Baus, Karl. From the Apostolic Community to Constantine // History of the Church. Ed.H.Jedin, J.Dolan. Vol. I.

Content

SECTION TWO

The Last Attack of Paganism and the Final Victory of the Church

CHAPTER 28

The Intellectual Struggle against Christianity at the End of the Third Century

WHEN Emperor Gallienus (260-8), at the beginning of his reign, put an end to the persecution ordered by his father Valerian and adopted a series of measures favourable to the Christians, some of these, like Bishop Dionysius of Alexandria, indulged in extravagant hopes, that a new era was dawning for Christianity. Gallienus' rescript was, in fact, followed by a period of peace lasting about forty years during which the Christians did not suffer any centrally organized persecution. They were able in relative freedom to pursue and consolidate the internal and external development of their society into the "great Church" of early Christian times. Eusebius paid tribute to the years before the outbreak of the Diocletian persecution as a time of the most extensive toleration of Christianity and of the public expressions of its life, and emphasized three freedoms particularly which the Christian religion was at that time permitted to enjoy: freedom of belief, which allowed the Christians of all social classes to profess their faith publicly; freedom of worship, which allowed unrestricted access to Christian church services and made it possible everywhere to build great churches; and freedom of preaching to all, unhampered by anyone. As well as this, there was the markedly benevolent attitude of the civil authorities, who treated the leaders of the Christian communities with particular respect.

Seeing that such a phase of tolerance was followed by the Diocletian persecution, which brought the most violent wave of oppression Christianity had yet experienced, the question must be put whether many Christians did not overlook certain signs of the times and underestimate happenings which pointed to a development less favourable to Christianity and which make the turn of events under Diocletian intelligible.

In the first place, the situation of the Christians, even under the emperors since Gallienus, was in no way guaranteed by law. It was

THE LAST ATTACK OF PAGANISM

self-deception when some Christians thought that the tolerant attitude of individual emperors, and a consequently tolerant attitude of some high officials, had also brought about a definitive change in the mentality of the whole non-Christian population of the empire and already ensured final agreement with the pagan civil power. It was still possible for the hostile sentiment of an official to strike an individual Christian with extreme severity, for no law defended the Christian against such measures. The account of the martyrdom of the distinguished Marinus of Caesarea in Palestine, which Eusebius gives from his own certain knowledge, shows that even "when the Church was everywhere at peace" a Christian could still be brought before the court on mere denunciation and suffer execution, simply on account of his loyalty to his faith.3 How quickly the change of mind of an emperor could lead to a completely altered situation can be seen, too, from the fact, guaranteed by Eusebius and Lactantius, that even Emperor Aurelian (270-5) allowed himself to be won over against the Christians "by certain advisers" and was preparing an edict of persecution, the application of which was prevented only by his sudden death.4 This perpetual legal uncertainty shows that the period of toleration introduced by Gallienus was very far from a transformation of the situation as a whole such as was realized under Constantine.

It was inevitable that particularly serious consequences would in the long run flow from a new wave of intellectual intolerance towards Christianity which emerged among the educated, from Aurelian's reign onwards, and which found its exponent in the neo-Platonist Porphyry. In Phoenicia, where he was born near Tyre, about 223, Porphyry had already come into contact with Christianity, though it cannot be proved that he once believed and later abandoned it, as early assertion would have it.5 According to his own statement, he met Origen in his youth,6 and was able to see for himself the rapid growth in adherents to the Christian religion in the period of peace after 260. He owed his first philosophical and theological formation to Longinus in Athens; in 263, when he was thirty, he came to Rome, where he became the pupil, friend, and intellectual heir of Plotinus whose discourses he published in the Enneads. Plotinus himself, of course, did not engage in direct controversy with Christianity but in the second Ennead there are, nevertheless, some references which would seem to exclude a favourable estimate of it. When he reproached there his opponents, "the Gnostics", with despising the created world and with maintaining that, for them, there was a new

» Ibid. 7, 15, 1-5.

4 Ibid. 7, 30, 20-21; Lactantius, De port. pers. 6.
5
6 Socrates HE, 3, 23, 37; cf. also Augustine, De civ. dei, 10, 28.
7
8 Euseb. HE 6, 19, 5.
9
IHt INTELLECTUAL STRUGGLE AGAINST CHRISTIANITY

earth to which they would come after death, and when he pillories their custom of "calling the worst of men their brothers," it is impossible to avoid the impression that it was the Christians of whom he was speaking.

With Porphyry, a negative attitude to Christianity is perceptible, even in his early writings. In his Philosophy of the Oracles, he has a Christian woman described, in a saying of Apollo, as unteachable and impossible to convert; she is said to grieve for a dead God who, however, was condemned to death by just judges; and the Jews are placed on a higher religious level than the Christians. The fifteen books Against the Christians, on which Porphry worked from about the year 268, are indubitably the most important contribution to the ambitious attempt of neo-Platonism to renew Greek wisdom and religious sentiment, and to hold the educated classes especially to them, in face of the increasingly successful advance of Christianity. The task that he had in this way set himself demanded for its successful accomplishment far more than Celsus' project a hundred years before. Christianity had developed since that time literary productions that commanded the respect even of an educated pagan. A comprehensive discussion of the Bible was now particularly necessary, for through Origen's work, the Scriptures had achieved wide- ranging influence. To his plan for a comprehensive refutation of Christianity, Porphyry brought, as can be seen from the fragments which survive, genuine knowledge of the Christian Scriptures, a trained critical and philological mind, and a considerable gift of exposition. In quite a different way to the 'AXTJOTJC; Xoyo? of Celsus, Porphyry's work immediately called forth Christian defences against his design. Probably even in his lifetime the reply of Methodius of Olympus was published; Jerome mentions it with respect; then Eusebius of Caesarea brought out a voluminous refutation in twenty-five books; both, however, in the opinion of Jerome and Philostorgius, were excelled by the performance of Apollinaris of Laodicea in thirty books. The same fate has overtaken attacker and defenders, for all these works have completely perished. Constantine ordered, even before the Council of Nicaea, the destruction of the "godless writings" of Porphyry, "the enemy of true piety", the first example of the proscription of a written work hostile to Christianity by the civil power; Emperor Theodosius II in 448 again ordered the burning of all Porphyry's writings. Clearly, however, a pagan had made a selection from Porphyry at the beginning of the fourth century, summarizing his chief objections to Christianity. Macarios Magnes, perhaps Bishop of Magnesia, argued against this even as late as 400 in his Apocriticus and so preserved a relatively large number of excerpts from Porphyry.15

Even though Porphyry did not subject the figure of Christ to such a harsh judgment as the evangelists, the apostles, and Christians in general, he nevertheless finds in it many features which in his estimation are incompatible with a truly religious and heroic personality. In the first place, Christ does not show himself to possess the divine power which he claims for himself; he refuses out of fear, to throw himself from the pinnacle of the Temple; he is not master of the demons; he fails lamentably before the high priests and Pilate; and his whole Passion is unworthy of a divine being. In comparison with him, the wonderworker Apollonius of Tyana of the first century, is a far more impressive figure.14 After his resurrection, Christ should have appeared, not to simple unknown women, but to Pilate, to Herod, in fact to the Roman Senate; he should have given his ascension a much more grandiose setting; this would have spared his followers their harsh persecutions, for in face of such demonstrations of divine power, all doubt of his mission would have been silenced.15 The evangelists are severely rejected for their presentation of Jesus' deeds and words, which they themselves invented and did not experience.16 Their accounts are full of contradictions, inexactitudes, and absurdities and merit no belief.17 Porphyry felt the profoundest antipathy for the leading figures of the early Church, Peter and Paul; Peter, he considered was in no way fitted to the high office to which he was called — Porphyry does not in the slightest contest this call —, and his choice was one of Christ's worst mistakes.18 Paul seems to him a repulsive character; double-tongued, mendacious, perpetually contradicting himself and perpetually correcting himself, he preaches in his eschatology a doctrine of the end of the world, the Last Judgment, and the resurrection of the dead, which provoked the harshest contradiction of the neo-Platonist.19 The opposition of Peter and Paul in the question of the obligation of the Mosaic Lav/ for Jewish and pagan Christians did not escape Porphyry; but the behaviour of both showed them up he asserts, as pitiable figures.20

The central doctrines of the Christian faith and the essential features of Christian worship are also decisively rejected. Christ's doctrine demands

" For the proof of these literary links, cf. especially A. Harnack, TU 37/4 (Leipzig 1911). Quotations will here be given from the Fragments of Porphyry in Harnadi's edition, AAB 1916, I.

14 Fragm. 48, 49, 62, 63.
15
16 Fragm. 64, 65. 18 Fragm. 15. 17 Fragm. 9-17.
17
18 Fragm. 23-26.» Fragm. 27-34. " Fragm. 21, 22.

irrational faith, too large a demand for thinkers and philosophically trained persons. Christian monotheism really only thinly disguised polytheism, for the angels also appear as divine beings. The doctrine of the Incarnation fills every Greek with abhorrence, and so does the Christian Eucharist, which Porphyry regards as a rite such as is not found even among the most savage tribes; for him the words of Christ at John 6:54, "Except you eat the flesh of the Son of Man ..." are bestial, and these words alone place St John's Gospel far below the work of the Synoptics. Christian baptism, which is supposed by one washing to expunge all faults, even the worst, of adults, can only be considered an immoral institution inciting to new vices and wickedness. Christian esteem for the poor and sick meets with absolute incomprehension and for the ideal of Christian virginity Porphyry has nothing but mockery. The characteristic note and tone of Porphyry's controversy with Christianity, is bitter sarcasm; here is no open mind, striving for objective understanding of an alien religious movement; Porphyry is very definitely taking sides in a struggle between the civilization of antiquity and Christianity, which had entered its decisive phase. The aim of the Christians he describes as a "barbarous venture"28 and he clearly approves punitive measures by the civil authorities when he says, "what penalties could be too severe to impose on men who abandon the laws of their country?"27 And here, the fate of the empire is far from being as much in the forefront of Porphyry's mind, as all that the intellectual and religious tradition of Hellenism meant to him. He was irritated and embittered that Christianity had undertaken a threatening and surprisingly successful attack on it.

Among the Christians, Porphyry's work was certainly felt to be important, or it would not have provoked the rapid and effective reaction represented by the writings that have been mentioned above. By a central item of his attack, Porphyry even exercised very considerable indirect influence on a definite sector of early Christian literature. His assertion that the gospels are unworthy of belief on account of their numerous patent contradictions, led Christian writers to give this problem special attention and to suggest solutions in the literature of Quaestiones et responsiones, beginning with the Quaestiones evangelicae of Eusebius of Caesarea and leading, by way of the De consensu evangelistarum of Augustine, down to Hesychius of Jerusalem's collection of sixty-one such questions.28 It is strange that Porphyry, whose hostility to Christianity

THE LAST ATTACK OF PAGANISM

was universally known,29 was intensively studied by Latin theologians of later antiquity. Augustine especially could not conceal a certain sympathy for him, a consequence of the positive influence neo-Platonism had had on his own religious course; and he liked to think that Plato and Porphyry "would probably both have become Christians" if they had met and had been able to combine their views about the destiny of the soul.30

Porphyry's book against Christians had serious consequences in pagan upper-class circles. To many, a religion could not but appear unacceptable which so sinned against the Logos, against clarity and against truth as, according to his account, the doctrine and practice of the Christians did. Above all, his work made the opposition between neo-Platonism and Christianity unbridgeable. The claim of the latter to exclusive possession of truth, was felt to be a denial of all that the World Logos had until then made known to mankind.31 If a strong civil power desired once again to take violent measures against the followers of the Christian faith, it would encounter considerable sympathy among the educated, and a favourable climate prepared by Porphyry.

