Wishing to worship the Supreme Being, Emperor Constantine the Great of Rome (272 - 337 AD) converts to Christianity and simultaneously changes world history.

Colossal marble head of Emperor Constantine the Great, Roman, 4th century

Constantine's Testimony

Constantine the Great, mosaic in Hagia Sophia, c. 1000

"To acknowledge ... in solemn terms the beneficence of the Supreme Being is by no means boasting. He searched for and chose my service to carry out his purpose. Starting ... at the faraway Britannic sea and the regions where the sun ... sets, by the help of the Supreme Power, I drove out and scattered all the prevailing evil things, in order that the human race, reared with my assistance, might call upon the service of the holy law ... I am firmly convinced that I owe my life and every breath ... to the Supreme God."

Constantine's Letter to King Sapor of Persia

Colossal head of Constantine, from a seated statue: a youthful, classicising, other-worldly official image (Metropolitan Museum of Art)^[

I profess the most holy religion.  I confess that as a disciple of the Holy God I observe this worship.  With the power of this God on my side to help me, beginning at the boundaries of the Ocean, I had gathered every nation, one after another, throughout the world, to the certain hope of salvation ... This God I worship and my army is dedicated to him and wears his sign on their shoulders, marching directly wherever the cause of justice summons them.  I confess that I honour this God with never-dying remembrance, this God in the height of his glory I delight to contemplate with a pure and simple heart.

The Conversion of Constantine

Constantius appoints Constantine as his successor by Peter Paul Rubens, 1622

Throughout the fourth century, relations between the church, the emperor, and pagan religion were changing continually.  Constantine's defeat of Maxentius at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge in the autumn of 312, and his interpretation of that victory as the response of the Christian God to his prayer for help, propelled church and state into a new age for which neither was prepared.  Out of this new relationship between Christian church and Christian emperor stemmed the turbulent history of church/state relations in the later Roman Empire and throughout the Middle Ages.

Constantine prays to God.  The response from God is a cross in the noonday sky

The Battle of the Milvian Bridge by Giulio Romano

Constantine's account of his conversion, told by the emperor himself to the Church historian Eusebius of Caesarea towards the end of his life, is well known.  Constantine, alarmed by reports of Mazentius' mastery of magical arts, prayed to the "Supreme God" for help.  The response was a sign, a cross in the noonday sky 'above the sun', and with it the words, 'Conquer by this.'  That night Christ appeared to Constantine in a dream and commanded him to use the sign -- apparently Chi-Rho, the initial letters of the name of Christ -- 'as a safeguard in all engagements with his enemies'.  According to the historian Lactantius, Constantine put this sign on the shields of his soldiers, and then marched on Rome, confronted Maxentius -- who was miraculously induced to fight outside the city fortifications -- and conquered.

Though converting to Christianity, Constantine maintains pagan customs

The Baptism of Constantine, as imagined by students of Raphael

This story has been doubted.  But Constantine's attitude towards the Christian church after he became emperor, and his new laws, demonstrate that his allegiance to Christianity was genuine, though his understanding of the Christian faith was at first no doubt imperfect.  Indeed, Constantine did retain the pagan high priest's title of Pontifex Maximus; for a decade his coins continued to feature some of the pagan gods, notably his own favourite deity, the Unconquered Sun; and he delayed Christian baptism until the end of his life.  However, delayed baptism was the custom of the age, a device for avoiding mortal sin; and retaining the pagan symbols was a necessary compromise with his pagan subjects, still very much in the majority.

A gold multiple of "Unconquered Constantine" with Sol Invictus, struck in 313 AD. The use of Sol's image appealed to both the educated citizens of Gaul, who would recognize in it Apollo's patronage of Augustus and the arts; and to Christians, who found solar monotheism less objectionable than the traditional pagan pantheon.

Constantine treated Christianity as the favoured, though not yet the official, religion of the Empire.  He granted immunities to the clergy and lavished gifts on the church; in his letters and edicts he spoke as if the Christian God were his own.

Constantine's previous religion was the worship of the Unconquered Sun

A representation of Jesus as the sun-god Helios/Sol Invictus riding in his chariot. Mosaic of the 3rd century on the Vatican grottoes under St. Peter's Basilica.

