Christianity began as a schism of Judaism in the 1st
century AD and while the number of followers increased within the Roman Empire,
it did not have the recognition and prominence its leaders desired by the
beginning of the 4th century, in fact it remained illegal. However
Christianity became the state religion by the end of the century and all other
religions were to be illegalised. Such a process was stimulated by the reign of
Constantine I who personally converted to Christianity and legalised it. The
impact of Constantine’s conversion will be the central theme of this essay and
whether or not it was the primary reason for the Christianisation of the Roman
Empire. Other dynamics will also be assessed such as the Christian church and
community itself and the roles of successor Emperors. The degree to which the
territory under the Roman Empire became Christianised will also be taken into
account in order to vindicate the claim there ever was a Christian Empire or to
find out such a title is an artificial one.
Before the end of his reign Constantine had embraced the
Christian faith and had dropped any former alliance to his old pagan beliefs,
writing to King Saphur II of the Sassanid Empire, ‘this (one) God I invoke with
bended knees and recoil with horror from the blood of sacrifice’¹. The most
renowned contemporary sources on the subject of Constantine’s conversion are
two of his fellow Christians and supporters Eusebius of Caesarea (ca.263-339)
and Lactantius (ca.240-ca.320), both depict a sudden conversion in 312 at the
Battle of Milivian Bridge. Both wrote their accounts several decades after said
event and have come under scrutiny amongst scholars over the centuries, due to
their absence of such an event and the nature by which such a miracle occurred.
Lactintius’s account lays the motive for conversion in a dream:
‘Constantine was advised in a
dream to mark the heavenly sign of God on the shields of his soldiers and then
engage in battle. He did as he was commanded and by means of a slanted letter X
with the top of its head bent round, he marked Christ on their shields.’²
Barnes analysis of the source ends with the conclusion that
while Lactantius is not excessively bias his perspective of the event is too
distant in time and was most likely acquired via rumour as opposed to asking
Constantine himself, he also brands the dream explanation as an ancient
religious stereotype of conversion stories and therefore easily believed by
contemporary gossipers.³ Barnes however tries to provide a scientific
explanation behind the occurrence of the miracle described by Eusebius which
gave Constantine faith in Christianity:
‘He (Constantine) said that about
noon, when the day was already beginning to decline, he 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. At this sight he himself was struck with
amazement, and his whole army also, which followed him on this expedition, and
witnessed the miracle.’⁴
Barnes tries to legitimise such claims by saying such an
astronomical event known as a ‘halo phenomenon’ occurred which was viewed by
Constantine and his army with faith as opposed to reason which made them feel
they were witnessing something divine⁵. Barnes however feels that the true
cause of Constantine’s conversion was not as sudden but due to the man’s
increasing interest in biblical theology, combined with his religious tolerance
and that he felt he could acquire political advantage by appealing to the
significant, but by no means dominant, Christian community in Rome⁶. Drake
notes how Eusebius and Lactantius feel that Constantine was searching for a
divine protector and champion for the battle and to legitimise his rule, this
was due to the common Roman belief that deities often became involved in
worldly affairs and would offer support to certain individuals in times of
conflict and governance⁷.
The reason for why Constantine’s conversion was so
significant was due to the nature of the society he was to govern before his
conquests. Christianity was by no means the dominant religion in this
religiously tolerant, polytheist society; local, social memory and Gods which
represented components of the natural world had more of an impact on the nature
of one’s beliefs, which Christians simply branded as paganism⁸. This was a
society that Emperors like Diocletian wished to maintain:
‘The ancient
religion ought not to be censured by a new one. For it is the height of
criminality to reverse that which the ancestors had defined, once and for all,
things which hold and present their recognised place and course’⁹
Christianity was not about to Christianise the Empire by
itself, as while Christianity maintained several diverse and healthy
communities in cities around the Mediterranean Sea and made attempts to reach
out to people from all social backgrounds with the promise of salvation,
Christians only accounted for 10% of the Empire’s population¹⁰. In fact in the
previous half-century Christianity had been the victim of numerous
persecutions, most notably the Great Persecution of 303 under Diocletian, which
were largely in response to turbulent local affairs involving Christians that
resulted in outbreaks of violence¹¹. However Diocletian did contribute to the Empire’s
Christianisation unintentionally; by reforming the Empire’s political system he
gave more direct and central control of the Empire to Rome’s imperial court and
the Emperor by administering local areas around the Empire’s numerous cities¹².
