In this lesson, Pastor Dave Capoccia discusses how the situation for early Roman Christians transformed dramatically with the emperorship of Constantine. Pastor Dave explains what happened to bring Constantine to power, what Constantine’s policies were toward Christians, and how his policies—and those of his successors—had profound effects on Christianity, both positively and negatively.
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heavenly father thank you that you are The Sovereign Lord over history Jesus Christ you are The Sovereign lord of the church thank you for what you have done and are doing I pray Lord we be encouraged and that we would grow in wisdom as we think about what you’ve done in the past and make us better equipped for how we are to act now in the present in Jesus name amen right well as we begin Sunday school today I want you to imagine something with me imagine the situation in the not so distant future that there is a revolution in the United States and this revolution results in the overturning of our current government and the establishment of a Christian government a government that is overtly Christian even Conservative evangelically Christian what kind of society would emerge under such a government as you are imagining this with me let me give you some prompts law and Society become radically reshaped by the new government to work in government and any sort of capacity you must be a Christian a baptized and practicing Christian moreover the nation’s most prominent conservative Evangelical pastors are made to form a government Advisory Board even to speak with and advise the supreme leader other religions may be practiced in the country but under strict limitations they may not promote their religions or proselytize and any persecution against conservative Evangelical Christians is to be swiftly punished conservative Evangelical churches are made exempt from property taxes as is the case now but other religions must pay for their buildings and of course government officials will determine whether a church is properly conservative Evangelical conservative evangelicals can request government grants to build new churches or to expand churches if the interested parties pass a doctrinal test then the request will be granted pastors are also made exempt from taxes even military service in times of War they may also travel across the country or around the world at government expense if they are doing it for a Christian work or Ministry commercial businesses are forbidden from being open on Sunday mornings so that everyone May participate in Christian church services Hollywood and other entertainment and media Outlets are heavily regulated so as not to promote immoral or anti-christian content abortion is made totally illegal euthanasia and assisted suicide are outlawed pornography is made totally illegal gay marriage is abolished transgender surgeries are illegal adultery is a crime divorce is only legally allowed and biblically Justified cases infidelity or abandonment teaching about LGBT sexuality in school is illegal rather the Bible and theology are required subjects in public school for study teaching evolution with a big bang theory is illegal only Six-Day creationism is allowed and public prayer is mandated at all schools sporting events and government meetings and perhaps you can imagine other changes to society under an overtly Christian government I’m just trying to give you a flavor but considering what I just shared with you and that’s no prophecy by the way but considering such a situation that we could imagine let’s ask ourselves and this isn’t to be answered out loud this is just for you to think about would such a transformation of society be ultimately good for the church for the True Church of Christ with Society changing in the way that I just outlined would that be good in the long run for the church would Christ true church be blessed by these changes or would the church actually be harmed even cursed by these changes as you think through that question perhaps you are finding that answering that question is difficult is it good is it bad and if you’re finding it to be a difficult question and answer well I think you’re thinking well because the truth is as much as many of these changes would be a welcome Boon to the church they would be a great benefit to gospel work in this country and around the world they would promote human flourishing in many ways these changes would also introduce many new problems into our society and even the church it would actually harm the gospel in many ways and I can say that to you with confidence making our society overtly Christian under a Christian government would bring both blessing and harm and I can say that to you with confidence because we’ve actually seen such a transformation take place in church history and that’s really what we’re going to talk about today today we move into the 4th century uh and and yeah go going through the fourth Century as we continue our series on church history 101 the early church this is Lesson Four the Christian Empire we spoke last time regarding suffering for Christ about what persecutions the early church endured why Christians were persecuted and the different ways that Christians responded to persecution but we’re about to see that situation totally change for Christians in the Roman Empire a dramatic transformation with the rise of a certain Emperor named Constantine also known to us today as Constantine the Great Constantine’s reign in the Roman Empire is one of the most important moments in church history and indeed of the history of Western Civilization we’re going to talk this morning about Constantine’s rise to power his policies toward Christians and the effect of those policies on Christianity not just in his own time but in the centuries that followed even up to the present time he’s had a profound effect on Christianity and we’re going to start by talking about Constantine’s rise to power let’s recall the historical situation at the beginning of the fourth Century that is around A.D 300.
