Today's verses follow right along with the theme and tone of the last four verses. In Matthew 6:1-4, Jesus told his followers that to exhibit one's charity and almsgiving to the world in order to be exalted by one's peers negates the positive nature of said charity and almsgiving, and leaves one lacking any meaningful reward for said works. The glory of good works, he indicated, is a zero-sum thing. If you pine for and accept worldly glory for your good works, you will receive no Godly metaphysical glory for them. If you shirk worldly glory for your good works, you will receive Godly metaphysical glory for them. Today, Christ extends this logic to prayers made in public for the purpose of impressing one's peers and exhibiting to them one's piety. The concept transfers exactly from almsgiving to prayer: if one seeks and accepts the glory of one's peers for his or her prayers, one sacrifices the metaphysical reward for prayer that could have otherwise been achieved by praying more humbly.
Once more, because of the relative intensity of our "Constantine" project, we are going to forgo our regularly scheduled Greek lesson here and just hit a few bullet points regarding these easy-to-understand verses. First off, we should note that ancient Jewish tradition included both communal and solitary prayer, so the idea of praying in private wasn't a new concept at the turn of the First Century. Furthermore, Jesus isn't indicating that anyone who prays in public or in a synagogue is necessarily praying in vain. A careful reading shows us that the qualifier "so that others may see them" is actually the key here. Jesus is speaking about a specific group of elitist Jews who clearly only prayed (or gave alms) in order to increase their social standing among their peers.
It can be said that all of the last six verses point toward the maleficent effect of human ego on human action. If we pan out a little bit, we can understand these verses to be a stern warning against ego itself; against self itself. That said, these verses also point to the moral ambiguity of human action. With both almsgiving and prayer, the actions themselves are not inherently either "good" or "bad." Instead, it is the spirit behind the action that makes it "good" or "bad." The spirit behind an action is either egotistical and self-serving, or humble and God-serving, and it is that spirit that defines the morality of an action. Jesus is simply warning his followers that the ego is highly corrosive.
Here's today's big-picture takeaway: it doesn't matter what other humans think, and being praised by other humans is an empty luxury. What matters, in human action, is doing right for the sake of God, or, for our agnostic friends, for the sake of rightness itself. Those "Christians" among us that are constantly making a display of their supposed righteousness are, in fact, not right at all, and if Jesus were alive today, he wouldn't mind telling them that, right to their face. The Prince of Peace did not avoid intellectual confrontation of hypocrisy and evil, and acting "right" in order to increase one's social standing is both hypocritical and evil. So don't be a hypocrite!
Now, back to Fourth Century Rome.
Part IV: The First Christian Emperor?
In the Fourth Century AD, Rome was the western world, and the western world was Rome. From the banks of the Nile to the waters of the Jordan, from the Danube river to the Rhine, up to the English Channel and all the way back down to the Tiber, the influence of Greco-Roman culture was universally felt, and the power of the Empire was universally acknowledged, even by those peoples who had yet to pass under her yoke. As the saying goes, all roads, indeed, led to Rome.
It is undeniable, then, that the adoption of "Christianity"* as the religion of the Roman Empire in the Fourth Century is what allowed this fledgling faith to become the largest religious system the world has ever known. The "Christianization" of the the Empire marked the eventual end of pagan belief, and the eventual spread of "Christianity" to every corner of the globe. Without Constantine's "conversion," there would have been no Roman Catholic Church, and without the Roman Catholic Church, it is difficult to say what form, if any, Christianity would have survived in. The "Christianization" of the Roman Empire is such a monumental turning point that it is almost impossible to imagine the rest of history without it. (I'm not saying that without it, we'd still be cutting birds open to divine the future from the condition of their livers, or sacrificing goats to a large pantheon of deities at the behest of ancient mystery cults, but I'm not not saying that, either.)
Last time, in Part III of this study, we followed the arc of the Emperor Constantine's life all the way up to the Milvian Bridge, on the north side of the City of Rome, where we witnessed his decisive, if not miraculous, defeat of the competing Emperor Maxentius. The Battle of the Milvian Bridge, as we learned, was perhaps the most pivotal moment in all of history, marking the beginning of all of this "Christianization" we've been discussing. Today, we will look at the actions Constantine took after his victory which ensured that, in modern times, nearly a third of the world's population call themselves "Christian." This will involve, first, a brief discussion of the remaining civil wars that he fought in order to secure his place as sole ruler of the Empire. Next, we'll look at his "Edict of Milan," which re-legalized Christianity within the Empire, and extended certain privileges to Christians. We will discuss the all-important "Council of Nicaea," called by Constantine, which was responsible for homogenizing to a degree what was, up until that point, a diverse array of Christian beliefs, and, finally, we will consider the personal beliefs of Constantine himself, and question whether or not the first Christian Emperor was indeed Christian at all. This will conclude (for now) our study of the Emperor Constantine and his exploits, and set us up for a subsequent study of the birth of the Roman Catholic Church.