The possibility of literary polemic against Christians being linked with the will to actual persecution by the State was realized in the person of Sossianus Hierocles who as a high civil servant (he was successively Praeses of the provinces of Arabia Libanensis and Bithynia, then Prefect of Egypt32) took up his pen and attacked Christianity in two works which he entitled Aoyoi <piXaXY)0ei<;, with obvious reference to the work of Celsus.33 He played an essential part in preparing the Diocletian persecution;34 although it cannot be determined whether or not the appearance of his two treatises preceded its outbreak. It is true that Hierocles ostensibly presented himself as a benevolent adviser, for, as Lactantius emphasizes,35 he spoke "to the Christians", not against them. That this attitude was not honest, is clear not only from the shameless treatment to which he permitted Christian virgins to be subjected as Prefect of Egypt,39 but also by the content of his polemical writings as reported by Lactantius. Hierocles took his material largely from Porphyry's work, that is evident from the most important arguments that he deploys against the Christian religion: the Holy Scriptures of the Christians are composed of lies and

inc. miLLLLUlUAL U 1 KUljlJtt VFIIM") 1 1J1IN1 1 1

contradiction; the apostles generally and Peter and Paul in particular, were uneducated, ignorant men, who spread lies everywhere; Christ was the head of a robber band of nine hundred men and his alleged miracles were far surpassed by those of Apollonius of Tyana; finally, non- Christians, too, believed in a highest God, the creator and sustainer of the world.37 Hierocles' only contribution here from his own resources is his description of Christ as the leader of a robber band and the great prominence given to Apollonius of Tyana, that wandering philosopher with the aureole of legend of the first century, whose life had been written by Philostratus at the request of the emperor's mother Julia Domna about the year 220.38 Perhaps in this biography Philostratus himself was trying to present his age with a religious figure who could compare favourably with Christ.39 That, in any case, was the sense in which the miraculous power of Apollonius was exploited by Porphyry, so that Eusebius of Caesarea in his reply to Hierocles made the comparison between Apollonius and Christ the central point of the refutation. Eusebius denied any originality or independence to Hierocles' work, because he thought he had based himself on Celsus.40 Clearly, therefore, Eusebius had not yet in his possession a copy of Porphyry's work which was Hierocles' real source, and to which Eusebius himself later composed a reply.

Lactantius knew of another philosopher, teaching in his time inBithynia, who at the beginning of the Diocletian persecution, published a work called Three Books against the Christian Religion and Name, but it is no longer possible to establish who he was. According to Lactantius' brief indication of its contents, the opportunist author, in an unctuous style, wanted to lead back to the cult of the gods those who had strayed, and prevent them from being exploited, in their simplicity, by unscrupulous men. Consequently, he praised the emperors who had taken the necessary measures to suppress a godless superstition, only worthy of old women; he had no knowledge of the nature of the Christian religion.41 Though Lactantius seems to attribute no great importance to the work of this unknown philosopher, and does not appear to regard him as any special danger to Christianity, nevertheless he was a link in the chain of general animosity against Christianity, especially among the educated, which characterized the atmosphere of the pagan side on the eve of the persecution.

As a last source of anti-Christian polemic and propaganda, the pagan priesthood must be mentioned; it observed with understandable disquiet the powerful rise of the Christian movement, and inevitably felt itself threatened in its prestige and privileges. Its influence on the renewed friction is clear in the report of Lactantius, which is confirmed by Eusebius, that Diocletian, who still shrank from violent persecution, sent an augur to question the oracle of Apollo of Miletus; only the utterance of this oracle, which was unfavourable to the Christian religion brought about, he alleges, the decision. The guiding hand of the pagan priesthood is also easy to perceive in an event that perhaps occurred even earlier. Once when Diocletian wanted to proceed with the taking of the auguries, the priests explained to him that they remained without effect because the presence of "profane men" nullified them. That was a reference to the Christians at court, and Lactantius affirms that Diocletian thereupon prescribed a sacrifice to the gods for all at court and in the army; those who refused were to be flogged, or expelled from the army, as the case might be. It can be inferred that this method of the priesthood was not limited to isolated cases but was employed on a wide scale, from the reference in Arnobius the Elder with which he opens his work Ad Nationes: the atrocities already attributed earlier to the Christians would be revived and would be exploited by augurs, soothsayers, oracle-mongers and people of that kind, who saw their clientele evaporating.44

The features described indicate that, about 270, a wave of anti-Christian polemic and propaganda set in which tried in the first place to win over the educated classes, but later also influenced wider circles. This must be counted as an essential factor in any understanding of why, at the beginning of the fourth century, there could still have been such a violent, yet for paganism fundamentally hopeless, trial of strength between the power of the Roman State and the Christian religion.

CHAPTER 29

Outbreak and Course of the Diocletian Persecution down to Galerius'

Edict of Toleration, 311

THE growing hostility to Christianity that has just been described cannot itself explain Diocletian's relatively sudden transition from liberally exercised toleration to the harshest of persecutions. The emperor practised toleration for years, quite deliberately, for he could not have been unaware of the Christian religion's growing successes and its ceaselessly increasing power of attraction. From the imperial palace in Nicomedia he could see an obviously representative Christian place of worship. The Christian faith of high civil servants who every day were at their work around him, could no more be unknown to him than that of numerous court officials or the reported, and very likely, inclination of his wife Prisca and his daughter Valeria towards the Christian religion. That tolerance of the emperor led historians of his own and of modern times largely to absolve him from responsibility for the outbreak of the persecution. Lactantius sees in the Caesar Galerius the driving force which practically wrung from the vacillating Diocletian the order to proceed against the Christians. In this he certainly contradicts himself, for in another passage as we have seen, he names Hierocles as the "originator and adviser" in preparing the persecution. In fact, a number of causes and influences were operative which profoundly influenced Diocletian's decision to use measures of State compulsion, but he made the decision with full freedom and personal responsibility. The central motive for his action can most probably be found in a conviction that Christianity stood in the way of the work of reconstruction which he had so successfully undertaken in the most various spheres of life of the Roman Empire. After securing the frontiers, strengthening the civil government and eliminating financial difficulties at home, he now turned to the burning religious problem, the solution of which he envisaged solely in terms of a restoration of the old Roman religion. He referred to this as early as 295, in his edict concerning marriage; and two years later, in his decree against the Manichees, he described them as worthless men "who set up new and scandalous sects against the older religions".® His collaborators and advisers, such as Galerius and Hierocles, propounded to him a solution which they thought correct, and perhaps confirmed him in the line in which he, too, saw the solution. The renewed mood of hostility to Christianity in the educated upper classes and to some degree in the common people, too, seemed to him to recommend this course. But he undertook it on his own responsibility.

It is understandable that Diocletian began the fight against Christianity by a purge of the army, for the reliability of the army was the highest principle of Roman State power. But it was also suggested by some very recent disturbing events. In 295 in Numidia the Christian Maximilian had vehemently refused to be recruited, and in Mauretania three years later the Christian centurion Marcellus refused to continue in military service when on the anniversary of the assumption of the titles of Jovius and Herculius by the two emperors, he would not break the vow which bound him to Christ. Further incidents were caused by two veterans, Tipasius and Julius, in 298 and 302 when, on the occasion of a special gift, they refused the coins on which the emperors were represented as sons of the gods. Fabius, an official in the civil administration and vexillifer of the governor of Mauretania, refused to carry "pictures of dead men", that is to say, the standard with the device of the divinized emperors. In all these cases the conflict had a religious foundation; the Christians in question were not opposed to military service as such; they were refusing to take part in an act of pagan worship, which is what the various forms of honour paid to the emperors signified for them, after the rulers had proclaimed themselves sons of Jupiter and Hercules. A decree issued by Diocletian as early as 300 aimed at removing such unreliable elements from the army; it laid down that all soldiers had to sacrifice to the gods or leave the army.' The failure of the augury already mentioned, and the oracle given when the Milesian Apollo was consulted, then led him, after a consultation with the Senate, to publish the general edict of February 303. This ordered in the name of the four emperors, the destruction of all Christian places of worship, the surrender and burning of all their sacred books, and it forbade all their assemblies for divine worship. Extremely serious, too, was the degradation of the Christians which was laid down by the edict; if they were in the imperial administration, they were enslaved; notabilities among them lost the privileges of their rank, and their offices, and all Christians in the empire were declared incapable of performing legally valid acts. In Nicomedia a beginning was made by demolishing the church opposite the palace; a Christian who, in spontaneous indignation, tore down the edict that had been nailed up, was immediately executed. Two outbreaks of fire in the imperial palace whose authors could not be discovered, even by the harshest interrogation, made the situation worse; the Christians in the court administration were subjected to severe tortures, then burnt or drowned; in particular, distinguished Christians were compelled to offer sacrifice, among them Diocletian's own wife and daughter.12 And now the real impact of the persecution was aimed against the clergy; in the town where Diocletian resided, Bishop Anthimus was executed, and elsewhere, too, many clerics suffered imprisonment or death,13 presumably because they did not comply with a provision of the edict requiring them to hand over the sacred books. That was certainly the reason for the decapitation of Bishop Felix of Thibica in North Africa,14 and for the execution of a number of laity from Numidia. It is true that there were those among the clergy who failed in this, too, especially in North Africa and Rome, and they later were stigmatized as traditores. The sources do not provide a survey of the outcome of the first edict in all parts of the empire. Being a decree of the supreme emperor, the edict was of course addressed to the three other members of the tetrarchy and they were expected to put it into effect. This did happen in all parts of the empire, but with differences of intensity. In the west, Emperor Maximian showed himself particularly compliant, whilst his Caesar Constantius carried out the decree very negligently in Gaul and Britain, for though he destroyed buildings he did not imprison or put to death.

