The Roman Army's
Secret Christian Symbol:
The Sator Square
The Sator Square
Yes, there were Christians in the Roman
army and as the religion grew, the number of Christians in the military grew.
The Roman army did not discriminate on the basis of religion.
The Roman army did not discriminate on the basis of religion for at that time Rome used conscription into its military service. Those Christians had no choice, they would serve or they would die!
The Roman army did not discriminate on the basis of religion for at that time Rome used conscription into its military service. Those Christians had no choice, they would serve or they would die!
Persecution
of Christians as a
consequence of professing their faith can be traced both historically and in
the current era. Early Christians were persecuted for their faith, at the hands
of the Romans in the Roman Empire which controlled much of the land early
Christianity was distributed across. This continued from the 1st century until
the early 4th, when the religion was legalized by Emperor Constantine I
who lived from 27 February 272 – 22 May 337 AD.
The first
documented case of imperially supervised persecution of the Christians in the
Roman Empire begins with Emperor Nero (37–68 AD). In 64 AD, a great fire broke
out in Rome, destroying portions of the city and economically devastating the
Roman population. Nero himself was suspected as the arsonist by Suetonius,
claiming he played the lyre and sang the 'Sack of Ilium' during the fires. In
his Annals, Tacitus (who claimed Nero was in Antium at the time of the
fire's outbreak), stated that "to
get rid of the report, Emperor Nero
fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated
for their abominations, called Christians [or Chrestians] by the populace" (Tacit. Annals XV, see Tacitus on Jesus).
Suetonius, later to the period, does not mention any persecution after the
fire, but in a previous paragraph unrelated to the fire, mentions punishments
inflicted on Christians, defined as men following a new and malefic superstition.
Suetonius however does not specify the reasons for the punishment; he just
listed the fact together with other abuses put down by the Emperor Nero.
In the year of Christ 286, a most remarkable affair
occurred; a Legion of soldiers, consisting of six thousand six hundred and
sixty-six men, contained none but Christians. This Legion was called the Theban
Legion, because the men were Egyptian Christian Copts who had been recruited
from and stationed in Thebias in Upper Egypt. The Theban Legion were quartered
in the east until the Emperor Maximian ordered them to march to Gaul, to assist
him against the rebels of Burgundy. It was the custom of the Romans to move
troops from extreme parts of the empire to avoid the problem of Roman-trained
soldiers participating in uprisings to free their native lands.
It should be noted here that the Egyptians or the Copts accepted
Christianity so very rapidly to the extent that the Romans had to exercise a
series of persecutions in an attempt to suppress the growth of a religion which
openly defied the divinity of the Emperor. The Roman Edict of 202 A.D. decreed
that Christian conversion should be stopped at all costs. The edict of 250 A.D.
decreed that every citizen should carry at all times a certificate issued by the
local authorities testifying that he had offered sacrifice to the gods. Those who refused to conform were
tortured with unprecedented ferocity. Some were beheaded, others were thrown to
the lions and others were burnt alive. All were subjected to even innovated veracious torture regardless of age
or sex. The Catechetical School of Alexandria was closed by order of the
authorities, though its members continued to meet in other secret places. At
one time, the number of bishops was restricted by the State to three. The
consummation of the age of persecution is considered by the Copts to be during
the reign of Emperor Diocletian (284-305). So severe was the mass execution and
the savage torture of the Copts that they took the day of DiocIetian's military
election as Emperor to mark the beginning of the era of the Coptic martyrs.
That very day marked the start of the Coptic Calendar known in the Western
world as Anno Martyrum (A.M.) or the year of the Martyrs.
The area around Thebes has always enjoyed a reputation for its strong,
almost fanatical, Christianity. The first monks in the Christian tradition,
known as "The Desert Fathers," contained a majority of Thebans, and
Theban Christians celebrate many martyrs who have refused to yield their faith
to the many persecutions in the first centuries of the church.
The Theban Legion passed through
the Alps into Gaul, under the command of Mauritius, Candidus, and Exupernis,
their worthy commanders, and at length joined the Emperor. About this
time, Emperor Maximian ordered a general sacrifice, at which the whole army was
to assist; and likewise he commanded that they should take the oath of
allegiance and swear, at the same time, to assist in the extirpation of
Christianity in Gaul. Alarmed at these orders, each individual of the Theban
Legion absolutely refused either to sacrifice or take the oaths prescribed.