Christianity at this point has spread too many parts of the Empire and Beyond and due to the honorable compassionate lives of Christians many Christians as well as the testimonies of various Martyrs popular sentiment has begun to side with the Christians against government persecution but Roman emperors at this point see Christians as a threat to Roman society and government in ad303 emperor Diocletian and his Junior Emperor galarius begin the final and most severe wave of government persecution against Christians also known as the great persecution they seize Christian property they destroy churches they attempt to burn scriptures they imprison Christian leaders and when that’s not enough they later torture Christians and put them to death if these Christians will not offer sacrifices to the emperor and to the Roman gods by the way also at this time the Roman Empire is a tetrarchy that’s what this map is you see the four-part division there tetraki is a rule by four rulers there’s two senior Emperors and two Junior Emperors a senior emperor that called an Augustus in the East a senior emperor in the west and then a junior emperor in each area serving where needed so uh Diocletian is a senior Emperor Galleria says his Junior well this is the situation and then enter Constantine through a series of political Maneuvers and Military successes flavius Valerius constantinus known to us today simply as Constantine becomes one of the junior Emperors of the tantraki however as he does so the temp the tetrarchy begins to fall apart the four Emperors begin to wage war against one another and really to see what one Emperor is going to rule them all very hard to share power in the Roman Empire Constantine eventually marches down with his Legions from Northwest Europe which was his base to Rome to face his main rival in the west a man named maxentius their two forces meet outside the city of Rome at a very famous battle site the battle of the milvian bridge this is 312.
Constantine’s forces though just coming off a series of Victories are outnumbered two to one but there’s something different something unique about these troops and their appearance a special Insignia appears on their Shields does anybody know what that Insignia is not the cross exactly it’s actually a different Christian symbol what is it not the fish no not the dove all right so this is going to be new for you it’s the key row the key row and what is the significance of the key row or what is the significance of those of that name well key and rho are two letters in Greek in fact they are the first two letters of a certain important name Christ Christos in Greek it’s written key and then rho and I’ll show you a picture of what the key row looks like so it kind of looks like a p and an X it’s because the key actually isn’t an X in Greek but the p is actually the r sound in Greek it’s it’s the rho so it could have this symbol could have been in the kind of XP version that I have there or it could have been the x is tilted to the side so it looks like a cross and you’ve got the the P kind of joined with it so it looks like a a cross with it with a circle at the top either one of these could have been the symbol that was on the Shields and on the labarum the standard of Constantine’s troops and you can also see this symbol would continue to appear in Roman Imperial insignias that Mosaic there is actually from the 6th Century but you could see it on the shield on the bottom left side and that coin there on the right is actually a coin of Constantine and you there’s a little KIRO symbol on it at the top I don’t know if you can see it from where you’re sitting but this actually becomes a symbol that Constantine continues to adopt so these soldiers have the key row on their Shields and on their standard and what is it that caused Constantine to tell his soldiers to adopt this symbol magnet okay well we’ll talk maybe a little bit later on if we have time about um uh more about that idea or why did he do this but the the immediate cause was that Constantine supposedly had a vision he had a vision or he had a dream in which he saw this symbol and it became important for his troops to adopt we actually get two different explanations of this symbol’s origin from two fourth century Christian writers so more or less contemporaries to Constantine lactanchius and eusebius of caesarea oxta says that the night before the battle of the milvian bridge Constantine was directed in a dream to put on his Shields quote the letter X with a perpendicular line drawn through it and turned around thus at the top being the cipher or the symbol of Christ unquote that’s lactanchius eusebius gives a slightly different explanation he says that sometime before fighting maxentius Constantine sees a vision one day around noon of quote the trophy of a cross of light in the heavens above the Sun and bearing the inscription conquered by this unquote later that night Constantine has a dream in which the symbol appears again along with Jesus who instructs Constantine to construct such a banner when he wakes according to eusebius Constantino base and he makes an army Banner in the shape of a cross with the two letters Ki row figured prominently on it according to eusebius Constantine also immediately becomes a Christian now is this a true story did these things really happen to Constantine and that’s why he put this symbol on well probably not at least not fully as it’s been passed down to us something like it might have happened eusebius notes that his account comes straight from the emperor Constantine may have had reason to embellish or fabricate part of this story and some have noted that there is an atmospheric phenomenon called a sun dog which can produce the image of a cross or and or a Halo in the sky and I’ll show you a picture of these kind of cool looking it’s possible that Constantine indeed saw something in the sky a an atmospheric phenomenon that was very strange and significant to him or maybe he also had a dream and he thought to himself maybe consciously or maybe he wasn’t fully understanding why he was thinking this he filled in the Christian interpretation he was aware of Christians in the Empire he had this experience that was out of the ordinary and he thought I’m being directed to put a symbol so that I may have the power of the Christian God even if the story that Constantine told isn’t completely true the supposed vision and the subsequent symbol may have indeed helped to inspire his soldiers because despite being outnumbered Constantine’s Army is easily Victorious his rival maxentius actually drowns in the Tiber River trying to flee thus Constantine marches triumphantly into the city of Rome to a celebrating Crown a crowd and he secures his position as the Undisputed emperor of the West so there’s still two Emperors in the East but Constantine is the Emperor of the West the next year Constantine meets with one of his Eastern Rivals a man named lycinius to create an alliance two Emperors meet in Milan meteolanum at this time in 313 where they secure their pact but they also make an agreement an agreement on a certain matter of religion to be later published throughout the Empire as law that agreement today is known as the Edict of Milan what did this agreement say anybody know this is when this is a pivotal moment where Christianity is legalized in the Roman Empire it was an illicit religion before it was illegal but now after this 313 agreement the two Emperors legalized Christianity in the Roman Empire they forbid any kind of persecution against