Making the Empire Great Again

January 3, 2022

3:49 PM

Nicene council

The Council of Nicaea, 325 C.E. (Image courtesy of Mark Davies)

Not all followers of Jesus in the first couple of centuries after his death agreed about who he was, what he did, and how people should live who followed him. They had varying views about whether Jesus was human or divine or a combination or the two. They had disagreements about whether the Jesus movement was primarily a Jewish movement or a gentile movement or some combination of the two. They had different views about the nature of good and evil and what exactly happens after we die. They had different views about how they should relate to governing authorities and whether followers of Jesus could be soldiers or use violence in any form.

Not only did early followers of Jesus have a variety of different views; they also fought with each other about who was right, they called each other names, they had heated theological debates, they argued over what they believed to be correct interpretations and understandings of who Jesus was and what the Church ought to be in the world. Early Christianity was not monolithic. It was a diverse movement, although all of its adherents understood themselves to be following the way of Jesus in the world.

Prior to Christianity becoming an accepted and legal religious practice in the Roman Empire, there was not an entity with the authority and power that could force the various forms of the Jesus movement to adhere to one set of doctrines over another. That changed when the Emperor Constantine who legalized Christianity saw the pragmatic importance for order and peace in the empire of having the Church be of one mind.

There are many ways to understand who Jesus was and what he did. Just because the Roman Empire under Constantine and subsequent emperors promoted one of those ways for its own benefit, doesn’t make that the correct understanding. It is important to understand that the version of Christianity codified by the Council of Nicaea in 325 was influenced deeply by Emperor Constantine’s desire to maintain and expand his own power and to make the Roman Empire, which was waning in its power, Great Again. Followers of Jesus today must wrestle with the reality that the Council of Nicaea of 325 was more about making the Roman Empire Great Again than it was about following Jesus.

It was in the interests of Constantine and subsequent emperors to create consensus around the least liberative understanding of Jesus. The focus of Imperial Christianity was more on right belief than on just action for the poor and oppressed and the most vulnerable in society. By emphasizing a Jesus primarily to be worshipped rather than followed and by controlling access to divine favor through an imperially approved church and its sacraments, the emperors created the political functional equivalent of the divinity of Caesar – a divinity used to control the behavior of citizens of the empire through the threat of the eternal loss of one’s soul.

Followers of Jesus today have to ask ourselves, “Why did a power hungry and murderous Emperor Constantine want the official imperial approved version of Christianity that resulted from the Council of Nicaea?” We should have our eyes wide open to the fact that it likely had very little to do with what Jesus actually did and who Jesus actually was.

We should refuse to let Constantine, a man who executed his own son without a trial and boiled his wife alive, to tell us what we should believe about Jesus so that the church could be of one mind for the maintenance and expansion of Constantine’s power and for the sake of imperial order.

For those of us who are Protestants and who think that the problem of imperial influence on Christianity does not apply to us, we would do well to remember that the forms of Protestantism that found widespread acceptance were those that were supportive of political leaders who were seeking political and economic independence from the Roman Catholic Church. The forms of Protestantism that were not conducive to their maintenance of power, such as those that embraced pacifism and resistance to previously accepted views about the power of the state, were quickly and often brutally suppressed. Protestant empires have used Christianity for their maintenance and expansion of power as well.

We see such a primarily evangelical Protestant phenomenon occurring in the United States today, though it has allies among some other autocratic movements within Christianity. Similar to the Constantinian appropriation of the Jesus movement for imperial purposes, the current push for theocratic authoritarianism that we are experiencing in the United States has almost nothing to do with God or Jesus and almost everything to do with an unholy alliance to maintain and expand a certain form of political, economic, and cultural hegemony.

Followers of Jesus must wrestle with the fact that the coopting of Christianity for the purpose of making America great again is not a new phenomenon. Empires have been coopting Christianity for the purpose of making them “great” since the Edict of Milan in 313, and it has very little to do with who Jesus was, what he did, or what followers of Jesus ought to be doing in the world today.

Mark Davies Cropped

Mark Davies

Mark Davies is the Wimberly Professor of Social and Ecological Ethics and Director of the World House Institute for Social and Ecological Responsibility at Oklahoma City University. He is the Executive Director of the Leadership, Education, and Development (LEaD) Hub North America of the General Board of Higher Education and Ministry of the United Methodist Church and an Oklahoma Humanities State Scholar. Dr. Davies serves on the United Methodist University Senate. This post is republished from his blog, One World House.

