Rome... Headquarters of the most powerful
religious organisation in history.
It all started 1,700 years ago when a Pagan Roman Emperor, Constantine,
had a vision, converted and welcomed Christianity into his mighty Empire.
It marks the beginning of a relationship
between politics and religion, now Christianity could frame itself
as a triumphalist religion.
This is the story of how Constantine's change of heart
converted the Church from an underground and small-scale movement
to the global superpower of today, with over two billion believers.
It helped to organise even further this church
and make it its mission to evangelise the world more effective.
Constantine's conversion changed Christianity for ever.
It's given us glorious art, music,
architecture and helped to shape the Bible itself.
But did it distort the original teachings of Jesus of Nazareth?
I think this was one of the most tragic periods for Christianity.
Tragic. It completely changes the meaning of Christianity.
The concept of a just war
and bishops in parliament are just two present day legacies
of Constantine's conversion.
Before Constantine, the Roman Empire
had slaughtered Christians for entertainment.
Yet Constantine did a u-turn, deciding that Christ, executed by
Rome as a common criminal, was in fact the son of God.
I'm a former politician
and a former Christian.
But what I want to know is why Constantine,
that master of the political arts and leader of a Pagan realm, chose
to give his thumbs up to Christianity.
And what were the consequences of his conversion for the Roman Empire
and for the Christian faith?
Before Constantine's conversion, Christianity was a minority
in the wilderness without a prayer of sharing power.
Yet in the years after Jesus died in far off Jerusalem, his powerful
message had spread even to remote parts of Rome's vast empire, such as
Cappadocia, in modern Turkey, a heartland of Early Christianity.
The area of Cappadocia is rich in Christian myths of martyrs.
Do you this there's a particular reason for that?
It probably comes together with the landscape. It's very powerful
and at the same time a secluded environment framed by mountains.
So, they started first of all
gathering and worshipping in private houses.
These were called Domus Ecclesia.
Christianity was a renegade sect
that had broken away from the ancient religion of Judaism.
Hidden away in houses, caves and catacombs,
its early followers conducted rituals ranging from ecstatic
experiences to silent vigils.
Within the first 200 or 300 years of Christianity,
what different sects grew up?
Oh, a number of them.
And one of them was known as the Arians, developed
largely in northern Africa and they spread into this part of the world.
Extreme sects like Stylites,
monks living on columns, holy fools travelling around villages, talking
about Christianity in ways that weren't conformed with the Gospels.
The word was carried more authoritatively
by Christianity's holiest saints.
"From Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ to the strangers
"scattered throughout Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia..."
The First Letter of St Peter was addressed
to the churches of Asia Minor, urging them to endure sporadic
local persecution in the assurance that their hour would come.
"The trial of your faith is more precious than gold."
It suits politicians for the masses to be religious...
In moderation at least.
If the citizens
believe that there's a god or gods who see everything that they do
and hand out penalty points for bad behaviour, then they'll conform.
But religious extremism, that's something different altogether.
If people reject the authority of their rulers
when it clashes with the laws of their God, there'll be trouble.
For the Romans, the Christians were becoming a real pain.
In the 21st century,
states feel threatened by those whose eyes are fixed on heaven and
who take their orders only from an authority that's not of this world.
In the first century, Paul of Tarsus travelled through Asia Minor with
an equally revolutionary message,
that Jesus Christ was the promised Messiah come to save all mankind.
I've come to this cave
high above the ancient city of Ephesus where
the archaeologists and restorers are busy with their work...
In search of
St Paul the Apostle.
Miraculously preserved the earliest discovered mural of him
and the Bible tells us that he came to Ephesus on a missionary visit
in AD52,
and supposedly slept in this cave.
On the road to Damascus, Paul had a vision of Jesus and dedicated
his life to converting others around the known world,
with the constant risk of being martyred for his evangelising work.
The pagan practices that St Paul discovered in the city below,
outraged him.
Ephesus was a religious epicentre in the Pagan world.
Travellers came to worship at the Temples of Artemis and of Nike.
We like to call her Nike. You know, we like to make things English.
Yes, that Nike!
When she was just the Goddess of Victory, and to offer the gods
animal sacrifices.
How would they find out what the gods and goddesses wanted?
