313-800 - Constantine To Charlemagne
The Emperor Constantine (306-337), although brought up as a pagan, manifested a decided preference for the Christian religion. His brother-in-law, Licinius, the co-emperor, favored paganism. In the war between them, victory came to Constantine, and Licinius lost both his kingdom and his life.
Having become sole ruler of the empire, Constantine, with the encouragement of his Christian mother, St. Helena, began gradually to eliminate paganism. Laws were passed in favor of the Christians; and important offices given to them. At first the pagan religion was tolerated ; but finally regulations prohibiting all immoral and deceptive forms of worship were brought to bear upon the pagans. Magnificent Christian churches, like the church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem and St. Peter's at Rome, were erected; and the Christian religion spread more and more. The sons of Constantine were instructed in the Christian religion.
In the year 330, Constantine left Rome and moved the seat of empire to Byzantium which received the name of Constantinople. The removal of the imperial government from Rome to the East enabled the pope to act more freely, and in this respect it was a blessing, but it had also indirect evil effects. At Constantinople, the emperors were drawn into the controversies of the Eastern Church and were led to interfere with ecclesiastical rights. They acquired the oriental spirit of despotism. The courtier-bishops of Constantinople originated many disputes with the pope and finally occasioned a schism.
In the Wilderness the Founder of the Christian Church successfully resisted the temptation to gain the world by falling down and worshipping Satan. But in the fourth century the Church fell a victim to a similar temptation. Apparently it gained the world. Really it lost an essential part of its ethical soul. It became a semi-worldly organization, obsessed by the Satanic principle that self-preservation is the first law of life, and distrustful of the Christ principle that life is lost by seeking to save it, and saved by readiness to lose it. For such an organization the real Jesus Christ is an everlasting embarrassment.
One can readily see that the real Christ is altogether too rugged, too plain-spoken, too straightforward, too uncompromizing, too dead in earnest, to serve the purposes of such an ecclesiastical organization as the Christian Church became after its disastrous compact with the Emperor Constantine. Jesus Christ preached repentance from sin — with the end in view of establishing a Kingdom of Righteousness on earth. Jesus Christ took as His commission the words of the prophets. A bogus Christ is none the less a bogus Christ for being fabricated by an ecclesiastical organization and set up as the God of the Machine. Nor is the case altered by the fact that the ecclesiastical organization happened to stand in need of a more manageable titular deity for organization purposes than the real Christ proved to be.
It is money that made the ecclesiastical machine go, and Mammon had the money, but he remembered what the real Christ said about him, and he would part with none of his money to an organization that takes the Christ of the New Testament seriously enough to refuse to compliment him to his face and pat him on the back and draw the sting of the Cross from his covetous soul. The Christ enthroned in the Christian Church at this time was a Christ quite acceptable to Mammon. And no Christ except a bogus Christ could possibly be acceptable to Mammon. Between this bogus Christ and the real Christ there is a great gulf fixed. The one is a pathetic compromiser. The other is heroically uncompromising. The real Christ declares to all the world, “Ye cannot serve God and Mammon." The bogus Christ, without saying so in just that many words, gives the Rich Young Ruler to understand that such a declaration as that need not be taken seriously.
Julian the Apostate (361-368), nephew of Constantine the Great, had been educated at Athens, and his mind had been influenced by the pagan philosophers. At heart a pagan, he professed great zeal for Christianity and received the order of lector to please his cousin Constantius. As supreme ruler of the empire he undertook to restore paganism by introducing Christian features into the old idolatrous worship. He attempted to fashion paganism in the likeness of Christianity, by using hymns and sermons at the services and by favoring works of charity. Against Christianity he employed scorn, calumny and violence; and he forbade Christians to have schools of their own. But paganism was dying, and although Julian began the rebuilding of the temple of Jerusalem, he could not complete it. Julian died in a battle with the Persians at the age of thirty-two.
Christianity was gradually gaining a foothold in all the countries. Outside the Roman Empire the glad tidings of the Gospel had been announced in Persia, Armenia, Southern Arabia, India, China and Abyssinia. About the year 340 a violent persecution, which lasted over one hundred years and almost destroyed Christianity, broke out in Persia. The historian Sozomen tells of 16,000 martyrs who perished there. Christians who escaped death were compelled to embrace the Nestorian heresy. The Gospel had been preached in Armenia by St. Gregory the Illuminator (300 A. D.). In the time of St. Mesrop (441), the Armenian church was flourishing, but later (491), it fell a prey to Monophysitism.
Theodosius the Great (379-395), a brave general and able ruler, further lessened the influence of paganism, by refusing all civil authority to the pagan priests, and finally by prohibiting the pagan sacrifices. Before the death of Theodosius, Christianity had become the official religion of the Roman Empire; and paganism gradually passed away. The state, however, was not yet thoroughly penetrated by the spirit of Christianity. The Byzantine conception still persisted, that is the idea that the ruler is the absolute head of the state, restricted by neither divine nor ecclesiastical law.
The fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth centuries are filled with instances of imperial interference in the affairs of the church. Theodosius II (408-450), at first favored, and later opposed, the Nestorians. Leo I (457474) took part in the Eutychian controversy, but fortunately opposed the heretics. Zeno (474-491) and Anastasius (491-513) caused trouble between Constantinople and Rome, and occasioned a schism that lasted for forty years. Justinian I (527-565) favored the Monophysites. Justinian II (685-711) convoked the Second Trullan Synod which in 692 declared the See of Constantinople to be on an equality with that of Rome. Leo the Isaurian (717-741) published an edict against images and thus provoked the permanent separation of Italy from the Empire. The same fatal policy was followed by his successor, Constantine Copronymus (741-775).