Diocletian was soon driven further on the course he had begun. In Syria and in the Melitene region disturbances broke out which were attributed to the persecution.18 These occasioned a second edict which robbed the Christian communities of their pastors, and so struck the ecclesiastical organization at a vital spot; the prisons everywhere filled with "bishops, priests, deacons, lectors, and exorcists", so that no room was left for common criminals.18 A third edict contained more detailed instructions for proceedings against the clergy; anyone who carried out the pagan sacrifices went free; anyone who refused was tortured and put to death. The fourth and last edict, early in 304, completed the imperial legal measures against Christians by imposing sacrifice to the gods on all of them without exception. In the previous autumn, Diocletian had celebrated in Rome the twentieth anniversary of his rule, the vicennalia, and had given great prominence in this to faith in the Roman religion which had been revived by him. The Romans in fact were less interested in the display of serious piety, than in the games and gifts that the vicennalia celebrations brought with them. On his return journey from Rome to Nicomedia the emperor, who was disappointed with the inhabitants of the ancient imperial capital, contracted a serious illness which weighed heavily on his mind and gave rise to profound anxiety in the imperial palace. Whether the fourth edict was the result of his depression, or of the disappointing outcome of previous measures, can scarcely be determined. Recourse was now had to the method of Emperor Decius, and the persecution was extended to a part of the population that numbered six to seven millions, bringing down unspeakable suffering on them by the most brutal methods of oppression; at the same time admitting by that very fact that success could now only be looked for from such desperate expedients. The intensity of the persecution did not alter when on the common abdication of the two Augusti, Diocletian and Maximian, there began on the first of May 305, the second tetrarchy which placed Constantius Chlorus in the West and Galerius in the eastern part of the empire in the highest rank and conferred the title of Caesar on Severus and Maximinus Daia, thus passing over young Constantine, son of Constantius, contrary to what the army had anticipated. Since Constantius as Augustus held firm to his previous tolerance, and as his Caesar, Severus, adopted this attitude too, it was only during the two-year rule of Maximian and in the territory under his jurisdiction that the edicts of persecution were systematically carried out. The later changes in the head of the government in the West did not cut short the toleration practised there; both Constantine, who succeeded his father in 306, as well as Maxentius who, in the same year, ousted Severus from power, were averse to any persecution of the Christians though from different motives. The eastern part of the Empire, in contrast, was forced to bear the full burden from the first edict of the year 303 until Galerius' decree of toleration in 311; an exception was Pannonia where, after 308, Licinius ruled as Augustus, and out of tactical considerations, desisted from molesting his Christian subjects.

The two chief witnesses on the Diocletian persecution, Eusebius and Lactantius, are unfortunately completely silent about the course and scope of Maximian's proceedings in the West. Consequently, definite details about the names of martyrs and their home provinces are often difficult to ascertain with certainty, though here and there the history of the cult of the martyrs provides some evidence for the existence of individual martyrs in this period. Even if the large number of alleged Roman martyrs

HON

mentioned in some not very trustworthy accounts, without indication of the time of their martyrdom, cannot be ascribed in globo to the Diocletian persecution, some of them certainly fell victims to it; the history of their cult shows them to have been historical persons. So there is a certain probability that St Agnes, who has been very much transfigured by legend, was martyred at this time23 and so were Sebastian, Felix and Adauctus, Peter and Marcellinus;24 perhaps the most important epigram of Pope Damasus refers to the latter.25 When Eusebius says of Pope Marcellinus (296-304), "persecution carried him off", this phrase certainly strongly suggests death by persecution,26 yet the lack of his name in the oldest list of martyrs and bishops raises difficulties. There is a fragmentary but authentic account of the interrogation and execution of the Sicilian martyr Euplius of Catania.27 The report of Bishop Eucherius of Lyons (f about 450) regarding the martyrdom of an entirely Christian legion under its commander Mauritius in Agaunum (Switzerland) about 286, is legendary; in the first place, no persecution of Christians can be shown to have taken place in the early part of the reign of Maximian and Diocletian; secondly, there scarcely existed at that time in Roman army a self-contained Christian legion like the Theban; and, finally, all other sources are completely silent about such a spectacular occurrence.28 The number of victims was not small in the North African provinces, and Spain, too, had a series of martyrs29 among whom greatest honour fell to deacon Vincentius of Saragossa; for some names, however, an absolutely certain ascription to the years 303 to 305 is not possible.30

In the Balkans, and in the eastern provinces, the persecution raged for eight years, though with occasional local interruptions. There, Galerius and after 305 his Caesar, Maximinus Daia, supplied the impetus; they

«ActaSS Ian. II 350ff.; E. Schafer, "Agnes" in RAC I, 184.

24 J. Moreau, La persecution du christianisme dans l'empire romain (Paris 1956), 120 ff.
25
26 In Ihm, Damasi epigr. 29; Delehaye OC 280 ff.
27
20 Euseb. HE 7, 32, 1; cf. J. Zeiller in Fliehe-Martin, 466 n. 6.

27 Critical text in P. Franchi de' Cavalieri, Note agiografiche VII (Rome 1928), 1-46; on this F. Corsaro, "Studi sui documenti agiografici intorno al martirio di S. Euplo" in Orpheus 4 (London 1957), 33-62; published separately (Catania 1957).
28
29 Cf. D. van Berchem, Le martyre de la legion thebaine (Basle 1956); G. Curti, "La passio Acaunensium martyrum di Eucherio di Leone" in Convivium Dominicum (Catania 1959), 297-327; L. Dupraz, Les passions de s. Maurice d'Agaune (Fribourg 1961); H. Buttner, "Zur Diskussion uber das Martyrium der Thebaischen Legion" in ZSKG 55 (1961), 265-74. It is not impossible that the cult of a Maurice (of Apamea perhaps) was transferred from the East by Bishop Theodore of Agaunum.
30
31 J. Zeiller in Fliche-Martin II, 467 lists the best-known names. On Vincent cf. M. Simonetti, "Una redazione poco conosciuta della passione di s. Vincenzo" in RivAC 32 (1956), 219-41.
32
33 Most of them are attested for the first time in Hymns 3-5 of Prudentius, Periste- phanon.
34
were also responsible for the cruel ingenuity of the methods of persecution. For Palestine and Phoenicia, some of Eusebius' reports are eye-witness accounts and he also collected reliable information about the martyrdoms in Egypt. There are credible accounts of some of the Ulyrian martyrs, for instance Bishop Irenaeus of Sirmium and the three women of Salonica, Agape, Chione, and Irene.81 In the Asia Minor provinces of Cappadocia and Pontus, the persecuted Christians were faced with particularly inventive torturers who ironically described putting out the right eye or maiming the left leg with red-hot iron as humane treatment and who tried to outdo one another in discovering new brutalities. When it was found that all the inhabitants of a little town in Phrygia were Christians, they burnt it down with everybody in it. Eusebius includes the report of the martyr-bishop Phileas of Thmuis about the exquisite tortures inflicted in Egypt which exploited all the technical possibilities of those days; the doubts that arise when reading this letter, as to whether such inhumanities were even possible, can unfortunately be removed by recalling similar events in the very recent past.

Eusebius gives us no actual information about the number of victims, except in Palestine. From his special account of this area, it seems that the number was less than a hundred. Elsewhere, however, the figure was considerably higher, certainly in Egypt, for example, where Eusebius, who clearly was closely acquainted with events there, states that ten, twenty, or sometimes even sixty or a hundred Christians were executed on a single day. Applied to the eastern provinces, with their relative density of Christian population, this reckoning gives a total of several thousand dead. In addition there were the numerous confessors of the faith who were tortured at this time and dispatched to forced work in the mines.38 Eusebius mentions by name only the most distinguished victims, especially among the clergy; for example, he notes in addition to those already listed: the priest Lucian of Antioch, the founder of the school of theology there; the bishops of Tyre, Sidon, and Emesa in Phoenicia; among the prominent Palestinian martyrs are Bishop Sylvanus of Gaza and the priest Pamphilus, "the great ornament of the church of Caesarea"; at the head of the Egyptian martyrs he placed Bishop Peter of Alexandria, besides whom he also mentions by name six other bishops and three priests of the Alexandrian community.37 It is striking that Eusebius is silent about

«rm VLV^LZl 1AJN I'JKKSJiCUTION

those who failed in the persecution; both among clergy and laity there were those who did, as is shown by the re-emergence in Egypt of the problem of how to treat the lapsi.
Although the manner of proceeding against the Christians, particularly as Maximinus Daia practised it, was strongly disapproved of by many pagans38, it was only in 308 that there was a momentary lull39 which may have been connected with Maximinus Daia's annoyance at Licinius' elevation to the position of Augustus. Some of the Christians condemned to forced labour in the mines were set free, or they were granted some relief. Among the Christians, people were already beginning to breathe again when Maximinus Daia introduced a new wave of oppression with a decree ordering the rebuilding of the ruined pagan temples and announced new detailed ordinances for the conduct of sacrifices to the gods.40 The real turning-point came with the serious illness of the Augustus Galerius, which seemed to the Christians only intelligible as an intervention of divine providence. A beginning had already been made with plans for his vicennalia when the emperor fell ill in 310 and in the vicissitudes of his dangerously worsening condition he took to reflecting on the scope of the whole action against the Christians. The outcome was the edict of the year 311 ordering the cessation of the persecution throughout the empire. The text of the decree, which is reproduced by Lactantius and, in a Greek translation, by Eusebius in his Ecclesiastical History,41 still reveals the emotion that Galerius must have experienced when he realized that his policy of violence against the Christians, determined upon by him from the start and energetically put into effect, had been an error and a failure. The edict bears the names of the four rulers, but the tone is that of Galerius, in whose mind a new understanding was only with difficulty taking shape. It begins with the affirmation that the emperors had in their earlier measures only the good of the State in view and had been striving for a restoration of the old laws and Roman manner of life and had wanted to win the Christians, too, back to these. For the Christians had fallen away from the religion of their ancestors and in revolutionary upheaval had made their own laws for themselves. However, the edicts of persecution had not been able to bend the majority of Christians, many of them had had to lose their life and others had become confused. The outcome was religious anarchy in which neither the old gods received appropriate worship nor the God of the Christians himself received honour. In order to put an end to this state of affairs, the emperors grant pardon and permit "Christians to exist again and to hold their religious assemblies once more, providing that they do nothing disturbing to public order". Another document addressed to governors is promised, which will provide more detailed instructions for the accomplishment of the edict. The Christians are charged to pray to their God for the welfare of the emperor, the State and themselves.

Galerius' edict was a document of the greatest importance; by it the highest representative of the power of the Roman State rescinded a religious policy which had been in force for more than two hundred years. From now on, the Christians were relieved of the oppressive legal uncertainty of the past; for the first time an imperial edict expressly recognized them; their belief was no longer superstitio and religio illicita, but by an imperial juridical pronouncement of toleration, put on the same footing as other cults. That was more, and must have meant more, to the Christians than all their freedom, however welcome, in the so-called periods of peace which were devoid of any legal basis.

The two rulers in the West had no difficulties in proclaiming the edict in their dominions; it only gave legal foundation to a state of affairs that had already existed for some time. In the East, Maximinus did not in fact have the text of the edict published, but he gave his prefect of the guard, Sabinus, instructions to announce to subordinate authorities that no Christian was any longer to be molested or punished for the practice of his religion. They drew the immediate conclusion from this, at once liberated all Christians who were in custody and recalled those who had been condemned ad metalla. A monstrous psychological weight was lifted from the Christians of the eastern provinces and this intensified religious activity; the places of worship that still existed filled again, people flocked to divine worship; in the streets cheerful groups of exiles were seen returning home. Even those who had given way in the persecution, sought reconciliation with the Church and asked their brethren who had stood firm, for the help of their prayers and for readmission into their company. Even the pagans shared the Christians' joy and congratulated them on the unexpected turn of events. This toleration, legally guaranteed, rightly appeared to open to the Christians the gate to a brighter future.

