Talk:Christianity in the 4th century

Orphaned references in History of Christianity in the 4th century
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Reference named "CC": From Origen:  From History of Christianity in the 3rd century: Durant, Will. Caesar and Christ. New York: Simon and Schuster. 1972 From Athanasius of Alexandria: Durant, Will. Caesar and Christ. New York: Simon and Schuster. 1972. From Jesus: Durant, Will. Caesar and Christ. New York: Simon and Schuster. 1972 From Augustine of Hippo:  

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 * Done. -- Carlaude talk 10:25, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

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To whoever wrote this
I love this article! It is really well done. I want to add some on the shift from sect to church that took place in the latter half of the third century. It's what set the stage for the conflicts that followed. But I don't want to mess anything up! Does anyone have an opinion? Jenhawk777 (talk) 21:22, 17 March 2021 (UTC)
 * What kind of thing did you have in mind? Can you give us a snippet here? The New Testament already speaks of followers describing themselves as "Church". Only later scholarship would, more technically, describe it as an emerging social structure. Arguably, that was already present by the end of the 1st century, let alone the 4th century. Laurel Lodged (talk) 11:04, 18 March 2021 (UTC)


 * Sure. This is a rewrite of section 2.3 Roman legislation. I have retained all but one paragraph, the second, which contained a slight error or two anyway, but as you can see, I just recombined them at the front and the end of what I have inserted. I would accordingly retitle this section, as it does not actually discuss laws. I hope you find this a worthy addition to this wonderful article.


 * ===The conversion of Christianity===

The accession of Constantine was a turning point for the Christian Church. In 313, Constantine issued the Edict of Milan affirming the tolerance of Christians. Thereafter, he supported the Church financially, built various basilicas, granted privileges (e.g., exemption from certain taxes) to clergy, promoted Christians to high ranking offices, and returned property confiscated during the reign of Diocletian. Constantine utilized Christian symbols early in his reign but still encouraged traditional Roman religious practices including sun worship. Between 324 and 330, he built a new imperial capital at Byzantium on the Bosphorus (it came to be named for him: Constantinople)–the city employed overtly Christian architecture, contained churches within the city walls (unlike "old" Rome), and had no pagan temples. In 330 he established Constantinople as the new capital of the Roman Empire. The city would gradually come to be seen as the center of the Christian world.

Sociologist Joseph Bryant asserts that, by the time of Constantine, Christianity had already changed from its first century instantiation as a "marginal, persecuted, and popularly despised Christian sect" to become the fully institutionalized church "capable of embracing the entire Roman empire" that Constantine adopted. Without this transformation that Peter Brown has called "the conversion of Christianity" to the culture and ideals of the Roman world, Brown says Constantine would never have converted himself.

By the end of the second century Christianity was steadily expanding and its membership was socially rising. The church was becoming increasingly institutionalized, and there is evidence of moral erosion and declining commitment amongst its expanding membership. Bryant explains that, "The governing principle of the [sect is] in the personal holiness of its members". A church, on the other hand, is an organization where sanctity is found in the institution rather than the individual. To become a church, "Christianity had to overcome its alienation from the 'world' and successfully weather persecution, accept that it was no longer an ecclesia pura, (a sect of the holy and the elect), but was instead a corpus permixtum, a 'catholic' Church geared to mass conversions and institutionally endowed with extensive powers of sacramental grace and redemption". This "momentous transformation" threatened the survival of the marginal religious movement as it naturally led to divisions, schisms and defections. Bryant explains that, "once those within a sect determine that "the 'spirit' no longer resides in the parent body, 'the holy and the pure' typically find themselves compelled – either by conviction or coercion – to withdraw and establish their own counter-church, comprised of the 'gathered remnant' of God's elect". According to Bryant, this describes all the schisms of Christianity's first 300 years including the Montanists, the schism created by Hippolytus in 218 under Callistus, the Melitian schism, and the Donatists.