Christians and they order the restoration of all property previously confiscated from Christians and that’s that’s a pretty big turning point for for Christians in the Roman Empire I mean they’ve just come off of this great persecution and they’ve endured many waves and local persecutions before that but now that’s all about the change at least according to this agreement Christians are no longer allowed to be persecuted in the Roman Empire and if they are they are to be compensated so this is a pretty dramatic change but the situation is not done from changing because after lycinius defeats his rival in the east now it feels like a game of Risk or whatever you eliminate certain opponents and then you turn against each other well that’s exactly what happens with Constantine and lycinius like kinius defeats his other rival in the East so it’s just Constantine and like Kines as Emperors but then like kinius allegedly starts persecuting Christians again and even tries to assassinate Constantine at least according to Constantine and Civil War breaks forth Anew in the Roman Empire Constantine and lakinius fight and Constantine defeats like Kinesis in a series of battles until like kinius finally surrenders in 324 saying I’ll surrender if you will spare my life Constantine agrees one year later Constantine accuses lekinisa plawning against him and has his former rival executed so much for that with his last rival defeated in 324 no other Emperors in the Empire Constantine is the sole ruler of the Roman Empire and that’s just in time to hold a certain important church event in 325 anybody know what happens in 325 yeah the Council of nicaea and there’s a reason why it happens right after Constantine secures total control the Roman Empire we’ll come back to that probably in the next lesson but the councilman see it in 325 right after Constantine secure Soul rule so that’s how Constantine came to rule the entire Roman Empire and even bring about Toleration for Christians Constantine would continue to rule until his death in 337 where he’d pass off rules to his sons and they’d have their own little Civil War but we’re not going to get into that let’s now talk about how Constantine’s policies affected Christians by 325 the Roman Empire is now a very different place for Christians not only is Christianity legal in the Empire but the emperor himself apparently is a Christian what never in a million years do Christians think that was going to happen but it did it was a pretty big deal now don’t misunderstand this is not where Christianity becomes the official religion of the Empire the state religion actually that wouldn’t happen until 392 under Emperor theodosis the great he publishes some edicts forbidding Pagan Worship in the Empire and he upholds Nicene Christianity so I think 392 is when you could say the Roman Empire is officially Christian but even in 325 with Constantine and after Constantine every Roman Emperor is going to be Christian except Julian the apostate and he reigned for a short time 361 at 363.
but every Roman Empire Emperor is going to be Christian after this point and because Christianity becomes the emperor’s religion even if it’s not the official religion of the Empire it increasingly becomes the favored religion of the empire after all these Emperors want to show themselves to be good Christians indeed Constantine himself Embraces several policies to the obvious benefit of Roman Christians and I’ll give you some of those Constantine gives large monetary donations to Christians for the construction of churches remember Christians didn’t really meet in special Church buildings before this point they just modified homes they had makeshift churches but Constantine is now giving his own money so that Christians can build churches Constantine allows for the creation of church courts and he gives them Authority alongside Civic courts hey you got a local problem people would rather go to their church leaders to resolve it that’s fine your decisions are binding Constantine allows for that he exempts clergy from certain Civic duties like paying taxes offering military service giving certain days of manual labor he makes the first day of the week an official day of rest throughout the empire he makes illegal certain Pagan practices that were offensive to Christians the killing of unwanted children via exposure crucifixion was made illegal branding criminals on the face was made illegal didn’t want to Mar the image of God Constantine also established a new Christian Capital he didn’t rule from Rome actually a different city what does what city does Constantine make his capital Constantinople known today as Istanbul apparently wasn’t officially called Constantinople during Constantine’s time that literally means Constantine City but that’s what everybody called it oh that’s Constantine City he officially called it New Rome but that name didn’t win out and today yes it’s known by Istanbul you say how did it change to that name kind of an interesting story behind that maybe if we have time at the end I can tell you so the side Constantine shows as the ground of or as his new capital city was the ground of an ancient town called Byzantium a connection to point between Europe and Asia Minor site was tactically quite suitable for defense uh due to its being surrounded by water on three sides it was that in a strategic location and being close to the east but not too far from the West which was important for defending the Barbarian Frontier and the frontier against Persia also constant Constantinople would largely be a new city which means from the outset it could be Christian the former capital Rome it had centuries of pagan art culture and tradition within it actually Rome would continue to be a stronghold of Roman polytheism going into the 5th Century the Constantinople New Rome it wouldn’t have that long tradition that Pagan influence to it in fact there would be no Pagan temples in the city of Constantinople which was good news for Christians finally something else that Constantine does and Emperors after him is that they call and enforce the decisions of church councils it really wasn’t possible to have an ecumenical that is an international all the World empire-wide Church Council before Constantine and why not why couldn’t they do Church councils before that what’d you say Danny well yeah it was illegal so if you got all the Christians all the most important Christian leaders together in one place what were you risking that they don’t be killed they’d all be arrested and killed the persecution in the Empire made it so that you couldn’t get all the leaders together maybe you could get a local group together but you couldn’t have an ecumenical council was too dangerous but with Constantine and with official toleration of Christianity the Empire not only does the emperor now have authority to call together various church leaders he can make sure that whatever they decide becomes the standard of belief in practice throughout the Christian churches he can enforce their decisions and this certainly seemed like an excellent way for many Christians to deal with the various schisms and heresies that were afflicting Christianity you could have an official Church Council condemn it and then let the emperor enforce that condemnation he could banish heresy teachers or do other punishments against them and this was going to become very necessary according to many Christians in 325 because what heresy was becoming increasingly popular around the year 325.
