elagablus (or Elagabla) of Emesa . Others, basing their argument on Zosimus , suggest that it was based on the Helios , the solar god of Palmyra on the grounds that Aurelian placed and consecrated a cult statue of Helios looted from Palmyra in the temple of Sol Invictus. Professor Gary Forsythe discusses these arguments and add a third more recent one based on the work of Steven Hijmans. Hijmans argues that Aurelian's solar deity was simply the traditional Greco-Roman Sol Invictus.

Constantine

Emperors portrayed Sol Invictus on their official coinage, with a wide range of legends, only a few of which incorporated the epithet invictus , such as the legend SOLI INVICTO COMITI , claiming the Unconquered Sun as a companion to the Emperor, used with particular frequency by Constantine. Statuettes of Sol Invictus, carried by the standard-bearers, appear in three places in reliefs on the Arch of Constantine . Constantine's official coinage continues to bear images of Sol until 325/6. A solidus of Constantine as well as a gold medallion from his reign depict the Emperor's bust in profile twinned ("jugate") with Sol Invictus, with the legend INVICTUS CONSTANTINUS

Constantine decreed (March 7, 321) dies Solis —day of the sun, "Sunday"—as the Roman day of rest [CJ3.12.2]:

On the venerable day of the Sun let the magistrates and people residing in cities rest, and let all workshops be closed. In the country however persons engaged in agriculture may freely and lawfully continue their pursuits because it often happens that another day is not suitable for grain-sowing or vine planting; lest by neglecting the proper moment for such operations the bounty of heaven should be lost.

Constantine's triumphal arch was carefully positioned to align with the colossal statue of Sol by the Colosseum , so that Sol formed the dominant backdrop when seen from the direction of the main approach towards the arch.[26]

Sol and the other Roman Emperors

Berrens deals with coin-evidence of Imperial connection to the Solar cult. Sol is depicted sporadically on imperial coins in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD, then more frequently from Septimius Severus onwards until AD 325/6. Sol invictus appears on coin legends from AD 261, well before the reign of Aurelian. Connections between the imperial radiate crown and the cult of Sol are postulated. Augustus was posthumously depicted with radiate crown, as were living emperors from Nero (after AD 65) to Constantine . Some modern scholarship interprets the imperial radiate crown as a divine, solar association rather than an overt symbol of Sol; Bergmann calls it a pseudo-object designed to disguise the divine and solar connotations that would otherwise be politically controversial  but there is broad agreement that coin-images showing the imperial radiate crown are stylistically distinct from those of the solar crown of rays; the imperial radiate crown is depicted as a real object rather than as symbolic light. Hijmans argues that the Imperial radiate crown represents the honorary wreath awarded to Augustus , perhaps posthumously, to commemorate his victory at the battle of Actium ; he points out that henceforth, living emperors were depicted with radiate crowns, but state divi were not. To Hijmans this implies the radiate crown of living emperors as a link to Augustus. His successors automatically inherited (or sometimes acquired) the same offices and honours due to Octavian as "saviour of the Republic" through his victory at Actium, piously attributed to Apollo-Helios. Wreaths awarded to victors at the Actian Games were radiate.

Sol Invictus and Christianity and Judaism

Mosaic of Christ as Sol or Apollo-Helios in Mausoleum M in the pre-4th-century necropolis beneath[33] St. Peter's in the Vatican , which many interpret as representing Christ

The Philocalian calendar of AD 354 gives a festival of "Natalis Invicti" on 25 December. There is limited evidence that this festival was celebrated before the mid-4th century. The idea that Christians chose to celebrate the birth of Jesus on 25 December because this was the date of an already existing festival of the Sol Invictus was expressed in an annotation to a manuscript of a work by 12th-century Syrian bishop Jacob Bar-Salibi . The scribe who added it wrote: "It was a custom of the Pagans to celebrate on the same 25 December the birthday of the Sun, at which they kindled lights in token of festivity. In these solemnities and revelries the Christians also took part. Accordingly when the doctors of the Church perceived that the Christians had a leaning to this festival, they took counsel and resolved that the true Nativity should be solemnised on that day."

This idea became popular especially in the 18th and 19th centuries  and is still widely accepted.

