Constantine and the beginnings of Christian rule

In AD 335 the Emperor Constantine (r. 306-337) celebrated his tricennalia, the thirtieth anniversary of his proclamation as emperor. Following decades of crisis, division and instability, he had reunited the empire, and had reigned longer than any emperor since Augustus, the very first. ¹ It was around this time that the elder Constantine, probably now in his sixties, recollected to Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea (d. 339), about the early years of his reign. Eusebius was himself older than the emperor and had seen many changes across his lifetime. He had witnessed first-hand the intense persecution of Christians by the Emperor Diocletian (r. 284-305) and his co-emperors, and had now lived to see the spectacle of an emperor presiding over the first ever gathering of Christian leaders from across the world at Nicaea, and even professing to be a Christian. Eusebius throughout his life remained overawed by this radical transformation of circumstances for Christians in the Roman Empire, and when the emperor died, Eusebius set about memorialising him in a biography. ² Eusebius recalled specifically Constantine’s own recollection to him of a vision the emperor claimed to have seen around 311 or early 312, about the time that he was preparing his forces to invade Italy. ³ Just after midday Constantine had seen a cross of light above the sun, bearing the words “by this sign, be victorious.” ⁴ It had, he said, been clearly visible to his whole army, but he still didn’t understand its meaning. What was this symbol of the cross? Was it related to crucifixion, to shame, ignominy, and death? But how could that be a sign of victory? That night, however, Constantine had another vision. In this dream Christ appeared, showing him the symbol of the cross again and telling him to make a banner resembling it. ⁵ This Constantine afterwards did, making a cross from a spear and crossbar. He placed on its top a crown and the Chi Rho, a symbol combining the first two Greek letters of Christ, and hung from it a banner embroidered with a portrait of himself beneath the cross. All of this was worked in gold and encrusted with numerous precious stones and jewels. ⁶ This was how, many years later, Constantine remembered and narrated his introduction to the God of the Christians. Constantine himself is, of course, best placed to tell us about how his interest in Christianity began and how his convictions evolved. Yet there are many reasons he could have come to remember things differently as he looked back with a much greater understanding of, and commitment to, Christianity. Constantine is one of the most debated and contested figures in history. Every historian and theologian seems to have a different opinion about him. What are we then, looking back from even greater length of years, meant to make of Constantine the man and his relationship with Christianity? Why did one of the greatest rulers of the Roman Empire, which had in his own day been trying to suppress Christianity, become himself shaped by the beliefs of what was still an incredibly small community? ⁷ How and when did his thoughts about Christianity develop and evolve? And what does it all mean for how God might want Christians to relate to the princes of this world, state, government, and politics? All of these questions were being asked in Constantine’s day too, as his life was unfolding and his beliefs were developing. Yet it is this very questioning that has obscured a dispassionate image of him and his reign. In the portraits of Constantine, we see the reflections of the inquiring Christian authors asking these same questions and trying to make sense of him in his own day, as the story unfolded. Still, at the same time this questioning has left us numerous dynamic portraits, from multiple different angles, revealing an emperor on a self-conscious journey with his creator. ⁸

CONSTANTINE’S YOUTH

The world Constantine grew up in had seemed irredeemably divided. For the past century (since at least AD 211) practically every Roman emperor had had a short reign and an untimely end, killed in battle, or murdered. The empire was riven by political struggles, the economy teetered, and barbarians threatened every frontier. The gods who had built and sustained the mightiest empire the world had ever seen seemed to have abandoned it. Into this chaos Diocletian introduced a bold political innovation, the tetrarchy - the rule of four – which divided the empire between four joint emperors, two senior, two junior. Yet there was no political strategy that could save the empire if the gods couldn’t be brought back onside. It seemed to Diocletian, and perhaps especially to his junior emperor Galerius (r. 293-305), that one of the chief offences to the gods was surely the growing number of people who refused to acknowledge them. Christians were an increasingly familiar presence around the empire, yet their stubborn refusal to honour any god but their own led to suspicion and resentment among their neighbours. It was antisocial not to participate in public worship, disrespectful to deny ancestral traditions, and downright dangerous to disdain the gods. Thus, under Diocletian began the largest persecution of Christians so far. ⁹ To be a Christian, or an atheist in the eyes of the Romans, had long been illegal, and trial and execution were an ever present threat, yet the Roman authorities had rarely before actively sought out Christians. This time, however, persecution was systematic and empire wide, with Diocletian determined to finally suppress this offensive belief. ¹⁰ Constantine was at that time serving in the armies of Diocletian and Galerius, and he would have witnessed first-hand the brutal policy of persecution which set the eastern Mediterranean afire. His complicity in the regime was an awkward fact for Christians like Eusebius who wanted to see Constantine as their saviour from persecution. Eusebius explained this period in Constantine’s life as being akin to Moses’ youth in the palace of Pharaoh. ¹¹ Sometime later, however, Constantine left the east for his father’s court in the west and here encountered quite a different situation. Constantine’s father, Constantius (r. 293-306) was ruler of the most western provinces of the empire, Britain, Gaul, and Spain, first as junior emperor (caesar) and from 305 as senior emperor (augustus). In contrast to his co-emperors, Constantius seems to have had little appetite for Diocletian’s policies of persecution. ¹² No martyrs are recorded from during his reign, although a few house-churches were torn apparently down. ¹³ One possible reason for his inaction may have been Constantius’ own special devotion to one god, Sol Invictus, the victorious sun, the source of light to the world and perhaps indeed its creator. ¹⁴ And Constantine saw the contrast in his father’s fortunes compared to those of other emperors – he won victories against the barbarians and his provinces were stable and at peace. ¹⁵ On the death of Constantius in 306, however, it was not clear who was meant to succeed him as augustus in the west. The previous year Diocletian had abdicated in an attempt to assure a smooth transition of power, and had also insisted on Maximian (r. 285-305), his co-senior emperor in the west, stepping down in place of Constantius. Multiple claimants now stepped up to claim the title of augustus in the west. Constantine was seemingly his father’s choice and was immediately proclaimed augustus by his soldiers in York in Britain. ¹⁶ At the same time the retired emperor Maximian and his son Maxentius (r. 306-312) sought to wrest control of the west for themselves, and so Constantine set out with his troops against them. The Roman world was once again spiralling into civil war. The attempts to suppress Christianity had had little effect in restoring the empire’s fortunes. In 311, Galerius, who had succeeded Diocletian as augustus in the east, in a startling move issued the very first edict of toleration from his death bed, appealing to Christians to pray to their God for his health and the good of the empire.¹⁷

