By Matthew Zerwic
In the United States, we enjoy the recognition of our right to believe what we like, but from Constantine to the Constitution, people lacked that freedom. All those who had a different religion were stomped out, and all those who had a different interpretation of the Bible were crushed. The reason for this shift was that there was a change in the way leaders sought unity. Rather than finding unity through orthopraxy, people engaging in the same rituals, unity was found through orthodoxy, people holding the same beliefs. Contrary to popular belief, Constantine was a political opportunist interested in unity, and through his facilitation of the Council of Nicaea, Constantine was able to create a unifying force throughout the Empire that crushed all who opposed it. This force is the Church as we know it.
Constantine, through and through, was a political opportunist that was only concerned with success, not true belief (Burkhardt 295). Before showing how this politically motivated mindset influenced his involvement with Christianity, we must first look to the childhood of Constantine. Constantine was born to the famous general and Augustus, Constantius. Constantius was a henotheist. While not discounting the existence of other gods, Constantius exclusively worshipped Sol Invictus, the Undefeated Sun (Ehrman 34). Constantine was no doubt raised worshipping the same god. On coinage from the reign of Constantine, we can see that he personifies himself with Sol Invictus. This imagery continued well into the reign of Constantine and for years after the Battle of Milvian Bridge, the supposedly formational moment in Constantine’s Christian life (Ehrman 42).
Constantine’s affiliation with Sol Invictus can also be found in his famous visions. Before the Battle of Milvian Bridge, Constantine and his soldiers saw what modern scholars believe to be a solar halo. A solar halo features the sun in the center and two smaller orbs of light on the sides of it (see image below). Soon after viewing this phenomenon, Constantine had a vision, likely in a dream. According to a pagan panegyrist, Constantine saw Apollo, specifically himself as Apollo, along with Victory by his side (Barnes 79-80). After this vision of himself as Apollo, Constantine “made lavish gifts to a temple of Apollo in Gaul” (Elliot 51). According to Eusebius of Caesarea, Constantine had to consult with advisors who explained “what was intended by the sign of the vision he had seen” (Eusebius 1.32). Bart Ehrman states that this is evidence for the Vision(s) of Constantine not being inherently or obviously Christian (Ehrman 37). Constantine was no doubt familiar with Christianity. It was a major movement throughout the Empire that he helped to persecute, despite his best attempts to keep his involvement covered up (Barnes 2-4). Since it wouldn’t have been completely foreign to him, Constantine should have immediately recognized it as Christian in nature, just as Paul recognized his vision as Christian in nature, but he didn’t. Constantine sat with this supposed message from God for a while before publicly announcing it, something that makes one think that Constantine wasn’t truly a Christian after all (Ehrman 39).
The most probable way in which Constantine’s visions and conversion experience played out in reality is that, first, he and his army had a vision that was interpreted to be a sign of protection from Apollo/Sol. Constantine soon had a dream that confirmed his henotheistic and initial belief about the solar halo he and his army saw. That’s if Constantine even had a second vision. Constantine could very well have been capitalizing on an experience he and his army had and made it far beyond something strange and into something divine with that divine thing being himself. Constantine had a statue of Sol Invictus constructed to look like himself, and it was constructed after his conversion to Christianity (Elliot 258). Constantine’s Arch was also pagan in character. The wall’s inscription states Constantine defeated Maxentius “by the impulse of the divine”, something that could be pagan or Christian, but this is a correction. Originally, the wall read “by the nod of Jupiter Optimus Maximus”. Constantine probably asked for this correction at his first inspection of the arch in 315. Burkhardt doesn’t believe the correction invalidates Constantine’s status as a pagan or validates his status as a Christian, but rather, it indicates that Constantine was thought to be a pagan, meaning he wasn’t clear about his Christian faith, and “separates him from any direct profession of faith” (Burkhardt 274). “If Constantine had been a true convert, would he be reluctant to declare outright that it was specifically the Christian god who had helped him” (Ehrman 42)? Simply put, the change in inscription shows Constantine as being a mutable and protean figure—a true politician. Even so, it is hard to ignore sacrifices to pagan deities depicted on the arch and “the colossal statue of Sol that spectators approaching the Colosseum Valley saw looming above and then through the Arch of Constantine would have prepared them to understand particular aspects of the imagery adorning the arch itself once they were close enough to read it” (Burkhardt 274, Marlowe 235).
Both Manfred Clauss and Bart Ehrman provide interesting perspectives as to how pagans would convert to Christianity, thus providing a model for understanding Constantine’s Christianity. “Ever since the middle of the second century AD Christian writers had commented, often enough in harsh terms, on the remarkable similarities between their own religion and the cult of Mithras. From their point of view, all these resemblances were clever ruses on the part of the Devil” (Clauss), so it is certain that in the time of Constantine that these similarities would be recognizable to both converts and established Christians. “Christians before Constantine’s day had sometimes identified the Christian god as the god of the sun, and as I argued earlier, Constantine appears not to have chosen the god of the Christians over Sol Invictus but rather to have identified him with Sol Invictus” (Ehrman 43).