Let's get started, shall we?
1. Civil War Wrap-Up
To begin, we need to take stock of the men who were calling themselves Emperor on October 29, 312 AD, the day after the Battle of the Milvian Bridge. Constantine was busy parading the decapitated head of Maxentius around the streets of Rome, so we can remove Maxentius from that list and call Constantine the only remaining claimant to the throne in the west. In the east, as you'll recall, the puppetmaster Emperor Galerius had died in 311, and had left two Emperors in his stead: Maximinus Daia and Licinius. Our list of Emperors has thus been winnowed, and the belligerents of the remaining civil war have thus been set.
I will spare you the fine details and tell you that Maximinus Daia attacked Licinius' men first. After experiencing some victories early in 313, Maximinus' army was trounced by Licinius' on April 30, 313, when they were attacked while besieging Heraclea, in modern-day Turkey. Maximinus escaped and rallied his men for further defense, but the writing was on the wall. Licinius chased Maximinus to Tarsus where his army kept on with the fight until, in August, Maximinus succumbed to some sort of illness and died.** (One more Emperor down.)
As we will see momentarily, Constantine and Licinius remained on good working terms for some time. They were friendly enough to jointly issue the Edict of Milan, a decree which reiterated and emphasized the illegality of persecuting Christians within the Empire. The relationship quickly deteriorated, however, and the two Emperors began warring against one another in either 314 or 316 AD. After a short series of indecisive battles, the two came to a kind of truce in 317. The peace would not last, however. Around 320, Licinius began persecuting Christians anew, which counted as a substantial afront to Constantine. The difference of opinion over the status of Christian citizens led to the civil war of 324, which played out as a kind of epic conflict between Christianity and Paganism. Constantine and his "Christian" forces prevailed, Licinius was eventually executed, and, by 325 AD, Constantine was truly the sole ruler of the Roman Empire, and the most powerful man in the world.
2. The Edict of Milan
Recall that, in the late Third Century, the Emperors Diocletian and Galerius instituted some of the most profound persecutions of the Christian population within the Roman Empire to date. They purged all government offices of Christians, and kicked all Christians out of the army. In certain places, Christians were tried and executed for denying the ancient Roman religion and for not offering sacrifice to the ancient Roman pantheon. Christian property was seized, and Christian scriptures were burned. Taken together, this period of time is known as the Great Persecution.
The Great Persecution proved to have the effect opposite to the one Diocletian and Galerius had hoped for. The public persecution and martyrdom of Christians, in many places, actually caused the general populace to sympathize with the Christians. In fact, awe at the conviction and fortitude of Christian martyrs in the face of torture and execution at that time caused many pagans to wonder at the greatness of the Christian faith. Never could they have imagined a pagan being willing to die rather than renounce one of their many Gods. This awe and wonder caused many Roman citizens to convert to Christianity. Thus, in 311 AD, Galerius officially ended the failed persecution by issuing his famed Edict of Toleration, which did little more than make Christianity legal again across the Empire. There may have been more behind Galerius' Edict of Toleration than simple admission of policy failure, however. Remember that this Edict occurred briefly before Galerius' death, and that Galerius asked the Christians of the Empire to pray to their God for his health at the end of his life, indicating, perhaps, a true change of heart (or, at least, mind) on his part regarding the Christians.
Once Constantine had secure control over the western half of the Empire, supposedly thanks to the direct intervention of the Christian God, he decided almost immediately to take the Edict of Toleration a step further. To do so, he met with the eastern Emperor Licinius in early 313 in what is the modern city of Milan, from whence they issued what is known as the Edict of Milan. The Edict of Milan reiterated and made permanent the legalization of Christianity instituted by Galerius' Edict of Toleration, and then expanded beyond the old Edict in a couple of ways. The Edict of Milan assured that a Christian's basic rights as a Roman citizen could not be abridged in any way on account of their faith, and included assurances that Christians had the right to convene and organize churches together at will. Just as important, the Edict of Milan demanded that any property that had been seized from Christians during the Great Persecution be returned to them immediately. So it was, then, that Christians went from being personae non gratae to being a favored group, uniquely protected by specific Imperial decree, in just a couple of years. The Edict of Milan was a windfall for Christians, to say the least, and set the stage for the ensuing "Christianization" of the Empire.