THE MIRACLE OF THE MILVIAN BRIDGE

Despite having tried to establish peace between himself and Maxentius in 307, putting aside his concubine and marrying Maxentius’ sister, Fausta, in 312 Constantine went to war with Maxentius. ¹⁸ Crossing the Alps, he entered Italy with a considerably smaller force than Maxentius’. His target was Rome, yet this was a difficult if not impossible venture. Galerius, with the mighty army of the east, had marched on Rome in 307 but failed to take the city. ¹⁹ Indeed, no army had breached its walls in over seven centuries. It presented perhaps the most impregnable city in the world. Yet, by the autumn Constantine was marching victorious into the city. As his armies had advanced close to Rome, rather than staying inside the safety of the city as he had when Galerius had attacked, Maxentius had personally ridden out to meet Constantine in pitched battle. ²⁰ Possibly Maxentius was afraid that the mood within Rome was turning against him after Constantine had already won a string of victories in his march down the length of Italy. In the subsequent battle, however, Maxentius’ army was defeated and made to retreat back over the Tiber. The makeshift bridge constructed over the river at Milvian collapsed and Maxentius drowned along with many of his soldiers. ²¹ It was, as Eusebius celebrated, just like Pharoah and his troops being swallowed by the Red Sea as they tried to pursue Moses and the Israelites. ²² The dramatic course of events seemed truly miraculous. No one now remained to bar Constantine’s entry to the city where he was proclaimed sole emperor of the west. The Battle of the Milvian Bridge has often been thought of as the key turning point for Constantine, which convinced him of the power of the God of the Christians, to whom he had appealed on the eve of the battle. Yet there is much to indicate that his interest in this god had started prior to his crossing of the Alps. Two years earlier an imperial oration had been delivered before Constantine while he was in the city of Trier, one of the primary imperial capitals. Such public speeches in praise of the emperor were show pieces of Latin rhetoric which served as channels of imperial propaganda, while also reminding the emperor of his subjects’ expectations. Constantine’s victories and achievements were detailed and proclaimed. He had come from Britain to the rest of the empire like some new god from the edge of the world. ²³ On the road from Marseille, so the orator described, Constantine had recently beheld a vision of the great sun god, Apollo, accompanied by the divine personification of victory. They presented three laurel wreaths, representing thirty years of rule promised to Constantine. ²⁴ In this god, said the orator, Constantine saw a reflection of himself. With extravagant praise he declared Constantine “our new Apollo”. ²⁵ The orator seems to admit that the identification of Apollo is his own interpretation and, given the pairing of a sun god with victory, we might wonder whether underlying this is an original report concerning a vision of Sol Invictus. From 310 on the image of Sol Invictus came to dominate on coins minted under Constantine, another key form of imperial self-presentation. They declared the god as ‘protector’ (comes) of the emperor and his people. ²⁶ It seems that, on the eve of his invasion of Italy, Constantine was already favouring this supreme god, as his father had, above the many gods of the other emperors. ²⁷ The change Constantine was undergoing in his understanding of the divine is evident when we listen to an oration given on his return to Trier in 313, following his conquest of Italy. There is no mention of any of the traditional gods this time, instead the orator refers, and addresses directly, the supreme creator God (deus).²⁸ This is the first time God is used in the singular in a Latin panegyric. The orator wonders at the greatness of this deity who has as many different names as there are languages and fills the whole world, looking down from above nature. ²⁹ Most people had been given to the care of lesser gods, but to Constantine this divine mind had revealed himself. ³⁰ Wasn’t Constantine’s confidence in marching on Rome evidence of this? ³¹ Even Sol Invictus seemed now too small a name to give the divinity who Constantine believed had been helping him over the last years, although the coins depicting his radiant form only increased following Constantine’s victory. From the old gods who seemed to have abandoned the other emperors, Constantine had turned to the idea of a greater god, whom he understood first, after his father, as Sol Invictus, and then as some even greater – the supreme God and creator. But unlike the image of a good yet distant and uninterested creator painted by Plato and other philosophers, Constantine seems to have been assured that this God was also taking an interest in him through personal revelations and favour in battle. The victory at Milvian was proof to all that a powerful God was on Constantine’s side. The people of the empire had appealed for years to the gods to end their strife and trouble with no result. Now here was a God perhaps with the power to reunite and rebuild the empire, through Constantine. Such is the picture as we can discern it through sources of imperial propaganda, the speeches, monuments, and coins which presented the official image of Constantine. Despite the frequent extravagance of their prose, caution still underlay them. The gods were beloved and feared by nearly everyone, an unquestioned part of life, and Constantine could not afford to cause offence without good proof of divine favour. His imperial imagery was also greatly shaped by his traditionally minded advisers, who again urged caution. ³² Yet, there are hints that Constantine was already beginning to associate this supreme deity with the God worshipped by the Christians even before Milvian. Constantine’s search for a divine protector as he prepared to face Maxentius is also described by Eusebius. Turning to the supreme God honoured by his father, Constantine prayed to him, asking him to reveal himself. ³³ Consequently Constantine saw the vision he later recounted to Eusebius - a cross radiating from the sun, which he saw as the sign of victory, and his following dream of Jesus instructing him to make the cross his banner. The appearance of the sun attended by victory carries clear echoes of the vision recounted at Trier in 310, as well as of the name Sol Invictus. Perhaps indeed the orator of Trier and elder Constantine both looked back on the same experience, reported by the young emperor at the height of his anxious search for a divine protector. But whether the orator was interpreting the vision through traditional Roman belief, or the old emperor from the perspective of his growing immersion in Christianity, it is impossible to say. In Eusebius’ earlier