Page 109 - LD215 History of the Church in Africa A4 final

Triumph and Trouble

• The state abolished crucifixion, repressed infanticide, and
modified slavery.
• The gladiatorial games were suppressed.
• The church and the state were united.
• Everyone sought membership in the church, and nearly everyone
was received.
• Some of the old heathen feasts became church festivals.
• The world began to dominate the church rather than the church
transforming the world.
• The state gradually usurped power over the church and the result
was not Christianity but a more or less corrupt hierarchy that
controlled the nations of Europe, making the church mainly a
political machine.

When Christianity became the official religion of the empire, it
brought both advantages and disadvantages, triumph and trouble.
The emperor maintained a close relationship with the church and
intervened during controversies. At times, he chose to be the chairman
of church councils, and this created a precedent that brought serious
problems in later years. We should also note that the status of women
improved, as well as that of slaves, which brought social progress.
Certainly, the concept of keeping the Lord’s Day for rest and worship
was good. Meanwhile, the union of church and state tended to develop
a coldness in clergy and in the church. In fact, the sons of Constantine
drifted away from the church completely, as Renwick notes:

His grandson, Julian the Apostate (A.D. 361–363), because of the
evil treatment meted out to him by the sons of Constantine and
the massacre of his relatives by them, renounced Christianity and
did his best to restore a reformed kind of paganism. Polytheism
was, however, rotten to the core and the attempts to restore it
proved a fiasco. (52)

In A.D. 381, Theodosius stated that Christianity was the exclusive
religion of the empire. As a result, anyone who refused to join the
church risked punishment from the state (Cairns, 124). What a change
of events in church history! In the beginning of the fourth century, it
was illegal to be a Christian. Just a few decades later, Christianity had

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