CHARACTER OF CONSTANTINE.

I will not here speak of the confusion which agitated the empire after the

abdication of Diocletian. There were after his death six emperors at once.

Constantine triumphed over them all, changed the religion of the empire, and

was not merely the author of that great revolution, but of all those which have

since occurred in the west. What was his character? Ask it of Julian, of Zosimus,

of Sozomen, and of Victor; they will tell you that he acted at first like a great

prince, afterwards as a public robber, and that the last stage of his life was that

of a sensualist, a trifler, and a prodigal. They will describe him as ever

ambitious, cruel, and sanguinary. Ask his character of Eusebius, of Gregory

Nazianzen, and Lactantius; they will inform you that he was a perfect man.

Between these two extremes authentic facts alone can enable us to obtain the

truth. He had a father-in-law, whom he impelled to hang himself; he had a

brother-in-law, whom he ordered to be strangled; he had a nephew twelve or

thirteen years old, whose throat he ordered to be cut; he had an eldest son,

whom he beheaded; he had a wife, whom he ordered to be suffocated in a bath.

An old Gallic author said that “he loved to make a clear house.”

If you add to all these domestic acts that, being on the banks of the Rhine in

pursuit of some hordes of Franks who resided in those parts, and having taken

their kings, who probably were of the family of our Pharamond or Clodionle

Chevelu, he exposed them to beasts for his diversion; you may infer from all

this, without any apprehension of being deceived, that he was not the most

courteous and accommodating personage in the world.

Let us examine, in this place, the principal events of his reign. His father,

Constantius Chlorus, was in the heart of Britain, where he had for some months

assumed the title of emperor. Constantine was at Nicomedia, with the emperor

Galerius. He asked permission of the emperor to go to see his father, who was

ill. Galerius granted it, without difficulty. Constantine set off with government

relays, called veredarii. It might be said to be as dangerous to be a post-horse as

to be a member of the family of Constantine, for he ordered all the horses to be

hamstrung after he had done with them, fearful lest Galerius should revoke his

permission and order him to return to Nicomedia. He found his father at the

point of death, and caused himself to be recognized emperor by the small

number of Roman troops at that time in Britain.

An election of a Roman emperor at York, by five or six thousand men, was not

likely to be considered legitimate at Rome. It wanted at least the formula of

“Senatus populusque Romanus.” The senate, the people, and the prætorian

bands unanimously elected Maxentius, son of the Cæsar Maximilian Hercules,

who had been already Cæsar, and brother of that Fausta whom Constantine had

married, and whom he afterwards caused to be suffocated. This Maxentius is

called a tyrant and usurper by our historians, who are uniformly the partisans of

the successful. He was the protector of the pagan religion against Constantine,

who already began to declare himself for the Christians. Being both pagan and

vanquished, he could not but be an abominable man.

Eusebius tells us that Constantine, when going to Rome to fight Maxentius, saw

in the clouds, as well as his whole army, the grand imperial standard called the

labarum, surmounted with a Latin P. or a large Greek R. with a cross in

“saltier,” and certain Greek words which signified, “By this sign thou shalt

conquer.” Some authors pretend that this sign appeared to him at Besancon,

others at Cologne, some at Trier and others at Troyes. It is strange that in all

these places heaven should have expressed its meaning in Greek. It would have

appeared more natural to the weak understandings of men that this sign should

have appeared in Italy on the day of the battle; but then it would have been

necessary that the inscription should have been in Latin. A learned antiquary, of

the name of Loisel, has refuted this narrative; but he was treated as a reprobate.

It might, however, be worth while to reflect that this war was not a war of

religion, that Constantine was not a saint, that he died suspected of being an

Arian, after having persecuted the orthodox; and, therefore, that there is no very

obvious motive to support this prodigy.

After this victory, the senate hastened to pay its devotion to the conqueror, and

to express its detestation of the memory of the conquered. The triumphal arch

of Marcus Aurelius was speedily dismantled to adorn that of Constantine. A

statue of gold was prepared for him, an honor which had never been shown

except to the gods. He received it, notwithstanding the labarum, and received

further the title of Pontifex Maximus, which he retained all his life. His first

care, according to Zosimus, was to exterminate the whole race of the tyrant, and

his principal friends; after which he assisted very graciously at the public

spectacles and games.

The aged Diocletian was at that time dying in his retreat at Salonica.

