313–337

Constantine’s religious policy: favours to the Church and the emperor’s baptism (313–337)

Shelley: after the victory of 312 Constantine brought Christianity from the catacombs into the palaces. Christian ministers received tax privileges, he abolished crucifixion and gladiatorial executions, made Sunday a day of rest (321), built churches and founded a new capital, Constantinople (330). Before his death he was baptized. Shelley also shows the price of this alliance: imperial interference in the Church’s affairs, an influx of people without faith, the danger of secularization.

Key points

• Shelley: from 312 Constantine favoured Christianity – he exempted its ministers from taxes and built magnificent churches. He abolished crucifixion, ended gladiatorial combat as punishment and in 321 made Sunday a day of rest. Unbelieving Romans left unwanted children, especially girls, to die, and Christians rescued them; Constantine decreed that abandoned children belong to the one who finds them – a decree, like many others, favouring Christians. Constantine made no secret of his faith, raised his children as Christians and was baptized before death by Eusebius of Nicomedia; yet much of the pagan remained in him – he plotted, killed and kept the title of Pontifex Maximus. He gave the Roman world not only a new faith but a new capital, since the enemy threatened the empire from the east: he chose Byzantium on the Bosporus and in 330 officially named it Constantinople, capital of the Eastern Roman empire. Eusebius presented the emperor as the ideal Christian ruler; others saw the empire’s unity as a road for universal mission. The Church paid a price: Constantine ruled bishops as officials, ambitious people flooded in, and secularization threatened

People

• Constantine the Great
• Eusebius of Caesarea
• Eusebius of Nicomedia

Place

The Roman Empire, Constantinople