It is the Donatist schism that Bryant sees as the culmination of this sect to church dynamic. During the Melitian schism and the beginnings of the Donatist division, bishop Cyprian had felt compelled to "grant one laxist concession after another in the course of his desperate struggle to preserve the Catholic church". Roman emperors had always been religious leaders, but Constantine established precedent for the position of the Christian emperor in the Church. These emperors considered themselves responsible to God for the spiritual health of their subjects, and thus they had a duty to maintain orthodoxy. The emperor did not decide doctrine – that was the responsibility of the bishops – rather his role was to enforce doctrine, root out heresy, and uphold ecclesiastical unity. The emperor ensured that God was properly worshiped in his empire; what proper worship consisted of was the responsibility of the church. Constantine had commissioned more than one investigation into the Donatist issues and they all ruled in support of the Catholic cause, yet the Donatists refused to submit to either imperial or ecclesiastical authority. For a Roman emperor, that was sufficient cause to act. Brown says Roman authorities had shown no hesitation in "taking out" the Christian church they had seen as a threat to empire, and Constantine and his successors did the same, for the same reasons. Constantine's precedent of deferring to councils on doctrine, and accepting responsibility for their enforcement, would continue generally until the empire's end, although there were a few emperors of the 5th and 6th centuries who sought to alter doctrine by imperial edict without recourse to councils.

In 325 Constantine called for the Council of Nicaea, which was effectively the first Ecumenical Council (the Council of Jerusalem was the first recorded Christian council but rarely is it considered ecumenical), to deal mostly with the Arian heresy, but which also issued the Nicene Creed, which among other things professed a belief in One Holy Catholic Apostolic Church, the start of Christendom. John Kaye characterizes the conversion of Constantine, and the council of Nicea, as two of the most important things to ever happen to the Christian church.

Jenhawk777 (talk) 19:54, 18 March 2021 (UTC)
 * OK. Very nice. My suggestion would be to offer the same from the perspective of those churchmen of the time. That is, they would have understood the Church to be the Church from Ascension Day onward, not as an evolving societal group that eventually emerged, butterfly-like as a fully fledged church. I do not propose this as some king of false "balance". Rather, I think that Christians coming to the site would find an excessive use of precise language, found only in academia, to be unexpected, and the relative absence of more familiar ecclesial phrasing to be a surprising omission. Perhaps I overstate the case or the concerns. Laurel Lodged (talk) 10:48, 19 March 2021 (UTC)


 * Well, my initial response is this is an encyclopedia. We don't write for Christians. You say the churchmen of the time would have understood the church to be the church, but that was the claim of all the groups. They all claimed they were the genuine church. Are you saying we should assume the ones with the power of government on their side, who won out in the end, were right and the others were wrong and write that? That's a position, and we can't take positions and still claim to be neutral. I would assume the people of that time had no idea they were an evolving social group, but that doesn't mean they weren't, or that we shouldn't write it if that's what the sources say. The only 'perspective' we should have is a modern neutral, and yes, academic perspective. Again, that's because this is an encyclopedia. Jenhawk777 (talk) 15:55, 19 March 2021 (UTC)
 * I don't propose to write a Christian polemic. We should of course use sources. There are lots of sources that refer to the Church as Church, not as sect. Not every source has to be a modern source. Nor does every source has to be neutral. Since this is an encyclopedia, one expects to find lots of "Source A claims X" and also "but Source B contradicts A and instead claims Y". Laurel Lodged (talk) 09:35, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
 * All that you say is true, but that doesn't delegitimize using those terms to understand what transpired in Christianity's first 300 years, which does seem important, since that transition was alluded to, without being explained, in this section. It was stated that Constantine caused those changes, but that is inaccurate. Constantine was the culmination of those changes that had already taken place.
 * All scholars agree Christianity went through a transition in that 300 years that made it go from a religion that Roman emperor's prosecuted to become a religion acceptable to a Roman emperor. If you have another way to explain that without using sociology – and without putting it all on Constantine – then I am totally okay with that. Go for it with my support. I just don't know of any other way because, otherwise, what you get is people claiming that "Constantinian shift" - that it happened all at once when he took over - and that's a crap theory that I would have to oppose with lots and lots of sources. So if sociology is out, and the Constantinian shift is nonsense, what would you use? Jenhawk777 (talk) 16:01, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
 * I agree that the Constantinian shift is nonsense. I also agree that there was an evolution. But the people at that time were either unaware of such evolution or would have denied it. Some statements / quotes to that effect is what is needed I think. Laurel Lodged (talk) 17:22, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
 * I don't understand why that matters, as the reference is to sociology not history, but if you think it does, then please, write a sentence that says so and post it here and let's see what we can see. Jenhawk777 (talk) 18:26, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

Diocletian dates
This needs some fact checking. Diocletian abdicated in 305, and he did not die in 310. 69.172.156.244 (talk) 16:57, 23 September 2022 (UTC)