By damning those they have no mind to.”
Constantine ordered all the bishops throughout the Empire to offer up daily prayers for him; he had coins struck at the Imperial mints which depicted him with eyes uplifted to heaven, and he had pictures of himself—probably in mosaic—set over the gates of his palaces, in which he was seen standing erect with hands in the attitude of prayer. For our part we like better the chapters in which Eusebius describes the Emperor’s open-handed generosity to the poor and needy and to the orphan and the widow, extols the kind-heartedness which was carried to such a length as to raise the question whether such clemency was not excessive, and claims that his most distinctive and characteristic virtue was the love of his fellow-men, his φιλανθρώπια, a virtue which the typical Roman rarely developed to his full capacity.
Constantine’s whole career testified to the zeal with which he had embraced Christianity. We have seen the enthusiasm with which he set to work to build churches throughout the Empire. In Rome there are ascribed to him the Church of Saint Agnes, the Church of St. John Lateran, and another which stood on part of the site of the present St. Peter’s. In Constantinople he built the Churches of the Apostles, St. Eirene, and St. Sophia. In Jerusalem he built the Church of the Anastasis as the crowning memorial of his thirty years of reign, and in Antioch, Nicomedia, and a score of other cities his purse was constantly at the service of the Faith. The building of churches was a passion with him, and he also took care that they were provided with the Scriptures. Eusebius[[137]] gives the text of a letter written to him by the Emperor ordering fifty copies of the Scriptures to be executed without delay. Constantine published an edict commanding that the Lord’s day should be scrupulously observed and honoured, and that every facility should be given to Christian soldiers to enable them to attend the services. Even his pagan soldiers were to keep that day holy by offering up a prayer to the “King of Heaven,” in which they addressed him as the “Giver of Victory, their Preserver, Guardian, and Helper.”
“Thee alone we know to be God; Thee alone we recognise as King; Thee we invoke as Helper; from Thee we have gained our victories; through Thee we are superior to our enemies. To Thee we give thanks for the benefits we now enjoy; from Thee we look for our benefits to come. All of us are Thy suppliants: and we pray that Thou wilt guard our King Constantine and his pious sons long, long to reign over us in safety and victory.”
No pagan soldier could be offended at being required to offer this prayer to the King of Heaven. If he were sincere in his faith he would hope that it might reach the throne of Jupiter; Constantine evidently expected that, as it was addressed to the King of Heaven, it would be intercepted in midcourse and wafted to the throne of God. He was at any rate determined that no soldier of his, whether pagan or Christian, should wear on his shield any other sign than that of the Cross—“the salutary trophy.”
But what was Constantine’s policy towards the old religion? Let us look first at the explicit statements of Eusebius. He says in one place[[138]] that “the doors of idolatry were shut throughout the whole Roman Empire for both laity and military alike, and every form of sacrifice was forbidden.” In another passage[[139]] he says that edicts were issued “forbidding sacrifice to idols, the mischievous practice of divination, the putting up of wooden images, the observance of secret rites, and the pollution of cities by the sanguinary combats of gladiators.” In a third passage[[140]] he speaks of Constantine’s having “utterly destroyed polytheism in all its variety of foolishness.” Eusebius also tells us that Constantine was careful to choose, whenever possible, Christian governors for the provinces, while he forbade those with Hellenistic, i. e., pagan, sympathies to offer sacrifice. He also ordered that the synodal decrees of bishops should not be interfered with by the provincial authorities, for, adds Eusebius, he considered a priest of God to be more entitled to honour than a judge. The same authority expressly states[[141]] that Constantinople was kept perfectly free from idolatry in every shape and form, and was never polluted with the blood or smoke of sacrifice, and the general impression which he leaves upon the reader’s mind is that paganism was proscribed and the practice of the old religion declared to be a crime.
It is evident, however, that this was not the case. Eusebius, as usual, supplies the corrective to his own exaggerations. He quotes, for example, in full the text of an edict which Constantine addressed to the governors of the East, wherein it is unequivocally laid down that complete religious freedom is to be the standing rule throughout the Empire. He beseeches all his subjects to become Christians, but he will not compel them. “Let no one interfere with his neighbour. Let each man do what his soul desires.”[[142]] This edict was issued after the overthrow of Licinius and is remarkable chiefly for the fervent profession of Christianity which the Emperor makes in it. “I am most firmly convinced,” he says, “that I owe to the most High God my whole soul, my every breath, my most secret and inmost thoughts.” And then he continues: “Therefore, I have dedicated my soul to Thee, in pure blend of love and fear.[[143]] For I truly adore Thy name, while I reverence Thy power which Thou hast manifested by many proofs and made my faith the surer.”
