Church and Empire

LactantiusLactantiusA Christian writer who taught at Constantine's court. His account of the dream is the earlier one.Person tells the story of the Milvian BridgeMilvian BridgeA Roman bridge over the Tiber River, now called Ponte Milvio, in Italy. Constantine won a battle here in 312.Place · pleiades.stoa.org differently, and he tells it earlier than EusebiusEusebiusBishop of Caesarea and the emperor's historian. He wrote a life of Constantine after the emperor died. It praises its hero and leaves some things out.Person does. His account has no vision seen by daylight and no army of witnesses. Nor does it have a standard carried before the troops, or words written across the sky.

In his telling, ConstantineConstantineEmperor who won at the Milvian Bridge in 312. He called the council at Nicaea in 325. He was baptized as he lay dying, in 337.Person was directed in a dream to mark the heavenly sign on his soldiers' shields and so to go into battle. The sign was the letter mark that stands for Christ. Constantine did as he had been commanded, and by that mark, Lactantius says, his army won at the bridge.

EusebiusEusebiusBishop of Caesarea and the emperor's historian. He wrote a life of Constantine after the emperor died. It praises its hero and leaves some things out.Person tells what ConstantineConstantineEmperor who won at the Milvian Bridge in 312. He called the council at Nicaea in 325. He was baptized as he lay dying, in 337.Person himself told him, long afterward and under oath. While he was on campaign, about noon, Constantine said he saw with his own eyes a cross of light in the sky above the sun. It carried the words "Conquer by this." His whole army, he said, saw it too.

That night, Eusebius says, Christ appeared to Constantine in his sleep with the same sign. Christ commanded him to make a standard of it and to carry it before his armies. Constantine did so, and then came the battle at the Milvian BridgeMilvian BridgeA Roman bridge over the Tiber River, now called Ponte Milvio, in Italy. Constantine won a battle here in 312.Place · pleiades.stoa.org.

Eusebius reports what a ruler wanted remembered about his own rise, and he wrote it after that ruler's death.

Constantine stopped hunting the church, and within a year tolerationtolerationA law that let Christians and all others follow the religion each thought best. Constantine and Licinius agreed it at Milan in 313.Term was law.

When ConstantineConstantineEmperor who won at the Milvian Bridge in 312. He called the council at Nicaea in 325. He was baptized as he lay dying, in 337.Person stepped into the quarrel in Africa's church, he did what emperors do and called a hearing. The matter had already been heard at Rome. In 314 he sent Caecilian and his accusers to Arles, and the councils duly ruled against the Donatists.

It settled nothing. Sixteen years later, in 330, the Donatists still held basilicas that the Catholics said belonged to them. One of those buildings was a church that Constantine had built himself, for Catholic use.

He wrote to the bishops of Numidia about it, but he did not order the buildings seized, and he did not send troops. He left the Donatists where they were. The Catholic bishops had asked for another site instead, and he granted it. He paid for a new church to be built there for the Catholics, once again at his own expense.

He also ordered that the Catholic lower clergy be freed again from forced public service, which the Donatists had maneuvered them into.

A council in the East had condemned AthanasiusAthanasiusBishop of Alexandria. A council in the East deposed him. Years later he quoted Julius's letter of 341 to defend himself.Person of AlexandriaAlexandriaA port city in Egypt's Nile Delta. Athanasius was its bishop.Place · pleiades.stoa.org and removed him from office. JuliusJuliusBishop of Rome from 337 to 352. His letter of 341 claimed Rome's right to review other churches' judgments.Person, bishop of Rome, was expected to accept that decision. Instead he wrote back, questioning the council's right to settle the matter before Rome had heard it.

He put it to them as a question. "Are you unaware that the custom has been to write to us first, and then for a just decision to be passed from this place?" Julius had not attended their council. Those he wrote to disputed how old and settled that custom was.