Priests and priestesses used to tell them wanted they wanted so each god,
or goddesses, had certain functions, certain duties.
So through this they knew of what the gods or goddesses wanted.
And how did the priests seek the guidance of the gods or goddesses?
Looking at the liver of the victims
sacrifice on the altar outside the temple.
Paul denounced sacrifices.
Jesus' sacrifice redeemed all humanity
He condemned the multiplicity of gods.
For him, there was only one god.
He berated the idol sellers at the temple.
As a consequence, Christians posed a threat to imperial interests.
Most of the Roman temples were functioning as banks so when
Christians told their followers not to go to temples, not to sacrifice
animals there, it was
radical drop, drastical drop of their income for the imperial cult.
And business is business!
Business is business, yes!
In the Roman world, there was no distinction
between religion and politics.
Emperors sought divine instructions and became gods themselves.
So the idea of a single god challenged the state.
Some emperors saw Christianity as treason punishable by death.
Here in Aphrodisius, a small city
dedicated to the goddess of Love, is a superbly preserved Roman stadium.
In places like this, traitors were dealt with sadistically.
By the time you get to the mid third century, some
emperors systematically decided that Christians either had to sacrifice
or they'd to be excluded.
By the time you to get to the late third century, Diocletian
and the age of persecutions into the early fourth centuries, then
we can, in fact, talk of empire-wide persecutions against Christians.
In stadia like this, families would gather to cheer on the gladiators.
And for lunch-time entertainment they might set a Christian ablaze,
or feed him to the wild beasts.
It might seem a one-sided struggle, the mighty Empire
with its armies and its jails and its arenas of death, pitted against
a few pacifist Christians.
But faced with impending slaughter, the Christians followed the example
of Jesus and welcomed death.
They deployed against the state
that most powerful of political weapons - martyrdom.
I think there's very clear evidence that as these huge waves of
persecution are unleashed, you get
a large growth in the Christian population.
There would probably be seen by the aristocracy, the powers that be
in their particular area, that's the chance where they have
to demonstrate their Christianity as they die in the arena.
They're dying well.
The willingness to die for faith won admiration amongst the Roman elite.
Amongst the converts to Christianity was Constantine's mother.
Constantine's mother was a Christian.
As a matter of fact she was.
And her name was Helena and we have a representation
of her here, in this church.
She's standing next to Constantine and what unites them is a cross.
She travelled as far as Jerusalem
and she was one of the first pilgrims.
Helena's faith led her to build the Church
of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, one of Christianity's holiest sites.
Persecution strengthens your enemies.
Martyrdom attracts new recruits.
Christianity spread.
His teachings touched the conscience of the most powerful man on earth.
Invited in from the cold, Christianity was to be enthroned
as a religious and political force without compare.
Despite persecution, or because of it, the Christian population reached
near 10% of the Roman Empire by the beginning of the fourth century.
With an effective structure of
bishops and clergy spread throughout the Empire,
the church found recruits even within the Roman legions.
In 306 AD, in far-off Britain,
the Roman army declared a new emperor, Constantine.
These fragments are part of a
huge statue of him commissioned during his life time.
Egotistical - yes, but his impact on our history and on our modern world
is indeed, colossal.
Without Constantine, history would
have been much different. That much we do know.
Had Constantine not ordered the fifty copies of the Gospel,
we wouldn't have had the Gutenberg Bible rolling off the printing press
in the 15th century.
Under Constantine, Christianity goes from being something
which opposes the Empire to being part of the Empire and then indeed
you have to be a Christian in order to be part of the Empire at all.
Because of the enormity of the Empire, it had four co-rulers.
Constantine governed Britain, Gaul and Spain.
Maxentius, co-Emperor in Rome, was unpopular and vulnerable.
Constantine fought his way across Europe ready to seize control
of the entire western half of the Empire.
The decisive encounter was on the road to Rome at the Milvian Bridge.
And it was here
that the crucial battle against his co-ruler Maxentius was fought.
But before that engagement
an extraordinary event is said to have occurred.
Constantine seems to have seen some kind of vision in the sky.
Later historians have supposed it was a solar halo.