arianism I hear some of you saying it what is arianism Christ is a created being he is not equal to the father he is a God he is not the god he’s less than the father of course there that that belief is still around today in the Jehovah’s Witnesses and um other Cults but it existed at that time and it was actually gaining a strong foothold in the church like we need something to deal with this hey a church council with a decision enforced by the emperor that seems like a great way to deal with it we’ll talk more about arianism next time so suddenly it’s a great time to be a Christian in the Roman Empire because of Constantine’s many Crow pro-christian policies Christians many Christians see Constantine as a savior from God he is a gift to the church he is what we’ve been waiting for they love Constantine and after this time many in Europe will look back to Constantine as the ideal Christian ruler but our Constantine’s pro-christian policies actually good for the church in the long run what are the ultimate effects of his policies on the church and on Christianity well the answer is like what I was sharing with you in the beginning these turn out both to be very helpful and very hurtful let me try and explain why how it’s helpful is probably pretty obvious how were Constantine’s effects good for Christians his policy is good for Christians well for one he stopped persecution he stopped all persecution so there is a great amount of saving of Christian Life of limb and of property I think if we were in the early church and we were in danger of death or we had loved ones who were dying and an emperor came along and stopped all that we would be incredibly grateful he halted persecution more than that because Christianity is now an officially tolerated religion Christians can now Minister openly they can even devote time to write speak and Minister without fear which leads to a golden age of theological work in the church Christian work spreading of the Gospel numerical growth of the church this is a great time for the church actually some of church history’s most well-known and influential theologians they come from this period the fourth Century you’ve heard names like John chrysostom Augustine of Hippo Jerome Ambrose of Milan athanasius these are all theologians who are from this period Constantine enabled this blossoming of Christian work and theology and along with that Constantine enabled Christians to safely meet in church-wide councils to deal with important theological questions these were great effects of Constantine’s policies for Christians but there were also some negative effects some very important negative effects of Constantine’s policies and I’ve listed four of them for you and we’re going to explore each one of them favoring Christianity let first of all to the nominalization and the secularization of Christianity and what do I mean by that well it is basic to human nature to respond to incentives to what we think will be a reward people pursue things that they think are going to make their lives better make them happier give them some reward and before when Christianity was an illegal persecuted religion people mostly only join Christianity if they actually believed the message of Christianity because you were not gaining anything in the world by becoming a Christian except persecution and death so you really had to believe you were gaining something that went beyond this world you gained the Lord Jesus Christ you gained eternal life with him but now under Constantine and on other Emperors going forward being a Christian and especially being a Christian leader it could lead to substantial temporal game for you I mean think about it Constantine the Christian Emperor who is he going to want to be his closest officials and advisors Pagan worshipers of Rome’s old deities who are very upset with Constantine’s policies no he’s going to want Christians he’s going Christians around him in those important posts in government or he’s going to have a special eye towards Christians and if you’re a Christian leader you won’t have to pay taxes you won’t have to go to war you can even use the government’s own post system travel and Mail system free of charge because you’re a Christian leader you also enjoy authority over large groups of people increasingly large groups of people as more and more people are becoming Christians so there’s no longer much of a downside to becoming a Christian but there’s plenty of upside so what do you think many people are going to do they’re going to become Christian not necessarily because they believe in God because they’ve given over their lives to the Lord but because it’s so beneficial for them to do so in a temporal sense you might think what’s wrong with that I mean even if they become Christians or go to church for the wrong reasons at least they’ll finally be in church at least they’ll get to hear the gospel and then they can become safe for real is that how it works it’s not often how it works what usually happens instead yeah Eric said a little 11 11 is the whole lump what were you saying Glenda they compromise and actually they influence the church towards compromise on people who are not saved come into the church especially in large numbers they bring their worldliness into the church and rather than being confronted in their worldliness and repenting they find that their worldliness becomes accommodated so suddenly you of all you have more and more Christians going to church who aren’t actually Christian and they bring their slavery to sin into the church they moreover support leaders who are like them they support worldly leaders who are going to support their own worldliness this is just like second Timothy 4 says Desiring to have their ears their ears tickled they’ve had teachers appointed according to their own desires so rather than a faithful Church purifying this flood of pseudo-christians the false Brethren actually corrupt and handicapped the church increasingly you have nominal Christians in the church who are harming the spiritual health of the church and even the church leaders of course not this doesn’t happen to