Sunday, July 8, 2012

The Roman Army's Secret Christian Symbol

The Roman Army's Secret Christian Symbol:
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!
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
A
T
O
R
A
R
E
P
O
T
E
N
E
T
O
P
E
R
A
R
O
T
A
S
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
A
T
O
R
A
R
E
P
O
T
E
N
E
T
O
P
E
R
A
R
O
T
A
S
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
A
T
O
R
A
R
E
P
O
T
E
N
E
T
O
P
E
R
A
R
O
T
A
S
Finally. one should also revisit the underlying meaning of the Latin words that can be directly read within the square without any rotation.

S
A
T
O
R
"sower" = "one who tills the soil"
A
R
E
P
O
secret meaning = "prior movement out of stalk/surface above later"
T
E
N
E
T
"holds" = "contains within surfaces"
O
P
E
R
A
"work" = "purposeful movements"
R
O
T
A
S
"wheel" = "repetitive/rotating movement surfaces above"
 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.
However, it should also be pointed out another interesting pattern within the square related to the word torot as mentioned before.
S
A
T
O
R
A
R
E
P
O
T
E
N
E
T
O
P
E
R
A
R
O
T
A
S
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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