This was an Empire that Constantine was set to take over entirely by 324 at a
time when he clearly favoured Christianity.
In 313 a letter, commonly referred to as the ‘Edict of Milan’,
Constantine immediately improved the status of Christianity by legalising it
and restoring the property Christian Church’s had lost during the
persecution¹³. Constantine was determined to convert the Empire, as this letter
to his imperial subjects after his victory over Licinius in 324 illustrates:
‘We, indeed,
strive as much as possible to fill the uninitiated with such words of good
hope, calling on God to be our help in the enterprise. For it is no easy task
to turn the minds of our subjects to the service of God.’¹⁴
In order to achieve this Constantine was willing to change
the personnel of the political system and the relationship the system had with
Christianity. As Emperor, Constantine held the authority to appoint men to the
imperial court and various other high administrative office positions¹⁵.
Constantine wished further advance the lot of Christianity, so he began to
appoint new men as senators and office-holders, especially Christians to help
him carry out such policies and symbolise the direction he wished to take the
Empire¹⁶. Most of the new men appointed were not part of the traditional,
Italian, pagan, aristocratic families but from upcoming men from the provinces,
they realised that to improve their social and political mobility they should
become Christians too in order to please a Christian Emperor¹⁷.
Like with traditional Roman religions, Constantine sought to
have a direct relationship with the Christian Church. He was able to do this by
calling numerous councils, starting with the Council of Nicene in 325 where he
brought all of the Bishops throughout the Empire together; this provided a
framework for Christianity to regularize itself within the Empire¹⁸. Within
this framework Constantine and successive Emperors were able to intervene in
order to provide the Church with resources, financial contributions and to help
it settle internal matters like the divisive debate over Donatism, which enabled
Christianity to stay united and for Christian communities to grow¹⁹. This
framework also elevated the Church and its Bishop’s political power and status
as now they could act as a sounding board for Emperors within such councils,
which pressured Emperors to be committed to Christian policies and principles
in order to affirm their legitimacy to such Councils²⁰. However while
Constantine was willing to favour Christianity and encourage it to expand he
was unwilling to use coercive means to achieve Christianization according to
Eusebius’s account:
However let no one use what he
has received by inner conviction as a means to harm his neighbour. What each
had seen and understood, he must use, if possible, to help the other; but if
that is impossible, the matter should be dropped. It is one thing to take on
willingly the contest for immortality, quite another to enforce it with
sanctions.²¹
This is one of the reasons that Constantine was unable to
create a Christian Roman Empire in his time, despite its expansion in Roman
society.
Constantine had begun the process of admitting more
Christians into high office and the Senate but pagans still were the majority
under him²². It would be under the supervision of successive Emperors like
Constantius II and Valentinian II that Christians would come to dominate
high-office and begin to pursue more extensive pro-Christian policies²³. Only
with such support could Emperors go about destroying paganism to create an
entirely Christian community under the Roman Empire. While Constantine did
attack pagan rituals by banning sacrifices his successors inflicted more fatal
wounds to the religion such as closing temples and stopping financially
supporting pagan cults²⁴. Christianity finally became the state religion under
Theodosius I (379-395) in a move that resulted in all other forms of religion
being made illegal in the Theodosian Code XVI.1.2:
According to the apostolic
teaching and the doctrine of the Gospel, let us believe in the one deity of the
father, Son and Holy Spirit, in equal majesty and in a holy Trinity. We
authorize the followers of this law to assume the title Catholic Christians;
but as for the others, since in out judgment they are foolish madmen.²⁵
However despite the efforts of the Codex Theodosius paganism
did not disappear within the Empire even by 425 as it was impossible to
persuade or coerce all regions, especially rural provinces into accepting orthodox
Christianity²⁶. Urban areas were largely under the control of the Emperor or
Bishops which meant their populace was easy to manipulate or control, but in
rural areas pagan traditions continued to exist and radical Christian beliefs
like the followers of Manichaeism continued to flourish²⁷. Paganism also
continued to persist in areas of influence, the old pagan families that made up
the Roman senatorial landowning aristocracy continued to hold the majority of
senate and civic roles within government despite the slip towards Christianity
in the latter half of the 4th Century²⁸. Coupled along with the
notion that paganism existed independently it also remained in the minds of
many Christian followers like the congregations led by St Augustine of Hippo
who continued to believe that, ‘the physical world and of our present time belong
to the daemones and to the invisible powers.’²⁹. Paganism was a long way from
death and the society under the Roman Empire would never be entirely
Christianised despite its official position.