every church and this doesn’t happen right away not every church or every Church leader becomes Unfaithful right away or even Unfaithful at all but more and more Christian churches in the Empire are going to drift from the true Faith partly due to this influx of nominal Christians these are just Christians in name only joining the churches and becoming leaders in the churches in the Empire and this is a very negative development for Christianity at first maybe they didn’t feel it but increasingly it would become evident sinfulness and error are going to create more and more into Roman Empire Christianity because of the secularization and nominalization and this will only occur even more once a Christianity is the official religion of the empire I mean it’s going to happen when it’s favored but when the Roman Emperor says You must go to church or else you’ve got more nominal more secular Christians more not true Christians coming into the church and that’s never good for the church’s health along these lines another negative is the paganization of Christian worship one of the ways that these nominal Christians wish to be accommodated in their new churches was in their worship practices these half converts were used to things in their old religion and they looked for equivalence in the new religion and this resulted in the establishment and the encouragement of many unbiblical Church practices and some of them many of them are still around today these included praying to Saints and Mary praying for the Dead the use of icons in worship so portraits and even statues of Saints or of Christ or of God as part of the worship the wearing of elaborate vestments by clergy the veneration of Christian relics there was already a trend towards especially venerating the martyrs people wanted to remember their example they’d sometimes even do church services at their grave site they would commemorate the day of their death all this increased under the Christian Empire and then there’s also the burning of incense and candles part of this comes straight from Pagan worship part of this comes from mirroring Imperial Court ritual actually burning incense before the emperor was common and wearing these special vestments in Imperial settings was common and now people are bringing that into the church and the reformer John Calvin in the 1500s he was actually very well acquainted with church history he gives an excellent treatment of this paganization of Christian worship in his work Treatise on relics and I want to read a few excerpts of that to you listen to John Calvin’s explanation as to what happened in the early church under the Christian Empire here’s Calvin hero worship is innate to human nature and it is found that on some of our noblest feelings gratitude love and admiration but which like all other feelings went uncontrolled by principle and reason may easily degenerate into the wildest exaggerations and lead to most dangerous consequences it was by such an exaggeration of these Noble feelings that Roman paganism filled the Olympus with gods and demigods elevating to this rank men who would often deserve the Gratitude of their fellow creatures by some signal services rendered to the community or their admiration by having performed some Deeds which required a more than usual degree of mental and physical Powers so he’s saying these pagan gods they probably just came from people that got exalted too much and eventually they became gods the same cause obtained for the Christian Martyrs the Gratitude and admiration of their fellow Christians and finally converted them into a kind of demigods this is more particularly the case when the church began to be corrupted by her compromise with paganism during the fourth and fifth centuries which having been baptized without being converted rapidly introduced to the Christian church not only many of its rites and ceremonies that his Pagan writes and ceremonies but even it’s polytheism with the difference that the divinities of Greece and Rome were replaced by Christian Saints many of whom received the offices the same exact offices of their Pagan predecessors the church in the beginning tolerated these abuses as a temporary evil but was afterwards unable to remove them and they became so strong particularly during the prevailing ignorance of the Middle Ages that the church ended up legalizing through her decrees that at which she did nothing but wink at at first describing the transmutation of Roman gods into Saints Calvin mentions some specific examples in one of his footnotes thus Saint Anthony of Padua restores like Mercury stolen property St Hubert like Diana is the patron of Sportsmen or Hunters Saint Cosmos like asclepius that of Physicians Etc in fact almost every profession in trade as well as every place have there a special patron saint who like the tutelary Divinity of the pagans receives particular hours that is daily prayers from his or her protege I think this is absolutely true this is an excellent Insight from Calvin on a tragic development for the church many of the Pagan practices were brought into the church they were christianized and they still exist where Roman Catholic Church Greek Orthodox Church now someone might say well come on how can you listen to Calvin here’s a clear bias against the Catholic church because of the time period in which he was writing I mean he was in such conflict with them of course he’s going to say that all their practices came from paganism okay there’s a possibility for bias and Calvin but I think he lays out a convincing case from church history he actually sites in a different place a certain vigilanteus who was a 5th Century Church leader who explicitly opposed the combining of pagan practices with church worship there was somebody in the 5th Century who’s like look what’s happening guys this is not good we need to stop what’s interesting is other church leaders condemned him for condemning this paganization of Christian worship and I’ll actually show you this here’s something from Jerome Jerome is an important Church Father we’ll talk about him in a later class but he writes an extremely vitriolic letter against vigilanteus defending unbiblical practices that basically come from paganism with arguments like the following and I know this is small on the screen so I’ll read it to you this is Jerome’s work against vigilantius as with the question of tapers lighting candles however we do not as you vigilantees in vain misrepresents us light them in the daytime but by their Solace we would cheer the darkness of the night and watch for the dawn lest we should be blind like you and sleep in darkness and if some persons being ignorant and simple-minded laymen or at all events religious women of whom we can truly say I allow that they have a Zeal for God but not according to knowledge adopt the practice and Order of the modern in honor of the martyrs what harm is thereby done to you Once Upon a Time even the apostles pleaded that the ointment was wasted but they were rebuked by the voice of the Lord Christ did not need the ointment nor do Martyrs need the light of tapers and yet that woman poured out the ointment in honor of Christ and her heart’s devotion was accepted all those who like these tapers have their reward according to their faith as the Apostle says let everyone abound in his own meaning or an armed translation Let each man be convinced in his own mind Romans 14 5.