This so greatly enraged Emperor Maximian, that he ordered the Legion to be
decimated, that is, every tenth man to be selected from the rest, and put to
the sword. The names of the soldiers were written on papers and placed in the
caps of the centurions, for 600 were destined to perish as examples. These
embraced their comrades, who encouraged them and even envied their fate. The
plain soon flowed with the blood of the martyrs. The survivors persisted
in declaring themselves Christians, and the butchery began again; the blood of
another 600 reddened the waters of the Rhone River. This second severity
made no more impression than the first had done; the soldiers preserved their
fortitude and their principles, but by the advice of their officers they drew
up a loyal remonstrance to the Emperor. This, it might have been presumed,
would have softened the Emperor, but it had a contrary effect: for, enraged at
their perseverance and unanimity, he commanded that the whole legion should be
put to death, which was accordingly executed by the other troops, who cut them
to pieces with their swords, September 22, 286. The Emperor Maximian
period is known as the Sixth Primitive Persecution in Fox's Book of
Martyrs. During this persecution, raised by Maximinus, numberless
Christians were slain without trial, and buried indiscriminately in heaps,
sometimes fifty or sixty being cast into a pit together, without the least
decency.
In response to this slaughter of Christians
the Theban Legion sent to Emperor Maximian (who was enraged) at this reply as it
was loyal, as it was also brave:
``Emperor, we are your soldiers
but also the soldiers of the true God. We owe you military service and
obedience, but we cannot renounce Him who is our Creator and Master, and also
yours even though you reject Him. In all things which are not against His law,
we most willingly obey you, as we have done hitherto. We readily oppose your
enemies whoever they are, but we cannot stain our hands with the blood of
innocent people (Christians). We have taken an oath to God before we took one
to you, you cannot place any confidence in our second oath if we violate the
other (the first). You commanded us to execute Christians, behold we are such.
We confess God the Father the creator of all things and His Son Jesus Christ,
God. We have seen our comrades slain with the sword; we do not weep for them
but rather rejoice at their honour. Neither this, nor any other provocation has
tempted us to revolt. Behold, we have arms in our hands, but we do not resist,
because we would rather die innocent than live by any sin.''
When Emperor Maximian heard this,
he realized that these men were obstinately determined to remain in their
Christian faith, and he despaired of being able to turn them from their
constancy. He therefore decreed, in a final sentence, that they should be rounded
up, and the slaughter completed. The troops sent to execute this order came to
the blessed legion and drew their swords upon those holy men who, for love of
life, did not refuse to die. They were all slain with the sword. They never
resisted in any way. Putting aside their weapons, they offered their necks to
the executioners all 6,666 of them.
Christianity is thought of as a religion of
peace but The Sator Square this reveals something different in that Roman
Legionaries converted to Christianity almost at the same time as Jesus Christ
rose from the dead on the 3rd day .
A cave near Jericho where Christian symbols
have been found, next to mysterious carvings of the Roman Legion. The Sator
Square symbol can be found from Megiddo to Pompeii to Hadrian's Wall on the
English/Scottish border to Dura Europa in Syria. From this what you discover is
that the Roman army didn't only oppress Christianity - it spread it! The religion
of Love was inadvertently spread by the greatest army the world had ever seen
to that time.
Sator Square:
The Sator
Square is a word
square containing a Latin palindrome featuring the
words SATOR AREPO TENET OPERA ROTAS written in a square so that they may be read top-to-bottom, bottom-to-top, left-to-right,
and right-to-left. The earliest known appearance of the square was found in the
ruins of Pompeii which was buried in the ash of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 AD. If the Sator Square is read boustrophedon, with a reverse in direction, then the words become SATOR OPERA
TENET, with the sequence reversed.
Translation:
Sator = Sower, planter; founder, progenitor
(usually divine); originator
Arepo = (arrepo) (I) creep/move stealthily towards,
also trust, or likely an invented proper name; its similarity with arrepo, from ad repo, 'I creep towards', may be
coincidental
Tenet = holds, keeps; comprehends; possesses;
masters; preserves
Opera = (a) work, care; aid, service, (an)
effort/trouble
Rotas = (rota) wheel, rotate; (roto) (I) whirl
around, revolve rotate; used in the Vulgate Psalms as a synonym for whirlwind
and in Ezekiel as plain old wheels.
One likely translation is "The farmer Arepo
has [as] works wheels [a plough]"; that is, the farmer uses his plough as
his form of work. Although not a significant sentence, it is grammatical; it
can be read up and down, backwards and forwards.
This also reads the square boustrophedon (in alternating directions). But since word order is very free in
Latin, the translation is the same.
