Alright, if you've got your Bibles with you, you can open them up to 1 Timothy chapter 2. I like to include a scripture reading with our study in church history, so we get a little bit of scripture in here in our Sunday school hour. It takes a lot to get me to teach something that is outside of the Bible, since that is my charge, is to feed God's flock the Word of God. And so to take 12, 13, however many weeks it's been, out of our regular study of God's Word and to look into church history must mean that it is very important for us to understand, or I believe it's very important for us to understand the flow of church history, especially those first few centuries of the Christian church, where you see a lot of wonderful, faithful examples of people who had a faith very much like ours, although there's some diversity there among different groups. And then to see also the mistakes that were made by the early church and how that then leads to the decadence and the corruption of the medieval church that is known as the Orthodox Church in the East, and the Catholic Church in the West. And as we've been studying through early church history, we've seen some of the pieces of that corruption being put into place. One of the most important pieces that we saw was the elevation of the office of the bishop over that of the presbyters. And when you read and study the New Testament, like in 1 Timothy chapter 3, you'll see that the overseers, those are the bishops, that's the word overseer, is the same as elder. And throughout the New Testament, these words are used interchangeably to describe the same group of men who are in charge of being underneath the leadership of Jesus Christ and shepherding as under-shepherds the flock of God. So pastor, elder, bishop, overseer, all of those words that we have really were one office in the early church and in the Bible. However, over the course of the first couple hundred years we see that the bishopric, the monarchical bishop, the single ruling bishop, becomes the dominant form of church government and we see other elements of decline in doctrinal faithfulness in the church as the school at Alexandria, which we've looked at the last few weeks, mixed together some philosophical ideas from their culture really being largely influenced by what's known as neoplatonic thought in developing their theology and therefore there was some doctrinal departure from the orthodoxy of scripture and these elements of looking to tradition, looking to philosophy and setting up a church government that is contrary to scripture are some of the key elements that lead to the decline of the church. But there's one key piece that is yet missing in the Catholic Church and that's what we're going to be studying today and that is Constantine the Christian Emperor. Up until this time the church has been poor and persecuted. Well, that's all going to change today with the rise of Constantine. He's going to bring an end to persecution, and he's going to bring an end, therefore, also to the poverty of the Church, because poverty and persecution go hand in hand. Financial persecution is really how persecution starts, and then if that's not efficient or if that's not sufficient to deter the growth of Christianity, then they can take more stringent efforts of loss of liberty or loss of life, which, of course, has been happening since the first century of the church, starting with Nero. Nero, the first great persecutor, as far as a Roman emperor goes. And so from the time of Nero until the time of Constantine in the early part of the 300s, The church has been experiencing greater and lesser degrees of persecution, but they've been officially an illegal religion since that close of the first century. So for about 200 years, you've got this official persecution of the Christians, sometimes more severe, sometimes less severe. by the Roman emperors. But you see, Constantine is the first Christian emperor and he changes everything for the history of the church. One of the most important figures in church history. If Origen was the first great theologian of the church, as some look to his impact on the church over the coming centuries, Constantine was the first emperor over the church. Very interesting. Well, let me tell you a little bit about Constantine, what we know about him from some of the church historians who wrote about his life and also some of the secular historians, some of the original sources that tell us about how he came to be emperor. And it's a fascinating story. If you like political intrigue, if you like the story of ascension and rise to power and how one group outmaneuvers another group, then you're going to enjoy reading about Constantine's life or hearing about Constantine's life. Constantine, he was born in 272 and he lived until 337. So that gives you some idea of the time frame that we're looking at here. He's a generation after Origen and now he's going to be living during the time where a lot of people are dealing in the church with the consequences of Origen's great popularity and the impact of his ideas upon Christianity. In the beginning Constantine's not too concerned about those matters, he's concerned about political matters in the Empire because his father Constantius, Constantius the father, Constantine the son, his father was an officer in the Roman army and he rose through the ranks of the Roman army. He was part of the Emperor Aurelian's imperial bodyguard and so being a part of the bodyguard you spend a lot of time with the Emperor And if the emperor likes you, then you can get promoted. And that's how Constantius became a prominent man in the empire through his friendship with Emperor Aurelian. So he ends up earning a governorship over Dalmatia from the next emperor, Diocletian. Aurelius passes on. We have Diocletian taking over the empire. Now, Constantius He was a worshipper of the Divine Son. Not S-O-N, but S-U-N. So he was a worshipper of the Sun God. And his mother appears to have been a Christian. So Constantius is worshipping