Constantine the Great
Life
His coins give his name as M., or more frequently as
C., Flavius Valerius Constantinus. He was born at Naissus, now Nisch in
Servia [Nis, Serbia --Ed.], the son of a Roman officer,
Constantius, who later became Roman Emperor, and
St. Helena, a
woman of humble extraction but remarkable character and unusual ability.
The date of his birth is not certain, being given as early as 274 and as
late as 288. After his father's elevation to the dignity of Caesar we
find him at the court of
Diocletian and
later (305) fighting under Galerius on the Danube. When, on the
resignation of his father Constantius was made Augustus, the new Emperor
of the West asked Galerius, the Eastern Emperor, to let Constantine,
whom he had not seen for a long time, return to his father's court. This
was reluctantly granted. Constantine joined his father, under whom he
had just time to distinguish himself in Britain before death carried off
Constantius (25 July, 306). Constantine was immediately proclaimed
Caesar by his troops, and his title was acknowledged by Galerius
somewhat hesitatingly. This event was the first break in
Diocletian's
scheme of a four-headed empire (tetrarchy) and was soon followed by the
proclamation in Rome of Maxentius, the son of Maximian, a tyrant and
profligate, as Caesar, October, 306.
During the wars between Maxentius and the Emperors
Severus and Galerius, Constantine remained inactive in his provinces.
The attempt which the old Emperors
Diocletian and
Maximian made, at Carmentum in 307, to restore order in the empire
having failed, the promotion of Licinius to the position of Augustus,
the assumption of the imperial title by Maximinus Daia, and Maxentius'
claim to be sole emperor (April, 308), led to the proclamation of
Constantine as Augustus. Constantine, having the most efficient army,
was acknowledged as such by Galerius, who was fighting against Maximinus
in the East, as well as by Licinius.
So far Constantine, who was at this time defending
his own frontier against the Germans, had taken no part in the quarrels
of the other claimants to the throne. But when, in 311, Galerius, the
eldest Augustus and the most violent
persecutor of
the Christians,
had died a miserable death, after cancelling his edicts against the
Christians, and
when Maxentius, after throwing down Constantine's statues, proclaimed
him a tyrant, the latter saw that war was inevitable. Though his army
was far inferior to that of Maxentius, numbering according to various
statements from 25,000 to 100,000 men, while Maxentius disposed of fully
190,000, he did not hesitate to march rapidly into Italy (spring of
312). After storming Susa and almost annihilating a powerful army near
Turin, he continued his march southward. At Verona he met a hostile army
under the prefect of Maxentius' guard, Ruricius, who shut himself up in
the fortress. While besieging the city Constantine, with a detachment of
his army, boldly assailed a fresh force of the enemy coming to the
relief of the besieged fortress and completely defeated it. The
surrender of Verona was the consequence. In spite of the overwhelming
numbers of his enemy (an estimated 100,000 in Maxentius' army against
20,000 in Constantine's army) the emperor confidently marched forward to
Rome. A vision had assured him that he should conquer in the sign of the
Christ, and his warriors carried
Christ's monogram
on their shields, though the majority of them were pagans. The opposing
forces met near the bridge over the Tiber called the Milvian Bridge, and
here Maxentius' troops suffered a complete defeat, the tyrant himself
losing his life in the Tiber (28 October, 312). Of his gratitude to the
God of the
Christians the
victor immediately gave convincing proof; the
Christian worship
was henceforth tolerated throughout the empire (Edict of Milan, early in
313). His enemies he treated with the greatest magnanimity; no bloody
executions followed the victory of the Milvian Bridge. Constantine
stayed in Rome but a short time after his victory. Proceeding to Milan
(end of 312, or beginning of 313) he met his colleague the Augustus
Licinius, married his sister to him, secured his protection for the
Christians in
the East, and promised him support against Maximinus Daia. The last, a
bigoted pagan and a cruel tyrant, who
persecuted the
Christians even
after Galerius' death, was now defeated by Licinius, whose soldiers, by
his orders, had invoked the
God of the
Christians on
the battle-field (30 April, 313). Maximinus, in his turn, implored the
God of the
Christians, but
died of a painful disease in the following autumn.
