Constantine I

“ While Constantius was thus engaged struggling against the barbarians on the plains of Asia, Constantine was plotting an expedition against his brother Constans, who was a mere boy, proud, conceited, and incompetent. But the race is not always to the swift. Constantine, with a large army, crossed the Julian Alps, and invaded Italy to wrest that kingdom from his brother. But Constans, whom Constantine had despised, had able generals. They lured Constantine into an ambush, routed his army, killed him, and annexed all his realms to the Western empire. ”

“ You have become a Christian, Constantine? Then it is most unseemly for you now as a Christian emperor to have less sovereignty than you had as an infidel. For sovereignty is an especial gift of God, to which even the gentile sovereigns are supposed to be chosen by God.
But he was cured of leprosy! Probably, therefore, he would have wished to show his gratitude and give back a larger measure than he had received. Indeed! Naaman the Syrian, cured by Elisha, wished merely to present gifts, not the half of his goods, and would Constantine have presented the half of his empire? ”

“ ARIUS AND ATHANASIUS We have seen how, at the conclusion of the Council of Nicæa, it looked as if the Church had entered into her rest. The day of persecution was over; Christianity had found in the Emperor an ardent and impetuous champion; a creed had been framed which seemed to establish upon a sure foundation the deepest mysteries of the faith; heresy not only lay under anathema, but had been reduced to silence. Throughout the East—the West had remained practically untroubled—the feeling was one of confidence and joy. Constantine rejoiced as though he had won a personal victory ”

“ The Emperor Constantine, master of the world, with almost limitless power in his hand and boundless wealth in his lap, needs this religion just as much as the humblest slave or the feeblest child in his realms.
There is no royal road to heaven. Constantine, like all others, could only find peace by penitence for sin, the public acknowledgment of his faith in an atoning Saviour, and the prayerful consecration of himself to God. You and I, my readers, can find salvation only where Constantine found it. There is but one door through which we can enter the heavenly kingdom: that door is Christ. ”

“ Constantine immediately abandoned all thought of continuing the campaign, and employed his whole army in alleviating the calamity to the survivors, and in securing Christian burial and funeral honours to the dead. A truce was concluded with the enemy, and the Roman army beheld [213] the emperor as eager to employ their services in the cause of humanity and religion, as he had ever been to lead them to the field of glory and conquest. His conduct on this occasion gained him as much popularity with the people of Constantinople as with the troops. ”

“ Such a description would suit the character of Constantius Chlorus perfectly, and it may very well have suited Constantine himself before the overthrow of Maxentius. There is a passage in the Ninth Panegyric which seems to have been uttered by one holding these views, and it is worth quotation, for it is an invocation to the supreme deity to bless the Emperor Constantine. It runs as follows:
Wherefore we pray and beseech thee to keep our Prince safe for all eternity, thee, the supreme creator of all things, whose names are as manifold as it has been thy will that nations should have tongues. ”

“ But the prospect of beauty, of safety, and of wealth, united in a single spot, was sufficient to justify the choice of Constantine. But as some decent mixture of prodigy and fable has, in every age, been supposed to reflect a becoming majesty on the origin of great cities, the emperor was desirous of ascribing his resolution not so much to the uncertain counsels of human policy as to the infallible and eternal decrees of divine wisdom. In one of his laws he has been careful to instruct posterity that, in obedience to the commands of God, he laid the everlasting foundations of Constantinople ”

“ Constantine built a splendid Heroon at the entrance, just as Augustus had built a magnificent Mausoleum on the Field of Mars. When it could hold no more, Justinian built another. Each monarch, robed and crowned in death as in life, had a marble sarcophagus of his own; no one church in the world’s history can ever have contained the dust of so much royalty, sanctity, and orthodoxy. ”

“ The handsome face of Constantine glowed with a wonderful light of hope and pleasure as he answered, eagerly; "Yea, thou most wise and infallible bishop! If thou canst accomplish this thing, soon shall the churches of the East enjoy the imperial protection as fully as do those of the Western Empire; and, freed from the persecutions of Licinius and of the pagan priests, the Church shall triumph over all the world. But I have told thee that no more able warrior lives than the emperor; he will never forego the use of his right arm of power: thou canst not neutralize his navy." ”

“ All secular power is in the hands of Nova Roma which Constantine has set up to be the Christian city from its cradle: the seven greater hills to take the place of the hills by the Tiber, and in these very hills of Constantine from age to age the evil vision nestles—his successor and his patriarch are the chief performers in this ever recruited drama of heresy. ”

“ No emperor since Augustus had a more enlightened mind, and no one ever reigned at Rome who, in one important respect, did so much for the cause of civilization. Constantine is most lauded as the friend and promoter of Christianity. It is by his service to the Church that he has won the name of the first Christian emperor. His efforts in behalf of the Church throw into the shade all the glory he won as a general and as a statesman. The real interest of his reign centres in his Christian legislation, and in those theological controversies in which he interfered. ”

“ But the magnificent patronage which Constantine gave to the clergy was followed by greater and more enlightened sovereigns than he,--by Theodosius, by Charlemagne, and by Alfred; while the dogmas which were defended by Athanasius with such transcendent ability at the council where the emperor presided in person, formed an anchor to the faith in the long and dreary period when barbarism filled Europe with desolation and fear.
Constantine, as a Roman emperor, exercised the supreme right of legislation,--the highest prerogative of men in power. ”

