Sir Richard Arcos does some preaching.

In his books Dr. Langdon makes a lot of an alledged re-writing of Christianity by Constantine the Great (to whom I am only very remotely related). Surveying the subject of Constatine's re-writing of Christianity, it occurs to me that God is truly sovereign over history, remember Julian the Apostate? Well, not only did he not mention this, fulfil the Lord's prophecy about the devastation of the temple and prove that Christianity had truly triumphed over paganism, he DID try to re-write a religion, namely paganism. Realising that Christianity beat paganisms of all sorts into a cocked hat, friend Julian tried to reform and centralise paganism, seeing in the institutional order of Christianiy its strength. Not only this, but he tried to change pagan belief and practice. Julian, who had professed conversion and even been appointed a lay reader, admired Christianity's doctrine of self-control, indeed, he saw in the doctrinal certainty of Christianity another reason why it was so powerful. Paganism was an indulgent set of religions, and this disgusted the sober middling sorts of the Roman Empire, just as the merchants and commoners of late medieval society detested the carnal indulgence of the papacy, the Puritans the luxury and vice of the Court and the Methodists the hypocrisy and formalism of much of the Church of England. Julian decided that pagans had to clean up their act or become extinct within a few decades (all those sexual rituals and bacchanalian frolics took their toll on the system, don't you know). So he proclaimed new doctrine at Antioch, where his army waited to attack Persia. From henceforth all pagans were to worship the immanent spirit of the earth, with the Olympian deities as lesser gods, and there were to be no more wild parties. He held a meeting and got some pagan priests to agree. Needless to say, the pagans at Antioch were not impressed. Julian was dismissed as a half-pagan, half-Christian dreamer by the pagans. His religious plans proved a disaster, men and women who had been pagans all their lives were not disposed to accept orders from a recent convert to paganism, emperor or no. Does anyone really think the Christian church would have rolled over and played dead in the same situation? Paganism had been rich and powerful before Constantine stripped it of its wealth and used said boodle to endow Churches. Paganism was crumbling and in crisis. Christianity was a poor religion, to become a Christian had long been dangerous, yet Christian churches were to be found in the Empire's farthest provinces. As I say, God, being God, foresaw the Constantine slur and raised up Julian to show it was wrong. Look at history long enough and you will find the hand of the Lord.