just one God. He believes that the Almighty Son is the one true God. And his mother is a Christian. And this seems to have had a profound effect upon Constantine. So his mother's faith as well as his father's faith are going to be important in the development of his faith throughout his lifetime. His mother was named Helena. Now, in July of 285, Diocletian, he declared that he was going to set up a plan to solve the problem of succession. That the emperors, Constantine will be the 57th emperor, The emperors of the Roman Empire, since the time of Julius Caesar and Caesar Augustus, when the Republic was changed into an empire and the Senate became subservient in some respects to the will of the emperor, and you kind of have a transition from this Republic form of government to more of a monarchy, that there's always a problem with succession when it comes to monarchs. Who's going to rule after the current monarch dies? And it usually involves civil war. And these are costly. The Roman Empire, after 56 different emperors coming along and each one having to fight to get to the top and become emperor and get the throne, they're getting weary of this and they're tired of depleting their resources and so Diocletian, he comes up with a plan called the Tetrarchy where he's going to set up a co-emperor He's going to divide the empire in two, not divided in the sense that it's two empires, but he's going to divide up the responsibilities for the empire among two emperors. one over the east and one over the western part of the empire. And then each part of that east and west was going to be further subdivided with a sub-emperor underneath the more powerful emperor in that region. So you have four rulers over the Roman Empire. And how it was supposed to function was that When the leading emperor, who was called an Augustus, died in the east or the west, then the lower emperor, who was called a Caesar, would move up and take over, and then that guy would appoint somebody new to be the next Caesar, who would then become the next Augustus. And so, with this plan of succession in place, he was hoping to eliminate some of the wars that were constantly taking place after an emperor died. So that was the plan. And when this was set up, Constantius, Constantine's father, was appointed to the office of Caesar. So he went from being an imperial guard to being a governor of a region, and now he's being elevated to the next co-emperor of the empire. So he's in line for half of the throne. Now, of course, Rome said that Their empire was indivisible, and this is just a practical concern for government, but of course it doesn't last. This doesn't work. Whenever you have a desire to split up and share power, you find that powerful men will not share power, but they're going to continue to look for opportunities to become the sole emperor. And of course, that's what men do. You're in a position of power. What do you want? I want more power. How do I get it? I've got to take it from this guy. And this, of course, is going to happen as the story unfolds. Now, the tetrarchy, it still retained elements of hereditary privilege. So that when the Augustus died and the next Caesar came up, there was still this idea that, well, maybe the son of the emperor or the son of the Caesar is going to become the next Caesar or the next Augustus. And that's what happens in Constantine's case. Now, before I get to Constantine's rise to power, I want to talk a little bit about Diocletian and his great persecution against the Church. As I mentioned, different emperors would kind of either turn up or turn down the heat on Christians throughout these 200 years of persecution. And God, as he often does, he saved the worst for last, as it's always darkest before dawn. So Diocletian's persecution of Christians is held in history as being perhaps the most severe persecution of Christians, and it's also the last of the persecution against Christians, because Constantine is going to bring an end to it. But in 303, Diocletian began his great persecution against Christians. He ordered the destruction of a certain church in a certain area. He burned their scriptures. He seized their property. And then in the following months, he went after other churches and was trying to destroy all the scriptures. And at this time, Christians were not allowed to serve in the military or in public office. That's one way to persecute them is to keep them out of positions of power and influence. And so Christians were barred from these things. And I think that there's a lot of folks in Washington, if they could get it to be legal, they'd like to bar Christians from serving in any important influences and offices in our day as well. And so it's great to study history and see that, you know, this type of thing is nothing new and that persecution doesn't destroy the church. It just strengthens and purifies the church and that God will give us strength no matter what we face and you know before Christ comes it might get dark again and we might have some of the worst persecution against the church before the coming of Jesus Christ so we should be strong and be ready in our hearts and be taking example from these early centuries of the church and the heroes of the faith that are recorded here for us. Now in 305 Diocletian he got really sick and he decided to resign from being emperor Now you must be pretty sick if you're resigning from being emperor. So then Constantius, Constantine's father, was promoted to the office of Augustus. And then new guys were put into the positions of Caesar. Severus and Maximin were their names, but they won't be too important going on from here. Now Constantine was not appointed as a Caesar. So his father is elevated to the big position, the august position. Someone else is appointed as the Caesar, and Constantine is not. Constantine, being the son of the most powerful man in the world, is of course ambitious, and he's also got eyes upon him that are trying to check his ambition. that you would try to control