so do you understand Jerome’s argument here it’s not a good one he basically says it’s not our policy we Church men who actually understand the Bible theology it’s not our policy to light candles for the dead to light candles for the martyrs for truly Martyrs don’t need candles lit for them and they’re not benefited by it but it’s okay if someone lights a candle for the martyrs or the Saints why it’s the thought that counts even though it’s useless there’s no harm done and they’re trying to show honor to the martyrs and thereby show honor to God and what’s bad about that surely God is honored by that worship uh no that’s a very misguided argument if we are to Worship the Lord it ought to be according to the scripture begin to say well they meant well even though it’s not scriptural surely God agrees no that that’s going to lead to all all kinds of compromise and really this is just an example of exactly what Calvin is talking about the church tolerates certain kinds of unbiblical practices and worship in the church these things then take root they’re unable to be removed and they later become part of church Dogma itself you know when M I had an opportunity to go to Italy a few years ago we had a Italian guide take us around the city of Pompeii the ruins of Pompeii and he was very knowledgeable he had several degrees related to archeology and history and at one point we had gotten into a conversation about Christianity and Roman paganism and I had suggested to him you know from studying church history and studying the Bible it sure seems like the Roman gods got transformed into the Saints of the Roman Catholic church and he’s like oh absolutely it’s so obvious like all the things that were in Roman paganism they just went right into the Catholic Church no question I thought that was very significant for somebody who who knew um classical history well and also grew up in Italy which is a Roman Catholic and he said it’s quite obvious that’s where these things came from so this is an effect of making Christianity the favored and later the only religion in the Empire many unbelievers come into the church and they bring their Pagan worship practices with them and as the church becomes more worldly well more frustrated Christians are going to seek an escape from this worldliness which leads to a third effect the rise of asceticism the rise of asceticism what is asceticism yeah Steve right so severe treatment of the body and self-denial for some spiritual end usually some spiritual end often this shows up in uh rigorous restrictions to your outer man so what you eat um abstention from sexual relations maybe you sell your possessions you have very few things you wear rough clothes there are all sorts of ways that people might be aesthetic now Christian Aesthetics had already begun to appear before Constantine and the Advent of the Christian Empire we actually saw this in the form of desert Hermits desert Hermits in the third Century these people would try to live like John the Baptist in the wilderness that’s actually a picture of one of them Saint Simeon the Skylight he lived on top of a pillar early Christians often admired these Hermits for their self-denial and their desire to escape the corruption of Roman society somehow they forgot to pay attention to the part where God says don’t remove yourself from the world you need to be a witness to the world but these guys seemed really spiritual a lot of Christians admired them with the Advent of the Christian Roman Empire though more and more Christians were drawn to asceticism not only because hey these guys in the past are pretty spiritual and I want to imitate them but they wanted to seek an escape from the obvious increasing worldliness in the church and they were looking for a visible sign of Devotion to Jesus they wanted to prove to themselves and even prove to others that they were real believers because the main way that people proved love for Jesus in the past is no longer available what was the way that people did that suffering persecution even martyrdom and that was something that people actually sought out or look forward to because they say I want to prove that I really love Jesus well we’re in a new era now persecution is gone so how can one prove his Devotion to Christ that he’s not like all these nominal half-believers in the church he’s not just one of them well the answer for many was I’m going to sell my possessions I’m going to become celibate and I’m going to become a monk or I’m going to embrace some kind of aesthetic lifestyle now this was enabled by the changes in society now that Christianity is supported by the government and its people you can actually afford to live this lifestyle because there are other Christians who haven’t gone aesthetic who can support you financially they can give you money or they can give you food or whatever they can enable you to live an aesthetic life without dying so these things kind of came together now you didn’t have to actually become a monk go live in a monastic Community go become a Herman in the desert they’re both forms of monasticism at this time it didn’t have to become a monk or leave Society to become ascetic actually became common for the church’s main leaders at this time who were known as Bishops to be celibate and to embrace an aesthetic lifestyle in fact many churches would require that their Bishops live this way and they’d even go to monasteries to find their next Pastor to find their next Bishop they saw these monastic communities it’s kind of like a spiritual training center for great church leaders and so even or and so they a lot of these people would go from being monks to being a bishop actually some of the important theologians that I just mentioned to you 10 15 minutes ago Jerome Augustine chrysostom guess what they were all celibate and they were all ascetics now is it wrong to embrace an aesthetic lifestyle it’s not wrong okay it does come down to motive you’re gonna say something okay that wait wait don’t don’t read that yet okay we’ll come back to that come back to that so in one sense it’s not wrong and we could even argue in some ways encouraged by the Bible to live with you Comforts and possessions to remain celibate and unmarried