HISTORICAL REVISIONS.

XI.-THE ECCLESIASTICAL POLIOY OF CONSTANTINE AND THAT OF DIOCLETIAN.'

THE policy of the earlier Emperors with regard to Christianity has lately been dealt with by many competent critics. Though we a n n o t say that a complete consensus has been reached, i t may perhaps be regarded aa fairly certain that the earliest persecutions were carried on by means of magisterial power (ooetcitio) without m y special edict; that the persecutions were generally local and ~ptls- modic, a t least till the time of Decius (the first definite anti-Christian legislation dating from 350, though there may have been a compre- hensive edict earlier); and that in many cases, even where efforts were being made to put down tho Christian religion generally, a good many loopholes were allowed by magistrates so as to facilitate escape. The attempt to extirpate Christiunity root and branch undertaken b Diodetian was rapidly, one might say paradoxically,

after as the only, State religion by Constantine and his colleagues. This curious reversal of policy, as i t might seem, on the part of

Constantine has puzzled students of the Empire, as in alniost all the changes in the political system Constantine appeare as the continuator of his great predecessor's work.% But the paradox vanishes, and Constantine is seen to ba developin rather than

given in an interesting axtiole by M. Babut in the Revue Hieton'que for November, 1916. In this article stress is laid on the military side of the problem and also on the policy of claiming religious reverence aa due to the Emperor and all imperial symbols. Diocletian and Constantine alike st\w in Christianity a threat to military effici-

1 Moat of this paper formed part of one read to the Brttol Branch of the Historical Associatioil, January 18th 1918, entitled ' I The Early Persecutions of the Christians in the Light of Recent Research."

Thore who wish to pursue this sub'ect further will find abuitdant material in the 811thOritiUr cited in the article b y M. E. Ch. Babut : L'adoration dea Empereurs et lea Originea de la pedcubion de DioclBtien," Revue hieton' el Nov.-Dec., 1916. A good m y books contain a dtescription of the adwatb T e e eapecially the art. ddoratb in the Dictionnuire des Antrquilds of Darmberg and Naglio). The Rcta praerved b the Church historians should be etudied in the light of Diocletian and &onetentine*s policy. Harnack's Ffoa MilitSa C'ritktb affords much information. For discussions of the Edicts of Perseco. tion and of Toleration, the appendictx to the works of Boissier and of Becci Venuti are illuminating. The point on which M. Babut insists, and which a study of his authorities tends to confirm, ir that a strong link between ithe enti- G'hnstian snd the pro-Christian policy of the two Emperors is to be found in their common r y r d for the imperial adoratio.

followed by t 91 e adoption of Christiaoity as an authorised, and soon

reversing tbe policy of Diocletian if we follow up t hg e suggestions

a See Appen icea to Vol. I. of Prof. Bury's edition of Uibbon. M 3

162 €ItS’l‘ORP OCT.

ency and Imperial divinity. It was in the means employed to secure their ends rather than in the ends themselves that any difference between the two is manifest.

The imperial claim to divine dignity does not, of course, originate with Diocletian. We have altars to “ ltome and Augustus” from early times in all parts of the Empire, but the idea of the State and of its visible head seem at first to be closely blended together. We can scarcely say that we have the worship of a mortal man. The madness of Caligula and the cosmopolitanism of Hadrian may have made each present his divine character in an exceptional way. But in Diocletian’s time the mere civic respect for the Emperor in connection with the City seems to have been dying out. The adoratio which he demanded, and which was paid even to his Christian successors, was of a more exacting kind. This particularly affected the army.

Now there is ria doubt that Christians were to be found in the urmies of the early Emperors. The testimony of the Fathers to this effect, though not uniform, puts the fact beyond question.3 Since any form of oath submitted to the soldiers must have been against the Christian conscience, we may suppose that the higher iriilitury oficials were not unwilling to arrange the occasions of religious ceremonial so that the non-performance of a small rite on the part of any oflicer rniglit pass unobserved. And there does not seem to have been any necessity felt for putting a test to the commori soldier.

But I>iocletisn’s new arrangements and principles made a differ- ence. 11. Babut thinks that there were already signs of Berious resistance in the armies. There is, perhaps, not suficient evidence to make us feel sure on this point. In some of the Acta we have soldiers declarmg that their Christianit is inconsistent with service

Thus Eusebius 4 tells of a certain Marinus, of Caesarea in Palestine, who, during the religious peace which followed the persecution of Decius, was about to be promoted to the dignity of centurion when objection was made that he was unable to perform sacrifice to the Emperor. liarinus consulted the bishop of the town, who laid before him the choice of the Gospel or the Sword. .The soldier chose the Gospel; the Judge, though unwilling, was obliged to condemn, and nfarinus was beheaded without delay. Again, we have in Ruinart’s Acta Sincera two stories of soldier martyrs in Africa dating from within ten years of Diocletian’s first edict of persecution. A youth of Teveste, Maximilianus by name, being presented by his father as a military recruit, violently objected, saying : ‘‘ I am a Christian ; I cannot serve. ” And a certain centurion, Marcellus, having thrown away his military belt and arms, and abjured his profession, was sentenmd to death by the magistrate at Tingis. Lest anyone should nrish to draw too close an analogy between these martyrs and the “conscientious objectors ” of our own day, it should be remarlied that the former seem to have had no objection to fighting in itself, but that to them soldiering seemed part and parcel of an idolatrous system. Eusebius also tells how,S about that time, a lustration and

3 On Christians in the armies there is a good deal of evidence collected by

4 H . E . , VIE., 15.

in the army, and accordingly giving t I emselves up to martyrdom.

