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A.D. 381: Heretics, Pagans, and the Dawn of the Monotheistic State

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AD 381 refers to the year in which Emperor Theodosius I announced a new law requiring his subjects in the Roman world to believe in the Trinity. In promulgating this law, the Emperor hoped to settle a vexatious issue and restore law and order in his realms. Law and order was restored, after a fashion, but at the cost of massive persecutions not just of non-believers but also of Christians who held different views on the nature of Christ and his relationship to God and the Holy Spirit than those codified at the Council of Nicaea. This more hostile religious climate, very different from the tolerance which prevailed before Christianity became the dominant Roman religion, prevailed through the next millenium and beyond and still has an impact on us today.

Charles Freeman has done an excellent job of describing the confusing theological climate which prevailed in the centuries after Jesus' death and the beginning of Christianity. Christians agreed on little or nothing, it seemed, until their religion gained legal acceptance and then official status. Then political leaders, aided and abetted by sometimes unscrupulous bishops and priests, sought to make sense out of the confusion and come up with a single theology which all Christians were bound to accept. Freeman recreates the personalities of politicians like Constantine, Theodosius, and the many other Emperors, as well as those of Church leaders like Ambrose and Augustine, and helps us understand how they contributed to what became established Christian dogma on the Trinity. I found particularly interesting his final chapters, in which he traces the official Christian teachings through the European Middle Ages. I was intrigued, as well, by his chapters in which he traced connections between Christianity and Plato and Aristotle.

This is a scholarly work which is accessible to non-specialist readers. It helped me better understand some of the underpinnings and rationales behind Chrstianity as we know it today, and the "other" Christianities which were pushed to the sidelines.

Charles Freeman's "A.D.381" is an interesting and engaging historical examination of the relatively over-looked period during which Christianity consolidated its hold over the Roman Empire. It is unfortunately marked by an ideological debt to Edward Gibbons' thesis that the Fall of Rome was the triumph of barbarism and Christianity.

"A.D. 381" is quite excellent in looking at the players and events that often remain obscure in most histories of the late Roman Empire, namely, how Christianity went from a tolerated religion under Constantine to the only lawful religion within a century. Most people with a basic familiarity of the subject can identify Constantine, the Council of Nicea and 325, but probably don't know that Council of Nicea under Constantine was only the beginning of Christian influence over the Roman Empire. But it was not until the last decades of the Fourth Century that both paganism and heretical - i.e., non-Nicene Christianity - were outlawed and one form of Christianity, which defined the persons of the Trinity as being "consubstantial," emerged as the only legal religion in the Empire. Hence, the date 381 marks the date of the Council of Constantinople which was called by the Emperor Theodosius to confirm the Nicene Creed and put an end to the dispute between followers of the Nicene Creed and those Christians who viewed Jesus Christ as a lesser, created, divinity, including the Arians and other "subordinationists."

Freeman's valid thesis - which he establishes in detail - is that theological developments can not be removed from the brute social facts in which the theology developed. So, as he remarks in the close of "381," while some theologians want to treat the development of Christian doctrine as the bloodless, intellectual development of conclusions from core Christian premises, the historical fact is that the development of Christian doctrine involved politicking, trickery, bullying and just plain chance.

A key example of chance is found in the life of Theodosius himself. Prior to Theodosius, Roman Emperors had been generally content not to take a too pious view of their jobs as Christian emperors and to hold off on baptism, which might require that they become pious carrying out their duties as Christian emperors, until they were facing death itself, the "one baptism for the forgiveness of sins" clause being the ultimate "get out of jail" card. Theodosius seemed to be following this script until 38 AD, when after being baptized in the face of a life-threatening illness, something messed up the script - he lived. At that point, he had a problem; he was a baptized Roman emperor who could not turn a pragmatically blind eye to the problem of heresy.

Because of this historical accident, Nicene Christianity became hegemonic as Theodosius outlawed paganism and called the Council of Constantinople in 381 to ratify the Nicene Creed. Once the Nicene Creed was ratified by the Council, Theodosius then put an end to the long Nicene-Arian controversy that had divided Christianity in the Roman Empire by removing Arian bishops from the seats of power.

What followed, according to Freeman, was the "closing of the Western Mind," which is the title of Freeman's better-known, earlier book. This was the result, according to Freeman, of the repudiation of the ancient Greek ideal of free speech, something which Freeman drops in periodically as a chorale note throughout the book, at which point, presumably, the reader is supposed to nod his head in agreement, knowing that Christianity was a victory for the forces of "faith" against that of "reason."