During the persecutions, heresy could find little chance to develop; but in time of peace is began to thrive. At first the powers of darkness had attacked the Church externally; later they attempted to destroy her from within. This period is the age of the great doctrinal controversies and of the great doctors of the faith. It is the age in which the teachings of the Church go through a process of organic development and, by virtue of thorough definition and proof, become clearer than before.
The teaching of Arius having provoked much dispute, the First Ecumenical Council was convoked by Constantine at Nicaea, in Bithynia (A. D. 325), under the presidency of the papal legate, Hosius, and in the presence of 318 bishops. The emperor, as honorary president, greeted the bishops and then gave place to the presiding prelate. Arius exposed his doctrine. He was refuted by St. Athanasius; and the council then proceeded to excommunicate Arius and his followers.
The intimate relation existing between the State and the Church was of great advantage to the latter: 1. The Church obtained protection for her property and exemption from taxation. 2. Pagan legislation was altered to conform to church laws. 3. The Church obtained recognition of her own authority. 4. Civil jurisdiction was conferred upon the bishops, and the right of asylum was given to tine Christian churches. 5. Sins against God, such as heresy, blasphemy and witchcraft, were declared to be civil crimes and were punished by the State. 6. The Church acquired a beneficent influence upon civil society, and by this influence prepared the world for social improvements, such as the gradual abolition of slavery.
St. Ambrose (340-397), son of the Roman prefect of Treves, became governor of Milan. While yet only a catechumen, he was addressing the contesting parties in an episcopal election, when a young child cried out: "Ambrose for bishop." He was forthwith consecrated against his will. In this exalted station he gave marked proofs of apostolic zeal and firmness of character. He distributed all his goods to the poor, and each day fasted until evening. He successfully opposed the Arians, who, aided by the powerful influence of the Empress Justina, endeavored to seize a church at Milan. He died in 397, leaving many valuable writings.
St. Jerome (340-420), born at Stridon, in Dalmatia, undertook extensive travels in the pursuit of knowledge. He sojourned for four years in the Syrian desert, Chalcis, where he devoted himself to the practice of penance and the study of Hebrew. At the urgent request of Pope Damasus I, he revised, according to the original Hebrew text, the Itala, i. e., the ancient Latin translation of Holy Scripture. His edition, being universally adopted, was called "Vulgata." He went to Bethlehem, where, for more than thirty years he lived near the Grotto of the Nativity, and devoted his time to the translation of the Old Testament from the Hebrew. He died in 420. His numerous works, especially his beautiful letters, attest his great learning.
St. Augustine (354-430), the greatest Doctor of the Church in any age, was born at Tagaste, in Numidia. Endowed with extraordinary talents, he went astray as a youth, and was captivated by the heresy of the Manichaeans, to which he adhered for nine years. But this sect could neither satisfy his craving for truth, nor give him peace of heart. Augustine gave up the world and devoted himself to study, penance and prayer. He was ordained priest and later on, in 395, was elevated to the episcopal see of Hippo, now Bona, in Africa. From that time his zealous labors extended to all classes, the clergy, the poor, the widow and the orphan. He was distinguished for the keenness of his mind, his clear logic and his profound knowledge, and was able to triumph over the Manichaeans, the Donatists and the Pelagians. Yet he was calm, mild, humble and kind-hearted to his enemies. Many of his 232 writings are still extant. His principal works are the "City of God" and the "Confessions." He died in the year 430.
Pope St. Gregory the Great (540-604) was born of an illustrious Roman family. Having wealth and learning, he was appointed praetor of Rome, an office which he soon abandoned to give himself to God. He became a Benedictine monk, then abbot, afterwards cardinal deacon and papal legate to Constantinople; and finally, despite his protests, he was unanimously chosen pope in 590. He was zealous, active, prudent, humble, gentle and solicitous for the welfare of the entire Church.
About the year 756, the Frankish king, Pepin, bestowed upon Pope Stephen II the Italian territory which the Lombards had taken from the Byzantine emperors and then lost in battle with the Franks. This was the beginning of papal sovereignty. True, Constantine had given the pope possession of certain lands, but these, like the rest of Italy, remained — except for the period of the Gothic kingdom — under the sovereignty of the Byzantine emperor, until they were seized by the Lombards in the seventh and eighth centuries.4 During all this time, however, a succession of events, such as the iconoclastic dispute, the increase of taxation, and the imperial neglect of Italy, tended to alienate West from East and to make the pope the chief guardian of Italian interests.
Charlemagne (711-814) was master of all the countries that had formed the empire of the West. His policy seems to have included three great aims: 1°. To organize the Germanic tribes under his rule. 2°. To establish a close alliance between the State and the Church. 3°. To secure for his people the double benefit of a civilization both Christian and national. On Christmas Day (800) Pope Leo III bestowed on Charlemagne the imperial crown and saluted him as "Emperor of the Romans." This act revived the Empire of the West, which had been extinct since the time of Augustulus, who died in 475. The empire after 962 was called the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation. The relation between pope and emperor was one of mutual support and dependence.
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