Of all
Diocletian's
tetrarchs Licinius was now the only survivor. His treachery soon
compelled Constantine to make war on him. Pushing forward with his
wonted impetuosity, the emperor struck him a decisive blow at Cibalae (8
October, 314). But Licinius was able to recover himself, and the battle
fought between the two rivals at Castra Jarba (November, 314) left the
two armies in such a position that both parties thought it best to make
peace. For ten years the peace lasted, but when, about 322, Licinius,
not content with openly professing paganism, began to
persecute the
Christians,
while at the same time he treated with contempt Constantine's undoubted
rights and privileges, the outbreak of war was certain, and Constantine
gathered an army of 125,000 infantry and 10,000 cavalry, besides a fleet
of 200 vessels to gain control of the Bosporus. Licinius, on the other
hand, by leaving the eastern boundaries of the empire undefended
succeeded in collecting an even more numerous army, made up of 150,000
infantry and 15,000 cavalry, while his fleet consisted of no fewer than
350 ships. The opposing armies met at Adrianople, 3 July, 324, and
Constantine's well disciplined troops defeated and put to flight the
less disciplined forces of Licinius. Licinius strengthened the garrison
of Byzantium so that an attack seemed likely to result in failure and
the only hope of taking the fortress lay in a blockade and famine. This
required the assistance of Constantine's fleet, but his opponent's ships
barred the way. A sea fight at the entrance to the Dardanelles was
indecisive, and Constantine's detachment retired to Elains, where it
joined the bulk of his fleet. When the fleet of the Licinian admiral
Abantus pursued on the following day, it was overtaken by a violent
storm which destroyed 130 ships and 5000 men. Constantine crossed the
Bosporus, leaving a sufficient corps to maintain the blockade of
Byzantium, and overtook his opponent's main body at Chrysopolis, near
Chalcedon. Again he inflicted on him a crushing defeat, killing 25,000
men and scattering the greater part of the remainder. Licinius with
30,000 men escaped to Nicomedia. But he now saw that further resistance
was useless. He surrendered at discretion, and his noble-hearted
conqueror spared his life. But when, in the following year (325),
Licinius renewed his treacherous practices he was condemned to death by
the Roman Senate and executed.
Henceforth, Constantine was sole master of the Roman
Empire. Shortly after the defeat of Licinius, Constantine determined to
make Constantinople the future capital of the empire, and with his usual
energy he took every measure to enlarge, strengthen, and beautify it.
For the next ten years of his reign he devoted himself to promoting the
moral, political, and economical welfare of his possessions and made
dispositions for the future government of the empire. While he placed
his nephews, Dalmatius and Hannibalianus in charge of lesser provinces,
he designated his sons Constantius, Constantine, and Constans as the
future rulers of the empire. Not long before his end, the hostile
movement of the Persian king, Shâpûr, again summoned him into the field.
When he was about to march against the enemy he was seized with an
illness of which he died in May, 337, after receiving
baptism.
Historical Appreciation
Constantine can rightfully claim the title of
Great, for he turned the history of the world into a new course and
made Christianity,
which until then had suffered bloody
persecution,
the religion of the State. It is true that the deeper reasons for this
change are to be found in the religious movement of the time, but these
reasons were hardly imperative, as the
Christians
formed only a small portion of the population, being a fifth part in the
West and the half of the population in a large section of the East.
Constantine's decision depended less on general conditions than on a
personal act; his personality, therefore, deserves careful
consideration.
Long before this, belief in the old polytheism had
been shaken; in more stolid natures, as
Diocletian, it
showed its strength only in the form of superstition, magic, and
divination. The world was fully ripe for monotheism or its modified
form, henotheism, but this monotheism offered itself in varied guises,
under the forms of various Oriental religions: in the worship of the
sun, in the veneration of
Mithras, in
Judaism, and in
Christianity. Whoever wished to avoid making a violent break with
the past and his surroundings sought out some Oriental form of worship
which did not demand from him too severe a
sacrifice; in
such cases
Christianity naturally came last. Probably many of the more
noble-minded recognized the truth contained in Judaism and
Christianity,
but believed that they could appropriate it without being obliged on
that account to renounce the beauty of other worships. Such a man was
the Emperor
Alexander Severus; another thus minded was Aurelian, whose opinions
were confirmed by
Christians like Paul of Samosata. Not only
Gnostics and
other heretics, but
Christians who considered themselves faithful, held in a measure to
the worship of the sun.