“ Constantine IV. might have gone down to posterity in company with Heraclius and Leo the Isaurian, as the third great hero of the East-Roman Empire.
The year after the raising of the great siege, Moawiah sued for peace, restored all his conquests, and offered a huge war indemnity, promising to pay 3000 lbs. of gold per annum for thirty years. The report of the triumph of Constantine went all over the world, and ambassadors came even from the distant Franks and Khazars to congratulate him on the victory which had saved Eastern Christendom from the Arab. ”

“ Constantine in three days is wiser than they could be in their whole life. And you call [the Pope] a “heavenly Emperor” because he accepts an earthly empire; unless by that term you mean God (for you speak ambiguously) and mean that an earthly sovereignty of priests was by him established over the city of Rome and other places, in which case you lie.
“We decreed, moreover, that all these things which through this sacred imperial [charter] and through other godlike decrees we establish and confirm, remain inviolate and unshaken unto the end of the world.” ”

“ Indeed, he made no attempt to conceal the interest possessing him.
"The Empire may be shorn, even as thou hast said," she resumed presently, in a voice slightly raised. "But is not this city of our fathers by site and many advantages as much the capital of the world as ever? A Christian Emperor founded it, and his name was Constantine; may it not be its perfect restoration is reserved for another Constantine, also a Christian Emperor? Search thy heart, O my Lord! I have heard how noble impulses are often prophets without voices." ”

“ Nothing. There is not a word about the flaming cross, or the coming of Christ to Constantine in a dream, or the fashioning of the Labarum. All Eusebius says, in his History, of the conversion of Constantine, is that the Emperor “piously called to his aid the God of Heaven and his son Jesus Christ.” It is a strange silence. If the heavenly cross had been seen by the whole army ”

“ The reign of Constantine III. lasted only one hundred and three days, and at the early age of thirty he expired. The belief was prevalent that poison was the means used by his inhuman stepmother to bring him to his untimely end. Martina at once caused her son to proclaim himself sole emperor. But the public abhorrence of the incestuous widow of Heraclius was only increased by this deed, for Constantine had left a son, Constans, the natural heir. Both Senate and populace rose in indignation, and compelled Heracleonas to comply with their demand that Constans be made his colleague. ”

“ Julian puts into his mouth a grotesque speech in which he makes Constantine claim to have been a greater general than 305Alexander because he fought with Romans, Germans, and Scythians and not with mere Asiatics; greater than Julius Cæsar or than Augustus because he fought not with bad men but with good; and greater even than Trajan, because it is a finer thing to win back what you have lost than merely to acquire something new. The speech was received with ridicule by the gods, and then Hermes pointedly asked Constantine in the Socratic manner, “How would you define your ideal?” ”

“ When he had come to Rome to be crowned Emperor of the Romans, he could not get the Pope to crown him, except by confirming the Donation of Constantine and by granting anew all that it contained. What more contradictory than for him to be crowned Roman Emperor who had renounced Rome itself, and that by the man whom he both acknowledges and, so far as he can, makes master of the Roman Empire ”

“ They felt a pious conviction that the imperial and orthodox city would never fall into the hands of infidels. But the emperor Constantine was deceived by no vain hopes. He knew that human prudence and valor could do no more than had been done to retard the progress of the besiegers.
Time had been gained, but the Greeks showed no disposition to fight for a heretical emperor, and no succors arrived from the Pope and the western princes. ”

“ Constantine, made of gilt wood and bearing in its right hand a small image of the genius of the city, was placed on a triumphal car, and drawn in solemn procession through the Hippodrome, attended by the guards, who carried white tapers and were dressed in their richest robes. When it came opposite the throne of the reigning emperor, he rose from his seat, and, with grateful reverence, paid homage to the statue of the founder. Thus it was that Byzantium was replaced by Constantinople, and thus was the founder of the new capital held in honor. ”

“ Inasmuch as the affairs of the Christian Church will demand so large a share of our attention in dealing with the religious policy of Constantine, it will be well here to describe, as briefly as possible, its condition in the reign of Diocletian. It has been computed that towards the end of the third century the population of the Roman Empire numbered about a hundred millions. What proportion were Christians? No one can say with certainty, but they were far more numerous in the East than in the West, among the Greek-speaking peoples of Asia than among the Latin-speaking peoples of Europe. ”

“ Killen thus summarizes the character of Constantine:
“The personal conduct of Constantine in advanced life did not exhibit Christianity as a religion fitted to effect a marked improvement in the spirit and character. In A.D. 326, he put to death his son Crispus, a youth of the highest promise, who had in some way disturbed his suspicious temper. His nephew Licinius and his own wife Fausta shared the same fate. His growing passion for gaudy dress betrayed pitiable vanity in an old man of sixty ”

“ IN the year 312, the sixth year after Constantine had become emperor, the Roman Empire had increased on every hand, for Constantine was a mighty leader in war, a gracious and friendly lord in peace; he was a true king and ruler, a protector of all men. So mightily did he prosper that his enemies assembled great armies against him, and a confederation to overthrow him was made by the terrible Huns, the famous Goths, the brave Franks, and the warlike Hugas. ”

“ Julian runs over the list of the great Emperors, introducing them one by one and making each sit by the side of the god whom he most resembles in character. But when Constantine’s turn comes, it is found that he has no such archetype. No god will own him as his protégé or pupil, and so, after some hesitation, Constantine runs up to the Goddess of Luxury (Τρύφη) , who embraces him as her own darling, dresses him up in fine clothes, and, when she has made him smart, hands him over to her sister, the Goddess of Extravagance (Ἀσώτια) . ”

“ Constantine, whose victory over his rivals had been secured by his talents as an administrator and a diplomatist no less than by his military skill, was one of those men whose hard practical ability has stamped upon the history of the world a much deeper impress than has been left by many conquerors and legislators of infinitely greater genius. ”