ROMAN EMPIRE, CONSTANTINE, FRENCH REVOLUTION, PETAIN'S VICHY - DIALECTICS OF HISTORY -NOT PRIMARILY ECONOMIC BUT IDEOLOGICAL

 In a previous blog post, I contended that the Muslims conquered much of the Roman Empire in the early 600s in part, because what we called the Roman Empire was no longer really that.  It was no longer the empire of Caesar, August, the Coliseum, and Olympic Games.  That in the 300s a revolution had occurred, changing forever that nation.  It was no longer the Roman Empire; it was the Christian Empire.  The newly conquering Muslims were creating their own empires, in Spain, all of North Africa, Judeah, Syria, Iraq, Persia. and beyond.  The Christian warriors held most of Europe, and until 1453 Constantinople.

     In France, the Christian world would be challenged by another revolution, with the slogan "liberty, equality, fraternity," make war on the Christian church, and under Robespierre, convert the Cathedral of Notre Dame into a Temple to the Goddess of Reason, with a choir inside to sing to the new era, as Robespierre himself would toss a line to ancient Rome as he wore a toga for the event.  Robespierre, would soon be guillotined, but his revolution would survive in toned down choruses.

And in 1940 an elderly military hero would lead yet another revolution to respond to the liberal, unChristian one of 1789.  Marshall Petain would lead the National Revolution. to cleanse France of the trash of the previous century and a half.  The Roman Catholic church was restored with its former privileges.  The 2nd most popular religion in France, Judaism, was to be put in its place, at the bottom, with many being deported to Nazi Germany where they would lose their arrogance.

     I shall hope to show how these revolutions are connected, but emphasize the one that is most over looked, the Christian Revolution that changed the Roman Empire.  I shall be doing this by adding on to this blog.  Covering a lot of territory in a short space, I will have to leave out much of the story.  But I hope I raise questions in your understanding , and perhaps you can write a better and fuller discussion disagreeing, 0r concurring, or providing a totaly different interpretation.   Hugh Murray