CHAPTER 30

The Definitive Turning-Point under Constantine the Great

Reverse under Maximinus Daia

IN Galerius' mind the edict of toleration in 311 was intended to introduce a new state of affairs in religious matters. In his experience the God of the Christians had proved to be a real power which was to be recognized, together with its followers, and incorporated among the numerous religious beliefs of the empire so that the religious peace so attained might prove a blessing to the State and the tetrarchy ruling it. In this way the edict corresponds to the views of a pious polytheist and adherent of the Diocletian conception of the State such as Galerius was, and does not need to be made intelligible by other influences brought to bear on him. The view that the Caesar Licinius was the first to advocate the idea of toleration and was the intellectual originator of the change in the East because he wanted to ensure by it the favour of the Christians for his plans of conquest in the Orient,1 finds no support in the sources. Others have wanted to discover in Constantine the driving force which made Galerius, in his sickness, change his religious policy.2 But such an early and striking proof of sentiments favourable to Christianity in Constantine would certainly have found an echo in Eusebius and Lactantius; yet they are completely silent about it.

Galerius died a few days after the publication of the edict and Licinius guaranteed that toleration would be observed in his dominions, but the joy of the Christians over the freedom they had acquired was short-lived in the eastern provinces and in Egypt. Maximinus Daia who had scarcely concealed his inner resistance to the policy of toleration, even in the way he announced this, returned after a few months step by step to his earlier methods of oppressing the Christians. He began by forbidding the Christians to assemble in their cemeteries3 and tried to expel them from the larger towns. Recourse was had to other crude means, such as inspired petitions by pagans to the emperor requesting him to forbid Christians to stay in their towns. A leading role was played in this by the treasurer of the city of Antioch, Theotecnus, who also spread alleged oracles calling for the banishment of Christians from the Syrian capital and its surroundings.4 This device set a precedent, and petitions to the emperor

1 So H. Gregoire in Revue univ. Brux. 36 (1930-1), 259-61.

* For example, H. Lietzmann, Gescbichte der alien Kirche 3, 57, referring to E. Schwarz, Kaiser Konstantin und die christlicbe Kirche (Leipzig, 2nd ed. 1936), 58. s Euseb. HE 9, 2. 4 Ibid. 9, 2-3.

4Q5.

from all kinds of towns multiplied. Maximinus answered such addresses with rescripts of his own which were published throughout the province and most graciously conceded the requests. The towns felt most highly honoured by the imperial answers and had the petitions and rescripts recorded on tablets or pillars as a lasting memorial.0 One of the plaques with its inscription has been found in the little town of Arycanda in Lycia and bears an incomplete Latin text of the imperial rescript and the petition, in Greek, "of the people of the Lycians and the Pamphilians". The imperial propaganda against the Christians did not shrink from even meaner methods. In Damascus an imperial official forced women of bad repute, by threats of torture, to declare that formerly, as Christians, they had taken part in the debaucheries in which the Christians indulged in their places of worship. The text of this declaration was conveyed to the emperor and on his orders published in town and country. Another method of denigration consisted in fabricating documents attributed to Pilate which were "full of blasphemies of every kind against Christ"; they, too, at the wish of the ruler, were posted up in public and the teachers in schools had to use them instead of textbooks and make the children learn them by heart. With this harsh anti-Christian propaganda Maximinus combined energetic reorganization of the pagan cults; all the towns received priests and high-priests chosen from officials particularly attached to the State. All these measures of the emperor quickly recreated an atmosphere in which the officials thought themselves justified in taking active steps against the Christians. The punishment of banishment from the towns was once more imposed, even if it was not fully implemented; leading Christians were once more arrested, imprisoned and condemned to death; death by wild beasts and by beheading were once again used as methods of execution. Eusebius assigns to this phase of the persecution the martyrdom of bishops Sylvanus of Emesa and Petrus of Alexandria mentioned above, as well as the priest Lucian of Antioch.11 The situation which had become very serious again for the Christians was relieved, however, in a surprising way by a communication from the emperor at the end of 312, to his prefect Sabinus, of which Eusebius provides a translation.12 The same aim, it is true, is maintained in principle, that "of recalling the population of our provinces ... to the service of the gods"; the earlier measures of Diocletian and Maximian are

inc lUWNUNir-l'UIINT UNDER CONSTANTINE

represented as just. Maximinus stresses that he had already given instructions earlier not to use violence in this matter and asserts that nobody had been banished or mishandled in the eastern territories since then. This is contradicted by the fact that, in the same document, he had to insist that the Christians might not be subjected to contumely and ill- treatment but were rather to be brought back to recognize the worship of the gods by kindness and instruction. Maximinus tries to justify his rescripts in answer to the petitions of the towns by saying that such requests deserved a gracious answer and that this was pleasing to the gods as well. The letter ends with the instruction to the prefect to bring the imperial order to the attention of all provinces. It is understandable that after so much bitter experience, the Christians mistrusted even this limited toleration; consequently they did not yet hold the assemblies they had formerly been accustomed to and certainly did not dare to build new churches or otherwise draw attention to themselves.13 They could not at first comprehend the reasons behind Maximinus' new line of policy. It was determined by far-reaching events in the western parts of the Empire which had made Constantine master of Italy and Africa after his victory over Maxentius in October 312. The victor had immediately intervened with Maximinus in favour of the Christians14 and the new political situation made it advisable for him to veer into a more tolerant course. The young Augustus of the West thus became active in religious policy in a way that extended far beyond his own dominions. We have now to consider his attitude to Christianity.

Constantine's "Conversion" to Christianity

The question of Constantine's turning to Christianity, the fact, its course and its date, was and is hotly disputed among historians and this is partly due to the nature of the sources capable of providing an answer. Constantine's own historiographer, Bishop Eusebius of Caesarea, a friend of the emperor from 325 onwards, was profoundly convinced of his hero's providential mission and he views all the events of his life, which changed the complexion of the age, in the light of this. His Ecclesiastical History reflects in its successive editions not only how his knowledge in particular matters increased but also how many of his views changed in the direction of a heightened glorification of the emperor. Certainly the Life of the emperor attributed to Eusebius is dominated by this tendency; the consequent suspicion has given rise to a series of conjectures, ranging from the hypothesis of several revisions by the author and even to the suggestion

» Ibid. 9, 9a, 11.

14 Lactantius, De mort. pers. 37, 1; and on this, A. Piganiol in Historia 1 (1950), 86-90.
that it is a pseudonymous work, written only about 430. The reaction against this judgment, on the Vita Constantini led to a firm defence of its authenticity which recently received considerable support from a papyrus discovery; this document from about the year 324 contains a fragment of an edict of Constantine to the peoples of the East, quoted in the Vita and which had been regarded by one of the harshest critics of the latter as a plain forgery.

The second contemporary author, Lactantius, likewise sided with Constantine and his appointment as tutor to the emperor's eldest son, Crispus, shows the degree of trust that he enjoyed with the emperor. But for that reason he, too, is suspected of regarding Constantine in all too glowing and therefore distorting a light. Of pagan criticism of the emperor only a little has been preserved through his nephew Julian and the historian Zosimus. On the other hand the discourses of panegyrists are particularly valuable for the light they throw on the religious change in the emperor during his transitional phase. The possibility of closer understanding of the world of his religion is also provided by the numerous letters and ordinances of the emperor which have been studied more recently to considerable profit. The religious symbolism of the coinage, too, provides an insight into the changing views of the emperor. Two characteristics stand out even in early tradition regarding Constantine; the passionate partisanship he aroused for and against himself, and a tendency to the formation of legends. They show that the life achievements of this ruler influenced the lot of his contemporaries and posterity as deeply as only those of the great figures of history can do.

There is little in the sources about the childhood and youth of Constantine or of his religious development at that period. Constantius and Helena, his parents, were certainly pagans at the time of his birth in 285. His attachment to his mother was deep and lasting. The former innkeeper was not Constantius' legal wife, for higher officers were not allowed to marry native women of the province. A few years after Constantine's birth, his father left her in order to contract a socially appropriate marriage with Theodora, the step-daughter of Maximian. The son presumably remained at first with his mother Helena and probably received his first religious impressions from her as a consequence. She was gifted above the average. Through her son she later made her way to Christianity; and when he became sole ruler, Constantine was able to give her the position of first lady in the empire and she filled it to perfection. It is questionable whether any marked influences of a religious kind came to Constantine from his father; it would be possible to recall Constantius' striking independence in relation to the official religious policy of the Diocletian tetrarchy. He never appeared particularly in the role of a client of Hercules; he rather felt leanings towards Mars, who was specially honoured in his dominions. His aloofness in regard to the policy of edicts of severe persecution has already been mentioned. It permits the inference that he deliberately rejected all compulsion in religious matters. Eusebius characterized Constantius as an adherent of monotheism and so probably viewed the emperor as a representative of the religious trend in the third century which gave increasing predominance to the one divine Being, the summus deus which transcended all other deities. Positive relations of Constantius' family to Christian circles are perhaps indicated by the name Anastasia given to one of his daughters, for at that time it was only found among Christians or Jews; another of his daughters, Constantia, later showed herself a convinced Christian. At any rate the general atmosphere of Constantine's father's house was rather well-disposed towards Christians and that is how Constantine found it when in 305 he went to his father in the West after his flight from Nicomedia. Other strong influences must also, however, be reckoned with those which he received in his impressionable years as a youth at the court of Diocletian, where he lived through the outbreak and severity of the persecution of the Christians and perhaps even then felt its questionableness. When in 306 Constantine was elevated by his father's troops to the position of Augustus, he maintained his father's religious policy, one of far-reaching toleration towards his Christian subjects and of conscious independence of the rulers in the East. Whether, as Lactantius seems to suppose, he issued a general edict of toleration when he took over power, must remain an open question, but it is not impossible that, in isolated cases, he expressly assured Christian communities of their freedom of worship.

It was of fundamental importance that Constantine at this time was notably alive to the religious question. He linked his personal religious sentiment quite definitely to a mission entrusted to him by the divinity for the whole empire. That became apparent in the year 310 when the fall of Maximian placed him in a situation that called for a fresh decision. The devices on coins show that Constantine at that time freed himself from the theology of the tetrarchy by choosing as his special patron-god, instead of Hercules, the sol invictus;26 this expressed a new political conception. The sun-god was worshipped in all parts of the empire in different forms, in Gaul as Apollo, by the troops as Mithras; he was the god of the whole empire, as Aurelian had already regarded him. The emperor who placed himself under his protection and experienced his assistance was thereby called to determine the destinies of the whole empire. These ideas are indicated in the panegyric pronounced in 310 in Trier in the emperor's presence.37 In this, Constantine's claim to rule was no longer based on his belonging to the tetrarchan system, but was justified by his descent from an imperial line; the patron of this dynasty and of its present member was said to be Apollo who had revealed himself in a unique way to Constantine. On a visit to a shrine of Apollo in Gaul, he was declared to have seen the god with Victoria and they had given him a laurel wreath with the figures XXX and so had promised Constantine victory and long life.28 This was an announcement of the emperor's claim to universal dominion and his patron god was the sol invictus in the form of the Gallic Apollo.

