Journal: Reformation and Revival
Volume: RAR 13:4 (Fall 2004)
Article: Church-State Relations: The Impact of the Constantinian Revolution
Author: Graham A. Keith

RAR 13:4 (Fall 2004) p. 53

Church-State Relations:
The Impact of the Constantinian Revolution

Graham Keith

In an important work on Islam in the modern world, Professor Bernard Lewis has argued that the idea of a separation between religious and political authority, or between church and state, “is, in a profound sense, Christian.” He contrasts Christianity with the older religions of mankind, which “were all related to—were in a sense a part of—authority, whether of the tribe, the city, or the king.” He continues, “The cult provided a visible symbol of group identity and loyalty; the faith provided sanction for the ruler and his laws.”1

Lewis bases his view on the long period in which the pre-Constantinian church found itself a persecuted religion, regularly at odds with the imperial authorities. He recognizes that during this time the church developed its own structures of authority, its own courts and laws. And certainly by the third century within the Roman Empire no other religious group had quite the same power within its own sphere as the Christian bishops. Taking a broad overview of the emergence of Christianity, Lewis goes on to point out that at a later stage in its development the persecution inflicted by some churches on others merely reinforced the importance of the distinction between religious and political authority.

The church’s experience with the Emperor Constantine and his immediate successors will shed light on Lewis’s

RAR 13:4 (Fall 2004) p. 54

observations. Constantine emerged from that class of Roman military rulers who in the Great Persecution of 303–313 made a final attempt to extirpate Christianity. They were motivated largely by religious considerations; they held that the well-being of the Empire was bound up with the honoring of its traditional deities—deities who embodied the grandeur of Rome and the authority of the Caesars in exactly the way described by Lewis for the older religions of humanity. Interestingly, Constantine himself was also persuaded of the link between Roman peace and divine blessing. Only that blessing came from the exclusive Christian God, not from the traditional Roman gods. In this view he was encouraged by the practice of the church over its long years of persecution. Christians had claimed that their disobedience to the Emperors was strictly limited to religion.2 They had no quarrel with paying their taxes; they readily prayed for the Emperor especially in his role of protecting the Empire from strife both inside and outside its borders. Constantine could expect loyal support and prayers from Christians in the Empire, who were incidentally still very much...