Constantine: pocket GIANTS

Werner de Saeger, Werner Saeger

• Publisher: The History Press
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9780750962698
• eBook ISBN: 9780750981255
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Historical Biographies
• Index: History

Why is Constantine a giant? Because he gave Christians freedom of religion. Yet also because he radically and thoroughly changed our society, in particular church-state relations, thereby creating the opportunity for the Christian community to experience exponential growth. Because his changes in government, law, religion and art and architecture are so enormous we still see the consequences of his decisions to this very day. Because Constantinian history is relevant to everyone.

1

Why Constantine is a Giant

 

 

 

 

 

Constantine the Great, Roman emperor from AD 306 until his death in AD 337, left a lasting legacy on the Western world. The revolutionary changes in the way the empire dealt with Christianity under his reign were the foundation for the creation of innovative legislation, new types of art and architecture, and hereto unseen theological paradigms. Constantine inherited the leadership of one of four parts of the empire in AD 306 in York, after the death of his father Constantius. At the time the empire was politically structured to be led by four individuals, a system known as the tetrarchy, which was introduced by Emperor Diocletian at the end of the third century. Diocletian had sought to respond to the lack of stable leadership during the imperial crisis of the third century. Although Constantine’s role from AD 306 onwards was well defined and geographically limited, over the course of the next two decades he would ruthlessly eliminate the very notion of the tetrarchy and become sole emperor of the Roman world.

During his quest for power over the Roman Empire he turned to Christianity. Whether that choice was well reflected, and inspired by sincere notions of a spiritual conversion to Christianity, will likely remain a topic of eternal debate, as it touches upon psychological analysis and it is near impossible to tell whether a man living seventeen centuries ago was genuine in his theological convictions. Indeed, it is often proclaimed that Constantine used Christianity, and monotheism, in a political strategy to reunite the empire: one emperor, one God. It fits a post facto analysis nicely but remains just a theory. It seems more than probable that the emperor was, at least at some moments and up to a certain point, devout in his Christian worldview. His decisions, starting with the very notion of joining a regularly persecuted and small minority on the fringes of Roman society, were too radical and too enthusiastic to have originated out of a purely strategic and/or Machiavellian political philosophy.

As soon as February AD 313, and only a few months after the Battle of the Milvian Bridge on the River Tiber, where he fought Maxentius, and where he supposedly turned to Christianity after having seen a cross in the sky, Constantine declared the persecutions of the Christians to be over. His Edict of Milan could, in a limited sense, be seen as an early type of freedom of religion for all avant la lettre. Although he clearly used language and notions foreign to international standards of human rights in the twenty-first century, specifically singling out Christians as one group granted the right to enjoy religious freedom, the edict remains a pivotal point in the history of the politics, laws and religions of the Western world. The very fact that Christians could now openly live their faith triggered changes that would ultimately lead to the supremacy of Christendom at the end of the fourth century, while less than a century earlier they had still been hunted and persecuted. That move, from a modest church discretely meeting for prayer gatherings and communal meals in private houses, to an institutionalised church with not just imperial patronage, magnificent buildings, comfortable finances and a growing demographic reach, but with secular power and influence, is the nexus of the revolutionary shift Constantine ignited.

The humanistic notion of religious freedom dating back to the Edict of Milan in AD 313 was, however, and perhaps unfortunately, not to last very long, as the coercive nature of the secular use of religious power would soon rise. In AD 318, Constantine allocated dispute settlement privileges to bishops, thereby making de facto judges out of clergy members. Was this to be seen as a form of privilegium fori, the concept of being judged by one’s peers? I think not. In this case, we are not merely looking at legal proceedings in which clergy members are involved; any Christian could opt for a case to be heard by a bishop. And during a certain period, the decisions of a bishop seated as judge would be final. The fact that Constantine singled out Christianity for such a conferral of secular power is not to be underestimated. Mixing religion and law was not revolutionary, the formalistic aspects of both Roman Law and certain elements of Christianity, and especially Paganism, were quite identical, but the consequences were real: suddenly Christians were taking part in the legal, and even politico-legal aspects of government administration.

In AD 321, Constantine established a law that would be known as the Sunday Rest Law. This notion of a weekly day of rest, similar in its philosophy to the Jewish Sabbath, is still applied in many European countries, and in the United States of America, where it is known as ‘blue laws’. For one day each week, shops are either closed or not allowed to sell certain products and businesses temporarily shut down operations. The idea of resting from work every seventh day is not new; Judaism had known it for a long time albeit on a different day of the week. Whereas Jewish people to this day celebrate Sabbath from sundown on Friday evening to sundown on Saturday evening, Constantine’s day of rest would be the Sunday. This change of calendar was not insignificant; it furthered the parting of the ways, the complex and long process that gradually separated Christianity from its Jewish origins. A change in the weekly day of rest may seem like a minor element if analysed on its own, but it is to be seen as part of an ensemble of changes and distinctions which would culminate in the establishment of an entirely separate Christian identity. Such an identity would align Christians into one community, and try to create a level of orthodoxy at which one could reasonably speak of the Christian Church as one entity, instead of a kaleidoscope of groups and communities which might share common practices but still had a diversity and pluralism that caused strife and enmity. Christians being close to, but still quite different from, one another was indeed one of the challenges Constantine faced when he wished to unite the Church just as he was succeeding in uniting the Romans in one empire. Concurrently though, this Sunday was also the day of rest in honour of the sun god, Sol Invictus. This ambiguity, simultaneously Christian and pagan observation, is what keeps the controversy alive, and deters scholars from forming a consensus on the nature of Constantine’s conversion, reign and life.

