Constantine’s mixed history demonstrates that cooperation with the state is not an evil in itself, for both good and bad can come of it.

Victory’s Spoils: The Edict of Milan

by Donald S. Prudlo

G. K. Chesterton was a master at making plain the paradoxical character of Christianity. He knew that to stray too far to one side or another was to leave the path of orthodoxy far behind. To stay on that road was exciting, racing past the hulks of discarded heresies. “The heavenly chariot flies thundering through the ages, the dull heresies sprawling and prostrate, the wild truth reeling but erect.” Nowhere are these paradoxes more in evidence than in our belief in the Incarnation, that Christ is both fully God and fully man. Embracing this difficult conviction frees us from the puritanical ignominy of dualism, that subtle temptation to kick the dust from our feet of this dirty, bad, sinful world, and look only to the pure realm of the spirit. Conversely, it liberates us from an enervating utopianist materialism that sees nothing but the here and now. Our Incarnational view makes us neither cowering pessimists, nor facile optimists. It makes realists of us, knowing full well that the fruits of our faith must be made present in this material world so as make it, as far as we are able, an ally of the eternal world to come. That our salvation comes to us through matter—water, bread, wine, oil, human bodies—leads to a singular conclusion: we cannot turn our backs on this world. It is we who are called to be the material leaven in the lump.

It is with this truth in mind that we should celebrate the 1700th anniversary of the publication of the Edict of Milan by Emperor Constantine, along with his less-than-enthusiastic comrade Licinius, in February of 313, bringing toleration to the young Church. Sporadically and sometimes violently persecuted throughout the whole of its existence, Christianity had emerged miraculously victorious with Constantine’s triumph at Saxa Rubra (Milvian Bridge) in 312. Capitalizing on this achievement, the emperor wasted no time. He formally promulgated this edict of toleration, ending the persecutions in the Roman west, and rescinding the Neronian edict which had been in effect for 250 years. Constantine moved at the same time to restore all of the property stolen from the Christians, and began to build churches in North Africa. To top it off, he donated lands and buildings to the Roman Church, notably the Lateran basilica. It would be this historically-rooted truth that would underlay the later forgery called the “Donation of Constantine.”

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