Leo the Great
in his day says that it was the custom of many
Christians to
stand on the steps of the church of St. Peter and pay homage to the sun
by obeisance and prayers (cf. Euseb. Alexand. in Mai, "Nov. Patr.
Bibl.", 11, 523; Augustine, "Enarratio in Ps. x";
Leo I, Serm.
xxvi). When such conditions prevailed it is easy to understand that many
of the emperors yielded to the delusion that they could unite all their
subjects in the adoration of the one sun-god who combined in himself the
Father-God of
the Christians
and the much-worshipped
Mithras; thus
the empire could be founded anew on unity of religion. Even Constantine,
as will be shown farther on, for a time cherished this mistaken belief.
It looks almost as though the last
persecutions of
the Christians
were directed more against all irreconcilables and extremists than
against the great body of
Christians. The
policy of the emperors was not a consistent one;
Diocletian was
at first friendly towards
Christianity;
even its grimmest foe, Julian, wavered. Caesar Constantius,
Constantine's father, protected the
Christians
during a most cruel
persecution.
Constantine grew up under the influence of his
father's ideas. He was the son of Constantius Chlorus by his first,
informal marriage, called concubinatus, with Helena, a woman of
inferior birth. For a short time Constantine had been compelled to stay
at the court of Galerius, and had evidently not received a good
impression from his surroundings there. When
Diocletian
retired, Constantius advanced from the position of Caesar to that of
Augustus, and the army, against the wishes of the other emperors, raised
the young Constantine to the vacant position. Right here was seen at
once how unsuccessful would be the artificial system of division of the
empire and succession to the throne by which
Diocletian
sought to frustrate the overweening power of the Praetorian Guard.
Diocletian's
personality is full of contradictions; he was just as crude in his
religious feelings as he was shrewd and far-seeing in state affairs; a
man of autocratic nature, but one who, under certain circumstances,
voluntarily set bounds to himself. He began a reconstruction of the
empire, which Constantine completed. The existence of the empire was
threatened by many serious evils, the lack of national and religious
unity, its financial and military weakness. Consequently the system of
taxation had to be accommodated to the revived economic barter system.
The taxes bore most heavily on the peasants, the peasant communities,
and the landed proprietors; increasingly heavy compulsory service was
also laid on those engaged in industrial pursuits, and they were
therefore combined into state guilds. The army was strengthened, the
troops on the frontier being increased to 360,000 men. In addition, the
tribes living on the frontiers were taken into the pay of the State as
allies, many cities were fortified, and new fortresses and garrisons
were established, bringing soldiers and civilians more into contact,
contrary to the old Roman axiom. When a frontier was endangered the
household troops took the field. This body of soldiers, known as
palatini, comitatenses, which had taken the place of the Praetorian
Guard, numbered not quite 200,000 men (sometimes given as 194,500). A
good postal service maintained constant communication between the
different parts of the empire. The civil and military administration
were, perhaps, somewhat more sharply divided than before, but an equally
increased importance was laid on the military capacity of all state
officials. Service at court was termed militia, "military
service". Over all, like to a god, was enthroned the emperor, and the
imperial dignity was surrounded by a halo, a sacredness, a ceremonial,
which was borrowed from the Oriental theocracies. The East from the
earliest times had been a favourable soil for theocratic government;
each ruler was believed by his people to be in direct communication with
the godhead, and the law of the State was regarded as revealed law. In
the same manner the emperors allowed themselves to be venerated as holy
oracles and deities, and everything connected with them was called
sacred. Instead of imperial, the word sacred had now
always to be used. A large court-retinue, elaborate court-ceremonials,
and an ostentatious court-costume made access to the emperor more
difficult. Whoever wished to approach the head of the State must first
pass through many ante-rooms and prostrate himself before the emperor as
before a divinity. As the old Roman population had no liking for such
ceremonial, the emperors showed a constantly increasing preference for
the East, where monotheism held almost undisputed sway, and where,
besides, economic conditions were better. Rome was no longer able to
control the whole of the great empire with its peculiar civilizations.
In all directions new and vigorous national forces
began to show themselves. Only two policies were possible: either to
give way to the various national movements, or to take a firm stand on
the foundation of antiquity, to revive old Roman principles, the ancient
military severity, and the patriotism of Old Rome. Several emperors had
tried to follow this latter course, but in vain. It was just as
impossible to bring men back to the old simplicity as to make them
return to the old pagan beliefs and to the national form of worship.
