Constantine and the Church

Introduction

The story of Constantine’s conversion is a well-known one, recorded in great detail by Eusebius of Caesaria. Having resolved to “deliver Rome from the tyranny of Maxentius” (Life of Constantine 24), Constantine sought divine assistance. He had witnessed others unsuccessfully march against Maxentius “under the protection of a multitude of gods” (Life of Constantine 25), and he thus “judged it folly to join in the idle worship of those who were no gods” (Life of Constantine 26) and instead chose to seek the aid of the Christian God. As he prayed, he saw in the heavens a “cross of light,” inscribed “Conquer by this” (Life of Constantine 27), and that very same night, the “Christ of God” visited Constantine and commanded him to place the sign from the heavens on the shields of his soldiers. He obeyed and later defeated Maxentius at the Battle of Milvian Bridge (Life of Constantine 33).

Historians and scholars have long questioned the sincerity of Constantine’s conversion:

Was he in truth a pious son of the church, or was he rather a political mastermind who seized on the power he could gain by subordinating this well-organized and doctrinaire group to his will?” (Drake 111).

But the nature of the Church in the third and fourth centuries denies easy answers. Although Christianity was vastly more organized than any other ancient religion, the Church was still little more than “a loose assemblage of local congregations, held together by regular meetings of their bishops, but still differing significantly in character and even in the finer points of belief” (Drake 112). The Nicene Creed and Apostle’s Creed, for example, had yet to be written, and the Church had not yet truly established orthodox beliefs. Consequently, examining Constantine’s conformity to Christian thinking and virtues proves challenging because Christianity itself was still rather nebulous and had yet to be thoroughly defined.

However, identifying Constantine’s role in influencing the future of Christianity remains a far more feasible task. After his conversion, Constantine faced a decision: should he involve himself in the affairs of the Church? As the first Christian emperor during some of the Church’s most transformative years, it was an important question, and his answer would undoubtedly set the precedent for future emperors. And as his actions make clear, although he restrained himself in a few key ways, Constantine largely decided to concern himself with and intervene in the Church. As a result, he greatly shaped the Church’s future by convening councils to settle internal disputes, by ending persecution and giving Christianity legal status, and by making crucial decisions that set precedents for future emperors.

Intervening in Disputes

When Constantine defeated Maxentius and became co-emperor with Licinius, external circumstances forced him to “make many more choices more quickly than he may initially have intended” (Drake 116). The Church in North Africa was in the midst of an intense controversy, and those involved soon sought the emperor’s help in settling the dispute. During the Diocletian Persecution, some members of the clergy had surrendered “sacred books and objects to imperial officials” (Drake 116). These traditores proved to be a source of great disagreement in the North African Church. According to Drake, one group, led by the priest Donatus, insisted that sacraments performed by such traitors while still in office were invalid and must be performed again. Caecilian, a bishop in Carthage, and the rest of the church hierarchy, however, maintained that the sacraments remained valid. Donatus and his followers accused Caecilian, calling him a traditore and demanding he be stripped of his title and position. Caecilian, of course, denied the accusations, and the Donatists thus appealed to the emperor to settle the dispute (Drake 117).

Constantine could easily have refused to involve himself in the dispute, but he instead took steps to end the Donatist controversy. Initially, he handed the matter over to Miltiades, the bishop of Rome, in a letter recorded by Eusebius. The emperor laid out a few details for the proceedings but gave the bishop of Rome authority to decide the case: “Your Constancy will decide how the aforementioned case can most carefully be investigated to reach a just verdict” (Church History 364). However, Constantine was dissatisfied with the manner in which Miltiades conducted his proceedings and intervened further by summoning the Council of Arles. In a letter to the bishop of Syracuse, Constantine explained his reasons for summoning bishops to Arles:

[The Donatists] refuse to accept the judgment already received, claiming that only a few persons offered their views and opinions or that they were in a great hurry to pass judgment without first having investigated all matters thoroughly” (Church History 164).

The new council at Arles “ruled decisively against the Donatists” (Drake 119), and while it might seem like a relatively insignificant decision that impacted only one segment of the Church in the fourth century, it forced Constantine to consider his role in the Church and demonstrated that he would intervene and settle disputes among Christians.

