Bishops of Rome under Constantine the Great

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Raphael's The Vision of the Cross depicts a cross instead of the Chi Rho.
A fresco in the Benedictine monastery of Santi Quattro Coronati depicts Constantine offering his crown to Sylvester.

history of the Papacy, and more generally the history of the Catholic Church
.

The legend surrounding Constantine I's victory in the

☧) and the text in hoc signo vinces in the sky and his reproducing this symbol on the shields of his troops. The following year Constantine and Licinius proclaimed the toleration of Christianity with the Edict of Milan, and in 325 Constantine convened and presided over the First Council of Nicaea, the first ecumenical council. None of this, however, has particularly much to do with the popes, who did not even attend the Council; in fact, the first bishop of Rome to be contemporaneously referred to as "Pope" (πάππας, or pappas) is Damasus I (366-384).[1] Moreover, between 324 and 330, he built Constantinople
as a new capital for the empire, and—with no apologies to the Roman community of Christians—relocated key Roman families and translated many Christian relics to the new churches.

The

bishop of Constantinople. Sylvester was succeeded by Mark (336) and Julius I
(337-352) during the life of Constantine.

Although the "Donation" never occurred, Constantine did hand over the

temporal power, for the first time creating an incentive for secular leaders to interfere with papal succession
.

Background

Main articles:
Constantine I and Christianity
The coins of Constantine continued to depict Roman god Sol Invictus ("Unconquered Sun") until about 315.[2]

In spite of the

tituli".[4]

The

Roman church was a small community, and its bishop exercised little influence outside its members in the time of Constantine. Constantine was the first Roman Emperor to embrace Christianity, although he likely continued in his pre-Christian beliefs. He and co-Emperor Licinius bestowed imperial favor on Christianity through the Edict of Milan promulgated in 313. After the Edict of Milan, the church adopted the same governmental structure as the Empire: geographical provinces ruled by bishops.[citation needed] These bishops of important cities (Metropolitan bishops) therefore rose in power over the bishops of lesser cities (later called Suffragan bishops
).

Whatever his personal beliefs, Constantine's political interest in Christianity was as a unifying force and his policy of "the imposition of unity on the churches at all costs" soon set him on a "collision course with the popes."[5]

Popes under Constantine

Miltiades

Main articles:
Synod of Arles (314)
The modern facade of the Lateran Palace

Donatists, but he had no authority to decide the case or publish the result without the approval of the emperor himself.[6] Customarily, the African bishops may have gone to the bishop of Rome as a respected, neutral figure, but it was well known that Miltiades would not agree with the Donatist position that ordination by a "traitor" bishop would invalidate the sacrament.[5]

Turning to Constantine was a strange move because he had not yet been

Syracuse.[7]

Sylvester I

Main articles: Arianism and First Council of Nicaea
Athanasius of Alexandria

Miltiades died, and his successor,

Lateran Basilica, Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, and St. Peter's. Silvester did not attend the first ecumenical council, the First Council of Nicaea (325), but sent two priests as his representatives; the Western bishops of Carthage and Milan were also in attendance.[8]

Silvester would have viewed

Christological position.[8] The Arians were "silenced, not persuaded" by the Council, and the controversy in the larger Christian community was not resolved.[8] The Arian position would persist in the East for three generations, and even eventually be adopted by Constantine's son, Constantius II.[8] Constantine himself supported the Nicene position mainly because it was "his Council", and sought a compromise text that would "paper over the differences between the two sides."[8] Eusebius remained an Arian, although he assured Constantine his views were compatible with his interpretation of the Nicene Creed, and baptized Constantine in 337.[10]

The chief supporter of the Nicene Creed was Bishop

Latin language of the West simply "did not yet even possess adequate terminology to handle the debate properly."[10] The pope's legates signed onto the findings of the Council, and it continued to be supported by the next two popes, just as followers of Athanasius remained welcome in Rome, but the theological issues were little examined in the West.[10]

