Defending Constantine: The Twilight of an Empire and the Dawn of Christendom (12 page)

Constantine's reasoning here was less sociological than many of the modern accounts suggest. When he rebuked Christians for their quarrels, he was not arguing that the church should remain unified so it could serve
as the glue of imperial power. Such a claim would be nonsensical, since at the time of Constantine's conversion the Christian population-cohesive and well organized to be sure-amounted to about 10-15 percent of the population.5'
The church did not provide enough glue to stick the empire together. Constantine's argument was directly theological. Divisions in the church displease the one God whose church it is, and God in his anger might well, Constantine thought, take his vengeance not only on the church but on the emperor himself. Constantine learned from Diocletian that politics and theology are inextricably mixed, and he operated in a similar framework. He had a different political theology from Diocletian's, but it was equally political, equally theological.

For Constantine, it was specifically "catholic" worship that would secure the empire. After his efforts to heal the Donatist schism ended in frustration, he wrote to an official threatening to come to Africa to settle things personally. "By diligent examination," he wrote in a tone that verged on petulance, "I shall acquaint myself to the full with the things which at the present time some persons fancy they can keep dark through the allurements of their ignorant minds, and shall drag them into the light. Those same persons who now stir up the people in such a war as to bring it about that the supreme God is not worshipped with the veneration that is His due, I shall destroy and dash in pieces."52
In a letter of 314 to Ablavius, he stated his intention to summon bishops and priests to the Council of Arles to deal with the Donatist controversy, and again castigated those who bring war into the church. "I confess to your Lordship," the emperor wrote, "since I am well aware that you also are a worshipper of the most High God, that I consider it by no means right that contentions and altercations of this kind should be hidden from me." He feared that "God may be moved not only against the human race, but also against me myself, to whose care, by His heavenly Decree, He has entrusted the direction of all human affairs, and may in His wrath provide otherwise than heretofore." Divisions in the church left him fearful, and he claimed that he could be "truly and most fully without anxiety, and may always hope for all most prosperous and excellent things from the ever-ready
kindness of the most powerful God," only if he could ensure "that all, bound together in brotherly concord, adore the most holy God with the worship of the Catholic religion, that is His due."53
Pagans charged that the church endangered the empire because Christians failed to honor the ancestral gods, and Constantine's perspective here reversed the pagan criticism. He believed that his own safety, and therefore the safety of the empire whose management had been given into his hands, depended on the church maintaining right worship of the Christian God. And right worship involved, at least, unity.

In a conciliatory 324 letter to Alexander of Alexandria and Arius at the beginning of the Arian controversy, Constantine returned to this theme, explicitly using language from Paul concerning the unity of the body: "A dissension arose between you, fellowship was withdrawn, and the holy people, rent into diverse parties, no longer preserved the unity of the one body. Now, therefore, do ye both exhibit an equal degree of forbearance, and receive the advice which your fellow-servant righteously gives."54
When the Arian controversy dragged on for a decade after Nicaea, Constantine wrote to summon the bishops to the Council of Tyre, reminding them of their duty of unity: "Surely it would best consist with and best become the prosperity of these our times, that the Catholic Church should be undivided, and the servants of Christ be at this present moment clear from all reproach."55
Constantine recognized that maintaining unity in the church required forbearance and patience. In his final intervention in the Donatist controversy, he gave up his earlier threatening tone and urged the bishops to return no evil for evil but to bear with their enemies patiently.

