Constantine and Law in Developing Christianity

The story of Constantine's influence in the development and establishment of Christianity is one with which most are familiar. He prayed to the Christian God for military victory, fought a surprisingly successful battle, and then championed the religion until his death. He thereby lifted Christians out of persecution and permanently changed the religious landscape of Europe. However, there is more to his story than this, particularly in the way in which he set the stage for Christianity's interaction with politics. After giving Christians his support and openly praising their God, Constantine continued to heavily involve himself with the affairs of the Church to the point of being the deciding factor in establishing significant aspects of the beliefs of today. In his book Constantine's Bible, David Dungan tells the story of Constantine's relationship with Christianity and the impact his politics had on the idea of canon.

Without Constantine's intervention in the Church, the shape of modern Christianity would probably be considerably more varied. Constantine solved theological disputes among bishops, such as the argument over whether Christ was the same as or subordinate to God, by careful use of his political power, wealth, and understanding of social nuance. Moreover, he effectively eradicated "heretics," groups like the Gnostics, the Marcionites, the Montanists, etc., which could have survived without his imposition and perhaps contributed to a more diverse Christian history. He outlawed heretic teachings, of course, but his masterful use of scripture on this front solidified the trajectory of the religion. He commissioned fifty Bibles from Eusebius of Caesarea according to the books which Eusebius declared universally acknowledged by the Catholic Church. During his time, this move set the standard for acceptable Christian texts and forced any Christian official who wanted to keep his standing to fall in line with and make use of this public grouping.

In the long run, Constantine's standing within the church as well as his political power brought legality into the equation. Like the law, the Bible and Christianity became black-and-white under his influence, and thereby he removed much flexibility and replaced it with force. Intertwining Christianity and the law led to the idea of the religion as solid, definite, and without variations. Constantine's marriage of political office and Christianity was therefore one of the deciding factors in the religion's organization and consistency.