Constantine

[Josh]

Constantine, the first Roman Emperor to convert to Christianity, gets a very bad rap these days among Christians and anti-Christians alike. The most frequently cited complaints about Constantine have to do with all the negative aspects of "officializing" the Christian religion (orthodoxy acheived by force or coercion plus a host of other ills) as well as problems with Constantine's own personal life and questions about the sincerity of his conversion. Perhaps you've got beef with him you'd like to share? Conversely, perhaps you can think of positive accomplishments and blessing brought by God through this strange turn of events in 4th Century Rome.

Do you think the good wrought by Constantine outweighed the evil? Or vice versa?

I'm reading the book "Defending Constantine" by Peter J. Leithart right now and hope to report back.

[stevekimes]

I've done some reading on Constantine myself, and what makes the most sense to me is that Constantine was most interested in keeping the Roman Empire together, and that his devotion to Christianity grew over time.

Constantine was born a sun-worshiper, and continued to be so long after he was the head emperor. But many of his policies and strategies we're done to allow pagans and Christians to be on the same side, especially in the army.

"By this sign you will conquer"-- The sign was almost certainly not the cross but the Chi-Rho. Interesting that the Chi-Rho looks almost exactly like the symbol of the Rising Sun, which was the sign of Constantine's house.

Sunday worship-- Sun worshipers and pagans already had Sunday as their day of worship. Constantine made Sunday the day of worship for all in his armed forces, telling the Christians that Sunday morning (and not the Sabbath evening) was the appropriate time of worship because Jesus was risen on Sunday. It is this point that the Sabbath argument became about when to worship (which the early church did every day) instead of how to rest.

Christianizing Government-- Constantine did not make Christianity official, but only stopped persecution of Christians. As a part of this process, he made Bishops official Roman judges over Christian matters and disputes between Christians. The Bishops complained to Constantine about this, because it added a huge workload on their schedules. However, since many pagan judges were unfair to Christians, it only made sense.

Constantine the Christian: Although he presided over the Nicea Council (which was located there because of its near proximity to Constantinople) and determined many policies about the Christian church, Constantine was not baptized until he had retired and was near death. He also had a tomb built for himself, in which statues were built, putting himself as the 13th apostle. Constantine wasn't a great Christian, but he did a lot of positive service to Christianity in his time.

I'd say that Constantine himself wasn't the personal detriment to Christianity that many claim. But he began the process of Constantinianism, in which Christianity did end up lording it over all. As any group, Christians took on more powers to protect themselves. I think that the church should have refused certain powers, especially after Julian, even if it meant making themselves somewhat vulnerable.

[Josh]

Steve,

I'm almost done with the book and can now respond to some of your points.

Most of the book is a response to anabaptist theologian John Howard Yoder (whom I'm guessing you must be familiar with).

Constantine was born a sun-worshiper, and continued to be so long after he was the head emperor. But many of his policies and strategies we're done to allow pagans and Christians to be on the same side, especially in the army. "By this sign you will conquer"-- The sign was almost certainly not the cross but the Chi-Rho. Interesting that the Chi-Rho looks almost exactly like the symbol of the Rising Sun, which was the sign of Constantine's house.

Leithart would challenge some of this. Constantine grew up in a family that respected and may have included Christians. According to Leithart's construction, Constantine had two separate visionary experiences, the first of which (a brief, public vision in the presence of his soldiers, possibly of a sun halo) he originally thought was attributed to the sun god, but which Christians persuaded him was actually from the God of the Bible. The second visionary experience was on the eve before the battle of the Milvian Bridge and was much more explicitly Christian and cross-referenced.

Immediately after his victory, Constantine began making decidedly pro-Christian decisions indicative of a dramatic and overt conversion, although, as you said, he was aware that most of his compatriots in government were still pagans, and he worked with that.