In the judgement of the Church of England Liturgical Commission, this view has been seriously challenged  by a view based on an old tradition, according to which the date of Christmas was fixed at nine months after 25 March, the date of the vernal equinox, on which the Annunciation was celebrated.  The Jewish calendar date of 14 Nisan was believed to be that of the beginning of creation, as well as of the Exodus and so of Passover, and Christians held that the new creation, both the death of Jesus and the beginning of his human life, occurred on the same date, which some put at 25 March in the Julian calendar.[40][42][43] It was a traditional Jewish belief that great men lived a whole number of years, without fractions, so that Jesus was considered to have been conceived on 25 March, as he died on 25 March, which was calculated to have coincided with 14 Nisan.[44] Sextus Julius Africanus (c.160 – c.240) gave 25 March as the day of creation and of the conception of Jesus.  The tractate De solstitia et aequinoctia conceptionis et nativitatis Domini nostri Iesu Christi et Iohannis Baptistae falsely attributed to John Chrysostom also argued that Jesus was conceived and crucified on the same day of the year and calculated this as 25 March. A passage of the Commentary on the prophet Daniel by Hippolytus of Rome , written in about 204, has also been appealed to.

Among those who have put forward this view are Louis Duchesne,Thomas J. Talley, David J. Rothenberg, J. Neil Alexander, and Hugh Wybrew.

Not all scholars who view the celebration of the birth of Jesus on 25 December as motivated by the choice of the winter solstice rather than calculated on the basis of the belief that he was conceived and died on 25 March agree that it constituted a deliberate Christianization of a festival of the Birthday of the Unconquered Sun. Michael Alan Anderson writes:

Both the sun and Christ were said to be born anew on December 25. But while the solar associations with the birth of Christ created powerful metaphors, the surviving evidence does not support such a direct association with the Roman solar festivals. The earliest documentary evidence for the feast of Christmas makes no mention of the coincidence with the winter solstice. Thomas Talley has shown that, although the Emperor Aurelian's dedication of a temple to the sun god in the Campus Martius (C.E. 274) probably took place on the 'Birthday of the Invincible Sun' on December 25, the cult of the sun in pagan Rome ironically did not celebrate the winter solstice nor any of the other quarter-tense days, as one might expect. The origins of Christmas, then, may not be expressly rooted in the Roman festival.

The same point is made by Hijmans: "It is cosmic symbolism...which inspired the Church leadership in Rome to elect the southern solstice, December 25, as the birthday of Christ ... While they were aware that pagans called this day the 'birthday' of Sol Invictus, this did not concern them and it did not play any role in their choice of date for Christmas." He also states that, "while the winter solstice on or around December 25 was well established in the Roman imperial calendar, there is no evidence that a religious celebration of Sol on that day antedated the celebration of Christmas".

The Oxford Companion to Christian Thought also remarks on the uncertainty about the order of precedence between the celebrations of the Birthday of the Unconquered Sun and the birthday of Jesus: "This 'calculations' hypothesis potentially establishes 25 December as a Christian festival before Aurelian's decree, which, when promulgated, might have provided for the Christian feast both opportunity and challenge."

Susan K. Roll also calls "most extreme" the unproven hypothesis that "would call Christmas point-blank a 'christianization' of Natalis Solis Invicti, a direct conscious appropriation of the pre-Christian feast, arbitrarily placed on the same calendar date, assimilating and adapting some of its cosmic symbolism and abruptly usurping any lingering habitual loyalty that newly-converted Christians might feel to the feasts of the state gods". The comparison of Christ with the astronomical Sun is common in ancient Christian writings.  In the 5th century, Pope Leo I (the Great) spoke in several sermons on the Feast of the Nativity of how the celebration of Christ's birth coincided with increase of the sun's position in the sky. An example is: "But this Nativity which is to be adored in heaven and on earth is suggested to us by no day more than this when, with the early light still shedding its rays on nature, there is borne in upon our senses the brightness of this wondrous mystery.

Mosaic in the Beth Alpha synagogue, with the sun in the centre, surrounded by the twelve zodiac constellations and with the four seasons associated inaccurately with the constellations

A study of Augustine of Hippo remarks that his exhortation in a Christmas sermon, "Let us celebrate this day as a feast not for the sake of this sun, which is beheld by believers as much as by ourselves, but for the sake of him who created the sun", shows that he was aware of the coincidence of the celebration of Christmas and the Birthday of the Unconquered Sun, although this pagan festival was celebrated at only a few places and was originally a peculiarity of the Roman city calendar. It adds: "He also believes, however, that there is a reliable tradition which gives 25 December as the actual date of the birth of our Lord." By "the sun of righteousness" in Malachi 4:2 "the fathers , from Justin downward, and nearly all the earlier commentators understand Christ , who is supposed to be described as the rising sun".  The New Testament itself contains a hymn fragment: "Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you." Clement of Alexandria wrote of "the Sun of the Resurrection, he who was born before the dawn, whose beams give light".

