Constantine’s Heresy:
Monolithic Christianity

The 4th century Christian historian and church bishop known as Eusebius of Caesarea attended and recorded the events of the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD. According to the written account of Eusebius, Roman Emperor Constantine convened the ecclesiastical council to resolve a theological controversy over the nature and the relationship of God the Father to God the Son (Jesus Christ).

Eusebius proposed a creed that the Son was begotten ”from the substance of the Father.” In effect, he had proposed a compromise position — but one that failed to fully address the key issue of whether the Son was of the same substance (or essence) of the Father or whether the Son was of different or similar but not the same substance.

It was at this point that the Emperor himself intervened, making the final call. In a letter to his church congregation at Caesarea, Eusebius gives his account of what followed:
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“On this faith being publicly put forward by us (i.e., Eusebius), no room for contradiction appeared; but our most pious Emperor, before any one else, testified that it was most orthodox. He confessed, moreover, that those were his own sentiments; and he advised all present to agree to it, and to subscribe its articles and to assent to them, with the insertion of the single word Consubstantial (homoousios) which, moreover, he interpreted himself saying that the Son is consubstantial not accordingly to bodily affections, and that the Son subsisted from the Father neither according to division, nor severance: for the immaterial, and intellectual, and incorporeal nature could not be the subject of any bodily affection, but that it became us to conceive of such things in a divine and ineffable manner. And our most wise and religious Emperor reasoned in this manner.”

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The key provision of the adopted credal statement was determined not by the assembled church leaders but by imperial dictate. The emperor further ordered that the dissenters “be arrested and banished to the most distant region possible.”

As debated and further refined by subsequent church councils, this is the basis of what became the Trinitarian doctrine of Father, Son and Holy Spirit as “three in one.”

October 2023

“By this sign you will conquer.”
– Dream of Roman Emperor Constantine

In 313 AD, the Roman Constantine was battling Maxentius for clear title as Emperor of the western empire. Maxentius brought his troops out from Rome to confront Constantine at the Milvian Bridge across the Tiber River.

On the eve of the battle, Constantine dreamed. In the dream he saw the initialed symbols of the name of Christ with the words: “By this sign you will conquer.”

With this omen, Constantine had the Chi-Rho monogram painted on the shields of his soldiers. On April 30, Maxentius lost the ensuing battle and his life; Constantine entered Rome victorious.

During the ensuing reign of Constantine, Christianity emerged from the shadows as a way of life and faith for an oppressed minority to become the new Roman state religion. In 325, Constantine took the step that forever changed Christianity; he convened the first universal council of the church at Nicaea in Asia Minor.

Of the Christian heretics, Constantine is the only one for whom the pursuit of Jesus was an avocation rather than life’s primary work. First and foremost, Constantine was an imperial ruler – holder of the Roman imperial legacy against the onslaught of disintegration both from within and without.

But make no mistake about it. This emperor also directly shaped Christianity as it has been known for nearly seventeen centuries. This emperor’s greatest ecclesiastical achievements are also his Achilles heel – the sources of the Constantine heresy:

  • Wedding church and state – creating the monolith of the holy Catholic church.

  • Placing ecclesiastical under secular imperial authority.

  • Suppressing diverse expressions of Christian belief and expression.

  • Most specifically, ordering the adoption of the Trinitarian view that God the Father and God the Son are of the same substance.

  • Carrying out unspeakable violence against the most intimate members of his immediate family (by murdering his wife Fausta and son Crispus) the year after the Nicene meeting while continuing to represent himself as arbiter of the new Christian imperial order.

Single-handedly, Constantine was responsible for transforming Christianity from a position as enemy of the state to religion of the state. However, by coming out from the shadows, Christianity lost its informality, its spontaneity, its diversity and colorful eclecticism.

Constantine’s genius was that the church as monolith outlived the imperial empire. But like the empire, the hierarchical church eventually runs its course. What then, after the heresy of this church-empire outlives its usefulness?

For more detail regarding the topic of Constantine’s heresy, click here on Monolithic Christianity. For a synopsis of all the heresy topics covered by this web site, click on 12 Heresies of Christianity. Or click on any images for other topics of interest below.