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Commentary on Revelation

Appendix: Constantine and the Church

Babylon the Great

"O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before thou wilt judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell upon the earth?"

One of the primary purposes of the book of Revelation is to provide an answer to this cry for divine vindication found in verse 10 of Chapter 6. Revelation is a book of judgment and of victory - judgment by God against the enemies of the Church and the Church's triumphant victory over those enemies. In response to the Church's cries for vindication, Revelation depicts God pouring out His divine judgment against a fierce, persecuting power. This persecuting power is shown from several perspectives. One of the most vivid may be found in Chapter 17 where the great enemy of God's people is depicted as a great harlot called "Babylon the Great" who is drunk with the blood of the Saints. The description of the harlot in Chapters 17 and 18 provides the following clues to the identity of this fierce enemy of the Church:

1. She sits on seven mountains (17:9).

2. She ruled the kings of the earth during John's day (17:18).

3. She is a terrible persecutor of the Saints (17:6; 18:24).

4. She is the leading commercial power on earth (18:3, 11-19).

5. She is part of a false religious system (17:3).

6. She is supported by a great military power (17:3,7,14 and compare 13:7).

7. She is destroyed partly by her own military power and inner strife (17:16,17).

Does Rome fit this description? A classical title for Rome used by Ovid, Virgil, and others was the "city which sat on seven hills." Rome ruled during John's day. Rome, particularly under Nero and Domitian (both contemporary with John), was a terrible persecutor of the Saints. Rome was the leading commercial power in the world. Rome was a center of pagan religion and emperor worship. The Roman empire was supported by a vast military system. That the harlot represents the Roman empire appears evident. Her description matches that of Rome point for point. It is against this great power that the Saints requested vindication. In response, God pronounces the following judgments against "Babylon the Great" in Chapter 18:

And he called out with a mighty voice, "Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great! It has become a dwelling place of demons, a haunt of every foul spirit, a haunt of every foul and hateful bird; for all nations have drunk the wine of her impure passion, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth have grown rich with the wealth of her wantonness." (18:2-3) Then a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone and threw it into the sea, saying, "So shall Babylon the great city be thrown down with violence, and shall be found no more; ... And in her was found the blood of prophets and of saints, and of all who have been slain on earth." (18:21,24)

If the harlot does indeed represent the Roman empire then according to these passages the fall of the Roman Empire was a divine judgment by God. Revelation 18 indicates that the harlot would be "thrown down with violence" and be "found no more" because "in her was found the blood of prophets and of saints." Some natural questions which arise in this context are:

1. When did the Roman empire fall?

2. How did the Roman empire fall?

3. What factors contributed to the fall of the Roman empire?

4. How was the fall of the Roman empire a divine judgment?

5. Did the fact that "Christianity" had become the official state religion indicate that the enmity between the Roman empire and God had ended?

The Decline and Fall

The imperial period of ancient Roman history began in 27 B.C. when Octavian, later called Augustus, became the first emperor of Rome and ended in A.D. 476 when the last Western Roman emperor, Romulus Augustulus, was overthrown by the German king Odoacer. The decline of Rome which culminated in its downfall in A.D. 476 was not a swift decline. Three primary reasons stand behind the eventual collapse of the Roman empire: (In addition, Gibbon includes a fourth reason: Injury of time and nature.)

1. External invasion.

2. Inner decadence.

3. Inner strife.

Daniel described the inner weakness of the yet future Roman empire as follows: (Daniel 2:40-44)

And there shall be a fourth kingdom, strong as iron, because iron breaks to pieces and shatters all things; and like iron which crushes, it shall break and crush all these. And as you saw the feet and toes partly of potter's clay and partly of iron, it shall be a divided kingdom; but some of the firmness of iron shall be in it, just as you saw iron mixed with the miry clay. And as the toes of the feet were partly iron and partly clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly brittle. As you saw the iron mixed with miry clay, so they will mix with one another in marriage, but they will not hold together, just as iron does not mix with clay. And in the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed, nor shall its sovereignty be left to another people. It shall break in pieces all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, and it shall stand for ever.

Recall in Revelation 17 that the beast and the ten horns which supported the harlot in verse 3 were in verse 16 said to "hate the harlot" and to "make her desolate and naked, and devour her flesh and burn her up with fire." As we study the book, we will see that the beast represents the civil power of Rome and that the 10 horns represent Rome's allies and client states. These passages indicate that Rome would fall apart partially from within and that is exactly what happened. Francis Schaeffer wrote the following in this regard in his book How Should We Then Live? (Westchester, Illinois: Crossway Books, 1976, pp. 26-29).

