-
XXVIII. Constantine I, “the Great”
- West Virginia University Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
209 XXVIII Constantine I, “the Great” The fame of Constantine I (r. 312–337) rests largely on his role as the first emperor—rather than the semi-legendary figure of Philip—to espouse Christianity. After winning a key battle in 312 with a monotheistic symbol painted on the shields of his soldiers against a rival for imperial power, he introduced toleration of Christian and all other monotheistic worship. The shield-painting episode was recorded by Lactantius—an eyewitness to the event— in his book, How the Persecutors Died. The more familiar story of Constantine’s vision of a cross in the sky was not told until nearly a quarter-century later. By appointing Christians as his advisers and allocating imperial funds for Church projects, he made significant moves toward establishing Christianity as the Roman state religion, although the final step of making the Empire a Christian one was not taken until Theodosius did so in the 380s. Constantine at least furthered the fusion of church and state by intervening in church controversies at the urging of factional leaders of the Christian faith. He used some military force to suppress the activities of Donatists in North Africa. Their leader, Donatus, personified strictness in the faith. He taught, for example, that the sin of having cooperated with persecutors who had served Diocletian in his “Great Persecution”—particularly in the act of handing over Christian Scriptures to them—was too grave to permit a former priest from reassuming his duties. Constantine supported the less strict, majority faction within the church, who believed that while such a sin was indeed grave, it could be forgiven through repentance. Constantine convoked and presided over the Council of Nicaea, the first Christian ecumenical council held anywhere. He favored what became the Catholic Trinitarian position against that of the 210 Chapter Twenty-eight Arians. These were followers of Arius, a priest in Alexandria, who refused to accept the idea of the Trinity, insisting that the use of “God the Father” and “God the Son” meant that there must have been a time when there was no God the son, so that that the powers of Jesus were derivative. Critics of the Arians extended this notion to accuse them of believing that Jesus was a separate deity. Emperor Constantine’s influence in church affairs obviously helped to push church and state together. In doing so, it also served to lessen the essentially negative view of the state often held by early Christians, who believed that “our kingdom is not of this world.” Both church and state in Constantine’s Roman Empire were very much concerned with things of this world. Constantine and his supporters attributed his long and successful reign to his support of Christianity. The association of Christianity with victory and prosperity became part of the medieval European tradition and remained an important one for centuries to come, particularly the centuries of the Crusades. The author of the Book of Emperors emphasizes this connection repeatedly as his good Christian emperors win their wars and his bad pagan rulers lose them. Constantine’s mother, Helena, provided the original inspiration for his interest in Christianity, rather than first playing an adversarial role in the story of Constantine’s conversion, as in this chapter. It is historically correct that she accumulated relics considered very valuable by the faithful. the Empire stood without a head, and the brave Romans elected Saint Helena’s son, the worthy Constantine. To be sure, that lord was still a pagan; however, he was intelligent and level-headed. God made it happen that he began to fall ill, and his sickness was such a terrible one that no worldly man could be of any help to him, and the princes began to withdraw from him. One wise man, however, came to him and said, “Sire, if you want your health returned to you, you should do as I tell you. Tell men you trust to take for me little children two years old or less. I must bathe you in their [3.239.59.193] Project MUSE (2024-03-19 05:09 GMT) Constantine I 211 blood and that way you will recover your health. If I fail to make you hale and hearty again, have me hanged or stoned.” The king quickly ordered the little children seized and brought before him, but when he saw their mothers’ terrible grief he spoke in lordly fashion : “You gave me bad advice. I do not want to order the...