A bust of Emperor Constantine the Great stands outside York Minster in the north of England. This is where the young pagan military commander was proclaimed emperor by loyal troops upon the death of his father, Constantius. The year was A.D. 306.
Constantine the Great remains one of the most significant political figures of all time.
But Constantine's accession to the throne was not welcomed throughout the empire. During the following years, he had to fight for his position, finally emerging victorious after a battle at the Milvian Bridge near Rome, on Oct. 28, 312.
"In this sign, conquer!"
Immediately prior to the battle, Constantine was said to have seen a vision in the sky of a flaming cross with the Latin words in hoc signo vinces above it. The words mean, "In this sign, conquer!" Constantine immediately ordered that all the shields and standards of the army should carry the Christian symbol, a monogram of the first two letters of the Greek word Christos. Supposedly, the young emperor had changed his religion.
While many down through the centuries have believed the simple account of Constantine's vision and conversion to Christianity, others have questioned it. "The cross that appeared in the sky...and the banner in the form of a cross which mysterious messengers are supposed to have delivered to Constantine, were evidently a product of the public's imagination. The reality was the victory of Constantine and the issuance of the Edict of Milan between February and June of 313, which declared the freedom of all and any religious cult" (Claudio Rendina, The Popes: Histories and Secrets, 2002, p. 40).
Victorious in battle, Constantine was about to change the fortunes of the Christian church dramatically. "As a result, the person of the emperor became popular with the Christians, appearing as a protector of their religion" (ibid., p. 40). A new relationship was born—a special relationship between church and state that continued down through the centuries of European history.
From persecution to triumph
Prior to Constantine, the Christian church had endured waves of successive persecutions. For 250 years, the various emperors of Rome had tried, with varying intensity, to wipe out the Christians. But they had not succeeded. A major contributory cause of the intense persecutions was that the loyalty of both Jews and Christians was constantly questioned, as they would not comply with the laws that required emperor worship.
Even in the time that Constantine was the emperor in the West, Galerius, the emperor in the East, continued to persecute Christians, until he was on his deathbed. Six days before Galerius' death he permitted Christians to practice their faith, on condition they prayed for him.
In an incredible twist, when Constantine needed a new religion to unite the empire, the Christian church offered a solution. "Constantine...put order and stability, the rule of law, before any other religious consideration" (Paul Johnson, A History of Christianity, 1979, p. 88.)
"The main reason why he had favored Christianity...was because he believed that it would encourage unity in the empire" (Michael Grant, Constantine the Great, 1993, p. 161).
Constantine had "not much knowledge of the Bible" (ibid., p. 151). However, he was inadvertently contributing to the fulfillment of biblical prophecies about the Roman Empire and the close relationship that would develop between it, its successors and the church to which it gave recognition.
"The relationship between the church and the emperors starting with Constantine to the end of the Roman Empire in the East (also known as the Byzantine Empire , AD 330-1453) worked much like a marriage. Much of it was improvised, and the lovers quarreled at times and manipulated each other to get what they wanted" (Bradley Nassif, "A Marriage Made in Byzantium," Christian History, Winter 2005).
"He [Constantine] was also the divinely appointed defender of the faith, the 'pontifex maximus' —a Christianized pagan title for the supreme leader of religion which effectively made the church a department of the state. This meant that heresy and treason were equated. In the sixth century, Emperor Justinian described the relationship between church and empire as a harmonious 'symphony'" (ibid.).
The Bible does not describe the relationship as a "harmonious symphony" or as a marriage. Rather, it describes the union as one of "fornication" (Revelation 17:2). The analogy is appropriate. Whereas in a marriage, a man and wife ideally give themselves to each other, a couple that is fornicating is simply trying to get from each other. There is no real commitment, or they would marry. Fornication then is an uneasy relationship. This is the way it has been between church and state through the centuries.
"Constantine really thought he was above the Church, a 'bishop of the bishops' (to use his own description)...But he did not understand the profound spiritual significance of Christianity. He imposed it for purely political motives that, for him, meant above all the security of the State. And for it he even resorted to assassination, liquidating his colleague of the East, Licinius, and condemning to death certain family members, like his second wife Fausta and his son Crispus" (Redina, p. 41). Clearly, the "Christian" Constantine had no qualms about breaking the laws of God, including the command that forbids murder.
