XV
CONSTANTINE'S DEATH AND CHARACTER
IT seems incontestable that Constantine degenerated as he grew older.
Certainly his popularity tended to decrease. This, however, is the usual
penalty of length of reign, and in itself would not count for much. But one
cannot overlook the cumulative evidence which is to be found in the authorities
of the period. Eusebius himself admits that unscrupulous men often took
advantage of the piety and generosity of the Emperor, and many of the stories
which he tells in Constantine's praise prepare us for the charges which were
brought against him by the pagan historians. For example, Eusebius declares
that whenever the Emperor heard a civil appeal, he used to make up out of his
private purse the amount in which the losing party was mulcted, on the
extraordinary principle that both the winner and the loser ought to leave their
sovereign’s presence equally satisfied. Such a theory would speedily beggar the
richest treasury. Aurelius Victor preserves a popular saying which shows the
general estimation in which Constantine's memory was held. Men used to say that
for the first ten years of his reign he was a model sovereign, for the next
twelve he was a brigand, and for the last ten a spendthrift heir, so called
because of his preposterous extravagance. He was nicknamed Trachala, the obvious reference of which would be to his short, thick neck; but Aurelius
Victor appears to associate it in some way with the meaning of “scoffer” (irrisor).
In greater detail Zosimus accuses Constantine of wasting the public
money on useless buildings. As a pagan, he would naturally regard expenditure
upon the construction of sumptuous Christian churches as money thrown away, but
it is perfectly certain that the state of the Imperial resources did not
justify the Emperor in lavishing vast sums upon churches in all parts of the
Empire. If we consider what must have been the capital cost of his churches in
Rome, Constantinople, Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Mamre,
and Antioch,—to mention only a few places, —and remember that he was constantly
urging the bishops to keep building and constantly sending instructions to his
vicars to make handsome subsidies out of the State funds, we cannot but
conclude that the grumbling of the pagan tax payer was thoroughly well
justified. Constantine, indeed, seems to have been as entete in the matter of building churches as was in our day the mad King Ludwig of
Bavaria in the building of royal castles. Nor was this the only form in which
the passion for bricks and mortar—il mal di pietra—seized
him. He built a new basilica even in Rome—though he rarely set foot in the
city. In Constantinople he must have sunk millions of unproductive capital,
which were far more urgently required for the development of agriculture and
commerce. In one epigrammatic sentence Zosimus sums up his indictment by saying
that Constantine thought to gain distinction by lavish outlay. He also wasted
the public revenue on unworthy and useless favourites, whom he taught, in the
phrase of Ammianus Marcellinus, to open their greedy jaws. Zosimus says bluntly
that in his opinion it was Constantine who sowed the seeds of the ruinous waste
and destruction that prevailed when he wrote his history, and he roundly
declares that the Emperor devoted his life to his own selfish pleasures.
There is another character sketch of Constantine which has survived for
us, drawn by an even more bitter enemy than the historian Zosimus. It is to be
found in that amusing and extraordinary jeu d'esprit which bears the
name of The Cosars, from the pen of the Emperor Julian. Julian detested
the very memory of Constantine the Great, whom he regarded as the arch-apostate
from the ancient religion, and, thus, when he introduced him into the presence
of the deities of Olympus, it was really to pour ridicule and contempt upon his
pretensions.
Julian describes him, at the first mention of his name, as a man who has
seen considerable fighting, but has become soft through self-indulgence and
luxury. The deities of heaven are represented as sitting in conclave, while the
deified Emperors approach to join in their councils. 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 protege or pupil, and so, after some hesitation, Constantine runs up to the
Goddess of Luxury, 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. The irony was bitter, and the shaft sped home.
The ascetic Julian does not spare his august relative, whose title to
the epithet of Great he would have laughed to scorn. He declares that
Constantine's victories over the barbarians were victories pour rire; he represents him as a crazy being in love with
the moon, like that half-witted Emperor of the Claudian house, who used to
stand at night in the colonnades of his palace and beg the gracious Queen of
the Sky to come down to him as she had come down to Endymion. Julian puts into
his mouth a grotesque speech in which he makes Constantine claim to have been a
greater general than Alexander because he fought with Romans, Germans, and
Scythians and not with mere Asiatics; greater than
Julius Cesar 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?”; “To have great riches”,
was Constantine’s reply, “and to be able to give away lavishly, and satisfy all
one's own desires and those of one’s friends”. The answer is significant.