Constantine took the first step towards the realization of his idea in the autumn of 312 when, against the advice of his entourage, he took the field against the usurper Maxentius, then master of Italy and Africa, and whose troops outnumbered his. Previously he had obtained Licinius' agreement to this undertaking and promised him the hand of his sister Constantia in return. It would be a mistake to interpret the background to this conflict as though Maxentius were an oppressor of the Christians and Constantine their champion. In fact Maxentius had tried to win over the Christians by going beyond what was laid down in the Galerian edict of 311 and restoring to the Christian community in Rome at the beginning of 312 its confiscated property.29 Nor did Constantine's propaganda make out Maxentius to be a persecutor of Christians, but described him as a tyrant, plundering and oppressing his subjects and from whose

2® H. von Schoenebeck, op. cit. 24-6 and A. Piganiol, L'empereur Constantin (Paris 1932), 22-7.

27 Paneg. 7 in E. Galletier, Panegyrici latini, 2 vols. (Paris 1949-52).
28
29 Ibid. 7, 21; cf. H. Kraft, "Kaiser Konstantin und das Bischofsamt" in Saeculum 8 (1957), lOff.
30
2* H. v. Schoenebeck, op. cit. 4-23.
THE TURNING-POINT UNDER CONSTANTINE

yoke Rome ought to be set free. In a rapid onset Constantine overran Maxentius' defences which extended in echelon as far as the Alps, brought the whole of Northern Italy under his sway and approached the city of Rome which his opponent intended to defend as his last stronghold. The decision turned in Constantine's favour at the battle of the Milvian Bridge to the north of the city on October 28, 312. Maxentius lost throne and life, and the way was open for Constantine into the Western capital consecrated by tradition. He was in possession of the whole of Western Europe and had victoriously concluded the first stage of his journey to universal rule.

This campaign was followed by Constantine's decisive turning to the God of the Christians, to which contemporary Christian writers, pagan panegyrists, and Constantine's behaviour directly after the victory all testify.

The first report of it is given by Lactantius who says that Constantine had been exhorted in a dream to put God's heavenly sign on his soldiers' shields and so give battle. The emperor followed this instruction, he says, and made them put an abbreviation for "Christus" on their shields by bending the upper end of the letter X placed sideways. This statement of Lactantius is in itself quite clear. It describes the sign drawn on the shields as an X stood on its side, that is, + , which, by having its top arm bent over was changed to a —, that is to say a crux monogrammatica, a sign which at that time was not unknown to the Christians as well as their real Christ monogram ^ . Lactantius does not claim that what he relates was a miraculous occurrence. A dream of the emperor, which in view of the situation shortly before the battle was quite an understandable one, was the cause of the instruction, which was easy to carry out and the significance of which could be easily understood by all: emperor and army were not taking the field as usual, under a pagan magical sign, but under the protection of the God of the Christians. The victorious outcome showed that the Christian God had brought about this decision and that he now must be recognized as a divine patron. That was the picture of the remarkable event that was current in the emperor's entourage when Lactantius in 318 published his book On the Manner of Death of the Persecutors. Lactantius did not permit himself any interpretation of the psychological foundation of this event and it is most certainly impossible

1 nr. riltni. V1L1UM ur inc. LHUKUH

for the modern historian to reconstruct this; the fact can only be accepted. There are no grounds for emending Lactantius' text, for it is clear in itself and there is certainly no ground at all to look for a literary model of his report and to claim to find this in the pagan panegyrist who reported Constantine's visit to the shrine of Apollo in Gaul in 310; neither in form nor in content can this narrative be claimed as a basis for Lactantius' story.

The same event is clearly at the bottom of the account given by Eusebius about twenty-five years later in his biography of the emperor, but how much more extensive it is now, in comparison with Lactantius' brief report! According to Eusebius, Constantine wanted to wage the campaign against Maxentius under his father's protector-god and prayed to him to reveal himself and grant his aid. Straightaway the emperor and the army saw in the late afternoon "in the sky above the sun the radiant victory sign of the cross", and near this the words: "By this, conquer: TOUT«vtxa ". The following night, Christ appeared to him with the cross and told him to have it copied and to carry it as protection in war. The emperor had a standard made according to his specifications; a long shaft with a cross-bar ending in a circle which bore in the middle the monogram of Christ, such as Constantine later had attached to his helmet, too. A rectangular banner hung down from the cross-bar and above this on the shaft were fixed the images of the emperor and his sons. Eusebius appeals to the fact that he had seen this banner himself86 and this could not have happened before 325 when his closer relations with the emperor began. At that time, however, the banner had already become the imperial standard, which was later called the labarum.31 It is noteworthy that Eusebius does not give this report of the vision of the cross in the last edition of his Ecclesiastical History (about 324). The conclusion that strongly suggests itself, that he knew nothing about it, and that as a consequence it was added to the Vita Constantini by another hand later on, is, however, excluded because Eusebius clearly refers to the vision of the cross in his speech on the anniversary of the emperor's accession in 335 and also says in the Ecclesiastical History that at the beginning of his campaign against Maxentius, Constantine had prayed and appealed to Christ for help. Consequently in the Vita he gives the version of what had happened as this took shape in Constantine's mind after a certain

THE TURNING-POINT UNDER CONSTANTINE

lapse of time from the event itself and in the transfiguring light of the memory of his victorious course. The accessory details dressing it out in legendary fashion must not, however, distract the view from the essential kernel common to both reports. Constantine was convinced that the sign of the cross had been revealed to him at the beginning of his campaign against Maxentius; he had changed it into the monogram of Christ and with his help had triumphed over his opponent who trusted to the power of the pagan gods. His veneration for Christ as his protector-god was due to this event and it occasioned his turning to Christianity.

The question arises whether and in what form this turning found expression in Constantine's still pagan entourage. In the autumn of 313 in Trier, the pagan panegyrist celebrated Constantine's victory over Maxentius and in accordance with tradition, had to speak of the god who had given victory. It is striking that the speaker does not name him, but says that Constantine in agreement with the god present to him and with whom he was linked by a profound secret, had taken the field, despite the fears of his officers, because this god had promised victory. A god who is near, who conveys direct instructions to his protege,40 who secretly encourages him and assures him of victory, are all forms of expression which were intelligible to Christians as well as to educated people of neo-Platonic views; they indicate the way in which Constantine conveyed his experience to those around him. Even more important, the same speaker, in his description of the solemn entry of Constantine into Rome, does not mention the traditional procession of the victor to the Capitol and the usual sacrifice there to Jupiter: evidently the emperor omitted it and so again proclaimed that he owed his victory to another god.41 This is also in agreement with another break with the usual pagan practice of taking the omens by examining entrails; Maxentius had done this before the battle, but Constantine, the panegyrist points out, trusted to his god's instructions.42 The panegyrist conveys a strong impression that after his victory over Maxentius, Constantine moved away from the customary pagan worship.
The triumphal arch in Rome, dedicated to the emperor after his victory by the Roman Senate and completed in 315, was naturally decorated with carvings which corresponded to the ideas of the pagan senate; the latter regarded the sol invlctus as the emperor's protector-god and consequently had Constantine represented as entering the city in triumph with the attitude and gesture of the sun-god. The inscription on the triumphal arch is more reserved and does not mention his god's name but ascribes the victory to an "inspiration of the divinity" and the emperor's greatness of soul. Here this divinity is still the neo-Platonic "highest being", but could also be understood by Christians in their sense.

Another monument is of greater importance; it too was intended to commemorate the victory and Constantine's view of it. This is the statue of the emperor in the Forum, bearing in the right hand, on Constantine's personal directions, "the sign of suffering that brought salvation". The inscription is due to Constantine's own initiative and explains the sign in his hand. "By this salutary sign, the true proof of power, I saved and freed your city from the yoke of the tyrant and gave back to the Senate and Roman people, as well as freedom, their ancient dignity and their ancient glory." In view of this emphatic indication of the inscription, there can be no question of its being the usual vexillum in the emperor's hand which the Christians had then interpreted in the form of a cross; it is the signum caeleste dei of Lactantius, the Christian cross, probably in the form of the monogram. Consequently this statue is not only a novelty by its form, being the first example of an emperor's statue with a standard, but it expresses in a particularly clear manner both Constantine's conviction that he had been led by this standard, and his will publicly to proclaim this.

Finally the process of turning towards Christianity, even in a very qualified way, is indicated in the coins Constantine had struck. Christian symbols gradually appear beside the images of the old divinities especially the sol invictus, which can be traced on coins down to the year 322. From Ticinum a silver medallion struck on the occasion of the decennalia of 315 shows the helmeted head of Constantine bearing a clear Christ monogram J^ on the crest of the helmet. Coinages from the Siscia mint have, after 317-18, the same sign on the emperor's helmet, and from 320 on, coins appear with the Christ monogram in the field next to the vexillum.49

INC. 1 UIMNLINLJ— I UNUCIV ^UINA 1 AIN IIINC.

Even though the introduction of the significant Christ symbol among the devices on coins was slow, it was not possible without the emperor's approval. Even if it is regarded as nothing more than a proof of the neutral attitude of an emperor who was now taking Christianity into account as well as paganism, nevertheless the use of the Christ monogram on the helmet can scarcely be interpreted otherwise than as a personal proclamation of Constantine himself.

Of considerable significance, too, for the emperor's attitude to Christianity were some measures directly connected with the victory of October 312. That very same year a letter must have gone from Constantine to Maximinus calling for an end to persecution of Christians in the eastern regions. It has already been shown how this wish was carried out. Are we to suppose that the emperor was only impelled to this rapid step because he was anxious to inform Maximinus that he regarded himself as the highest Augustus? Similarly in the same year 312, he commanded in a letter to prefect Anullinus in North Africa that confiscated Church property should be restored. Another letter was addressed directly to the Catholic Bishop of Carthage, Caecilian, who received quite a large sum for the clergy "of the lawful and most holy Catholic religion". Both measures go far beyond the intention of the edict of Galerius and the second already shows the emperor taking special interest in the liturgical concerns of the Catholic Church. This may have been awakened in him by the Spanish bishop, Ossius of Cordova, who appears already in this letter as Constantine's adviser on Church affairs. The Church's worship forms the centre of a third very important document58 which freed the clergy of the Carthaginian church from obligation to public service so that they might devote themselves unhindered to the performance of the liturgy. Constantine gave as a reason for this measure, appealing as he did so to the lessons of experience, that neglect of the worship of God had brought the State into grave danger, whereas its careful observance would bring happiness and prosperity. In adopting this position it is quite clear that, in the emperor, opinions drawn from the Roman conception of religion were struggling with new religious ideas; Constantine has become aware of the importance of Christian worship even if no understanding of its real content is perceptible. He feels obliged not merely to ensure freedom for this worship, for that was done by the edict of Galerius, but to ensure its exact and worthy accomplishment, because he sees in it a condition for the success of the work he has begun.

