“Congratulations upon your appointment as an officer of the Imperial Guard,” he said. “It is said in Nicomedia that the Emperor favors you and that you will rise fast.”
When Constantine’s face showed his surprise, he added with a smile, “I possess no power of divination. It happens that your great uncle Marios is an old friend, though he is not yet one of us. So is your tutor, Lactantius. Tell me, what did you think of the service this morning?”
“It was very interesting, and new to me.”
“But not so different in many ways from the worship of the soldier’s god, Mithras is that what you are thinking?”
“Hhow did you know?”
Theognis laughed. “Not by any devilish powers, you can be sure. You see, I once followed Mithras and was tom between him and Christ for many months, until I saw a man go through the rite of the taurobolium.”
Constantine had witnessed several times the rite of which Theognis spoke. An expensive ceremony, it was thought to earn the highest favor of the soldier’s god for the supplicant, who began the ritual by descending into a pit over which a grating was set. A young bull was then held securely over the grating and its throat slashed by a priest, deluging the man kneeling in the pit below with blood and symbolically according to the ritual purifying him in the service of Mithras and allowing him to rise from the pit a new and consecrated man.
Lord and Saviour
“I asked myself what could any man gain from the blood of a young bull, when the son of God had given up his life as a sacrifice for all who followed him and named him their Lord and Saviour,” Theognis continued. “And I realized then that neither Mithras, Jupiter nor any other could offer me the gift of eternal life that comes from Christ Jesus.”
“Are you trying to convert me, sir?” Constantine asked.
Theognis shook his head. “From what your mother and Marios tell me, you think for yourself and are not swayed easily. I’m sure you will one day see the light, Centurion Constantine, but I suspect it will be only when Jesus Christ wills for you to see it.”
Constantine was thoughtful as he rode the short distance back to Nicomedia and his duties in the palace. But his thoughts were not nearly so much of the service he had witnessed in Drepanum, or even the eloquent words of the priestscholar, as they were of a slender girl with hair that was like a pale aureole around her lovely features in the sunlight. And already he was wondering how long it would be before he could find an excuse to leave his duties in the palace and visit Drepanum once again.
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