It’s common knowledge that Constantine was the first Christian Emperor of the Roman Empire. And it’s fairly well known that he began a crack down on pagan worship and belief while simultaneously promoting Christianity and the Christian church opening up the state treasuries for the building of numerous churches and basilicas around the empire. But there’s much less information on his antisemitism – his heavy dislike of Jews and Judaism and his attacks on them as killers of the Christian God as he put it.
Constantine used very harsh and intemperate language when discussing Jews and in this video we’ll go through what he says in one of his surviving letters written during the Council of Nicaea in 325CE. And in this letter, in his mentions and referrals to Jews, he uses language such as bloodstained men, mentally blind, a detestable mob, thoroughly evil persons, Lord-killers, murderers of the Lord. He also accuses the Jewish nation of perjuring themselves alluding to their part in the death of Jesus as well as attacking them on what he reckoned amounted to parricide ie killing of their parent meaning Jesus or God.
And this change from being a pagan who originally perhaps had neutral feelings towards the Jewish nation and its beliefs and traditions and certainly no outright hostility to becoming a Christian and inheriting the animus against the Jews that many Christians had begun nurturing at the time as they grew into a different religion was extremely important. It has to be remembered that Jews living in the Roman Empire were quite a substantial minority. So this hostile attitude would affect a considerable portion of the population. And it also perhaps more importantly laid the the foundations for state and official anti-semitism as Christian states that replaced the Roman Empire after its decline and fall during the fifth century inherited that same attitude toward the jews. Anti-semitism would be here to stay for the next two thousand years.
Who was Eusebius?
Much of what we have on what Constantine said and did comes from a chap called Eusebius of Caesarea. Eusebius was the bishop of Caesarea Maritima in Palestine during Constantine’s reign. And Eusebius wrote various books on Christian belief and history but he’s most famous for his biography or perhaps even a hagiography on Constantine called Vita Constantini or Life of Constantine. This work isn’t an impartial biography of the Emperor Constantine by any means. Eusebius was heavily anti-pagan and delighted in Constantines’s conversion and his subsequent actions against both pagans and Jews. And his biography portrays Constantine as almost a saint who could do no wrong and painting his rivals for power like Maxentius and Licinius as evil and allied with demons and devils. So we have to take the details and narrative written down by Eusebius or Saint Eusebius as he would become with quite a large a pinch of salt. However the Life of Constantine remains the most valuable source and record on the actions, beliefs and life of Constantine and its been used throughout the centuries as such.
Constantine begins promoting Christianity
Eusebius importantly leaves a good record on how Constantine began to promote Christianity and his actions against other religions.
On the pagans for example he would write on the beginnings of the campaign to eradicate pagans and paganism in the uppermost branches of Government.
‘…From this the Emperor went on to take practical steps. He first sent governors to the peoples in their various provinces, for the most part men consecrated to the saving faith [Christianity ]; those who preferred paganism he forbade to sacrifice. The same applied also to the ranks above provincial government, the highest of all, who held office as prefects. If they were Christians, he permitted them to make public use of the name; if otherwise disposed, he instructed them not to worship idols.‘ – Eusebius
And he describes the almost irreversible process he now put into place to replace the Greco-Roman temples of worship with Christian churches.,
‘…Next, two laws were simultaneously issued. One restricted the pollutions of idolatry which had for a long time been practised in every city and country district, so that no one should presume to set up cult-objects, or practise divination or other occult arts, or even to sacrifice at all. The other dealt with erecting buildings as places of worship and extending in breadth and length the churches of God, as if almost everybody would in future belong to God once the obstacle of polytheistic madness had been removed.‘ – Eusebius
The council of Nicaea
So these were the early measures that would affect the pagan majority. But let’s get into what Constantine felt about the Jews. Constantine took the opportunity to make his feelings on the Jews very clear during the famous Council of Nicaea held in 325CE. The council of Nicaea had been arranged to thrash out several issues on dogma and tradition that had arisen in the early church.