Constantine and Licinius signed and issued the Edict of Milan jointly. The exact wording of the Edict, sadly, is lost to the dustbin of history, but its effects have been consequential to everything that has occurred in western history since its declaration. It sent a signal to the entire Empire that there was a new age on the horizon, and that the Emperors did not intend to stop the coming of said new age.
One should note that, although the Edict of Milan was written for the benefit of Christians, and contained language specific to Christians, the Edict did, in fact, promote toleration of all religions, making the practice of any faith legal under Roman law. Contrary to frequent misunderstanding, the Edict of Milan did not make Christianity the official religion of the Empire.
3. The First Council of Nicaea
A little more than a decade after issuing the Edict of Milan, and almost immediately after his eventual military victory over Licinius, Constantine convened what is known as the First Council of Nicaea, in the town of Nicaea in what is modern-day Turkey, in 325 AD. The Council of Nicaea was to be the first in a series of "ecumenical councils" constituted by the bishops of all the major Christian communities within the Empire. Like subsequent ecumenical councils, the First Council of Nicaea was convened to homogenize Christian thought and consolidate Christian authority. At that time, Christian theology and philosophy remained extremely diffuse and varied, and the Emperor had taken note of these variations and the frequent squabbling and infighting they caused. If he was going to hitch his horse to Christianity, he needed the Christian community to oblige him by at least agreeing upon some basic religious tenets amongst themselves. If Constantine's conversion was genuine, than one can even imagine him convening the First Council of Nicaea in order to find out for himself personally: "what is this new religion, and how exactly do I follow it?"
As we've said, Christianity at the turn of the Fourth Century was a markedly varied set of religious beliefs. From one Christian community to the next, one would find different sets of scriptures, different liturgical methodologies, and even different opinions about the nature of Christ himself. There were groups that believed, for example, that Jesus was on equal footing with "God the Father," and other groups who believed that Jesus was divine but subordinate to "God the Father." There were groups that believed that Jesus was not divine at all, but totally human. There were groups that believed that Jesus was entirely divine, and not human at all. There were still other groups that believed that Jesus was both God and human. Disparities in theology abounded. At the First Council of Nicaea, Constantine encouraged Christian leaders to work through some of these disagreements in order to create a more singular version of Christianity. A candid look at history shows that a singular version of Christianity had never existed before.
While the council didn't, and couldn't, address every existing point of contention, it did decide on one of the biggest disputes of the time, known as the "Arian Controversy." Arianists were a group of Christians who believed, as we mentioned above, that there was a difference of "Godliness" between Jesus and God the Father. The Council of Nicaea decided that the orthodox view for all Christians would be that Jesus and God the Father were "coequal" as a Supreme Divinity, neither being subordinate to the other in potency or import. By this decision, all Arianists were declared "heretical," and the history of Christian theology was permanently changed. The Council of Nicaea, a group of mere men living over three hundred years after Jesus, had taken it upon themselves to define the nature of Christ. A profound precedent.
Aside from settling the Arian Controversy, the Council's lasting legacy includes a list of twenty canon laws for the nascent Universal Church, which included a prohibition against the self-castration of clergy, a prohibition against usury among the clergy, a prohibition against clergy cohabitating with younger women, and laws generally forgiving those who had strayed from the church during the later persecutions of Licinius. The Council also definitively changed the way Christians calculated the date of Easter Sunday, decoupling said calculation from the Jewish calendar. Perhaps the most important legacy of the Council, however, was the conception of the "Nicene Creed," a creed designed to firmly define the basic tenets of the Christian faith and to exclude from the ranks of orthodox Christians anyone who did not profess it. The Nicene Creed will be familiar, in part or in whole, to most modern "Christians." The original version of the Nicene Creed read something like this:
We believe in one God,
the Father almighty,
maker of all things visible and invisible;
And in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the Son of God,
begotten from the Father, only-begotten,
that is, from the substance of the Father,
God from God,
light from light,
true God from true God,
begotten not made,
of one substance with the Father,
through Whom all things came into being,
things in heaven and things on earth,
Who because of us men and because of our salvation came down,
and became incarnate,
and became man,
and suffered,
and rose again on the third day,
and ascended to the heavens,
and will come to judge the living and dead,
And in the Holy Spirit.
But as for those who say, There was when He was not,
and, Before being born He was not,
and that He came into existence out of nothing,
or who assert that the Son of God is of a different hypostasis or substance,
or created,
or is subject to alteration or change
- these the Catholic and apostolic Church anathematizes.
