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August 11 - October 9, 2017
While this was far from general practice, it bespoke of the new dangers now threatening the church—dangers it has often faced when it has been powerful and prestigious.
There is ample evidence of increasing syncretism and superstition.
Gladiatorial combats persisted, and some Christians now attended—as they also attended plays that had earlier been forbidden to them.
Until Constantine’s time, Christian worship had been relatively simple.
After Constantine’s conversion, Christian worship began to be influenced by imperial protocol.
At an earlier time, the practice was not to kneel for prayer on Sundays, for that is the day of our adoption, when we approach the throne of the Most High as children and heirs to the Great King.
Eventually, the congregation came to have a less active role in worship.
many leaders of the church viewed them with disfavor, and tried to prevent superstitious extremes.
the church now found itself overwhelmed by the numbers of those requesting baptism, and unable to give them proper training and supervision.
Many of these new converts brought with them beliefs and customs that the earlier church would have considered unacceptable—to which numerous sermons attacking superstition among believers give ample witness.
Christian basilicas had three main parts: the atrium, the naves, and the sanctuary.
This depiction of Christ, known as the pantokrator (“universal ruler”)—shows the impact of the new political situation on Christian art, for Christ is depicted as sitting on a throne, very much like a Roman emperor.
the great question that the church faced at this time was to what degree and how it should adapt to the changed circumstances.
Thus, while affirming their loyalty to the emperor, as most Christians had always done, they insisted that their ultimate loyalty belonged only to God.
Eusebius of Caesarea was in all probability the most learned Christian of his time.
Eusebius traveled far and wide in quest of documents regarding Christian origins.
Eusebius did not suffer personally during the persecution, although his teacher and many of his companions died as martyrs.
Eusebius carried on with what would become his most important work, his Church History.
From the point of view of Eusebius and his surviving companions, what was taking place was a direct intervention by God, something similar to the events of Exodus.
A few years before Constantine became sole emperor, Eusebius had been elected bishop of Caesarea.
Eusebius’s role in the controversy was not beyond reproach.
although at first he seemed to be inclined toward Arianism, at the Council of Nicea he took an opposite stance, only to waver again once the council had disbanded.
In Nicea, at the time of the council, Eusebius saw the emperor seeking the unity and well-being of the church.
Eusebius was neither a close friend nor a courtier of Constantine. He spent most of his life in Caesarea and the surrounding area,
his actions are not so much those of a flatterer as those of a rather uncritical, but grateful, man.
What Eusebius then did was to bring together these various ideas, showing them at work in the verifiable facts of the history of both the church and the empire.
The new situation was living and convincing proof of the truth of the gospel, to which all human history pointed.
Eusebius’s work is an indicator of the degree to which, even unwittingly, Christian theology was being shaped by the new circumstances, even to the point of abandoning some of its traditional themes.
it is clear that, in the New Testament as well as in the early church, it was affirmed that the gospel was first of all good news to the poor, and that the rich had particular difficulty in hearing it and receiving it.
The church imitated the uses of the empire, not only in its liturgy, but also in its social structure.
in reading his works one receives the impression that now, with Constantine and his successors, the plan of God has been fulfilled.
Christian hope came to be relegated to the future life or to the distant future, and seemed to have little to do with the present world.
It would be only as the Constantinian era approached an end, particularly in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, that eschatology would once again become a central theme in Christian theology.
But not all Christians regarded the new circumstances with like enthusiasm,
there were those who bemoaned what they saw as the low level to which Christian life had descended.
Many found an answer in the monastic life:
Thus, at the very time when churches in large cities were flooded by thousands demanding baptism, there was a veritable exodus of other thousands who sought beatitude in solitude.
From within the church, monasticism was inspired by Paul’s words, that those who chose not to marry had greater freedom to serve the Lord.
the ideals of early Christian Monasticism arose both from Scripture and from other sources quite alien to Christianity.
it was the desert—especially the Egyptian desert—that provided the most fertile soil for the growth of monasticism.
For these people, the desert was attractive, not so much because of its hardship, but rather because of its inaccessibility.
people found it impossible to fulfill all the obligations that the government imposed on them and fled to more inaccessible areas.
Monasticism was not the invention of an individual, but rather a mass exodus, a contagion, which seems to have suddenly affected thousands of people.
when Constantine came to power, the life these hermits had led became increasingly popular.
Their life was extremely simple. Some planted gardens, but most of them earned their living weaving baskets and mats that they then traded for bread and oil.
The spirit of the desert did not fit well with that of the hierarchical church whose bishops lived in great cities and enjoyed power and prestige.
from the very beginning had been the central act of Christian worship.
this sort of life was not free of temptations.
Increasingly, solitary monasticism gave way to a communal form of the monastic life.
The completely solitary life of the early monastics was not well suited for many who went to the desert.
