Constantinian shift

The Constantinian shift was, according to some theologians and historians of antiquity, a set of political and theological changes that took place during the 4th-century under the leadership of Emperor Constantine the Great. Rodney Clapp claims that the shift or change started in the year 200.^[1] The term was popularized by the Mennonite theologian John H. Yoder.^[2] He claims that the change was not just freedom from persecution but an alliance between the State and the Church that led to a kind of Caesaropapism. The claim that there ever was a Constantinian shift has been disputed; Peter Leithart argues that there was a "brief, ambiguous 'Constantinian moment' in the fourth century", but that there was "no permanent, epochal 'Constantinian shift'".^[3]

Constantine the Great (reigned 306–337) adopted Christianity as his system of belief after his victory at the Battle of Milvian Bridge in 312.^[4][5][6] The following year, 313, he issued the Edict of Milan with his eastern colleague, Licinius. The edict legalised Christianity alongside other religions in the Roman Empire. In 325 the First Council of Nicaea signalled consolidation of Christianity under an orthodoxy endorsed by Constantine. While this did not make other Christian groups outside the adopted definition illegal, dissenting Arian bishops were initially exiled. But Constantine reinstated Arius just before the heresiarch died in 336 and exiled the Orthodox Athanasius of Alexandria from 335 to 337. In 380 Emperor Theodosius I made Christianity the Roman Empire's official religion (see State church of the Roman Empire). In 392 Theodosius passed legislation prohibiting all pagan cultic worship.^[7]

During the 4th century, however, there was no real unity between church and state: in the course of the Arian controversy, Arian or semi-Arian emperors exiled leading Trinitarian bishops, such as Athanasius (335, 339, 356, 362, 365), Hilary of Poitiers (356), and Gregory of Nyssa (374^[8]); just as leading Arian and Anomoean theologians such as Aëtius (fl. 350) also suffered exile.

Towards the end of the century, Bishop Ambrose of Milan made the powerful Emperor Theodosius I (reigned 379–395) do penance for several months after the massacre of Thessalonica (390) before admitting him again to the Eucharist. On the other hand, only a few years later, Chrysostom, who as bishop of Constantinople criticized the excesses of the royal court, was eventually banished (403) and died (407) while traveling to his place of exile.

Separation of church and state in the history of the Catholic Church
Overview Two kingdoms doctrine in Roman Catholicism Relations between the Catholic Church and the State Catholic integralism Politics of Vatican City
Sovereignty and loyalty Papal deposing power Sovereign immunity § Holy See Dual loyalty § Historical examples Fourth vow § In the Society of Jesus
Documents Donation of Constantine Dictatus papae Unam sanctam To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation Papal Jurisdiction Act 1560 (Scotland) Disputationes de Controversiis Dignitatis humanae Church–state relations in Argentina § 2005 Episcopal Conference document
Historical controversies Constantinian shift / Constantinianism Investiture Controversy Society of Jesus § Political intrigue Cisalpinism vs. Ultramontanism Americanism (heresy) § The American response
20th century topics History of Christian thought on persecution and tolerance § The mid-20th-century Spanish model Letitia Dunbar-Harrison Christian anarchism § Catholic Worker Movement
Current topics Evo Morales and the Roman Catholic Church Radio Maryja § Involvement in politics Laudato si' § Impact on the United States political system Catholic social teaching Conscience clause in medicine in the United States § Catholic doctrine Canon 915 § Politicians consistently promoting permissive abortion or euthanasia laws Bp. W. Francis Malooly on Canon 915 Bp. Edward J. Slattery § Illegal immigrants
v t e

Critics of state-aligned Christianity often point to the ascension of Constantine as the beginning of Caesaropapism: according to this critique, the official Christianity of the Roman state rapidly became a religious and metaphysical justification for the existence, exercise, and expansion of worldly political power, ultimately facilitating earthly Christian empire both for Rome and its successors across Christendom. Similar criticisms are levied by Christian anarchists, who claim that the Constantinian shift triggered the Great Apostasy by transforming the religion into a means for preserving the ruling elite's power and justifying violence.^[9]

Augustine of Hippo, who originally had rejected violence in religious matters, later justified it theologically against those he considered heretics, such as the Donatists, who themselves violently harassed their opponents.^[10] Before him, Athanasius believed that violence was justified in weeding out heresies that could damn all future Christians.^[11] He felt that any means was justified in repressing Arian belief.^[12] In 385, Priscillian, a bishop in Spain, was the first Christian to be executed for heresy, though the most prominent church leaders rejected this verdict.

Theologians critical of the Constantinian shift also see it as the point at which membership in the Christian church became associated with a social concept of citizenship, rather than reflecting one's internal decisions and feelings. American theologian Stanley Hauerwas notes the shift as forming part of the foundation for the contemporary American conception of Christianity, one that is closely associated with patriotism and civil religion.^{[citation needed]}

• Timothy Barnes, Constantine and Eusebius, 1981
• Theodosian Code, Henry Bettenson, ed., Documents of the Christian Church, (London: Oxford University Press, 1943), p. 31. see: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/theodcodeXVI.html Archived 2007-02-27 at the Wayback Machine
• Peter Brown, The Rise of Western Christendom (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2003),60.
• James Bulloch, From Pilate to Constantine, 1981
• Eusebius of Caesarea, Life of Constantine, Library of Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers, 2nd series (New York: Christian Literature Co., 1990), Vol I, 489–91. see: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/conv-const.html
• Alistair Kee, Constantine Versus Christ, 1982
• Lactantius, Lucius Caecilius Firmianus, On the manner in which the persecutors died (English translation of De Mortibus Persecutorum) see: http://www.intratext.com/IXT/ENG0296/_P18.HTM
• Ramsay MacMullen, Christianising the Roman Empire, 1984
• Roger E. Olson, The Story of Christian Theology, 1999

Wikiquote has quotations related to Constantinian shift.

• Social Constantinianism - an Evangelical perspective on the Constantinian shift
• Basil's Struggle with Arianism after Constantine.
• Timeline of Fourth-Century Roman Imperial Laws showing the Constantinian shift