The features of Constantine's proceedings in regard to Christianity in the year 312-13, which have been discussed, vary, it is true, in evidential force. Taken as a whole they nevertheless impose the conclusion that during this period Constantine had accomplished his personal turning to Christianity. By themselves and quite apart from the further measures belonging to the emperor's religious policy until the beginning of his period of rule as sole emperor, they exclude the date 324 as the beginning of this change. Constantine's "conversion" must, it is true, only be understood in the sense of a "turning" founded on a recognition which perhaps had already been maturing in him for some time, that the God of the Christians alone had a claim to the worship due to the highest Being. The features mentioned do not themselves permit us to judge how far Constantine had advanced towards an understanding of the Christian message of redemption, or to what extent he had made principles of Christian ethics the guiding standard of his personal activity.

From the Convention of Milan, 313, to the Beginning of Sole Rule, 324

In February 313 Constantine and Licinius met in Milan to discuss the new political situation created by the former's victory. The marriage between Licinius and Constantia was also then celebrated. In regard to religious matters, discussions led to a settlement which, however, did not find expression in the form of an Edict of Milan, as was formerly thought.64 But it is clear that this agreement was not merely concerned with putting into effect the measure of toleration laid down by the edict of Galerius; it rather involved in principle a substantial extension of this as a comparison of the Galerian text with the content of two decrees of Licinius published after his victory over Maximinus Daia will show. One of them is dated from Nicomedia and Lactantius gives the Latin text; the other is in Eusebius57 and was probably intended for Palestine. The Latin document, which diverges slightly from the Greek in Eusebius, opens with a direct allusion to the negotiations between Constantine and Licinius in Milan. It is stressed in the first place that the emperor intends to settle the religious question by toleration: everyone, including Christians, had full freedom to follow the religion he preferred; that would be a guarantee for continued favour from the summa divinitas. Then, however, come a series of special ordinances for the Christian Church, which, by their content, intensity of insistence and tone of
respectful goodwill, far exceeded Galerius* grudging grant of toleration. All places in which the Christians had been accustomed to assemble, that is, churches and cemeteries, were returned to them without charge, whether they were in public or private possession. Moreover this property was to be conveyed directly to the various Christian communities, whose corporate legal existence was thereby recognized. Finally a conviction is expressed which would have been quite impossible with Galerius; that through this treatment of the Christian religion, the divine favour, that the emperors had experienced in such great matters, would continue for ever in its beneficial effect on public welfare. There is little likelihood of mistake if the allusion to divine favour is understood as referring to the successes of Constantine's campaign. The special decrees about Church property correspond to the measures that Constantine had already adopted for Africa, and reveal the part he played in the making of the Milan agreement. The latter can be considered as the religious policy which he was chiefly striving to carry out. The benefits it accorded could not, however, be enjoyed by the Christians of the eastern provinces and Egypt, until the conflict between Licinius and Maximinus, which still persisted, had been brought to an end. The latter sought a quick military decision when, early in 313, he moved to the Balkans at a moment when he knew that Constantine was occupied by his war with the Franks of the Rhine. Lactantius represents the battle between the two rulers as a religious war; he describes Maximinus making a vow to Jupiter before the battle that in case of victory he would destroy the Christian name; an angel reveals to Licinius a prayer to the summus deus which would bring him victory if it were recited before the battle by the whole army.61 The prayer is neutral in content; perhaps the only Christian element being the angel who reveals it. Maximinus was decisively defeated at Adrianople and harried by Licinius in a rapid pursuit which struck deeply into Asia Minor. He still tried to win the sympathies of his Christian subjects by an edict of unrestricted toleration,62 and prepared for a new battle. His death in Tarsus in the autumn of 313 abruptly ended the struggle and brought all the eastern territories under Licinius' authority and the Milan agreement. The conqueror showed little magnanimity to the family and closest supporters of Maximinus; they were mercilessly exterminated, among them Diocletian's wife and daughter who had sought Maximinus' protection.

•2 Euseb. HE 9, 10, 7-11.

The conquest of the oriental territories brought Licinius an enormous increase of power and Constantine had to postpone for the moment his ultimate aim of establishing a universal Roman rule. The two Augusti
occupied themselves first with consolidating and strengthening what had been won. In the religious question, Licinius maintained the principles of the Milan agreement; Constantine, with his mental alertness, already saw the approach of a problem and a task which were to attract him more and more as time went on: that of bringing the Christian Church closer to the State, of discovering a form of mutual relation for them which would correspond to his view of their respective missions. These views changed and became clearer in a process that took some time. He moved to a solution through the experience afforded him by his gradually deepening penetration into the specific nature of the Christian world and the questions belonging to it. He encountered them for the first time on a large scale through developments within the Church in North Africa which, shortly before his victory, had led to a profound split among adherents of Christianity there. The beginnings of the Donatist movement must be here recalled because they explain the personal attitude of the emperor to the Christian religion; a connected account and evaluation of it will only be possible later.

The superficial occasion of the Donatist schism was the question of church discipline regarding what judgment was to be passed on the action of Christians who had handed over the Holy Scriptures to the pagan authorities in the Diocletian persecution. One group among those who had remained faithful regarded it as grave betrayal of the faith and called the guilty traditores; among the latter were laymen, clerics, and even bishops. The question became theologically important when it was linked to the particular opinion traditional in North African theology, according to which the validity of a sacrament depended on the state of grace of its minister; consequently the sacraments conferred by a traditor, an apostate ultimately, could not be regarded as valid. The controversy became extremely acute when it was involved in the personal difficulties provoked by the quarrel about the succession to Bishop Mensurius of Carthage. In 312 when Caecilian, who had previously been deacon of Carthage, was called to the see, one group in the church which felt slighted because of the sharp treatment of one of its most influential members, whom Caecilian had criticized for his over-enthusiastic cult of the martyrs, pointed out that one of those who had consecrated him bishop, Felix of Aptungi, had been a traditor. The case was taken up by the first Bishop of Numidia, Secundus of Tigisis, and brought before a synod of seventy Numidian bishops, which declared Caecilian deposed. In this action of the Numidian episcopate, a certain rivalry with Carthage no doubt also played its part. First, Majorinus became rival bishop to Caecilian and then, after 313, Donatus, the real intellectual head of the opposition, from whom the rapidly developing schismatical church, the pars Donati, took its name.

inc. 1 UB.1NI1HT-I-U1IN i UINUI.K CONSTANTINE

When Constantine in 312 sought information about the situation in his newly acquired territories, he found himself faced by this complicated situation, very difficult for an outsider to grasp in its ultimate connexions, and even more difficult to comprehend on account of the hostility of both groups, embittered by personal rancour. He probably received his first report from the point of view of Caecilian's supporters, perhaps from Bishop Ossius, who very early showed himself to be well-informed about the African clergy. Of course, Constantine at that time could not understand the dogmatic background to the dispute, but he immediately recognized its adverse effects on the unity of the Christian society and strove as occasion offered to restore that unity. In the first place he saw that by the dissension the correct accomplishment of Christian worship was no longer assured, and this, as has already been indicated, was of particular concern to him. Consequently he was ready to make the help of State officials available to bring back into line the disturbers of the peace, for that is how the Donatists chiefly appeared to him.83 Thereupon the Donatists addressed themselves directly to the emperor, handed in a memorandum through proconsul Anullinus, explaining their attitude to Caecilian and asking for the dispute to be settled by Gallic judges.84 Constantine accepted this suggestion and turned to the Bishop of Rome, Miltiades, informing him what he had decided in the matter: Caecilian was to come to Rome with ten bishops of his choice and so was his opponent; there an ecclesiastical court consisting of Miltiades and three bishops of Gaul, those of Aries, Autun, and Cologne, was to hear the case and give judgment. The emperor stressed that the inquiry into Caecilian must determine whether he answered to ecclesiastical requirements "which are to be held in high respect". Finally, he affirmed that he had the greatest reverence for the Catholic Church and did not wish any division to be found in it anywhere.

It is clear from this document that the emperor realized he was in a position which in many respects was completely novel to him. A Christian denomination had invoked the help of the civil power and requested the appointment of impartial judges. The emperor tended to think in legal terms and could not refuse such a request but was it possible for him to hand over such a purely ecclesiastical question to a civil court? Constantine decided on episcopal judges, leaving the matter, therefore, in ecclesiastical hands and hoping that in that way peace would be restored.88 There can be no question, therefore, of any presumptuous intervention of imperial authority in the internal affairs of the Church, but the intense interest of the emperor in the restoration of peace within the Church is unmistakable. Miltiades invited, and this can scarcely have been contrary to the emperor's intentions, a further fifteen Italian bishops to the proceedings, clearly as members of a larger consilium, such as was customary for decisions of far-reaching importance. The unanimous verdict of the court pronounced Donatus guilty and confirmed Caecilian as legitimate Bishop of Carthage. The Donatists, however, contested the judgment on the ground of defects of procedure, and the emperor found himself obliged to have the matter dealt with once more. The proceedings were conducted this time in Aries in the summer of 314 on a much bigger scale and with the assistance of numerous bishops, the imperial postal service being put at their disposal for the journey.

In the emperor's letter of invitation a double advance in his understanding of Christianity may be observed. He now sees the Church as a society which, in fraternal harmony, accomplishes by its rites the true worship of God. Anyone who does not respect the unity of this society endangers his salvation; so the Church is felt to be a means to salvation. The emperor knows that he is on the side of this society when he claims for himself and for Aelafius, who was known to be a Christian, the designation of cultor dei, which here may be taken as a substitute for christianus. He does not yet feel himself to be a complete member of the Church, but he fears for her reputation and her universal mission when he points out that the quarrels of Christians among themselves hold back from her the followers of the pagan religion. When Constantine says that, furthermore, he himself could be brought to account by the summa divinitas if he were to ignore the divisions in the Church and that he would only be tranquil again when the fraternal harmony was restored, his growing personal attachment to the Church is manifest. A more personal relation to the bishops was forming, too, for in his letter to those taking part in the Synod of Aries, he addressed them for the first time with what was after that to be his habitual mode, as carissimi fratres; and he asks with feeling for their prayers "that our Redeemer may always have mercy on me".

After the unsuccessful outcome of the Synod of Aries, Constantine decided after all to end the Donatist schism by his own means. His attempt at pacification met with no success when he first of all refused to allow the Donatist delegation to Aries to return to Africa. He was also frustrated in his effort to install another bishop in Carthage instead of Caecilian. In a threatening tone the emperor announced to both parties that he was going to come to Africa himself and proclaimed his aim of leading all men to the true religion and the worthy worship of Almighty God. In this letter to the vicarius Celsus, the Christian ruler's consciousness of his mission is expressed with perfect clarity: it is the emperor's task (mttnus principis) to remove all error, to be solicitous for the preaching of the true religion, to maintain concord and ensure divine worship; and the vera religio to which the emperor knows he is bound, is Christianity alone. Constantine did, after all, desist from a journey to Africa, but in a letter at the end of the year 316, plainly took the side of Caecilian and his supporters.73 When disturbances occurred, from 317 onwards, he sent in troops, had Donatist bishops exiled, and their churches seized, but this only created martyrs and the sense of martyrdom until he resigned the struggle.74 Constantine had to learn early, by experience, that divisions in Christendom are only embittered by the attempt to remove them by means of the civil power; even though his attempt sprang from the conviction that he had to take that way to save the unity of the Christian Church, as an obligation of his function as ruler. At the same time, however, dangerous possibilities are already visible which arose for the Church from the sense of mission of a Christian ruler who thought himself justified by a religious call to intervene directly in the Church's own essential concerns.

