This period marks Christianity rising from a
persecuted group to the prevailing religion of the Roman empire. The emergence of Constantine I as
emperor of a unified Roman Empire [313] brought
an unexpected calm and tolerance for Christians. Christianity gained political
and religious sanction for the first time. Constantine
established a second capital at Constantinople
[324], and inadvertently laid the groundwork for the later schism between East
and West. Later, Emperor Theodosius I declared Christianity the religion of the
empire [381]. However, there were still occasional struggles such as during the
reign of Emperor Julian [361–363] who attempted unsuccessfully to reestablish
paganism.
This triumph of the church brought both
advantages and disadvantages. Christianity was free of persecution and was
sanctioned by the empire to expand from the Atlantic coast to western Asia and
from central Europe to northern Africa. Pagan
temples became places of Christian worship, and pagan festivals were
refashioned into Christian celebrations. Yet, the trend of paganization also
affected the institution and practices in the church.
One benefit, or perhaps setback, of the church’s
triumph was that the state became intensely interested in the church’s struggles.
When theological issues arose, emperors often called church leaders together to
discuss them. The church, through large gatherings of bishops, could define its
teachings and creeds as never before. For example, from the beginning, the
church as a whole affirmed the deity of Christ and His co-equality with God.
Bishops from throughout the empire were summoned
by Constantine to meet at Nicea in Asia Minor. They issued the Nicene Creed [325], affirming the church’s teaching that Christ was
not created but eternally existing, and was sent to us by the Father in the
incarnation. Arianism, the teaching that Christ was only like God, but was a
created being, almost overwhelmed orthodoxy within a decade after Nicea, but it
was condemned at the Council of Constantinople [381]. Arianism remained a
formidable heresy for centuries, taking the form of Socinianism in the 1500s
and Unitarianism in the 1700s.
The church leaders also sought to explain how divinity
and humanity were related in the incarnate Christ. Several ecumenical councils
took up Christological issues, culminating in the Council of Chalcedon [451].
The Chalcedonian Definition affirmed
the unity of the divine and human natures of Christ, the God-man. This
discussion caused the first permanent schism in the Catholic Church as
Monophysites, who believed that Christ possessed only a single divine nature,
rejected Chalcedon.
The Coptic, Ethiopic, and Armenian churches hold this view of Christ even
today.
As the Roman Empire
entered an advanced stage of decline and ultimate collapse in the disposition
of the last Roman emperor [476], one of the most remarkable and influential theologian
emerged—Augustine of Hippo (354–430). His City
of God was
the first Christian attempt at a philosophy of
history, and his Confessions the
first Christian spiritual autobiography. His arguments for predestination and against
the teachings of Pelagius (who taught human free will in salvation) became a
matter of discussion for centuries, even today. Using Paul’s epistles, Augustine
stressed the blight of sin and the inability of any fallen person to choose
Christ without the enabling of the Holy Spirit. Salvation, therefore, was a
work of God’s grace alone, not the result of human worth or effort. Christian
good works were not a means to salvation but a loving response to it.
The long and hard struggles for power between
the church (religious power structure) and the state (political power
structure) in the Middle Ages was foreshadowed in a dramatic confrontation
between Bishop Ambrose and Emperor Theodosius [390] because of the latter’s
cruelty against rioters. The emperor eventually yielded in a public penance.
As the emperor’s power declined, the Bishop of
Rome’s power increased. Pope Leo I [440–461] negotiated and saved Rome from Attila the Hun
[452]. He asserted authority over other bishops, claiming the Bishop of Rome
was the successor to Apostle Peter.
Rome
had been the western capital of the once mighty empire. From the crumbling
moral and cultural debris of Roman civilization, the church at Rome emerged as a
stabilizing force in the time of Gregory I [590–604], the last of the Church
Fathers. Though he avoided the title of pope, he was the first bishop in the
church to claim the superiority of the Roman church over all other churches. This
view was vigorously rejected by the Eastern bishops, causing the alienation of
the Eastern and Western churches. In his teaching, Gregory I generally followed
Augustine in his understanding of sin and grace, though he rejected some of the
harsher features of his mentor. He also gave the Catholic mass much of the
shape it has today. Throughout the Middle Ages, the authority
of the Roman bishops gradually increased, eventually rising above kings and
emperors.
Dionysius Exiquus (d. 550), a monk in Rome,
established modern system of dating, using events after Christ as “Anno
Domini”—in the year of our Lord. However, he missed the date of Christ’s birth
by a few years (now generally dated between 7 BC and 4 BC).