The Triumph of Christianity (20 page)

Map 9.1: Christianization

The model of Christian growth applies to the empire overall, but even among the cities Christianity did not spread at the same rate everywhere. There was a Christian group in Damascus before 34
CE
since Paul was on his way there to persecute them when he had his roadside conversion experience. But there was no Christian congregation in Carthage until the second century and none in Milan or Capua until the third. These differences reflect that Christianity radiated from Jerusalem and its spread was greatly influenced by how far a place was from there. The exception was Rome, which may have had Christians as soon as Damascus (see chapter 4).

As noted, we have little or nothing to go on to plot the spread of Christianity to the East. Fortunately, von Harnack devoted immense effort to tracing the arrival of Christianity across the West, assembling all available evidence of Christian activity in the empire, province by province and city by city. He prepared two lists. The first includes all places that had a Christian community by the end of the first century; the second includes those places that had a Christian community by 180
CE
—with the complete sources carefully reported for each. Von Harnack’s work remains unsurpassed and all of the atlases mapping the spread of Christianity rely on him. As might be expected, his lists are quite complete for the larger cities, while necessarily being far more hit or miss for the smaller places. Consequently, map 9.1 is limited to all thirty-one cities of the empire having estimated populations of thirty thousand or more as of the year 100
CE
¹⁹
(having been razed by the Romans in 70, Jerusalem barely existed at this time). The following characteristics of cities influenced when they first gained a Christian congregation.

As is obvious,
cities closer to Jerusalem
(see X on map) tended to have a Christian congregation sooner than did those farther away. Of the seventeen cities within a thousand miles of Jerusalem, twelve (71 percent) had a church by the year 100 and all of them did by the year 180, while of the fourteen cities more than a thousand miles from Jerusalem, only one (7 percent) had a church by 100 and eight (57 percent) had none by 180 (gamma =.950).

Port cities
tended to be the first to gain a Christian group. The reason is that in those days travel by boat on the Mediterranean was far faster than was travel by land, and in this sense port cities were much closer to Jerusalem than were inland cities. Consequently, of the fourteen port cities, nine (64 percent) had a congregation by the year 100, and only two had no congregation by 180. Of the seventeen nonport cities, only four (24 percent) had a congregation by 100 and six had no congregation by the year 180 (gamma =.598).

As noted in chapter 7, Christian growth was more rapid in the
Hellenic
than in the Roman cities, in part, perhaps, because Hellenic women had far more to gain from becoming Christians than did Roman women. Of nineteen Hellenic cities, twelve (63 percent) had a congregation by 100 and all of them did by 180, while only one (8 percent) of the twelve non-Hellenic cities had a congregation that soon and eight (67 percent) had none by 180 (gamma =.928). It is true, too, that Hellenic cities were closer to Jerusalem, but even when that factor is controlled statistically, a very strong Hellenic effect remains.

As noted in chapter 4, cities also had Christian congregations earlier if they had a temple devoted to Cybele or Isis, as the Oriental faiths seem to have prepared the way. As also noted in chapter 4, Christianity established a local congregation sooner in cities having a substantial Jewish Diasporan community.

Finally, the
larger
the city, the sooner it was likely to have had a Christian congregation. Of the eight larger cities, six (75 percent) had a congregation by 100
CE
, and all did so before 180. Of the twenty-three smaller cities, seven (30 percent) had a congregation by 100
CE
and eight (35 percent) still had no Christian congregation by 180.

Christianizing the City of Rome

T
HE GROWTH OF URBAN
Christianity is best illustrated by the case of Rome, which was by far the largest Roman city and was among the first to have a Christian congregation. By making some additional assumptions, it is possible to very roughly estimate the number of Christians in the city of Rome over time, as shown in table 9.2. Keep in mind that the population of the empire was overwhelmingly rural—the best assumption is that only about 4.5 million (7.5 percent) of the 60 million residents of the empire lived in places having populations of a thousand or more.
²⁰
Given the estimated population of Rome was about 450,000,
²¹
that means that 10 percent of the urban population lived in Rome, which is consistent with the fact that even most major Roman cities had fewer than fifty thousand residents. According to all historians, in early years nearly all Christians were urbanites. For the calculations shown in the table, it was assumed that 90 percent of Christians were urban until the year 200. For the year 250 it was assumed that 75 percent of Christians were urban, and the calculation for the year 300 assumed that 50 percent were urban. The Christian population of the city of Rome was then calculated by assigning the appropriate portion of Christians from table 9.1 (see p. 156) under these assumptions. To avoid giving a false impression of precision, the totals have been rounded, and it should also be understood that these statistics are offered only as illustrative since they are far less trustworthy than the overall growth curve.