Unfortunately, those Gibbons-like notes are where Freeman's book went off track for me. I had to wonder where the discussion of the ascendancy of the Arian emperors during the period between 325 and 381 was to be found. I wondered what Freeman's explanation was for Theodosius' ability to so thoroughly win the day for the Nicene Creeds, when earlier emperors were not able to put their Arian Creed into a hegemonic position in Christianity. I also wondered what Freeman's explanation would be for the inability of Imperial power to deal with the Monophysite schism in the same way that it had dealt with the Arian schism.

In short, I formed the impression that Freeman was cherry-picking his facts and arguments to favor his thesis that Christian theology was dictated and enforced from the top down. It seems to me that this other perspective on history suggests that the "grass roots" did have a lot of influence over how history played out. For example, in his discussion of Augustine, Freeman reveals the thesis of his book as the proposition that the Nicene doctrine became orthodox only because it was enforced by the state. But in order to prove that thesis, then a discussion of why the Arian emperors were unable to impose Arianism, or the Chalcedonian emperors were unable to Chalcedonianism on the Monophysite areas of the Empire seems required. Freeman doesn't discuss these counter-examples, which seem to allow the conclusion that the Nicene doctrine may have been successfully enforced by the state because it was orthodox.

In short, it seemed that Freeman was adopting a strategy that unfortunately plays out in too many books where someone has an antipathy for history as it turned out, but they don't deal with inconvenient counter-facts. When an author fails to deal with such counter-examples, it leaves the impression that he is engaged in polemics and propaganda aimed at taking advantage of readers who don't already know all the facts. That conclusion is reinforced by some of the polemical reviews of this book that, for example, equate Athanasius with "Rush Limbaugh."

Likewise, although I'm sure that Freeman has developed the theme of how the "Western Mind" became "closed" in his prior book, I have to wonder what he meant by that term in the context of this book. He quotes pagan panegyrics to emperors which had spoken out in favor of free speech as an example of how there was a tradition of free speech and free debate in the ancient world. However, does he really expect us to believe that there were not some issues that were off limits in the ancient world, such as whether emperors were really divine, or whether emperors were really the font of all grace and wisdom? One rather doubts it.

Also, are we supposed to believe that free speech and debate came to a complete close after the Council of Constantinople decided in re-affirmed the Nicene position? If so, why were there all those controversies in the following centuries over Monophystism, Nestorianism, Monergism, etc., etc.? Did those controversies not involve a high order of logic and reason?

But Freeman doesn't discuss those issues, choosing instead to leave the reader to believe a caricature of the intellectual life of late antiquity that could have been picked out of any book on the fictional war of religion against science. Again, that approach does the reader a disservice.

My sense was that by emphasizing the facts of politics and personalities, Freeman was able to play up the discontinuity and contingency of history. However, while Freeman was very good with the details of the politics and personalities - albeit with a generally hostile interpretation of historical characters such as Ambrose and Augustine - he ignored his own prescription that the actual facts of history be examined in their historical context. Among those facts are certainly the principles and logic that the historical characters believed that they were applying to the theological disputes that they were involved with. Freeman rarely discussed why the historical figures that he analyzed believed what they believed. By ignoring the elements of the theological principles and logic, Freeman seems to have inappropriately underemphasized the element of theological continuity and the deep roots of the theological doctrines at issue in the theological disputes of late antiquity.

I do recommend "381." It is an engaging read and does provide the reader with an excellent overview of, and insight into, a bit of history that we often overlook and may not understand as well as we should. For example, I knew about the story of Ambrose's confrontation with Theodosius over the slaughter of citizens of Thessalonica, but Freeman's book is the first time I ever learned about the details surrounding that historical event, even if Freeman manages to "tee up" this historic moment when a Roman Emperor was forced to acknowledge a power greater than himself as an example of Ambrose's megalomania.

I would, however, recommend The Spirit of Early Christian Thought: Seeking the Face of Godby Robert Louis Wilkens to see the elements of continuity and reason that informed early Christian theology.

_A.D. 381_ takes its name from the Second Ecumenical Council (the Council of Constantinople) which confirmed the Nicene Creed. It was also a major step in the consolidation of relations between the Christian church and the Roman state. Freeman convincingly argues that this council (and the Roman Emperor, Theodosius who convened it) conscienciously began to narrow not only Church dogma, but the intellectucal life of Europe as well, with profound and long-lasting consequences.

