Constantine I
In 313 CE, Emperor Constantine and his co-emperor Lucinius sent a series of rather flowery letters to their governors, in which they said it was "salutary and most proper" that "complete toleration" be given to anyone who has "given up his mind to the cult of the Christians" or any other cult which "he personally feels best for himself." The Edict of Milan, as this series of letters were called, had the effect of legalizing Christianity throughout the Roman Empire and promoting it to a status symbol. The question history has never adequately answered is why the Edict of Milan was issued in the first place, but it was probably due to the growing political power of the Christians of various stripes.
Emperor Constantine was a deeply superstitious man, but also a consummate politician. He was a practitioner of several religions, trying to keep his bases covered, even after his “conversion.” He was arbitrary and capricious. He sent prisoners of war to the lions, committed wholesale acts of genocide in his campaigns in North Africa, and was known for his overbearing, egotistical, ruthless and self-righteous behaviour. His nephew Julian said that his appearance was strange, with stiff garments of Eastern fashion, jewellery on his arms and a tiara perched on a dyed wig set it all off. Constantine apparently viewed Christianity as just one of the many cults of his realm, and he seemed to practice them all, apparently with roughly the same depth of commitment. He was not actually baptized until he was on his deathbed.
Emperor Constantine, for all his strangeness, was nothing if not a good politician. He understood well the fact that the Christians were becoming so numerous as to represent a considerable political threat should they “get their act together” and become organized. Seeing the “handwriting on the political wall”, he conveniently had a “miracle” which led to his “conversion” so he could become their ally. In 312 CE, a year before the Edict of Milan, he fought the battle of Milvan Bridge, against a rival claimant to the emperor's throne. Among his soldiers were many Christians and they were already carrying on their swords and shields the Christian Chi-Rho sign. Well, to hear the stories, the heavens opened up, and the Emperor had a vision. Moreover, he was granted victory in his battle. At least this is the story the Christian apologists tell, but his conversion was a change of policy, rather than of moral character. Long after that event he killed, his son, his second wife, several others of his relatives, and some of his most intimate friends, in passionate resentment of some fancied infringement of his rights.
Unfortunately, we don't know what exactly happened at Milvan Bridge, because the dear Emperor kept changing his story and telling different versions of the events to different people. At least six different, contradictory versions have survived from different people who claimed to have heard it from the emperor himself. As he kept telling these conflicting stories, he still apparently remained personally converted to the Mithraic sun-cult common in the Empire at the time. As a monument to his victory at Milvan, some years later, he raised a triumphal arch, which survives to this day. It bears on it a testimony to the "Unconquered Sun" (a reference to Mithra) and referred to Jesus Christ “driving his [the sun's] chariot across the sky.” He commanded the Christians to hold their services on “Sun-day’s”.
Constantine became the sole Roman emperor in 324 CE and convened the First Council of Nicea the following year. His first edict concerning the Christians (Rome 312 CE) is lost. By the second (Milan, 313 CE) he granted them, not only free religious worship and the recognition of the State, but also reparation of previously incurred losses. Banished men who worked on the galleys or in the mines were recalled, confiscated estates were restored, etc. A series of edicts of 315, 316, 319, 321, and 323, completed. the revolution. Christians were admitted to the offices of the State, both military and civil; the Christian clergy was exempted from all municipal burdens, as were the Pagan priests; the emancipation of Christian slaves was facilitated; Jews were forbidden to keep Christian slaves, etc. An [547] edict of 321 CE ordered Sunday to be celebrated by cessation of all work in public. When Constantine became master of the whole empire, all these edicts were extended to the whole realm, and the Roman world more and more assumed the aspect of a Christian state.
