Historical Perspectives
For a church emerging from the shadows of the Catacombs, the Constantinian settlement must have appeared glorious indeed. Christianity had lived its first three centuries in opposition to the pagan establishment and had intermittently and bloodily paid the price. But while the actual event which changed the status of Christianity was somewhat bizarre (The Emperor Constantine's victory at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge in 312), the tide had been running in its favour for some time; and intermittent persecutions were the inevitable working through of the change. Rome was a nominal theocracy ruled by an Emperor/God (which is why Christians were initially termed "Atheists"); but the Romans were far too pragmatic to take this seriously, particularly after the Empire was split in 292 during the reign of the Emperor Diocletian into two parts each with an Emperor. For all practical purposes the Empire was a military dictatorship, with the army seeing itself much in the same way as the Turkish or Pakistani armies today and what turned the tide in the political establishment was the steadily consolidating Christianisation of the army. Constantine's 'conversion', whatever his private pieties, represented a tendency most succinctly expressed by the Hugenot Henry of Navarre, the IV of France, when he said: "Paris Vaut Bien Une Mess."
For the next 1000 years Western Europeans lived under nominal theocracies. Leaving aside the tensions between particular churchmen and secular rulers, the settlement should have been ideal for the promotion of Christian values but this proved not to be the case:
- First, The Church became entangled, some would say fused, with the secular state, adopting its organisation and tools, including:-
- A top/down hierarchical structure, as opposed to a 'flat' structure where bishops were locally elected;
- The ownership of a vast estate of buildings and property;
- Responsibility on behalf of the secular state for the operation of government and, in some cases, the collection of taxes.
Its only serious initial exemption was from involvement in military affairs but this clear exclusion was blurred during the Crusades.
Secondly, whether or not its involvements led to a modification of its outlook or whether this resulted from evolutionary thinking:-
- A doctrine of 'just war' was developed to accord with state requirements;
- There was a strong shift in emphasis from unconditional love to an involvement in jurisprudence;
- The church was compromised even when it distanced itself from secular misdemeanour.
- Thirdly, the state claimed ultimate authority in theological matters:-
- Imperial policy dictated the outcomes of The Councils of Nicea (325) Chalcedon (451);
- Emperors determined the choice of Patriarchs.
While these features were marked and systematic in the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantium), they were more haphazard in Western Europe where civic authority largely broke down in the middle of the 5th Century until the accession of Charlemagne. He was crowned by Pope Leo III as the first Holy Roman Emperor in 800 AD and that set a portentous pattern for the next 700 years; the spat between King Henry II and Thomas a Becket, resulting in his murder in 1170 (which we will consider later through the lens of T.S. Eliot's Murder in The Cathedral) was nothing to the epic confrontation between Pope Gregory VII and the Emperor Henry IV which led to the latter's humiliating capitulation at Canossa in 1077. Yet again, this iconic scene was illusory. In the Empire itself the power of Episcopal appointment, the crux of ecclesiastical/secular competition, was moving towards the Emperor and this tendency was even more advanced in England and France. Every good Christian politician from the time of Constantine to the beginning of the 18th Century would argue that God was ruler of all but how that authority was exercised was a matter for debate. The Reformation simply formalised a tendency which had been developing since the Norman Conquest and effectively restored the Byzantine model of theocracy by secular means. Paradoxically, the more theocratic the settlement was in theory, the more Erastian it was in practice.
Focusing now on the narrower field of England, the Reformation settlement and successor legislation took almost all power away from the Church Established. The Bishops, appointed by the monarch, were an integral part of the House of Lords and all Convocational powers were absorbed by Parliament. It was the middle of the 19th Century before the position began to be reversed, culminating (if that is not too strong a word) in the creation of the General Synod in 1970[i].
There are four general conclusions which can be drawn from this history:
- First, theocracy has been largely honorific rather than executive;
- Secondly, in spite of tensions there has been an ecclesiastical/secular modus vivendi;
- Thirdly, that working relationship was assumed as long as secular politicians were Christian;
- Fourthly, non Christians were content with the settlement as long as Christian-oriented legislation coincided with their own ethical standpoints.
[i] http://cofe.anglican.org/about/gensynod/