Julian, like Constantine’s other critics, keeps harping on the same string. It
is the luxury, extravagance, and self-indulgence of the Emperor that he singles
out as the most glaring defect of his character and his squandering of the
Imperial resources upon effeminate and un-Roman pomps,
useless buildings, and greedy and unworthy favourites. Silenus, the bibulous
buffoon of Olympus, a moral rebuke from whose lips would be received with
shouts of laughter, tells Constantine with mock gravity that he has led a life
fit only for a cook or a lady's-maid, and so the episode ends. We cannot doubt
that there was quite sufficient of truth in these accusations to make the
sharp- witted Greeks of the Empire, for whom Julian principally wrote,
thoroughly enjoy his biting sarcasms.
But we must be careful not to push too far any argument based upon this
lampoon of Julian or upon the obvious bias of Zosimus. They disclose to us,
undoubtedly, the least worthy side of Constantine's character, viz., a tendency
to effeminacy and luxury, and it is morally certain that no one who had given
way to his worst passions, as Constantine had done in Rome in the year 326,
could ever be quite the same man again. He had on his conscience the
assassination of his son and wife. These were but two out of a terribly long
list of victims, which included his father-in-law, Maximian; his
brother-in-law, Licinius, and Licinius’s young son, Licinianus; another brother-in-law, the Caesar Bassus; and
many more besides. Some fell for reasons of State—“it is only the winner”, as
Marcus Antonius had said three centuries before, “who sees length of days”—but
there was also the memory, even in the case of some of these, of broken
promises and ill-kept faith. Constantine’s Christianity was not of the kind
which permeates a man's every action and influences his entire life; or, if
that he claimed for him, it must at least be admitted that there were periods
in his career when he suffered most desperate lapses from grace.
On the whole perhaps the general statement of Eutropius, which we have
already quoted, that Constantine degenerated somewhat as he grew older, fairly
meets the case. It is worthwhile, indeed, to quote the reasoned estimate which
this excellent epitomist gives of the Emperor's character. He says:
“At the opening of his reign Constantine was a man who challenged
comparison with the best of Princes; at its close he merited comparison with
those of average merit and demerit. Both mentally and physically his good
points were beyond computation and conspicuous to all. He was passionately set
on winning military glory; and in his campaigns good fortune attended him,
though not more than his zealous industry deserved ... He was devoted to the
arts of peace and to the humanities, and he sought to win from all men their
sincere affection by his generosity and his tractability, never losing an
opportunity of enriching his friends and adding to their dignity”.
This estimate agrees in its main particulars with that of Aurelius
Victor, who, after speaking of his wonderful good luck in war and his avidity
for praise, eulogizes his exceptional versatility, his zeal for literature and
the arts, and the patient ear which he was always ready to lend to any
provincial deputation or complaint.
We have spoken of a marked degeneracy observable in Constantine as his
life drew to a close. Perhaps the clearest proof of this is to be found in a
momentous step taken by him in 335, when he divided the sovereignty of the
world among his heirs. Such a partition meant the stultification of his
political career, for he thus destroyed at a blow the political unity which he
had so laboriously restored out of the wreck of the system of Diocletian.
Eusebius gives us the truth in a single sentence when he says that
Constantine treated the Empire for the purposes of this division as though he
were apportioning his private patrimony among members of his own family. He was
much more concerned to make handsome provision for his sons and nephews than to
secure the peace and wellbeing of his subjects. Crispus had now been dead nine
years, and the three sons of Constantine and Fausta were still young, the
eldest being only just twenty-one. Eusebius tells us how carefully they had
been trained. They had been instructed in all martial exercises, and special
professors had been engaged to make them proficient in political affairs and a
knowledge of the laws. Their religious education had been personally supervised
by their father, who zealously sowed “the seeds of godly reverence” and
impressed upon them that “a knowledge of God, who is the king of all things,
and true piety were more deserving of honour than riches or even than
sovereignty itself”. Admirable precepts and Eusebius declares again and again
that this “Trinity of Princes”—so he calls them in one place—were models of
deportment, modesty, and piety. Unfortunately, we know how emphatically their
future careers belied their early promise and the eulogies of the Bishop of
Caesarea. We do not doubt his statement that Constantine spared no effort to
educate them aright, but it was most unfortunate that the remarkable success of
their father's political career bore testimony rather to the efficacy of
ambition without scruple than of “godly reverence and true piety”.