Table 9.2: Estimated Christian Population of the City of Rome

The historical literature offers only two estimates of the Christian population of Rome to serve as milestones in table 9.2. L. William Countryman suggested that the Christians in Rome “could not have numbered much less than 1,000” at the end of the first century,
²²
which is entirely consistent with the estimate of seven hundred. Robert M. Grant proposed that the Christians numbered about twenty thousand in Rome the year 200,
²³
which is very close to the projection of nineteen thousand for that year. The more important point is that even if the estimates in table 9.2 were reduced by half, the Christian presence in Rome would still have loomed very large by the year 300.

In about the year 200, the early church father Tertullian boasted that “nearly all the citizens of the cities are Christians.”
²⁴
This was an exaggeration, but only by about a century since by the year 300 Christians were a substantial majority in Rome and probably in many other cities as well. But even by 200, Christianity was not just another insignificant sect in Rome! Unlike pagans, Rome’s nineteen thousand Christians were well organized. They belonged to relatively small, intense congregations and they may even have had their own neighborhoods. Christians could easily be mobilized vis-à-vis local affairs, which greatly amplified their numbers. Thus the size and effectiveness of the Christian communities may well have been a factor in the persecution that fell upon them in 250 and again a half a century later. Keep in mind too that the Great Persecution took place mainly in the East—Diocletian’s capital was Nicomedia (now Izmit in northwestern Turkey)—and there was little or no effort to confront what by then may have been a Christian majority in the city of Rome.

Conclusion

T
HE FUNDAMENTAL PURPOSE OF
this chapter was to impose needed discipline on the subject of Christian growth—to substitute an arithmetic of the plausible and possible for unfounded speculations and wild assumptions. It certainly is not “proven” that Christianity grew at a rate of 3.4 percent a year, but a growth curve based on that rate is very
plausible
because it matches the credible milestones available on the matter and is in extremely close agreement with known measurements such as the increasing percentage of Christian gravestones in Rome. The rate also is quite
possible
in that it has been achieved or exceeded by some contemporary religious movements for which very accurate data are available.

Possession of these estimates of the Christian population for the first three centuries brings needed discipline to the history of this era. If nothing else, it forces recognition of how tiny and fragile the church was for such a long time. Thus, for example, the concern and antagonism expressed in the Gospels about “the Jews” must be interpreted as the sentiments of a group totaling no more than three thousand (in 70
CE
) and who had reason to fear a group numbering in the millions—too often critics have anachronistically reversed the relative sizes.

Conversely, too often histories of Roman politics late in the third and early fourth centuries have tended to ignore the very large and rapidly growing Christian communities, especially in the major cities—both as they caused anxiety in ruling circles and as they offered a potential source of powerful political support. Hence, although a great deal has been written about how much the church benefitted from Constantine’s favor, far too little been written about how the support of millions of Christians benefitted Constantine by solidifying his power and ending decades of constantly changing rule.

P
ART III
Consolidating Christian Europe

Chapter Ten
Constantine’s Very Mixed Blessings

F
LAVIUS
V
ALERIUS
A
URELIUS
C
ONSTANTINUS—COMMONLY
known
as Constantine I—was emperor of Rome from 306 until his death in 337. The Orthodox Catholic Church recognizes Constantine as a saint, the Roman Catholic Church does not. While this reflects substantial differences in evaluation, both Eastern and Western Catholics have long esteemed the emperor’s contributions to the security, prosperity, and power of Christianity, and writers in both traditions routinely refer to him as “Constantine the Great.”

However in later, more skeptical centuries, many historians echoed the attack on Constantine made by the emperor Julian the Apostate (331–363) during his quixotic and brief effort to reestablish paganism: Julian denounced Constantine as an insincere and self-indulgent tyrant. Thus generations of scholars rejected the authenticity of Constantine’s conversion, dismissed his support of Christianity as cynical, and condemned the unity he attempted to impose on the church. A leading critic was Jacob Burckhardt (1818–1897), who wrote: “Attempts have been made to penetrate the religious consciousness of Constantine and to construct a hypothetical picture of the changes in his religious convictions. Such efforts are futile. In a genius driven without surcease by ambition and lust for power there can be no question of religiosity; such a man is essentially unreligious, even if he pictures himself standing in the midst of a churchly community.... [A]ll of his energies, spiritual as well as physical, are devoted to the great goal of domination.”
¹
Then Burckhardt summed up Constantine as “a calculating politician who shrewdly employed all available physical resources and spiritual powers to the end of maintaining himself and his rule.”
²

This chapter opens by noting the reasons why recent historians have returned to a more complimentary view of Constantine’s conversion and his commitment to Christianity. It then assesses the benefits Constantine heaped upon the church—his massive church-building program all across the empire, as well as the privileges and power he conferred upon the clergy. Then it will be seen that Constantine’s imposition of doctrinal unity on Christianity created a tradition of crushing dissent. Remarkably, all the while he led religious intolerance within Christianity, he extolled tolerance of paganism. Finally, Constantine’s embrace of Christianity was interpreted in Persia to mean that all local Christians were potential traitors during wars with the empire, thus initiating decades of bloody persecution.

