The conqueror

Veni, vidi, vici.

These are Julius Caesar's  words in 47 BC; used  to describe his victory over Pharnaces II of Pontus in the Battle of Zela to the Roman senate.

Literally these words translate as I came, I saw and I conquered.  But today they have a more sinister meaning.  They describe perfectly the American way.  I came upon it, I saw it, I took it.  This describes everything from our manipulative purchase of Louisianna  to our current war in Iraq.  It's our supermarket mentality.  We see it, we want it, we take it.  Somehow we feel we are justified in doing so, as if seeing and wanting justifies taking.  But does veni and vidi justify in any sense at all vici?  Is anything and everything there for the taking?

In hoc signo vinces

This is a latinization of the Greek ἐν τούτῳ νίκα.  According to Eusebius, Constantine the Great adopted this as a motto after his vision of a cross in the sky just before the Battle of Milvian Bridge against Maxentius in the year 312. The cross he supposedly saw was a labarum, which is a capital letter P [rho] with a capital letter X [chi] on the shaft of a sword. These Greek letters chi and rho, are the first two letters and was an abbreviation for Χριστός, or Christ, in Greek.

We American Christians seem to think that we are the new Jerusalem, the new covenant with God and our nation is the new Israel.  Therefore, we seem to think that we have the right, or perhaps the obligation, to conquer other nations in the name of that new covenant.  If you don't believe what we believe, we will conquer you (vinces) and force our views upon you.  I'm afraid that this mentality, is contrary to the words of Christ “ἐντολὴν καινὴν δίδωμι ὑμῖν ἵνα ἀγαπᾶτε ἀλλήλους, καθὼς ἠγάπησα ὑμᾶς ἵνα καὶ ὑμεῖς ἀγαπᾶτε ἀλλήλους.”

Curious isn't it we have changed love to conquest?

Curious also is the fact that this motto is used by Pall Mall cigarettes.

The fact is, in the History of the World, our missionaries have either been a part of, or led to conquest.

.