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发帖数: 3781 | 1 From Constantine To Augustine
As Durant and other historians have pointed out, Constantine never reno
unced his loyalty to the pagan gods. He abolished neither the Altar of Victo
ry in the Senate nor the Vestal Virgins who tended the sacred fire of the go
ddess Vesta. The Sun-god, not Christ, continued to be honored on the imperia
l coins. In spite of the "cross" (actually the cross of the god Mithras) on
his shields and military banners, Constantine had a medallion created honori
ng the Sun for the "liberation" of Rome; and when he prescribed a day of res
t it was again in the name of the Sun-god ("the day celebrated by the venera
tion of the Sun" 5 ) and not the Son of God. 6 Durant reminds us that throug
hout his "Christian" life Constantine used pagan as well as Christian rites
and continued to rely upon "pagan magic formulas to protect crops and heal d
isease."7
That Constantine murdered those who might have had a claim to his thron
e, including his son Crispus, a nephew and brother-in-law, is further eviden
ce that his "conversion" was, as many historians agree, a clever political m
aneuver to unite the empire. Historian Philip Hughes, himself a Catholic pri
est, reminds us, "in his manners he [Constantine] remained, to the end, very
much the Pagan of his early life. His furious tempers, the cruelty which, o
nce aroused, spared not the lives even of his wife and son, are ... an unple
asing witness to the imperfection of his conversion." 8
It was not long after the new tolerance that Constantine found himself
faced with a problem he had never anticipated: division within the Christian
church to which he had given freedom. As we noted in the last chapter, it c
ame to a head in North Africa with the Donatists, who, concerned for purity
of the faith, separated from the Catholic churches, rejected their ordinance
s and insisted upon rebaptizing clergy who had repented after having denied
the faith during the persecutions which arose when the Emperor Diocletian de
manded that he be worshiped as a god. 9 After years of futile efforts to ree
stablish unity through discussion, pleadings, councils and decrees, Constant
ine finally resorted to force. Frend puts it well:
In the spring of 317 he [Constantine] followed up his decision by publishing
a "most severe" edict against the Donatists, confiscating their property an
d exiling their leaders. Within four years, the universal freedom of conscie
nce proclaimed at Milan had been abrogated, and the state had become a perse
cutor once more, only this time in favor of Christian orthodoxy .... [The Do
natists] neither understood nor cared about Constantine's conversion. For th
em it was a case of the Devil insisting that"Christ was a lover of unity" ..
.. In their view, the fundamental hostility of the state toward the church h
ad not been altered. 10
In his own day and way, Augustine followed Constantine's lead in his tr
eatment of the Donatists, who were still a thorn in the side of the Roman Ch
urch. "While Augustine and the Catholics emphasized the unity of the Church,
the Donatists insisted upon the purity of the Church and rebaptized all tho
se who came to them from the Catholics - considering the Catholics corrupt."
11Constantine had been "relentless [as would Augustine and his disciple Calv
in be] in his pursuit of `heretics' [forbidding] those outside of the Cathol
ic church to assemble ... and confiscated their property ... the very things
Christians had endured themselves were now being practiced in the name of C
hristianity." 12
As a good Catholic enjoying the blessing of the Emperor and believing i
n the state church Constantine had established, Augustine persecuted and eve
n sanctioned the killing of the Donatists and other schismatics, as we have
already seen. Gibbon tells us that the severe measures against the Donatists
"obtained the warmest approbation of St. Augustine [and thereby] great numb
ers of the Donatists were reconciled to [forced back into] the Catholic Chur
ch." 13 Of Augustine it has been well said that "the very greatness of his n
ame has been the means of perpetuating the grossest errors which he himself
propagated. More than anyone else, Augustine has encouraged the pernicious d
octrine of salvation through the sacraments of an organized earthly Church,
which brought with it priestcraft with all the evil and miseries that has en
tailed down through the centuries." 14 |
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