Around a decade later, though, a much more significant dispute arose within the Church. Arius, an Alexandrian priest, was teaching that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was not equal with God.

Put simply, Arius reasoned that because fathers precede sons, there must have been some point at which the Son did not exist” (Drake 123).

This teaching sparked considerable conflict in Alexandria, and Constantine once again involved himself in the matter. He wrote a letter to Arius and his bishop, Alexander, which Eusebius recorded in his “Life of Constantine.” In the letter, Constantine recommended a “spirit of concord” and, “having made a careful inquiry into the origin and foundation of these differences, [found] the cause to be of a truly insignificant character, and quite unworthy of such fierce contention” (Life of Constantine 105).

But apparently Arius and Alexander disagreed, and the conflict continued until Constantine convened a council in Nicaea to settle the Arian controversy (Drake 124). Constantine himself attended the council, from which came one of the most important documents in church history, one that has become a measure of orthodoxy within Christianity — the Nicene Creed. The creed, endorsed by Constantine, describes the

Lord Jesus Christ” who was “begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father [homoousios]” (Nicene Creed).

The term homoousios was a direct renunciation of the teaching of Arian, whose followers had used the term homoiousios, or of a similar substance to the Father. As a result of the council, Christ’s equality with God became a cornerstone of orthodoxy, and Constantine thoroughly cemented his legacy as an influential figure in the Church.

Ending Persecution

In addition to settling internal conflicts within the Church, and perhaps more significantly, Constantine was largely responsible for ending the persecution of Christians and granting the religion legal status.

In March of the nineteenth year of Diocletian’s reign, when the festival of the Savior’s passion was approaching, an imperial edict was announced everywhere ordering that churches be demolished and the Scriptures destroyed by fire. . . Such was the first edict against us” (Church History 290).

Thus began the Diocletian Persecution, the same persecution under which traditores in North Africa had surrendered sacred writing and relics. However, according to Keresztes, both Eusebius and Lactantius — both authoritative sources on the life of Constantine — “agree that Galerius . . . was the prime mover of the persecution” (Keresztes 381).

Interestingly, however, it was also Galerius who temporarily ended the Great Persecution with his Edict of Toleration, in which he “grant[ed] our most prompt indulgence also to these, so that they may again be Christians and may hold their conventicles” (Edicts of Toleration). But, as Keresztes points out, the edict “gave Christians no more than an explicit toleration, which the Christians had enjoyed in every respect before the first anti-Christian edicts of 303 AD” (Keresztes 392). Additionally, Galerius issued the edict just five days before his death, and one of his successors, Maximinus Daia, quickly resumed the persecution of Christians (Keresztes 392).

Nevertheless, the persecution continued for less than two years. Shortly after his defeat of Maxentius, Constantine and Licinius issued the Edict of Milan, in which they wrote

that it has pleased us to remove all conditions whatsoever, which were in the rescripts formerly given to you officially, concerning the Christians and now any one of these who wishes to observe Christian religion may do so freely and openly, without molestation” (Edicts of Toleration).

The Edict also granted the same rights to other religions and restored church property taken during the Diocletian Persecution.

The end of the persecution of Christians brought about by the Edict of Milan transformed the future of Christianity. The stark contrast between the state of the Church before Constantine rose to power and after his death clearly demonstrates the effect that the end of persecution had on the Church:

In 306, when Constantine was first elevated by his father’s troops, the imperial government was in the middle of a concerted effort to remove all trace of Christian presence from the empire. When he died in 337, Christian leaders had assumed the rank, dress, and, increasingly, the duties of the old civic elite” (Drake 111).

After the Edict of Milan effectively ended persecution, the Church grew more wealthy and rose to a more prominent place in society.

Red Martyrdom

Further, in the absence of red martyrdom, Christians began to pursue white martyrdom. Persecution had offered Christians the opportunity to test their faith, express their love for Christ, and demonstrate their virtue. When Constantine outlawed persecution, it made red martyrdom, with its shedding of blood, a relic of the past. And when Christians no longer had the opportunity to suffer physically for Christ, they turned elsewhere to devote their lives to Christ. More than two centuries after the Edict of Milan, St. Gregory the Great (Pope Gregory I) described a new kind of martyrdom in one of his homilies:

For although the opportunity of persecution is lacking, nevertheless our time of peace has its own peculiar martyrdom. For even though we do not bend our bodily neck to the sword, nevertheless with the spiritual sword we slay in our soul carnal desires” (Rush 569).

