I don't know much about Christian history, but i have always encounter this objection many times, and never bother to search the answers for it. Apologetic can be present in many areas, so learning one thing will not be enough. I often heard people object Christianity based on Constantine I and how Christianity rose to providence because he needed a new single coherent religion to keep the masses from becoming disobedient to the rule of the Roman Empire. Had Constantine formed his religion based on Islam, 9/11 would have never happened.
I don't know what happen and why he did that, but i'm having a hard time defending this area in Christian history. I would appreciate if somebody can correct this confusion. Now i know Christianity didn't began from Constantine. It all began after the disciples preached the Gospel and Paul who later converted to a Christian began to have followers.
Can someone explain if this is true or not - concerning what Constantine did, not Paul.
Some background:
At the turn of the 4th century Christians were experiencing one of the worst periods of persecution ever under the reign of Diocletian and Galerius. Diocletian had established the Tetrarchy, essentially a rulership of four over the Empire in order to bring some stability back by dividing rule over the Roman Empire between an Eastern and Western Caesar and an Eastern and Western Augustus.
Constantine, whose father Constantius had died in 306 in Britain, and the legions under his command proclaimed Constantine Augustus of the West (the title given to the senior emperor), in response Galerius was furious but rather than risk war elevated Constantine to the rank of Caesar and personally sent him the imperial purple robes.
Under Constantine's command were all the armies of Britain, Gaul and Iberia, a massive military force which he would later mobilize to claim sole leadership of the Western Empire when Maximian led a rebellion against Constantine's authority in 310, and upon his death was taken up by his son Maxentius.
It was during this period, when Constantine led his army in preparation for the Battle at the Milvian Bridge in 312, and according the legend (which exists in several forms) one of Constantine's advisers was a Christian, and supposedly the emperor had a vision or a dream in which he saw the sign of Christ (some say the cross, others say the libarum) and the words "in this sign, conquer" and so Constantine had the symbol painted on all his soldiers' shields at the behest of his Christian adviser. Constantine subsequently won the battle and attributed his victory to the Christian God.
After securing his power in the West, he made an agreement with Licinius in the East and the two shared imperial power. In 313 Constantine was able to convince Licinius to agree to the Edict of Toleration which officially ended the persecution of the Christians which Diocletian and Galerius had begun years earlier; it officially proclaimed Christianity a legal religion under the Empire.
In subsequent years Constantine began to show favor to the Christians, passing laws benefiting them, whether or not this was due to a legitimate conversion experience or simply a political move, it was still a shrewd political move as Christians were a growing segment of the Roman population by then and could be found in nearly every segment of Roman society.
In 320 Licinius began to oppress Christians again in the East, which eventually, may have been a motivator for Constantine's military campaign against him; in 324 Licinius surrendered.
Also during this period a presbyter of the Church in Alexandria was starting a wildfire of a theological controversy. During a homily given by then bishop of Alexandria, Alexander, Arius protested Alexander's statement that the Son was eternal and consubstantial with the Father. A local synod was held and the leadership of the Church in Alexandria excommunicated Arius where he then fled elsewhere where he spread his views far and wide, composing hymns which apparently were quite popular. The controversy was so widespread in the East that it was said that you couldn't go to the market without getting caught up in a heated argument over whether or not the Son was created or eternal.
This occurred at a time fragile in Constantine's newly united Empire, and so the emperor decided, in 325 to have the Church gather together from every part of the empire to hash things out once and for all, and so we are told 318 bishops from all over the empire came together, the largest church council ever at that point in Christian history.
The aged Alexander was represented by his presbyter, Athanasius who emphatically stuck to the idea that the Son was homoousios with the Father (of same substance) while others proposed that the Son was homo
iousios (of similar substance...and also the history behind the phrase "not one
iota of difference").
Eventually a confession was drawn up, this was the first draft of what became known as the Nicene Creed, and we're told that all but two of the bishops present agreed to it, though some more grudgingly than others.
In response Constantine declared that the council had decided everything and Arius and his supporters were deposed of.
In 330 Constantine moved the capital of the empire from Rome to Byzantium which he rebuilt and became known as Constantine's City (Constantinople).
After Nicea, Arian sympathizers and supporters of Arius held great sway in the imperial court, one, Eusebius of Nicomedia was distantly related to Constantine and was a close friend and confidant. Eusebius was also a friend and supporter of Arius, both of them having been students of the late Lucian of Antioch. This is not the same Eusebius who wrote the Church History (Eusebius of Caesarea), though the two knew each other and both sympathetic to the Arian cause and strong supporters of Constantine. Under the influence of both men they convinced the emperor that Arius' views really didn't contradict what was said at Nicea, and so the emperor reinstated Arius and Arian bishops and deposed some of the Nicene bishops, such as Athanasius who had taken over as bishop of Alexandria after the death of Alexander.
Several other synods were convened in support for the Arian position, and so the issue hardly got settled. On his death bead Constantine finally received Baptism from his friend Eusebius of Nicomedia, in 337.
Following his death a succession of Christological debate continued to war on as imperial politics and Christian theology became closely intertwined, with different factions nearly existing as political parties, various successors of Constantine either adhered to the Nicene view or the Arian view, and whoever happened to be in power at the time got to decide which was the "official" Christianity of Christianity.
Though it wouldn't be until Julian the Apostate, the last of the Constantinian dynasty, himself having been raised in a strict Arian household, began to undo much of what his predecessors had done. He sought to return the empire to its pagan roots, but after him Jovian took the imperial throne. Jovian was a Christian and immediately began to make Christianity the favored religion, after Jovian there was Valentinian I. Then Valentinian II, who was a staunch supporter of the Nicene party and ordered the convention of another general council, this time in Constantinople. Here the decisions of Nicea were reaffirmed, the Creed was redrafted to include mention of the Holy Spirit in response to the Macedonians, and in 382 (a year after the council) Valentinian II proclaimed Nicene Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire.
And that's how, in under a hundred years, Christianity went from the religion of martyrs to the religion of emperors.
-CryptoLutheran