account, the earliest surviving record of Constantine’s victorious campaign, written within four years of the battle, there is, however, no mention of any vision. Rather Constantine appears already with God “the ruler and saviour of all” as his ally. ³⁴ And as the emperor advanced on Rome, Eusebius records that he “called for aid to God in heaven and His word Jesus Christ”, leading to the miracle at Milvian. ³⁵ Still, in this early work Eusebius gives little other indication that Constantine’s understanding of God was particularly Christian. He says that Constantine’s deeds evidenced his belief, that his reverence for God was innate, and his actions pious. He has the favour of “the most heavenly power,” “the deity,” the “God of all,” but this is the single mention of Christ. Still, that Constantine was already coming to associate the supreme deity with the God of the Christians is perhaps more that Eusebius’ wishful thinking. If we had been in Rome in the days after Constantine’s triumphal entry, would we have seen any indication of Constantine’s evolving beliefs? Wandering up to the vast basilica recently erected by Maxentius to tower over the forum, we would have entered to see a colossal new statue – Constantine posed as a god. In his right hand he held a staff or standard in the shape of a cross, while underneath was placed the inscription “by this saving sign, the true proof of courage, I have saved and freed your city from tyranny”. ³⁶ These small details signalled a seismic change. Eusebius would not get Constantine’s own version of events for at least another decade. But writing around the same time as Eusebius, four years after Milvian, was another much closer source to the emperor – Lactantius, the Christian tutor of Constantine’s son Crispus. At one point a highly respected scholar of Latin rhetoric in the employ of Diocletian, Lactantius was later forced to resign as Diocletian purged Christians from his court. ³⁷ Now in Constantine’s employ he wrote On the Deaths of the Persecutors, a work which charted ruinous but just ends of all the emperors who had persecuted Christians, from Nero to Galerius and Maxentius. Against these others, his image of Constantine stands in stark contrast – a tolerant ruler who had gained the favour of God. The night before the battle of the Milvian bridge, Lactantius records that Constantine was instructed in a dream to paint “the heavenly sign of God” (caeleste signum dei) on his soldiers’ shields. ³⁸ This, Lactantius says, was the mark of Christ, the Chi Rho. ³⁹ And indeed, Constantine can be seen soon after adopting the Chi Rho as a symbol. A portrait of Constantine wearing a Chi Rho atop his helmet appeared on a number of silver medals made for select individuals in 315 to celebrate his tenth year of rule. Eusebius similarly described his practice of wearing a helmet mounted with the Chi Rho.⁴⁰ At this stage, however, it is unclear how much Constantine knew or understood about Christ, or if he was indeed much interested in the beliefs of Christians beyond their exclusive reverence of the supreme God. He seems to have understood the cross and Chi Rho simply as the “symbol of immortality and trophy of victory over death”, symbols of the one God. ⁴¹ Constantine saw the cross as a powerful symbol, more powerful than any of the attributes of the other gods. That in itself is remarkable. A symbol derived from defeat and suffering which had, for Christians, so radically subverted their understanding of victory, now appeared to the emperor as a symbol of victory which could help him conquer in battle. Perhaps the best evidence about Constantine’s developing beliefs comes from a letter by the emperor himself, probably penned just two years after Milvian. ⁴² Writing to church leaders in the wake of the Council of Arles, Constantine was able to express his thoughts about Christianity more openly here than in his public presentation to a still vastly non-Christian Empire. He addressed them as brothers and spoke of “our God,” whose kindness does not allow “the weakness of men to wander for too long a time in the darkness.” He had indeed seen and experienced this kindness himself, “For there were of old things in me that seemed to be lacking in justice, nor did I think that the heavenly power could see those secrets that I bore within my breast. Surely this ought to have brought me a just retribution, flowing over with all evils. But the all-powerful God who sits in the watchtower of heaven gave me what I did not deserve; truly I cannot say, nor can those things be enumerated which heavenly benevolence granted to me its servant.”⁴³ The full letter was likely written out and touched up by one or other church leaders at Constantine’s behest, but the main thrusts must surely come from Constantine. It would seem to be massively overstepping to ventriloquise Constantine in this way, admitting injustice and guilt deserving of divine punishment. This reflection from Constantine has echoes of all the many other visions already described. Still, it departs from these promises of divine assistance which were perhaps more typically expected of divine encounters in the Roman world. Instead, he seems to describe the experience of a profound and deeply personal encounter with God. Constantine has been convicted of his weaknesses and sins, and has been offered help, not in conquering, but in becoming a better man. In light of this, we might perhaps wonder whether the visions Constantine later recounted to Eusebius were not so far from the original truth, a truth Constantine was not yet in a secure enough position to express in his imperial monuments or orations. It is really quite amazing that Constantine came to find attractive the beliefs of this small and unimpressive community, beliefs of the weak and foolish not of philosophers or emperors. And yet there was something about the jealous divinity of the Christians, who demanded that they worship him alone, that captivated Constantine. What marked Christians out to Constantine was not that they worshipped Christ, but that they worshipped the supreme God exclusively. At this point in his life, Christians reflected to Constantine less his need for Christ and more that he did not need any gods besides the One. Their worship and the sacrifices they demanded seemed to him a distraction. The old gods were wrapped up with the story of the long failing empire. Meanwhile this jealous and faithful God was truly powerful, a power that his followers displayed in the arenas. He tolerated no equals, so perhaps He had none? His followers had not been defeated by Diocletian’s campaign of death and destruction, so perhaps He could win battles too? In an empire shaken by decades of misrule and injustice, this God challenged Constantine on his own personal injustice and his own weakness and made a way for him to be a better and stronger emperor.

THE EDICT OF TOLERATION

Early on in the following year, at the end of winter 313, a momentous meeting took place in Milan between Constantine and his rival Licinius (r. 308-324). Licinius had once had Galerius’ backing to rule in the west instead of Constantine and was now co-ruling the east with Galerius’ nephew Maximinus Daza (r. 305-313). Thus, he represented the next barrier to Constantine’s uniting of the empire. In the wake of Constantine’s victory at Rome, however, Licinius was unwilling to challenge him. Instead, they entered into a pact of friendship, sealed by Licinius’ marriage to Constantine’s sister Constantia. ⁴⁴ Whatever they might have discussed, they proclaimed no joint edict while in Milan. Instead, the decree popularly known as the Edict of Milan was issued that summer by Licinius alone in the eastern imperial capital of Nicomedia. In the intervening months Licinius had rushed back east, following news that Maximinus Daza was seizing cities to consolidate his position against him. Licinius had engaged him in battle near the Bosporus straits, and won a decisive victory, which he, like Constantine, attributed to the aid of the Supreme God. Entering Nicomedia at the start of the summer, he sent out a letter to all the governors of the eastern provinces. ⁴⁵ In some ways it echoed the earlier order of toleration issued by Galerius. After Galerius’ death, Maximinus Daza had revived the policy of Christian persecution, but he too had gone back on this after his defeat by Licinius and issued his own order of toleration. ⁴⁶ Licinius’ edict, however, went much further than simply ending active persecution. ⁴⁷ Instead Christians were to be granted free and absolute permission to worship. This was not just a brief respite, but Christianity was now officially recognised for the first time as a legitimate belief. All people were to be permitted to follow whatever worship they thought best, so that the God in heaven would bless the people of the empire. ⁴⁸ The order went still further, also instructing governors to ensure the return of all house-church buildings and other property confiscated during the persecutions. ⁴⁹ Licinius was no Christian himself, and when in 316 he finally fell out with Constantine, he returned to restricting Christian worship, razing churches and possibly even executing church leaders. ⁵⁰ Nevertheless, he had recognised the power of the Supreme God who had given Constantine victory, and the seeds of his edict, Licinius said, came from his discussions with Constantine in Milan.

DONATIST CONTROVERSY

Having brought peace and unity to the western half of the empire by the power of the Supreme God of the Christians, Constantine now began to take an interest in the affairs of the Christian communities. He issued similar instructions to Licinius that Christians in North Africa should have their churches and property restored, and that damages should be recompensed by the imperial treasury. ⁵¹ To his dismay, however, he learned from the proconsul that the Christian community there was riven by disputes and squabbling. ⁵² A particularly bitter rift was developing in Carthage in the aftermath of the persecution. The community was divided in support for two rivals who claimed leadership of the Christians in the city. The one, Caecilian, showed himself to cooperate with the newly tolerant Roman authorities. The other, Donatus, and his supporters, meanwhile, accused Caecilian of having been a collaborator during Diocletian’s persecution. They remained suspicious of the Roman authorities. ⁵³ Constantine was anxious that the church should be united like the rest of his empire. His involvement in these internal church affairs would not have seemed strange. For Romans, the idea of the emperor not being interested in the affairs of an institution on the scale of the church would have been incomprehensible. Furthermore, anything affecting divine worship was a matter of state welfare. Now that Christianity was no longer illegal, the emperor’s concern and involvement was to be expected. Yet for Constantine there was clearly also something personal about his involvement. In his letters to the church leaders, he addressed them as ‘brothers.’ ⁵⁴ Constantine’s involvement also seems to have been sought by the two Christian factions. There was precedent for this, even before official toleration. In the 260s a council of church leaders had assembled in Antioch to try the leader of the city’s church, Paul of Samosata. Having been ruled against, however, Paul had refused to relinquish his position, and the church’s property, and the council had decided to appeal to the emperor Aurelian (r. 270-275) to arbitrate. ⁵⁵ Constantine arranged similarly for the Donatists’ case to be weighed, first in Rome in 313, then the following year in Arles in Gaul in front of an even larger assembly of church leaders from across the western empire. ⁵⁶ Each time the assembled leaders ruled against the Donatists, and Constantine gave official sanction to their decisions. Still, however, the Donatists refused to accept them. Constantine had begun to lose patience. In his letters he described the Donatists as insane, captives of madness, violent enemies of harmony and unity. ⁵⁷ Yet Constantine was only willing to go so far. He had taken Rome and united the western empire, but uniting the church of North Africa proved too challenging a task, and the conflict rumbled on long after Constantine’s death. The Donatists represented a part of the church who had decisively rejected the emperor’s involvement in their affairs. As Donatus is recorded to have petulantly remarked “What has the emperor to do with the church?” ⁵⁸

THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA

In 324, following several years of fighting, Constantine toppled Licinius, bringing the eastern half of the empire under his sway. This was the final completion of his ambition to reunite the empire. For Constantine there seemed nothing incompatible between the support of the God of the Christians and waging such a war. Yes, war added to his own personal power and glory, but Constantine, as most Roman emperors, was also motivated by the glory and unity of the empire and the welfare of its citizens. Constantine believed that, by knocking out rival emperors, he was ending the cycles of civil strife and restoring unity, harmony, peace, and prosperity for the people of the empire. He believed in the empire as a source for common good. “My design then was…. to restore to health the system of the world… by military power.” ⁵⁹ Constantine now evidently felt more secure in his position and increasingly proclaimed his Christian sympathies more publicly. He immediately circulated a letter to all church leaders in the east, telling them to repair their churches and request funds from the imperial coffers to do so. He declared to them his shared belief in “Our Saviour.” ⁶⁰ He also sent a letter to the governors of the eastern provinces to be posted publicly, in which reiterated official toleration of all beliefs and made his first truly open confession of faith. He declared himself the servant of the “mighty, holy Lord God,” who had “revealed pure light through His son as a testimony of Himself,” and whose “power removes our guilt and makes us faithful.” ⁶¹ He had been given, he said, abundant proof of God’s power and had dedicated to His service his soul “tempered by love and fear.” ⁶² For Eusebius, writing just after Licinius’ defeat in 324, Constantine’s victory marked the end and fulfillment of history. “Everything was filled with light, and those who before were downcast beheld each other with smiling faces and beaming eyes.” Dancing and singing broke out everywhere and all troubles were forgotten. ⁶³ In the arrival of Constantine’s new empire, Eusebius saw reams of Old Testament prophecies finally fulfilled. This seemed to him the bright beginning of a whole new age of the world. ⁶⁴ When Constantine came to look at the state of the church in the eastern provinces, however, he found divisions as bitter as in North Africa, and far more widespread. The feud had emerged in Alexandria, which, since at least the days of Origen, had been the greatest centre of Christian learning, a setting for many theological quibbles and debates. This one, however, had spiralled out of all control. At its heart was a dispute between Alexander, the head of the church in Alexandria, and one of his ministers, an incredibly charismatic and compelling preacher named Arius. The nature of their debate over the relationship of God to His divine son Christ seemed to Constantine far too subtle to be of much importance. Yet he was greatly concerned, as well as baffled, by how widely this fierce quarrel was spreading across the eastern churches. In contrast to Constantine’s indifference to these matters of doctrinal subtlety, they had fired up many ordinary Christians. Arius was said to have won support for his ideas by writing songs about his theology to popular tunes which ordinary sailors and millers were picking up and singing on their travels and in the taverns. ⁶⁵ Furthermore, Christians were becoming a laughing stock, being mocked in plays in the theatre for their silly squabbles. ⁶⁶ Constantine was determined to bring the same unity to the church which God had helped him bring to the empire. ⁶⁷ Having failed to resolve the controversy in North Africa, however, he now had far less patience for obstinate Christian leaders. Constantine wrote a letter jointly to Alexander and Arius demanding they reconciled for the sake of the unity of the church. ⁶⁸ He made abundantly clear how insignificant he considered their subtle point of contention. It was “truly insignificant,” and “intrinsically trifling.” Alexander had asked a silly question, and Arius should have kept his thoughts to himself. ⁶⁹ Their argument wasn’t about morality or how to worship God, therefore Constantine couldn’t see the point of it. They believed the same things, so they should shut up and share communion. ⁷⁰ They were talking about matters too sublime for human comprehension. What was worse, their vain intellectual exercises, arising from too much misused leisure, were threatening the unity and welfare of the congregations under their care. ⁷¹ This Constantine regarded as positively evil. ⁷² They should consign their trivial thoughts to their own minds and allow their congregations to have peace and fellowship. ⁷³ If the church was united, then the empire would prosper. ⁷⁴ His letter carried the weight of an imperial order. Yet, as with the Donatists, the emperor’s will was again ignored. But Constantine would not let this rest. He was determined to have unity. When dealing with the Donatist controversy, he had convened the assembly of a number of church leaders at Arles to try and resolve the dispute, and they had indeed produced a clear ruling. Christians had always regarded consensus as an important source of authority. Dionysus, the head of the church in Alexandria in the early third century, had, for instance, cited Christian consensus as a reason for accepting the book of Revelation as scripture. ⁷⁵ Following the example of the apostles’ gatherings in Jerusalem, sometimes the leaders of several churches had assembled to determine the local consensus on contentious issues. ⁷⁶ The assembly in Antioch to rule on the teachings and misconduct of Paul of Samosata had been one of the largest so far. ⁷⁷ Such an assembly seemed the obvious next step for resolving the Arian dispute too. In 325 over two hundred bishops assembled in Nicaea, together with thousands of other church ministers and learned laymen. ⁷⁸ They had come from across the newly united empire, North Africa, Anatolia, and the Middle East, and from as far west as Spain and Gaul. ⁷⁹ A few had even come from the numerous communities beyond the Roman Empire, including from Persia and from among the nomadic ‘Scythian’ Goths living north of the Black Sea (in today’s Crimea, Ukraine, or Romania). ⁸⁰ Among them were those whose scars served as visible reminders of the recent persecution. Their missing eyes and lame legs spoke of the tortures they had endured and the time they had spent consigned to the mines for confessing their belief in Christ – earning them the name ‘confessors’ (homologētēs). ⁸¹ Rough and wild figures came with them, those who spent their lives in the deserts, praying, battling demons and their own inclination to sin, so that they might experience the presence of God ever more strongly. They emerged from the wilderness to be here among their fellow believers for this momentous occasion. Constantine wanted the resolution of this council to be final, and so it needed to be as widely representative as possible to be recognised as having decisive authority among Christians. They would not just listen to any imperial authority or select gathering of leaders. Only an assembly of the whole church would do. Their travel and hospitality expenses were paid from the imperial coffers, and their meeting would be hosted by the emperor in the imperial palace in the city of Nicaea, close to Nicomedia. It was the emperor’s command that they would resolve their disputes, and whatever they agreed upon, he would enforce through imperial power. To Constantine, what they were debating appeared extremely subtle. They were not discussing canonisation of scripture. Indeed, the diverse communities represented at the council already agreed on a shared scripture which they all relied upon in their arguments. ⁸² Neither was the council Constantine’s attempt to impose or create any doctrines or worship practices not already present among the churches. Again, they already agreed on shared practices of worship, and their teaching and beliefs seemed to the emperor completely identical. No council or central authority had been needed to rule on any of these essential matters. This remarkable consensus was rather purely the product of centuries of informal correspondence and interaction between the Christians in and beyond the empire. The scope of Nicaea was fairly limited. It concerned primarily Alexander and Arius’ argument over what it meant that Christ was begotten of the Father. ⁸³ Was there a time when Christ was not, as Arius put it? ⁸⁴ This was the main point of bitter contention. A secondary debate concerned the date for celebrating Easter, whether it should continue to be tied to Jewish calculations of the lunar calendar or an alternative lunar calculation. On both these points Constantine seems to have had little personal preference. The first he regarded as trivially subtle and maybe even unknowable. In contrast, he seems to have considered establishing a shared date of Easter a matter of far greater importance. This potentially reflects Constantine’s still quite Roman attitude that it mattered far more how one honoured or worshiped a god than what one believed about them. The council also ruled on a number of further points of church order, covering the appointment and jurisdiction of bishops and the behaviour of ministers: they were not allowed to lend money at interest nor castrate themselves. ⁸⁵ There is no indication, however, that any of these points were much debated – they were simply clarifications. Now assembled in the great chamber of the imperial palace in Nicaea, the leaders of the churches rose as Constantine entered, adorned in glittering raiment, purple robes, gold, and precious stones of varied colour. ⁸⁶ Even two decades earlier, this scene, the emperor among the diverse believers, the confessors and hermits, would have been hard to imagine. Constantine opened the council with a speech in which he demonstrated his own growing interest in theology, describing how Plato, Virgil and the Sibyls had all pointed to Christ. ⁸⁷ He ended by declaring his desire for unity among the Christians of his empire, and exhorted them to “remove the complexities of controversy by embracing the principles of peace.” ⁸⁸ It was an incredible moment, only slightly dampened by the immediate bickering that broke out between the assembled bishops, as they rushed to make their grievances against one another known to the emperor. ⁸⁹ The first days of the council’s debates continued very heatedly. A turn came, however, when one of the laymen present rose and is said to have challenged the council that “Christ taught simpleness not subtleties.” The bishops supposedly afterwards spoke more gently to each other, and stopped trying to catch each other out in games of logic. ⁹⁰ Eusebius also recounts that Constantine himself played an active role throughout, trying to persuade the bishops to agree. ⁹¹ The emperor does not seem to have been interested in promoting any particular positions, but rather sought to mediate between the bishops, encouraging them to reconcile their positions. Constantine’s efforts proved successful and the council concluded with all but twenty of the bishops agreeing upon a definition, formulated as a creed. The Nicene creed was the primary legacy of the council and came to be adopted even by Christians outside the Roman Empire. It was not a total invention. Many of its statements were uncontentious, and the subtleties of its definitions identified common ground among most of the assembled bishops. However, it was a clear rejection of Arius’ teaching. Constantine now made signing up to the creed an imperial command. Only Arius and two Libyan bishops resisted, and they were exiled from their provinces by imperial command.

CONSTANTINE THE CHRISTIAN EMPEROR

The fulfilment of all Constantine’s ambitions seemed at last at hand. He had united the empire and now he had united the church, just in time for the celebration of his twentieth year of reign. The promises of his visions seemed to be coming true. The God of the Christians was with him, and Constantine no longer made any secret that he counted himself among His followers. And yet this was the eve of the darkest period of Constantine’s life. The year after Nicaea, Crispus, Constantine’s son and heir was put to death on his father’s orders. ⁹² At the same time Constantine’s current wife, Fausta, disappears from the record and in 328 Constantine is reported to have also had her killed. ⁹³ The event is extremely clouded in the records. Both son and wife were removed from inscriptions and erased from the historical record. Nothing more certain can be known about the circumstances of their deaths. By the 390s, plenty of rumours swirled, and it was fancifully imagined that Crispus and his stepmother had been caught in an affair. The most reasonable guess is that they were in some way implicated in a plot against the emperor. Were his subsequent actions then a tragic forcing of his hand, or the result of cruel Herodian paranoia? The fact that the incident is entirely absent from our sources suggests that it was impossible to spin in a good light. Constantine could not be cast like Brutus, the first consul of Rome, choosing the public good over family, executing his sons for betraying the city. ⁹⁴ It is evident that Eusebius did not know how to fit these events into his portrait of a Christian Emperor. He never mentions either Crispus or Fausta in his Life of Constantine, despite having praised Crispus in his earlier church history as “the most humane emperor… most dear to God.” ⁹⁵ And yet Constantine does seem to have been grieved by their loss. Unusually for a Roman emperor he never took another wife or concubine, perhaps also testament to how seriously he was trying to take Christian morality. Later Roman critics of Constantine and his Christian conversion said that it was because of his great sins, particularly the killing of his wife and son, that he had turned to Christianity. ⁹⁶ Emperor Julian (r. 361-363), known as the apostate, the last non-Christian emperor, who had turned his back on his Christian upbringing, wrote in his satirical allegory that Constantine had only embraced Jesus because of the free forgiveness Jesus offered. Julian was pretty scornful of what he saw as very cheap grace and declared that the gods had in the end rightly punished Constantine for slaying his family members. ⁹⁷ Over the course of his rule Constantine implemented many laws and reforms which seem to have been informed by his growing Christian faith. Sunday, a day already marked by Christians as the day of Christ’s resurrection as well as being a day sacred to Sol Invictus, was declared an official day of rest besides agriculture. ⁹⁸ Crucifixion was abolished and attempts were made to ban gladiator fights, while it was ordered that prisoners should no longer be kept in the dark nor should they be branded on their faces, because they reflected the image of God. ⁹⁹ Criminals were still tortured and executed in the usual course of justice. The reforms had not been motivated by a desire to avoid cruelty but rather from fear of blaspheming God. The face of every human was a holy image. So too had the figure of a crucified criminal been made holy, while blood in the arena evoked the holy martyrs who had followed in his path. Constantine also personally sponsored the building of a number of churches in Rome, Jerusalem, and Bethlehem. There had previously been few if any purpose-built church buildings. Rather Christians had met first in private homes and then in houses converted specifically for worship. The earliest of those so far discovered comes from the city of Dura-Europos in Syria, on the eastern border of the Roman Empire, dating to the mid-third century. ¹⁰⁰ Under Constantine, however, big churches were now being built in the style of imperial basilicas, resembling the reception halls and court rooms of imperial palaces. Saint John Lateran in Rome was perhaps the first ever purpose built church, while Constantine also erected the Church of the Holy Sepulchre over the empty tomb of Jesus in Jerusalem. ¹⁰¹ Imperial funds had always been used for sponsoring temple building so extending the patronage to newly legal Christianity was common sense. This marked the beginning of the development of Christian architecture. Eusebius was also very keen to show Constantine ending sacrifices and closing temples. Yet there is little to suggest this happened quite on the scale that Eusebius liked to imagine. Constantine perhaps closed a few temples which were engaging in prostitution, while he may have redirected imperial funds away from others. ¹⁰² He may also have tried to discourage worship of his own imperial cult and image. ¹⁰³ He had clearly developed an aversion to animal sacrifice and does not seem to have personally participated in any sacrifices since at least his conquest of Rome. Generally, however, Constantine followed a strict policy of tolerance towards all beliefs. The exception, increasingly, was for those ruled heretics, those who called themselves Christians but stood against the imperially backed decisions of the gatherings of bishops, such as the Donatists and Arians. From time-to-time orders were issued banning their meetings or confiscating their books and places of worship, eerie echoes of Diocletian’s actions against Christians. ¹⁰⁴ Eusebius, who had experienced personally the sufferings under Diocletian, wrote in firm approval of Constantine’s actions against the disobedient heretics.

CONTINUED CONTENTION

The unity that Constantine had hoped the council of Nicaea would bring, however, proved fragile. The imperial discrimination against the council’s dissenters did little to dampen their conviction. Constantine, meanwhile, remained far more interested in unity and toleration than in enforcing orthodoxy of beliefs. Arius and others were permitted to return from exile. Furthermore, in 335, ten years after Nicaea, Constantine assembled a number of bishops in the city of Tyre to try one of Arius’ most energetic opponents, the young man who had succeeded Alexander as bishop of Alexandria, Athanasius. He stood accused of being overly contentious and even violent. One accusation against him, for instance, claimed that he had participated in the assault of a minister he regarded as a heretic. ¹⁰⁵ In Constantine’s view, Athanasius and others had been “carried away by contention – the worst of all evils.” By their arrogance they were destroying the unity of the church. ¹⁰⁶ They had no right to serve God while they harboured hatred for other Christians. ¹⁰⁷ Constantine consequently exiled Athanasius to the western capital of Trier beyond the Alps, farther even than Arius had been sent. Despite having backed the anti-Arians at Nicaea, Constantine wanted that to be the end of it and was frustrated and angered that contention continued. For the rest of Constantine’s life and the reigns of his sons, there were many Christians in the eastern provinces who remained deeply uncomfortable with the inclusion of the term “consubstantial” (homoousios) in the creed formulated at Nicaea. The idea of “substance” was regarded by many as a non-scriptural innovation, and the term was put aside in intervening councils until its revival at the council of Constantinople in 381. Reaching his thirtieth year of rule Constantine might have reflected how much easier it had been to bring unity to the empire than to the church.