Consequently, the empire had to identify itself with the progressive
movement, employ as far as possible the existing resources of national
life, exercise tolerance, make concessions to the new religious
tendencies, and receive the Germanic tribes into the empire. This
conviction constantly spread, especially as Constantine's father had
obtained good results therefrom. In Gaul, Britain, and Spain, where
Constantius Chlorus ruled, peace and contentment prevailed, and the
prosperity of the provinces visibly increased, while in the East
prosperity was undermined by the existing confusion and instability. But
it was especially in the western part of the empire that the veneration
of Mithras
predominated. Would it not be possible to gather all the different
nationalities around his altars? Could not Sol Deus Invictus, to
whom even Constantine dedicated his coins for a long time, or Sol
Mithras Deus Invictus, venerated by
Diocletian and
Galerius, become the supreme god of the empire? Constantine may have
pondered over this. Nor had he absolutely rejected the thought even
after a miraculous
event had strongly influenced him in favour of the
God of the
Christians.
In deciding for
Christianity he
was no doubt also influenced by reasons of conscience--reasons resulting
from the impression made on every unprejudiced person both by the
Christians and
by the moral force of
Christianity,
and from the practical knowledge which the emperors had of the
Christian
military officers and state officials. These reasons are, however, not
mentioned in history, which gives the chief prominence to a
miraculous
event. Before Constantine advanced against his rival Maxentius,
according to ancient custom he summoned the haruspices, who prophesied
disaster; so reports a pagan panegyrist. But when the gods would not aid
him, continues this writer, one particular god urged him on, for
Constantine had close relations with the divinity itself. Under what
form this connection with the deity manifested itself is told by
Lactantius (De mort. persec., ch. xliv) and
Eusebius (Vita
Const., I, xxvi-xxxi). He saw, according to the one in a dream,
according to the other in a vision, a heavenly manifestation, a
brilliant light in which he believed he descried the cross or the
monogram of Christ. Strengthened by this apparition, he advanced
courageously to battle, defeated his rival and won the supreme power. It
was the result that gave to this vision its full importance, for when
the emperor afterwards reflected on the event it was clear to him that
the cross bore the inscription: HOC VINCES (in this sign wilt thou
conquer). A monogram combining the first letters, X and P, of the name
of Christ (CHRISTOS), a form that cannot be proved to have been used by
Christians
before, was made one of the tokens of the standard and placed upon the
Labarum (q. v.). In addition, this ensign was placed in the hand
of a statue of the emperor at Rome, the pedestal of which bore the
inscription: "By the aid of this salutary token of strength I have freed
my city from the yoke of tyranny and restored to the Roman Senate and
People the ancient splendour and glory." Directly after his victory
Constantine granted tolerance to the
Christians and
next year (313) took a further step in their favour. In 313 Licinius and
he issued at Milan the famous joint edict of tolerance. This declared
that the two emperors had deliberated as to what would be advantageous
for the security and welfare of the empire and had, above all, taken
into consideration the service which man owed to the "deity". Therefore
they had decided to grant
Christians and
all others freedom in the exercise of religion. Everyone might follow
that religion which he considered the best. They hoped that "the deity
enthroned in heaven" would grant favour and protection to the emperors
and their subjects. This was in itself quite enough to throw the pagans
into the greatest astonishment. When the wording of the edict is
carefully examined there is clear evidence of an effort to express the
new thought in a manner too unmistakable to leave any doubt. The edict
contains more than the belief, to which Galerius at the end had given
voice, that the
persecutions were useless, and it granted the
Christians
freedom of worship, while at the same time it endeavoured not to affront
the pagans. Without doubt the term deity was deliberately chosen,
for it does not exclude a heathen interpretation. The cautious
expression probably originated in the imperial chancery, where pagan
conceptions and pagan forms of expression still lasted for a long time.