to eat only modest food isn’t that non-exhibit of self-control even commends the life of being a single celibate person why so that you can be undistracted and devoted to Christ you could say well these Bishops these monks they’re just doing what First Corinthians 7 says what’s wrong with that that’s a good thing and sometimes I feel like being a modern Church could use a little dose of asceticism and greater self-denial oh I can’t live without my coffee don’t talk to me yet oh I can’t live without Netflix and the TV you mean I have to suffer labor and strife for Christ I think I need a nap we could use a little rebuke there our true Joy is found in Christ not the things of the world but as Mark was about to read for us we also have clear prohibitions or warnings in the scripture about asceticism because in Colossians 2 and in first Timothy 4 Paul warns against those who preach the need for a severe treatment of the body because it doesn’t actually do anything in heart and putting off fleshly Indulgence as Colossians 2 says and he says Those Who forbid marriage and forbid forbid the eating of certain foods in first Timothy 4 they’re not speaking God’s truth God actually created these things to be enjoyed by his people in thankfulness and holy worship so these are not contradiction contradictory principles in the Bible but they are contrasting principles even as we are to live lives of self-denial even giving up worldly pleasures for the Lord and for service to him we are to enjoy the good things that God has given us those things are true at the same time but my main point is that Constantine’s pro-christian policies in an indirect way they encouraged asceticism in the church monastics but also people in the church embracing a more aesthetic lifestyle and then finally one of the most important effects of Constantine’s coefficient policies is that the role of church and state began to unite in a new way role in church and state began to unite in a new way in some ways what we see under Constantine is just like what was there in the Roman Empire before but now it’s Christian instead of polytheistic because the State religion no let me back up and say this it’s not as if religion and government were separated before no actually it was assumed throughout the ancient world into the classical world that they’re going to be together you’re going to be a government you’re going to be a governor you’re going to be an emperor well you’re also the greatest high priest and you’ve got to offer sacrifices and you’ve got to seek the favor of the Gods there is no uh Enlightenment concept like oh we need to get religion totally separate from government no in the ancient world they were actually intimately linked that being said oh and that’s why Christians are persecuted right because they wouldn’t sacrifice the state religion that being said Roman religion Roman State religion did have some degree of Tolerance where they say if you just acknowledge Our God and do the sacrifices you can believe whatever you want you can do whatever you want outside of that we don’t really care as long as it’s not too crazy otherwise we’ll bring the legions but anyways there was a certain degree of pluralistic Toleration in the Roman Empire but with Constantine and the emperor is after him the state religion was replaced by Christianity so church and state in the Christian sense were being united for the first time they were coming together as the first time basically this wasn’t exactly true under Constantine but it would become true under theodosius and after him you must if you’re a Roman citizen you’re subject of the Roman Empire you must Embrace Christianity or face the consequences and not just Christianity the emperor’s brand of Christianity rebelling against that brand of Christianity is not just heresy but because he’s a supreme ruler and because church and state are combined what else is it what other crime it’s treason heresy is also treason so you want to know why many people in the Middle Ages and also the Reformation were executed for spreading heresy it’s because of this same concept really brought together under Constantine but existing in the centuries afterwards church and state are one to rebel against your ruler’s religion is to rebel against your ruler and the penalty the frequent penalty for such Rebellion is death now the church initially thought this was a good thing it’s a great thing they were happy when theodosis the Great declared arianism illegal on pain of death at the end of the 4th century they thought that’s going to put a stop to that heresy and you know what it did but the emperor’s sword Cuts both ways what if the emperor believes in something heretical earlier in the fourth Century athanasius the great defender of trinitarian Orthodoxy against arianism he was exiled by Christian Roman emperors on pain of death multiple times why because Aryan church leaders had gained the ears of the Emperors and they convinced the Emperors that arianism was the true faith and trinitarianism was the heresy so athanasius was exiled this marriage of church and statement brought about by Constantine but continued up until the 1800s and even in some places to the present it would result in a kind of sadly ironic way in the persecution and deaths of many True Believers because they were labeled as the Heretics and thus traitors to the state Additionally the combination of church and state had a reverse effect and not only increase the religious power of political leaders but increase the political power of religious leaders especially if the secularly leader in a certain area was weak or absent people turned to the religious leader for political Direction and Authority and where would this become most prominent well in the west when the Roman Empire begins to crumble and dissolve into different kingdoms people in the western half of the Roman Empire are looking to a leader to direct them even when it comes to State and political Affairs and where do they end up turning many of them to the bishop of Rome the bishop of Rome begins to gather more and more secular Authority and this would bring Church State together in a way that would contribute to the rise of the papacy and all that goes with that into the Middle Ages into the Reformation period and of course that itself would bring about a good deal a persecution of the true church so this is one of the unattended effects but a far-reaching one of Constantine’s pro-christian policies it brought the Christian Church into the state but it also brought the state into the Christian church so looking at this all together we can see that in many ways Constantine was great for Christianity but in many ways he and his policies were bad for Christianity there were far-reaching effects in both directions so perhaps we can look at all