Constantine could have found ample New Testament warrant for both this emphasis and his fiery response to disharmony. Nothing provoked Paul's wrath more immediately or more fiercely than division within the body of Christ. Paul's astonished "Is Christ divided?" is a fair summary of Constantine's perspective in these letters. There is even some similarity here to Augustine's later view of the nature of justice in the res publica. A commonwealth is truly a commonwealth only when it embodies justice.
Without justice, a commonwealth is just a glorified robber band. Justice means giving to everyone his or her due, and "everyone" here must include the most important party to the commonwealth, God himself. Without right worship, there is no justice and no commonwealth.56
Where Augustine and Constantine differed, profoundly, was in the results they expected to see. Constantine and his theological supporters, flush with the victory of the church, believed that a Christian empire could only go from victory to victory. "Success," as John Howard Yoder charges, became a central criterion of Christian political ethics.57
A century later, Augustine knew better. Constantine hoped his commonwealth would be secured by right worship of the true God; Augustine saw before his eyes that a putatively orthodox empire was crumbling. Constantine was right; God is the Judge. Augustine agreed but emphasized equally that his judgments are inscrutable, his ways past finding out.

MISSIONAL EMPEROR

The emperor was concerned with the internal conflicts of the church also because they gave ammunition to pagans to attack the church and reason to remain pagan. Division interfered with the church's universal mission. A letter to bishops Eusebius and Theognis (324) celebrated the union of various peoples in the empire and expressed the emperor's dismay that Christians should be divided. Calling himself a "fellow-servant" of the Christian God, he reminded the bishops of "the pledge of your salvation which I have in all sincerity made my care and through which we have not only conquered the armed force of our foes, but have also enclosed their souls alive to demonstrate the true faith of the love of man." His greatest success, though, was "the renewal of the oikoumene." He marveled that "so many peoples should be brought to the same mind-peoples which but yesterday were said to be in ignorance of God." But this marvel was diminished by the petty infighting that plagued the church: "Think of what they
might have learnt if no shadow of strife had come upon them! Why, then, my beloved brothers, tell me, why do I bring a charge against you? We are Christians, and yet we are torn by pitiable disagreements."58

At the outset of the Council of Nicaea, he reminded the bishops of the urgency of Christian unity and noted that their divisions had brought calumny on Christ's body. His "chief desire," he claimed, was "to enjoy the spectacle of your united presence." Seeing the assembled bishops, he added, "I feel myself bound to render thanks to God the universal King" for letting him "see you not only all assembled together, but all united in a common harmony of sentiment." Constantine warned the bishops to make the best use of the elimination of persecuting tyrants and begged them to resist the devil, who in Constantine's mind is almost always associated with conflict: "Now the impious hostility of the tyrants has been forever removed by the power of God our Savior, that spirit who delights in evil may devise no other means for exposing the divine law to blasphemous calumny." The blasphemy he had in mind was "intestine strife within the Church of God," which he considered "far more evil and dangerous than any kind of war or conflict; and these our differences appear to me more grievous than any outward trouble." He knew that he had been victorious by "the will and with the co-operation of God," but he thought that once the battle was done "nothing more remained but to render thanks to him, and sympathize in the joy of those whom he had restored to freedom through my instrumentality." Instead, he received unwelcome and unexpected "intelligence," namely, "the news of your dissension."

Eager to heal the divisions, "I immediately sent to require your presence." Constantine's joy would be fulfilled only when he saw the bishops "all united in one judgment, and that common spirit of peace and concord prevailing among you all, which it becomes you, as consecrated to the service of God, to commend to others." He ended his speech with an exhortation to overcome their differences as quickly as possible: "Delay not, then, dear friends: delay not, you ministers of God, and faithful servants of him who is our common Lord and Savior: begin from this moment to discard the causes of that disunion which has come among you, and remove the perplexities of controversy by embracing the principles of peace.
For by such conduct you will at the same time be acting in a manner most pleasing to the supreme God, and you will confer an exceeding favor on me who am your fellow-servant."59
He reminded the assembly that "it would be a terrible thing-a very terrible thing-that now that wars are ended and none dares to offer further resistance we should begin to attack each other and thus give cause for pleasure and for laughter to the pagan world."60

Constantine was not just a Christian; he was a missional Christian.