In this new partition of the Empire the Caesarship of the West, including Gaul, Britain, and Spain, fell to Constantine, the
eldest of the three princes. To the second, Constantius, were assigned the rich
provinces of the East, including the seaboard provinces of Asia Minor, together
with Syria and Egypt. Constans, the youngest, received as his share Italy,
Elyria, and Africa. But there was still a goodly heritage left over, sufficient
to make a handsome dowry for a favourite daughter. This was Constantina,
eldest of the three daughters of Constantine and Fausta, and she had been
married to her half-cousin, Annibalianus, whose
father had been the second son of Constantius Chlorus and Theodora. To support worthily the dignity of his new position as son-in-law
of Constantine, the new title of Nobilissimus was created in his honour, and a
kingdom was made for him out of the provinces of Pontus, Cappadocia, and Lesser
Armenia. Gibbon expresses surprise that Annibalianus,
“of the whole series of Roman Princes in any age of the Empire”, should have
been the only one to bear the name of Rex, and says that he can scarcely admit
its accuracy even on the joint authority of Imperial medals and contemporary
writers. The explanation is surely to be found in the fact that Pontus,
Cappadocia, and Lesser Armenia had for centuries been accustomed to be ruled by
a king and that, in creating a new kingdom, Constantine simply retained the
title which would be most familiar to the subjects over whom Annibalianus was to rule. Annibalianus was himself a second son: his elder brother, Dalmatius,
was raised to the full title of Caesar and given command over the important
provinces of Thrace and Macedonia, with Greece thrown in as a make-weight. The
position was a very important one, for it fell to the Caesar of Thrace to guard
the frontier chiefly threatened by the Goths, and we may suppose, therefore,
with some probability that Dalmatius—who had been
consul in 333—had given proof of military talent.
But to what extent, we may ask, was this a real partition? In what sense
were the Caesars independent of Constantine himself? Eusebius expressly tells
us that each was provided with a complete establishment, with a court, that is
to say, which was in every respect a miniature copy of the court at
Constantinople. Each had his own legions, bodyguards, and auxiliaries, with
their due complement of officers chosen, we are told, by the Emperor for their
knowledge of war and for their loyalty to their chiefs. It is hardly to be
supposed that Constantine contemplated retirement: had he done so, he would have
retired at the Tricennalia which he celebrated in the
following year. In all probability, he did not intend that his supreme power
should be one whit abated, though he was content to delegate his administrative
authority to others acting under his strict supervision. His Caesars, in short,
were really viceroys, though it is difficult to understand how such an
arrangement can have worked harmoniously without some modification of the
powers of the four Praetorian prefects. But the division, as we have said, was
not made in the interests of the Empire but in the interests of the Princes of
the Blood, and it was one which could not possibly endure. As soon as
Constantine died chaos and civil war were bound to ensue, and, as a matter of
fact, did ensue. For there is no evidence that the Emperor made any arrangement
as to who should succeed him on the throne. Constantinople itself lay in the
territory assigned to Dalmatius; yet it was entirely
unreasonable to suppose that the three sons of Constantine would acquiesce in
leaving the capital to the quiet possession of their cousin. The division of
the Empire, therefore, in 335 carried with it the early ripening seeds of civil
war, bloodshed, and anarchy. If the system of Diocletian had proved unworkable,
because it took no account of the natural desire of a son to succeed his
father, the system of Constantine was even worse. It was absolutely certain
that of the five heirs the three sons would combine against the two cousins,
whom they would regard as interlopers, and that then the three brothers would
quarrel among themselves, until only one was left.
Constantine's reign was now hastening to its end. In 336 he celebrated
his Tricennalia, and his courtiers would not fail to
remind him that he alone, of all the successors of the great Augustus, had
borne such length of days in his left hand and such glory in his right. The
principal event of the festival seems to have been the dedication at Jerusalem
of the sumptuous Church of the Anastasis on the site of the Holy Sepulchre. As
we have seen in another chapter, the year was one of acute religious
contention, rendered specially memorable by the awe-inspiring death of Arius,
and the Emperor's last months of life must have been embittered by the thought
that, despite all his efforts, religious unity within the Church seemed as far
as ever from realization.
