tHE GREATEST IS.....

Most Roman Emperors thought “I am the greatest.” Any different take on their importance could have spelled the end of a reign. This idea of supremacy for a ruler was an ancient one. From the perspective of either good or bad, emperors marched on. Julius Caesar, bad, Augustus, good, Caligula and Nero, bad, Trajan, good, Commodus, bad, Diocletian, good. Finally Constantine, good, embraced the religion of a higher ruler, Jesus Christ. One would think that the Son of God would certainly hold higher sway over mortals than the greatest, mortal, men.

Yet Rome borrowed traditions from the Greeks’civilization. Slavery was common, women were excluded from public life, and homosexuality was an accepted aristocratic practice. During the dark ages following the decline and fall of Rome, ignorance pervaded the landscape in shadowed in the persecutions of mystics, witches, heretics and Jews. The greatest emperor usually identified himself as he who could maintain power over each of the three groups of society - those who work, those who fight, those who pray. Customs and emperors, good and bad, marched on.

And where do rulers stand today? No higher than they stood spiritually ( not physically) in ancient Rome. All the greatest leaders have not adopted that ‘greatest’ commandment of love for one’s neighbor as one’s self. The mystery that Constantine embraced in 300 A.D. has not changed, but mastering it - there has been the rub.