The Greek and Eastern Churches/Part 1/Division 1/Chapter 2
CHAPTER II
CONSTANTINE THE GREAT
BORN PROBABLY A.D. 274; DIED A.D. 337
The name of Constantine marks the commencement of a new era of history both in the empire and in the Church. The transition from the old form of government which was nominally republican, with the emperor as prince of the Senate, commander-in-chief of the army, Pontifex Maximus, and much else, accumulating in his own person the chief republican offices, to the new form of government which was frankly despotic, must be attributed to Diocletian. It was that keen-sighted ruler who saw that the time had come for the abolition of empty formulæ and a readjustment of the whole machinery of government. Diocletian abandoned all pretence of maintaining the stern Roman simplicity of manners, and introduced into his palace the pomp and ceremony of an Oriental court. By centralising the government, and then subdividing it, so that there were two Augusti—an Eastern and a Western—and two Cæsars under them, he so knit up the imperial authority that when the senior Augustus died the junior Augustus took the first place as a matter of course, and one of the Cæsars became junior Augustus. Each Augustus nominated his own Cæsar. All decrees affecting the whole empire were signed by the joint rulers, the supreme authority resting with the senior Augustus. In this way three advantages were gained: the vast work of government was subdivided; the unity of empire was preserved; and the succession was regulated, in a peaceful and orderly method. Then, by settling his court at Nicomedia, Diocletian already began to transfer the centre of gravity in the empire from Rome to the East. Constantine came to the throne under this arrangement. His father was Constantius Chlorus, of a noble Dardanian family, who had been Cæsar over the provinces of Gaul, Spain, and Britain, and then Augustus. His mother was the famous Empress Helena, whose traditional "Invention of the Cross" has made her a conspicuous figure in Christian art. By a confusion of traditions she has been taken for a British princess of the same name; but she was really a Cilician and servant at an inn. Helena has been described as a "concubine" of Constantius; but she must not be regarded as only the emperor's mistress. There can be no doubt that they were husband and wife according to a secondary order of marriage recognised in the empire at the time.
The young Constantine was brought up at his mother's village home till he was sixteen years old, when the suspicious Diocletian had him come to reside at court in Nicomedia, evidently as a hostage for his father's good conduct. When Constantius became Augustus he sent for his son to help him with the government (a.d. 305). Though outwardly consenting, Galerius, who was senior Augustus at the time, was really unwilling to let him go, and Constantine had to slip away secretly and hurry Westwards to escape recapture. The next year (a.d. 306) Constantius died at York, having nominated his son as his successor; and at York Constantine was hailed by the soldiers as Augustus. When he had obtained supreme power, Constantine, like Diocletian, made the centre of his government in the East. For a time Nicomedia, not Rome, was the real capital of the empire. Then Constantine determined to found a new Rome. With the insight of genius he chose Byzantium as the site, and built there the city which as Constantinople has ever after commemorated its famous founder. Magnificently situated on the Bosphorus by the high road between Europe and Asia, this city was naturally the key to the gates of empire in both directions. It was in Europe, not in Asia, as was the case with Nicomedia. We may regard that fact as not without significance. Diocletian, though so alive to the exigencies of the times, looked Eastward and emulated the Oriental despots in his court methods. But although his mother was an Asiatic and although he himself had spent his youth in Asia, Constantine was in sympathy with Greek culture, and Constantinople was a Greek city. From the first and throughout its history till its capture by the Turks, the new city was a centre of Hellenic life and influence. The significance of this fact can hardly be overestimated. The Roman empire in the East was fast degenerating into an Asiatic despotism after the Persian type. Constantine saved it from that fate. Nevertheless he accentuated the most significant line of policy pursued by Diocletian; while preserving the European character of the government, he recognised that the centre of gravity must be in the East and acted accordingly. The consequences were as momentous to the Church as to the empire. Removal from Rome was escape from Roman pagan traditions and Roman aristocratic influences. It was the death-blow to the last lingering influence of the Senate. Henceforth the empire, except in one vital element, was Roman only in name. It was no longer the rule of a city over its conquered provinces; it was the rule of a prince and his colleagues, who might be of any nationality. The one vital element which preserved the integrity of the empire throughout and perpetuated it in the Byzantine rulers was Roman law. Like "the kingdom of God," this vast civilising influence came "without observation." Having its foundations in old civic usages of republican times, and built up by jurists quite unknown to fame from the time of Marcus Aurelius onwards, it was destined to become the basis of the jurisprudence and public ethics of mediæval and modern Europe. Roman law stands only second to Christianity as a moulding influence of European civilisation. This system was so firmly established by the time of the transference of the chief seat of government to the East, that the world was saved from what might have been total ruin, from the submerging of the stern Roman sense of justice and the swamping of personal as well as public right beneath a flood of Oriental customs.