Constantine's spin doctor, if we can call him that, Ucebius of Caesaria,
very firmly said it was the Kyro signal,
the symbol of Christ in the sky.
And that was it, he became a Christian.
Having once worshiped the pagan sun god, Sol Invictus,
Constantine now worshipped the son of God, Jesus Christ.
The following day, Constantine's vastly outnumbered
troops fought carrying shields marked with the sign of the cross.
In the battle, Maxentius was completely routed
and he was drowned in the River Tiber.
Constantine had indeed won under the sign of the cross.
These frescoes indicate what
we understand as the change in Constantine, the defeat of Maxentius
at the Milvian Bridge and then immediately afterwards the triumphal
entry into Rome when Constantine becomes the only Emperor of the West.
What happens to the loser, Maxentius?
Maxentius was fished out of the river and decapitated and Constantine
paraded his head in the triumphal march through the streets of Rome.
Oh, I see. There, indeed, we see the head.
Yes. Yes.The crowned head
of poor old Maxentius, having spent a night in the water of the Tiber.
Parading your rival's head on a pole may not seem especially Christian.
The truth of Christianity in Constantine's mind
was perhaps somewhat ambiguous.
Constantine was an emperor.
He was ruthless. He was ambitious and he was very successful.
At the same time, in his own way,
I do think he embraced this Son of God, S-O-N and not S-U-N,
to be the Son of God
and therefore his hope in the afterlife of redemption.
Historians and churchmen have for centuries debated
whether Constantine's conversion was more political than sincere.
We are still guessing.
Whatever it was, the conversion of Constantine was the single most
important political event in the history of the Christian church.
By 313 AD, Constantine had
implemented a policy of empire-wide religious toleration, giving the
Christian church open access to the wealth and power of the state.
The pomp and ceremony
of earthly rulers, for example the opening of Parliament,
scarcely compares with the grandeur of the Pope and his cardinals.
At this Papal mass in St Peter's,
diplomats and clergy sit side by side.
Secular governments must maintain relations with the Papacy.
As part of Constantine's legacy, the Pope is a highly significant figure
in world politics.
Imposing churches were built in Rome, including the first basilica
of St Peter's.
But in those days the most important was St John in Lateran, still the
cathedral of the city though rebuilt and embellished over the centuries.
We're now in St John the Lateran Church, which is a very big church,
but of course this isn't Constantine's church.
How did his compare with this one?
It's an amazing similarity. We're looking at the same
ground coverage that...
But that is unbelievable. I mean, this church is enormous
and feels enormous and you're saying that in the fourth century
Constantine constructed something at least of similar dimensions?
Weren't the pagans put out by these enormous buildings
being erected for Christians?
Constantine's building programme was very carefully laid out, in such
a way that most of the churches he
built were outside the city walls to begin with and even this church, the
cathedral, this church was built on the farthest outskirts of the city.
Right outside this church we see the city walls.
Not only did he construct the enormous building, but he also gave
beautiful marble columns, he gave 40 gold and silver chandeliers for
the nave, he gave silver plate, gold plate candlesticks.
So, he filled the church with beautiful objects.
For centuries, the Christians had been persecuted.
They'd been fed to lions, they lived underground in catacombs,
they'd worshipped in churches no bigger than a house.
And then along comes Constantine and showers them with riches.
Well, you wouldn't say no.
You wouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth.
But if, since the time of Christ, you'd been preaching,
"Blessed are the meek, and blessed are the poor,"
and then you inherit this...
It's bound to change you, isn't it?
I think it's one of the most tragic periods for Christianity, if not...
Tragic?
Tragic. It completely changes the meaning of Christianity.
For example,
Christians go from loving their enemies, as Jesus told them to do,
to killing them on the battlefield and then praying for them.
They go from setting slaves free to endorsing a system of slavery.
They go from being opposed to torture to actually being part of those who
do the imprisoning. You know, this is a complete 180 degree turn.
The Roman Senate erected this arch in honour of Constantine
in AD 315 and it celebrates his divine inspiration.
But nowhere does it mention the name Jesus Christ.
The Christians were still a minority and the Romans were anxious not to
alienate the pagan majority.
Rather than Constantine converting
the empire to Christianity, it might be more accurate to say
that he converted Christianity to his needs as an emperor.
