What should Constantine or the Church have done?

hedrick · Feb 25, 2021

For what it's worth Schaff agrees that the anathemas were omitted from the version at Constantinople. Philip Schaff: Creeds of Christendom, with a History and Critical notes. Volume I. The History of Creeds. - Christian Classics Ethereal Library

There is an anathema against both Arians and some others in the canons. I suspect it's simply a matter of what is considered the creed and what the canons.

timothyu · Feb 25, 2021

Ignatius the Kiwi said:
What should the Church have done instead?

There is the irony. God uses backwards man for His own purposes. The church did not serve the Kingdom of God but did serve God's purpose in forwarding scripture about His Gospel of the Kingdom forward through time in the hands of the enemy seeking worldly kingdoms of it's own. Today in America you have thousands of denominations glorifying the ways of man while all using a book of scriptures to self justify themselves that are in reality loyal to an opposing way of life. It's all there but as the saying goes, the path is narrow and few abandon the ways of man to see the entrance.

Gregory Thompson · Feb 25, 2021

Ignatius the Kiwi said:
This is a question for those who have a mostly negative view on the whole issue of Constantine the subsequent Constantinian shift within the Roman Empire towards Christianity. Many have a negative view about this history and I think it would be beneficial to ask two questions:

Why was it a mistake or mostly a mistake for the Church to associate with the Imperium?

Then the follow up would be:

What should the Church have done instead?

Rome is the beast, so associating with the empire made the church the harlot that rides it.

Focusing on proclaiming the gospel to the poor instead of seeking favor from demonic government was probably the correct course of action.

Ignatius the Kiwi · Feb 26, 2021

Michael Collum said:
Rome is the beast, so associating with the empire made the church the harlot that rides it.

Focusing on proclaiming the gospel to the poor instead of seeking favor from demonic government was probably the correct course of action.

I'll admit I don't see things in such eschatological terms. Mainly because what you're suggesting didn't happen. In so far as the Church herself was corrupted by the State I simply don't see it, either theologically or morally. The inverse seems to have happened. If we can describe Rome as a beast then it's marriage with the Church changed it into a human being. Christianity was the official religion. Paganism was eventually outlawed and sacrifices to pagan Gods forbidden. Crucifixion ended and society drifted towards a more Christian direction. Why was this a bad thing?

As far as the Gospel being preached to the poor, it always has. But more importantly, if the Gospel limited itself to the poor alone and ignored those with power (or the rich) the Church wouldn't have been nearly as successful as it was historically. We would have had no educated members (who could afford a classical education then and be poor?) and with that the intellectual movement for Christianity within the Roman Empire wouldn't have even started off the ground. Books written by Christians, letter exchanges and the helping of other Churches. None of that would have happened had the Church been comprised of just the poor and the slaves. It seems more of a fetish to me, this adulation of the poor, rather than a serious consideration history.

Philip_B · Feb 26, 2021

It does seem to me that many who condemn Constantine, and the period fail to acknowledge the historical context. Would you have preferred a continuation of the Diocletian Persecutions. That is almost certainly what Licinius (Constantine's Brother in Law and Emperor in the East) would have preferred.

Constantine moved the Capital of the Empire from Rome, and many people forget that the longest Capital of the Roman Empire was in fact Constantinople. The murky mish-mash of Rome-Empire and Rome-Church that is presented in history is in the main just not true.

Without Constantine and the Edict of Milan the Church would have been on the fringe of society struggling to survive.

Ignatius the Kiwi · Feb 26, 2021

hedrick said:
This is a strange defense. We're supposed to have an approach to others that is better than the world's.

The word pacifist isn’t one I’d use in this context.

I’m not a pacifist. I believe in forgiveness and reconciliation. But sometimes that’s not possible, and people need to be defended from those who would attack them.

What do you mean a better approach? These things are relative. When it comes to marriage and sex it's better for a Christian to be celibate, but thankfully we don't condemn those who condescend to marriage.

In the same way, how do you combat a hostile world with mere hope and illusion? If the modern era of toleration has taught us anything it's that if the Christians of the 4th century had been like 19th/20th century western Christians they would have lost out to the Pagans. They wouldn't have had the courage or conviction to outlaw pagan sacrifice.

hedrick said:
But Arians do not threaten me with violence. They are trying to serve Christ. I even understand how one might come to their conclusion from Scripture, though I disagree. I think in the end good theology will win, and if we can allow that happen while still respecting others as fellow servants of Christ, the Church will be much closer to the Kingdom envisioned by Christ.

There is no reason to believe this. Nor should we regard the Arians as fellow servants of Christ. They served their best of all creatures. Christians serve God incarnate.

Yet the threat the Arians presented wasn't a physical threat, as much as it was a spiritual threat. A destruction of the faith, a malignant tumor on Christianity which undermined true worship and dedication to Christ. But I'm reasonably confident that if the arians had been the successful party and their own Theodosius who had the final say of Christianity in the Empire. They would have established their own creed if they have could have and marginalized the Orthodox. That's just how things worked back then.

hedrick said:
Part of this is because I take a broader view than some of what is acceptable for Christians. The approach that led to Nicea leads us (as I’ve seen in CF) to debates on whether it is sinful to sing anything other than Psalms in church or whether people using individual spoons for communion are apostate. You only have to read Christian Advice and various others areas to see just how legalism (and demands for doctrinal conformity are another kind of legalism) damages Christians.