How exactly Constantine assimilated Christianity is important on the surface because the Christianity of Constantine is not really Christianity, at least not Nicene Christianity, which is the Christianity Constantine created and is to be judged by. Christians do not pray to the sun, and if they do, like the late Mithraists did, then they are condemned by Church authorities (Clauss). But far deeper than incorrectly conceiving of God, like the heretical theology of the Arians, is Constantine’s belief that he is Jesus Christ. Jesus, as mentioned before, was identified with Sol Invictus by early Christians to gain new converts (Ehrman 43). Constantine saw Apollo, a sun god he patronized and prayed to, in a vision. Apollo appeared to Constantine as Constantine himself. We can see that Constantine held this belief throughout life due to Constantine’s statue of himself as the personified Sol Invictus. Constantine changes his story, saying that he saw Jesus, not Apollo, yet there is this statue that reflects that the original story is true and he is lying, or that there is a truth down the middle. Apollo/Sol/Constantine is Jesus. Jesus Christ, or should I say Constantine, what arrogance. How unbecoming of a Christian.
“Would a Christian kill a ten-year-old child?” (Ehrman 43) Ehrman asks, and with all of the evidence, I too find myself asking “How can we consider this man to be a Christian?” Certainly, there are exploitative, hypocritical televangelists, and they are, unfortunately, the face of Christianity, but most people see them for what they are—opportunists. People do not look at Saint Constantine in the same way that they look at televangelists, but they probably should. When these people, fall short—and Catholic priest pedophilia and Constantine having an innocent killed are a bit more than falling short—these people are to be examined with their status as supposed pinnacles of Christian virtue in mind.
While the televangelist says, “Look at that sinner, that person who is below me,” Constantine washes his hands of any guilt by lying about his age so that it would appear that he was not involved in the persecution. Constantine was 30 years old at the time of the persecution, and historical record doesn’t depict him as trying to do anything to stop it (Barnes 2-4, Ehrman 210). By lying about his age, Constantine is saying “No, it was those other guys.” Perhaps, we can excuse his turning a blind eye to the plight of the Christians because he wasn’t saved yet, but if that’s the case, why wasn’t he forthright? Christianity is, after all, a religion based upon forgiveness.
A true Christian would believe in the saving power of God, and no matter his sin, he would be fairly open about it because Jesus forgives all. There is nothing that a true Christian, a saint, has to hide or lie about; God sees all, unless it isn’t God with whom they are concerned but rather the people around themselves. Constantine not only lied about his involvement in the persecution, but he also lied about his involvement in ending it. In his book Constantine: Dynasty, Religion and Power in the Later Roman Empire, Timothy Barnes quotes an article written by Otto Seeck:
‘In the year 313 Constantine guaranteed legal toleration for the Christians in the Roman Empire through the Edict of Milan.’ So have we all learned at our school desks, and yet not a single word of that sentence is true. For the Christians did not obtain legal toleration for the first time in 313, but had already obtained it in 311; the originator of this legal measure was not Constantine, but Galerius; and there never was an ‘Edict of Milan’ which concerned itself with the question of the Christians. Admittedly, a document which people are in the habit of calling by this name is still preserved in its original wording. But first, this document is no edict; second, it was not issued in Milan; third it was not issued by Constantine; and fourth, it does not grant legal toleration, which the Christians had already possessed for some time, to the whole empire: its content has a much more restricted significance. (Barnes 95-96)
In other words, everything about Constantine being the first to tolerate the Christians is a lie. Diocletian started the persecution, Constantine had some role in it, and Galerius ended it (Burkhardt 268, 273). For political purposes, Constantine and his supporters misled people into believing that he was not involved in the persecution and was the one to stop it (Barnes 121).
When exposed, televangelists use religion as a means of justifying their sins. Infamously, Kenneth Copeland and Jesse Duplantis justified their controversial purchase of private jets as it being an essential part of their ministry. Likewise, Constantine used religion as a means of justifying his war against Maxentius (Elliot 35). This has been seen time and time again—religion as a justification for war, religion as a disguise for political gain. There was no point before this that the Christians ever considered going to war. Even if they had the will, how could they have done so? And they certainly didn’t have the will. Ironically, in his summary of Against Heresy by Irenaeus of Lyon, Josef Lossl shows just how tolerant early Christians were. Irenaeus described the Gnostics in 180 AD and their use of painted images. Next to Jesus, the ultimate figure in Christianity, they put pictures of pagan philosophers. “Irenaeus rejected this kind of worship as ‘pagan’ in character, although it was practised by people with whom he had to deal as (albeit in his view deviant) fellow Christians” (Lossl 129-130). Notice how Lossl never mentions Irenaeus as having called for the death of the gnostic heretics, and although Irenaeus’ book is titled Against Heresy, he certainly is treating the heretics he describes in a very different way from the way in which they would be treated in Constantine’s time or even today. To him, these people with different beliefs were nothing less than “fellow Christians.” This attitude of peace and tolerance was not limited to Irenaeus; in fact, it was quite widespread. Tertullian (c. 160-220) wrote to the Governor of Carthage in the hopes of obtaining religious freedom for the Christians and all peoples of the Empire (Ehrman 260). It’s easy enough to make the case for tolerance when one is beaten down, but were the Christians the type to be fair and grant religious tolerance when they’re on top? The answer, for a short while, is yes. Both Lactantius and Gregory of Nazianus “[echoed] the claims from Tertullian over a century earlier” (Ehrman 244-246). But all of that changed when Constantine converted (Ehrman 246).