That there were wildly differing interpretations of Christianity in the late Roman Empire is hardly news to any historian worth their salt. What Freeman does is explain cogently what many of these interpretations (and their related sects) were, why they were considered "heretical" ("heresis" in Greek was not a pejorative, but rather simply meant "choice" - as in choice of philosophical school to which one subscribed), and how they were evenually snuffed out. At the root of the challenge presented to those who wished to impose orthodoxy was a legacy of 1500 years of independent, critical thought in the Mediterranean world, and a culture of lively theological discussion on matters relating to Christianity as a result. Central to these debates was the question of the trinity and, by extension, the nature of Jesus and the relationship among the trinty relative to the Godhead. (The Nicene Creed, for example, holds that God the Father and Jesus are of the same substance, yet there is no scriptural support for this. Matters are complicated further when one tries to consdier that "substance" raises the question of how can God the Father be material, and whether or not Jesus had always existed alongside God, or whether Jesus was a separate creation - and therefore a later and lesser incarnation.)

Freeman shows how the independent thought of the Classical world was gradually replaced with a more authoritarian attitude towards learning. This, of course, was concurrent with the gradual econcomic decay of Rome (in the West especially) and the accompanying political implosion as Roman adminsitration slowly gave way to "barbarian" control and ecumenical administration. In fact, Emperors saw the Church increasingly as a basis of support in an increasingly chaotic world just as early Church fathers saw Rome as the force of law to impose thier version of Christianity. An example of this (and an irony) is how "Jesus the executed outlaw" became "Jesus leader of legions" - evidence of the growing integration of Church into imperial politics.

In spite of a flurry of edicts by Roman emperors to eliminate paganism and destroy "heretical" interpretations of Christian dogma, it proved a slow and difficult task, particularly so in the more literate East. Nonetheless, by 535 all vestiges of paganism had been destroyed (the last Egyptian temple closed in 526, Plato's Academy shut down in 529) and most of the competing versions of Christianity were done away with. It wouldn't be until the 16th century that a rebirth of and interest in Christian dogma would be so ardently and passionately discussed, with profound consequences for Europe.

For such an abtruse subject that addresses deep philosophical questions, this is a remarkably accessble work. Freeman is clear and easy to understand, providing a wealth of additional information (about, for example, imperial Roman provincial adminstration) that helps clarify the evidence he is presenting. Of additional benefit is the bibliography, which is both current and (via his end notes) annotated. Highly recommended for those interested in Christian theology, late Classical history, or the early Middle Ages.

I have noticed that, over time, and in this case almost 2,000 years, the subtleties and complexities of discussions disappear and all we are left with is the "PowerPoint" version of them. So it is with the Nicene Creed which we recite every Sunday. This book explains the myriad opinions, personalities and politics that were part of the recipe. A true sausage, it was! It asks questions that have long gone unanswered. An exciting and stimulating book. It does have relevance to today, when so many groups want to silence the voices and opinions of others and certainly don't want to have a thorough-going debate about important matters. (I am thinking about the Sunday morning "shout-downs" on TV as an example.)

This is general history at its best: well-researched, clearly written, accessible to an educated general audience but never watered down. 381 AD was the year Roman Emperor Theodosius established as law the interpretation of Christianity first concocted by the Council of Nicaea in 325. This Council of leading bishops claimed the essential unity of God the Father and Jesus the Son, with the Holy Spirit added later to form the so-called Trinity. Theodosius' law also began the systematic persecution of those who did not accept this new orthodoxy, Christian and non-Christian alike. Freeman gives a detailed and exciting exposition of the political, theological and underlying social conflicts leading up to this event, including how control of vast wealth held by bishoprics was at stake in this struggle. He does so while staying within the boundaries of what the evidence will support. The acknowledgement of the limits of what reliable evidence allows us to reconstruct and his familiarity with the wealth of recent scholarship on early Christian history is an important part of what makes this a judicious and credible work.