The altar of Victoryaltar of VictoryAn old altar in the Senate house at Rome. In 384 Symmachus asked the emperor to bring it back.Term stood in the Senate house in Rome. Constantius had it removed and Julian put it back, and then Gratian removed it again.

In the year 384, SymmachusSymmachusPrefect of Rome in 384 and a pagan senator.Person petitioned the young emperor to bring the altar back. He was prefect of Rome and the old religion's most eloquent voice. Rome's ancient worship, he said, had guarded Rome's ancient greatness, and so great a secret could not be reached by one road alone.

AmbroseAmbroseBishop of Milan from 374 until his death in 397. A former provincial governor, he was chosen bishop by the people of Milan.Person answered him twice in writing. A Christian emperor's state, Ambrose argued, may not fund what the faith knows to be false. What Symmachus called reverence for the past was, to Ambrose, the past's own long error.

The altar stayed removed.

The imperial court wanted one of MilanMilanFirst a Celtic town, it later became a Western Roman capital. Today it is Milan, in Italy. Ambrose was its bishop.Place · pleiades.stoa.org's churches for the worship of its own confession, the one that said "like the Father" and no more. The court was acting under an imperial law of January 386, which let that confession assemble for worship. The printed edition of AmbroseAmbroseBishop of Milan from 374 until his death in 397. A former provincial governor, he was chosen bishop by the people of Milan.Person's letters dates the law a year earlier.

Ambrose would not give the church up. As he told his sister, "I cannot give up the basilicabasilicaA large hall-style church. Emperors began to fund such buildings, and in Milan in 386 one became the prize in a fight.Term, but I must not fight."

Soldiers came and stood around the building. Ambrose stayed inside with the people, and the people stayed with him. AugustineAugustineA young professor in Milan in 386. He recalled the standoff in his Confessions.Person was in the city, and he remembered it plainly. The pious people, he wrote, kept guard in the church, ready to die with their bishop.

It was then, Augustine says, that Milan began to sing hymns and psalms in the manner of the Eastern churches. They sang so that the people would not waste away in the weariness of sorrow. He wrote that the custom was kept from then on, and that nearly all congregations across the world copied it.

In the middle of the standoff, Ambrose preached that "the Emperor is within the Church, not above it." The court did not take the building.

At CallinicumCallinicumA town on the eastern frontier where a synagogue was burned in 388. It may be the same place as Nicephorium, now Raqqa in Syria.Place · pleiades.stoa.org, on the eastern frontier, Christians burned the town's synagogue, and it was reported that the local bishop had urged it. In a separate attack, monks burned a meeting house of the Valentinians.

TheodosiusTheodosiusEmperor from 379 to 395. He made the Nicene faith the law of the empire. His soldiers killed a crowd at Thessalonica in 390.Person heard of it and ordered the usual remedy. The bishop would pay to rebuild the synagogue, and the monks would be punished.

AmbroseAmbroseBishop of Milan from 374 until his death in 397. A former provincial governor, he was chosen bishop by the people of Milan.Person wrote to the emperor himself to get the order reversed. He did not deny the burning. He judged it unbearable for a bishop to be forced to pay for a synagogue. He judged it worse that anyone should answer for burning the Valentinian house, which he likened to a heathen temple.

When the order stood, Ambrose preached in front of Theodosius in church. He refused to offer the sacrament until the emperor promised, then and there, to change the order and end the inquiry. Theodosius gave in.

His refusal protected the people who set the fire, and they never had to pay for what they burned.

In the year 390, a riot in ThessalonicaThessalonicaA city in northern Greece, now Thessaloniki. In 390 a massacre took place here. Ambrose told the emperor to repent.Place · pleiades.stoa.org killed one of the emperor's generals. TheodoretTheodoretA bishop whose church history covers 325 to 429. He tells the fullest story of the penance, written decades later.Person writes that in his rage TheodosiusTheodosiusEmperor from 379 to 395. He made the Nicene faith the law of the empire. His soldiers killed a crowd at Thessalonica in 390.Person ordered a reprisal. His soldiers massacred the crowd in the circus with no trial, cutting down innocent and guilty together. It is said, Theodoret adds, that seven thousand died.