This gradual and growing attachment of the emperor for Christianity was accompanied by certain laws which revealed the influence of Christian ideas or restricted the influence of pagan religious activity.

The general line of Constantine's legislation shows increasing regard for the dignity of the human person;75 this is seen in an ordinance of the year 315 forbidding the branding on the face of those condemned to forced labour or to the amphitheatre,76 for the human face may not be disfigured as it is formed to the likeness of heavenly beauty. The biblical and Christian character of this explanation is unmistakable. A similarly humanitarian tendency combines with respectful recognition of those in charge of the Christian communities, in an ordinance addressed to Bishop Ossius which declares that Christians could free their slaves in the presence of the bishop with full legal validity, and clerics likewise, in certain cases, without written documents and without witnesses. As the liberation had to take place "in the bosom of the Church" it is treated as an action of religious significance. Similar regard for the episcopal office is expressed in the important decision allowing Christian bishops to set up a court of arbitration, even for civil cases, if the parties to a dispute make application to the judge to have their case transferred to one. And what lex Christiana then decides has the force of law. The law freeing those who were unmarried and without children from certain obligations may rightly be regarded as framed with the ascetics of the Christian Church in view. Of decisive importance was Constantine's Sunday law, March-July 321, ordering cessation from work in the courts and from manual labour on this "venerable day". The religious quality of the day makes it appropriate to distinguish it by particularly pious works such as the liberation of slaves, which could be attested on a Sunday by an official document. There is no question of seeing in the dies solis here a day dedicated to the sun; the introduction of a civil holiday on the first day of the week was plainly intended honourably to distinguish the Lord's day of the Christian Church, an essential feature of its liturgy. A special favour granted to the Catholic Church is represented by the edict which allowed anyone the right to bequeath in his will whatever he liked to the Catholic community. There was no such provision for Jewish or schismatic communities.

Certain legal provisions were necessary to protect the right to free profession of religion laid down in the Convention of Milan, in its detailed application to Christianity. Christian converts from Judaism who were molested by their former co-religionists receive the special protection of the law.82 Only the Catholic faith is considered here to be cultus dei; neither Judaism nor paganism can claim to possess it.83 An actual incident formed the basis of a law of May 323 imposing the penalty of flogging or heavy fine on those who compelled members of the Christian community, whether clerics or laity, to take part in the pagan lustral sacrifice.84 It is significant that Constantine here no longer designated the pagan religion as such by a neutral term, but characterized it pejoratively as superstitio. When in Lucania the clerical privilege of immunity was not respected by pagans, Constantine reemphasized this;8® the expressions he uses, again entail plain value judgments on the old and the new religions and make his own position quite evident: the clergy, he says, devote their pious activity to the worship of God, whilst the impious hostility of the pagans aims at impeding them in this function.

Finally a restriction of the extent to which pagan religion could be practised was introduced by the double decree on divination in 319 and 320,80 which forbade under strict penalties the practice of this custom in private. This cannot have concerned the abolition of an abuse, for divination in public remained permissible. But it was precisely in private life that divination made possible for pagans an effective propaganda for their religion and one that escaped all control. Through restriction to public divination a check was ensured and the possibility of secret propaganda eliminated.87

These laws from the time when Constantine was sole ruler confirm the picture already drawn. The emperor was under the influence of Christian ideas, his concern for the accomplishment of Christian worship sprang from an inner personal interest and in this or that case a preference for the Christian religion is perceptible. Of particular importance is the unmistakable tendency of the emperor to call on the moral and religious values of the Christian religion and the authority of the Christian church leaders, for the benefit of the State. As a consequence, various features of the public life of the age already receive a Christian stamp. His attitude to paganism is in principle tolerant, but in the law against augury the first limitation of its freedom of action is seen.

The struggle for sole rule in the Roman Empire, which had been impending for some time between Licinius and Constantine, was to take the latter an important step further on the road to public and personal recognition of the Christian religion. A first military clash in Pannonia and Thrace in the autumn of 31688 gave no decision, but the gains of territory in the Balkans that it brought to Constantine and the recognition of his two eldest sons as Caesares notably strengthened his position for the now inevitable final confrontation. The struggle, though ultimately concerned with the claims to the political leadership of the empire, nevertheless assumed the character of a religious war that was finally to decide the victory or the defeat of Christianity. Licinius had maintained the provisions of the Convention of Milan in his dominions since 313,88 although by doing so he had not, like Constantine, intended to bring the Christian Church nearer to the State or even commit various public tasks to it. The marked favour shown to Christianity by the Augustus of the West, led Licinius gradually to diverge from the line of religious policy laid down in Milan, and after about 320 to exert pressure increasingly on the Christians in the East. Freedoms previously enjoyed were not expressly revoked, it is true, but petty bureaucratic restrictions were put on them; on freedom of worship, for example, by forbidding Christian church services inside towns or in enclosed places or by requiring separate services for men and women. Freedom of preaching was restricted by forbidding the clergy to give instruction in the Christian faith to women, and charitable activity in favour of those in prison was hampered. More serious still was the abolition of freedom of belief when Christians were dismissed from the army or administration. Finally came measures aimed at the Church's organization; synodal assemblies of bishops were forbidden. It is not surprising that the sympathies and hopes of Christians in Asia Minor and the Near East turned to the Augustus in the West. The resentment of high officials was vented in violent measures. In Pontus some places of worship were closed and others demolished; some bishops were arrested, others banished; some were condemned to death and executed,93 although no general persecution was ordered. When after massive preparations, war broke out in the summer of 324, Constantine deliberately gave it a Christian stamp by giving the army the now fully developed labarum as a standard in battle, whilst Licinius questioned the pagan oracles and implored the help of the gods by sacrifices.94 Constantine's victories in battle at Adrianople and on the Bosphorus in July and at Chrysopolis in Asia Minor in September 324, forced Licinius to capitulate and accept negotiations with Constantine. The latter spared Licinius' life at the request of his wife Constantia and assigned Thessalonica as his place of detention, but later had him executed, ostensibly for treasonable plotting.

Constantine's complete victory and the position of sole ruler which it gave him, almost inevitably introduced a new phase of religious policy, for he was not now hampered by need to take into consideration the differing views of a fellow-ruler or rival. The Christians, especially in the East, looked forward with intense expectation to what was to come. Eusebius speaks in the final section of his Ecclesiastical History of the days of rejoicing with which the emperor's victory was celebrated. He, too, saw clearly what possibilities a unified Roman Empire directed by an emperor well-disposed towards Christianity could open for the Christian faith; "people rejoiced about present benefits and looked forward to future ones". The first proclamations of the victorious emperor were of such a kind as to confirm these hopes. A comprehensive decree concerning the inhabitants of the eastern provinces at once cancelled the wrong done to the Christians in the time of persecution, and provided generous compensation. More important still are those sections of the document in which Constantine explained the significance of recent events as the great battle for recognition of the Christian God who revealed his might in the success of Constantine's army. He stated that God had chosen him as his instrument in order "to lead (the nations) to the service of the holiest law and to spread the most blessed faith" and that not only are thanks due to the most high God for that, but: "I owe him my whole soul, every breath and every stirring of my mind, wholly and completely." The earlier consciousness of a mission has now been replaced by a bold knowledge of his election which in future was to mark all the emperor's acts. The decree ends with the exhortation to serve "the divine law", that is to say, Christianity, with all reverence.98 Constantine's personal profession of Christianity is expressed even more plainly in a second communication to the eastern provinces in which the pride of the victor is mingled with thanksgiving for divine election.99 Here Constantine turns in prayer to God: "Under your guidance I have begun and completed these salutary deeds. I had your sign carried before us and so led the army to glorious victories; and if any necessity of the State should require it, I shall follow the same dispositions of your power and do battle against your enemies. For that I have consecrated my soul to you; ... I love your name and honour your power which you made known by many signs and so strengthened my faith. I long to set to work and build up again for you the holiest of houses."100 The final words vividly express the intense drive of the emperor standing in the full possession of his powers; he had a clearly defined aim, the restoration of the Christian Church. The same document also shows the calibre of the victorious emperor as a statesman; he will not persecute adherents of paganism or force them to become Christians; freedom of conscientious decision is guaranteed: "Each must hold what his heart bids him."101 Only the future could show whether Constantine would stand by this, and the programme it represented.

CHAPTER 31

The Causes of the Victory of the Christian Religion.

The Scope and Import of the Turning-Point under Constantine

THE turning-point in the history of the Church which was reached when the first Christian emperor became sole ruler, raises two questions of great importance for a right understanding of the whole situation of the Church at the beginning of the fourth century.

1. The first question regarding the causes of the final success of Christianity in its conflict both with the rival religious currents of late Antiquity and with the power of the Roman State as well has often been formulated and has received very divergent replies. A very superficial one attempts to explain the victory of Christianity by the process of decay in which the civilization of later Antiquity was involved at precisely that time; this is alleged to have given syncretist Christianity a fundamentally easy triumph over a world in dissolution. This view is blind to what properly characterizes Christianity as a religion, and only postpones the problem, for at once a new question arises, why in that case did Christianity survive in the general disintegration, and not one of the other religious movements of the age? It is just as difficult to understand the final Christian success if this is viewed as the victory of a proletarian revolution in a class-war over the upper-class which until then had dominated the Roman Empire. It is true that Celsus had already reproached Christianity for having a particular attraction for the lowest and uneducated social classes of the empire's population, but all Christian preaching of pre-Constantinian times shows plainly that it was deliberately addressed to all classes and all races in identical fashion. In fact, this universality of the Church can rightly be regarded as one of the factors that were particularly effective in bringing about the final success of the Christian religion. But the question remains, what were the reasons for the attraction exercised by Christianity on all social classes and on all nations.

Another answer to the question regards the support given to Christianity by Constantine as the real reason for its success. Such a view of things, however, confuses cause and effect; Constantine acted from insight into the actual victory already achieved by Christianity when he first tolerated and then favoured it. His immediate predecessors, the persecuting emperors, realized that their persecutions had failed, even Diocletian himself, perhaps, and certainly Gallienus and Maximinus Daia, and so did Maxentius, though he was not himself a persecutor; they only drew the logical conclusions from this realization, against their will and too late. Sooner or later some emperor after Constantine would have had to seek an understanding with the victorious Church. Constantine's decisive act and what logically followed, his religious policy favourable to the Christians, certainly made the Church's task very much easier, but they do not explain the Church's victory.