the balance of power in these types of situations in a court, is that if you had a rival, as your co-emperor is kind of your rival, and you always kind of got an eye on them to see, is he going to try to kill me? Is he going to try to take sole control of the empire? So one of the things you do is you have their son in your court. And so, of course, this looks like a friendly thing. It's like, oh yeah, you know, come, and you can be in my court, and eat at my table, and we can plan together, and all of this. But it's not just a friendly thing, it's also an insurance policy for the ruler that if this other ruler does anything wrong, I've got his son in my court and I can take out retribution on his son if I need to. And so Constantine's recognizing that his father has designs to be the sole emperor and Constantine has ambitions and so he's thinking, I need to get out of this co-emperor's court and get back to my father. And so through political maneuvering, Constantine is able to join his father in the west. That's where Constantius was August. He was co-emperor over the western part and he was particularly in charge of Spain and Britain and Gaul, I believe. And so he had one of the biggest armies. Constantine's father, Constantius, had one of the biggest armies because he was always fighting against these fringes on the border of his empire. And so he had a strong military force that was in constant training. And of course, that's a big advantage if you're going to be planning to overthrow your rivals. So Constantine spends a year with his father, Constantius, in Great Britain, fighting on the other side of Hadrian's Wall and suppressing the revolts of the Pikes. And then eventually, of course, Constantius dies. He becomes severely ill and in July of 306, he dies in York. Before dying, Constantius declares his support for his son attaining the full rank of Augustus. So he says, instead of the Caesar in this tetrarchy becoming the next Augustus, I want my son to be the next Augustus, because I've died early, and he's here, and he knows the army, and he knows my plans, and this is really what's best for the empire, is to have my son become the next Augustus here, and the Caesar, who was supposed to become the next Augustus in the western part of the empire, he'll just have to wait his turn. And so Constantine, he sends a letter to the other co-emperor, whose name was Galerius, He sends a letter to Galerius saying, well, my father wants me to be the next Augustus here now that he's died. And the army, they all love me so much, and they begged me to become the next Augustus. And so reluctantly, I want your approval to be the next Augustus for the good of the empire and all of that. This is how they did things. They always said the army loves me, and they just forced me to do it. And I didn't really want the position, but I'll do it for you guys. So Galerius does not like this at all and he's furious and he tears up the letter and he wants to answer back harshly to Constantine but his advisors calm him down and they say he's got a big army. If you don't do something right here, if you just come out guns blazing, you're going to have a civil war on your hands. And so Galerius decides, well, all right, I will appoint him to be the Caesar and not the Augustus. And we'll have the guy who was supposed to become the Augustus, I'm going to appoint him Augustus, and Constantine can be the Caesar underneath him. And this satisfies everybody for a little while. Constantine takes this and says, all right, good enough. I'll take it. I'll work my way from here. So Constantine starts to fortify his position and he tries to figure out how to take out his rivals and his opponents one at a time in order to become sole emperor and that's exactly what he does. Now you can read the whole history, you can read about the plots and the intrigues and the propaganda and the lies and the assassination attempts and all of that. It's fascinating. It would make a great mini-series or something along those lines for television if you had any capable writers left in America. By the middle of 310, Galerius becomes too ill to involve himself in politics anymore. And interestingly, since we're talking about persecution, Galerius had persecuted Christians in his part of the empire. Constantine, history tells us, was not really enforcing the rules against Christianity, probably because of his love for his mother. And Galerius, when he became sick, his final act, according to church historians, is to post a letter that proclaims an end to the persecutions. So he had continued the persecutions of Diocletian, and the Christians had been telling him, you know, you're fighting against God, and if you keep persecuting Christians, the persecutors come to a grisly end. And so then Galerius gets really sick, and he's like, maybe it's because I'm persecuting Christians. And so he writes a letter and sends out an edict that says, all right, Christians, We're going to be tolerant even though we don't like you guys. You can worship God the way you want to and we'll stop taking your property and burning your churches. But he dies anyway. The Christians said he repented too late and perhaps that's so. I told you I'm going to skip over how Constantine becomes emperor. He ends up defeating Licinius, who replaces Galerius there, and in 313 we have an important date. Constantine, as co-emperor with Licinius, issues a famous document called the Edict of Milan. The co-emperors Constantine and Licinius issued together the Edict of Milan, which gave religious freedom, religious liberty, to all people within the empire, including Christians. And this is called the Edict of Toleration. Christians would be allowed to worship and follow their faith without being oppressed. There'd be no more penalties for professing Christianity. There'd be no more martyrdoms by the state. The state would return. the confiscated property to the church. And not only was this applied to Christians, but it's to all religions. All people of