The origins of Christendom

‘One of the greatest blows to the kingdom of Satan in the history of the church’ is the way that the New England divine Jonathan Edwards once described it. His English evangelical contemporary, John Wesley, strongly disagreed however. He maintained that it initiated an age of iron, of doctrinal and spiritual compromise and weakened the church.

What were they talking about? None other than the formal embrace of Christianity by the Roman emperor Constantine and his clear favouring of the church in legal policies that he enacted after his 312 victory at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge over the pagan Maxentius.

Whatever the reality of the impact upon the church of the Constantinian legislation, as well as the authenticity of Constantine’s conversion – both of which have been hotly-debated topics ever since those far-off events in late antiquity – there is little doubt that the reign of Constantine ignited a revolution in Roman society.