Eusebius tells us that Constantine sought to find a remedy in the hot
baths of Constantinople for the disorder from which he was suffering, and then,
obtaining no relief, crossed the straits to Drepanum,
or Helenopolis, as it was now called in honor of the Emperor's mother. There his malady grew worse
and special prayers were offered for his recovery in the Church of Lucian the
Martyr.
But Constantine had a presentiment that the end was near, and he
determined, therefore, that the time had come for him formally to become a
member of the Christian Church and so obtain purification for the sins which he
had committed in life. Falling upon his knees on the church floor, he confessed
his sins, received the laying-on of hands, and so became a catechumen. Then,
travelling down to the palace which stood on the outskirts of Nicomedia, the
now dying Emperor summoned to his side a number of bishops and made confession
of his faith. He told them that the moment for which he had thirsted and prayed
had come at last, the moment when he might receive “the seal which confers
immortality”. He had hoped, he said, to be baptized in Jordan: God had willed
otherwise and he bowed to His will. But he assured them that his resolve was
not due to any passing whim. He had fully made up his mind, that even if
recovery were vouchsafed him, he would set before himself such rules and
conduct of life as would be becoming to God.
Eusebius of Nicomedia then performed the rite of baptism. Constantine,
clad in garments of shining white, lay upon a white bed, and, down to the hour
of his death, refused to touch the purple robes he had worn in life. “Now”, he
exclaimed, with all the fervour of a neophyte, “now I know in very truth that I
am blessed; now I have confidence that I am a partaker of divine light”. When
his captains came to take leave of him and wept at the thought of losing their
chief, he told them that he had the assurance of having been found worthy of
eternal life, and that his only anxiety was to hasten his journey to God. He
wished to die, and the wish was soon granted. Constantine drew his last breath
on May 22d, 337.
They bore the body, enclosed in a golden coffin covered by a purple
pall, from Nicomedia to Constantinople and placed it with great pomp in the
throne room of the palace. There the dead Emperor lay in state, guarded night
and day by the chief officers of the army and the highest officials of the
court. Even in death, says Eusebius, he still was king, and all the elaborate
bowings and genuflexions with which men had entered his presence in his
lifetime were still observed. Constantine’s illness had declared itself very
suddenly, and had run its course so quickly that not one of his sons was at
hand to take up the reins of administration. It looks too as though the Emperor
had made no preparations with a view to his demise, but had left his three sons
and his two nephews to determine among themselves who should be supreme. His
second son, Constantius, was the first to arrive at Constantinople, and it was
he who arranged the obsequies of his father. We are told that the Roman Senate
earnestly desired the body of the Emperor to be laid to rest in the old capital
and sent deputations begging that this last honour should not be denied them.
But it had been Constantine’s express wish to be buried in the Church of the
Apostles, at Constantinople, where he had prepared a splendid sarcophagus, and
there can have been no hesitation as to the choice of a resting-place. The body
was borne with an imposing military pageant to the Church. Constantius was the
chief mourner, but he and his soldiers quitted the sanctuary before a word of
the burial-service was spoken or a note of music sounded. He was not a baptized
Christian and, therefore, could not be present as the last rites were
performed. The great Emperor was buried by the bishops, priests, and Christian
populace, whose zealous champion he had been and to whose undying gratitude he
had established an overwhelming title. Coins were struck bearing on one side
the figure of the Emperor with his head closely veiled, and, on the other,
representing Constantine seated in a four-horse chariot, and being drawn up to
heaven by a celestial hand stretched out to him from the clouds. It was a
device which could offend neither Christian nor pagan. To the former it would
recall the triumphant ascent of Elijah; the latter would regard it as the token
of a natural apotheosis. The hand might equally well be the hand of God or of
Jupiter.
Such is the story of the Emperor’s baptism, death, and burial as
recounted by Eusebius. There is, however, one important detail to be added and
one important question to be asked. Constantine was baptized by an Arian
bishop. To the Athanasian party and to the ecclesiastical historians of
succeeding ages this was a lamentable circumstance which greatly exercised and
troubled their minds. It sorely grieved them to think that their patron
Constantine should have been admitted into the communion of the faithful by the
dangerous heretic who had been the bitterest enemy of their idol, Athanasius.
But with a forbearance to which they were usually strangers, they agreed to
pass over the episode in comparative silence and remember not the shortcomings
but the virtues of the first Christian Emperor.