every religion were free to worship the way they wanted to. And of course, in our day of toleration, of tolerance, people love this. This is great. And it is good. I'm thankful for the edict of toleration. Licinius eventually reneged on it, and in 320, he began to persecute Christians again. And this is part of what led to the final confrontation between Licinius and Constantine. Both sides kind of looked at it as a religious battle. And you're kind of at a tipping point, a crossroads for the Roman Empire. Which way is it going to go? Is it going back to paganism, which has been fighting for a couple hundred years against these Christians? Or are the Christians finally going to take over and win the day? And through Constantine, through this battle against Licinius, actually a series of battles, the Christian side, so to speak, comes out ahead. Now, Constantine did not reveal himself to be a Christian until late into his life, in his 40s. He was always friendly towards Christianity and not persecuting them, but he was a politician. And he did what he needed to do in order to maintain his power and to take control. And so he couldn't come out too strong as a Christian for political reasons in his life and make of that what you will as far as to the man's salvation. I am suspect of Constantine's salvation, but each historian has their own opinion. But I do recognize him as a very powerful force and a very important person. Before one of the decisive battles, before one of the major battles, Constantine made an unprecedented move. That he put on his army, either on their shields or on their banners, in some way, he marched out to battle under a symbol of Christ. Whether it was the key row or some other symbol of Christ, The historians are somewhat confused on exactly the details, but it's very clear that he did win a decisive battle underneath a Christian banner. And this was unprecedented, unheard of. No Roman politician had ever come near to doing something like this since the beginning of the church. And after Constantine becomes the sole emperor, he becomes very friendly towards the church, and he starts to move against his religious opponents in the same calculated manner that he moved against his political opponents. Constantine's desire was not only to become sole emperor, but his desire was also to Christianize the empire. But as he carried out his political campaign, you don't let known to your enemy exactly what your designs and your goals are, You don't reveal the extent of your ambition, but you pretend to be playing the game in order to take out your opposition one at a time. And so that's what Constantine does with paganism. He also has the goal of undermining paganism in the empire, but he doesn't just come out and say it from the beginning. He starts off just with an edict of toleration, that we shouldn't be persecuting people because of their religious faith, and we should allow people to worship the way that they want to. But you're going to see that that's not really what Constantine is all about. That's just the first step in accomplishing what he wants to do, which is to Christianize the empire. Very interesting. Now, Constantine, one of the very important historical things that he did that differentiates him as the 57th emperor of the Roman Empire is he moved the capital of Rome. This is huge. He moves his imperial palace from Rome to Byzantium. and he renames that New Rome. You probably didn't know that Byzantium was called New Rome. You know of it as Constantinople, the city of Constantine. Well, Constantine didn't name it Constantinople as much as we often think of rulers naming cities after themselves and their family members, but the people started calling it Constantinople, the city of Constantine, because he completely renovated it and made it an important city. Byzantium was relatively unimportant before Constantine moved his capital there. Now, Constantine moved his capital to Byzantium from Rome for really two important reasons. One political and one religious. As I told you, his goals are not only political but his goals are religious and he wants to weaken the power of paganism and he wants to promote the power of Christianity. And in order to weaken the power of paganism, it's important for him to move the center of government away from the established pagan families that had been living for centuries in Rome. Now you move the political center over to a new city, and you still got all these landed nobles back in Rome, and now they're kind of out of the circle. They're not in the major workings of the government. And so by moving the capital, he is distancing himself from the pagan noble families. And also what he does in moving the capital to Constantinople is he starts taking the idols out of the temple and he replaces them as objects of worship into just decorations for his new city. And the most famous of which is he takes a statue of Apollo and instead he puts a new head on it of himself. And now this is a statue of his glory in Byzantium, New Rome, rather than an object of divine worship to Apollo. And he does this with a lot of pagan statues. So he's kind of pillaging from the pagans in order to secularize these things in his new capital. Very interesting. Now, as I told you, Constantine did not convert to Christianity. In fact, he wasn't baptized until his deathbed. He remained in between Christianity and paganism throughout his whole life because of his political desires and designs. I don't think that's right, but that's what he did, and it worked, okay? And he would still appoint pagans and all of that to, pagan is someone who worships the Greek and Roman gods, he would still appoint pagans to positions of power. He didn't completely stop that, and he would still be involved with pagan worship. He did build altars, and he built memorials, and he still gave some lip service to the pagan gods. In fact, Constantine, as Roman emperor, had the title of Pontifex Maximus. Now if you've heard the title Pontifex Maximus in