By Shafer Parker

The political divide between left and right has never been greater in Canada and the United States. For some this is a cause of rejoicing, perhaps because they think their side is “winning.” Others rejoice because they think win or lose the current divide has tended to expose pretenders. People with courage tend to stand out in today’s world. In a cancel culture world, it takes real conviction to espouse conservatism in the public square and many a nominally conservative politician has revealed his, or her, true self by needlessly giving aid and comfort to left-wing politicians and policies. Interestingly, this same divide impacted the Roman Empire some 1,600 years ago.

The story goes like this. Christianity started small (think 120 people hiding in a locked room, Acts 2:13), but by the early fourth century it was rapidly becoming the majority religion. That, of course, is about the time when Constantine, fighting to become Emperor of Rome, declared that his soldiers should go into battle under the sign of the Chi Rho (stylized form of the first two letters that make up the Greek word Christos, or Christ) at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge. Constantine’s forces defeated an army twice its size, an apparently miraculous victory that made him emperor of Rome and cemented his commitment to continue fighting under the banner of Christ. A few years later he issued the Edict of Milan, which granted tolerance to all religions, including, for the first time, Christianity. After that it did not take long, the historians suggest, before the old paganism was wiped out and Christianity prevailed everywhere.

Here is where the story gets interesting. According to historian Rodney Stark it simply is not true that Christianity prevailed against paganism by attacking the old faiths with the combined power of the Roman emperors and the naturally repressive nature of the Roman Catholic Church. New research shows that even after Constantine pagans continued to enjoy widespread support by successive Roman emperors, who, with one significant exception, were professed Christians. In his book The Triumph of Christianity, Stark quotes scholar Peter Brown to make the point that large, active pagan communities “continued to enjoy, for many generations, [a] relatively peaceable. . . existence.” 

And why would that be? Largely because Constantine, along with the Christian emperors who followed him, were not merely tolerant of paganism, but supportive, even to the point of continuing to appoint professed pagans to important government posts. Christianity grew rapidly during this period, but as Stark explains, it did so “without substantial recourse to coercive methods.” In fact, there are records that demonstrate a mutual respect between Christian and pagan public servants. Moreover, the same records show that conflict based upon religion was almost non-existent during this early period of Christian ascendancy.

Ironically, the only exception to the prevailing spirit of tolerance came from pagan emperor Flavian Claudius Julianus (361-363). Julian hid his pagan beliefs under a cloak of Christianity until proclaimed emperor, but soon after earned the title “Julian the Apostate” due to his vigorous attempts to return the empire to its polytheistic roots. Once having grasped power, he “loudly revealed his contempt for those he reviled as ‘Galileans’ whose ‘haughty ministers neither understood nor believed their religion.’” Julian was wise enough not to initiate a general persecution of Christians. They were too many, and he had no desire to create new martyrs. But he did “condone the torture of several bishops, exiled others,” and turned a blind eye when Christians were attacked in remote parts of the empire.

In a combination of moves that feel remarkably familiar to modern Christians in the West, he fired the Christians who inhabited high imperial offices and made it illegal for Christians to teach the classics. A perfect parallel exists between this last action and the prejudice that now exists in our universities against Christian students and scholars. Without the option of Christian professors, Julian knew that upper-class parents would be forced to choose between sending their children to be taught by professors who hated their faith, or else deny them opportunities to advance in the elite culture of classical antiquity. But as Stark points out, by far the worst thing Julian accomplished in his short time in office “was to revive Christian anxieties that another era of vicious persecution lay ahead.” Not being able to foresee the future, the Christians had no way of knowing that Julian would turn out to be the exception and not the new rule. For all they knew “worse was yet to come.” 

These entirely plausible fears led to a completely unexpected outcome. Suddenly those Christians that had always opposed pluralism were seen to be “proven” right, with the result that the middle ground that had previously held the empire together was suddenly gone. Roman society became polarized, and everyone became more militant in the attempt to hold on to what they saw as rightfully theirs. Christians feared the worst, including the possibility of being blinded or beheaded, or that “their new master would devise new-fangled tortures, worse than the fire, sword, drowning, burial alive, hacking and mutilation, that was already going on in scattered locations.”

Fortunately, none of that happened. Julian’s “reforms” were little more than a blip in time, and it was not long before he was replaced with a succession of Christian emperors, in both the eastern and western parts of the empire. And in the short run most of these successors returned to the previous practice of showing favour to both Christians and pagans. But the Christians could not forget what had happened and “in three edicts issued during 391-392, Theodosius I banned public and private sacrifices to the gods, not only blood sacrifices, but also “such pagan devotions as sprinkling incense on altars, hanging sacred fillets on trees and raising turf altars.” In other words, the Christians were doing what they could to make certain that another Julian would never again take power, largely by trying to eliminate public paganism altogether. 

As I said earlier, the parallels between Christian reactions to Julian’s reign and modern attempts to protect the Faith by passing laws in Parliament or Congress are little short of breath-taking. In that light, it is worth noting that not only did they not work in those early days of the faith, relatively speaking, they are no more likely to be successful today.

Throughout the empire, too many believers grew afraid and lost hope. How could they know that Christians would continue to thrive and would, eventually, do away with paganism as a political force? In the same way, I am suggesting that modern Christians need to remember Christ’s victory is eternal and comprehensive. “All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth,” Jesus said, and we must never forget it. Nor can we forget that although there will be setbacks along the way, Satan’s apparent victories are only temporary, and his ultimate defeat is guaranteed.

Please do not read the previous paragraph as recommending indolence or apathy. Quite the opposite. Because we live in victory, because we have our orders to “make disciples of all nations,” because we cannot lose in the long run, and because we must each give an account for what we have done with the resources our Master has made available to us, we must seize upon the troubles of these days as opportunities to relearn the lessons that were so familiar to our fathers and mothers in the faith. That is, we must never give up on the power of the gospel to raise up “saints in Caesar’s household,” as well as everywhere else. And perhaps most of all, we must never be ruled by fear. Remember, for our spiritual ancestors the bold confession of their faith, in the arena and everywhere else, became a far more powerful weapon against paganism than any number of government edicts. And as far as I am concerned it is way past time for 21st-century Christians to boldly confess their faith in public worship and in the public square, particularly in calling the nations to look to God for victory over the many ailments currently afflicting us. 

Finally, when the circumstances change—and they will change— and Christians find themselves once again ascendant in society, the best thing to do is use that growing influence to love those who once hated us. Neither passive submission nor fear and defensiveness have ever yet promoted the “the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.”