It still remains to be asked why Constantine did not formally enter the
Church until he was on his death-bed. There had been no lukewarmness about his
Christianity. He was not one to be afflicted with doubts. There had never been
any danger of his reverting to paganism. In the last few years, indeed, he had
been distracted by the clamour of Arians and Athanasians,
and his was a mind upon which a clever and acute ecclesiastic, who enjoyed his
confidence, could play at will. When Osius of Cordova stood by his side he was
the champion of the Catholic party; when Osius fell from favour and Eusebius of
Nicomedia took his place Constantine strongly inclined to the Arian side. But
in neither case was there any doubt of his Christianity. Why then did he not
become a member of the Church? Was it because the rite of baptism conferred
immediate forgiveness of sin and therefore a death-bed baptism infallibly
opened the gate of Heaven? By putting off entrance into the Church until the
hour had come after which it was hardly possible to commit sin, did Constantine
count upon making sure of eternal happiness? Such is the motive assigned by
some historians. It certainly is not a lofty one. Yet the idea may very well
have presented itself to Constantine's mind and the impression left by
Eusebius's narrative is that Constantine only determined to receive the rite
because he felt his end to be near and dared not put it off any longer. On the
other hand, Constantine's statement that his ambition had been to be baptized
in Jordan is rather against this theory. Possibly, too, he was to some degree
influenced by the wish not to alienate entirely the support of his pagan
subjects, especially the more fanatical of them, who would bitterly resent
their Chief Pontiff becoming a baptized member of the Christian Church. No one
can say, but we shall be the better able to form an opinion if we look a little
more closely at the religious life and policy of Constantine.
Eusebius represents the daily life of the Emperor on its religious side
to have been almost that of a monk or of a saint. Every day, we are told, he
used to retire for private meditation and prayer. He delighted in delivering
sermons and addresses to his courtiers, Bible in hand. He would begin by
exposing the errors of polytheism and by proving the superstition of the
Gentiles to be a mere fraud and cloak for impiety, and would then expound his
theory of the sole sovereignty of God, the workings of Providence, and the
sureness of the Judgment, invariably concluding with his favourite moral that
God had given to him the sovereignty of the whole world. Such a discourse could
not possibly be short, but Constantine liked his religious exercises long. He
once insisted on standing throughout the reading of an elaborate disquisition
by Eusebius himself, who evidently tired of the exertion and begged that the
Emperor would not fatigue himself further. But Constantine was resolved to hear
it out, and the courtier Bishop, while profoundly flattered at the compliment,
ruefully admitted that the thesis was very long. Probably the courtiers found
it interminable. But it was their duty to listen, applaud, and appear duly
impressed when, for example, Constantine traced on the ground the dimensions of
a coffin, and solemnly warned them against covetousness by the reminder that
six feet of earth was the utmost they could hope to enjoy after death, and they
might not even get so much as that if burial were refused them or they were
burnt or lost at sea. No one ever accused Constantine of covetousness; his
failing was reckless extravagance, and we fear he is to be numbered among
those who
“Compound for sins they are inclined to
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, 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
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 recognize 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
mid-course 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 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 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 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 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”. 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 leant 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 regime 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. Everyone 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 Phoenician 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 Aesculapius at Egaea, 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, 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
prefect 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 show 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.
No doubt in districts where the Christians were in a marked majority and
paganism found only lukewarm adherents, there was occasional violence shown to
the old temples and statues, especially if the governor happened to be a
Christian. Ornaments might be stolen, treasures ransacked, and probably few
questions were asked. Christianity had been persecuted so long and so savagely
that when the day of revenge came, the temptation was too strong for human
frailty to resist, and as long as there was no serious civil disturbance the
authorities probably made light of the occurrence. Paganism was a dying creed;
where it had to struggle hard to keep its head above water, the end was not long
delayed. The case would be different where the temples were possessed of great
wealth and where there were powerful priestly corporations to defend their
vested interests. There can be no greater mistake than to suppose that
Constantine declared war on the old religion. He did nothing of the kind. When
he showered favours on the Christian clergy, what he did in effect was merely
to raise them to the same status as that already enjoyed by the pagan
priesthood. He did not take away the privileges of the colleges: and
inscriptions have been found which tend to show that he allowed new colleges to
be founded which bore his name. In short, to the old State-established and
State-endowed religion he added another, that of Christianity, reserving his
special favour for the new but not actively repressing the ancient. He had
hoped to convert the world by his own example; but, though he failed in this,
he never contemplated a resort to violence. His religious policy, throughout
his reign, may fairly be described as one of toleration. That is what Symmachus
meant when he said, half a century later, that Constantine had belonged to both
religions.