It is important to understand Constantine's previous religion, the worship of the Unconquered Sun.  If the story of the cross in the sky is true, he may have interpreted the sign as his own special deity commending the worship of the Christian God.  Perhaps Constantine continued to identify the sun with the Christian God in some way -- a belief made easier by the tendence of Christian writers and artists to use sun imagery in portraying Christ.  For them, Christ is the source of light and salvation; a mosaic from a third-century tomb found under St. Peter's, Rome, even shows him as the sun god in his chariot.  When in 321 Constantine made the first day of the week a holiday, he called it 'the venerable day of the Sun' (Sunday).

Constantine and his mother build churches

Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem

Another result of Constantine's conversion was renewed interest in the Holy Land by people in the West.  Since the failure of the Second Jewish Revolt of Bar Kokhba (132-135), Jerusalem had been a pagan city; Constantine and his mother Helena now made it Hadrian's Temple of Venus, and Helena discovered what was believed to be the 'True Cross' on which Jesus had been crucified.  Here -- with the Church of the Holy Sepulchre -- and elsewhere, Constantine and Helena built churches, and pilgrims came in increasing numbers to the holy places.

Christianity and Pagan Customs

Ave, Caesar! Io, Saturnalia! (1880) by Lawrence Alma-Tadema

The Christian church began to take over pagan ideas and images.  From sun-worship, for example, came the celebration of Christ's birth on December 25, the birthday of the sun.  Saturnalia, the Roman winter festival of December 17-21, provided the merriment, gift-giving, and candles typical of later Christmas holidays.  Sun-worship hung on in Roman Christianity, and Pope Leo I, in the mid-fifth century, rebuked worshippers who turned round to bow to the sun before entering St. Peter's Basilica in Rome.  Some pagan customs which were later Christianized, for example the use of candles, incense, and garlands, were initially avoided by the church because they symbolized paganism.

Sources:

Dowley, Tim, ed. Introduction to the History of Christianity, Second Edition. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2013, pages 104-106.

Eusebius of Caesarea, Life of Constantine 2.28-29 and 4.9, trans. Paul Keresztes, in "Constantine: Called by Divine Providence" in Elizabeth A. Livingstone, ed. Tudia Patristica (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1985).

Perpetua (d. 203 AD) would have died as an irrelevant person in a history of billions of irrelevant persons -- except she was willing to die for Jesus Christ

Stained-glass window of St Perpetua of Carthage (church of Notre-Dame of Vierzon, France, 19th century): martyrdom of St Perpetua and her fellows in the stadium of Carthage; Saint Felicity on her left

We have little idea what brought Perpetua to faith in Christ, or how long she had been a Christian, or how she lived her Christian life. Thanks to her diary, and that of another prisoner, we have some idea of her last days—an ordeal that so impressed the famous Augustine that he preached four sermons about her death.

Roman Emperor Septimius Severus (145 AD - 211 AD) decides to cripple Christianity

Septimius Severus at Glyptothek, Munich.

Perpetua was a Christian noblewoman who, at the turn of the third century, lived with her husband, her son, and her slave, Felicitas, in Carthage (in modern Tunis). At this time, North Africa was the center of a vibrant Christian community. It is no surprise, then, that when Emperor Septimius Severus determined to cripple Christianity (he believed it undermined Roman patriotism), he focused his attention on North Africa. Among the first to be arrested were five new Christians taking classes to prepare for baptism, one of whom was Perpetua.

Perpetua's pagan father tries to convince her to deny Jesus Christ

Mosaic of Saint Perpetua, Croatia.

Her father immediately came to her in prison. He was a pagan, and he saw an easy way for Perpetua to save herself. He entreated her simply to deny she was a Christian.

"Father do you see this vase here?" she replied. "Could it be called by any other name than what it is?"

"No," he replied.

"Well, neither can I be called anything other than what I am, a Christian."

In the next days, Perpetua was moved to a better part of the prison and allowed to breast-feed her child. With her hearing approaching, her father visited again, this time, pleading more passionately: "Have pity on my gray head. Have pity on me, your father, if I deserve to be called your father, if I have favored you above all your brothers, if I have raised you to reach this prime of your life."