The answers which seek an explanation in an element within the Church itself are closer to the facts of the case. Attention has rightly been directed, for example, to the above average level of morals and character reached by most followers of Christianity, which was proof against the heaviest trials. The fact of actual or at least always extremely possible persecution subjected candidates for baptism to an inexorable selection which provided the various Christian communities with a considerable percentage of members whose quality is scarcely paralleled in the history of the Church. The teaching in the catechumenate made it clear to them that adherence to Christianity demanded a radical break with their previous manner of life; anyone who made this break did so from a deep conviction of faith which was the source of his strength in the hour of trial. The failure of many Christians in the Decian and Diocletian persecutions does not contradict this; the frank admission of such losses by Dionysius of Alexandria and Cyprian of Carthage and their efforts to heal the wounds caused in the Church by too indiscriminate a reception of candidates for baptism in the period of peace, attest the serious determination of the Church as a whole to maintain the high level in her communities. The pagan world was also impressed by the attitude of the Christians towards their persecutors, for whom they entertained no feelings of revenge or desires for reprisals. The comprehensive charitable work of the early Christian Church as a whole also represented a strong attraction. Here, too, the question remains open what the ultimate root of this attitude and these high moral qualities was.

There is a good deal of truth in the view which attributes the success of Christianity to the values which it had to offer to a late Hellenistic world which in religious matters was in a state of unrest and inquiry. It is correct that Christianity could often advance into a spiritual vacuum which it filled with the message, proclaimed with a joyful certainty, of the new and unique way to salvation founded on a divine revelation. But this Christian message of salvation must have been characterized by an

THE FINAL VICTORY OF THE CHURCH

ultimate, definite quality of its own which enabled it to gain the advantage over Gnosticism, neo-Platonism, or the pagan mystery-cults, for these, too, claimed to come forward with the means of bringing the fulfilment of its longings to the human soul seeking salvation.
Augustine in the seventh book of the Confessions points the way to a real answer to the question of the ultimate cause of the Christian victory. He says that in the writings of the Platonists he found many assertions that he met with again later in Christian doctrine; but neo-Platonism could not in the long run hold him, because it was unaware of the sentence in the Gospel of St John: "The Word was made flesh and dwelt amongst us." It was the message of the incarnate God and the conception of humilitas that has its ultimate roots in the Incarnation which, according to Augustine's own words, made him a Christian. This locates the decisive reason which led to the victory of Christianity, the source from which all the other factors previously mentioned received their force in the person of Jesus Christ and the message proclaimed by him; this by its unique character and absolute novelty left all other religious trends of the age far behind it. It is not difficult to perceive in the third century historical sources the unique fascination, and the power appealing to all the capacities of the human heart that is exerted by the person of Christ. Belief in his mission bound the first disciples to him, faith in his redemptive death on the cross, hope in the resurrection promised by him, are the ultimate reason for the enthusiasm of the original community, the success of Paul's missionary preaching, and the joyful readiness of the Christian martyrs to die as witnesses. The origin of this belief, its intensity and its inexhaustible vitality cannot be explained by historical means, but its existence and radiating force are plainly perceptible in its effects. By faith in the God-man, Jesus' followers joined in a society of brotherly love which, in a way never known before, abolished all social and racial barriers between men. The impression that the vitality and strength of Christianity had their roots in Jesus Christ was what in the final resort led Constantine to recognize the God of the Christians. It was similarly that absolutely new thing in his message which won the men and women of later Antiquity in increasing proportions for him. Its central content was the proclamation of the Incarnation of the only-begotten Son of God and his redemptive death of atonement on the cross; and the very contradiction aroused in pagans by the doctrine of a crucified God, shows plainly how absolutely new this message was felt to be. The way in which mankind was to share through baptism and Eucharist in the salvation won by Christ's death on the cross was also moral. It was a new demand that the genuineness of a man's belief in this redeemer had to be proved by a life imitating his, extending even to the sacrifice of life itself, and finally it was a new message that Jesus brought of another world in which human beings after their resurrection will be united with their Lord in an eternal life. Irenaeus expressed accurately the feelings of pre-Constan- tinian Christendom: "He brought all that is new by bringing himself."4 It was this whole experience of novelty and originality, conveyed to the men of late Antiquity by the message and person of Christ, that we must consider as the deepest historically perceptible reason leading to Christianity's triumph over the resistances which opposed it in the first three hundred years of its existence. The Christian believer sees in this event the disposition of divine Providence which accompanied the young Church throughout all the heights and depths of the first decisive part of its journey.

2. The second question regarding the scope and import of the "Constan- tinian turning-point" has often been raised, and at the present time forms the central topic of a vigorous discussion which unfortunately lends the theme something of a catchword character. There is general agreement that the complete change in the relation between Christian Church and Roman State wrought by Constantine was an event of first importance in the history of the world. In the estimate of its scope and consequences for Christianity in particular, however, opinions differ considerably according to the philosophical standpoint or the conception of the Church held by those who are attempting to judge. Some see its significance in the fact that the Roman emperor succeeded, by his alliance with the Church, in making that Church serviceable to the State, and so founded the system of Caesaropapism which held the Church in degrading dependence on the State, and which was the never really seriously contested practice of the Byzantine world. The Church is said to have been at fault through her silence in the face of such enslavement and to have herself contributed to narrowing her effective possibilities in regard to her divine mission. Others see in Constantine's favour and the privileges accorded to the Christian religion the first step on the road of a fateful deviation that has persisted down to the present day; the Church authorities are alleged not to have withstood temptation to power and to have bolstered their position with secular privileges, to have striven for dominion over secular spheres of civilization alien to the Church's mission; and so as a power-seeking Church to have destroyed both the credibility of her claim to a religious mission and the impact of her missionary endeavours. Both judgments agree in viewing the attitude of the Church

1 nil

at the "Constantinian turning-point" as a decline from the ideal of the gospel, in which opposition to the world, separation of secular and ecclesiastical authority, and the renunciation of the use of earthly power in the fulfilment of her missionary task are considered, on this view, to be essential. An estimate of the "Constantinian turning-point" based on criteria drawn from sources contemporary with that development might, however, lead to the following conclusions.

The closer relation brought about between the Christian religion and the Roman State had not, as a matter of fact, the radically revolutionary character that is sometimes attributed to it. As we have already seen, pre- Constantinian Christendom had already sought a tolerable relation even towards the pagan State because, as St Paul had taught (Rom 13:1-7), behind every secular power the will of God was discerned. The numerous contacts in the course of the third century between followers of the Christian religion and representatives of the Roman State clearly reveal a development that would lead to mutual recognition and the collaboration of the two societies. The toleration of all religions laid down by Constan- tine and Licinius in the Convention of Milan in 313 could not, in the conception of that period, be of long duration. Religion and the State in late Antiquity were not known except as related to one another in principle. It would have been revolutionary if the Roman emperor and State had made absolute neutrality in regard to all religious cults a lasting principle of its policy and had been uninterested in any relations at all between the State and religion. The idea of a State necessarily neutral in religious matters in the context of a pluralist society, is an anachronism for the beginning of the fourth century. Consequently it was a perfectly normal way of thinking for Christians of the time to expect that under an emperor whose sincere conversion to their faith was not to be doubted, Christianity would gradually take the place of pagan worship. And that, in addition, their affections fixed on that emperor with unreflecting enthusiasm, is psychologically perfectly understandable. The Christians of the eastern territories of the empire, especially, had years of most severe mental and nervous strain behind them; one wave of persecution after another had broken over them from the very beginning of the century; the hope for peace that sprang up when persecution slackened was suddenly and bitterly disappointed again and again as violent oppression flamed up once more. Then with Constantine an emperor who was of their faith became sole ruler and gave every guarantee for the beginning of a lasting peace. Inevitably that released an overwhelming flood of enthusiasm which Eusebius voiced when he opened the Tenth Book of his Ecclesiastical History with the cry of exultation from Psalm 97: "Sing ye to the

Lord a new canticle, for He hath done wondrous things" . Second thoughts about a deviation or aberration in development were all the more absent because the biblical sayings about civil authority being willed by God were applied precisely to the new situation and the anointed king of the Old Testament was seen as the model for Constantine who, just like the former, bore responsibility for a correct worship of God by the nations subject to him.® It is asking too much of bishops of that time who attributed such a theocratic value to the Christian emperor to expect them to have seen immediately the dangers that objectively were involved in the new relation developing between Church and State and to look for prophetic warnings from any of them. Insight into the presence of such dangers could only be gained by experience and only then did a decision of the Church on the problem of the relation between Christian State and Christian Church fall due.

The positive as well as negative possibilities that presented themselves for the Christian Church at the beginning of Constantine's period of sole rule may be summarized as follows. The freedom granted to the Church released strong forces that could be devoted to the unhampered building- up of life within the Church. Freedom of worship and of preaching within the Church was guaranteed by law. New conditions were created for the worthy performance of the liturgy through the possibility for reconstruction and the erection of new Christian places of worship which were generously accorded by the State. The religious care for the faithful in the various forms of catechetical instruction, preaching and sacramental life was no longer subject to any restriction. New and attractive tasks appeared for ecclesiastical writers in unhampered work in pastoral and theological literature. The missionary function of the Church was likewise no longer impeded by any restrictions and was able to develop in a particularly fruitful way, for freedom of conscience was guaranteed in the profession of a religious faith.

It was now also possible for the Church to undertake the enormous task of christianizing secular culture and public life and to develop and give a Christian stamp to an intellectual life of her own. The Church did not feel this task to be in any way a problematic one, for ideas of the independence of secular culture and civilization were alien to her. Here the Church faced perhaps her most radical task of adaptation. Previously she had lived consciously at a distance from the cultural world around her and had withdrawn from the completely pagan public life into her own specific moral and religious domain which was easier to preserve in

THE FINAL VICTORY OF THE CHURCH

complete isolation. Freedom now led her out of this separate existence but as a consequence, exposed her at the same time to risk; in the attempt to penetrate secular civilization with Christian ideas, she became more vulnerable to alien elements which could adulterate her belief and her morality. This imposed heavy responsibility on Christian leaders.

A danger for the high moral and religious standard of the Christian communities was created by the favour shown by Constantine to the Christian religion: people could now seek admission to the Church because adherence to Christianity offered social and professional advantages. The principle of selection that had been effective in times of persecution ceased to exist and the institution of the catechumenate became more important than ever.

Objectively the most difficult task to which the Church was set was the discovery of the right mental attitude to the new relation of Church and State. The double danger present was not, as we have already indicated, consciously realized from the start. Eusebius was still quite unconcerned and full of praise for Constantine when reporting that now, "the bishops received imperial documents and honours and subsidies". It must have been a temptation for many bishops especially in the East, after being oppressed for so long, to sun themselves in the imperial favour and so lose their freedom. More dangerous was the tendency, deriving from the emperor's view, not to consider the Church as a partner sui generis, but to make her serviceable to the interests of the State and so to stifle her independence and necessary freedom in the realm of internal Church affairs. It has, of course, been said that Pope Miltiades recognized this tendency of the emperor even in the early phase of the Donatist dispute when Constantine refused to regard the verdict passed by the Roman bishop's court on the Donatist leaders as final and ordered the matter to be dealt with again, but the sources say nothing definite about this. Only the bitter experiences under Emperor Constantius could give the episcopate some idea of how exceedingly difficult it could be to achieve a healthy, fruitful equilibrium in the mutual relations between a State under Christian leadership and the Catholic Church.