Constantine the Great

The hook

In 306, in the cold of York in northern Britain, soldiers proclaimed a young officer emperor on the day his father died. Thirty-one years later he was baptized on his deathbed. In between, he changed the religion of the Roman world.

The story

Constantine was the son of Constantius Chlorus, one of the four co-emperors of the Tetrarchy that Diocletian had set up. When Constantius died at York in 306, his troops proclaimed Constantine emperor, which was outside the Tetrarchy’s rules. Two decades of civil war followed.

• 312: He defeated Maxentius at the Milvian Bridge and took Rome.
• 313: He agreed with his co-emperor Licinius on the “Edict of Milan,” which granted Christians toleration and returned their property.
• 312–330s: He funded the first great churches: the Lateran Basilica, Old St. Peter’s, and the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.
• 324: He defeated Licinius and became sole emperor.
• 325: He summoned the Council of Nicaea to settle the Arian controversy.
• 330: He dedicated Constantinople, a new Christian capital in the East.
• 337: He was baptized near Nicomedia shortly before his death.

What we actually know

Our two main literary witnesses, Eusebius and Lactantius, were Christians writing in his favor. Pagan sources such as Zosimus (c. 500) are hostile. Coins, inscriptions, laws (the Theodosian Code), and buildings give a more neutral check.

The debate: Was his conversion sincere, gradual, or political? His coins kept the sun god Sol Invictus until the early 320s, and he remained Pontifex Maximus, head of the pagan state religion. Most scholars now see a real but gradual commitment shaped by a Roman understanding of religion as winning divine favor.

Deathbed baptism was common at the time: baptism washed away all sins, so many delayed it. The bishop who baptized him, Eusebius of Nicomedia, sympathized with Arius, the very position Nicaea had condemned.

The Catholic thread

Constantine moved the Church from a persecuted minority to an imperially favored institution. He also began the long and tangled pattern of emperors involving themselves in Church affairs. The Eastern Orthodox churches venerate him as a saint, “Equal to the Apostles.” The Latin Church does not have him on its universal calendar, which is a telling difference in how East and West remember him.

Still standing

• The Arch of Constantine (315) beside the Colosseum.
• The Lateran Basilica, still the Pope’s cathedral.
• The Nicene Creed, recited at Sunday Mass.
• Istanbul, the city he founded.

Teach it back

1. Why was Constantine’s proclamation at York irregular?
2. Name two pieces of evidence for a gradual conversion.
3. Why was deathbed baptism common in the 4th century?
4. Why do East and West differ in calling him a saint?