How did the relationship between the early Christian church and the Roman Empire evolve before during and after the reign of Constantine?

Answer 1

A:During the last half of the first century, Christians were at pains to assure the Romans that they held no ill-will against them for the crucifixion of Jesus and that they posed no threat to the Roman peace. Chronologically, from Mark to Matthew, then Luke and John, the gospels increasingly excuse Pontius Pilate of any fault in the trial of Jesus. Luke has Pilate three times stress that he found no fault in Jesus. According to John (19:12-13), the Jews even blackmailed Pilate to ensure he had Jesus crucified, and afterwards the angusihed Roman governor followed Jesus to the crucifixion site and argued with the priests about the sign to be placed on the cross. The second-century pseudepigraphical gospel, l Peter introduced the idea that Christianity was a "holy nation" (i Peter 2:5-10), a statement that would have begun to cause concern regarding the allegiance of Christians in the Roman Empire. Nevertheless, it was possible around 150 CE for Justin Martyr to wrte his Apology to the emperor Antoninus Pius, not only to defend the Church but to explain the practices of the early Christians.

Emperor Nero accused the Christians of Rome, probably unfairly, of starting the Great Fire of Rome in 64 CE. A later tradition is that Nero himself lit the fire and "fiddled while Rome burnt", but that is now regarded as non-factual. However, he needed a scapegoat and the Christians were both convenient and defenceless. Allegations that Nero began a widespread persecution of the Christians are regarded as baseless.

Over the almost three centuries that followed up until the time of Constantine, Rome's attitude to the Christians was ambivalent. Edward Gibbon (The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire) concludes about the attitude of the emperors to the Christians:

• That a considerable time elapsed before they considered the new sectaries as deserving of the attention of government.
• That in the conviction of any of their subjects who were accused of so very singular a crime, they proceeded with caution and reluctance.
• That they were moderate in the use of punishments; and
• That the afflicted church enjoyed many intervals of peace and tranquillity.

While there were undoubtedly periods of widespread, offical persecution of Christians, estimated at around 12 years over the ensuing centuries, Gibbon's conclusions are very much at variance with Christian tradition, which insists that the pagan emperors were ruthless in their persecution of Christians. Since, the Roman Empire was for the most part at peace with the Christian Church, it is instructive to look at some examples as evidence for this rather than to select the occasional periods of persecution.

• Marcia, the most favoured concubine of Commodus (180-192) declared herself the patroness of Christians, without any risk to her life or status. When ill, he allowed a slave to anoint him with Christian holy oil, and convinced himself that he had benefitted from it.
• Severus Alexander (222-235) kept statues of Abraham, Orpheus, Apollonius and Christ in his domestic chapel. Bishops were reported to be seen at his court.
• Philip (244-249) was rumoured to be a Christian, a view still be considered by some scholars today.
• The third-century Church Father, Origen, writing (Contra Celsum, 3.8) of the total of Christian martyrs up to his own time, in Rome and elsewhere, states that there were not many - and that it was easy to count them.

Euan Cameron (Interpreting Christian History) tells us why the Christian writers of the fourth and fifth centuries created the legends of a brutal and cruel pagan empire that left a legacy of centuries of persecution and martyrdom. He says that when the Christians began their final, savage persecution of the pagans, they sought justification by creating stories of persecution previously suffered by Christians under pagan rule.

There is no doubting there here were minor, local persecutions, and the pagans were liable to blame the Christians for any misfortunes that occurred, because the Christians had offended their gods. There were two short but sharp periods of persecution in the middle of the third century, one under the Emperor Decius around the year 250, in which the Bishops of Rome, Jerusalem and Antioch were all martyred, and another, enforced particularly in Africa, under Valerian in 258. The Great Persecution of Christians was initiated by Diocletian in 303 CE. It lasted until 305 in the West, but continued until 311 in the East.

It was not Constantine but Galerius who issued the Edict of Toleration in 311, granting freedom of religion to all. He had it co-signed by Constantine and Licinius but not their co-emperor Maximimin. Constantine and Licinius jointly issued the Edict of Milan in 313, building on Galerius' Edict of Tolerationbut going further by granting positive advantages and privileges (including the recovery of losses, and recognition of legal rights) to the Christian community. Constantine did not consider this to apply to the Gnostic branch of Christianity, which he insisted on destroying.

Even without the Gnostics, the Donatists and the Arians demolished Constantine's idea that Christianity was ever a harmonious, united faith and that the empire, with Christians in charge, could become a single harmonious unit. On the advice of the Bishop of Rome, he began to persecute the Donatist Christians of Carthage and North Africa, but soon relented when he realised the ineffectiveness of persecution.

Constantine considered himself to be the leader of the Christian Church, as did each of the Christian emperors who followed. He called the Council of Nicaea, to resolve issues in the Church ad define its doctrines. He granted state patronage to the Church, provided substantial stipends to its clergy and exempted them from taxes, and embarked on a campaign of building magnificent churches across the empire. The new city of Constantinople was to be a Christian city, devoid of the usual pagan temples. Along with Constantine's personal extravagance, this required the imposition of swingeing taxes on the middle classes, as the landed classes were favoured. Lactantius, a Christian who usually supported Constantine, said that as the fatal time for taxation approached, all the towns were seen in tears and grief. The scourge and the rack were used against those whose extreme poverty could not support this unjust tax. Mothers sold their children, and fathers prostituted their daughters to pay the tax.

There would be one more brief period during which the empire was not at one with the Church - during the reign of Julian the Apostate (361-363). While there was much he admired about Christianity, he ordered that reparation be made by the Church authorities for the temples destroyed and the properties they had appropriated for their own places of worship. Fortunately for the Church, he was killed in battle and Julian's edicts not enforced.

Emperor Theodosius made Christianity the official religion of the empire in 381. Shortly afterwards, Theodosius made the public worship of the old gods punishable by death. It took more than two more centuries for Christianity to finally wipe out remnants of pagan worship in the empire. As late as the sixth century, legislation was promulgated demanding the death penalty for the pagan practice of sacrifice.