12 THIRD PERIOD. A.D. 311-590.
This great ei)och is marked by the reign of ConstantiDC I. He understood tlie signs of the times and acted accordingly He was tlie man for the times, as the times were prepared foi liim by that Providence Avhich controls both and fits them for eacli other. He pUxced liimself at the head of true progress, while his nephew, Julian the Apostate, opposed it and was left behind. He was the chief instrument for raising the church from the low estate of oppression and persecution to well deserved honor and power. For this service a thankful jjosterity has given him the surname of the Great, to which he was entitled, though not by his moral character, yet doubtless by his military and administrative ability, his judicious policy, his appreciation and protection of Christianity, and the farreaching consequences of his reign. His greatness was not indeed of the first, but of the second order, and is to be measured more by what he did than by what he was. To the Greek church, which honors him even as a canonized saint, he has the same significance as Charlemagne to the Latin.
Constantine, the first Christian Caesar, the founder of Constantinople and the Byzantine empire, and one of the most gifted, energetic, and successful of the Roman emperors, was the first representative of the imposing idea of a Christian theocracy, or of that system of policy which assumes all subjects to be Cliristians, connects civil and religions rights, and regards church and state as the two arms of one and the same divine government on earth. This idea was more fully developed by liis successors, it animated the whole middle age, and is yet working under various forms in these latest times; though it has never been fully realized, whether in the Byzantine, the German, or the Russian empire, the Roman church-state, the Calvinistic republic of Geneva, or the early Puritanic colonies of New England. At the same time, however, Constantine stands also as the tj'pe of an midiscriminating and harmful conjunction of Christianity with politics, of the holy symbol of peace with the horrors of war, of the spiritual interests of the kingdom of heaven with the earthly interests of tlie state.
' Ilis full name in Latin is Caius Flavins Valerius Aurellue Claudius Constantino Magnus.
§ 2. CONSTAJ^TINE THE GKEAT. 13
In judging of this remarkable man and his reign, we must by all means keep to the great historical principle, that all representative characters act, consciously or unconsciously, as the free and responsible organs of the spirit of their age, which moulds them first before they can mould it in turn, and that the spu'it of the age itself, whether good or bad or mixed, is but an instrument in the hands of divine Providence, which rules and overrules all the actions and motives of men.
Through a history of three centuries Christianity had already inwardly overcome the world, and thus rendered such an outward revolution, as has attached itself to the name of this prince, both possible and unavoidable. It were extremely superficial to refer so thorough and momentous a change to the personal motives of an individual, be tliey motives of policy, of piety, or of superstition. But unquestionably every age produces and shapes its own organs, as its own purposed require. So in the case of Constantine. He was distinguished by that genuine political wisdom, which, putting itself at tlie head of the age, clearly saw that idolatry had outlived itself in the Roman empire, and that Christianity alone could breathe new vigor into it and furnish its moral support. Especially on tlie point of the external Catholic unity his monarchical politics accorded with the hierarchical episcopacy of the church. Hence from the year 313 he placed himself in close connection with the bishops, made peace and harmony his tii'st object in the Donatist and Arian controversies, and applied the predicate "catholic" to the church in all official documents. And as his predecessors were supreme pontiffs of the heathen religion of the empire, so he desired to be looked upon as a sort of bishop, as universal bishop of the external affairs of the church.' All this by no means from mere self-interest, but for the good of the empire, which, now shaken to its foimdations and threatened by barbarians on every side, could only by some new bond of unity be consolidated and upheld until at least the seeds of Christianity and civilization should be planted
' 'ETT^ffKoiros T i I' e (c T 0 s [7rpa7yuaTa>Fl, viz. : Tijs eKKA.Tjo'ios, in distinction from the proper bishops, the itrlcrKoiroi raiv elf<ra> taj iKK\i]aia$. ViA Eus. : Vit Const, iv. 24 Comp. § 24.