But did Constantine maintain this attitude of strict neutrality, only tempered by ardent prayer that his pagan subjects might be brought to a knowledge of the truth? In its entirety he certainly did not, and it was impossible that so zealous a convert should. When the smiles of Imperial favour were withdrawn from the old religion it was inevitable that the Imperial arm which protected it should grow slack in its defence. Yet, throughout his reign Constantine never forgot that the majority of his subjects were still pagan, despite the hosts of conversions which followed his own, and he took care not to press too hardly upon them and not to goad the more fanatical upholders of the old régime to the recklessness of despair. We have seen how the Emperor refused to witness the procession of the Knights in Rome at the time of his Vicennalia. He also forbade his statue or image to be placed in a pagan temple. But he, nevertheless, retained through life the office of Pontifex Maximus, and as such continued to be supreme head of the pagan religion. Nor was it until the time of Gratian fifty years afterwards that this title—no doubt in deference to the repeated representations of the bishops—was dropped by the Christian Emperors. Some historians have expressed surprise that so enthusiastic a convert to Christianity should have been willing to remain Chief Pontiff; a few have even been genuinely concerned to explain and excuse his conduct. But Constantine was statesman as well as convert. If he had resigned the Chief Pontificate that office might conceivably have passed into dangerous hands. By holding it as an absolute sinecure, by never performing its ceremonial duties or wearing its distinctive robes, Constantine did far more to destroy its influence than if he had resigned it. Imperial titles, moreover, sometimes signify very little. Every one knows the gibe of Voltaire at the Holy Roman Empire which was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire. For centuries after the loss of Calais the lilies of France were quartered on the Royal arms of Great Britain, and the coins of our Protestant monarch still bear the F. D. bestowed by the Pope upon the eighth Henry. The King of Portugal is still Lord of All the Indies. It is not titles that count but actions. Whether or not Constantine’s ecclesiastical friends were troubled by his retaining the title, we may be sure the question never troubled the Emperor himself, as the title of “Supreme Head of the English Church” is said to have troubled the scrupulous conscience of James II. after he became a convert to Rome. But in the latter case the practical advantages of retention outweighed the shock to consistency in the eyes of those whom James consulted.
Constantine helped forward the conversion of the Empire with true statesmanlike caution, desirous above all things to avoid political disturbance. He abolished outright, we are told, certain of the more offensive and degraded pagan rites, to which it was possible to take grave exception on the score of decency and morality. For example, some Phœnician temples at Heliopolis and Aphaca, where the worship of Venus was attended with shameless prostitution, were ordered to be pulled down. The same fate befell a temple of Æsculapius at Ægææ, and a college of effeminate priests in Egypt, associated with the worship of the Nile, was disbanded and its members, according to Eusebius, were all put to death. But these are the only specific examples of repression instanced by Eusebius,[[144]] and they assuredly do not suggest any general proscription of paganism. Eusebius is notoriously untrustworthy. He distinctly says that Constantine determined to purify his new capital of all idolatry, so that there should not be found within its walls either statue or altar of any false god. Yet we know that the philosopher Sopater was present at the ceremony of dedication and that he enjoyed for a time the high favour of the Emperor, though he was subsequently put to death on the accusation of the præfect Ablavius, who charged him with delaying the arrival of the Egyptian corn ships by his magical arts. We know too that there were temples of Cybele and Fortuna in the city, and Zosimus expressly declares that the Emperor constructed a temple and precincts for the Dioscuri, Castor and Pollux. At Rome the temple of Concord was rebuilt towards the close of his reign, and inscriptions shew that the consuls of the year still dedicated without hindrance altars to their favourite deities. The famous altar of Victory, around which a furious controversy was to rage in the reign of Valentinian, at the close of the fourth century, still stood in the Roman Curia, and in the two great centres of Eastern Christianity, Antioch and Alexandria, the worship of Apollo and Serapis continued without intermission in their world-renowned temples.