Freeman is unambiguous about seeing the advent of a rigid, state imposed Christian orthodoxy based more on religious zeal than biblical understanding as a cataclysmic development in Western cultural history, and an important prelude to the European Dark Ages. This is why he's been attacked by some as being anti-Christian. That accusation is false. 381 AD demonstrates how many Christians were among the most determined defenders of religious toleration and open theological debate for reasons ranging from political pragmatism to commitment to the Greek tradition of free philosophical inquiry. The fact that so many of Freeman's detractors cannot or will not see what is there on the pages of this work shows how the legacies of Emperor Theodosius and his supporters are still very much with us.

We may not be living in the "Age of Enlightenment," but in "A. D. 381" Charles Freeman continues to shine his spotlight on the formation of early Christianity with this superbly written, clear and interesting account of Theodosius, the emperor of the eastern Roman empire, and his role in shutting down the thought of man.

We know that we owe much to Emperor Constantine. It was he who gave birth to: the establishment of official church buildings as places for Christian worship (from pilfered pagan temples), the notion of the dependency of victory in battle and war to the Christian faith, the alignment of the church hierarchy with the power of the emperor, the imposition of imperial authority over the church, and the creation of the edict of the Nicene Creed. But mostly forgotten today, it was Constantine who was also responsible for the edict providing for tolerance for all religions, including Christianity (in all its forms) and paganism. This bears repeating: tolerance for all religions, not just Christianity.

It was up to a later Emperor, Theodosius, who made Christianity the official state religion of the Roman Empire. It was he who closed the door on religious tolerance, both within and without Christianity. Through the influence and machinations of Aurelius Ambrosius (aka Saint Ambrose), the Bishop of Milan, he was also responsible for the birth of anti-semitism and the wholesale destruction of pagan buildings, shrines, monuments and images. He condemned all "heresies" (especially the creed espoused by Arian) and destroyed their theological documents.

With his rule, religious monarchy over thought (including the recognition of religious supremacy over all temporal power) was imposed on the Roman Empire. As such, a long tradition of Greek-inspired freestyle debate was shut down. From then on, only the elite ( i.e., the Bishops, especially Gregory of Nazianzus) were permitted to discuss complex theological issues. As Freeman asserts, "Once the state had decided to intervene in support of orthodoxy and in opposition to heresy, the outcome was an authoritarianism based on irrational principles, which presided over the demise of ancient traditions of reasoned debate." (p. 156)

In later chapters, Freeman provides credible conjecture as to the reason for the sudden prominence of the theology of Saint Paul in the fourth century. He contrasts Paul's vision of man (a helpless sinner who is in need of justification) with that of Origen's view of man (capable with a free will and reason). Unlike Paul, Origen trusted that man would make his way to God on his own. But that view of man would not prevail. The deterioration of the Roman Empire made very fertile ground for a sense of popular despair and helplessness. As a consequence, with the fall of the empire Paul's viewpoint prevailed.

Rounding out the account, the author discusses the role that the fourth century's Augustine of Hippo (aka Saint Augustine) played in securing the authoritarian view on religious thought. It was Augustine who elevated Paul's theology to dogma. It was also his inspired defense of Christian orthodoxy which cemented the imposition of Church authority.

Emperor Theodosius and Ambrose set the foundation. Augustine cemented it. As a consequence, open and free discussion of religious issues by free men was curtailed.

This was an unfortunate monolithic detour for Christianity.

Charles Freeman presents an excellent, readable, and surprising history of Christianity, filled with many unknown facts, that focus around the events of the year 381 when the Roman Emperor Theodosius issued a decree mandating that all Christians believe in the Trinity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, an idea not contained in the New Testament and rejected by most Christians at that time. Theodosius called those who refused to accept his view "demented and insane heretics."

Freeman shows how many early Christians enjoyed a diverse spiritual life. The court orator Themistius, for example, wrote in 360 that religious belief should not be controlled by the state or by the inclinations and motivations of certain popular clergy. He said that God "enjoyed being worshipped in a variety of ways." Freeman writes: "It is one of the tragedies of western thought that this approach was, in effect, suppressed as a result of Theodosius' decrees against `heretics' and pagans in" 381. As a result, countless thinking men and women lived under the continual threat of excommunication and the promise of eternal punishment in fiery hell, a concept and threat that had not existed previously. It was not until the seventeenth century that religious toleration was reinstated, and then only partially.

This insistence upon acquiescence to a single idea is startling since it ignores Church history. Only sixty years earlier, in 313, the emperor Constantine had issued an Edict of Toleration in which he had removed Christianity from being a despised religion and promised "that no one whatsoever should be denied freedom to devote himself either to the cult of Christians or to such religion as he deems best suited for himself." Now, the religion that had been despised was despising many of its own faith.