It is interesting that this, the first "orthodox" Christian creed, doesn't mention any of the things that Jesus asked his followers to do during his Galilean Ministry. Already by the year 325, it seems, Christianity had generally lost track of the moral prescriptions of Jesus Christ, and was more interested in the deification and worship of The Man, as if he were akin to Jupiter Best and Greatest. To paraphrase a modern Bible scholar: in just three centuries, Christianity had transformed from the religion of Jesus into the religion about Jesus. All of this begs the question: if Jesus knew it was so important that his followers profess the correct belief about the nature of his divinity, why wouldn't he have revealed the tenets of the Nicene Creed to those listening to him at the Mount of Beatitudes? Why would Jesus waste so much breath on "blessed are the meek," and "love your enemies," when what was really important was the profession that Jesus was "God from God, light from light, true God from true God?"
When comparing the words of the historical Christ as they occur in the Gospel to the theology of the Nicene Creed, we are struck by a profound contrast which leads us to a certain unavoidable conclusion. The First Council of Nicaea, called together and presided over by the Emperor Constantine, was a huge departure from the Holy Philosophy of True Christianity. The Council represented the first step in what would be the rapid transformation of Christianity into the blood-stained state-religion that became organized Orthodox Christianity. While many Christians today remember the Council of Nicaea as a monumental victory for Christianity, a careful reading of the Gospel and of history shows that it was actually a death knell for the religion of Jesus Christ.
4. Constantine: The First Christian Emperor?
As we've said all along, history remembers Constantine as the first Christian Emperor, and, perhaps, as the savior of Christianity from permanent obscurity and minority. Indeed, Constantine did champion Christian causes throughout his reign. There is no denying that he issued the Edict of Milan and convened the Council of Nicaea. There is no denying that he commissioned the construction of countless Christian churches across the Empire. There is no question that he claimed to have had a divine revelation of the Christian God on the night of October 27, 312 AD. There is no question that Constantine's accession to the throne marked a turning point for all of "Christendom." But other questions yet remain.
Many scholars have cast different degrees of doubt on the genuineness of Constantine's conversion. Some historians doubt, for example, that a true convert would have waited until he was at death's door to be baptized as a Christian, as Constantine did in 337 AD. Some doubt that a truly converted Christian would have allowed a Triumphal Arch in his name to be erected displaying the symbology of the ancient pagan religion, including scenes celebrating pagan sacrifices, as Constantine also did. Some doubt that a true convert would continue to mint coinage displaying the image of the Roman Sun God, Sol Invictus, up to fourteen years after their conversion, as Constantine did. The truth about Constantine's personal beliefs will likely never be known. Still, a more objective truth remains: Constantine's reign marked the beginning of the official Christianization of the Roman Empire, which marked the beginning of the Christianization of the entire western world. Genuine in his belief or not, Constantine was probably as consequential to Christian history as such figures as St. Peter or Paul of Tarsus.
For our part in the doubt, we can say this: Jesus never once told his followers to "be ready for a powerful warlord that I will personally ordain as ruler of the world three-hundred years from now." Jesus never said "watch out for further revelations, which I will be revealing through other humans throughout history." Jesus definitely never said "go and institute a Universal Church as a grand cult dedicated to my worship, and marry it to the most expansive, powerful, and militaristic State apparatus to have ever existed." To the contrary, Jesus said things like "when someone strikes you on your right cheek, turn the other one to him as well." He said things like "you cannot serve God and Mammon." He said things like "do to others as your would have them do to you."
Since Constantine was the kind to have his enemies' heads severed from their bodies and displayed to the public, and the kind to consolidate riches and power, and the kind to have even his own son and wife mercilessly executed (as he did in 326 AD), any true Christian must wonder how the philosophy of Jesus Christ can be reconciled with his actions after his supposed "conversion." If a questioning Christian finds this reconciliation difficult or impossible, than he or she owes it to him or herself to look at the fusion of Christianity and the Roman State brought on by Constantine and wonder: was this really what Jesus Christ was asking of his followers during his Galilean Ministry? Are power, wealth, and military conquest tenets of the true Christian morality? If not, than what is to be made of the rest of Christian history beyond the life of Constantine?
Was Constantine the first Christian Roman Emperor? Or could it be that he was just the first in an unending line of blood-soaked psychopaths leveraging the name of Jesus Christ against his enemies for personal gain?
Could it be that all of western history after the "conversion" of Emperor Constantine has been predicated on deceit?
Like everything else, I believe that a hard look at history tells the story I, for one, find it unlikely that Jesus was anywhere near the Milvian Bridge on that fateful day in Anno Domini Three-Hundred and Twelve.
But what do you think?
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That concludes our study-within-a-study. I hope you have enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.
Almost nothing makes me happier than learning about those dang Romans, so you can be sure that we will revisit them many times over the coming years.
Join us next time for more Gospel and more history! Thank you for reading!
Love.