CONSTANTINE ON CHRIST

Constantine frequently used ambiguous expressions like "most high God," "Divine Power," "Providence" and "Supreme God" in his correspondence, but these expressions too should be seen in their historical context. Fourthcentury Rome was a world of many gods, and the notion that there was a single supreme God beyond and above all those pointed not to modern deism but to monotheism or "henotheism."6'
Constantine did not shy away from sharp polemics against paganism. Still, he was aware that a large proportion of his empire was still pagan, and especially when addressing a pagan audience, he expressed himself in ways that minimized offense.

In one sense, it is hardly surprising that we find comparatively few explicit references to Jesus in Constantine's writings. So far as we know, he did not keep a spiritual journal, nor did he write hymns or mystical poetry. Most of the writing we have from Constantine's own hand consists of official correspondence with subordinate civil rulers or bishops, a genre not known for pious flourishes. Given the nature of most of the extant writing of Constantine, the striking thing is how often he turns to theological, and frequently specifically Christian, themes. I dare say that one will find more frequent references to Christ in Constantine's official pronouncements than one could find in the Federalist Papers.

In the 314 letter summoning bishops to Arles, he repeatedly referred to "Christ our Savior" and warned that the "mercy of Christ" has departed from hardened Donatists. He expressed surprise that the Donatists had
appealed to him to judge in this case, since he himself was under judgment, awaiting the "judgment of Christ." An assembly of bishops would heal the division, he hoped, since bishops could speak or teach nothing but what they learn from the "teaching of Christ." He accused the Donatists of being traitors to the church and wondered what their behavior said about their regard for "Christ the Savior."62
Elsewhere, he praised Eusebius for his treatise on Easter, since it so clearly explained the "mysteries of Christ."63
In another letter to Eusebius, he reminded him of the tyrants who once persecuted the "servants of our Savior."64
He urged Alexander and Arius to resist the "temptations of the devil" that would lead to dissension and to recognize that "our great God and common Savior of all has granted the same light to us all."65
Summarizing the findings of the Council of Nicaea on the date of Easter, he distinguished the church from Judaism, contending that "we have received from our Savior a different way."66
After Nicaea, he wrote to the church of Alexandria to express his horror at Arius's errors and his gratitude to God for the council's wisdom, and along the way he expressed a hope that "the Divine Majesty pardon the fearful enormity of the blasphemies which some were shamelessly uttering concerning the mighty Savior, our life and hope."67

Not only is Constantine's God the Savior, but he is a God who saved through the cross and passion of the incarnate Son. In 325, during Constantine's mother Helena's pilgrimage to Palestine, excavators uncovered a tomb believed to be the empty tomb of Jesus. Later accounts add that they also found three crosses, one of which, reportedly after controlled testing, was found to be the cross of Jesus.68
Constantine breathlessly wrote to Macarius about the "Savior's grace" in giving this "monument of his most holy Passion."69
Constantine personally accepted the christological deci sions of Nicaea. He claimed that the voice of assembled bishops was equivalent to the voice of God, and though he probably did not, as some have alleged, suggest the use of homoousios as the appropriate creedal word, he grasped and defended the Nicene findings.

Constantine believed that one of God's central acts in Christ was to restore human beings to "soundness of mind,"70
and as a result he emphasized the teaching of Jesus and the need for Scripture. In a letter of 332 urging the people of Antioch to desist from their efforts to call Eusebius as their bishop, he referred to "our Savior's words and precepts as a model, as it were, of what our life should be."71
He rebuked the Arians for "declaring and confessing that they believe things contrary to the divinely inspired Scriptures."72
He was acting on this faith when he provided fifty copies of the Bible to the churches under Eusebius's care.73

By Eusebius's account, Constantine was regular in prayer and even erected a Mosaic tabernacle outside his army camp, to which he retreated for prayers before battle.74
He was generous to the poor and to widows and treated prisoners with humane kindness.75
He recognized his complete dependence on God76
and had a strong personal sense of destiny. He had been chosen, he believed, not only to deliver the church from persecution but to spread the truth of God throughout the world.77
Constantine believed that his calling was to proclaim the Son of God to the Romans.71