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Council of Nicaea

As much as we might try to see Constantine’s direct hand in the wording or outline of the final creed, it’s unlikely he had much input at all in it. He as a secular ruler with no theological training (much less a baptism certificate) wouldn’t have been qualified to produce such a creed on his own. The dominant influence in the final product was probably Bishop Hosius of Cordova who led the small, but critical delegation of bishops from the west. Writings of previous Popes and other bishops in Gaul and North Africa suggest that the Western church views on Christ largely conformed with those of the Nicenes and sharply contrasted with those of the Arians. The Eastern church on the other hand had always been more diverse, likely due to the more cosmopolitan nature of that part of the empire and its less centralized ecclesiology. If Constantine did use his influence to tip the scales at Nicaea, then it was likely with this in mind rather than the actual doctrine itself. His desire for unanimity in the church was part of his larger concern for reunification of an empire that had been fractured in two. A creed that enjoyed near unanimous favor in the West and at least decent support in the East seemed best. Any illusions we might have that the words or meaning of the creed itself deeply concerned Constantine can be put to rest by his subsequent actions later in life. Constantine came under the increasing influence of Eusebius in his final years and actually restored many of the Arian bishops and priests to their offices, while exiling the most ardent Nicenes like Athanasius and Eustathius of Antioch. His son Constantius would be an even bigger partisan to Arianism. While this does give credence to your argument about the destructive influence state would come to have on the church, it also shows that the emperors didn’t really need councils or creeds in order to assert themselves on the church. It also shows that there was no side in 325 as far as we know that was live-and-let-live when it came to doctrine. Once in power the Arians banished and excommunicated the Nicenes just as they had done to them. All were as obsessed with the nature of Jesus as the next group.
As tempting as your direct comparison between Constantine and Trump might be, it doesn’t do credit to the real complexities of early church history and above all the character and culture of Christianity itself at that time. You speak of many different types of Christianity that existed at the time, but don’t give voice to any of them in your piece.

Phil more than 2 years ago

Council of Nicaea

But let’s no be too quick to assume Constantine’s mere presence itself set the course for the entire council. This doesn’t give due credit to the impressive personalities who made up the episcopal leadership of the 320s. Bishop of Alexander of Alexandria, who was more or less the spokesman for the faction who carried the council, was no mere puppet kissing the imperial ring, nor was his even more impressive young deacon Athanasius who would later be exiled no less than seven times rather than recant the Nicene Creed. Nor was Arius some poor beggar with no influence in the council. He had friends and supporters among the leaders, most notably Eusebius of Nicomedia who would later become the emperor’s chief religious advisor. Think of these two groups (which isn’t to say everyone at the council necessarily fell in with one or the other automatically) like competing liberal and traditionalist factions at general conference. Constantine’s role in these proceedings, at least in theory would have been as an observer or possibly informal presider (much like the bishops at conference) who might keep order, but by can’t by any means dictate its decisions. He is not recorded to have spoken or otherwise directed the council except to call on those present to reach a uniform decision, which is exactly what the church leaders wanted. The early church took heresy very seriously as evident by the numerous church records left behind imploring readers to engage in the “proper rituals”, uphold the “true doctrines”, and read the “proper texts”. It would be so easy to lay the obsession with doctrine and uniformity at the feet of Constantine in order to maintain some ideal image of the pre-Constantinian church as more tolerant, more compassionate, and more unworldly than it actually was. The truth is the church leadership didn’t need to hear Constantine’s speech. They had already set out reach a uniform decision without his direction.

Phil more than 2 years ago

The Council of Nicaea

With respect sir, I think you making the same mistake as many other church historians (and Dan Brown) of giving Constantine too much credit in the deliberations at Nicaea while neglecting the men who actually produced the creed. In all three of your commentaries, I did not see even a reference to any of the bishops or other leaders who attended the council, which suggests to me that you don’t see their influence in its decisions.
First, let’s hold off on assuming Constantine was overly-eager to call church councils. In fact, some evidence would suggest he was quite reluctant to do so, especially after his first debacle with the Donatists in North Africa. In both cases it was in fact the church leadership itself who requested these meetings, which some could argue were not a particularly new or radical way of dealing with divisions within the church. We of course have Council of Jerusalem according to the writings of Luke for precedent. Apostolic sources also record subsequent church councils held prior to Nicaea (possibly as many as 13). The main difference between these previous meetings and Nicaea would have been the presence of the emperor.

Phil more than 2 years ago