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Know. Love. Serve.
Unit III—The Age of Heresies (AD 313-476)
A. Initial Problems (Read Lk. 20: 20-25)
The empire was under Constantine’s full control.
He even moved the capital to a new city he had built: Constantinople (pres. day Istanbul)
Under Constantine, the empire itself would be Christian, but ironically this led to new problems.
1) Lands and Titles
Constantine gave the Church back its buildings, and also gave it more land.
He also gave more authority—both religious and secular—to the Church’s bishops, especially in the East near Constantinople (e.g., Antioch, Corinth, Constantinople, etc.)
He did this because he trusted that the Church’s bishops would be capable administrators, which they often were.
The problem: eventually men who were more concerned about secular power than religious ideals were becoming bishops (remember: they are still the successors of the Apostles)
So, political power became more important to some bishops than religious issues.
Conflicts would arise among bishops over both religious and political issues.
2) Caesaro-papism
= the idea that the Emperor can act as Pope
These political conflicts naturally caused tension.
Constantine was unhappy about this, so he would try to intervene as an Emperor would with squabbling senators.
Constantine had good intentions, but his intervention was unfortunate for a few reasons:
* Constantine was still not yet a Christian, so a lot of these religious disputes were about things he didn’t fully understand so far.
* Constantine always put the political agenda of the Empire over the spiritual good of the Church.
* Constantine would often side with the bishop in his own city—the Patriarch of Constantinople—over other bishops, especially the Bishop of Rome i.e., the Pope
(Rome was now in the poorer Western part of the Empire and Constantinople in the richer East).
When it came to day-to-day administrative issues, caesaro-papism was a serious but limited problem.
But Constantine’s reign saw the rise of a new challenge to the Church which made caesaro-papism a disastrous element.
It was at this time that the Church faced the rise of heresies
= the denial of some truth taught by Church that Christ founded and that Peter’s successors presided over
Assignment
- How did Constantine’s generosity to the Church and caesaro-papism combine to cause trouble for the Church?
- Does the idea of caesaro-papism conflict with what you read in Lk. 20: 20-25?