To reach his objective of unity, and thus to eliminate internal tensions and excessive diversity within the Christian framework of the fourth century is what led the emperor to invite all bishops to an important meeting in Nicaea (modern-day İznik in Turkey): the Council of Nicaea. In AD 325, as various controversies fuelled enmity between the different Christian communities, not least Arianism (an intricate theological debate on the nature of the Trinity, studied to this day in patristics courses), Constantine invited 1,800 bishops, accompanied by priests, deacons and acolytes. Although not everyone participated, and the numbers vary, we know that the meeting was well attended and taken seriously. It was the very first time such an ecumenical council was planned, and its single objective was to reach doctrinal unanimity on a variety of topics. Agreement was reached on the Trinity, thereby condemning Arianism, and furthermore on the date of the celebration of Easter, as well as a series of internal issues on Church discipline. Twenty canons (hence canon law) were announced, and a creed (the declaration and summary of the Christian faith), known as the Nicene Creed, was created.

It is not only his politico-legal changes that make Constantine a giant. The abstract notions of law and political leadership resulting from the emperor’s turn to Christianity may well be crucial and do indeed trigger societal changes, but it is in art and architecture that those revolutions are to be genuinely perceived by all. Indeed, while power changed hands, and both money and authority were given to the Church, it is the building programme initiated by Constantine, and the flourishing of Christian art, which would change our cities. Immediately after the victory at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge, Constantine sought to give Christians the architectural space to meet and pray. Many options were available to the emperor and his court. Constantine could have modified or adapted the faith to the existing sacred architecture, namely the Roman pagan temples. Indeed, if there already was an abundance of religious architecture (and art) present in the city of Rome, why did the emperor and his entourage not do so? Alternatively, he could have brought the Christian community to these temples after modifying and adapting them to Christian worship. If this was not his ideal choice, Constantine could have adapted other, non-religious, buildings to function as halls for Christian worship. Finally, another option was to devise a radically new architecture for the newly recognised community. This would have been a logical choice. But the emperor did not do this; instead, he used a building type he knew all too well from his time in Trier (west Germany), namely the basilica. This type of building was the architectural expression of versatility, and although simple in form, it was multifunctional in its use. Oblong in shape, of rectangular form, with a central nave and an apse on one side, one or more pairs of side aisles separated by columns and a clerestory, the basilica was both large and multipurpose. Above all, because of its previous use as a court of law (and sometimes as a commercial exchange), it came with preconceived notions of authority and power, perceptions Constantine gladly provided to the Church. In essence, Constantine helped to establish the Church through a particularly generous building programme, especially in Rome, Constantinople and the Holy Land. And although one may study the various forms of palaeo-Christian architecture, the main building used for regular Christian gatherings was, from the Constantinian era onwards, the basilica, which in its many variations remains the prime choice for ecclesiastical architecture to this very day.

Can we single out any one specific event, or decision, be it political, legal, military, economic, architectural or religious, to build a strong argument for Constantine’s status as a true historical giant? Perhaps his sudden conversion to Christianity would do the trick, although it was most likely a gradual process that took years. Nevertheless, it did lay the foundation for the changes about to come, and which would ultimately lead to the establishment of state Christianity later in the fourth century, and further into the various episodes of great tension between emperor and pope in medieval times, as well to the labyrinthine matrix of church-state relations in modern Western liberal democracies. On the other hand, I am strongly convinced that the full mosaic of Constantine’s actions and decisions together progressively transformed the Roman world. His religious conversion and his legislative initiatives and architectural preferences should therefore be seen together with his selection of Byzantium as the new capital of the Roman Empire, modestly named Constantinople, and with other changes the emperor brought about. Such a multifaceted historical period is to be studied from an interdisciplinary perspective, by linking religion, politics, law, art and architecture, and by analysing the intersections and various influences of all the changes that took place. Perhaps that is the reason why Constantine remains a fascinating enigma for all of us, both experts and interested readers. There are various interpretations of the elements we know of his life, and few are truly unquestionable. Yet his overall impact on the development of Western civilisation is a certitude, and that makes Emperor Constantine very special.

2

Rome at the Dawn of the Fourth Century

Introduction

The Constantinian revolution did not happen in a vacuum. It was the answer to a long and multifaceted period of political, economic, medical and military instability which had started almost a century earlier, in AD 235, with the assassination of Severus Alexander by his own troops in Moguntiacum (present-day Mainz, Germany). During the fifty years that followed, up until AD 284, when Diocletian became emperor, the Roman world was hit by taxing challenges and problems on so many levels that this half-century would later be known as ‘the imperial crisis’. Although our view of this transitional period of instability has recently become somewhat more nuanced, it remains the foundation for the various evolutions that were about to occur under the reign of Emperor Constantine.

The murder of Severus Alexander

Severus Alexander, most likely born in AD 208 in Phoenicia (corresponding to the coastal parts of Lebanon, Israel and Syria), became Emperor of Rome in AD 222, succeeding his cousin Elagabalus. His rule was particularly weak, and it is generally accepted that in reality his grandmother and mother were in charge – perhaps this is unsurprising in the case of a 14-year-old emperor. During his reign, many a Roman citizen lost faith in the government, mainly due to ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• 1 Why Constantine is a Giant
• 2 Rome at the Dawn of the Fourth Century
• 3 Family Background and Early Career
• 4 Constantine and Christianity
• 5 Political and Legal Innovations under Constantine’s Reign
• 6 Theology
• 7 Constantine’s Building Programme
• 8 Constantinian Art
• 9 Legacy
• Notes
• Timeline
• Bibliography