Nevertheless the change from the bloody
persecution of
Christianity to
the toleration of it, a step which implied its recognition, may have
startled many heathens and may have excited in them the same
astonishment that a German would feel if an emperor who was a Social
Democrat were to seize the reins of government. The foundations of the
State would seem to such a one to rock. The
Christians also
may have been taken aback. Before this, it is true, it had occurred to
Melito of Sardes (Eusebius, Hist. Eccl., IV, xxxiii) that the emperor
might some day become a
Christian, but
Tertullian had
thought otherwise, and had written (Apol., xxi) the memorable sentence:
"Sed et Caesares credidissent super Christo, si aut Caesares non essent
saeculo necessarii, aut si et Christiani potuissent esse Caesares" (But
the Caesars also would have believed in Christ, if either the Caesars
had not been necessary to the world or if Christians too could have been
Caesars). The same opinion was held by
St. Justin (I,
xii, II, xv). That the empire should become
Christian
seemed to Justin
and many others an impossibility, and they were just as little in the
wrong as the optimists were in the right. At all events, a happy day now
dawned for the
Christians. They must have felt as did the
persecuted in
the time of the
French Revolution when Robespierre finally fell and the Reign of
Terror was over. The feeling of emancipation from danger is touchingly
expressed in the treatise ascribed to Lactantius (De mortibus persecut.,
in P. L., VII, 52), concerning the ways in which death overtook the
persecutors. It
says: "We should now give thanks to the Lord, Who has gathered together
the flock that was devastated by ravening wolves, Who has exterminated
the wild beasts which drove it from the pasture. Where is now the
swarming multitude of our enemies, where the hangmen of
Diocletian and
Maximian? God
has swept them from the earth; let us therefore celebrate His triumph
with joy; let us observe the victory of the Lord with songs of praise,
and honour Him with prayer day and night, so that the peace which we
have received again after ten years of misery may be preserved to us."
The imprisoned
Christians were released from the prisons and mines, and were
received by their brethren in the Faith with acclamations of joy; the
churches were again filled, and those who had fallen away sought
forgiveness.
For a time it seemed as if merely tolerance and
equality were to prevail. Constantine showed equal favour to both
religious. As pontifex maximus he watched over the heathen
worship and protected its rights. The one thing he did was to suppress
divination and magic; this the heathen emperors had also at times sought
to do. Thus, in 320, the emperor forbade the diviners or haruspices to
enter a private house under pain of death. Whoever by entreaty or
promise of payment persuaded a haruspex to break this law, that man's
property should be confiscated and he himself should be burned to death.
Informers were to be rewarded. Whoever desired to practise heathen
usages must do so openly. He must go to the public altars and sacred
places, and there observe traditional forms of worship. "We do not
forbid", said the emperor, "the observance of the old usages in the
light of day." And in an ordinance of the same year, intended for the
Roman city prefects, Constantine directed that if lightning struck an
imperial palace, or a public building, the haruspices were to seek out
according to ancient custom what the sign might signify, and their
interpretation was to be written down and reported to the emperor. It
was also permitted to private individuals to make use of this old
custom, but in following this observance they must abstain from the
forbidden sacrificia domestica. A general prohibition of the
family sacrifice
cannot be deduced from this, although in 341 Constantine's son
Constantius refers to such an interdict by his father (Cod. Theod., XVI,
x, 2). A prohibition of this kind would have had the most severe and
far-reaching results, for most
sacrifices were
private ones. And how could it have been carried out while public
sacrifices were
still customary? In the dedication of Constantinople in 330 a ceremonial
half pagan, half
Christian was used. The chariot of the sun-god was set in the
market-place, and over its head was placed the Cross of Christ, while
the Kyrie Eleison was sung. Shortly before his death Constantine
confirmed the privileges of the priests of the ancient gods. Many other
actions of his have also the appearance of half-measures, as if he
himself had wavered and had always held in reality to some form of
syncretistic religion. Thus he commanded the heathen troops to make use
of a prayer in which any monotheist could join, and which ran thus: "We
acknowledge thee alone as god and king, we call upon thee as our helper.
From thee have we received the victory, by thee have we overcome the
foe. To thee we owe that good which we have received up to now, from
thee do we hope for it in the future. To thee we offer our entreaties
and implore thee that thou wilt preserve to us our emperor Constantine
and his god-fearing sons for many years uninjured and victorious." The
emperor went at least one step further when he withdrew his statue from
the pagan temples, forbade the repair of temples that had fallen into
decay, and suppressed offensive forms of worship. But these measures did
not go beyond the syncretistic tendency which Constantine had shown for
a long time. Yet he must have perceived more and more clearly that
syncretism was impossible.