The founding of Constantinople profoundly affected both the Western and the Eastern branches of the Catholic Church, but in very different ways. To the West it brought ecclesiastical liberty, and it made the papacy possible. Now, while the papacy became a tyranny within the Church, it secured a measure of freedom from the tyranny of the imperial Government over the Church. At Rome the pope soon assumed a position which would have been impossible to him if the emperor had been residing there. While other cities—Trêves, Milan, Ravenna—subsequently became centres for the empire in the West, Rome was left severely alone, with the consequence that the pope was the first citizen and even came to take the place of the emperor as the chief centre of power and influence in the city. It would be grossly unfair to attribute the enormous power that has accreted to the papacy to nothing but the rapacity of popes. At more than one crisis of European peril the pope proved to be the saviour of society. When the arm of the empire was paralysed, the power of the Church came to the rescue of civilisation, in face of barbarian invasions. Leo i. was able to protect Italy as effectually as though he had been a powerful prince, although his only weapons were persuasion and diplomacy. Gregory the Great was a potent influence for the saving of civilisation in the Old World, as well as for the missionary work of the Church among the new rising races of the West. Hildebrand may be regarded in the light of a champion of the spiritual power in opposition to the brute force of mediæval tyranny. The Middle Ages saw the long duel between the popes and the emperors, and on the whole the popes were on the side of religion, culture, and progress. It was otherwise when the Renaissance and the Reformation were followed by the counter-Reformation. Then all the forces of obscurantism and despotism ranged themselves with the papacy, while the new light, life, and liberty were driven out to fresh fields.
How different was it in the East, where the Church was subservient to the State throughout all these ages! No doubt we must attribute the contrast between the histories of Eastern and Western Europe in part to racial distinctions. In some respects the former is more allied to Asia than to Europe. Thus we are able to trace the history of all the Eastern Churches in a common conspectus. But while this is the case it must be seen that Constantine's political move in finally and effectually transferring the centre of government from the banks of the Tiber to the shores of the Bosphorus immensely aggravated the tendency of the civil despotism to crush out the liberties of the Church. The Eastern Church, from the days of Constantine onwards, lived under the shadow of an imperial palace. That we may take to be an epitome of its history; and the ominous fact is directly traceable to the founding of New Rome by Constantine.
But while this is obvious to us to-day, and is the most significant phenomenon in the appearance of Constantine on the stage of history when viewed in the broad light of the ages, it was another department of the famous emperor's action that arrested the attention of contemporaries. The man who really inaugurated the Eastern Church's paralysing bondage to the State was hailed by the Christians of his day as their emancipator, friend, and patron, and panegyrists loaded his name with fulsome praises for his services to Christianity.
The story of the conversion of Constantine belongs to the romance of history; but, like many another romantic tale which has been made to pass through the fires of criticism, it has not come out scathless. The adulation of a panegyrist, the natural thirst for marvels, and the convention of mediæval art have combined to set the scene of Constantine's vision on the road to Rome side by side with St. Paul's vision during his journey to Damascus. When viewed in the sober light of history, neither this event, whatever it may have been, nor its consequences, is in any way comparable to that stupendous crisis and turning-point in the career of the great apostle. Newman argued strenuously for the belief that here was a real miracle, a direct supernatural intervention by God, at a fitting time. But when we consider the fact that it was a war banner that the Prince of Peace was said to have inspired, and when we go on to look at the subsequent character of the man who is said to have been thus favoured and the whole effect of the patronage of Christianity by the empire, it is not easy to believe that all this indicates nothing less than the finger of God. When, however, we come down to the lower plane of simple history, it must be admitted that something strange did happen, and that this occurrence, whatever it was, became the occasion of stupendous consequences. The accounts vary; but that is no more than must be said of all independent reports of the same event. What is plain is that, in October 312, while Constantine was marching to Rome against the usurper Maxentius, the champion of paganism, something occurred to lead him to claim the Christian symbol for his standard in the approaching battle. Whether we accept the narrative which Eusebius says the emperor gave him on oath[1]—perhaps not to us the more reliable for that fact—that the emperor "saw with his own eyes the trophy of a cross of light in the heavens, above the sun, and bearing the inscription, "Conquer by this,"[2] and received an explanation from Christ in a dream; or stretch our credulity to the still more marvellous and much later account of Sozomen, according to which angels appeared at the time of the vision and gave the explanation there and then; or fall back on the sober statement of Lactantius, whose report is the earliest of all, and who resolves the whole occurrence into a dream[3]—whichever of these narratives we accept, or whether we attempt to combine any of the elements contained in them, we cannot well escape from the conclusion that something happened to bring Constantine to a definite decision at this great crisis of his life. Possibly there was some curious effect of sunlight—such as that known to astronomers as the "parhelion," in which a cross of light may be seen radiating from the sun, which the emperor's mood at the time could not but lead him to welcome as a sign from heaven. That is the point. The fascination for a supposed physical miracle has diverted attention from a most interesting psychological process. Unlike St. Paul, Constantine had never been opposed to Christianity. He had inherited from his father a friendly feeling towards the Christians. Eusebius prefaces his report of what the emperor had said to him about the vision with a description of Constantine's perplexity and his prayer for light at a moment of terrible anxiety. None of the narratives will allow us to assign his adoption of Christianity to mere statecraft or cunning policy.