Christians adopted the image of the Sun (Helios or Sol Invictus) to represent Christ. In this portrayal he is a beardless figure with a flowing cloak in a chariot drawn by four white horses, as in the mosaic in Mausoleum M discovered under Saint Peter's Basilica and in an early-4th-century catacomb fresco.  Clement of Alexandria had spoken of Christ driving his chariot in this way across the sky. The nimbus of the figure under Saint Peter's Basilica is described by some as rayed , as in traditional pre-Christian representations, but another has said: "Only the cross-shaped nimbus makes the Christian significance apparent" (emphasis added). Yet another has interpreted the figure as a representation of the sun with no explicit religious reference whatever, pagan or Christian.

The traditional image of the sun is used also in Jewish art. A mosaic floor in Hamat Tiberias presents David as Helios surrounded by a ring with the signs of the zodiac .As well as in Hamat Tiberias, figures of Helios or Sol Invictus also appear in several of the very few surviving schemes of decoration surviving from Late Antique synagogues , including Beth Alpha , Husefah (Husefa) and Naaran , all now in Israel . He is shown in floor mosaics, with the usual radiate halo, and sometimes in a quadriga , in the central roundel of a circular representation of the zodiac or the seasons. These combinations "may have represented to an agricultural Jewish community the perpetuation of the annual cycle of the universe or ... the central part of a calendar".

 

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Flavius Claudius Constantinus , known in English as Constantine II , (316-340) was Roman Emperor from 337 to 340. The eldest son of Constantine the Great and Fausta , he was born at Arles , and was raised as a Christian.

On March 1 , 317 , Constantine was made Caesar , and at the age of seven in 323, took part in his father's campaign against the Sarmatians . At the age of ten he became commander of Gaul, after the death of his half-brother Crispus . An inscription dating to 330 records the title of Alamannicus , so it is probable that his generals won a victory over the Alamanni . His military career continued when Constantine I elected his son field commander during the 332 campaign against the Goths .

Following the death of his father in 337, Constantine II became emperor jointly with his brothers Constantius II and Constans . After the division of the empire, made by the three brothers in September of the same year in Pannonia, he ruled over Gaul, Britannia and Hispania .

He was involved in the struggle between the different Christian streams. The Western portion of the empire leaned towards Catholicism and against Arianism , and Constantine freed Athanasius and allowed him to return to Alexandria . This action also put some burden on Constantius II, who was a supporter of Arianism.

At first, he was the guardian of his younger brother Constans, whose portion was Italia , Africa and Illyricum . As Constans came of age, Constantine would not relinquish the guardianship and in 340 he marched against Constans in Italy, but was defeated at Aquileia and he was killed in an ambush in Cervignano del Friuli . Constans came to control his deceased brother's realm.

  Division of the Roman Empire among the Caesars appointed by Constantine I : from left to right, the territories of Constantine II, Constans I , Dalmatius and Constantius II . After the death of Constantine I (May 337), this was the formal division of the Empire, until Dalmatius was killed and his territory divided between Constans and Constantius.

He was soon involved in the struggle between factions rupturing the unity of the Christian Church .[4] The Western portion of the Empire, under the influence of the Popes in Rome , favored Catholicism over Arianism , and through their intercession they convinced Constantine to free Athanasius , allowing him to return to Alexandria .[9] This action aggravated Constantius II, who was a committed supporter of Arianism.[5]

Constantine was initially the guardian of his younger brother Constans, whose portion of the empire was Italia , Africa and Illyricum . Constantine soon complained that he had not received the amount of territory that was his due as the eldest son.[8] Annoyed that Constans had received Thrace and Macedonia after the death of Dalmatius, Constantine demanded that Constans hand over the African provinces, to which he agreed in order to maintain a fragile peace.[8][10] Soon, however, they began quarreling over which parts of the African provinces belonged to Carthage , and thus Constantine, and which belonged to Italy , and therefore Constans.[11]

Further complications arose when Constans came of age and Constantine, who had grown accustomed to dominating his younger brother, would not relinquish the guardianship. In 340 Constantine marched into Italy at the head of his troops.[10] Constans, at that time in Dacia , detached and sent a select and disciplined body of his Illyrian troops, stating that he would follow them in person with the remainder of his forces.[8] Constantine was engaged in military operations[6] and was killed in an ambush outside Aquileia .[10] Constans took control of his deceased brother's realm.

 

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