our time, you know that that refers to the Pope in Rome. The Pope is called, one of his titles is Pontifex Maximus, which means high priest, highest priest. Maximus means highest. And the high priest of the pagan religion was the emperor. The emperor for hundreds of years, since the time of Augustus, was not only head of state, but he was also head of the pagan religious system. And so church and state were, you know, church. Religion and state were united in the Roman Empire, and paganism was the official religion of the empire, and the emperor was the official head of that religion. Recently there's a new king crowned in England, and the king of England is head of the Church of England by title. And he carries that, so you have that connection between religion and state. Now, King Charles, he's also not very Christian, and so he's kind of the opposite of Constantine. Constantine had the title of being the pagan high priest. but he wanted to move things towards Christianity. Charles, he has the title of being the defender of the Christian faith in England, but he really wants to move things towards paganism. And so it's interesting to see how history repeats itself in different ways and politicians are always going to politic. Now, there's massive ramifications for the church with Constantine and his love for Christianity and his desire to promote Christianity. this really does change everything for the church. Imagine yourself, you're living in the early part of the 300s in the Roman Empire, you're experiencing the most severe persecution with your churches being burned, your Bibles being burned, your property being confiscated, Christians being killed, conversions being outlawed, and then you recognize there's this guy who's coming to power who's friendly towards Christianity. In fact, he marched out to battle with a Christian symbol on his soldier's shields. And it's like, whoa, what's going on here? This is new. This is different. And then you hear about the battle that's taking place, and Constantine's army crosses across the river to the eastern part of the empire. And he says he's chasing bandits. And he says that, you know, that Licinius had sent an assassin over to try to assassinate him. And then you find out that Licinius is representing the pagan side. you're kind of rooting for this new Constantine guy because he seems to be on your side, and you're praying that God let Constantine win the battle, and he does, and he becomes the sole emperor, and you're just like, whoa, what's this mean? What's going to happen? We haven't had anything like this ever before. So Constantine, in his forties, he declared himself to be a Christian after he had become the sole emperor and kind of solidified his power, and he sent out a letter to the churches letting them know even though he wasn't baptized, that he owed all of his successes to the protection of the Christian God alone. And yet, throughout his life, he kind of put together his father's worship and his mother's worship. Remember that Constantine's father was a worshiper of the unconquered sun, the sun in the sky. So Constantine noticed, hey, you Christians, you gather for worship on Sunday. the first day of the week. You celebrate the resurrection of the unconquered Jesus Christ. And so one of the first things that Constantine does as emperor is he makes Sunday the day of rest. He declares throughout the empire Sunday, partly probably because of his father's faith and the unconquered son, and this was a pretty strong growing religion in the empire at that time as well. So he could draw upon that religious influence and the Christian religious influence and say, here, here's this momentum moving towards the worship on Sunday, and so that's what he does. And he does a lot of interesting things along those lines. We'll talk about Arianism here in a minute, but let's talk about a few of the other things that Constantine did when he became emperor. He outlawed crucifixion. He abolished crucifixion and replaced it with hanging. So we still have the death penalty, but we're not going to crucify anybody anymore. And then, as I said, he declared Sunday the official day of rest. The markets were closed. Public offices were closed. The only thing that you could do on Sunday was free a slave and you could also farm. There was no restrictions on farming work throughout the empire, which was what most people in the empire did. So the markets were closed, but private citizens were still able to farm if they wanted to. Another interesting thing that he did was he banished the gladiatorial games. Remember, as we've been studying through church history, that the Christians did not appreciate the blood sport in the arenas. So Constantine, he's Christianizing the empire and he says, you know, these gladiatorial games, they're barbaric. We're not going to do those anymore. And so in 325, the gladiatorial games were eliminated. In 331, he commissioned for 50 Bibles to be delivered to the church of Constantinople. New Rome, Constantinople, he's building basilicas, he's building cathedrals there, and he orders 50 Bibles to be made official church Bibles. So this is an interesting development in the course of church history as well. Now, probably the main thing that changes in the church, besides the fact that they're no longer persecuted, from the time of Constantine forward, is that now the Christian Emperor, just as the pagan high priest had been in charge of maintaining the order and stability of the pagan religion throughout the Roman Empire, now Constantine sees it as his responsibility to maintain the order and stability of the Christian Church. He has not declared Christianity the official religion of the Empire. That doesn't happen until 50 years later with Emperor Theodosian. But he's kind of just making those moves and making those steps, just as I'm in charge of the stability of the pagan religion, so I'm also going to step into being the enforcer of Christian doctrine within the Christian church. And so this becomes