When the battle at the Milvian Bridge in which the tyrant Maxentius was killed gave Constantine a magnificent victory, he felt in this a confirmation of his resolve to accept the Christian faith and adopt its sign. It is plain that he threw in his lot with the Church on conviction. How deep that conviction went it is not easy to say. His subsequent syncretism and his vague treatment of the essentials of Christian truth forbid us to believe that he had any definite intellectual grip of the subject. Still, he honestly accepted Christ as a Divine Lord, and he consistently leaned to the side of the Christians in their differences with the pagans. It scarcely lies within the province of history to penetrate still deeper into the inquiry as to whether the so-called conversion of Constantine brought with it a real change of character. He was large-minded, generous, pacific before this; and he remained so afterwards. Yet he cannot be acquitted of charges of savage outbursts of cruelty even after his "conversion." Possibly he was not guilty of the murder of his wife Fausta, but he could not plead innocence with regard to that of his sou Crispus. Reasons of State have been urged in defence of his action in this matter; evidently it was a political murder. Still, the guilt of blood and that the blood of his own child lies on Constantine in the Christian period of his life. In other respects he was an honourable and upright man, and a faithful husband, free from all accusations of impurity among the great temptations of an Oriental court.
Most men act from mixed motives, and certainly we could not credit Constantine with the single eye of a George Washington or a John Bright. There were high reasons of State to encourage so astute a master of the art of government to follow up his undoubted sympathy with Christianity and more or less solid convictions of its truth with vigorous practical patronage. He was farseeing enough to perceive that it was the winning side in the conflict of princes and parties. He had been a hostage at Nicomedia when the Diocletian persecution had broken out; he had witnessed the mad fanaticism of Galerius which had failed to subdue the calm courage of the Christians; Maxentius the usurper, and later Licinius, his partner, but also his rival, had enlisted their forces in favour of paganism. Manifestly it was to the interest of Constantine to have the powerful, growing influence of Christianity thrown into the scale in his favour. It is highly to the credit of his discernment that he perceived how futile the long intermittent conflict of the empire with the Church had been, and saw that the time had come, not merely to make peace, as even Galerius and still earlier Gallienus had seen, but to accept the situation frankly and turn it to the best account. We may admit the genuineness of Constantine's conviction of the truth of Christianity and the honesty of his decision to adhere to it, and still go a long way with Seeley when he asserts, concerning Constantine's adoption of Christianity, that "by so doing he may be said to have purchased an indefeasible title by a charter. He gave certain liberties and he received in turn passive obedience. He gained a sanction for the Oriental theory of government; in return he accepted the law of the Church. He became irresponsible to his subjects on condition of becoming responsible to Christ."
It is necessary to consider this position and come to some clear understanding of it, because we are here at the source and fountain of the political history of the Greek Church. What that Church became, not only in relation to the State, but also in its own life and character, was largely determined by the action of Constantine in patronising Christianity and the conduct of the Church in accepting his patronage. At this point we may say the die was cast, the Rubicon was crossed, the fate of Christendom—or rather of Eastern Christendom, for the West soon shook itself free—was sealed. It is desirable, therefore, to trace out carefully the stages of Constantine's treatment of the Church till we reach the final issue which was to stamp the ecclesiastical policy of the empire for all succeeding ages. These may be regarded as four, characterised respectively by sympathy, justice, patronage, and control.