Freeman shows how emperors and clergy with non-religious motivations brought about many Christian innovations. Besides the court decrees of Constantine and Theodosius and other government officials for civic reasons, to assure peace, priests pushed ideas to help their advancements and the money and freedom from taxes that accompanied it. "The high level of religious violence (to secure higher level priestly posts) has been largely ignored by historians...almost every vacant bishopric gave rise to murder and intimidation as rival candidates fought for the position."

Freeman's book has many other insights and whether one agrees with his history or not, it is worth reading since it offers many facts and is thought provoking.

Having just finished A New History of Early Christianity, also written by Charles Freeman and thoroughly well-done, I determined that I was ready to tackle A.D. 381: Heretics, Pagans, and the Christian State. I was not let down. Freeman does a wonderful job presenting an overview of the series of historical events leading up to the ominous date of 381, including events preceding the coming of the Christian state and theological arguments about Jesus' status; then, he describes in clear detail the events surrounding the edict of Emperor Theodosius regarding the Christian trinity in 381; and, finally, he explains the outcome of the edict, including the effects on paganism, and the collapse of the Christian West. As usual, Freeman gives very good background fodder to aid one in understanding the big picture of his primary subject matter.

A.D. 381 reads easily and is engrossing -- something that cannot be said about a good many historical books. My only wish concerning the book is that it would have been longer -- at just over 200 pages, it went by altogether too quickly. However, I readily recommend A.D. 381 to anyone interested in early Christianity or Roman history. And, who knows, perhaps one day some of Freeman's work will be available in audio format -- that would be a treat.

The main premise of the book is that there was in the ancient western world a relatively open philosophical discussion among educated people, based on the Greek tradition of gods and religion. This all changed after 381 AD, when Roman Emperor Theodosius I decreed that all Christian belief other than that based on the Trinity of God, as given in the Nicene Creed, was heretical and should be violently opposed. The Nicene belief was that God was three equal persons, Father, son and Holy Spirit, all everlasting, and un-begotten, having existed forever. The Nicene idea of the Trinity actually was formulated and supported by four Church councils, which were not all very cordially conducted and not completely in agreement. Theodosius' decree was made to promote order in the empire.

After 381 AD the empire violently persecuted all forms of what they called heresy including Aryanism, Paganism and at times Judaism. This closing of free and open philosophical discussion lead to a breakdown in innovation and education, culminating in the writings of Augustine (The City of God) which brought an end to almost all intellectual curiosity in the Early Middle Ages. Things only changed very slowly about 1200 with the opening of trade and increase in education.

This premise is of course the opinion of the author. However, what he says appears to be well researched, documented and explained. It is interesting to speculate what would have happened if Theodosius I had never existed. Would another emperor have forced the Nicene doctrine, or another doctrine on the early Christian church. Or would the more open climate of philosophical discussion have continued, and led to an earlier arrival of the enlightenment and the scientific age in the west.

Once again, the gaps in my education from parochial grade and high school shows through. Sure we were taught about the Nicene Creed and the council that wrote it, but we were never given the insight into the pressure and arguments that were involved. This extremely well-written book fills in those knowledge gaps for me.

Some of this ground was covered in "When Jesus Became God", an excellent book I read several years ago. This one, however, gives the reader the "big picture", covering both the Eastern and Western Empires, and the doctrinal fights that led up to (and beyond) the Creed. There are very helpful mini-biogrqaphies of the most important players, and we see fairly clearly the issues involved.

Most of the fights involved the Trinity, what it is and how it is composed, and how Christ related to it. There was also the ongoing struggle over the nature(s) of Christ, human and divine. I'm not even going to go into that, becaue trying to think about the Trinity makes my mind hurt, so I understand the passion involved on both sides, when religious discussion was the most interesting happening in the known world.

The author concludes that the Creed, and the nature of the Trinity accepted by it, was the result of political pressure from the Eastern Emperors and their adherents, in opposition to those who believed otherwise. The fact that many respected church writers were named heretics ex post facto is shocking, but probably shouldn't be considering the long history of my Church's dealing with those who had differing opinions.

It's true that "history is written by the winners" and the theme of this book is a perfect example of it. I enjoyed it tremendously, and if early church history and controversy interests you, I know that you will thoroughly enjoy this book.