The word arepo is a hapax legomenon, appearing nowhere else in Latin literature. Most of those who have
studied the Sator Square agree that it is a proper name, either an adaptation
of a non-Latin word or most likely a name invented specifically for this
sentence. It is thought that it came from a Celtic, specifically Gaulish, word for plough. There is an argument that it represented a Hebrew or Aramaic rendition of the Greek Αλφα ω, or "Alpha-Omega" (cf. Revelation 1:8) by early Christians. J.
Gwyn Griffiths contended that it came, via Alexandria, from the attested Egyptian name Ḥr-Ḥp, which he took to mean "the
face of Apis". In Cappadocia, in the
time of Constantine VII, Porphyrogenitus (913-959), the shepherds of the
Nativity story are called SATOR, AREPON, and TENETON, while a Byzantine bible
of an earlier period conjures out of the square the baptismal names of the
three Magi, ATOR, SATOR, and PERATORAS.
If "arepo" is taken to be in the second declension, the "-o" ending could put the word in the ablative case,
giving it a meaning of "by means of [arepus]." Thus, "The sower
holds the works and wheels by means of [unknown]."
The Anagram that is formed by the letters of the Sator Square.
The oldest known representation of the Sator Square
was found in the ruins of Pompeii Others were found in excavations at Corinium (modern Cirencester in England) and Dura-Europos (in modern Syria). The Corinium example is actually a Rotas Square; its inscription
reads ROTAS OPERA TENET AREPO SATOR.
An example of the Sator Square found in Manchester dating to the 2nd century is considered by some authorities to be one
of the earliest pieces of evidence of Christianity in Britain. Like the
Corinium square, the Manchester square reads ROTAS OPERA TENET AREPO SATOR.
A further example is found in a group of stones located in the grounds of Rivington Church and reads "SATOR AREPO TENET OPERA ROTAS", the stone is one
of a group thought to have come from a local private chapel in Anderton, Lancashire.
Christian associations:
Around the central Latin letter Ν (en,) a Greek cross can be made that reads both vertically and horizontally the first two
words of the 'Pater Noster' (Pater Noster translates as "Our Father", the first words of
the Lord's Prayer), each line is surrounded with A and O which
represents the Alpha and
Omega. The associations indicate the square may have
been a safe, hidden way for early Christians to signal their presence to each
other in a city without exposing themselves to persecution. The Sator Square
uncovered in Manchester has been interpreted as early evidence for the arrival
of Christianity in Britain.
For me, however, that is about as
remarkable as, perhaps, discovering that the letters could also be arranged to
form some other phrase, such as "my uncle likes hamburgers for
lunch". True, the phrase "pater noster" is relevant to
Christianity as is the symbology of the letters A and O, which can
be seen as a reference to Christ's statement "I am the Alpha and the
Omega"; but it alone does not, in my opinion, provide sufficient
justification for the square being duplicated throughout the Roman Legion
Barracks throughout the Roman Empire.
After studying the square, is is
believed that that there are some answers to the puzzle. First one could would
point out that the word torot appears in opposite corners of the square.
S
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A
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T
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O
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R
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A
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R
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E
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P
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O
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T
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E
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N
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E
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T
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O
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P
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The word torot has no
meaning in Latin; however, in Hebrew, torot is the plural form of the
word torah and it has the meaning "teachings" or
"instructions".
One can also recognize that the
word tenet forms a cross in the middle of the Sator Square.
S
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A
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T
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O
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R
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A
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R
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E
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P
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O
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T
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N
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The word tenet begins and
ends with the letter T, and the
letter T is understood to
symbolize the cross. Obviously Jesus was crucified on a cross, so the message
appears to be Christian. The Latin word tenet means "hold", so
the inter-relationship of the cross-shape, the "held" meaning and the
"instructions" meaning suggests that the square is related to
Christian teachings.
Now to fully understand the
meaning of the square, one must fully understand the meaning of all of the
letters within the square. One must also understand the purpose that the square
served.
The Roman army was an army of
converts. The army was made up of volunteers from all over the Roman Empire.
Just as is common in armies today, those who volunteered to serve in the army
who were not Roman citizens were granted Roman citizenship. It was also not
uncommon for a soldier from one end of the Empire, such as Judea, to end up
serving in a legion stationed in another part of the Empire, such as in
England. In order to meet other people of the same faith, early Christians who
enlisted in the Roman army needed a "secret handshake". That
"secret handshake" was fairly simple. It involved one person drawing
an S-like curve in the ground with a stick. The other person
"completed" the drawing of the first person by drawing another S-like
curve in the ground overlaying the first in such a way as to create a crude
image of a fish.