The major item on the agenda was the strand of Christianity called Arianism which threatened a schism in the Christian Church. Arianism led by the Egyptian Bishop Arius differed from other Christian sects specifically on the nature of Christ. Arian Christians essentially believed Jesus was not equal to God but was a lesser being while Catholics energetically promoted the idea that Christ was equal to God in the Christian Trinity.
And Arians practiced other customs that were clearly forbidden in the New Testament in the Pauline epistles. For example an early Church father Theodoret wrote of the Arians ‘disgracefully allowing young women to teach doctrine’. So issues like this had to be ironed out and Arians advised to return to proper church teaching.
‘… the effects of the resentment of envy dreadfully agitating the churches of God in Alexandria, and the evil schism [Arianism] in the Thebaid and Egypt. disturbed him considerably. The bishop of one city was attacking the bishop of another, populations were rising up against one another, and were all but coming to physical blows with each other, so that desperate men, out of their minds, were committing sacrilegious acts, even daring to insult the images of the Emperor. But this did not so much rouse him to anger as to mental anguish, as he grieved at the senseless conduct of the deranged’ – Eusebius
But the second important issue to be discussed and related to Judaism was when exactly to mark Easter. Several dates were in use by the 4th century by the many Christian sects and strands that had popped up. There seemed to be no consensus and there was a need to synchronise the community to one particular anniversary. The only anchor for these dates was the Jewish feast of Passover. For that was when Jesus was crucified according to the gospels. So Christians used the Jewish calculations for marking Passover to also commemorate Easter as well in parallel. However this made them dependant on the Jews and the Jewish calendar and Christianity by this time had become to all intents and purposes a quite different and separate belief. So Constantine would use this issue to launch a pretty savage attack on the Jews and use the working out of the anniversary of Easter as an excuse to separate Christianity entirely from its dependence on the jewish passover and calendar.
Constantine’s letter
When the Council of Nicaea was being wound up Constantine would write a letter to the churches around the empire and to the wider audience both signalling his intentions on the issue and simultaneously attacking the jews. He advocated for not marking the Easter date based on the passover of the Jews and in his address starts with a request that the date for easter should be standardised.
Constantinus Augustus to the churches.
‘Thereupon, since a controversy had broken out on the subject of the most holy day of Easter, it was unanimously decided that it would be best for everyone everywhere to celebrate it on the same day. For what could be better for us, and more reverent, than that this festival, from which we have acquired our hope of immortality, should be observed invariably in every community on one system and declared principle?’
Following this he then launches an attack on the jews considering it an evil that Christianity despite taking root from Judaism should never have anything in common with them and certainly not to base any observances on the Jewish calendar.
‘In the first place it was decreed unworthy to observe that most sacred festival in accordance with the practice of the Jews; having sullied their own hands with a heinous crime, such bloodstained men are as one might expect mentally blind. It is possible, now that their nation has been rejected, by a truer system which we have kept from the first day of the Passion to the present, to extend the performing of this observance into future periods also. Let there be nothing in common between you and the detestable mob of Jews!’ – Eusebius
And then in relation to Easter he felt it inappropriate for Christians to rely on the Jewish calendar for its dates.
‘We have received from the Saviour another way; a course is open to our most holy religion that is both lawful and proper. Let us with one accord take up this course, right honourable brothers, and so tear ourselves away from that disgusting complicity. For it is surely quite grotesque for them to be able to boast that we would be incapable of keeping these observances without their instruction.‘ – Eusebius
Not content with speaking of the calendar dates, he then goes pretty much of at a tangent attacking their role in the death of Jesus
‘What could those people calculate correctly, when after that murder of the Lord, after that parricide, they have taken leave of their senses, and are moved, not by any rational principle, but by uncontrolled impulse, wherever their internal frenzy may lead them? Hence it comes about that in this very matter they do not see the truth, so that nearly always they get it wrong, and instead of the proper calculation they observe the Pascha a second time in the same year. Why then do we follow those who are by common consent sick with fearful error? We would never allow the Pascha to be kept a second time in the same year. But even if that argument were absent, your Good Sense ought to make it the continual object of your effort and prayer, that the purity of your soul should not by any resemblance appear to participate in the practices of thoroughly evil persons.’ – Eusebius
Now he mentions Pascha or passover being observed twice a year and that’s technically correct. There was the main Passover and then there was a more minor passover held later that year and this was for the benefit of Jews who could not for some reason celebrate the main passover. So while it was celebrated twice there was no confusion as to which was the real passover.