There is very little doubt that it was Constantine’s conversion
that enabled for the Christianization of the Roman Empire. While Christianity
did have a stable community of followers and was steadily spreading throughout
the Mediterranean world, it would have remained one religion in a polytheist
Empire. Theological fragmentation was to be caused by trying to bring together the
various Christian community leaders in Councils, however at the same time
Constantine elevated the influence and power the Christian doctrine and church
had on Roman society. Constantine did not necessarily oversee the creation of a
Christian Empire and he was unwilling to do everything in his power to carry
out such a process; however he set the preconditions for such a process from
the choice of religion for the Emperor’s to the position and frameworks of
government and the Church. It would take the legislative and administrative
favouritism of successors to make the Empire become dominated by Christianity,
despite this various forms of paganism continued to exist in high places as
well as in the vast Roman Empire.
Footnotes
1. Eusebius,
‘The Life of Constantine 4.10’, translated from Cameron and Hall (1999)
2. Lactanius,
‘Of the Manner in which the Persecutors Died 44.5’, translated from Creed
(1984)
3.
T.D. Barnes, ‘The conversion of Constantine’,
Classical views 4(Calgary, 1985), pp.383-389
4. Eusebius,
‘The Life of Constantine 2.18’ , translated from Cameron and Hall (1999)
5. Barnes,
‘Conversion’, pp383-389
6. Ibid., pp.371-382
7. H.A.Drake,
‘The impact of Constantine on Christianity’, in N.Lenski (eds), The Cambridge companion to the Age of
Constantine (Cambridge,1998), p.115-116
8. Peter
Brown, ‘The rise of western Christendom:
triumph and diversity A.D. 200-1000’ (Oxford,2003),
pp.21-22
9. Diocletian,
‘Collatio Legum Romanarum et Mosaicarum 15.3’, translated from M.Dodgeon
(London,1991)
10. Brown,
‘Rise Christendom’, pp24-25
11. Ibid., p.23
12. Ibid., pp.19-20
13. Drake,
‘Impact’, pp.121-123
14. Constantine,
‘Oration to the Assembly of the Saints 3.3-4’, translated from H.A.Drake
(Cambridge,1998)
15. M.R.Salzman,
‘How the West was won: the Christianization of the Roman Aristocracy’, Collection Latomus 217 (Brussels, 1992),
pp.465-473
16. Ibid., pp.465-473
17. Ibid., pp.465-473
18. Drake,
‘Impact’, pp.125-132
19. Drake,
‘Impact’, pp.125-132
20.
T.D.Barnes,
‘Athanasius and Constantius: theology and politics in the Constantinian Empire’ (Cambridge,1993), p.174
21. Eusebius,
‘Life of Constantine 2.60’, translated from Cameron and Hall (1999)
22. Salzman,
‘Christianization’, pp.465-468
23. Ibid., pp.465-468
24. Brown,
‘Rise Christendom’, p.35
25. ‘Theodosian
Code XVI.1.2’, in H.Bettenson (eds), Documents of the Christian Church (London, 1943), p. 31
26.
Peter Brown, ‘Christianization and religious
conflict’, in A.Cameron and P.Garnsey (eds), The
Cambridge ancient history - Vol. XIII: The late empire, A.D. 337-425 (Cambridge, 1998), pp.632-664
27. Brown,’Rise
Christendom’, p.41
28. Salzman,
‘Christianization’, pp.465-473
29. St
Augustine of Hippo, ‘Ennaratio 1 in Psalm 34.7’, translation from S.Hebgin and
F.Corrigon (London,1961)
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