As the Empire ground down, the decadent Romans were given to a thirst for violence and a gratification of the senses. ... Even though Emperor Constantine ended the persecution of the Christians and Christianity became first (in 313) a legal religion, and then (in 381) the official state religion of the Empire, the majority of the people went on in their old ways. Apathy was the chief mark of the late Empire. ... As the Roman economy slumped lower and lower, burdened with an aggravated inflation and a costly government, authoritarianism increased to counter the apathy. Since work was no longer done voluntarily, it was brought increasingly under the authority of the state, and freedoms were lost. For example, laws were passed binding small farmers to their land. So, because of the general apathy and its results, and because of oppressive control, few thought the old civilization worth saving. Rome did not fall because of external forces such as the invasion by the barbarians. Rome had no sufficient inward base; the barbarians only completed the breakdown - and Rome gradually became a ruin.

But hadn't Rome become a "Christian empire" by the time it fell in A.D. 476? It certainly appeared so and many historians treat it as such, but was it in reality? In order to answer this question, it will be helpful to first consider the life and supposed conversion of Constantine the Great.

Constantine the Great

Constantine the Great, as he was later called, was born in about A.D. 285 to Constantius (Roman emperor in the West from 305 to 306) and Helena. His father had protected Christians as far as possible probably because Helena was an espoused Christian. In 305, the Empire had four emperors, Diocletian, Maximian, Galerius, and Constantius. After Diocletian and Maximian abdicated and Constantius died, the army proclaimed Constantine emperor. After a period of conflict, Constantine eventually emerged as the sole Roman emperor after he defeated the Eastern emperor Licinius in 323. At this point, his primary concern centered about how to unify the empire under his authority. With this aim, he embraced Christianity as a unifying force, staked everything he had on its support, and began to use it for his own purposes. Was Constantine's conversion genuine? This question has long been a subject of debate and speculation. Gibbon described Constantine's conversion as follows: (Gibbon, 1845, Volume II, p. 175)

In one of the marches of Constantine, he is reported to have seen with his own eyes the luminous trophy of the cross, placed above the meridian sun, and inscribed with the following words: BY THIS CONQUER. This amazing object in the sky astonished the whole army, as well as the emperor himself, who was yet undetermined in the choice of a religion: but his astonishment was converted into faith by the vision of the ensuing night. Christ appeared before his eyes; and displaying the same celestial sign of the cross, he directed Constantine to frame a similar standard, and to march, with an assurance of victory, against Maxentius and all his enemies.

Gibbon later (correctly) pointed out that:

The Protestant and philosophic readers of the present age will incline to believe, that in the account of his own conversion, Constantine attested a wilful falsehood by a solemn and deliberate perjury.

Michael Grant has the following to say regarding Constantine's motivations in his book History of Rome. (New York:Charles Scribner's Sons, 1978, p. 410)

The emperor's motives have been endlessly analyzed and discussed. But it appears that he and his advisors experienced a growing conviction that, however uninfluential the Christians might be at present, the course of events was working, or could be made to work, in their favor - since they alone possessed the universal aims and efficient, coherent organization that, in the long run, could unite the various conflicting peoples and classes of the empire in a single, all-embracing harmony which was "Catholic," that is to say, universal.

Although Grant does not attribute Constantine's sole motivation to such cold and calculating logic as this quote seems to indicate, he correctly points out that if Christianity had not served Constantine then Constantine would undoubtedly have not served Christianity (if, in fact, he did serve Christianity.) Although Constantine's motivations may be questionable, it appears that he recognized the power of the God of the Christians. His decision to march against Rome's 175,000 troops with his own 40,000 troops seems to have been based at least in part upon his belief that the Christian God was on his side. Further, he had noticed that the Eastern empire, while persecuting Christians, had been in constant turmoil, whereas the Western empire, which was not actively persecuting Christians at that time, had been enjoying an era of relative peace and prosperity. His belief that God would make him victorious and his subsequent victory seems to have greatly influenced his future attitude toward Christianity. It is interesting at this point to note the following comment by Michael Grant:

Constantine always felt a strong, impulsive need for a divine companion and sponsor. For a time the Sun god, whose worship was ancestral in his family, had been his choice. But although this deity continued to be depicted on the coins until 318-319, Constantine had already disclosed, at the time of the Edict of Mediolanum, his own personal adherence to Christianity; and the One Supreme Power, to whom the literature and inscriptions of the time made numerous vague allusions, was identified, more and more explicitly, with Jesus.

Constantine not only ended the persecution of Christianity but he began to treat Christianity as though it were a state religion which, in fact, it later became. He authorized state money to be used for the construction of elaborate church buildings. Constantine's favoritism of the church, however, seems to have resulted more from expediency than conviction. He saw the church as a center of unity and culture with which he could preserve the empire. His lack of conviction is evidenced by the facts that he had his son, Crispus, put to death, his wife, Fausta, put to death, and he retained his position as the chief priest of the pagan state religion. Ramsay Macmullen wrote the following with regard to Constantine's view of Christianity in his book Constantine (London: Croom Helm, 1987, p. 239):

Few of the essential elements of Christian belief interested Constantine very much - neither God's mercy nor man's sinfulness, neither damnation nor salvation, neither brotherly love nor, needless to say, humility. Ardent in his convictions, he remained nevertheless oblivious to their moral implications.