Mark

bishop of Ostia as the first among the consecrators of the new bishop of Rome (the bishop of Ostia is currently the Dean of the College of Cardinals).[1]

Julius I

The influence of Constantine would help solidify a strong role for the Roman emperor in the selection process: Constantine chose Julius I (337–352) for all intents and purposes, and his son Constantius II exiled Liberius and installed Felix II (an Arian) as his successor.[1]

Julius I received Athanasius, and invited the

Arian Eastern bishops then in Antioch to join him in Rome.[10] The Eastern bishops would have regarded Julius I as having an equal dignity to their own episcopate, but were not pleased that he took into his communion a bishop condemned by an Eastern synod.[10]

Aftermath

Under

Ambrose of Milan
.

Historiography

Main article: Donation of Constantine
Raphael's The Baptism of Constantine depicts Sylvester I instead of Arian bishop Eusebius of Nicomedia, Constantine's actual baptizer.
Raphael's The Donation of Constantine depicts the inside St. Peter's, which was not completed before Constantine's death.

The

Eastern Roman Empire. The forgery was probably constructed during the Frankish Papacy, when Pope Stephen II became the first pope to cross the Alps to crown Pepin the Short, who issued the Donation of Pepin (a non-forgery), granting the pope control of the lands of the Lombards, which coalesced into the first fragments of the Papal States
.

It was not long before the document was denounced as a forgery, notably by

Latin language did not correspond to that of the 4th century. The "Donation" purports to acknowledge the primacy of Rome over Antioch, Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Constantinople, even though the last of these had not even been founded at the time of the claimed Donation.[12]

The myth of the "Donation of Constantine" is embellished further in a 5th-century hagiographic text Vita S Silvestri (or Actus S Silvestri).

Helena, and—for good measure—a large group of his relatives and Roman bystanders.[12] Theophanes the Confessor in his Chronicle c. 815-820 adds Constantine's son Crispus to the list and viciously attacks contrary accounts as Arian lies; Theophanes refers to the Lateran Baptistery as the "Baptistry of Constantine."[12]

Cesare Baroni continued to claim this in his Annales Ecclesiastici (1592) and a French author has claimed this as recently as 1906.[12]

This falsified version of Constantine's baptism has found its way into a great deal of ecclesiastical art.

I Santi Quattro Coronati, stained glass in the St Michael and All Angels' Church, Ashton-under-Lyne, and—most famously—Raphael's The Baptism of Constantine in the Raphael Rooms of the Apostolic Palace.[12]

Notes

  1. ^ a b c Baumgartner, 2003, p. 6.
  2. ^ Duffy, 2006, p. 25.
  3. ^ De Mortibus Persecutorum ("On the Deaths of the Persecutors", chapters 34, 35)
  4. ^ Duffy, 2006, p. 11.
  5. ^ a b c Duffy, 2006, p. 27.
  6. ^ Hurst, 1897, p. 720.
  7. ^ a b c d e Duffy, 2006, p. 28.
  8. ^ a b c d e f Duffy, 2006, p. 29.
  9. ^ Hans Kühner Encyclopedia of the Papacy. 1958. "Silvester I." New York.
  10. ^ a b c d e f g Duffy, 2006, p. 30.
  11. ^ Kühner. Liberius.
  12. ^ a b c d e f g h Pohlsander, 2004, p. 28.
  13. ^ a b c d Pohlsander, 2004, p. 27.

References

  • Baumgartner, Frederic J. 2003. Behind Locked Doors: A History of the Papal Elections. Palgrave Macmillan.
    ISBN 0-312-29463-8
    .
  • Duffy, Eamon (2006). Saints & Sinners (3 ed.). New Haven Ct: Yale Nota Bene/Yale University Press.
    ISBN 0-300-11597-0
    .
  • Hurst, John Fletcher. 1897. History of the Christian church, Volume 1.
  • Pohlsander, Hans A. 2005 (ed. 2). The Emperor Constantine.
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