In the same way religious freedom and tolerance could
not continue as a form of equality, the age was not ready for such a
conception. It is true that
Christian
writers defended religious liberty; thus
Tertullian said
that religion forbids religious compulsion (Non est religionis cogere
religionem quae sponte suscipi debet non vi.--"Ad Scapulam", near the
close); and Lactantius, moreover, declared: "In order to defend religion
man must be willing to die, but not to kill." Origen also took up the
cause of freedom. Most probably oppression and
persecution had
made men realize that to have one's way of thinking, one's conception of
the world and of life, dictated to him was a mischief-working
compulsion. In contrast to the smothering violence of the ancient State,
and to the power and custom of public opinion, the
Christians were
the defenders of freedom, but not of individual subjective freedom, nor
of freedom of conscience as understood today. And even if the Church had
recognized this form of freedom, the State could not have remained
tolerant. Without realizing the full import of his actions, Constantine
granted the Church one privilege after another. As early as 313 the
Church obtained immunity for its ecclesiastics, including freedom from
taxation and compulsory service, and from obligatory state offices--such
for example as the curial dignity, which was a heavy burden. The Church
further obtained the right to inherit property, and Constantine moreover
placed Sunday under the protection of the State. It is true that the
believers in
Mithras also observed Sunday as well as Christmas. Consequently
Constantine speaks not of the day of the Lord, but of the everlasting
day of the sun. According to
Eusebius, the
heathen also were obliged on this day to go out into the open country
and together raise their hands and repeat the prayer already mentioned,
a prayer without any marked
Christian
character (Vita Const., IV, xx). The emperor granted many privileges to
the Church for the reason that it took care of the poor and was active
in benevolence. Perhaps he showed his
Christian
tendencies most pronouncedly in removing the legal disabilities which,
since the time of Augustus, had rested on
celibacy,
leaving in existence only the leges decimarioe, and in
recognizing an extensive ecclesiastical jurisdiction. But it should not
be forgotten that the Jewish communities had also their own
jurisdiction, exemptions, and immunities, even if in a more limited
degree. A law of 318 denied the competence of civil courts if in a suit
an appeal was made to the court of a
Christian bishop.
Even after a suit had begun before the civil court, it would still be
permissible for one of the parties to transfer it to the bishop's court.
If both parties had been granted a legal hearing, the decision of the
bishop was to be binding. A law of 333 commanded the state officials to
enforce the decisions of the bishops, a bishop's testimony should be
considered sufficient by all judges and no witness was to be summoned
after a bishop had testified. These concessions were so far-reaching
that the Church itself felt the great increase of its jurisdiction as a
constraint. Later emperors limited this jurisdiction to cases of
voluntary submission by both parties to the episcopal court.
Constantine did much for children, slaves, and women,
those weaker members of society whom the old Roman law had treated
harshly. But in this he only continued what earlier emperors, under the
influence of Stoicism, had begun before him, and he left to his
successors the actual work of their emancipation. Thus some emperors who
reigned before Constantine had forbidden the exposure of children,
although without success, as exposed children or foundlings were readily
adopted, because they could be used for many purposes. The
Christians
especially exerted themselves to get possession of such foundlings, and
consequently Constantine issued no direct prohibition of exposure,
although the
Christians regarded exposure as equal to murder; he commanded,
instead, that foundlings should belong to the finder, and did not permit
the parents to claim the children they had exposed. Those who took such
children obtained a property right in them and could make quite an
extensive use of this; they were allowed to sell and enslave foundlings,
until Justinian prohibited such enslaving under any guise. Even in the
time of St. Chrysostom parents mutilated their children for the sake of
gain. When suffering from famine or debt, many parents could only obtain
relief by selling their children if they did not wish to sell
themselves. All later laws against such practices availed as little as
those against emasculation and pandering. St. Ambrose vividly depicts
the sad spectacle of children being sold by their fathers, under
pressure of creditors, or by the creditors themselves. All the many
forms of institutions for feeding and supporting children and the poor
were of little avail. Constantine himself established asylums for
foundlings; yet he recognized the right of parents to sell their
children, and only excepted older children. He ruled that children who
had been sold could be bought back in contradistinction to children who
had been exposed; but this ruling was of no avail if the children were
taken into a foreign country. Valentinian, therefore, prohibited the
traffic in human beings with foreign lands. The laws forbidding such
practices continually multiplied, but the greater part of the burden of
saving the children fell on the Church.