This white martyrdom, as it came to be called, eventually flowered into one of the most defining characteristics of Christianity in the Middle Ages — monasticism. Throughout the Middle Ages, monasteries were a central part of Medieval culture that contributed greatly to the arts and intellectual pursuits. Monasteries enabled many of the greatest minds of the Christian tradition, like Anselm, to devote their lives to theology and philosophy. And without the emphasis monks placed on copying and preserving manuscripts, many of the greatest written works that still line bookshelves today might have been lost to history. Therefore, to some extent, Constantine is responsible for the emergence of monasticism and the preservation of important documents and manuscripts of the past.

Patterns and Precedents

Lastly, many of Constantine’s actions set precedents, transformed the interactions between the Church and the state, and established a pattern for settling disputes and defining church orthodoxy. In the early years of the emperor’s reign, during the controversy between Donatus and Caecilian, Constantine came close to employing force to settle the dispute. In a letter to the vicar of Africa, Constantine wrote of the Donatists:

Those same persons who now stir up the people in such a war as to bring it about that the supreme God is not worshiped with the veneration that is His due, I shall destroy and dash in pieces” (Optatus).

According to Drake, “this was precisely the type of imperial thinking that had eventually led Constantine’s predecessors into the Great Persecution” (Drake 120). However, in a later letter to bishops in Africa, Constantine changed tack and urged the bishops to be patient:

But, until the Heavenly medicine shows itself, our designs must be moderated so far as to act with patience, and whatever in their insolence they attempt or carry out, in accordance with their habitual wantonness — all this we must endure with the strength which comes from tranquility” (Optatus).

Further, Constantine tolerated other religions and refused to use force to convert his subjects to Christianity. The Edict of Milan “conceded to other religions the right of open and free observance of their worship for the sake of the peace of our times, that each one may have the opportunity to worship as he pleases” (Milan Edict). Fournier argues that “Constantine’s reli- gious policy was careful to avoid the use of coercion, particularly in the aftermath of the ‘Great Persecution’ and the statements of tolerance that ended it” (Fournier 49). In the emperor’s own words,

It is one thing to take on willingly the contest for immortality, quite another to enforce it with sanctions” (Fournier 49).

Rather than authoritatively settling controversies and then using force to enforce his rulings, Constantine convened councils to settle disputes within the Church. For example, Constantine’s decision to summon bishops to Arles to settle the Donatist controversy was a “major departure from precedent, one that would have far-reaching consequences. For the first time, a Roman Emperor had taken the initiative in convening a council of bishops, on any scale” (Drake 118). Later, when Constantine summoned bishops to Nicaea, he essentially convened the first ecumenical council. When he called the Council of Arles, “his rule had been limited to the western provinces; now it encompassed the entire empire” (Drake 125).

By calling such councils, Constantine provided a means for suppressing heresy and defining a Christian orthodoxy. Before Constantine assumed the title of emperor, bishops met and discussed doctrine, but their decisions carried no weight. The bishops “were powerless to enforce their decisions” (Drake 132). When Constantine convened councils, however, the councils’ decisions had the full authority of the Roman Emperor behind them.

As such, the relationship between the Church and the state changed dramatically. By summoning church councils and supporting the resultant decisions,

Constantine made Christian bishops politically relevant, and by endowing them with churches and patronage resources, he greatly enhanced their power as well as their status” (Drake 132).

And given the value of the emperor’s power in suppressing heresy, bishops were more than happy to cooperate. Thus, Constantine established a framework in which the church and state would interact heavily, in which the authority of the church was largely dependent on the state. And although this arrangement was eventually rejected by reforming popes in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, it defined the church in some of its most transformative years and thus has had lasting effects.

Conclusion

Ultimately, Constantine played a significant role in shaping the Church. By legalizing Christianity, ending persecution, and intervening in controversies and disputes, Constantine greatly influenced the future of Christianity and the Church. Although the effects of his conversion and subsequent rule on Christianity have not all been permanent, the first Christian emperor nevertheless casts quite a long shadow on the history of the Church.


Works Cited

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