Some Christians looked back to the early days of Christianity
and they looked back to the time of the martyrs and believed that
in fact the empireshouldbe separate from Christianity.
And not everyone was delighted with being in the centre of power.
The rapid growth of the monastic movement in this period
was a quiet protest against what the church enthroned had become.
PRAYING
In Christianity, why do we have monks?
When does monasticism begin?
Before, the time of Constantine there are a lot of martyrs
and the martyrs' spirit was quite strong in those early centuries.
When it became very unlikely that they would do that, in
other words martyrdom was no longer probable because the empire tolerated
and encouraged Christianity, there were those who tried to embrace
the martyr spirit in a new form,
which was a form of rejection of the social context
and living an exemplary life of asceticism
and dedication, which was seen as another form of martyrdom or witness.
But this dichotomy was already present in the new testament where
you get some parts which suggest the importance of a faithful,
responsible collaboration with the political authorities.
For example in some parts of St Paul.
On the other hand there's a radically negative few,
like in the book of Revelation which more or less is saying that the
political system is totally corrupt and the only way forward is to
somehow bypass it all, overcome it because it has been destroyed.
So already this dichotomy is present from the beginning.
Dissent and disagreement characterised the church
from its earliest days.
One argument threatened to tear it apart.
Was Jesus more human then divine?
If divine, how could he have died on the cross?
But if human, how could he be resurrected or offer redemption?
This long running theological schism had powerful factions on each side.
Constantine saw the threat to good order.
He summoned the first Council of Nicaea
in 325 AD to resolve the dispute.
A special conference is a device still used today
when political parties need to reconcile the irreconcilable.
But it was less a deal than a victory for those who saw Jesus
as inseparable from God,
and unlike any settlement that I've ever been involved in,
this one didn't come unstitched.
It's endured for seventeen centuries.
He gets all the theologians and the bishops together and says,
"We've got to agree what we believe".
Now why does he do that?
Unity. You've got to have religious unity.
Religion is the glue that holds the social and political order together.
If the religion goes wrong, if there's division
within religion, then your social and political system is under threat.
After months of debate, Constantine eventually ruled that Jesus was of
the same substance as God.
In other words, officially divine.
This was now orthodox Christian doctrine and
has remained so ever since.
I believe in one God, the father almighty, the maker of Heaven and
earth and in one Lord Jesus Christ,
the only begotten Son of God, begotten not made, being of
one substance with the Father by whom all things were made...
I was brought up a Catholic and every Sunday
recited the Nicene Creed, "I believe in one God, the Father almighty..."
I didn't know what Nicene meant and the description of Jesus Christ
as being of one substance with the Father was obscure to me.
I now realise it was defining orthodoxy
which meant that it also defined heresy,
and over the centuries the church has put its heretics
to the rack, the sword and the fire.
...Who for us men and for our salvation came down from Heaven
and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary and was made man,
and was crucified also for
us under Pontius Pilate...
Constantine does publish what we would now call anti-heresy
legislation where he states that individuals who are not
part of the official Catholic church must have certain sanctions placed
against them.
This is an extraordinary change, isn't it?
I mean, that Christians go from being a population,
at least potentially persecuted, to being a population now protected
by anti-heresy laws. That's an enormous change.
It is, and I think the anti-heresy legislation
is a sort of marking point perhaps of some aspects of our modern world
where religion enters into the legal sphere in a way
in which it was just inconceivable to have happened previously.
Constantine's conversion had started a process by which
orthodox Christianity was endorsed,
and consequently deviancy from orthodoxy condemned.
Even if Christ brought the world a message of peace, no emperor could
afford to take that too literally.
His personal ambition and dynastic
duty required him to push at his frontiers through military conquest
and it would be for later theologians
to reconcile faith with war.
The Empire had been sub-divided
into West and East under different rulers.
But Constantine invaded and conquered the East,
making himself the single emperor, and creating a new Imperial capital.
He founded a new Rome, which he modestly named after himself,
Constantinople.
It was the dawn of a new civilisation
in which imperial authority and Christian power were synonymous.
That new empire was to be known as Byzantium.
And there Constantine was instrumental
in creating the most powerful tool for the advancement of Christianity.