Alistair Kee described Constantine's attitude toward religion as follows in his book Constantine Versus Christ: The Triumph of Ideology (London: SCM Press Ltd., 1982, p. 115):

[His attitude toward religion] played an important part in his ambition to conquer and unify the Empire. His religious policy flowed from his own personal religion. Religion played a part in his imperial policies. This guided not only his beneficence towards the church but also his intervention in the internal affairs of the church. Religion was too important to his strategy to leave in the hands of the ecclesiastics.

Constantine's Impact on the Church

Was Constantine a positive influence on the Church? Alistair Kee makes the following point with regard to this question:

Because of his relationship to the church, Constantine was able to influence it and Christianity at a profound level. We must now consider how Constantine's values infiltrated the church: not how he was converted to Christianity, but how through his religious policy he succeeded in converting Christianity to his position.

Kee states later that "the values of Constantine replaced the values of Christ within Christianity" and that "Christianity was enlisted in his own personal crusade to gain control of the Empire and in the process Christianity was transformed." The Roman empire's embrace of Christianity seems to have been initiated by Constantine merely as an act of political expediency and unfounded superstition. Neither Constantine nor the empire acknowledged the moral or philosophical demands which that embrace logically demanded. In fact, it is perhaps not an exaggeration to state that the Roman empire's embrace of Christianity did more to damage the Church than did the earlier persecutions. Persecution, in a sense, allowed the Church to remain "pure" by effectively excluding anyone not willing to face death for his or her beliefs. Alistair Kee mirrors these thoughts when he states:

Only a sadist would wish that persecution continue in the church, only a masochist welcome it, and yet suffering seemed an inescapable experience for early Christians. ... [T]he history of the church till the fourth century was of random and often intensive persecution. Whenever the Emperor or the traditions of the Empire seemed threatened, it was open season on persecuting Christians. And yet this tiny minority, insignificant, weak and defenseless, not only survived but grew. ... To Christians ... it was not at all incredible that persecution could actually strengthen the church: it brought precisely the experience in which God was made known to them in strength. The later Roman influence effectively weakened the Church from within.

Currell and Hurlbut quote Latourette as follows in this regard in their book The Ruler of the Kings on the Earth: A Clear Look at Amillennialism for the Lay Person (Phillipsburg, New Jersey: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1982, p. 28):

Under Imperial favor the Church experienced a rapid growth. Many who thronged into it did so from expediency, rather than deep religious conviction, and the moral and spiritual quality of the Christian community suffered.

The marriage of Rome and the church was an adulterous one and the resulting offspring matured into Roman Catholicism. Although it is both common and, in an initial sense, understandable to treat Constantine as a great champion and benefactor of the Church, a close examination reveals that his influence was far from beneficial. F. W. Mattox described Constantine's influence as follows in his book The Eternal Kingdom (Delight, Arkansas: Gospel Light Publishing Company, 1961, p. 133):

Out of respect to Constantine for the favors he showed, the church gave up her independence and began to rely upon the head of the state for its organization and authority. The leaders seemed too concerned with present problems to see the danger in these developments.

Alistair Kee described Constantine's influence by stating:

The fundamental issue is not whether Constantine called himself a Christian or not, but how he actually used Christianity and how, in the course of using it, he transformed it into something completely different. ... [I]n gathering up lines of thought often already present in the church and developing them in a certain way, they combined to effect something which had never been accomplished hitherto, the replacement of the norms of Christ and the early church by the norms of the imperial ideology. Why it has been previously thought that Constantine was a Christian is not because what he believed was Christian, but because what he believed came to be called Christian.

Finally, the following excerpt, also from Dr. Kee's book, provides a sobering lesson in the dangers of compromise. The argument that Constantine never accepted Christ leads to the logical conclusion that the church of his day, in embracing Rome, rejected Christ. (Did Rome become more like the Church or did the Church become more like Rome after Constantine? Ask a Roman Catholic.) After commenting upon the strength that the Christians had obtained through their persecution and suffering he notes:

[I]t is therefore all the more tragic that Christians should, in the moment of victory, forsake the revelation in Jesus, for its opposite in Constantine. The church did not need the protection of Constantine; it had already taken on the Empire, century after century, and had in the end been victorious. ... If Constantine had in turn persecuted the church, he too would have failed to conquer it. How was it then that he was able to succeed where his predecessors had failed? How was it that by a little kindness, a word of praise here, a grant to build a new church there, he was able to induce the church to forsake what they could not be made to forsake under threat of torture or death? The Emperor offered so much, beyond the dreams of Christians recently under constant threat. He offered in effect at least a share in the kingdoms of the world. When Satan is seen to offer such rewards, the temptation is rejected. When one comes professing to be a follower of the One God, then his offer is accepted. ... And once again the Son of Man was betrayed with a kiss. Not that the betrayal took place in a moment. It was a gradual process. Gradually the church came to have faith in the Emperor, to trust him and to see in him and in his ways the hand of God.