THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
This is. in fact, the distinguishing trait of Constantine's religious poHcy with respect to paganism, and the fact itself is an indication of his correct estimate of the political and religious situation. There was at no time an express judicial dispossession of the antique religion as such. It is true that for every one with eyes to see, everything pointed and pressed onward to such a conclusion; but the semblance of tolerance was maintained unbroken. The masses were the more easily to be deceived in this respect inasmuch as the government never thought, and could not think, of carrying out its decrees everywhere and indiscriminately; whole districts were not affected, or but immaterially affected thereby. Even centuries later it was found necessary to make similar concessions.
The losses of paganism were augmented on another side by an increase of legal rights to the Church. As early as 313 the Church gained immunity for its clerics, exemption from all personal burdens, and the power of inheritance for itself and its individual members. The bishops were accorded a jurisdiction in the domain of private law, that gave fomidation for decisions of legal validity.
The influence of Christianity upon 7. Legal penal law comes to light in the pro- Gains of hibition of branding the forehead, and Christi- of condemnation to bloody games in anity. the circus. In family law, the harsh statutes against celibacy and unfruitf\il marriages were repealed — probably under the influence of the ecclesiastical valuation of celibacy — concubinal marriage was driven to the background, and severe measures were devised against the customary exposure, pawning, or sale of children. If the law of slavery was generally allowed to rest in humane forms as it stood, it nevertheless received no inconsiderable modification in the direction demanded by Christianity, through the institution of manumissio m ecclesia ; indeed even the clergy were authorized to bestow citizenship on their slaves, and this without formal process. Constantine, again, made this further concession in a legislative way, that he brought Sunday under the safeguarding care of the State.*
Constantine 's religious policy is clear in its outlines, and in the main features of its progress, transparent. Any thought of equality between the two religions lay far from it; and this was of necessity the case, because the assumption of a 8. Constan- non-confessional State was inseparable tine Op- from such thought. The idea of a posed to non-confessional State, however, is Paganism foreign to antiquity; and it was befrom the yond all possibility for two religions First. whose moral and religious content was not only different, but even sharj^ly exclusive the one of the other, to exist harmoniously side by side in the commonwealth. The qualification that is usually subjoined to this view of the matter, to the effect that after the defeat of Licinius parity of the two religions changed to a policy favor-
* But it was distiriotly understood that it was not simply the Lord's Day, but also the day of Mithras and Apollo; hence it appealed to nearly all classes of pagans as well as Christians. A. H. N.
ing Christianity, makes an assumption which can not be proven. For what came to pass in the religious pohcy after 323-324 was only the larger fruition of thoughts and facts which began with 312-313; the difference is but one of quantity. Finally, the supposition that Constantine sought and found a deity and a religion superior to the historical religions, and destined to fuse them into one and absorb them, and that he shaped his religious policy subserviently to this drift of coalescence, just as extravagantly overestimates the religious philosopher in Constantine as it underestimates in him the practical statesman. Nothing could have been more unintelligible to his understanding than such speculations. Where in passages of Eusebius and elsewhere he speaks of the one religion and belief in one God, he means historic Christianity, and he directs not the Christians, but the pagans, to this doctrine. And in this light alone did his Christian and pagan contemporaries understand him.
The dissolution of the one religion in favor of the other made also for imperial unity. The war with Licinius again bore witness to the great political dangers of a discordant creed. Nobody could warrant that such precedents would not 9. Political repeat themselves. The overthrow of
Value of paganism is therefore supplemented in
Religious the religious policy of Constantine by Unity, the rejection of all sectarian inventions which weakened the xmity of the Church and set up religious discord. The emperor's attitude before and during the Council of Nicsea and through the entire course of the Arian dispute, no less than his sharp action against Donatists, Novatians, and other schismatics from the catholic ecclesiastical body, has primary significance in this direction. The undivided imperial Church was for him a valuable, even necessary support of the imperial unity. Harsh measures against the Jews, again — especially the prohibition of joining them as proselytes — were dictated not only by religious and ecclesiastical, but also by political considerations.
That the Church might have its full value in the State in this direction, a legal relationship had to be sought which allowed the State a determining influence. For that matter, the State as antiquity knew it was accustomed to take religious affairs under its inspection and on a dependent footing. Nevertheless, Constantine did not succeed in procuring this legal relationship. The transitional character of the time and the accustomed freedom of the Church explain the failure. On the other hand, his personal relations with the powers of the Church and their grateful disposition toward him were sufficient to guarantee that the legal status would not be lacking as time went on.
The question of Constantine's religious policy can not be separated from that of his personal Christianity; and there is no more doubt about the one than the other. Tlie new religion was truly a rule of life and a force with him. As emperor he felt himself pledged to God as his sovereign Lord; and he regarded his calling as a divine commission. His manner of religion is tinged \vith mysticism. He