Constantine should not have been in such haste to pull down his statues at

Rome; he should have recollected that the forgotten emperor had been the

benefactor of his father, and that he was indebted to him for the empire.

Although he had conquered Maxentius, Licinius, his brother-in-law, an

Augustus like himself, was still to be got rid of; and Licinius was equally anxious

to be rid of Constantine, if he had it in his power. However, their quarrels not

having yet broken out in hostility, they issued conjointly at Milan, in 313, the

celebrated edict of liberty of conscience. “We grant,” they say, “to all the liberty

of following whatever religion they please, in order to draw down the blessing of

heaven upon us and our subjects; we declare that we have granted to the

Christians the free and full power of exercising their religion; it being

understood that all others shall enjoy the same liberty, in order to preserve the

tranquillity of our government.” A volume might be written on such an edict,

but I shall merely venture a few lines.

Constantine was not as yet a Christian; nor, indeed, was his colleague, Licinius,

one. There was still an emperor or a tyrant to be exterminated; this was a

determined pagan, of the name of Maximin. Licinius fought with him before he

fought with Constantine. Heaven was still more favorable to him than to

Constantine himself; for the latter had only the apparition of a standard, but

Licinius that of an angel. This angel taught him a prayer, by means of which he

would be sure to vanquish the barbarian Maximin. Licinius wrote it down,

ordered it to be recited three times by his army, and obtained a complete

victory. If this same Licinius, the brother-in-law of Constantine, had reigned

happily, we should have heard of nothing but his angel; but Constantine having

had him hanged, and his son slain, and become absolute master of everything,

nothing has been talked of but Constantine’s labarum.

It is believed that he put to death his eldest son Crispus, and his own wife

Fausta, the same year that he convened the Council of Nice. Zosimus and

Sozomen pretend that, the heathen priests having told him that there were no

expiations for such great crimes, he then made open profession of Christianity,

and demolished many temples in the East. It is not very probable that the pagan

pontiffs should have omitted so fine an opportunity of getting back their grand

pontiff, who had abandoned them. However, it is by no means impossible that

there might be among them some severe men; scrupulous and austere persons

are to be found everywhere. What is more extraordinary is, that Constantine,

after becoming a Christian, performed no penance for his parricide. It was at

Rome that he exercised that cruelty, and from that time residence at Rome

became hateful to him. He quitted it forever, and went to lay the foundations of

Constantinople. How dared he say, in one of his rescripts, that he transferred

the seat of empire to Constantinople,“by the command of God himself?” Is it

anything but an impudent mockery of God and man? If God had given him any

command, would it not have been — not to assassinate his wife and son?

Diocletian had already furnished an example of transferring the empire towards

Asia. The pride, the despotism, and the general manners of the Asiatics

disgusted the Romans, depraved and slavish as they had become. The emperors

had not ventured to require, at Rome, that their feet should be kissed, nor to

introduce a crowd of eunuchs into their palaces. Diocletian began in Nicomedia,

and Constantine completed the system at Constantinople, to assimilate the

Roman court to the courts of the Persians. The city of Rome from that time

languished in decay, and the old Roman spirit declined with her. Constantine

thus effected the greatest injury to the empire that was in his power.

Of all the emperors, he was unquestionably the most absolute. Augustus had left

an image of liberty; Tiberius, and even Nero, had humored the senate and

people of Rome; Constantine humored none. He had at first established his

power in Rome by disbanding those haughty prætorians who considered

themselves the masters of the emperors. He made an entire separation between

the gown and the sword. The depositories of the laws, kept down under military

power, were only jurists in chains. The provinces of the empire were governed

upon a new system.

The grand object of Constantine was to be master in everything; he was so in the

Church, as well as in the State. We behold him convoking and opening the

Council of Nice; advancing into the midst of the assembled fathers, covered over

with jewels, and with the diadem on his head, seating himself in the highest

place, and banishing unconcernedly sometimes Arius and sometimes

Athanasius. He put himself at the head of Christianity without being a Christian;

for at that time baptism was essential to any person’s becoming one; he was only

a catechumen. The usage of waiting for the approach of death before immersing

in the water of regeneration, was beginning to decline with respect to private

individuals. If Constantine, by delaying his baptism till near the point of death,

entertained the notion that he might commit every act with impunity in the

hope of a complete expiation, it was unfortunate for the human race that such

an opinion should have ever suggested itself to the mind of a man in possession

of uncontrolled power.