A single authorised account of
the life of Christ and his apostles that would become the New Testament.
Constantine changed Christianity from a largely clandestine creed
into a Church with immense authority and global reach.
And so, for many Christians he's a hero.
But what fascinates me is whether he perverted
the revolutionary message of Jesus Christ,
which blessed peace instead of war
and whether his conversion was really good for Christianity.
I don't think he ever really could have foreseen
the drastic, seismic consequences of his decision, what he set in train.
Before Constantine came to power,
the Roman Empire had been divided between East and West.
Constantine brought the East under his control,
and in 330 AD, on the shores of the Bosphorus he founded a new capital,
Constantinople, modern-day Istanbul.
In support of the minority Christian population
he also started a programme of building resplendent churches.
But despite his conversion to Christianity,
Pagan symbols were imported and placed in this "new Rome".
Constantine built a hippodrome for chariot races
based on the Circus Maximus in old Rome.
At its centre, he erected a huge column to hold aloft his own statue,
depicting him as Sol Invictus, the pagan sun god.
Constantine did also place insignia of Sol on his coinage, the sun god,
who, at the time, some Christians also incorporated.
So I think Constantine was actually a master of hitting a balance
in using symbols that Christians could interpret as being Christian
and non-Christians could interpret as non-Christian.
He was a consummate politician.
The man knew you can't just come out and effect a radical change,
even if that is what he'd wanted to do.
Amongst political tacticians, Constantine is one of the greats.
He elbowed his rivals aside,
he brought the Christians into his coalition
and he annexed their power structure of bishoprics.
I think he sees the political expediency of the situation
but I don't think that's entirely what governs him.
I also think he has some kind of awakening to Christianity,
but that doesn't mean he isn't a shrewd political operator.
I think it's safe to say that later on in his life,
as he began to appreciate the finer points of theological polemic more,
he got into Christianity in a more intellectual way.
And this he did with the help of a formidable churchman,
Bishop Eusebius of Caesarea, his religious advisor and biographer,
an image-maker, who understood the black arts of shaping the truth,
who would interpret a career of ambitious war-mongering...
..as the mission of a Christian saint.
The terms "spin" and "spin doctor" were invented only recently,
while I was in the Cabinet.
But the need to put the best possible construction
on political action is as old as power itself.
To communicate a message, to create a myth,
helps a leader to control a populous,
and by all accounts Eusebius did a fine job for Constantine.
Here's something that even Alastair Campbell could be proud of.
Eusebius' account of Constantine's ruthless conquest of the East.
"Constantine, the friend of God,
"acting upon the basis of sound judgment
"and mingling the firm principles of justice and humanity,
"undertook to save the greater part of the human race."
In 331 AD, at Constantine's behest,
it fell to Eusebius to provide 50 copies of the Gospels.
Before then, the copying and circulation of these sacred texts
relied on individuals. But now, copies of the Gospels
would be spread throughout the Eastern Empire
on Constantine's order.
Here, in facsimile, are pages from the document
thought to have been commissioned by Constantine,
for use in churches here in Constantinople.
Eusebius was given the task of deciding
which stories of Christ and the Apostles to include,
and which to leave out,
and that "officialising" of the Christian text
evolved into the most powerful artefact
of politics and religion combined.
The best-selling book of all time.
The Holy Bible.
Over the next hundred years, these texts were collated
to form what we recognise as the New Testament.
Across centuries, around the globe and spanning different cultures,
these texts have secured an extraordinary degree of acceptance
amongst all who follow Christ.
A third of the sacred texts in circulation at that time,
including some revered gospels, were eliminated as spurious or heretical,
including one purportedly by Saint Peter,
another by Jesus' supposed brother
and even one so-called Gospel Of Philip, which suggested that Christ
might have had a relationship with Mary Magdalene.
It's the sort of heresy later made famous by The Da Vinci Code.
During Constantine's reign, the church as an institution
began to take shape.
A single creed was established,
Holy Scripture was defined,
and the bishops were brought under imperial guidance.
Constantine now recognised the man that Rome had crucified
as the true son of God.
Jesus Christ was put on a charge of blasphemy
and put on a cross by the religious authorities
inalignment with the empire.
The church hasan important role to play in challenging government.