If have to say that if I came to CF as a person from the outside interested in Christianity, I’d run in the other direction. I'd become yet another person who respected Jesus but didn't want to be associated with a church.

That approach can happen even without a Nicaea, especially with those concerned about theology and I agree it can go to far. Yet when it comes to the Nicene creed I fail to see how coming to an appropriate Christology is akin to how we ought worship liturgically. It isn't as inane as Orthodox/Catholic complaints at each other in the 10th century over minor issues.

Personally if I couldn't handle there being other people besides myself in the Church I might agree with the bold.

timothyu · Feb 26, 2021

Ignatius the Kiwi said:
The inverse seems to have happened. If we can describe Rome as a beast then it's marriage with the Church changed it into a human being.

You've heard of compromise. However you cannot judge by what the Empire became, but what the church abandoned. Putting the will of God first and loving all as self was out the window. Neither church nor Empire complied. The counter-culture of the Kingdom that Jesus taught was gone (except for in scripture). The blind have lead the blind until today .

Lawrence87 · Feb 26, 2021

I think many people are inclined to view Constantine as though that was the point at which modern Roman Catholicism was ratified officially. Much of what the Reformation objected to were doctrines that were innovated in the West after the Great Schism.

Ignatius the Kiwi · Feb 26, 2021

timothyu said:
You've heard of compromise. However you cannot judge by what the Empire became, but what the church abandoned. Putting the will of God first and loving all as self was out the window. Neither church nor Empire complied. The counter-culture of the Kingdom that Jesus taught was gone (except for in scripture). The blind have lead the blind until today .

What did the Church abandon?

mindlight · Feb 26, 2021

Ignatius the Kiwi said:
This is a question for those who have a mostly negative view on the whole issue of Constantine the subsequent Constantinian shift within the Roman Empire towards Christianity. Many have a negative view about this history and I think it would be beneficial to ask two questions:

Why was it a mistake or mostly a mistake for the Church to associate with the Imperium?

Then the follow up would be:

What should the Church have done instead?

It could so easily have been very dangerous had an anti-Christian Emperor after Constantine reversed the effect. In the Eastern church, the example of Nestorian success during the Mongol Empire is a good example. Christians were protected under Kublai Khan and then massacred under Tamerlaine. In practice, this Western Union of church-state safeguarded and secured the canon and basic Nicene Creed. The major divisions started occurring with Chalcedon in 451 and thereafter the relationship with the state became entirely oppressive except for those who were happy to accept the broad state-backed doctrines. One could argue that the Muslim invasions of Christian provinces like Egypt, North Africa, Palestine, and Syria were successful due to resentment of Byzantine-Christian rule for example. But Constantine merely guaranteed freedom of religion giving finance for new churches. The real union of church and state came later in the fourth century.

So not a mistake in terms of its fruit - canon, creeds and growth. But later abuses meant that this relationship started to become a liability in many cases.

Dave L · Feb 26, 2021

Ignatius the Kiwi said:
This is a question for those who have a mostly negative view on the whole issue of Constantine the subsequent Constantinian shift within the Roman Empire towards Christianity. Many have a negative view about this history and I think it would be beneficial to ask two questions:

Why was it a mistake or mostly a mistake for the Church to associate with the Imperium?

Then the follow up would be:

What should the Church have done instead?

It was all part of God's plan even though an Antichrist version of Christianity grew from it.

hedrick · Feb 26, 2021

Lawrence87 said:
I think many people are inclined to view Constantine as though that was the point at which modern Roman Catholicism was ratified officially. Much of what the Reformation objected to were doctrines that were innovated in the West after the Great Schism.

Yes. Constantine didn't create the problem. The early Catholic approach always demanded conformity. Constantine just made the State enforce it. That made it very hard for any other approach to be tried.

hedrick · Feb 26, 2021

mindlight said:
So not a mistake in terms of its fruit - canon, creeds and growth. But later abuses meant that this relationship started to become a liability in many cases.

Christianity had grown just fine without the State mandating it. It continued to do fine in mission areas without the State.

mindlight · Feb 26, 2021

hedrick said:
Christianity had grown just fine without the State mandating it. It continued to do fine in mission areas without the State.

Really? In the East, the church withered and died under hostile post-Yang dynasty Chinese and Islamic state persecution. It was protected to a considerable extent in the West by Christian kings and princes winning battles under Charles Martel against the Muslim invaders from Spain, and before the gates of Vienna where the Ottomans were finally beaten back. It was the loss of Granada to the Kingdom of Castille that preserved the gateway to America and kept the Americas Christian. The circumstances of the early church are not the circumstances of the church today nor of much of its recent history. It was a coalition of free Christian nations that defeated communism and since the rise of Islam, the state has been needed to guarantee freedoms of religion. Today our freedoms hang in the balance with the will to fight for them waning.