One thing, however, puzzled and annoyed the emperor very much, the dissensions of the Christians, their perpetual squabbles about doctrines, and the fanatical hatred thereby engendered. In the Roman Empire, the most different religions lived peacefully beside each other, and here was a religion, which could not live in peace with itself and much less with others. For political reasons, however, unity and harmony were necessary; and in 325 CE the Emperor convened the first great ecumenical council at Nicæa to settle the Arian controversy [the controversy over the godliness of Jesus]. It was the first time the Christian Church and the Roman State met each other face to face; and the impression was very deep on both sides. When the emperor stood there, among the three hundred and eighteen bishops, tall, clad in purple and jewels, with his peculiarly haughty and sombre mien, he felt disgusted at those coarse and cringing creatures. One moment scrambled supportively around him to snatch up a bit of his benevolence, and the next flew madly into each other’s faces for some incomprehensible mystery. Nevertheless, he learnt something from those people. He saw that with Christianity was born a new sentiment in the human heart hitherto unknown to humankind, and that on this sentiment the throne could be rested more safely than on the success of a court-intrigue, or the victory of a hired army. The only rational legitimating, which the antique world had known of the kingship, was descent from the gods; but this authority had now become a barefaced lie, and was difficult to use even in the form of a flattery. At Nicæa, however, the idea of a kingship of God’s grace began to dawn upon mankind. Constantine also met there with men who must have charmed and awed him by their grand simplicity, burdened, and almost curbed, as he was by the enormous complexity of Roman life. After the Council of Nicæa, he conversed more and snores frequently and intimately with the bishops. His interest in Christianity grew with the years; but, as was too been foreseen, he was sure to be led astray, for the needle lacked in the compass. He was more and more drawn over to the side of the Arians, and it was an Arian bishop who baptized him.
Argument and dissension continued for the next six decades with various factions finding themselves in and then out of Imperial favour at various times. Athanasius, the actual author of the original version of the Apostolic Creed, found himself exiled and “rehabilitated” on no fewer than six occasions. It was eventually Imperial politics and the wealth of the Roman church, which it shared with the smaller congregations along with instructions for its use, more than theology, that finally governed the form that Christian doctrine would take, as various bishops found themselves in and out of imperial favour at various times. By 430 CE, the council of Nicea had become an ongoing affair, designed to stamp out "heresies" and create a formal, universal, i.e. Catholic Church organization, organized in a manner similar to the political structure of the Roman Empire itself.
The Council of Nicea became, in essence, the enforcer of the Imperial view of how things ought to be. This is why the Catholic Church today resembles in its government the government of the Roman Empire of the period. The headquarters of the church was eventually established at Rome, and the head of the church became known as the Pope. New basilicas dotted the landscape, all built with the blessing of the Emperor, and all aligned to the new, imperially blessed, church headquarters in Rome. Constantine sent expeditions off to Palestine to "find" and build basilicas over the sacred sites of the church's early history, and return with faith-promoting "relics" which of course they were happy to "acquire," or more accurately, produce. The newly established headquarters in Rome set about persecuting the Gnostics (crucifying many of them and sending many others to the lions), and suppressing the Marionite heresy.
In order to popularize the church with the masses, the doctrinal emphasis was changed significantly. These changes were reflected in the art of the Christian church. When early, pre-Constantine Roman Christians met secretly in Rome, the art they produced reflected the pastoral nature of Jesus' teachings. Scenes of Jesus feeding the multitudes, blessing the children, and healing the sick were the themes in the art of that period. After the conversion of Constantine, the character of the art suddenly and dramatically changed to reflect the change in doctrinal emphasis. Gone are the sweet, pastoral scenes of a meek Jesus patiently ministering to his followers. Instead, images of the crucifixion and the scourging of Jesus in the court of Pilate become common. This was to help the suffering masses identify with Jesus who was said to have suffered on their behalf. The church had became a political instrument, be patient with your suffering under Roman rule, the masses were told, and a better life for you is prepared for you if you believe in Jesus the Saviour. The emperor may not provide good living in this life, but Jesus would in the next.
It is at this time that the Chi Rho and the symbol of the fish, representing the miraculous nature of Jesus' message (at least as formulated by the gospel writers), is replaced by the cross, at the time a symbol of death and suffering, as the principal emblem of Christianity. The political message of the new symbol couldn't have been clearer at the time. Join up and Jesus will relieve your suffering in the next world even if the Emperor doesn't in this. Fail to join, and you're on your own, politically as well as spiritually.
Tradition tells us that the bible was written and compiled by godly and Holy Spirit inspired men. But Constantine was neither. During two of his “Councils”; was where it was decided by vote that 1) Jesus was resurrected from the dead and 2) Jesus was divine, i.e. God. Constantine used these councils to change the Christian religion to advance his own agendas.