Constantine

A
FTER GENERATIONS OF SKEPTICISM,
it is now widely accepted once again that Constantine did appeal to the Christian God for aid in his battle at Milvian Bridge against Maxentius, his rival for the throne. It also is accepted that his subsequent conversion was real,
³
not pretended, as too many historians claimed for too many years. If Constantine delayed his baptism until shortly before his death, that was not proof of his previous lack of piety, but was such a common practice that even St. Ambrose had done so. The reason for such delays was that, since baptism washed away all prior sins, with death close at hand there would be little time to pile up a new set of infractions requiring a lengthy period of atonement after death. But if Constantine’s sincerity has been restored, it remains that historians have been lacking in curiosity as to why Constantine appealed to the Christian God in the first place, rather than to Jupiter or another of the traditional gods of Rome.

One reason Constantine did so is that at this time everyone must have been very aware of Christianity since it probably was the faith of the majority of residents of Rome and many other major cities. Few could have failed to notice the thousands of conversions taking place as the exponential curve of Christian growth accelerated. But of perhaps even greater importance is that Constantine’s mother Helena, to whom he was very close and who often shared his household, was a Christian—probably of long standing. Few historians are willing to accept T. G. Elliott’s
⁴
claim that she actually raised Constantine as a Christian, but neither do most any longer accept Eusebius’s claim that Constantine converted Helena.
⁵
No one knows when Helena became a Christian, but it was well before her son won at the bridge since while Constantine was still holding court at Trier, she donated her house to the archbishop for use as a church. For a long time this gift was denied by scholars, but recent archeological work has confirmed it.
⁶
Moreover, in light of Helena’s remarkable Christian activism during her son’s reign, it must be supposed that Constantine was well versed in Christianity when he decided to have his soldiers place the Chi-Rho sign (the monogram for Christ) on their shields. To then have won a smashing victory cinched it.

It also is very suggestive that prior to the battle, as Constantine’s troops approached, the people of Rome “became restless and hostile,” causing Maxentius to fear treachery.
⁷
If the calculations in chapter 9 are anywhere near the truth, it may well be that it was the Christians of Rome whose “restlessness” was an expression of their support for Constantine; they probably knew his mother was a Christian and they most certainly knew that he had long since ended the Great Persecution and provided restitution for Christian losses in the area he controlled.
⁸
What is perhaps even more surprising is that Constantine seems to have been the first to recognize what powerful political support the Christians could provide.

All of this fits with reports that when Constantine entered Rome following his victory, crowds surged into the streets to greet him “with a joy almost all genuinely felt,” not only because he came in triumph, but also “as a Christian.”
⁹
Moreover, Constantine’s refusal to honor tradition by ascending the Capitol to perform the expected sacrifices to the pagan gods must have exhilarated the Christian throngs in the city.

In light of Constantine’s subsequent personal involvement in Christian affairs, it is obvious that he “believed sincerely that God had given him a special mission.”
¹⁰
The depth and extravagance of this conviction was fully displayed in his funeral—all carefully scripted by Constantine himself. As his health was failing, Constantine had an extraordinary shrine built to “perpetuate for all mankind the memory of the Saviour’s Apostles.”
¹¹
Inside, he built twelve monuments, one for each of the twelve, with a space reserved in the middle to receive his coffin. Thus, his funeral was conducted with Constantine’s remains situated with memorials to six apostles on each side of his coffin—symbolic of his self-conception as being the Thirteenth Apostle.
¹²

Perhaps the two most important things to remember about Constantine are that he was among the most powerful of all the emperors and that he took his “obligations” to Christianity as God-given and necessitating his personal attention and leadership.

Building the Church

T
HE CLAIM THAT
C
ONSTANTINE
“built” the church must be taken literally, in that he immediately launched an immense church-building program all across the empire. When Constantine came to power, Christians had very few churches as such, and most of those they did have were “private dwellings converted for the purpose,” many of them having been apartment houses.
¹³
Within two weeks after the battle of Milvian Bridge, Constantine donated an imperial villa just outside Rome to the church and began work to transform it into the great hall that came to be known as the Church of St. John Lateran. Soon imposing churches, modeled on imperial throne halls, had been erected all across Rome—including St. Peter’s Basilica
¹⁴
(in the sixteenth century, Constantine’s original St. Peter’s was rebuilt). According to tradition, Constantine had St. Peter’s placed above the grave of the saint for whom it is named. Although this claim was, of course, dismissed in more “enlightened” times, it has turned out to be true.
¹⁵