He threw himself down before her and kissed her hands. "Do not abandon me to be the reproach of men. Think of your brothers; think of your mother and your aunt; think of your child, who will not be able to live once you are gone. Give up your pride!"

Perpetua was touched but remained unshaken. She tried to comfort her father—"It will all happen in the prisoner's dock as God wills, for you may be sure that we are not left to ourselves but are all in his power"—but he walked out of the prison dejected.

Perpetua is put on trial before governor Hilarianus and her father tries to dissuade her again

An acrylic painting depicting Christian martyrs Perpetua and Felicity by Mojaveprincess

The day of the hearing arrived, Perpetua and her friends were marched before the governor, Hilarianus. Perpetua's friends were questioned first, and each in turn admitted to being a Christian, and each in turn refused to make a sacrifice (an act of emperor worship). Then the governor turned to question Perpetua.

At that moment, her father, carrying Perpetua's son in his arms, burst into the room. He grabbed Perpetua and pleaded, "Perform the sacrifice. Have pity on your baby!"

Hilarianus, probably wishing to avoid the unpleasantness of executing a mother who still suckled a child, added, "Have pity on your father's gray head; have pity on your infant son. Offer the sacrifice for the welfare of the emperor."

Perpetua replied simply: "I will not."

"Are you a Christian then?" asked the governor.

"Yes I am," Perpetua replied.

Perpetua's father continues to try to convince her to deny Jesus Christ

Mary and Child with Saints Felicity and Perpetua (Sacra Conversazione), 1520, Anonymous (Polish)

Her father interrupted again, begging her to sacrifice, but Hilarianus had heard enough: he ordered soldiers to beat him into silence. He then condemned Perpetua and her friends to die in the arena.

Perpetua and the other convicts are sent to the gladiators to die

Painting showing the martyrdom of Perpetua, Felicitas, Revocatus, Saturninus and Secundulus, from the Menologion of Basil II (c. 1000 AD)

Perpetua, her friends, and her slave, Felicitas (who had subsequently been arrested), were dressed in belted tunics. When they entered the stadium, wild beasts and gladiators roamed the arena floor, and in the stands, crowds roared to see blood. They didn't have to wait long.

Immediately a wild heifer charged the group. Perpetua was tossed into the air and onto her back. She sat up, adjusted her ripped tunic, and walked over to help Felicitas. Then a leopard was let loose, and it wasn't long before the tunics of the Christians were stained with blood.

This was too deliberate for the impatient crowd, which began calling for death for the Christians. So Perpetua, Felicitas, and friends were lined up, and one by one, were slain by the sword.

As a result of the martyrdom of Perpetua and Felicitas at Carthage (North Africa) in 203, it was reported that the local prison governor was converted.

From Perpetua's Diary of Her Imprisonment

"Perpetua’s Ladder," Speculum Virginum, ca. 1140. London, British Library, MS Arundel 44, fol. 93v.

Perpetua confronts her father

La Grazia Perpetua

While we were under arrest, my father, out of his love for me, tried to persuade me to shake my resolve.

"Father," I said.  "Do you see this vase here, for example, or this water pot or whatever?"

"Yes," he said.

"Could it be called anything other than what it is?" I asked.

"No."

"Well, in the same way, I can't be called anything except what I am -- A Christian."

My father was so angry at the word "Christian" that he made as if he would tear my eyes out.  But he left it at that and departed, defeated along with his devilish arguments.

During those few days I was baptized, and I was inspired by the Spirit not to ask for any other favour after the water, except physical perseverance.

Perpetua had a baby before being imprisoned

Galleria di Francesco I, perdita della gioventù perpetua (1530)

A few days later we were lodged in the prison.  I was terrified, as I had never been in such a dark hole.  What a terrible time it was!  With the overcrowding, the heat was stifling.  There was also the extortion of the soldiers -- and on top of everything else, I was tormented with worry about my baby.

I had to endure these trials for days.  Then I obtained permission for my baby to be with me in prison.  Immediately I regained my health, relieved of worry and anxiety about the child.  Prison suddenly became a palace; I wanted to be there more than anywhere else.