fascinating because he had issued an edict of toleration that says you can worship God any way that you want. And what that really means is that you can worship God according to any religion as that religion is officially established. And that he is going to be helping the church to kind of become an official church so that no longer are doctrinal heresies dividing the church, because if the Christian emperor is going to unite the empire around Christianity and make it the official religion, well then you need a coherent, consistent Christianity in order to do that. You can't have these different sects of Christianity running around who believe different things. You've got to have a unified church. And so he wants a unified empire, he wants a unified church, and this changes things. Now, for the first 300 years of the church, the way that heresy was dealt with is you wrote against it, you spoke against it, and you just tried to convince people that it was wrong. And you convinced people, and some people you didn't convince, and heresies would continue on. But there was no official persecution of heretics by the Orthodox Christian leaders. Well, that changes. And now with Constantine being the Christian emperor, he starts to enforce A unified Christian theology, what most of the bishops agree on, becomes what the emperor says, this is what you have to believe, or you're no longer protected by the Edict of Toleration. The Edict of Toleration only protects you if you agree with the official stance of the church. That's what it becomes. And the first major incident of this is known as the Donatist Controversy. So let me tell you a little bit about the Donatist Controversy. So Donatus, he was a bishop in North Africa and during the persecution the church was trying to figure out how do we deal with Christians who will deny Christ to avoid persecution? How do we deal with Christians who will hand over to the Roman government our Bibles to be burned and then Right afterwards, the next week, they're back in church saying, hey, we're here to worship God with you guys. It's like, eh, you don't really seem to be committed to this Christian cause. You seem to really be a false convert. And so this would happen not only at the lay level, but even among the leaders of the church. The leaders of the church in these cities in North Africa, they were trying to decide, do I suffer to the full extent of this persecution by resisting it? Or do I cooperate with the authorities and say, okay, here's our stuff, burn it, and just don't hurt me? And so Christians had different ideas about what was the right way to respond to this persecution, and they had different ideas about how tolerant to be in letting people back into the church after persecution was over. So now, the emperor issues this edict of toleration. And all of these people who during the persecution have been like, oh, nope, I'm not a Christian, I don't believe in Christ, get those people, don't get me. Now they're all flowing back into the church and they're like, woo-hoo, freedom, we're back, baby. And some of those bishops who had really lost the will of the people because they had been traitors to Christ during the persecution and weren't willing to suffer, they were like, yep, we're in charge now, Constantine's got my back. And so the Donatists, they were like, no, no, no, no. We can't allow this. These people are not real leaders. This bishop is not our bishop. And so kind of like the not our president thing in our day. So they had the not our bishop thing in their day. And that's the Donatist controversy. And Constantine hears about this, and he's like, oh, this is a mess. Now we've got this Donatist group of Christians, and we've got this Orthodox group of Christians, or the non-Donatist party, whatever they're called. And so Constantine's got to step in and try to settle it so that he has a unified church and doesn't spread. You could have this North Africa controversy spread throughout the whole empire and now you've got two churches and what am I supposed to do with that? So Constantine decides he's going to settle it. He calls together a group of bishops and they decide against the Donatists. The Donatists have actually appealed to Constantine to judge in the dispute. They thought that Constantine would be on their side. So they're like, Constantine, help us. We got this dispute here and we want you to come in and settle it. Oops. That was a mistake because then Constantine settles against them. But it's also a mistake because you don't want to use the power of the sword to settle your controversies. That sets a bad precedent. But here's where it begins. So now Constantine is the enforcer of the will of the bishops. Constantine doesn't decide what is good doctrine. He lets the bishops decide what is good doctrine, but then it's his job to enforce their decisions. That's how he views it, and that's how he acts. So he issues against the Donatists. He confiscates their property. That's so much for religious freedom, right? He sends them into exile, the clergy into exile. And then, having done that in 317, eight years later we have the first ecumenical council. Ecumenical means the whole world So he calls the bishops of the whole civilized world, the whole Roman Empire, together in 325 to deal with another issue that was dividing the church at this time, and that was the issue of Arianism, named after Arius. Arius was an elder, a presbyter, not the bishop, remember? bishops and elders had become different offices, overseers and elders had become different offices. So Arius was a presbyter, an elder, in, you guessed it, Alexandria, Egypt. So he's part of the Alexandrian school of thought and he's been influenced heavily by Origen. And Arius, he teaches in his writings, quote, this is not from his writings because all of his writings end up getting burned, But this is a quote from someone who was recording the history, Socrates of Constantinople, from his history. He says, Arius taught this. If the father