Constantine had also noticed Christians marked the occasion of Easter in different ways depending on their particular allegiance to one strand or another of Christianity. Some celebrated Easter almost like a party with plenty of food and drink – for that was the day that Jesus allegedly rose up again. Others took a completely opposite view and adopted a much more sober attitude fasting through this period. And these two ways of marking the occasion were incompatible with each other and there had to be standardized. Either Easter was to be created as a joyous event or as a sober event.
‘But let your Holiness’s good sense reflect how dreadful and unseemly it is, that on the same days some should be attending to their fasts while others are holding drinking parties, and that after the days of Pascha some should be busy with feasts and recreations while others are dedicating themselves to the prescribed fasts. That is the reason therefore why divine Providence intends that this matter should achieve the proper settlement and be brought under one regulation, as I presume all are aware.’ – Eusebius
So he took this opportunity not only to clarify how Easter was to be marked but also to make a brutal sideswipe at the Jews.
‘Since therefore it was proper that the matter should be adjusted in such a way that nothing be held in common with that nation of parricides and Lord-killers, and since a decent system exists, which all the churches of the western, southern and northern parts of the world observe, and also some of the churches in the eastern areas, and as a consequence all have at this time judged that it is right (and I have personally given my word that it will please your Good Sense), that what is observed with one harmonious will in the City of Rome, in Italy and all Africa, in Egypt, the Spains, the Gauls, the Britains, the Libyas, the whole of Greece, the administrative region of Asia, Pontus and Cilicia, your Intelligence also will gladly embrace, when you reflect that not only is the number of the churches in the places mentioned greater, but also that it is a supremely holy thing for all to hold in common what seems both to be required by correct computation and to have nothing to do with Jewish perjury;’ – Eusebius
And he referred to the Council of Nicaea where it was decided which day was to be Easter.
‘…and to put the most important point concisely, by unanimous verdict it was determined that the most holy feast of Easter should be celebrated on one and the same day, since it is both improper that there should be a division about a matter of such great sanctity, and best to follow that option, in which there is no admixture of alien error and sin.’ – Eusebius
And then Constantine asks all Christians around the Empire to accept the way the Easter date has been computed by the Bishops
‘…so that when I come, as I have long desired, to see the state of your affairs, I may be able to celebrate the holy festival with you on one and the same day, and I may share with you my satisfaction on every count, as I observe that devilish savagery has by the divine power and through our actions been obliterated, while our faith and peace and concord are everywhere flourishing.’ – Eusebius
By devilish savagery he meant the reign of the pagan Eastern Roman Emperor Licinius in the east which he had overthrown
Summing up
So summing up, Constantine had pretty much adopted the general aggressive attitude that all Christians had for firstly for pagans and pagan beliefs and secondly also for the jews for rejecting Jesus as a Messiah. And this attack on Judaism and the Jews was a pretty strong one and he makes it clear they could not expect much sympathy or protection for their cause from him. There’s no hint of conciliation in this speech and no hand stretched out in peace and friendship certainly.
How the Jews themselves took this and his other pronouncements on their faith it’s difficult to say. We just don’t have sufficient information.
But things would only get worse as the emperors after Constantine – his sons – and then emperors like Theodosius and Gratian much later put an increasing amount of pressure on the non-Christian population to convert to Christianity.
And this attitude by early Christians and Constantine and his successors pretty much set the trend for the next two thousand years as anti-semitism become almost a prerequisite for being a Christian. Since they had killed the Christian messiah as suggested by the early church fathers and other early Christian theologians they were to blame for any difficulties they had in the new Christian Europe.
So Europe after Constantine was well on the way having anti-semitism ingrained into its thinking.