Pepetua is put on trial for refusing to sacrifice to the emperors and her father pleads with her

Église Sainte-Perpétue et Sainte-Félicité de Nîmes

Then one day, while we were having breakfast, we were suddenly rushed off to court.  We arrived at the forum, and immediately the news flew around the neighbourhood and a huge crowd gatehred.  We entered the prisoners' dock.  When they were questioned, the others all admitted their guilt.  When my turn came, my father appeared with my son, dragged me from the bench, saying, "Make the sacrifice -- have pity on your baby!"

Hilarianus, the governor who succeeded the late proconsul Minicius Timianus as judge, said, "Have pity on your father's grey head; have pity on your infant son!  Offer the sacrifice for the well-being of the emperors!"

"I will not," I replied.

"Are you a Chrsitian?" said Hilarianus.

"I am!" I confessed.

Then Hilarianus passed sentence on all of us: we were condemned to the beasts.

We returned to prison in high spirits.

Perpétue et Félicité, Église de Tébourba, Public Library of Tebourba

Sources:

Perpetua's Diary of Her Imprisonment

Dowley, Tim, ed. Introduction to the History of Christianity, Second Edition. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2013, page 60.

Galli, Mark and Ted Olson, eds. 131 Christians Everyone Should Know. Nashville: B&H Publishing Group, 2000, pages 362-363.

Before becoming a "saint" and a doctor of the church, Augustine (354-430) amused himself by stealing pears with his friends in North Africa.



Giovanni Bellini, The Carrara Madonna, 1487, including a pear in the bottom right hand corner.

Augustine admits to stealing (and loving it!)

Portrait of a boy, three-quarter-length, in a black costume and a white ruff, holding a pear;  Lorenz Strauch (1554-1630)

 If the crime of theft which I committed that night as a boy of sixteen were a living thing, I could speak to it and ask what it was that, to my shame, I loved in it. I had no beauty because it was a robbery. It is true that the pears which we stole had beauty, because they were created by you, the good God, who are the most beautiful of all beings and the Creator of all things, the supreme Good and my own true Good. But it was not the pears that my unhappy soul desired. I had plenty of my own, better than those, and I only picked them so that I might steal. For no sooner had I picked them than I threw them away, and tasted nothing in them but my own sin, which I relished and enjoyed. If any part of one of those pears passed my lips, it was the sin that gave it flavour.

Augustine considers why he enjoyed, and was attracted to, stealing, and how this relates to his relationship with God

The Fortunes of a Street Waif, an illustration from the book Needham, George Carter (1884) Street Arabs and Gutter Snipes

And now, O Lord my God, now that I ask what pleasure I had in that theft, I find that it had no beauty to attract me. I do not mean beauty of the sort that justice and prudence possess, nor the beauty that is in man's mind and in his memory and in the life that animates him, nor the beauty of the stars in their allotted places or of the earth and sea, teeming with new life born to replace the old as it passes away. It did not even have the shadowy, deceptive beauty which makes vice attractive - pride, for instance, which is a pretence of superiority, imitating yours, for you alone are God, supreme over all; or ambition, which is only a craving for honour and glory, when you alone are to be honoured before all and you alone are glorious for ever. Cruelty is the weapon of the powerful, used to make others fear them: yet no one is to be feared but God alone, from whose power nothing can be snatched away or stolen by any man at any time or place or by any means. The lustful use caresses to win the love they crave for, yet no caress is sweeter than your charity and no love is more rewarding than the love of your truth, which shines in beauty above all else. Inquisitiveness has all the appearance of a thirst for knowledge, yet you have supreme knowledge of all things. Ignorance, too, and stupidity choose to go under the mask of simplicity and innocence, because you are simplicity itself and no innocence is greater than yours. You are innocent even of the harm which overtakes the wicked, for it is the result of their own actions. Sloth poses as the love of peace: yet what certain peace is there besides the Lord? Extravagance masquerades as fullness and abundance: but you are the full, unfailing store of never-dying sweetness. The spendthrift makes a pretence of liberality: but you are the most generous dispenser of all good. The covetous want many possessions for themselves: you possess all. The envious struggle for preferment: but what is to be preferred before you? Anger demands revenge: but what vengeance is as just as yours? Fear shrinks from any sudden, unwonted danger which threatens the things that it loves, for its only care is safety: but to you nothing is strange, nothing unforeseen. No one can part you from the things that you love, and safety is assured nowhere but in you. Grief eats away its heart for the loss of things which it took pleasure in desiring, because it wants to be like you, from whom nothing can be taken away.

