118 CONSTANTINE, Sylvester Hassell Constantius Chlorus died in 306, nominating his son Constantine is successor, who was proclaimed emperor by the army, and finally made his way to the throne of the Caesars, and held it undisputedly for many years.
He did not profess conversion; he was not baptized until a few days before his death, but simply declared himself in favor of Christianity, at the outset, adopting the sign of the cross as his army flag; and, when fairly installed emperor, gave liberty of conscience to all his subjects to worship their deities as they thought proper. This announcement was hailed throughout his empire with rapture and delight by all his professed Christian subjects; and had he gone no further than this, he would have proved, in many respects, a benefactor to his subjects.
As time progressed he became, professedly more attached to Christianity, though he never ceased to reverence the heathen gods; and he set up Christianity by law as the religion of his empire, and for a while offered a white robe and twenty pieces of gold to each person who would join the Catholic Church. Not only so, but he assumed to be at the head of the church, even “the Bishop of Bishops,” and pretended to write and deliver sermons to his courtiers, who loudly applauded him; and, when he could not reconcile the differences between those who adhered to the church in Rome, he called a council of Bishops to settle the difficulty, and presided as their chairman or chief moderator; and, when the council arrived at a conclusion, he anathematized those who did not subscribe to its decisions—deprived them of their positions, and banished them the country.
Not only so, but when he found he could not conciliate the Donatists and other dissenters by having them adhere to the church of Rome and endorse all her monstrosities, he laid the hand of persecution upon them, sought to obtain possession of their books, forbade their assembling together, and destroyed their places of worship. These “oppressive measures prompted many to leave the scene of sufferings and retire into more sequestered spots. Claudius Seyssel, the popish Archbishop, traces the rise of the Waldensian heresy to a pastor named Leo leaving Rome at this period for the valleys.”—Orchard.
The gladness manifested by the genuine Baptists of that day, upon the ascension of Constantine to the throne, was therefore soon turned into sorrow, when they found he had become their enemy, and persecuted them as the heathen rulers had persecuted Christians before.
A similar scene appeared in after ages, when the voice of Martin Luther and his colleagues shook the thrones of popes and emperors, and proclaimed liberty of conscience to all mankind. The poor persecuted Baptists rallied to his support, and rejoiced to think that the day of their deliverance had come. But they soon went away sorrowful when they discovered that the anathemas of Luther were as violently hurled at them as those of Leo had been against him, and eventually both Catholics and Lutherans joined hands in persecuting Baptists.
During the reign of Constantine many troubles and divisions arose among those who adhered to the Roman Catholic party—none greater perhaps than that which was called the “Arian controversy.”
In an assembly of the presbyters of Alexandria, the Bishop of that city, whose name was Alexander, expressed his sentiments on this subject (the persons of the Godhead, and the Divinity of Christ, etc.) with a great degree of freedom and confidence, maintaining among other things that the Son was not only of the same eminence and dignity, but also of the same essence with the Father. This assertion was opposed by Arius, one of the presbyters, a man of subtle turn, and remarkable for his eloquence. Whether his zeal for his own opinions or personal resentment against his Bishop was the motive that influenced him, is not very certain. Be that as it may, he first treated as false the assertion of Alexander, on account of his affinity to the Sabellian errors, which had been condemned by the church, and then, rushing into the opposite extreme, he maintained that the Son was totally and essentially distinct from the Father; that he was the first and noblest of those beings whom God had created out of nothing, the instrument by whose subordinate operation the Almighty Father formed the universe, and therefore inferior to the Father, both in nature and in dignity.
His opinions concerning the Holy Ghost are not so well known. It is, however, certain that his notion concerning the Son of God was accompanied and connected with other sentiments that were very different from those commonly received among Christians, though none of the ancient writers have given us a complete and coherent system of those religious tenets which Arius and his followers really held.
