Constantine the Great: the First Christian Emperor in History

Implausible though it may seem, the realms of politics and church have always been intertwined – right from the very beginning. One of the key political figures in the landscape of early Christianity was Emperor Constantine. Before Constantine, Christianity was outlawed in the Empire and the Christians were persecuted, killed, and their properties confiscated. But Constantine would go on to change all that and it required divine intervention to bring it about.

About the Tetrarchy

To give you some context, you should know that the Roman Empire under that time was under the system of rule known as Tetrarchy, put in place by Emperor Diocletian in 293 AD. The idea was that with the Empire vastly expanding from the west to the east, there would be two emperors or Augusti (plural for Augustus) ruling over the western and eastern portions of the realm. Also, instead of hereditary succession, a capable successor would be designated from the military ranks by each Augustus to serve as the Junior Emperor or Caesar under him.

As you can guess, this system of rule by four can easily lead to chaos when the time comes for the transfer of power. There were multiple claimants to the throne both in the East and the West. Constantine was one of them. His experience and expertise as a military leader under his father helped him in his battles against his rivals for the throne.

A message from heaven

Constantine wanted to unite the entire empire under him and his main obstacle to the throne was Maxentius. The fate of their rivalry was decided at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge on the 28 of October in 312 AD. Legend has it that on the eve of the battle, Constantine had a vision, in which Christ appeared to him in his dream and told him to fight under the symbol Chi Rho to ensure his victory. The symbol Chi Rho is formed by superimposing the first two letters of the name Christ in Greek.

A highly motivated Constantine ordered the entire army to march under the symbol the next day. The Chi Rho symbol was put upon the soldiers’ shields, banners, military standards and flags.

The Battle of the Milvian Bridge

Rome was under the control of Maxentius at that time. Maxentius led his army to the river Tiber to prevent Constantine from crossing the Milvian Bridge. It is very difficult to separate the facts from the legend here. By one account, an overconfident Maxentius tried to cross the bridge with his army and the bridge soon collapsed under him, drowning him instantly.

Another theory is that the bridge might have been weakened on purpose by Maxentius himself to prevent Constantine from marching to Rome. But the bottleneck near the bridge caused by both armies pushing against each other might have caused his horse to jump onto the bridge. Constantine, of course, ascribed the surprising turn of events to divine intervention.

Christianity becomes the official religion of the Roman Empire

With the entire Roman Empire unified under him, Constantine stopped the persecution of Christians by issuing the Edict of Milan and he would soon give Christianity the most privileged status above the pagan religions in Rome. The properties confiscated from the Christians were returned to them and with the approval of their Emperor, Roman citizens started converting to Christianity en masse. Later, his successor would go on to declare Christianity as the official religion of the Empire thus cementing the legacy of Constantine as the first Christian Emperor in history.