Constantine the Great
c. 272 – 337 · Naissus
Also known as Constantine I · Flavius Valerius Constantinus
Feast: 21 May (Orthodox)
First Christian Roman emperor. Issued the Edict of Milan (313), convened the Council of Nicaea (325), and was baptized on his deathbed by Eusebius of Nicomedia.
Constantine is the hinge. Before him, Christianity was illegal and intermittently bloodied. After him, it was an imperial religion with property, councils, and emperors weighing in on theology. He didn't make it the state religion (Theodosius did, in 380) but he legalised it in 313, summoned the Council of Nicaea in 325, and built Constantinople as a Christian capital. He was baptised on his deathbed by Eusebius. Whether you think the Constantinian shift saved the church or corrupted it, every later Christian relationship to political power — Byzantine, medieval, Reformation, modern — is an argument about what Constantine did.
Primary sources
- ·Eusebius, Vita Constantini 1-4
- ·Lactantius, De Mortibus Persecutorum 44-48
- ·Socrates Scholasticus, Hist. Eccl. 1.1-1.39
Book of the day
Ecclesiastical History
Eusebius of CaesareaA reading pick tied to today's figure, quote, era, or event. The ancient source behind a huge amount of what we know about bishops, martyrs, succession lists, and early controversies.
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