HIICIIRC~ in hid treatise : Flos Afilititc Chrktti~nrn. B H . E . , VLII., 4.

19191 POLICY OF CONSTANTINE AND THAT OB DIOULETIAN 153

review of one of the armies waa held, in consequence of which many soldiers became civilians. He adds that aa yet very few suffered death for desertion of the colours.

Now to Diocletian, contemplating a t the same time the restoration of the military prestige of the Empire, to which any deficiency of man power would be fatal, and the assertion by unmistakable symbols of the divine authority of the Emperors, the spectacle of recalcitrant Christian soldiers must have been alarming and likely to suggest a war to the knife against the whole ecclesiastical system. True, historians generally represent Diocletian as being led to perse- cute by the influence of his colleague Galerius, but the tendency of Christian writers to represent the good emperors as favourable to their cause, and the bad ones as hostile, is well known. In any case, the incompatibility of his political schemes with the indepen- dence of the Christians may have made the proposals of Galerius less unacceptable.

The bearing of Diocletian’s edict on Emperor-worship is shown in the story of Procopius, (z martyr of Palestine, who on being told to sacrifice to the four Emperors (h., in the new system, the two Augusti and two Caesares) quoted the not irrelevanb line of Homer: ‘‘ It is not good to have many heads: let one head rule.”0 -4fter- wards, when Licinius, after his temporary agreement with Constan- tine in favour of the Christians, revived the persecution, he began with the army.7

It may be. noticed that similar motives in the policy of Diocletian and of Constantine seemed to underlie the last edicts of persecution and the first of toleration. One finds that the dislike and dread with which the early Christians were sometimes regarded by magistrates and mobs alike were twofold: there was a fear lest abandonment of old rites and ways might loosen the cords of moral and socia1 obligation, and the more superstitious foreboding lest the old gods might take vengeance on the neglect of their observances and dues, or, as the idea might present itself to philosophio minds, lest the Universal Deity, acknowledged in (z partial way by all worshippers, whatever their nation or creed, might cease to be invoked a t all, to the detriment of the human raae in general. Some ideas of this kind appear in what seems to have been the original form of the Edict of Milan8 (issued by Constantine and Licinius in 812). The Emperors had been considerings *‘ how we may grant to the Christians, and to all, the free choice to follow that mode of worship which they may wish, that whatsoever divinity end celestial power may exist may be propitious to us and to all that live under our government . . . that each may have the privilege to select and to worship whatever divinity he pleases. ” This remarkably tolerant profession was, of course, not permanently maintained. Before long, Constantine was legislating with a special view to the interests of the Chpistians, yet no wholesale ahlition of pagan ritual was attempted, and for some time pagan symbols still appear on coins, and pagan institutions continue to exist.

So far, then, as general piety and attention to religions ri tes are 6 Nuseb. MaTtyrs of Palestme, Cap. 1. 8 For a discussion of the Edict, see i n t w alia Boissier : Za fin c h ~gnnrsme.

Chap. II., and Bacci Venuti ; DalIa gronde perwcuzione alla vrttoria del crigtianiamo en A p n d i c e .

9 Euseb. TI.!$., &uden’s translation, X., 6.

7 Euseb. H.E. , X., 8.

164 HISTORY [OCT., 1919

the desiderata, Diocletian and ConRtantine may not have been far apart in motive. To return to the army and the ndoratio of the Emperor, Constantine evidently cared at least as much as Diocletian about the sacred character of the Emperor and all pertaining to him. No one can doubt this who reads of the ccremony of adoratio main- tained afterwards in the Byzantine Court, or the strange description, given by Eusebius and his continuator Socrates, of the humble obeis- ance paid to the dead Emperor in his golden coffin until the arrival of the heir, Also, Constantine probably cared even more than Diocletian for the new organisation and continuttl upkeep of the army. He WRR, however, more fortunate than his predecessor in devising a means by which the loyalty of the soldiers to their leader and their rcverence to the institutions and symbols of their religion might find a ceiitre in himself under his rule. M'c may call it astuteness or genius or inspiration; in any case, the adoption of the Labarum with the sacred sign, seen, 11s he said, in the sky, rmde a fundamental difference in the situation. Henceforth, in saluting and adoring the standards of the army, the soldiers were doing reverence to the most sacred sign of the Christian religion, and in prostrating themselves before the Emperor they were acknowledging an authority which had received divine approval.

This does not, of course, imply that the religion of Constantine was that of an indifferent time-server. He doubtless held that Christianity was a truer and better religion than that of his fore- fathers. He probably believed in his own mission to raise it to universal sway. But such sincerity may have left scope for mucli ingenuity in the adaptation of means to ends.

Thus he changed permanently the tone of the Church towards the Empire. Adoratio was no longer stigmatised as idolatrous. There eeemed no blasphemy in the oath taken: " By God and Christ and the Holy Spirit, and by the Majesty of the Emperor which, after God, is to be loved and worshipped (colenda) by all mankind." In the Council of Arles in 314 deserters from the army incurred ecclesiastical penalties.

It would seem, then, that so far as the persecutions of the Christians were prompted by rational considerations rather than by superstition and spite, the end at which they aimed was obtained by means of a very different character. The military and ceremoni- ous autocracy which was the object of Diocletian, and which, for a short time only, he thought to achieve by persecution, was estab- lished by ConRtantine by another method, the potent one of patron- age. ALICE GARDNER.