There was one exception to this rule. Constantine came down with a heavy
hand on secret divination and the practice of magic and the black arts. But
other Emperors before him had done the same, Emperors whose loyalty to the
Roman religion had never been questioned—for these mysterious rites formed no
part of the established worship. They might be employed to the harm of the State;
they might portend danger to the Emperor’s life and throne. It was not for
private individuals to experiment with and let loose the powers of darkness,
for, as a rule, beneficent deities had no part or lot in these dark mysteries.
As a Christian, Constantine would have a double satisfaction in issuing edicts
against the wonder-working charlatans who abounded in the great cities; but the
point is that in attacking them he was not technically attacking the old State
religion. The public and official haruspices were not interfered with; if any
devout pagan still desired to consult an oracle, no obstacle was placed in his
way; and, as a tribute to the universal superstition of the age from which he
himself was not free, even private divination was permitted when the object was
a good one, such as the restoration of a sick person to health or the
protection of crops against hail. But it is evident that Constantine and his
bishops were far more apprehensive of evil from the unchaining of the Devil
than expectant of good from the favour of the ministers of grace. They were
terrified of the one: they indulged but a pious hope of the other. Nor was the
Emperor successful in stamping out the private thaumaturgist. Human nature was
too strong for him. Sileat perpetuo divinandi curiositas, ordered one of his successors in 358. But the curiosity to divine the future
continued to defy both civil and ecclesiastical law.
A much bolder act, however, than the closing of a few temples on the
score of public decency or the forbidding of private divination was the edict
of 325, in which Constantine ordered the abolition of the gladiatorial shows.
“Such blood-stained spectacles”, he said, “in the midst of civil peace and
domestic quiet are repugnant to our taste”. He ordained, therefore, that in
future all criminals who were usually condemned to be gladiators should be sent
to work in the mines, that they might expiate their offences without shedding
of blood. But it was one thing to issue an edict and another to enforce it. Whether
Constantine insisted on the observance of this particular edict, we cannot say,
but his successors certainly did not, for the gladiatorial spectacles at Rome
were in full swing in the days of Symmachus, who ransacked the world for good
swordsmen and strange animals. The cruenta spectacula, as Constantine called them, were not
finally abolished until the reign of Honorius.
To sum up. The only reasonable view to take of the religious character
of Constantine is that he was a sincere and convinced Christian. This is borne
out alike by his passionate professions of faith and by the clear testimony of
his actions. There are, it is true, many historians who hold that he was really
indifferent to religion, and others who credit him with an easy capacity for finding
truth in all religions alike. Professor Bury, for example, says that “the
evidence seems to show that his religion was a syncretistic monotheism; that he
was content to sec the deity in the Sun, in Mithras, or in the God of the
Hebrews”. 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. We cannot tell by
what title it is thy pleasure that we should address thee, whether thou art a
divine force and mind permeating the whole world and mingled with all the
elements, and moving of thine own motive power without impulse from without, or
whether thou art some Power above all Heaven who lookest down upon this thy handiwork from some loftier arch of Nature.”
Such a deity may have satisfied the philosophers, but it certainly was
not the deity whom Constantine worshipped throughout his reign. Had he been
indifferent to religion, or indifferent to Christianity, had he even been
anxious only to hold the balance between the rival creeds, he would never have
surrounded himself by episcopal advisers; never have set his hand to such
edicts as those we have quoted; never have abolished the use of the cross for
the execution of criminals or have forbidden Jews to own Christian slaves;
never have called the whole world time and again to witness his zeal for
Christ; never have lavished the resources of the Empire upon the building of
sumptuous churches; never have listened with such extraordinary forbearance to
the wranglings of the Donatists and the subtleties of Arians and Athanasians; never have summoned or presided at the Council
of Nicaea; and certainly never have made the welfare of non-Roman Christians
the subject of entreaty with the King of Persia. Constantine was prone to
superstitions. He was grossly material in his religious views, and his own
worldly success remained still in his eyes the crowning proof of the Christian
verities. But the sincerity of his convictions is none the less apparent, and
even the atrocious crimes with which he sullied his fair fame cannot rob him of
the name of Christian. It was a name, says St. Augustine, in which he
manifestly delighted to boast, mindful of the hope which he reposed in Christ.