Council of Nicea
Constantine plainly used the church to achieve imperial unity. Even this, however, did not go according to plan. The church was greatly divided over a number of issues. In an attempt to bring greater unity, the emperor convened a council at his expense to enable religious leaders to meet at one of his palaces. The historic Council of Nicea took place in A.D. 325.
"It is not certain who was selected as chairman of the Council...Yet it was to Constantine, who held such strong views about the subordination of church to state, that everyone looked" (Grant, p. 172).
"If Constantine really hoped that his intervention might prove effective, it can only have been, once again, because he was more concerned about imperial unity, which he regarded as all-important, than about theological principles, which seemed to him so pettifogging and pedantic" (Grant, p. 170).
"Shut up and become united"
Earlier, he had "told the contestants to shut up and become united" (ibid.). Unity was extremely important to the emperor, who had fought constant battles for many years in an attempt to unite the empire. "For he liked the idea of backing Christianity because he wanted to have its effective organization on his side" (ibid., p. 151).
"Constantine was not a theologian—in fact, at the time, he was technically not even a Christian! But his push for closure resulted in consensus after only one day. His main goal was imperial unity, not theological accuracy" (Nassif). The emperor was not a Bible student and not even a Christian at the time of the council, but he was still clearly "in control of religion" (Grant, p. 166).
"The order of the day was to resolve the question about the eternity and divine status of the Son of God" (John Anthony McGuckin, "The Road to Nicaea," Christian History, Winter 2005).
This should be clearly understood: The issue of exactly who Jesus Christ was and His relationship with God the Father and the Holy Spirit was resolved by a biblically illiterate non-Christian serial killer in a single day! This is, to put it mildly, a highly questionable basis for the Christian doctrine of the Trinity!
The Trinity was not the only doctrine Constantine imposed on the church.
He was also responsible for sanctioning Sunday as the official day of rest, thereby without any biblical authority changing the true seventh-day Sabbath observed by Jesus Christ and the apostles to a day that had been observed by pagan Romans in honor of the sun god.
Constantine, "too, was apparently behind the elevation of Sunday as a public holiday and day of rest, despite a manifest solar [pagan] background. 'All magistrates, city-dwellers and artisans,' decreed Constantine in 321, 'are to rest on the venerable day of the Sun...the day celebrated by the veneration of the Sun should not be devoted to swearing and counter-swearing of litigants, and their ceaseless brawling" (ibid., p. 184).
Another issue resolved during the council was the date of Easter, supposedly the commemoration of the resurrection of Jesus.
"One of the most vexing problems in the early church concerned when to celebrate Easter. The Greek-speaking Eastern church insisted that it had to be on the date of Jesus' resurrection [actually, His death]—Nisan 14, the Jewish Passover—regardless of the day of the week. The Western, Latin-speaking church, on the other hand, decreed that it had to be on the day of the resurrection—[which they believed was] Sunday—regardless of the date. The Council of Nicaea decided that Easter should be celebrated on a Sunday" (Paul L. Maier, "Taking Care of (Church) Business," Christian History, Winter 2005).
For biblical proof that the resurrection was neither on Nisan 14 nor Sunday, please download or request our free booklet Holidays or Holy Days: Does It Matter Which Days We Observe?
A very different church
It should be clear to dedicated Bible students that the church Constantine presided over was very different from the Church of Jesus Christ and the first-century apostles.
The apostle Paul warned the Corinthians, "Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also transform themselves into ministers of righteousness, whose end will be according to their works" (2 Corinthians 11:14-15). Clearly, it is possible for Satan and ministers who serve his purpose to pass themselves off as Christians.
Jesus had said: "My kingdom is not of this world" (John 18:36). His disciples knew that His Kingdom would not be established until His second coming. They had asked: "When will these things be? And what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?" (Matthew 24:3).
The early Church understood that the Kingdom of God would be established at Christ's return, not by a quasi-political church organization. By the time of Emperor Constantine, the church believed itself to be the Kingdom of God on earth.
That church had also become a vital component of the state's administrative system. "Constantine was said to have placed the entire resources of the state at the disposal of the papacy" (Grant, p. 198).
Constantine certainly changed religion from that of his predecessors. After him, other pagan emperors wore the purple. A new relationship between church and state began under Constantine that continues to this day.
After the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the century following Constantine, it was the church that would carry on the Roman language, Roman laws, Roman system of government and many of the beliefs of the Roman religion. The church would also give its blessing to successive revivals of the Roman Empire, thereby fulfilling the prophecies of your Bible.
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