But the truth of the matter is,
it's going to challenge government less when it's in bed with it,
and it's going to challenge it more when it's further apart from it.
When you have 26 bishops who sit in the second chamber,
who sit with the Government, at least in name,
you've got a real conflict of interest.
So, bishops in the House of Lords
are a remnant of the conversion of Constantine?
Indirectly, they are.
Indirectly, this is a hangover of the Constantinian era.
We all know there are many other factors,
but it all started with Constantine bringing Church and state together.
The two have been tangled up in a very dubious mess ever since.
Constantine didn't find it politic to persecute Christians,
nor to persecute pagans either.
But after Constantine's death in 337 AD came other emperors
with different ideas.
This church in Ephesus,
then a pagan city of pilgrimage, was built in the fourth century.
Alongside established temples arose churches for Christian worship.
Constantine balanced Christians and pagans with masterful ambiguity.
Theodosius, who became Emperor in 379 AD
and who built the Church of St Mary at Ephesus,
was of a different stamp.
He decided to resolve the ambiguity firmly - brutally.
There's a profound misunderstanding that Christianity was made
the official religion of the Empire by Constantine the Great.
This is not true.
In the time of Constantine it was a free religion of the Empire,
it was a free faith,
but it was made the official faith of the empire by Theodosius I
in the fourth century AD.
He prohibited the pagan worship and the temples were closed
and sacrificing animals for gods and goddesses outlawed by him.
"We decree that we shall cease from making sacrifices.
"And if anyone has committed such a crime
"let him be stricken with the avenging sword.
"And we decree that..."
This law says that the Nicene Christianity shall be
the Christianity of all subjects of the empire.
This particular piece of legislation ties citizenship to Christianity.
Do you believe and trust in God the Father who made Heaven and Earth?
Under Theodosius, baptism means citizenship of the Roman empire.
It's no longer citizenship of the Kingdom of God,
it's citizenship of Rome and allegiance to the state.
It's a logical extension -
if you have to have a religion that holds the empire together
then why not enforce your religion?
"I believe and trust in Him..."
Known for his ferocious temper,
Theodosius went on the rampage against paganism.
He sent his Christian soldiers into Egypt and Syria
to tear down the pagan temples.
In Ephesus this was once the great Temple of Artemis,
the Greek goddess of fertility.
It was one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world.
The apostle Paul had once been here to preach the message of Christ
to Pagan worshippers.
Now the Christians were back, armed with more than words.
In a few decades, Christians had made the journey
from persecuted to persecutors.
This column is all that remains of the Temple of Artemis.
From the time of the Emperor Theodosius,
it was pillaged by Christians.
As we saw so often during the 20th century,
a new movement eradicates every vestige of the culture it supplants.
The marble was taken and used to build churches,
such as Hagia Sophia in Constantinople,
to the glory of God...
and of the Emperor, of course.
Hagia Sophia became the most significant symbol in the East
of the power of Church and state united.
What Constantine, the man who maybe lay in this sarcophagus,
bequeathed to the Empire in the West - to Rome - is another story.
Because, whilst here in the East, Church and state remained as one,
in the West, Rome fell to the barbarians,
and into that imperial vacuum stepped a new power
that is still with us today - the Papacy.
It enabled the Christian church to develop a hierarchy very rapidly,
the pope in Rome assumes a certain position, which is almost comparable
to the one which the Emperor has in the Roman world.
The Roman Emperor Constantine
had set in motion the globalisation of Christianity
when he adopted it as his religion,
and gave the Church riches, stunning architecture and authority.
In the Western Empire, Constantine's legacy is the Roman Catholic Church.
And this is the headquarters of its global media reach.
From here, 200 journalists, drawn from 51 countries,
broadcast in 40 languages to five continents.
So you can only feel left out if you live in Antarctica.
'From this studio,
'they're transmitting the voice of the Vatican to South America.'
The survival of the Church in Rome
might be regarded as a sort of miracle.
For within a few years of Constantine's death,
the Church's imperial sponsors were defeated and expelled.
The empire was internally divided,
and faced increasingly formidable enemies from the North.
In 410 AD, the unthinkable happened,
and the city of Rome fell to the Visigoths.
The blame for angering the pagan Gods was placed on the Church.