Constantine’s reign of terror against all of those who were unorthodox, all of those who dissented from Constantine’s required imperial unity, began at Nicaea. Constantine the politician began the Council by entering a room full of bishops and asking for their permission to sit down. He condemned the disunity of the Christians during a time of peace and asked that they peacefully resolve their disagreements (Barnes 121, Elliot 296-207). First of all, asking for permission to sit down is clearly a trick to get the bishops to think that they are in control and that it isn’t some unbaptized semi-Christian who is controlling doctrine. Second, he asks for them to peacefully resolve their problems. The bishops’ concerns about exile and death are fading after meeting the incredibly respectful emperor. But this calm is unjustified as bishops are exiled after refusing to agree to the Creed (Barnes 122). Towing the party line, whatever that may be, became a matter of survival after the Council of Nicaea.
It did not matter what the party line was for Constantine; all that mattered was that there was one. “Constantine was not particularly interested in the nuances of Christian theology or even of church polity. He was interested in unity” (Ehrman 215). We see this lack of interest and understanding while Constantine is involved in the Council of Nicaea, and frankly, it’s quite laughable considering Constantine’s status as a saint, the founder of the Church as we know it, and the organizer of the first doctrinal conference of Christianity. Eusebius of Caesarea made a statement to demonstrate his orthodoxy at Nicaea. After reading it, “Constantine commended it and avowed that Eusebius’ beliefs were virtually identical with his own: all that Eusebius needed to do was to add that God the Son was of one substance with the God the Father” (Barnes 121). This doctrine is taught to students in Theology 1001 at Marquette University. Constantine’s request for this “minor” correction is an oversight that not even the most disengaged student would make, yet we see it from the man who prompted the council. From the Catholic apologist Elliot, to the hardened skeptic Burkhardt, and to the modern experts of Barnes and Ehrman, they all say in their work that Constantine had no understanding or interest in theology (Barnes 121, Burkhardt 315, Ehrman 215, Elliot 163). Personally, I am quite moved by Constantine’s exchange with Eusebius, but there is an even more outrageous incident that demonstrates his lack of interest and understanding of theology. Constantine burned the bishops’ petitions at the Council at Nicaea and told them to sort it out (Elliot 207). What could he do that would be more convincing of his sole interest in unified orthodoxy for political purposes than that?
Why would Constantine strive for orthodoxy within his empire? Rome was a cosmopolitan place that allowed for many different types of people with a wide array of beliefs, and it wasn’t a problem. One could believe that the gods were literal people in the sky, or they could believe that they were symbolic, like the Euhemerists. What Rome did insist upon was that everyone engage in the same practices, orthopraxy (Champion, Ehrman 98). This is one of the reasons why the Christians were persecuted—they refused to take part in the required sacrifices. Orthopraxy was an effective means of control and stability because the masses would require priests for the rituals that had to be performed for well-being of everyone, and the priests were the elites. Although orthopraxy is said to be a system without belief, there is one belief that was required, and that was that the rituals were required. Through practice, one’s society is kept unified, but with orthodoxy, one’s society is kept unified with belief. Similar to the age old faith v.s. faith and good works argument, those who believe as desired will behave as desired. The effect is the same; the only difference is in how one gets there.
But why would Constantine embrace orthodoxy over orthopraxy if the result is the same? Why join up with a movement that was just recently condemned? For one, the sun worshipping aspects of folk Christianity would have made Constantine feel at home. Second, Roman religion was dying; Christianity was rising. The pagan establishment found themselves unable to continue the persecution, resulting in Galerius calling it off as he was dying. It seems probable that Constantine saw Christianity not being too different from the religion he was accustomed to, so it wasn’t as big of a jump for him as we might think. And being the shrewd politician he was, Constantine must have seen the idea of embracing a religion of the disenfranchised as a way of bringing them back into society as loyal subjects, and what emperor doesn’t want to support a religion that says “render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s?” Constantine also did not abandon orthopraxy for orthodoxy. While maintaining the orthopraxic status quo as pontifex maximus, he was also integrating a disunified collective of rebels under unified orthodoxy, upon which he sat.
People paid a price for Constantine’s Christian orthodoxy. Some people were completely wiped out, and unfortunately, that became a lasting legacy of his church. People with different Bibles, in the case of groups such as the Gnostics, or different interpretations of the same Bible were persecuted, sometimes to extinction. Catharism, one of the last Gnostic Christian sects, was driven into extinction by the Catholic Church under the orders of Pope Innocent III in the 13th century (Encyclopedia Britannica). Irenaeus was also at odds with Gnosticism but accepted the Gnostics as fellow Christians. The Church that Constantine created was not about seeking salvation and living a good life, as it was for the early Christians; it was about seeking conformity, unity, and orthodoxy.
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