Ignatius the Kiwi · Feb 26, 2021

hedrick said:
Christianity had grown just fine without the State mandating it. It continued to do fine in mission areas without the State.

The growth exhibited in the early centuries works well in a nation like Rome, where there were no policies aimed at a systemic reduction of Christian influence. Persecution on a serious level was sporadic rather than the norm and it was left to governors to decide what to do with Christians when they found them. It wasn't the policy of Rome to actively search out and destroy Christians. Only destroy them when found.

Compare that to Islamic regimes and how Christians fared under them. Christians either just survived or they converted to Islam. They never thrived. Egypt today is majority Islamic due to Islamic control over the region and so the whole of North Africa, most of Syria and Turkey. All of these were at one point majority Christian. Islamic law had a definite policy towards Christians and any Christian caught violating the Sharia was liable to be put to death or sold into slavery. This prevented Christians for active missionary work in Islamic countries.

One could also look at the situation of Japan. Catholicism did start to spread peacefully but once the Shogun decided to make Christianity illegal it was brutally and effectively suppressed. The only thing that could have stopped the Shogun would have been European Military intervention or maybe the conversion of the Shogun himself, not calls to mercy and peace.

Mountainmike · Feb 26, 2021

Ignatius the Kiwi said:
This is a question for those who have a mostly negative view on the whole issue of Constantine the subsequent Constantinian shift within the Roman Empire towards Christianity. Many have a negative view about this history and I think it would be beneficial to ask two questions:

Why was it a mistake or mostly a mistake for the Church to associate with the Imperium?

Then the follow up would be:

What should the Church have done instead?

Suggest you read such as “ the apostasy that wasn’t” bennet, or life of anthony” anasthasius. Nothing doctrinally changed. Constantine was a force for good allowing far more open Christian practice.

The too close linkage of church and state to detriment/ control of church did happen in some eastern countries , also Henry in the England, does happen now. But not constantines Rome. The accusations of apostasy are not historically valid. Constantine facilitated the church, not abused it.

Bruce Leiter · Feb 26, 2021

Ignatius the Kiwi said:
This is a question for those who have a mostly negative view on the whole issue of Constantine the subsequent Constantinian shift within the Roman Empire towards Christianity. Many have a negative view about this history and I think it would be beneficial to ask two questions:

Why was it a mistake or mostly a mistake for the Church to associate with the Imperium?

Then the follow up would be:

What should the Church have done instead?

The mistake wasn't that Constantine accepted Christianity as a recognized religion but that (I believe) the next Roman ruler (Justinian?) recognized it as the only established religion. As a result, anyone who didn't accept the Christian faith was considered a traitor to the state. Jesus didn't come to establish an earthly kingdom, as he said to Pontius Pilate. The Christian church should have rejected any favored, exclusive status because of the right of people to believe what they want to without it being forced down their throats (Revelation 22:11). The extreme abuses of establishment led to the Crusades and the Inquisition.

Ignatius the Kiwi · Feb 26, 2021

Bruce Leiter said:
The mistake wasn't that Constantine accepted Christianity as a recognized religion but that (I believe) the next Roman ruler (Justinian?) recognized it as the only established religion. As a result, anyone who didn't accept the Christian faith was considered a traitor to the state. Jesus didn't come to establish an earthly kingdom, as he said to Pontius Pilate. The Christian church should have rejected any favored, exclusive status because of the right of people to believe what they want to without it being forced down their throats (Revelation 22:11). The extreme abuses of establishment led to the Crusades and the Inquisition.

It was Theodosius some 60 years after Constantine who made it the official religion of Rome. An action I fail to see anything wrong with. I'll grant there were problems, mostly when it comes to how the Orientals were dealt with. The insistence on Chalcedonian Creed didn't help Egypt and has lead to bad relations ever since. Yet the primary target by Theodosius seems to be disestablishment of Paganism in the empire. Wasn't this a good thing?

Regarding the crusades. How were they abuses in concept? Islam had been invading Christian lands for about five centuries up until that point. Had the crusades been successful you would have had a plethora of Christian nations in the Middle East today. Jerusalem, Egypt and Antioch. This isn't to justify the crusader's excesses or the Fourth crusade.

buzuxi02 · Feb 26, 2021

Discussing this topic here is completely pointless as most don't even know history. People are associating that western Church which aligned itself with Charlemagne and eventually split from the Roman Empire of Constantine as the same thing. Fact is both Roman Catholicism and Protestantism are products of the holy roman empire and then of the enlightenment. Where is the Byzantine Church, the Coptic Church, the Assyrian church in this discussion? How about how they survived the Ottomon Muslim empire precisely because they were their own community preserving their own customs inherited from the previous empire

timothyu · Feb 26, 2021

Ignatius the Kiwi said:
What did the Church abandon?

Th ideals of the Kingdom of God where God called the world of man and it's governance backwards. How do two opposing systems become one and maintain their opposing values? The Empire did not harlot itself to the Kingdom.

What should Constantine or the Church have done?

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