I came across a most interesting historical writing regarding the growth of the Church and the relationship of emperors to the Church. As I read the book, my thoughts immediately deferred to Emperor, Justinian, and his atrocious treatment of the members of the 5th Ecumenical Council. How it is that the Orthodox Church refers to this man as “Saint” Justinian is beyond me. Apparently, the Church has been willing to overlook his behavior in favor of his unrelenting support of Orthodoxy in the face of the Arian, Monophysite, and Nestorian heresies which were plaguing the Church at that time. My personal feeling is that the Orthodox Church might be wise to submit their “saints” to the same process that is done in the Roman Catholic Church. A couple of miracles would suffice to change my mind about Justinian. Until then, I find his designation as “saint” to be quite puzzling.
When St. Constantine’s son Constantius apostatized from Orthodoxy and converted to the Arian heresy, believing that Christ was not the pre-eternal God and Creator but a created being, St. Athanasius, who had previously addressed him as “very pious”, a “worshipper of God”, “beloved of God” and a successor of David and Solomon, now denounced him as “patron of impiety and Emperor of heresy, godless, unholy, this modern Ahab, this second Belshazzar”, like Pharaoh, worse than Pilate and a forerunner of the Antichrist.Again, St. Hilary of Poitiers wrote to Constantius: “You are fighting against God, you are raging against the Church, you are persecuting the saints, you hate the preachers of Christ, you are annulling religion; you are a tyrant no longer only in the human, but in the divine sphere… You lyingly declare yourself a Christian but are a new enemy of Christ. You are a precursor of Antichrist, and you work the mysteries of his secrets.”Constantius’ heretical cast of mind made it easier for him to assume the place of Christ as head of the Church. Thus at the Council of Milan in 355, he said: “My will is law”. To which St. Osius of Cordoba, replied: “Stop, I beseech you. Remember that you are a mortal man, fear the Day of Judgement, preserve yourself pure for that. Do not interfere in matters that are essentially ecclesiastical and do not give us orders about them, but rather accept teaching from us. God has entrusted you with the Empire, and to us He has entrusted the affairs of the Church. And just as one who seizes for himself your power contradicts the institution of God, so fear lest you, in taking into your own hands the affairs of the Church, do not become guilty of a serious offence. As it is written, give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s. We are not permitted to exercise an earthly role; and you, Sire, are not authorised to burn incense.”
The separation of the political and religious realms was most clearly illustrated at the First Ecumenical Council in 325, when the emperor took part in the proceedings only at the request of the bishops (318 in number, the same number as the servants of Abraham in his battle against the Babylonian kings), and did not sit on a royal throne, but on a little stool somewhat apart from the bishops.
He did not vote with the bishops, let alone impose his will on them. As Leithart writes, “Constantine did not dominate the council. He did not formulate the final creed, nor did he sign off on it being, again, an unbaptized nonbishop. It is difficult, however, to believe that the bishops could have come to such a thoroughgoing conclusion [the defeat of Arianism, with only two bishops rejecting the agreement] without his political skill and strength of personality…”
Indeed, so obedient was he to the Church that, as I.I. Sokolov writes, “at the First Ecumenical Council, according to the witness of the historian Rufinus, the Emperor Constantine said: ‘God has made you priests and given you the power the judge my peoples and me myself. Therefore, it is just that I should submit to your verdict. The thought has never entered my mind to be judge over you.’”
How profoundly different this is from Justinian’s attitude at Constantinople II where he used kidnapping and the threat of violence to get his way. Yet I am supposed to blindly accept this council, with the false canons of Justinian, as proof against the teaching of Universal Salvation? I think not! Such violence seems to be the way of the West:
Honorius III ordered the crusade to be preached in all the churches of Christendom. Though the money thus collected was considerable, it was by no means sufficient for a general crusade as planned by Honorius III. Moreover, in preaching the crusade the great mistake was made of trying to gather as many crusaders as possible, without considering whether they were fit for war. The result was that cripples, old men, women, also robbers, thieves, adventurers, and others composed a great part of the crusaders. In some instances the uselessness of such soldiers was not thought of until they had been transported to distant seaports at public expense. Most rulers of Europe were engaged in wars of their own and could not leave their country for any length of time. Andrew II of Hungary and, somewhat later, a fleet of crusaders from the region along the Lower Rhine finally departed for the Holy Land, took Damietta and a few other places in Egypt; but lack of unity among the Christians, also rivalry between the leaders and the papal legate Pelagius, to some extent perhaps also the incompetency of the latter, resulted in failure.
Engaged in wars of their own? As “Christian” kings against other Christians? When I discovered the Early Church Fathers as a Protestant some twenty years ago, I was thrilled, and like any starry-eyed convert, I couldn’t do enough to defend my decision to convert to the Catholic faith and support it. Now . . . I am disgusted with the whole mess, and had I not had an intense experience of God’s mercy and love some fifty years ago when I was saved out of a hellish life of drugs and hedonism, I would be sorely tempted to chuck Christianity as a complete farce. The history of Christianity, especially in the Roman Catholic West, reads more like a tawdry adventure novel, filled with violence, deceit, and pursuit of raw power, than it does of men and women who chose to live lives of humility, love, and poverty. The only true Christianity I have seen in evidence in the West has been the many monks and nuns who eschewed all worldly pursuits to pursue God. As for the kings and emperors, popes and clergy of the Roman Catholic Church . . . my God! What greed, what warmongering, what vanity, what lusts did so many of them not pursue? And lest I be accused of prejudice, this goes equally for Protestants, especially those of the Calvinist persuasion, who never met a Catholic priest they didn’t draw and quarter. In Merry Olde England, it was almost a contest for several centuries to see who could shed the most blood, Catholics or Protestants. I guess somewhere in the Bible they found a verse of Scripture permitting this in opposition to Christ’s commandment to love your enemies and do good to them.
The separation of church and state was perhaps the greatest stroke of wisdom the Founding Fathers of America put into the Constitution of the United States. They learned well from centuries of Roman Catholic kings killing Protestants, who, in turn, when they had a Protestant king, killed Roman Catholics, that the melding of political power to ecclesiastical desire is a bad thing. Today I hear people in certain sectors of our country fondly wishing for a “Christian America.” Be careful, sirs. You may get what you wish for and then find it much to your distaste when the Christianity of the empire turns out to not only be not of your kind but feels that you and your kind should be persecuted for being heretics! I have read polemics from various fundamentalists that make me aware that if they ever were to own the White House and Congress, I would spend the remainder of my life in prison – assuming they didn’t cut my heretical head off first!
The idea of a Christian nation with Christian morals is a lovely idea. We have yet to see it and probably never will, given that sin-cursed and broken mankind tends to take power and use it to the worst ends. If history has taught us anything, it is that a Christian nation, a melding of political power to religious belief, is a very bad idea.
Muddling Through Life 