Constantine, in the joint proclamation with Licinius that has come down to us with the name Edict of Milan, granted Christianity status as an accepted religion within the Roman Empire, on a par with all the pagan religions. Beyond that, once Constantine was the sole emperor, he issued a number of edicts that restored property and positions to Christians who had lost them in the previous years and established “Christian” positions on the execution of various laws.
Constantine favored the Christian religion as one that could be used to hold the empire together and got personally involved trying to resolve various heresies and disputes (not very successfully), but he never declared Christianity the “official” religion.
There was always political infighting and skulduggery in Rome (and Byzantium/Constantinople after Constantine moved the capital there) and when Constantine involved himself in religious debates, some of the secular politics came with him to invade the church. Since rival religious factions often resorted to violence and riots (“Look at the Christians, see how they love one another.”), establishing a single, faction-free version of Christianity became a high political priority. Once the secular and religious political movements became intertwined, the religious leaders began to strive for secular political power to ensure their message was the one put forth. From that entanglement arose the unholy alliance of Church and State that would not be overthrown until after Luther.
So, in short, while I got my facts wrong, I basically got it right. Constantine’s personal involvement in trying to do right by the Christians brought the whole morass of Roman politics into the Christian movement, and set the precedent for Church and State. Which in turn was primarily responsible for Christian atrocities (often anti-semitic) such as the Crusades, the Inquisition, the conquest of the Mayans, and too many to recount here.
Jolt Sucker wrote:
[q]Constantine’s personal involvement in trying to do right by the Christians[/q]
Constantine wasn’t trying to to do right right by the Christians, he was trying to do right by Constantine, and Christianity was one of the tools he used to do it. This may be a semantic difference, but most sources I’ve encountered considered Constantine’s conversion to be a political move, not a spiritual one.
In other words, he used Christianity for his own purposes. Christians played along, because it beat being thrown to the lions. But in doing so, they sewed the seed of much misery for more than a millenium. It should serve as a moral lesson to those conservative Christians now who want to mix their beliefs with politics.
I hate the way these things get out of hand so quickly but I’m ready to do my part.
Phew! What a responsibility you stuck on those poor Romans and Christians! **Sumaria **connected church and state whenever the responsibility for maintaining the dams and irrigation necessary for good harvests. Egyptians took it all a little further by making the head of state a GOD.
Many of the less well known political groups of that era did the same. Church and state was a very natural pattern.
The Hebrews did not have a king for a long time after the Caananite settlement because God was the King so you have that whole series of judges known to us from the book of JUDGES. Later on there is the sad story of the unworthy kings and you know what happened after that.
Now there is an example of sowing seeds!
Leap frogging history? A Sport or Pasttime?
Oh, I’m gonna keep using these #%@&* codes 'til I get 'em right.