When Constantine constructed his new capital on the site of the old city of Byzantium on the Bosporus, he was equally prolific in constructing great churches. But nowhere was his building more extensive than in the Holy Land, once his mother Helena had explored Jerusalem. At the age of eighty, Helena went on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem in about 326 where she interviewed local residents concerning their traditions as to the location of important sacred sites. Thus she learned that it was believed that Christ’s tomb had been buried beneath a temple of Venus, built by the emperor Hadrian in 130. What followed was one of the very earliest archeological undertakings, well told by the church historian Eusebius (ca. 263–339) in his
Life of Constantine
.
¹⁶

Eusebius began by noting that apparently Hadrian’s engineers had been “determined to hide” the tomb “from the eyes of men.... After expending much labor in bringing in earth from outside, they covered up the whole place; then having raised the level of the terrain, and after paving it with stone, they entirely concealed the sacred grotto beneath a great mound.” On top of this the Romans had constructed “a dark shrine of lifeless idols.”

Eusebius continued: “Constantine gave orders that the place should be purified.... And as soon as he issued the orders, these deceitful constructions were torn down... images and demons and all, were overthrown and utterly destroyed... one layer after another was laid bare... then suddenly, contrary to all expectation, the venerable and sacred monument to our Savior’s resurrection became visible, and the most holy cave.” What the excavators seem to have uncovered was a tomb carved into the rock that fit the New Testament description.

Constantine’s response was to have the great Church of the Holy Sepulcher constructed over the site, and Eusebius, by then bishop of Caesarea, was present at its consecration. Constantine also had great churches built in Bethlehem and on the Mount of Olives. In response to all of this, it soon became popular all across the empire to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and Helena became a saint in both the Orthodox and Roman churches.

Constantine’s building program was not limited to Rome, Constantinople, and the Holy Land. In Italy he also built large churches in Ostia, Albinum, Capua, and Naples, and he built churches at Cirta (in Africa), at Trier, at Antioch, and at Nicomedia as well.
¹⁷

In addition to building so many imposing churches, Constantine donated “an extraordinary amount of property” to the church.
¹⁸
Thus, “massive grants of land and property were made... [and an] avalanche of precious metals.”
¹⁹
For example, Constantine granted the churches in Rome all the rent from various landed estates, amounting to “more than four hundred pounds of gold per year.”
²⁰
Eventually his gifts to the church were so immense that they “laid the foundations for the church’s enduring wealth in later centuries.”
²¹

But Constantine’s major contribution was to elevate the clergy to high levels of wealth, power, and status. Keep in mind that, contrary to popular belief, Constantine did not make Christianity the official religion of the empire. “What he did was to make the Christian church the most-favoured recipient of the near-limitless resources of imperial favour.”
²²
Legal privileges and powers were lavished on the clergy. Episcopal courts were given official status. The clergy were exempted from taxes and civic duties. And bishops “now became grandees on a par with the wealthiest senators... [and were] expected to take on the role of judges, governors, great servants of state.”
²³
As a result there was a sudden influx of men from aristocratic families into the priesthood which transformed the church into a far more worldly and far less energetic institution, as will be seen in chapter 17. Such a transformation may well have happened anyway once Christianity had become the dominant religion. But Constantine made this shift occur very rapidly and to a remarkable degree.

Unity and Conformity

F
ROM EARLIEST DAYS, CHRISTIANITY
was marked by theological disputes, some of them of sufficient importance as to produce schismatic movements. For example, after having been excommunicated from the church in about the year 144 for proposing to dispense with all Jewish aspects of the faith, Marcion successfully led a dissenting church that lasted for about another three hundred years. At almost the same time, Montanus founded an extremely ascetic variation on traditional Christianity. It achieved a considerable following in the East and seems not to have fully died out until the eighth century. Another such movement was Manichaeism, founded by the “prophet” Mani around the middle of the third century. It had the remarkable distinction of having been declared a heresy by both the conventional Christian church and by the Zoroastrian state church of Persia. In addition to these three major schismatic groups, there were a number of minor “Gnostic” groups such as the Valentinians. But although these groups were rejected by the Christian establishment, they were not persecuted at that time—except, perhaps, by Roman officials who mistook them for conventional Christians (although the Gnostics were never unwilling to make the required sacrifices to the gods).

Perhaps the early church did not persecute heresy only because it lacked the means to do so. If so, Constantine provided the means in his unrelenting efforts to create unity within the church. As Eusebius reported: “to the Church of God he paid particular attention. When some were at variance with each other in various places, like a universal bishop appointed by God he convoked councils of the ministers of God. He did not disdain to be present and attend during their proceedings.... Then such as he saw able to be prevailed upon by argument and adopting a calm and conciliatory attitude, he commended most warmly, showing how he favored general unanimity, but the obstinate he rejected.”
²⁴
Indeed, for them, persecution loomed. It all began within six months after Constantine’s great victory at Milvian Bridge.