Augustine realizes that in stealing, he was ursurping God

Detail of Sistine Chapel fresco Creation of the Sun and Moon by Michelangelo (c. 1512)

So the soul defiles itself with unchaste love when it turns away from you and looks elsewhere for things which it cannot find pure and unsullied except by returning to you. All who desert you and set themselves up against you merely copy you in a perverse way; but by this very act of imitation they only show that you are the Creator of all nature and, consequently, that there is no place whatever where man may hide away from you.

Augustine is the slave who ran away from his master (God) and chased a shadow instead by enjoying doing wrong

Gustave Boulanger's painting The Slave Market

What was it, then, that pleased me in that act of theft? Which of my Lord's powers did I imitate in a perverse and wicked way? Since I had no real power to break his law, was it that I enjoyed at least the pretence of doing so, like a prisoner who creates for himself the illusion of liberty by doing something wrong, when he has no fear of punishment, under a feeble hallucination of power? Here was the slave who ran away from his master and chased a shadow instead! What an abomination! What a parody of life! What abysmal death! Could I enjoy doing wrong for no other reason than that it was wrong?

Augustine's theft did not make him happy

Rōnin (a samurai with no lord or master during the feudal period (1185–1868) of Japan) robbing a merchant's house in Japan around 1860.  Photo from "Sketches of Japanese Manners and Customs", by J. M. W. Silver, Illustrated by Native Drawings, published in London in 1867

It brought me no happiness, for what harvest did I reap from acts which now make me blush particularly from that act of theft? I loved nothing in it except the thieving, though I cannot truly speak of that as a 'thing' that I could love, and I was only the more miserable because of it. And yet, as I recall my feelings at the time, I am quite sure that I would not have done it on my own. Was it then that I also enjoyed the company of those with whom I committed the crime? If this is so, there was something else I loved besides the act of theft; but I cannot call it 'something else', because companionship, like theft, is not a thing at all.

Augustine experienced pleasure from the crime rather than from the pears

Still Life With Quince, Apples, and Pears by Paul Cézanne (1839–1906)

No one can tell me the truth of it except my God, who enlightens my mind and dispels its shadows. What conclusion am I trying to reach from these questions and this discussion? It is true that if the pears which I stole had been to my taste, and if I had wanted to get them for myself, I might have committed the crime on my own if I had needed to do no more than that to win myself the pleasure. I should have had no need to kindle my glowing desire by rubbing shoulders with a gang of accomplices. But as it was not the fruit that gave me pleasure, I must have got it from the crime itself, from the thrill of having partners in sin.

How can I explain my mood? It was certainly a very vile frame of mind and one for which I suffered; but how can I account for it? Who knows his own frailties?

The prank tickles Augustine and his gang with laughter

Lachende Weiber (Smiling women) by Károly Kotász (1872–1941)

We were tickled to laughter by the prank we had played, because no one suspected us of it although the owners were furious. Why was it, then, that I thought it fun not to have been the only culprit? Perhaps it was because we do not easily laugh when we are alone. True enough: but even when a man is all by himself and quite alone, sometimes he cannot help laughing if he thinks or hears or sees something especially funny. All the same, I am quite sure that I would never have done this thing on my own.

Augustine did not steal the pears for gain but to experience enjoyment with his friends



Poire verte et couteau (green pear and knife). Signed Marcoussis. 1941.

My God, I lay all this before you, for it is still alive in my memory. By myself I would not have committed that robbery. It was not the takings that attracted me but the raid itself, and yet to do it by myself would have been no fun and I should not have done it. This was friendship of a most unfriendly sort, bewitching my mind in an inexplicable way. For the sake of a laugh, a little sport, I was glad to do harm and anxious to damage another; and that without thought of profit for myself or retaliation for injuries received! And all because we are ashamed to hold back when others say 'Come on! Let's do it!'

Saint Augustine. Confessions. Translated by R.S. Pine-Coffin. London: Penguin Group, 1961, Books II.6, II.8, II.9, pages 49-52.