Double murder
Constantine became jealous of his eldest son and heir, Crispus. The young  prince had become very popular because of his good looks, his charming  manner and his bravery on the field of battle. To make sure of his position as Emperor, Constantine had him murdered. the death of Crispus cast gloom over the whole realm. It was known that the stepmother of Crispus had  wanted her own son to succeed Constantine. She therefore had motive for killing Cripus. Constantine accordingly put the blame for his crime on her, and killed her by immersing her in a bath full of boiling water. He hoped  to mitigate one crime by the other. The result , however, was just the opposition of what he had planned - the supporters of the dead queen joined forces with the followers of his dead son, and both sought revenge. In desperation he turned to the priests of the Roman temple of Jupiter for help, but they told him there was no sacrifice or prayer which could absolve him from the two murders. It became so uncomfortable to be in Rome that Constantine decided to go to Byzantium.

Church's bad dealing
 On his arrival there, he renamed the city after himself , and called it Constantinople. Here he met with unexpected success from the Pauline Church. They said  that if he did penance in their Church his sins would be forgiven. Constantine made full use of this facility. His hands were not only stained with the blood from two murders, but were also full of the problems of governing his empire. Having salved his conscience with his confession , the life to come ceased to worry him, and he turned his attention to the affairs of the Empire. He saw the possibilities of using the Church to his own ends provided that he could win its loyalty to him , so he gave the Church his full support. With this unexpected backing, the Church became a strong force almost overnight. Constantine made full use of her. The country around the Mediterranean was dotted about with Christian churches and the Emperor utilised them to great advantage in the wars he was fighting. Many of the priests carried out very useful intelligence work for him, and their help was an important factor in his  efforts to unite Europe and the Middle East under him. Partly, as a token of his gratitude and partly in order to diminish the power of the Roman priests in the temple of Jupiter who had refused to support him. Constantine encouraged the Christians to open a church in Rome. However, Constantine did not become a Christian himself , for many of his subjects still believed in Jupiter and the other gods in the Pantheon of Rome. In order to ally any suspicious they might have, he made a number of decisions which seemed to prove that he too worshipped the Roman Gods. Everything appeared to be going very well when the old controversy between the Pauline and Apostolic Churches again, flared up.  

Change the center Jerusalem to Rome
Constantine  who at this stage neither understood nor believed in Christianity ,was the political advantage  of having a united Church which would obey him, and whose centre would be based in Rome, and not in Jerusalem. When the members of the Apostolic Church refused to comply with these wishes, he tried to compel them by means of force. This pressure from without, however, did not produce the desired result. A number of the Apostolic Christian communities still refused to accept the overlordship of the Bishop  of Rome. They recognised this move as a political ploy by a foreign ruler, and as sometimes entirely apart from the teaching of Jesus.

The Donatus
The first revolt came from among the Berber communities of North Africa. It was led not by Arius but by a man name Donatus . On the whole the Berbers have always retained certain basic beliefs, the strongest of which was their belief in the Divine Unity. They could believe in Jesus as a prophet, but never as God. Since Jesus had never said anything about Rome being the centre of his teaching, they could not entertain such an idea, let  alone attribute it to him retrospectively , In 313 A.D. Donatus was chosen  from among these people as their bishop. For forty years he remained the leader of their Church, which continued to flourish in opposition to the Bishop of Rome. According to Jerome. "Donatism" became the religion of nearly all North Africa within a generation, and neither force nor argument could change it.

The Bishop of Rome tried to install one of his own bishops in Carthage  to replace Donatus. His name was Cacealian. The prestige  of Constantine was such that, in the conflict which ensued, both parties appealed to him. It appears that they thought that whoever won his  support would have no further battles to fight. This attempt to win the patronage of Constantine brought with it a very important change in the history of Christianity For the first time  it had become possible for schism and unorthodoxy to become an offence punishable by secular law. This secular coat of Armour stood at the disposal of whoever could prove himself to be orthodox , and could then be used against those who differed from this new standard of orthodoxy. Constantine decided in favor of Cacealian. the populace of Carthage gathered around the office of the Roman pro-consul and denounced Cacealian. Constantine was annoyed by their action, but nevertheless  appointed a tribunal under the Bishop of Rome to hear the case of the two parties. Donatus was not present and no one was there to argue his case. The decision want against  him in absentia. The Apostolic church in Africa  refused to accept the ex parte verdict of the Roman Bishop. Constantine was scandalised that the "ministers of God were wrangling amongst themselves like ordinary litigants" (The Donatis Church, W. H. S. Frend, p 153) . In spite of his disappointment, he set up a new tribunal at Arles. The two  parties were told to travel there by different  routes in order to prevent any clashes before the hearing took place. The Donatists lost again. The decision was that "the bishops found themselves dealing with dangerous men who had no respect for authority or tradition. they were fit only for condemnation" (The Donatis Church, W. H. S. Frend, p 164). This was no more acceptable to the North African Christians than the previous rulings. As it was, they had little respect for the Roman pro-consul and the other imperial officials. For generations now the Christians had suffered persecution at their hands, and regarded them as emissaries of Satan. Formerly, they had been persecuted because they were Christians. Now they were to be persecuted because they were not the right kind of Christians. The North African Christians could not accept  that the officials of the Roman Empire had become servants of God overnight, merely because they sought to enforce a ruling  of the Pauline Bishop of Rome. Up until the point, Donatus had been their bishop. He now became their popular leader.