The opinions of Arius were no sooner divulged than they found, in Egypt and the neighboring provinces, a multitude of abettors, and, among these, many who were distinguished as much by the superiority of their learning and genius as by the eminence of their rank and station. Alexander, on the other hand, in two councils assembled at Alexandria, accused Arius of impiety, and caused him to be expelled from the communion of the church. Arius received this severe and ignominious shock with great firmness and constancy of mind, retired into Palestine, and thence wrote several letters to the most eminent men of those times, in which he endeavored to demonstrate the truth of his opinions, and that with such surprising success that vast numbers were drawn over to his party; and, among these, Eusebius, Bishop of Nicomedia, a man distinguished in the church by his influence and authority.”
“The Emperor Constantine, looking upon the subject of this controversy as a matter of small importance, and as little connected with the fundamental and essential doctrines of religion, contented himself at first with addressing a letter to the contending parties, in which he admonished them to put an end to their disputes. But when the prince saw that his admonitions were without effect, and that the troubles and commotions which the passions of men too often mingle with religious disputes were spreading and increasing daily throughout the empire, he convoked, in the year 325, a great Council at Nice in Bithynia, hoping and desiring that the deputies of the church universal (as it was called) would put an end to this controversy. In this general assembly, after many keen debates and violent efforts of the two parties, the doctrine of Arius was condemned; Christ was declared consubstantial, or of the same essence, with the Father; the vanquished presbyter was banished among the Illyrians, and his followers were compelled to give their assent to the Creed, or Confession of Faith, which was composed on this occasion.
“The council assembled by Constantine at Nice is one of the most famous and interesting events that are presented to us in ecclesiastical history, and yet, what is most surprising, scarcely any part of the history of the church (Romish) has been unfolded with such negligence, or rather passed over with such rapidity. The ancient writers are agreed with respect neither to the time nor the place in which it was assembled, the number of those who sat in the council, nor the Bishop who presided in it, and no authentic acts of its famous sentence are now extant.”—Mosheim.
It is now generally agreed that the council was held at Nice; that it convened on the 14th of June, A.D. 325, and ended on the 25th of July following; that it was composed of three hundred and eighteen Bishops, besides a multitude of presbyters, Deacons, acolythists, and others, amounting in the whole to about two thousand and forty-eight persons. This is what is termed the first general council. It decided the question of Arianism, and also the time for the celebration of Easter.
“Letters were now written to all the churches in Egypt, Lydia and Pentapolis, announcing their decrees and informing them that the holy synod had condemned the opinions of Arius, and had fully decided the time for the celebration of Easter; exhorting them to rejoice for the good deed they had done, for that they had cut off all manner of heresy. When these things were ended Constantine splendidly treated the Bishops, filled their pockets and sent them honorably home, exhorting them at parting to maintain peace among themselves, and that none of them should envy another who might excel the rest in wisdom and eloquence; that they should not carry themselves haughtily towards their inferiors, but condescend to and bear with their weakness—a convincing proof that he saw into their tempers, and was no stranger to the haughtiness and pride that influenced some, and the envy and hatred that prevailed in others.”
“It requires not the spirit of prophecy to anticipate the effects which must flow from the disgraceful proceedings of this general Council, though Constantine himself wrote
letters enjoining universal conformity to its decrees, and urged, as a reason for it, that ‘what they had decreed was the will of God, and the agreement of so great a number of such Bishops was by inspiration of the Holy Ghost.’ This Council laid the foundation for a system of persecution altogether new— professing Christians tyrannizing over the consciences of each other, and inflicting torture and cruelties upon each other far greater than they had ever sustained from their heathen persecutors.”
“The emperor’s first letters were mild and gentle, but he was soon persuaded into more violent measures; for, out of his great zeal to extinguish heresy, he issued edicts against
all such as his favorite Bishops persuaded him were the authors or abettors of it; and particularly against the Novations, Donatists, Valentinians, Marcionists and others, whom, after reproaching with being ‘enemies of truth, destructive counselors,’ etc., he deprived of the liberty of meeting for worship either in public or private places; and gave all their oratories to the orthodox church. And, with respect to the discomfited party, he banished Arius himself; commanded that all his followers should be called Porphyrians (from Porphyry, the heathen philosopher who wrote against Christianity); ordained that the books written by them should be burnt, that there might remain to posterity no vestiges of their doctrine; and, to complete the climax, enacted that if any should dare to keep in his possession any book written by Arius, and should not immediately burn it, he should no sooner be convicted of the crime than he should suffer death. Such were the acts of the last days of Constantine.”—W. Jones.