Christianity's failure to protect Rome
caused a spiritual crisis amongst the faithful.
One man stepped forward to defend the Church,
and to reconcile the eternal Glory of Heaven
with the temporary troubles of life on Earth -
Saint Augustine of Hippo.
One of his great works is City Of God and it follows the sacking of Rome.
And he's basically trying to explain why Christianity is not a threat!
Why it hasn't been detrimental to Rome to take on Christianity.
Essentially he sets up political theology
for hundreds of years afterwards, in so doing.
What Augustine attempts to do is to rethink that whole relationship
between imperial power and Christianity in a very specific way.
Saint Augustine's solution was revolutionary.
The City of God isnoton Earth,
nor is it shaken when the cities of this world fall to foreign invaders.
To be citizens of that heavenly city, we must place ourselves
in the hands of the Church and follow the lead of the Pope,
the bishop of Rome, successor to Saint Peter.
Having enjoyed the protection of Constantine,
the Church was now strong enough to prosper in Rome
long after its protectors had passed into history.
In 476 AD, the puppet emperor Romulus Augustulus was deposed.
There were to be no more Roman emperors in the West
until Charlemagne in the year 800.
It was the Christian Church that benefited.
Into the void left by the collapse of the empire in the West
stepped...the Pope.
APPLAUSE
By that stage, the line of emperors is really extremely weak,
and the Popes naturally fill that vacuum.
They are substantial figures in their own right as head of the church,
the large majority of the population in the city are Christians
and therefore respect the Papacy as a religious leader.
And it's obvious that they would also be happy that he takes some kind
of political role to help them in the face of these barbarian invasions.
Is there ever a time when a Pope controls an army?
Oh, yes. The Pope always had a small army.
Even today we have the Swiss Guards and a small Papal army.
And there's a long period in the Middle Ages and afterwards
when you do have these predominantly Christian societies.
And they, at times, speak more in terms of converting,
preaching, more with the sword also.
By the seventh century,
the Papacy was the largest landowner on the Italian peninsula,
and its armies were fully prepared to defend
and advance those territories.
Again, it was Augustine's formidable intellect
that conceived the legal notion of a just war,
a concept that resolved the conflict between a Church that had armies
and the Biblical Commandment, "Thou shalt not kill".
St Augustine said that for a war to be just,
it must be officially authorised,
have a proper cause and achievable goals, and be proportionate.
When I was Defence Secretary,
international law constrained what British forces could do in Bosnia.
The principles, even today, are recognisably Augustinian.
During the Middle Ages, St Thomas Aquinas would amend St Augustine
to justify any action fought with good intentions.
EXPLOSION
And, as we understand from today's world,
the road to total war is paved with good intentions.
George Bush remarked that God would be his judge over the war in Iraq.
Mixing, in a way that shocked me...
EXPLOSION
..political action with the role of the divine.
'I believe that matters of faith and state should not be confused.
'But if I examine myself,
'I've also to recognise that being brought up in a society
'shaped by Christianity, taught its stories and its liturgies,
'leaves me deeply affected
'by the Church's extraordinary reach and influence.
'Having built up its institutional power from Constantine onwards,
'that Church is still ruled from Rome today.'
It's had a profound effect on our civilisation,
whether you are a believer or a non-believer,
whether you're practising or whether you're lapsed.
Your values, your political philosophy, even your vocabulary
is immensely affected by the simple fact
that you are a citizen of Christendom.
Constantine's conversion to Christianity
is a critical event in world history.
True, before Constantine, Christianity was already growing.
But his adoption of the faith brought it in from the cold.
He established it on a pedestal from which it has never been toppled,
and set precepts that still shape the faith
of billions of worshipers around the world.
The conversion of Constantine put Christians into power,
and as a result, the Church has sometimes been corrupted
by money and by secular ambition.
And that leads some Christians to believe
that Constantine was a bad thing.
But if the Church had not become established,
then probably it would not have converted
the hundreds of millions that it did.
And, since Christians believe that those souls
have been granted eternal life,
that makes Constantine a very good thing.
My view? Well, I'm a lapsed Catholic,
and I believe that power is for politicians, not churchmen.
So Constantine gets my thumbs down.
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