Very little is known about this remarkable man. The books he wrote and his precious library of manuscripts were all burned by the Roman soldiers. They performed these deeds in the name of the Roman Christian Church,  which , with the support of a pagan Emperor, was now beginning to grow in importance and strength . Thus, little is known about his background ,his personal appearance , his friends and the events in his life. It is known that Donatus was a fine orator and a great leader of men. He was met with such enthusiasm wherever he went that these times were remembered long after he had died. His followers used to swear by his "white hairs". He seems to have personified the popular loathing for the worldly ecclesiasts who were sure they would do well both in this life and the next if they performed the correct maneuvers. His integrity and honesty were recognised by friend and foe alike. He was known as the religious reformer "who purified the Church of Carthage from error".( The Donatis Church, W. H. S. Frend ) .He was regarded by the people as a worker of miracles and a saint wiser than Daniel. He stood as  firm as a rock against all attempts to erode and alter the original teaching of Jesus.

Constantine wrote a letter to the two churches urging them to forget their differences ante unite under the Church favoured by him. This letter is significant  in that Constantine regarded himself as being superior to the Church. Whatever its form, and any reference to Jesus was conspicuous by its absence" ( The Donatis Church, W. H. S. Frend ) . The letter had no effect on anyone, and no progress was made in enforcing the decision of the tribunal which had met at Arles.

 In July 315 A.D. ,the Emperor returned to Rome. It was necessary to go to Milan to suppress the Frankish incursions which had  begun in the north of Italy. When he again had some time at his disposal , he appointed a commission to travel to  Africa, examine the situation and settle the dispute. When the commission arrived, it was boycotted, and such a violent riot  took place that its members were forced to return to Italy without having achieved anything. This disquieting news reached Constantine in 316 A. D. He decided to go to North Africa in person and himself give a clear ruling as to exactly how the Supreme Deity should be worshipped.

 It is interesting that Constantine considered  it within his competence  to pass such a judgement . In the letter which he wrote to the two Churches in Africa, he concluded :

What more can be done by me, in accord with my constant practise and with the very office of a prince, than after expelling error and destroying rash opinion, to cause all men to argue together  to follow true religion and simplicity of life, and to render to almighty God the worship which is His due" (The Donatist Church ,W H. G Frend)

It is clear that once the example of Jesus was forgotten or ignored "true religion" became a matter of opinion, and there was no opinion that Constantine favoured more than his own. It was  only by approaching Christianity in this manner that Constantine could take such a keen  interest  in the internal affairs of a religion which he did not yet follow. Constantine regarded himself as a man who spoke with greater  authority than the leaders of the Churches,  and seems to have regarded himself more as God's own vicar than as an ordinary mortal. The Pauline bishops who had sat on the tribunal at Arles appear to have been of the same opinion  as Constantine. They claimed that their devising was recorded "in the presence of the Holy Ghost and His angels" (The Donatist Church ,W H. G Frend). Yet when their ruling was ignored, it was to the Emperor that they turned for help

 As it happened, Constantine did not make the journey to Africa he had planned : The Donatists had become so strong, he was told, that it was inadvisable to take part personally in the dispute between Donatus and Cacaelian. For should  his personal intervention meet with failure , it would be a great blow to his prestige. Instead, he issued a decree condemning Donatus and drawing his attention to "the advantage of worshipping the Supreme Deity in the proper manner" (Constantine the Great, J. B. Firth)  When it was ignored, "a most severe law" was dispatched to Africa.: the  churches held by the Donatists were to be confiscated, their  leaders were to be sent into exile . Cacaelian  at first tried to bribe the leaders of the Donatist Church, but without success. They defied the imperial command, ignored his bribes  and made his offers of money publicly known. Cacaelian was branded as "a man more cruel than the butcher and more brutal than a tyrant"(Constantine the Great, J. B. Firth) .