Constantine was the first to prohibit the abduction
of girls. The abductor and those who aided him by influencing the girl
were threatened with severe punishment. In harmony with the views of the
Church, Constantine rendered divorce more difficult, he made no changes
where the divorce was agreed to by both parties, but imposed severe
conditions when the demand for separation came from one side only. A man
could put away his wife for adultery, poisoning, and pandering, and
retain her dowry, but if he discarded her for any other cause, he was to
return the dowry and was forbidden to marry again. If, nevertheless, he
remarried, the discarded wife had the right to enter his house and take
everything which the new wife had brought him. Constantine increased the
severity of the earlier law forbidding the concubinage of a free woman
with a slave, and the Church did not regard this measure with disfavour.
On the other hand, his retention of the distinctions of rank in the
marriage law was clearly contrary to the views of the Church. The Church
rejected all class distinctions in marriage, and regarded informal
marriages (the so-called concubinatus) as true marriages, in so
far as they were lasting and monogamous. Constantine, however, increased
the difficulties of the concubinatus, and forbade senators and
the higher officials in the State and in the pagan priesthoods to
contract such unions with women of lower rank (feminoe humiles),
thus making it impossible for them to marry women belonging to the lower
classes, although his own mother was of inferior rank. But in other
respects the emperor showed his mother, Helena, the greatest deference.
Other concubinatus besides those mentioned were placed at a
disadvantage in regard to property, and the rights of inheritance of the
children and the concubines were restricted. Constantine, however,
encouraged the emancipation of slaves and enacted that manumission in
the church should have the same force as the public manumission before
State officials and by will (321). Neither the
Christian nor
the heathen emperors permitted slaves to seek their freedom without
authorization of law, the
Christian
rulers sought to ameliorate slavery by limiting the power of corporal
punishment; the master was allowed only to use a rod or to send a slave
to prison, and the owner was not liable to punishment even if the slave
died under these circumstances. But if death resulted from the use of
clubs, stones, weapons or instruments of torture, the person who caused
the death was to be treated as a murderer. As will be seen below,
Constantine was himself obliged to observe this law when he sought to
get rid of Licinianus. A criminal was no longer to be branded in the
face, but only on the feet, as the human face was fashioned in the
likeness of God.
When these laws are compared with the ordinances of
those earlier emperors who were of humane disposition, they do not go
far beyond the older regulations. In everything not referring to
religion Constantine followed in the footsteps of
Diocletian. In
spite of all unfortunate experiences, he adhered to the artificial
division of the empire, tried for a long time to avoid a breach with
Licinius, and divided the empire among his sons. On the other hand, the
imperial power was increased by receiving a religious consecration. The
Church tolerated the cult of the emperor under many forms. It was
permitted to speak of the divinity of the emperor, of the sacred palace,
the sacred chamber and of the altar of the emperor, without being
considered on this account an idolater. From this point of view
Constantine's religious change was relatively trifling; it consisted of
little more than the renunciation of a formality. For what his
predecessors had aimed to attain by the use of all their authority and
at the cost of incessant bloodshed, was in truth only the recognition of
their own divinity; Constantine gained this end, though he renounced the
offering of
sacrifices to himself. Some bishops, blinded by the splendour of the
court, even went so far as to laud the emperor as an
angel of God,
as a sacred being, and to prophesy that he would, like the
Son of God,
reign in heaven. It has consequently been asserted that Constantine
favoured
Christianity merely from political motives, and he has been regarded
as an enlightened despot who made use of religion only to advance his
policy. He certainly cannot be acquitted of grasping ambition. Where the
policy of the State required, he could be cruel. Even after his
conversion he caused the execution of his brother-in-law Licinius, and
of the latter's son, as well as of Crispus his own son by his first
marriage, and of his wife Fausta. He quarrelled with his colleague
Licinius about their religious policy, and in 323 defeated him in a
bloody battle; Licinius surrendered on the promise of personal safety;
notwithstanding this, half a year later he was strangled by order of
Constantine. During the joint reign Licinianus, the son of Licinius, and
Crispus, the son of Constantine, had been the two Caesars. Both were
gradually set aside; Crispus was executed on the charge of immorality
made against him by Constantine's second wife, Fausta. The charge was
false, as Constantine learned from his mother, Helena, after the deed
was done. In punishment Fausta was suffocated in a superheated bath. The
young Licinianus was flogged to death. Because Licinianus was not the
son of his sister, but of a slave-woman, Constantine treated him as a
slave. In this way Constantine evaded his own law regarding the
mutilation of slaves After reading these cruelties it is hard to believe
that the same emperor could at times have mild and tender impulses; but
human nature is full of contradictions.