Sunday worship-- Sun worshipers and pagans already had Sunday as their day of worship. Constantine made Sunday the day of worship for all in his armed forces, telling the Christians that Sunday morning (and not the Sabbath evening) was the appropriate time of worship because Jesus was risen on Sunday. It is this point that the Sabbath argument became about when to worship (which the early church did every day) instead of how to rest.

Leithart doesn't speak to this, but I don't understand how Sunday worship could be attributed to Constantine, when it was well in place by at least the time of Justin Martyr (150) and is already specifically referenced in Scripture as a gathering day (Acts 20:7 and 1 Cor. 16:2) Do you have some evidence for your assertion here?

Christianizing Government-- Constantine did not make Christianity official, but only stopped persecution of Christians. As a part of this process, he made Bishops official Roman judges over Christian matters and disputes between Christians. The Bishops complained to Constantine about this, because it added a huge workload on their schedules. However, since many pagan judges were unfair to Christians, it only made sense. Constantine the Christian: Although he presided over the Nicea Council (which was located there because of its near proximity to Constantinople) and determined many policies about the Christian church

"Christianizing" certainly began with Constantine in some ways, though as you say, it didn't become the "offical" religion of Rome until later. Many of the problems we might associate with Constantinism are actually the fault of later emperors and Christian leaders. Constantine temporarily acheived and maintained an environment where Christianity was encouraged but not enforced; where pagan and Christian both had a place in the government sphere, where people would not be forced by the sword to convert, but rather encouraged by reason.

Contrary to the impression created by works of fiction like the Da Vinci Code, Constantine did not "preside over Nicea" or make decisions for Christian councils or create divisions in Christendom, but rather arranged for councils to happen in a desire to encourage Christian unity. Many councils happened without his involvement, and the ones he was involved in he specifically went out of his way to just be one of many voices, in submission to the Church. In one moving scene, he submitted himself to kiss the empty eye-socket of a bishop in attendance- a bishop who had lost his eye due to the persecution of emperor Diocletian.

He was remarkably patient with what would later be branded heretics, he could and did differentiate primary from secondary doctrinal issues, exhorting patient and open dialogue on debatable things (including Arianism). The "heretics" he ended up coming down most forceably against, after attempts to reconcile, were the Donatists began of their lack of grace for other Christians.

Constantine was not baptized until he had retired and was near death.

This has to do with Christian attitudes about post-baptismal sin at the time rather than some unwillingness to commit on Constantine's part.

I'd say that Constantine himself wasn't the personal detriment to Christianity that many claim. But he began the process of Constantinianism, in which Christianity did end up lording it over all. As any group, Christians took on more powers to protect themselves. I think that the church should have refused certain powers, especially after Julian, even if it meant making themselves somewhat vulnerable.

Leithart doesn't like Yoder's term "constantinianism" because it implies that the problems Yoder critiques had their origin in Constantine. But such "problems" like Christian military service, Christian expectations of government, and Christian dogmatism all were already well entrenched before Constatine and their worst expression, as you point out, came to fruition after him.

One could argue that if Constatine's successors had emulated his approach, the history of the Church would not have taken some of the darker turns it did.

[Josh]

Some interesting excerpts:

From a letter by Constantine encouraging Alexander of Alexandria and Arius to get along :

"A dissension arose between you, fellowship has withdrawn, and the holy people, rent into diverse parties, no longer preserved the unity of the one body. Now, therefore, both of you, exhibit an equal degree of forbearance, and receive the advice which your fellow servant righteously gives."

Far from being a leader who rigidly defined and endorsed a particular orthodoxy, Constatine was very patient on these matter, and ultimately the reasons most heretics were eventually labeled heretics was their inability to play with others (Donatists, Arians).

Constantine even at one point dramatically burned copies of complaints the bishops had written against each other.

Similarly, Constatine advised against the use of force in religious matter, saying things like "This indeed is heavenly wisdom, to choose to be injured rather than to injure, and when it is necessary, to suffer evil rather than to do it."