begat the son, he that was begotten had a beginning of existence. And from this, it is evident that there was a time when the son was not. It therefore necessarily follows that the son had his substance from nothing. So God created the Son out of nothing, and there was a time where the Son did not exist. So Arius is teaching that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Logos, is a created being, the first of God's created being, the only being that God created directly, and that then, through the Logos, God created everything else. And so this is Arius' understanding of the Trinity, which is a non-Trinitarian position. on the Trinity. And so the Bishop of Alexandria, whose name was Alexander, how about that? The Bishop of Alexandria named Alexander, he didn't quite know how to handle Arius, and he let the debate go on for a while. And Arius, he appealed a lot to the writings of Origen. And Origen had a great name for himself, and he was held to be kind of the premier theologian of his time, and so both Arius and his main opponent, who will be coming onto the scene here in a little bit, he's a very young man at this point, Athanasius, both Arius and Athanasius from Alexandria are interacting with the writings of Origen on the subject of the Trinity. Arius kind of goes one direction with it, Athanasius goes the other direction, and you could kind of describe this whole Arian debate as a debate over what did Origen mean. And so Arius is saying, Origen meant this, or this is the implications of Origen's teaching. Athanasius is saying, no, Origen didn't say that, but this is the correct interpretation of Origen's teachings. And because the bishop of Alexandria didn't deal with it right away, Arius got a lot of followers, and a lot of people really started listening to his ideas. and he was a very powerful and persuasive teacher and by the time that he called together some bishops to deal with it and condemn it and to oust Arius from his eldership in Alexandria, it had gotten out of control and it was no longer able to be stopped. So some people blame Alexander for being too weak in dealing with it in the beginning. But now it's spreading beyond Alexandria, it's getting around and Constantine recognizes, here's another divisive issue in the church that I'm going to call a council to deal with. So that's the first ecumenical council, it's the Council of Nicaea. And the Council of Nicaea produces the Nicene Creed. Have you heard of the Nicene Creed? One of the most important creeds in the history of the church. It's not that long, I'll read it for you. AD 325. the creed that was set forth at Nicaea with Constantine being the presiding officer who brought all these bishops together to write this creed in response to Arius. We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of all things, visible and invisible, and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten of the Father, only begotten, that is, of the substance of the Father. That phrase, of the substance of the Father, is a key word in church history, homoousios, of the exact same being, the exact same substance. Arians taught that the Lagos was homoiousios. Homoi means like, a similar type of substance to the father, but the Nicene Creed says the same substance, not just like the father, but of the same substance, consubstantial with the father. That was really the main point of disagreement where they parted ways. That is, of the substance of the father. And this is what they say about the Lord Jesus Christ. God of God, light of light, very God of very God, begotten, not made. Not made like Arius says. Being of one substance with the Father. There's that again. By whom all things were made, both things in heaven and things on earth, who for us men and for our salvation came down and was incarnate and was made man. He suffered and rose again the third day. He ascended into heaven and he shall come again to judge the quick and the dead and the Holy Ghost. So, a very short statement about God the Father, a very short statement about the Holy Ghost, a very long statement about Jesus Christ, because that's the doctrine that they were debating. That's the doctrine that was at issue. And it says this, Those who say there was a time when he was not, or that before he was begotten he was not, or that he was made out of nothing, or who say that the Son of God is of any other substance, or that he is changeable or unstable, these the Catholic and Apostolic Church anathematizes. So you're out of the church if you believe that Jesus was made from nothing and that he's not of the same substance of the Father. And this is exactly what Arius was teaching. And so Arius is kicked out of the church at the Council of Nicaea along with a couple of his really stout followers. Everyone else says, okay, we yield. We'll sign the doctrinal statement even if their hearts weren't really in it. There was an overwhelming majority of the bishops who were against Arius. And so the Nicene Creed was put into effect. Did that solve the issue? Of course not. Arius sticks around, even though he's exiled, even though he's defrocked, he continues to teach, he continues to influence, he's not put to death. The first execution of a heretic won't take place until about a hundred years later, but this is the beginning. of the state deciding what is official Orthodox Christian teaching and becoming the enforcers of that orthodoxy, something that had not existed for the first few hundred years of the church. And this is a bad development. This is how the Catholic Church becomes the persecutor of the truth. Now here they are persecuting heretics. Starts off with good intentions, right? We've got to stop Arianism. Does it really stop Arianism? No. Interestingly, Constantine is kind of partial to the Aryans. Perhaps his mother was partial to the Aryans, we don't know. But this starts a new trend in the history of the church where no longer is it just about debate as far as ideas go and may the best idea win, now it becomes a political