that and say well which is to be preferred is it better to have your government persecute you Force the church to double down on what’s really true according to the Bible or is it better to have the government promote you and actually embrace the Christian worldview and morality and enforce it in society I don’t know if there’s an easy answer to that question they both have their advantages and disadvantages probably and this is not the final word this is just a thought based on one passage of the Bible probably the ideal situation for Christians is neither we don’t want to be supported we don’t want to be persecuted and why do I say that well because of proverbs 30 verses 7 to 9. we have a little prayer there from the writer and he says God please don’t make me too prosperous and don’t make me too poor why because if I’m too prosperous I’ll forget you but if I’m too poor I might transgress your law and steal and dishonor you just give me my portion not that we’re really in positions of authority that we can affect the influence or the government’s view towards Christianity but that’s probably the best for the spiritual health for the church anyways that’s just my opinion just a thought there really because we can’t really affect the government in a substantive way too much we just ought to make the most of whatever situation we find ourselves understanding that persecution does have good things that it does for the church but it also brings disadvantages obvious ones but so does the government’s favor it brings certain advantages to the church but it also brings challenges that have to be you have to be aware of and you have to work to mitigate our calling as Christians is to be as faithful as we can to the Lord Christ until he comes and brings the perfect government we’re not going to find a perfect situation for Christians under government until the kingdom of Christ comes see okay we’ve got a few minutes left uh let me let me bring up one question that I didn’t know if I would have time to address in the lesson question if you know anything about his life you know that that’s a very complicated question and it’s one that’s debated by historians debated by Church men even to this day because on the one hand he did so very obviously pro-christian things he also seemed to confess at least according to different Church historians that he was a Christian he uh prayed to God he participated in services but he also continued to style himself in some ways as the Pagan ruler or the Pagan leader of Rome he still had the title of pontifex Maximus for the Pagan religion he still sometimes acted brutally as an emperor he even killed his own son because the son had apparently engaged in some sort of evil conduct uh there is a suggestion that this was a a political stratagem his becoming Christian that it wasn’t really because he believed in the Lord but because he thought that this would uh bring about something important for him getting power on the flip side to that objection though is that it’s hard to see what the benefit was politically of becoming Christian because Christians were still not a huge part of the Empire at that point he was alienating a lot of sectors of the Empire by favoring Christianity or identifying as a Christian so it’s like why would you do that that’s not helping you at all or maybe he thought that he really would get the power of the Christian God on his side if he did things that pleased that God some people have said that Constantine’s Christianity was really a long process and at the very beginning he wasn’t a Christian he was just somebody who feared the Christian God wanted that God’s favor enacted in certain ways towards that God that were beneficial for Christians it is telling that he was not baptized until shortly before his death but then again a lot of Christians thought that way about baptism there was already at this time in the church a certain baptismal regeneration idea that being baptized spiritually cleansed you of all sins that you’ve committed up to that point so if that’s what you think about baptism then a lot of Christians delayed their baptism because like I want to get as much cleansing power as possible of course that’s not scriptural at all but this resulted in a lot of people waiting too close to death before they got baptized and Constantine was one of them so in the end was Constantine really a Christian I don’t think we can say for sure there’s good reason to say that he was there’s a good reason to say that he wasn’t God certainly raised them up for special purposes he did do some good things for Christians but in the end only the Lord really knows where he was at all right I think that’s all the time we have for today next week oh I guess I did have summary slide oops all right next time we’re going to backtrack in history and and we’re going to talk about early heresies in the church and we’re going to find out there were a bunch of heresies even as we’re talking about aryanism and in the fourth Century a lot of heresies came up and we’re gonna talk about how the church responded to those heresies let’s close in prayer when we think about what you’ve done what you did in the fourth Century with Constantine and many of his policies Lord we can’t help but Rejoice that you did bring an end to persecution we don’t like to see we we hate to see your church our brothers and sisters being destroyed being persecuted for what is right and yet Lord we grieve at how indirectly unintendedly these negative things came into the church because of the pro-christian policies adopted by the government well we’re still dealing with some of those problems today Lord all we can say in the end is you know what you’re doing you know what you’re doing with various governments there’s benefit from persecution there’s benefits from favor and there are drawbacks from both sides all we ask in the end God is that you would help us to be faithful not to be afraid as the government and as Society becomes hostile towards us knowing that it will have a purifying effect on us and it will force us to realize where our true treasure is but Lord where things are going well and we receive protection and favor from the government let us not become complacent and let us not then look for our joy our satisfaction our security in our temporal circumstances because you can change that in an instant and that’s not really where true life or satisfaction is it is in you and it is in your kingdom to come let us causes God as we remember your scripture and we consider the witness of church history remember where our true city lies here we have no lasting City but we are looking for the city which is to come which has foundations whose maker and Builder is God lord we are so glad we are going to that City make Us Faithful until then in Jesus name amen