Such legends are eloquent; they disclose the daring wishes of the Christians and show that they no longer thought the empire and Christianity incompatible. This is likewise evident from the fact that this same Dionysius does not shrink from applying a Messianic prophecy in the Old Testament to the emperor Valerian. Gallienus had cancelled his father’s writ for the persecution of Christians, and Dionysius therefore applies to him the prophecy of Isaiah, and styles him, moreover, “our sanctified emperor, well-pleasing in God’s sight.” This is the very language which Christian bishops used of Constantine sixty years later. Secondly, it is a significant token of change that Origen, in his great work against Celsus, written towards the end of his life, in the reign of the emperor Philip, expressed the hope that by gradual advances Christianity would attain to victory in this world. This is the exact opposite of what primitive Christians had believed and hoped. Origen could not have put the anticipation into words, unless, in spite of all the differences which still subsisted between state and church, these two great powers had drawn considerably nearer to each other. At bottom the only question was that of the removal of “misunderstandings”; in actual fact, nothing blocked the way to the conclusion of peace except the church’s demand not for mere toleration but for exclusive recognition.
IV
In the foregoing pages we have shown how the church, as it developed, drew nearer to the state; all that now remains to be done is to point out how, in the second century, and still more in the third, the state, on its part, drew nearer to the Christian religion and to the church. I will confine myself to a few suggestive indications.
(1) During the imperial period the Roman state wielded no real influence upon the religious life of the citizens of its domains, except by means of the worship of the emperors; the other Roman cults were of local importance only, and were perpetually being thrust into the background by alien religions. Under these circumstances the state had made an attempt to develop emperor worship into the actual universal religion of the empire. Sagacious statesmen and religious politicians were, however, constrained to own that this cult, the adoration of the secunda majestas, was not enough. The state accordingly had recourse to the expedient of officially recognising as many alien religions as it possibly could (indeed, it was in a manner forced to accord them recognition), in order that these alien religions might not constitute a barrier between it and its subjects. By this means there gradually arose a medley and diversity of religions in the empire which was bewildering and rendered a sound religious policy impossible.
A single, new, universal religion was the crying need of the hour. It seemed that this need might be met in various ways. Elagabalus, Alexander Severus, and Maximinus Daza were the emperors who tried to strike out a fresh line before the time of Constantine. Elagabalus wished to do this by exalting one Syrian divinity to the position of Supreme God of the empire and giving a subordinate place to all other cults; Alexander, by endeavouring to discover the common element in all religious doctrines and forms of worship and uniting them in peaceful conjunction (as all, at bottom, meaning the same thing); Maximinus Daza by making regulations for the administrative union of all the religions and cults of a single province under one high priest appointed by the state, and for the control of these priests by the civil government. These were all attempts to create a new church, and an established church to boot, and must all be regarded as preliminaries to Constantine’s achievement.
A certain bias towards monotheism was involved in the case of Elagabalus and Alexander; towards an oriental monotheism in the former. Diocletian, indeed, attempted once more to make the old Roman religious system serve the purpose; but as he had placed the political administration and government of the empire on an entirely new basis, and introduced a new oriental and despotic system after the dissolution of the ancient state, his reactionary religious policy was a grave error. It was foredoomed to utter failure—the new state could not possibly rest upon the scanty foundations of the old cults; and Constantine, who witnessed its collapse, drew from it the only correct inference. The new basis of the state must be a monotheistic religion—an oriental monotheism. So much the third century had taught.
(2) The Roman state approximated to Christianity and the church by a steady process of levelling up from within and by its transformation from a Roman state into a state of provinces. Caracalla bestowed the rights of Roman citizenship on the inhabitants of all the provinces; the influence of the old Roman aristocracy steadily declined, the state became really cosmopolitan. But the church was cosmopolitan likewise; indeed, Christianity was at bottom the only really universal religion. It was not bound up with Judaism, like the religion of the Old Testament; nor with Egypt, like Isis-worship; nor with Persia, like Mithras-worship; it had shaken itself free from all national elements. Hence every step by which the state lost something of its exclusively Roman character brought it nearer to the church.
(3) The legislation begun by Nerva and Trajan and continued by the Antonines and the emperors of the first half of the third century under the guidance of great jurists marked an enormous advance in the sphere of law. The Stoic ideas of the “rights of man” and the leavening of law by morality were introduced into legislation and operated by countless wholesome ordinances. By this means the state met halfway the feeling which prevailed in the church as a matter of principle. By the beginning of the fourth century there were but few points in Roman civil law to which the church (which, it must be owned, had somewhat lowered its moral standard) could fairly take objection, and many, on the other hand, which it hailed with joyful assent. Thus the development of Roman law must be recognised as a preliminary step to the amalgamation of state and church.
(4) At first sight it seems as though after the middle of the third century the state had met the church in a far more hostile spirit and had therefore been far less capable of appreciating it than in the preceding epoch. But although it is true that the systematic persecution of the church first began under Decius, yet the conclusion that therefore the state cannot have appreciated the church does not hold good in fact. Rather, the persecutions of Decius and Valerian prove, as has been suggested before, that these emperors realised the danger the old political system implied in the existence of the church more clearly than their predecessors had done. They accordingly endeavoured to extirpate the church, as Diocletian’s co-emperor did likewise. But these attempts must be regarded as desperate and (with the exception of the last named) short-lived experiments. During the early years of the reign of Valerian and from 260 to 302 the church enjoyed almost absolute peace within the empire; and, above all, the imperial government recognised the importance of the bishops and the ecclesiastical hierarchy. This is proved not only by the persecutory edicts, but, as has been said above, by peaceful acts. Gallienus and Aurelian wrote letters to the bishops, and the latter even tried by peaceful means to use their influence to strengthen Roman dominion; nay, Maximinus Daza actually attempted to copy the constitution of the church and to organise the pagan system of worship in similar fashion. Under the circumstances it was much simpler to ally the hierarchy of the church itself with the state than to make any such attempt. That the strength of the church lay in the hierarchy the despots had long recognised. Accordingly as soon as he had decided in favour of Christianity, Constantine joined hands with the bishops. He not only joined hands with them, but he honoured them and bestowed privileges upon them, for he was anxious to secure their power for the state. His success was immediate; the hierarchy put itself—unreservedly, we may say—at his disposal when once he had set the cross upon his standard. Thus the state within the state was abolished; the strongest political force then existent, to wit, the church, was made the cornerstone of the state. Both parties, the emperor and the bishops, were equally well pleased; history seldom has a conclusion of peace like this to record, in which both contracting parties broke forth into rejoicings. And both were fully justified in their rejoicing, for a thing for which a way had been slowly made ready now had come to light; the empire gained a strong support and the church was delivered from an undignified position, in which she could not avail herself freely of the forces at her disposal. The church of the fourth century not only accomplished much more than the church of the period between 250 and 325, but she brought forth men of greater distinction and more commanding character.