Although Eusebius can be seen sometimes as a panderer, there were many bishops and theologians that can and did stand up to Constantine, and Constantine was willing to receive their input- much more willing than your average pastor today, I'd say

But the theologian who probably had the most influence on him was Lactantius, one of my absolute favorite early church thinkers. Constantine seems to have reflected Lactantius' views on religious tolerance/ freedom.

"Religion is the one field in which freedom has pitched her tent, for religion is, first and foremost, a matter of free will, and no man can be forced under compulsion to adore what he has no will to adore."- Lactantius

I find this statement so refreshing and it's important to realize that such sentiments weren't only held after the Renaissance, but early on in Christian history.

Constantine echoed these thoughts when he said things like, "Let everyone do as his soul desires, the battle for deathlessness requires willing recruits. Coercion is of no avail." He did not advocate attacking pagans, but mixing with them to bring the truth to them: "Let everyone... apply what he has understood and known to the benefit of his neighbor; if otherwise, let him relinquish the attempt."

[Josh]

Another point Leithart makes is that we often forget the amount of gratitude that Christians who had lived through Diocletian's persecution would have had toward Constantine; how they couldn't avoid seeing the hand of God in the turn of events.

He points out how Yoder doesn't have "a single word of gratitude to Constantine for keeping Roman officials from killing Christians for being Christians I have not found a single word that shows any effort to get under the "psychic skin" of bishops (like Eusebius) who witnesses Christians being roasted alive and then witnessed Constantine kissing the empty eye-sockets of a persecuted brother"..

[Josh]

I particularly like this section:

"Kiss the Son," Psalm 2 exhorts, addressing itself to the kings of the earth. Constantine kissed the Son, publicly acknowledging the Christian God as the true God and confessing Jesus as "our Savior".

For Constantine and the emperors who followed him, after kissing the Son and Lord, it made sense to do homage to Jesus by supporting his Queen, the church-- building and adorning cathedrals, distributing funds for poor relief and hospitals, assisting the bishops to resolve their differences by calling and providing for councils. Constantine did not always show restraint. Sometimes he took over business that belonged to the King and Queen alone. But if we want to judge Constantine fairly, we have to recognize that the Queen often had issues. A queen's bodyguard ought to keep his hands off the queen, but what does he do when she turns harpy and starts scratching the face of her lady-in-waiting?

Once they noticed there was a Queen in their midst, some emperors and kings were often not satisfied with kissing the Son. Some could not keep their hands off her. Some wanted to steal a kiss or two from the Bride and seduce her. Plenty did, but it is important to notice the difference: adorning and protecting someone else's queen, even protecting her from herself, is not the same thing as raping her.

And the Queen had some responsibility to be true to her King. She was not supposed to be flattered by the blandishments of a Constantine or a Justinian or a Charlemagne. She was not to look wistfullly at the emperor's court, as she too often did, and remodel her own courtiers into the image of the emperor's. If the emperor tried to steal a kiss, he should be greeted with a good hard slap. That happened, as we have seen, but it did not always happen, and at times the Queen was only too happy to take a tumble with the emperor, provided he paid her handsomely for the pleasure. There's a good biblical word for that [whore], and neither Wycliffe nor Dante nor Luther was afraid to use it.

All these were real, and often horrific, acts of unfaithfulness. But they do not imply a structural flaw. Once the emperor had kissed the Son, should he not honor the Son's bride?"

Defending Constantine, Peter Leithart

[Josh]

"The conversion of the empire did not bond empire and church inseparably together. It had, as we would expect, and Yoder would want, the opposite effect. It loosened the bonds that many Romans felt to the empire, even as it strengthened their bonds to another city, another kingdom, one that spilled far over the limits of the empire. Baptized Rome found that it could joing with the baptized barbarians, since Jesus had broken down the dividing wall."

Along these lines, Leithart takes Yoder to task for completely misunderstanding this as well as Augustine's view on the relationship between the kingdom of God and the kingdoms of men.

[stevekimes]

I'll have to track down the book on Constantine that I got most of my information from. It provided a lot of insight and I'd really like to recommend it but I don't even remember the title. I know where to find it, though.