The Church of Rome, which had by now adopted the epithet "Catholic" to indicate the Universality of its approach in the worship of God, appealed to the Doantists to unite. The appeal had no effect, and Donatus refused to hand over his churches  to Cacaelian. Finally , the Roman  army came into action. There was a mass slaughter of people. dead bodies were thrown into wells, and bishops were murdered in their churches. However, the surviving Donatists remained firm, and if anything,  their movement became  strongest than before. They named their Church the "Church of Martyrs". These events widened the rift between the Doantists and the Catholic Church even further. Since the Catholic Church was working in alliance with the pagan magistrates and their soldiers , the Catholics were called schismatic and their  churches were identified as place of "hated idolatry".

Constantine , who was a good administrator, realised the futility of trying to restore religious harmony an unity by force. Deciding that discretion was the better part of  valour, he left the people in North Africa to themselves. However, it was these events and their  consequences which played a large part in his later making the decision to call the famous Council of Nicea. 

Before returning to the story of Arius, who at this point was just beginning to make his voice heard, it would be of interest give a brief history of the Donatist up until the coming of Islam : once Constantine had turned his attention away from North Africa to other parts of his Empire, the persecution of the Donatists lessened considerably and their numbers again began to increase rapidly. They became so powerful that when the Emperor had a church built for the Catholics of North Africa in 220 A. D. the Donatists took possession of it. The Emperor  was enraged, but could do nothing except promise the Catholics sufficient money to built another church for themselves. The Donatists movement spread even  to Rome . They too had a Bishop of Rome, but he was regarded as being a rank below the Bishop of Carthage and Nicomedia (The Donatist Church, W. H. C.Frend ,p .164)

Donatus acquired sovereign authority at Carthage He was regarded by the masses as a being superior to other mortals. He was never called a bishop, but was known as "Donatus of Carthage. Augustine once complained that the Donatists reacted more sharply to an insult against Donatus than to a blasphemy against Jesus , a fact which is easily explained by the strong and unkind language which many of the Catholics used when talking about Donatus.

When the reign of Constantine ended, the Donatists continued to work for the independence of their Church and to oppose any interference from the Emperor or his officials in matters of religion. They were not, however, narrow minded sectarians . Augustine himself observes that the Donatists did not oppress  the Catholics even when they outnumbered them. The Catholics , who were always ready to claim toleration for themselves, were not prepared to grant it to the Donatists when once more the imperial forces were sent to subdue these fearless  people. However, despite this continued persecution, the Donatists refused to allow the Emperor to alter the way they worshipped God. In their opinion, "the Catholics were evil priests working with the king  of the world. Relying on royal favours , they had renounced Christ" (The Donatist Church, W. H. C.Frend ,p .326)

After the death of Donatus, the people of North Africa continued to follow his example ,and for three hundred years his teaching of what Jesus had brought was followed by them. When Islam came to them, they embraced it, so well prepared were they for what was, after all , an extension and reaffirmation of the guidance they had been following.

 There was another movement similar to that of Donatus which took place simultaneously, yet quite independently of it, in the south of Egypt. Constantine was just about to make  another attempt at unravelling the tangled skein of North African  Christianity in 325 A. D. when his attention was drawn to Egypt, a country which was seething with discontent and revolt. When the persecution of the Christian by Diocletian was at its height, many of them had compromised themselves to avoid it. A priest called Meltius was now  saying that those priests who had publicly renounced Christianity should be prevented from reassuming their clerical function. He felt that they should also be stopped from attending all the assemblies of pure worship  unless they demonstrated sufficient proof of their penitence. Peter , who was patriarch of Alexandria at that time, advised a more lenient course. The majority of the people, however , supported Meletius. When  Alexander came on the Episcopal throne , he banished Meletius to the mines.

When Meletius returned, many followers gathered around him. He ordained bishops, priests and deacons and was responsible for building many churches. They refused to submit to their persecutors. Meletius called his Church the "Church of the Martyrs ", as opposed to the followers of the Alexander who called themselves Catholic and followed the Pauline version of Christianity. After the death of Melatius , Alexander forbade his followers to hold their assemblies of worship. In opposition to this order, they sent a deputation to Constantine. It was only with the help of Eusebius of Nicomedia that they were allowed  to see the Emperor. Their presence in his court was yet another factor which led tohis calling the council of Nicea .Eusebius was a friend of Arius, and it was through this meeting that contact was made between the Arian and Meletian movement.
                                           

Please click Next and read what happened next: [ Back ] [ Next ]

 (ICRA) 

[ Home ] [ Christianity ] [ Bible ] [ Christian Salvation Scheme ] [ Converts ] [ Prophesies ] [ True followers of Jesus ] [ Jesus-the Son of Man ] [ Jesus- the Son of God ] [ Women ] [ Bible and the Modern Sceince ] [ Holy Sins ] [ Comparative Studies ] [ links ] [ About us ] [ Contact us ] [ Site Map ]