Constantine was liberal to prodigality, was generous
in almsgiving, and adorned the
Christian
churches magnificently. He paid more attention to literature and art
than we might expect from an emperor of this period, although this was
partly due to vanity, as is proved by his appreciation of the dedication
of literary works to him. It is likely that he practiced the fine arts
himself, and he frequently preached to those around him. No doubt he was
endowed with a strong religious sense, was sincerely pious, and
delighted to be represented in an attitude of prayer, with his eyes
raised to heaven. In his palace he had a chapel to which he was fond of
retiring, and where he read the Bible and prayed. "Every day",
Eusebius tells
us, "at a fixed hour he shut himself up in the most secluded part of the
palace, as if to assist at the Sacred Mysteries, and there commune with
God alone
ardently beseeching Him, on bended knees, for his necessities". As a
catechumen he was not permitted to assist at the sacred Eucharistic
mysteries. He remained a catechumen to the end of his life, but not
because he lacked conviction nor because, owing to his passionate
disposition, he desired to lead a pagan life. He obeyed as strictly as
possible the precepts of
Christianity,
observing especially the virtue of chastity, which his parents had
impressed upon him; he respected
celibacy, freed
it from legal disadvantages, sought to elevate morality, and punished
with great severity the offenses against morals which the pagan worship
bad encouraged. He brought up his children as
Christians.
Thus his life became more and more
Christian, and
thus gradually turned away from the feeble syncretism which at times he
seemed to favour. The
God of the
Christians was
indeed a jealous
God who tolerated no other gods beside him. The Church could never
acknowledge that she stood on the same plane with other religious
bodies, she conquered for herself one domain after another.
Constantine himself preferred the company of
Christian bishops
to that of pagan priests. The emperor frequently invited the bishops to
court, gave them the use of the imperial postal service, invited them to
his table, called them his brothers, and when they had suffered for the
Faith, kissed their scars. While he chose bishops for his counsellors,
they, on the other hand, often requested his intervention-- e. g.
shortly after 313, in the Donatist dispute. For many years he worried
himself with the
Arian trouble, and in this, it may be said, he went beyond the
limits of the allowable, for example, when he dictated whom
Athanasius
should admit to the Church and whom he was to exclude. Still he avoided
any direct interference with dogma, and only sought to carry out what
the proper authorities--the synods--decided. When he appeared at an
oecumenical council, it was not so much to influence the deliberation
and the decision as to show his strong interest and to impress the
heathen. He banished bishops only to avoid strife and discord, that is,
for reasons of state. He opposed
Athanasius
because he was led to believe that
Athanasius
desired to detain the corn-ships which were intended for Constantinople;
Constantine's alarm can be understood when we bear in mind how powerful
the patriarchs eventually became. When at last he felt the approach of
death he received
baptism, declaring to the bishops who had assembled around him that,
after the example of Christ, he had desired to receive the saving seal
in the Jordan, but that
God had
ordained otherwise, and he would no longer delay
baptism. Laying
aside the purple, the emperor, in the white robe of a neophyte,
peacefully and almost joyfully awaited the end.
Of Constantine's sons the eldest, Constantine II,
showed decided leanings to heathenism, and his coins bear many pagan
emblems; the second and favourite son, Constantius, was a more
pronounced
Christian, but it was
Arian Christianity
to which he adhered. Constantius was an unwavering opponent of paganism;
he closed all the temples and forbade
sacrifices
under pain of death. His maxim was: "Cesset superstitio; sacrificiorum
aboleatur insania" (Let superstition cease; let the folly of
sacrifices be
abolished). Their successors had recourse to
religious
persecution against heretics and pagans. Their laws (Cod. Theod.,
XVI, v) had an unfavourable influence on the
Middle Ages and
were the basis of the much-abused Inquisition. (See PERSECUTIONS;
CONSTANTINOPLE; ROMAN EMPIRE.)
Culled from
CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA
