This is my Rough Draft for my second theme, this time in history. Note the word ROUGH in Rough Draft.
Constantine was the first Roman Emperor who declared himself to be a Christian, and therefore gave himself a unique position in the history books. Following his declaration, in the form of The Edict of Milan, which ended Christian persecution, he proceeded to involve himself heavily in the church. Constantine, though he had some positive affects on the church, also brought along many negative affects, such as bringing on false followers, division among the church and heavy political involvement.
Though Constantine did in fact make Christianity, along with other religions, tolerated and therefore eliminated persecution, his political involvement in the church was not a positive development. In one article about Constantine, it says ; “By granting toleration to the Christians, Constantine hoped to incorporate the bishops and priests into the imperial administration, thereby increasing his political power” (Constantine I, The Great. Bowman, Jeffrey) Though Constantine expanded the church with bishops he also increased his hold and support on his political status. He may have been a true Christian, and there is no real way to know if he was or wasn’t, but he was a political person first. Before he became a Christian, he was a politician, figuring out ways to win the people’s support. Constantine was a politician first and a Christian second. Also, when many people started to come into the church after the Edict of Milan, the church started to lose some of it’s identity. Constantine’s reaction was to assemble a group of people to fix the situation. “The resulting Nicene Creed, heavily influenced by Constantine, was on of the first definitions of Christian theology”(Constantine I, The Great. Bowman, Jeffrey). Every Sunday, churches around the world still say the Nicene Creed, an amazing definition of Christianity and what it means, but why did the church need a Roman Emperor to tell them who they were? The following sentence in that article says; “While it did not quell debate on the nature of Christianity, the Nicene Creed did illustrate the Roman Emperor’s control of the evolving church”(Constantine I, The Great. Bowman, Jeffrey). If anyone was ever in doubt of Constantine’s hold on the church, the Nicene Creed is the ultimate example. Not only had Constantine gotten a hold of the church but had now engraved himself into it, making him invaluable to the church. He defined the church, slowly sunk into the church, and started with the Edict of Milan.
Before Constantine issued the Edict of Milan, Christians were ruthlessly persecuted and rejected and went through many trials. Many Christians buckled under the pressure and committed heresy and rejected Christ. Many died in martyrdom for their beliefs. It makes you wonder, what happened to the rest of them? The rest of the Christians that lived through all of that persecution became stronger in their faith and continued the church. Some may have left but many of them grew in their faith. So, when Constantine started favoring the Christian church, many people decided to make a wise, personal political choice; they flocked to the church. Except there was one problem; it was just that; a political move. Many of them did not go to the church because they felt drawn to it, they went because their emperor favored the church and they wanted to be on his good side. “For them, the fact that the emperors declared themselves Christian, and that for this reason people were flocking to the church, was not a blessing, but rather a great apostasy”(The Impact of Constantine. Justo L. González). Indeed it was a great apostasy because one of the benefits of Christianity was it’s small, close knit community, bound together by their faith. With all of these “believers” flocking to the church undoubtedly the communities were no longer as close knit as they were before. In this article, the author talks about how the faith degraded after the swarm of people coming into the church after the Edict of Milan; “... people were flocking into the church in such numbers that there was little time to prepare them for baptism, and even less to guide them in the Christian life once they had been baptized” (The Impact of Constantine. pg. 26 Justo L. González). Before, there were few people who chose a life of persecution, for before the Edict of Milan that is exactly what Christians were choosing, so they had other people to personally guide them. Even today, we are faced, especially in America, with the same problems. In 1701, a man named Thomas Bray helped found the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. Though the name of the society is deceiving, the goal was not attract more people to Christianity, but train them for the mission field and to become ministers and in general, to educate Christians in how to become a strong Christian. The reason for this was because Thomas Bray noticed that American faith was not as strong as it should be. (Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. ABC-CLIO.) Many Americans Christians nowadays claim to be Christians because it is the “national religion” not because they actually have a passion for Christ. Similarly, Roman Christianity also started to become less faithful. So, in response, there was a group of people who decided to seek out their faith apart from the Catholic church, dividing it.
The division of the church was closely followed by the Nicene Creed, which was a failed attempt to patch together the church and unify it again. There was a group of people at that time called the Arians, who did not agree with certain aspects of the Catholic Church, and specifically the Catholic view on the Trinity. Because of this, they broke apart from the Roman Catholic Church. To put it bluntly and simply; “Arianism divided the Catholic Church” (Arianism. ABC-CLIO). After this, the Nicaean Council gathered together; “The Nicaean Council, which upheld the Catholic view of the essential unity of the godhead, embodied the summary of the Catholic faith that formed the basis of the Nicene Creed, but the controversy continued for the next several decades”(Arianism. ABC-CLIO). The Nicaean Council held up the Catholic view of the church, but the whole reason Arianism formed was because they didn’t agree with the Catholic view of the church, and specifically the Trinity. The purpose of the Nicene Creed was to unify the church under one definition, but as stated in the previous article “...the controversy continued for the next several decades”(Arianism. ABC-CLIO). Things were never fully resolved and the church, even now, is still split up into different branches and into two differing groups; “Catholicism” and “Protestantism.” “Others with a negative reaction to the new state of affairs felt that the best course was simply to break communion with the church at large, now become the imperial church, which was to be considered sinful and apostate” (The Impact of Constantine. Justo L. González). This “new state of affairs” would be Constantine’s influence on the church and his political hold on it. Not only did they break apart from the church, at that time it was considered heretical. For the Roman Catholic church, this meant completely rejection. Even if Constantine had not gotten ahold of the church, the church would have divided eventually, but Constantine helped it along. Then, by trying to fix it, he just kept it apart. He tried to put everything together the Catholic way, but that was the problem to begin with; the Arians did not agree with the Catholics, so by creating it, he kept it apart. Certain aspect of the Nicene Creed were taken and put together to create The Apostles Creed, which is what the Protestant’s use now and the Catholics use the Nicene Creed. Even today, we are still separated.
Though Constantine may have had good intentions, many of the influences he had over the church ended badly. The division of the church, though not entirely his fault, was helped along by him. The bringing of false followers into the church were brought in indirectly by him and his heavy political involvement degraded the church. Even now, some of his influences are prominent in today’s church. Constantine did have some positive influences, but the negative affects far outweighed the positive influences.