AmbroseAmbroseBishop of Milan from 374 until his death in 397. A former provincial governor, he was chosen bishop by the people of Milan.Person wrote to the emperor in his own hand, for his eyes alone, and says he chose private words over public ones. "I, I say, have no reason to charge you with defiance, but I have reason to fear," he wrote. "I dare not offer the sacrificethe sacrificeHere it means the Eucharist, which a bishop offers at the altar.Term if you intend to be present."

He asked whether what is not allowed after one innocent person's blood is shed could be allowed after the blood of many. He wanted the emperor's repentance shown before he stood at the altar again.

Two church historians, SozomenSozomenA lawyer who wrote a church history. He tells of the penance decades after it.Person and Theodoret, say that Theodosius did it. Decades later they tell the famous scene. In it the emperor lays aside his purple robes and weeps for his sin in the church at MilanMilanFirst a Celtic town, it later became a Western Roman capital. Today it is Milan, in Italy. Ambrose was its bishop.Place · pleiades.stoa.org.

EutropiusEutropiusChamberlain to the emperor Arcadius. In 399 he became the first eunuch to be made consul.Person was a eunuch who rose to be chamberlain to the emperor Arcadius, and in 399 he became the first eunuch ever made consul. With that power he obtained laws that cut off the church's ancient right of refuge, so that a fugitive at the altar could be taken.

Then he fell. He ran to the Great Church and took hold of the altar, the one protection he had himself destroyed, and the soldiers came for him.

The bishop, JohnJohn ChrysostomJohn Chrysostom, bishop of Constantinople from 398. He preached on Eutropius twice in 399, the first time with the man at the altar before him.Person, preached with Eutropius lying there. In front of the man and the whole city, he preached the emptiness of everything Eutropius had spent his life getting. Where is the consulship now, he asked, and where are the torches and the swarm of people who flattered him?

Then John turned on his own congregation, who wanted the man handed over. He told them they were servants of a crucified man who had said, forgive them. Yes, he granted, this is the man who abolished refuge here, and he has learned by experience what he did.

The emperor held the army off, but the protection did not last. Eutropius left the church and was taken, and later he was exiled and executed. John preached a second time, about that too.

LeoLeoBishop of Rome from 440 to 461. He wrote the Tome in 449. Leo did not attend Chalcedon.Person did not go to ChalcedonChalcedonThe city where the council of 451 met. Its site is now Kadıköy, in Turkey.Place · pleiades.stoa.org. His legateslegatesEnvoys who spoke for Leo at the council, since he stayed away.Term went in his place, and his letter, the TomeTomeA letter that settles doctrine and carries the full weight of the church that sends it. Leo's reached Chalcedon without him.Term, was read to the assembled bishops. The session record has them crying out, "This is the faith of the fathers," and then, "Peter has spoken so through Leo."

Not every bishop was satisfied. The Tome was questioned in session and compared with the teaching of Cyril.

Three weeks later, the same council did something else. It gave ConstantinopleConstantinopleConstantine founded this city in 330 as the capital of the East. Today it is Istanbul, in Turkey.Place · pleiades.stoa.org equal privileges with old Rome and a rank just after her. It also gave Constantinople the right to ordain the chief bishops of three regions.

No apostle had taught there, and the canon gave a different reason. Earlier bishops had rightly granted privileges to old Rome as the royal city, and the new royal cityConstantinopleIn the canon this means Constantinople. It was called New Rome, since the emperor ruled from it.Term should be honored the same way.

Leo's legates objected in the council itself. When word reached Leo, he refused to accept the canon and wrote to the emperor, the empress and the bishop of Constantinople. To the emperor he wrote that "things secular stand on a different basis from things divine." Constantinople was a royal city, he said, but it could never be an apostolic seeapostolic seeA see is a bishop's seat. Rome held Peter's seat. No apostle had founded Constantinople.Term.