But believers did not simply go
around randomly challenging others to complete their drawing in the hope of
finding another believer. Believers needed another way to signal to others that
they were Christians well before they performed the "secret handshake"
to prove they were Christians. And that, I believe, was the purpose of the Sator
Square.
The letters A and O are generally understood to mean "first" and
"last". However they can also be seen to mean "before" and
"after". The cross formed by the word tenet can also be seen
to be the English word net rotated like spokes within a wheel. From the
language I call Olin, we know that the N in the center of the cross can also be seen as meaning
"related". By working our way around all of the "spokes of the
wheel" and reading from the outside inward, we can discern three other
messages: from SRN, translating
as either "S movement related" or as "alternating changes
movement related"; from RPN,
translating as "movement stalk/surface above related"; and from TEN, translating as either
"surfaces related out of related" or as "cross out of
related".
S
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A
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T
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O
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A
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P
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Finally. one should also revisit
the underlying meaning of the Latin words that can be directly read within the
square without any rotation.
Thus it appears that the letters
within the Sator Square describe exactly the nature and purpose of the
fish drawing challenge: confirmation that those who can complete the challenge
are Christians.
S
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A
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T
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O
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R
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"sower" = "one who tills the soil"
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A
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R
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E
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P
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O
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secret meaning = "prior movement out of stalk/surface
above later"
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T
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E
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N
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E
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T
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"holds" = "contains within surfaces"
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O
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P
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E
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R
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A
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"work" = "purposeful movements"
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R
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O
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T
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A
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S
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"wheel" = "repetitive/rotating movement
surfaces above"
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However, it should also be pointed
out another interesting pattern within the square related to the word torot
as mentioned before.
S
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A
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T
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O
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R
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A
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P
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Besides the word torot
evident from the letters contained in the green squares, one can also discern
from the light blue squares above the word pera rotated around the
letter N. The word pera
today means "pear" in most Latin languages. In Hebrew pri, the
origin of the word pera, actually refers more generically to fruit. Thus
we see the word pera being bound by the word torot. And from the
letters within the remaining yellow squares, SNS , one can possibly read the word sins or perhaps the
message "sin, reversing changes related". Taken together, the message
appears possibly to be that the teachings (of God) constrain and reverse the
effects of sins.
One should also note that Hebrew
is written right to left while Latin is written left to right. Thus the Sator Square
also appears to intentionally reflect the linguistic relationships of the two
peoples that were intimately connected by Christianity.
They kept just
one thing in their minds, that they were bearing witness to him who was lead to
death without protest, and who, like a lamb, opened not his mouth; but that
now, they themselves, sheep in the Lord's flock, were to be massacred as it by
ravaging wolves. Thus, by the savage cruelty of this tyrant, that fellowship of
the saints was perfected. For they despised things present in hope of things to
come. So was slain that truly angelic legion of men who, we trust, now praise
the Lord God of Hosts, together with the legions of Angels, in heaven forever.
Not all the members of the legion were at Aguanum at the time of the massacre.
Others were posted along the military highway linking Switzerland with Germany
and Italy. These were progressively and methodically martyred wherever they
were found. Some of course escaped and of these when they became ex- Roman
Legionnaire’s.
They had
continued to convert more people into Christians until in 310, a dispossessed
and power-hungry Emperor Maximian rebelled against Emperor Constantine while Emperor
Constantine was away campaigning against the Franks. Maximian had been sent
south to Arles with a contingent of Constantine's army, in preparation for any
attacks by Maxentius in southern Gaul. He announced that Constantine was dead,
and took up the Imperial Purple. In spite of a large donative pledge to any who
would support him as Emperor, most of Constantine's army remained loyal to
their Emperor, and Maximian was soon compelled to leave.
Constantine soon
heard of the rebellion, abandoned his campaign against the Franks, and marched
his army up the Rhine. At Cabillunum (Chalon-sur-Saône), he moved his troops
onto waiting boats to row down the slow waters of the Saône to the quicker
waters of the Rhone. He disembarked at Lugdunum (Lyon). Maximian fled to
Massilia (Marseille), a town better able to withstand a long siege than Arles.
It made little difference, however, as loyal citizens opened the rear gates to
Constantine. Maximian was captured and reproved for his crimes. Constantine
granted some clemency, but strongly encouraged his suicide. In July 310,
Maximian hanged himself. Well known for being the first Roman emperor to
convert to Christianity, Emperor Constantine and Co-Emperor Licinius
issued the Edict of Milan in 313, which proclaimed religious tolerance of all
religions throughout the empire.
This info was brought together by,
Sir Richard…
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