In the first stage Constantine feels drawn to Christianity and adopts the Christian symbol; in the second he grants religious liberty for the benefit of the Christians; in the third he bestows on the Church privileges, immunities, and funds from the State purse; in the fourth he interferes with ecclesiastical affairs, tyrannises over bishops and congregations and forces them to his will.
Constantine's first public confession of Christianity consisted in his adoption of the Labarum an his standard in battle. This symbol consisted of a spear with a crosspiece near the point, a gold wreath containing the initials of Jesus Christ (I and X) as an anagram (
) mounted above and a banner hanging below the cross-piece. After his victory over Maxentius at the Milvian Bridge, Constantine was welcomed by the citizens of Rome as their deliverer from an odious tyranny, and by none more warmly than the Christians. The emperor justified their enthusiastic support by having a statue of himself with a cross in his hand erected in the most frequented part of the city. An inscription ascribed his victory to "this salutary sign." Constantine now showed favour to the Christians at every opportunity, and no persecution of Christianity was possible under his government.
It would appear from a phrase in the edict of Milan that at an early date Constantine had issued rescripts to his officials favourable to the Christians. But the legal pronouncement which granted them complete religious liberty followed a meeting of Constantine with Licinius at Milan on the 13th of June a.d. 314. This Magna Charta of religious liberty is one of the most significant documents in all history. It grants absolute freedom in religion, though it mentions Christians as especially needing the boon, declaring that "the Christians and all others should have liberty to follow that mode of religion which to each of them appeared best." It applies to the whole empire—to all races, all creeds, all cults. There is no restriction of the heathen in favour of the Christians. Further, it permits people to change their religion, allowing them to adopt Christianity or any other religion. Lastly, it orders the confiscated property of the Christians to be restored, "and that without hesitation or controversy"; there are to be no lawyers' quibbles with this delicate question of property. Compensation to the present holders of Church buildings may be paid out of the imperial treasury.[4]
Here is the ideal of religious liberty, though not Cavour's "Free Church in a Free State"; for until the State is free it is difficult for the Church to escape from the interference of the Government even when the despotic ruler starts with the honest intention of respecting its liberties. Nevertheless the conception of the edict of Milan is magnificent in the breadth of its liberalism. As we read it we feel that the author of such a document must be classed with those rare minds that are centuries in advance of their age, and have the genius to adumbrate brilliant ideas the real scope of which is quite beyond their actual principles. Except for a very brief interval, the large conception of the edict of Milan was not realised even in the West before the Reformation, and indeed not then except by a few obscure separatists such as the Baptists, the early Independents and Pilgrim Fathers, and a century later the Quakers. We must come down to the Dutchman William iii. for a sovereign who really practised what Constantine so boldly sketched out in the famous edict nearly fourteen hundred years before. Meanwhile this idea has never been realised in the Eastern Churches.
In point of fact this law of religious liberty was an imperial permit, emanating from the good pleasure of Constantine. It was only the law of the empire because it was the will of the emperor. Thus from the first it rested on a very precarious basis. The world was not only not ripe for complete religious liberty; no party in State or Church was really prepared to concede it to an opponent. We can scarcely look in the fourth century for what the greater part of Christendom is not yet within measurable distance of obtaining or even desiring. Accordingly we must not be at all surprised to see that from licensing all religions—and so liberating Christianity from penal restrictions—Constantine quickly proceeds to patronising the religion he has publicly adopted, nor that the leaders of the Church gratefully accept his favours, quite blind to the fact that they are thereby selling their liberties, deliberately walking into a cage.
Constantine's favours took two forms. First, he exempted the clergy from the obligation of filling municipal offices—a costly, burdensome obligation. This was already enjoyed by the pagan priesthood, so that in granting the privilege to the Christian clergy Constantine was only putting them on a level with the priests in the old temples. Similarly, when in England Nonconformist ministers share with Established Church clergymen exemption from the obligation of serving on juries, they do not regard this as a peculiar favour to Nonconformity. Still, in both cases there is a clear recognition of official status. Constantine's order was confined to North Africa in the first instance; subsequently it was extended to the whole empire.