game. Who can get the ear of the emperor? Who can influence the emperor and say, this is my position and this is what would be a good position for the empire. Constantine will eventually kind of toy with Arianism and it becomes a huge struggle. The Council of Nicaea does not settle it. And the young man Athanasius, who was just a deacon in the Church of Alexandria when this council was called, the Bishop of Alexandria brought Athanasius with him to the Council of Nicaea because Athanasius was powerful. He was godly, he was motivated, he was eloquent, he was intelligent, and he becomes the defender of the Trinity for the rest of his life. For the rest of his life, he's fighting against Arianism. Just as a young man, he's got the Council of Nicaea now as his tool. Here's what the bishops decided. And when the emperor starts to renege, and he wants to make Arianism prominent again, Athanasius has to fight hard. He has to fight long and hard against Arianism. And he actually becomes known in history as Athanasius Contramundum. Athanasius against the world. He's going to take on the world. At one point, he's in a church council or a church meeting and now the tides have turned. And they tell Athanasius, Athanasius, the world is against you. And Athanasius says, well then it's Athanasius against the world. Athanasius contramundo. So we appreciate Athanasius. He does it the right way. He's not trying to use the sword to try to enforce some Christian orthodoxy, but he's using reason, logic, arguments, and he does so very well. He's known as one of the four great doctors of the Church in the Roman Catholic Church, a great defender of the doctrine of the Trinity. He's labeled the father of orthodoxy in the Eastern Church, and Protestants love him as well. calling him the father of the canon of the New Testament since that was also becoming official. Everything is becoming official at this time now that Constantine is Christianizing the empire. So, what happens to Constantine? Well, he doesn't live super long. He only gets about 14 years of being the sole emperor, although he had a number of years as being co-emperor before that. But in 337, he got really sick, and so he decides he needs to get baptized. He's trying to travel back to Constantinople, he's too sick to make it, and he then is baptized by an Arian bishop. And so he doesn't become a full convert baptized Christian until his deathbed. And that was political. He's the head of the pagan church, He's got to play all these religious games, and he does want to be a Christian, but because of all of his political desires, his heart is divided, and he waits until the last moment to make it official for himself. And this was a wise political maneuver, because as emperor, he had to do a lot of things, politically speaking, that would not be the Christian thing to do. like be head of the pagan organization. That's not a very Christian thing to do. Many other things as well. Emperors have to do a lot of non-Christian things. And the Christian bishops, they therefore could not really criticize Constantine for doing all these non-Christian things. Well, he's not a baptized Christian. He's not really under our authority. He's just kind of a seeker. He's just somebody who's interested in Christianity, somebody who's friendly towards Christianity. So everything Constantine did that benefited the church, they loved him for. Anything that he did that was not very Christian, they forgave him for because, you know, he's a pagan emperor, and pagan emperors are always doing things that we don't like. So Constantine always lived in this in-between, and it's a matter of historical and theological debate whether you think you're going to find Constantine in heaven or not. But whatever the case for his personal salvation, the fact that he changed Christianity for all time is undeniable. What we have in Constantine, the Christian emperor, is the beginning of Christendom. This is the beginning of Christendom. Now the church started in 30 AD, 33 AD, depending upon your timeline. But this is the beginning of Christendom, where you have a kingdom that is Christian. Now, of course, the Bible talks a lot about the kingdom of God, but that's not what we're talking about here. Here, what we're talking about is this is the first time where you've got a state religion, as I mentioned, Theodosius actually formalizes it in 380 with the Edict of Thessalonica. It's the first time where Christianity becomes the dominant, the supported state religion of what is really at this time the most powerful force on earth, the Roman Empire. This is what the Edict of Thessalonica says. It is our desire that the various nations which are subject to our clemency and moderation should continue to profess that religion which was delivered to the Romans by the divine apostle Peter, as it has been preserved by faithful tradition, which is now professed by the Pontiff Damasus and by Peter, Bishop of Alexandria, a man of apostolic holiness, According to the apostolic teaching and the doctrine of the gospel, let us believe in the one deity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, in equal majesty, and in a holy trinity. We authorize the followers of this law to assume the title of Catholic Christians. But as for the others, since in our judgment they are foolish madmen, we decree that they shall be branded with the ignominious name of heretics, and shall not presume to give to their conventicles the name of churches. So these aren't real churches, these are heretics, and he identifies which bishops are representing the Catholic Church and what their doctrine is, the Trinitarian doctrine. They will suffer in the first place the chastisement, the heretics, will suffer the chastisement of the divine condemnation, and in the second, the punishment of our authority, which in accordance with the will of heaven we shall decide to inflict. So now there's an official church, there's official persecution, and we are officially done because it's time to have snacks.