How unreasonable for the Emperor Constantine to suppose that he could keep down pride, envy and jealousy among his Bishops, when at the same time he was enriching them and elevating them to the highest distinctions in Church and State!
Constantine’s leading motive was evidently one of political expediency and personal aggrandizement. When he undertook to unite Church and State, and constitute the kingdom of Christ into a kingdom of this world, he made a great mistake, and was found pandering to Antichrist rather than serving Christ, who most emphatically declared before Pontius Pilate, “My kingdom is not of this world.”
For the first three centuries the ministry were unsalaried, and received only irregular voluntary contributions from the private members, who were themselves comparatively few and poor. But Constantine instituted the worldly and corrupting practice of paying the Catholic ministry a fixed salary from church funds and from imperial and municipal treasuries. This custom, says Prof. Schaff, “favored ease and luxury, allured a host of unworthy persons into the service of the church, and checked the exercise of free-giving among the people.”
The Arians, so far from being silenced, continued their agitations during the fourth century, and, while persecuted by some emperors, were favored by others, and when in the ascendency would persecute the Trinitarians or orthodox party, just as that party when in power persecuted them. And, although Arius was sadly in error in denying divinity to Christ, yet, so far as the acrimony of the controversy was concerned, he was no more to blame than Alexander and Athanasius, the leaders of the opposite party. Each side abounded with language unbecoming the profession they had made of belief in the Savior of sinners; and their bitterness and foul denunciations of each other rose to such a pitch and were so wide-spread throughout the empire that the very heathen mocked them and rebuked them in their theatrical performances.
This one instance goes to show that mankind are prone to make the greater noise about those things they least understand; and that there are scarcely any bounds to the presumption and arrogance of those theologians who, disregarding the limits of scriptural phraseology, make a language of their own, pretend to know as much about the mode of God’s existence as God does himself, and hurl anathemas against all those who do not agree with them in everything they say.
The Scriptures sufficiently prove that the Father, Word and Holy Ghost are each divine, and that these three are but one, and constitute the one eternal God. Secret things belong to God, but such as are revealed belong to us and to our children. Human knowledge goes no further. No finite intelligence can fathom the infinite depths of the Godhead.
Arianism, or a denial of Christ’s divinity, continued to exist in the bosom of the Roman Catholic Church (so-called) for centuries, and has never entirely left it to this day. It has shown itself under many forms from the days of Arius to the present time, and particularly under those of Mohammedanism and Unitarianism. (Hassell’s History ppg 380-385)
The ecclesiastical historian, Eusebius, says that, in A.D. 312, while Constantine was marching against the pagan Emperor Maxentius, Constantine and his army saw in the Heavens, just after noon, a bright cross above the sun, and near it the words, Touto Nika (By this Conquer); and that the same night Christ appeared to Constantine while he slept, and directed him to prepare a standard in the form of a cross, and told him that thus he would conquer his enemies. Lactantius, an earlier and more credible witness, speaks only of the night-dream, and nothing of the day-vision, which is thought by the best historians either not to have occurred, or to have been some natural phenomenon, as a parhelion, or solar halo, or a cloud, somewhat in the form of a cross, the letters being invented or imagined. Christ does not direct to carnal warfare, but is the Prince of Peace. As Constantine had in 310 slain his father-in-law, Maximian, so in 324 he slew his brother-in-law, Licinius, and his nephew, Licinius, and in 326 his own eldest son, Crispus, and it is thought by many, his own wife Fausta, with whom he had lived twenty years.” (Hassell’s History pg 380)