Second, Constantine granted contributions from the imperial treasury for the building of churches and towards the support of the clergy. It may be said that similar grants had been made to the pagan temples and their officers, so that this was a case of concurrent endowment. But, as far as we know, all Constantine's favour in this form was shown to the Christians. Here was indeed a dangerous power—the power of the purse. In accepting the money of the State the Church was deliberately putting herself more or less under the control of the State. Besides, this favouritism, which was a departure from the large liberalism of the Edict of Milan in spirit, though not in the letter, roused the jealousy and alarm of the old temple authorities. Constantine was thus provoking to enmity a party with huge vested interests at stake. This party found a champion in Licinius, the second Augustus. Licinius could have been only a half-hearted supporter of the Edict of Milan; he was unable to resist Constantine's desire for his concurrence when it was issued, had he wished to do so. But at a later time he threw in his lot with the disaffected pagan party, and by means of the support he thus obtained broke connection with Constantine and claimed independence. So long as he could hold his own he pursued an openly pagan policy, forbidding the Christians to assemble in their churches, and leaving them only to worship in the open air, excluding them from the civil service, banishing some, and perhaps even proceeding to inflict the death penalty in a few cases. But before he could go far in this direction his defeat by Constantine, followed by his death, put an end to the pagan reaction (a.d. 324).
As sole emperor, Constantine now had a free hand. For the second time, flushed with victory over a champion of paganism, he proceeded to a much more emphatic patronage of Christianity; he even issued a rescript urging his subjects to become Christians. There was no direct violation of the edict of toleration in this decree. Everybody was still left free to follow his own choice. The decree was but an exhortation. Still it meant much. Next we see Constantine interfering in matters of Church government. In the first instance this was on the invitation of the Christians for the settlement of the Novatian schism, a schism mainly turning on a question of discipline. Constantine was reluctant to interfere, and when he did so, he wisely appointed bishops as assessors. Still, the fatal step was taken. Before long emperors will be seen tampering with ecclesiastical affairs on their own initiative, without any appeal from the Church, and that even in questions of doctrine.
Nevertheless, Constantine was careful not to completely alienate the pagan party. He retained the office of Pontifex Maximus and thus secured his influence at Rome. He had the image of the sun-god impressed on one side of his coins, while the monogram of Christ was stamped on the other side. He ordered the Government offices and law courts to be closed on the Christian day of worship, but he referred to this day by its pagan title as "the venerable day of the sun." He went so far in the direction of syncretism as to order a prayer of pure theism for use in his army. His conception of Christianity was never very profound. At heart he seems to have been an eclectic theist with a distinct preference for Christianity and a measure of real belief in it; and in these respects his State policy reflects his own ideas.
The effect of Christianity on legislation, always slow in so conservative a region where precedent is power, begins hopefully under Constantine. The emperor put an end to crucifixion—as a desecration of the cross of Christ, the breaking of the legs of criminals, and the branding of slaves. According to Eusebius he forbade sacrifices to idols, divination, the erecting of images, and gladiatorial combats.[5] If so, the law was a dead letter; for certainly all these things went on for generations after the time of Constantine. Possibly we have here a reference to some of his pious exhortations, such as that in which he invited all his subjects to become Christians. But although Constantine even patronised the amphitheatre as late as the year 323, when he received a panegyric for so doing, and two years later sanctioned the establishment of new gladiatorial games at Spello in Umbria—the force of public passion for this cruel sport being simply irresistible among the Italians—it was never introduced into his new city of Constantinople. Then, though slavery was continued, masters were forbidden to kill or torture their slaves, and manumission was facilitated. The cruel lot of prisoners was mitigated; they were not to be so chained up as to suffer from want of light and air. Debtors were not to be scourged, and they were to be brought to trial as quickly as possible. Above all, the position of woman was elevated. Adultery was treated as a crime to be punished; concubinage was forbidden, though intercourse with a female slave was not regarded as such; the old freedom of divorce was abolished; marriage received high sanctions; and assaults on consecrated virgins and widows were made punishable with death. Thus Constantine's legislation moved in the direction of humaneness and purity—two characteristic ideas of Christian ethics.
- ↑ Vit. Const. i. 27. On this point Prof. E. C. Richardson acutely remarks: "Note here the care Eusebius takes to throw off the responsibility for the marvellous" (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, vol. i. p. 490). In his History Eusebius' statement is both vague and cautious (Hist. Eccl. ix. 9).
- ↑ τούτῳ νίκα.
- ↑ De Morte Pers. 44.
- ↑ Lactantius, De Morte Pers. 48, for the Latin form of the edict; Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. x. 6, for a Greek version of it.
- ↑ Vit. Con. iv. 25.