BAPTISM

While Constantine undoubtedly regarded himself as a Christian for at least the last twenty-five years of his life, he had noticeably so far refrained from receiving baptism, for early Christians the key marker of belonging, understood as essential for salvation. In 337, while preparing his forces to invade the Persian Empire, Constantine fell ill. ¹⁰⁸ Being told that he would not recover he immediately requested that the local bishops should come to baptise him. It is unclear quite why Constantine had waited so long to be baptised. He was seemingly not intending to wait for his deathbed, as he had treasured the idea of being baptised in the river Jordan, like Christ, perhaps while on his way to conquer the great Persian empire. ¹⁰⁹ This would have been a great next step after uniting the empire, taking on a conquest not realised before by any Roman Emperor. However, his baptism was expedited because of his approaching death. Constantine asked forgiveness for his sins and was baptised. Very soon after, he died and his body was taken to the new city he had founded nearby, Constantinople, where it was laid to rest within a newly built church named for the Holy Apostles. ¹¹⁰

CONCLUSION: THE REVOLUTION CONTINUES

Writing shortly after Constantine’s death, Eusebius described seeing the emperor present everywhere, even in heaven where he was in communion with God, robed with light. ¹¹¹ For Eusebius, Constantine had been made in his lifetime a representation of God’s own power, displaying him as a conqueror of tyrants and enemy of God’s enemies. ¹¹² Constantine himself, surveying his united empire in his twentieth year of rule, had declared to the assembly at Nicaea that “God indeed is the cause of everything I have achieved.” ¹¹³ Among both Christians and Romans in his own day and in the following decades, however, his reputation remained mixed. It was still a contentious matter whether the path along w hich Constantine had set the church and the state was the right one. Donatus and Athanasius for instance would surely have challenged the claim that Constantine was God’s instrument against tyranny and became indeed deeply suspicious of the relationship between church and empire. Christianity was not made the official religion of the Roman Empire until after the end Constantinian dynasty. This was declared at the council of Constantinople in 381, during the reign of another monumental emperor for the history of the church, Theodosius I (r. 379-395). Yet it was Constantine who had started the empire on this most unexpected of paths which led a minority persecuted religion to become the official belief of the empire in the space of seventy years. This has set European Christianity on a unique road, one that has shaped European history and will continue to shape the western world for good and for bad. This legacy is still debated, and indeed still unfolding. It has also marked the history of European Christianity apart from that of the churches outside the Constantinian legacy of the Roman Empire. For instance, Christians in the Persian Empire and across Asia, who always lived under non-Christian rule. Or indeed those with their own independent traditions of Christian rule, such as in Ethiopia. The relationship between church and state which Constantine set in motion was revolutionary and foundational to the rest of Christian history – whether for those following it, resisting it, or adapting it. This was uncharted territory for which Jesus’ teaching had not laid a clear roadmap. Before, rulers were to be passively resisted when they gave commands to deny God, but otherwise obeyed disinterestedly, with Christians living like strangers in a foreign land. How Christians interacted with society and government and rulers was now forever shaped by the Constantinian moment. From Persian Christians inviting the participation of the non-Christian shah in their councils, to the frequently contentious relationship between the Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor. From the investiture crises in the medieval west, to eastern Christians’ dreams of the Mongol khans becoming new Constantines. And from Henry VIII’s rejection of the pope, right down to the present day. How does the Church of England relate to the British state, Putin to the Patriarch of Moscow, the Chinese Communist Party to Roman Catholic Bishops, or President Trump to an American Pope? Constantine is the original model for how Christians think about the involvement of Christians with the rulers of the world. In Constantine Christians experiencing persecution had found an unexpected champion, from the last quarter they would have expected. He was a Roman emperor in a classical model, concerned with the glory and unity of the empire and the welfare of its citizens, as well as with his own glory and ambition. He was, from a Christian view, one of the weak and foolish things of the world, not a model Christian, but an ideal Roman ruler who was gradually changed through contact with Christianity. He is in this way a model of European Christianisation generally, which saw Christianity gradually settling into a new cultural world, and slowly being influenced by it. The debate as to whether Christianity’s mixing with the world was influencing the world for the better or corrupting Christianity for the worse was ongoing and indeed is still ongoing. And as the tale continues to unfold today, with all its further twists and turns, at each turn Constantine appears to us in a new light. The revolution he set in motion still impacts the world. In our next History episode, we’ll see how, over the following two centuries, the growing numbers of Christians inside and outside the empire responded to imperial power and the continuing theological disagreements that were bound up with it.

⁵ Eusebius, Life of Constantine, 1.29.

⁶ Eusebius, Life of Constantine, 1.30-31.

⁸ The major works on Constantine by contemporaries are Lactantius’ On the Deaths of the Persecutors, written around 316, Eusebius’ History of the Church, the first nine chapters completed before 316 and the tenth chapter added around 324, and Eusebius’ Life of Constantine, as Eusebius left it at his death in 339. We will also encounter other authors and sources, including the evidence provided by speeches, inscriptions, and coins, throughout this chapter.

⁹ Lactantius, On the Deaths of the Persecutors; Eusebius, History of the Church, 8.

¹¹ Eusebius, Life of Constantine, 1.12.

¹² Lactantius, On the Deaths of the Persecutors, 24; Eusebius, Life of Constantine, 1.13.

¹⁴ Eusebius, Life of Constantine, 1.17.

¹⁶ Lactantius, On the Deaths of the Persecutors, 25; Latin Panegyric 6.9.

¹⁷ Lactantius, On the Deaths of the Persecutors, 33-34; Eusebius, History of the Church, 8.16-17.

²¹ Lactantius, On the Deaths of the Persecutors, 44; Eusebius, History of the Church, 9.9.

²³ Latin Panegyric 6.9.

²⁴ Latin Panegyric 6.21.4. It is quite remarkable that such an unlikely prophecy, written down two years before Constantine marched on Rome, should have eventually proved true.

²⁵ Latin Panegyric 6.21.5-7.