General Notes

Source:  Larry Chesebro' , "CHESEBRO' Genealogy@RootsWeb", 2003   

The following was contributed by:

Jay Bregman, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of History, University of Maine. Author of Synesius of Cyrene: Philosopher-Bishop.

Constantine the Great (about AD 274-337), Roman emperor (306-37), the first Roman ruler to be converted to Christianity. He was the founder of Constantinople (present-day Istanbul), which remained the capital of the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire until 1453.

Early Life

Constantine the Great was born Flavius Valerius Constantius at Nis, in what is now Serbia, son of the commander Constantius Chlorus (later Constantius I) and Helena (later Saint Helena), a camp follower. Constantius became co-emperor in 305. Constantine, who had shown military talent in the East, joined his father in Britain in 306. He was popular with the troops, who proclaimed him emperor when Constantius died later the same year. Over the next two decades, however, Constantine had to fight his rivals for the throne, and he did not finally establish himself as sole ruler until 324.
Following the example of his father and earlier 3rd-century emperors, Constantine in his early life was a solar henotheist, believing that the Roman sun god, Sol, was the visible manifestation of an invisible "Highest God" (summus deus), who was the principle behind the universe. This god was thought to be the companion of the Roman emperor. Constantine's adherence to this faith is evident from his claim of having had a vision of the sun god in 310 while in a grove of Apollo in Gaul. In 312, on the eve of a battle against Maxentius, his rival in Italy, Constantine is reported to have dreamed that Christ appeared to him and told him to inscribe the first two letters of his name (XP in Greek) on the shields of his troops. The next day he is said to have seen a cross superimposed on the sun and the words "in this sign you will be the victor" (usually given in Latin, in hoc signo vinces). Constantine then defeated Maxentius at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge, near Rome. The Senate hailed the victor as savior of the Roman people. Thus, Constantine, who had been a pagan solar worshiper, now looked upon the Christian deity as a bringer of victory. Persecution of the Christians was ended, and Constantine's co-emperor, Licinius, joined him in issuing the Edict of Milan (313), which mandated toleration of Christians in the Roman Empire. As guardian of Constantine's favored religion, the church was then given legal rights and large financial donations.

Sole Ruler

A struggle for power soon began between Licinius and Constantine, from which Constantine emerged in 324 as a victorious Christian champion. Now emperor of both East and West, he began to implement important administrative reforms. The army was reorganized, and the separation of civil and military authority, begun by his predecessor, Diocletian, was completed. The central government was run by Constantine and his council, known as the sacrum consistorium. The Senate was given back the powers that it had lost in the 3rd century, and new gold coins (solidi) were issued, which remained the standard of exchange until the end of the Byzantine Empire.
Constantine intervened in ecclesiastical affairs to achieve unity; he presided over the first ecumenical council of the church at Nicaea in 325. He also began the building of Constantinople in 326 on the site of ancient Greek Byzantium. The city was completed in 330 (later expanded), given Roman institutions, and beautified by ancient Greek works of art. In addition, Constantine built churches in the Holy Land, where his mother (also a Christian) supposedly found the True Cross on which Jesus was crucified. The emperor was baptized shortly before his death, on May 22, 337.

Evaluation

Constantine the Great unified a tottering empire, reorganized the Roman state, and set the stage for the final victory of Christianity at the end of the 4th century. Many modern scholars accept the sincerity of his religious conviction. His conversion was a gradual process; at first he probably associated Christ with the victorious sun god. By the time of the Council of Nicaea (325), however, he was completely Christian, but still tolerated paganism among his subjects. Although criticized by his enemies as a proponent of a crude and false religion, Constantine the Great strengthened the Roman Empire and ensured its survival in the East. As the first emperor to rule in the name of Christ, he was a major figure in the foundation of medieval Christian Europe.
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Source:  James Sergent, "Sargent/Sergent Family Tree: As with all genealogy work, this is a work in progress. There are some duplicate entries due to a recent merge. I am working on them. Not all information has been verified. Take this for what it is: a Hobby, not a Life!!!" ,2003.  

first Christian ruler of the Roman Empire, annexed Britain,founded Constantinople

Reigned BET. 306 - 337
Note:

{kahn-stan'-shee-uhs}

Flavius Valerius Constantinus, better known as Constantine the Great, was the first Roman emperor to adopt Christianity. He was born at Naissus (modern Nis, Serbia) about AD 280, the son of CONSTANTIUS I, who became (293) a caesar in the tetrarchy established by DIOCLETIAN. Constantine was educated in the imperial court and seemed destined to succeed his father. In 305, Constantius became senior emperor (augustus) in the West. However, when he died at York in 306 and the British troops proclaimed Constantine augustus in his place, the Eastern emperor GeorgiaLERIUS refused to recognize the claim, offering Constantine the lesser rank of caesar.

Constantine survived the civil war that disrupted the western half of the empire during the next 5 years and by 312 was in a position to challenge Maxentius, the self-appointed caesar who controlled Italy and Africa. Constantine's defeat of Maxentius at the Milvian Bridge outside Rome (Oct. 28, 312) not only removed a dangerous rival but secured his share in the new government formed by LICINIUS, whom Galerius had appointed augustus of the West in 308. The arch commissioned by the Senate in Rome to mark his victory bears an inscription that attributes Constantine's success to the "prompting of a deity." The Senate undoubtedly had in mind a pagan deity, but later Christian writers credited the victory to the intervention of the Christian God, who (they asserted) had declared his support of Constantine in a vision.

The nature of Constantine's conversion to Christianity has long been a matter of dispute--primarily because the sources, all of them Christian, offer conflicting testimony. The outlines of his religious development, however, are clear enough. Before 312, Constantine seems to have been a tolerant pagan, willing to accumulate heavenly patrons but not committed to any one deity. Between 312 and 324, however, he gradually adopted the Christian God as his protector and on several occasions granted special privileges to individual churches and bishops. His alliance with Christianity was strengthened by the political quarrel with Licinius. The death of Galerius in 311--and that of his successor in the East, Maximinus Daia, in 313--left Constantine and Licinius in control of both halves of the empire. The two rulers were soon at odds. In the ensuing civil war, politics and religion became so entangled that contemporaries described Constantine's conflict with Licinius (a pagan) as a crusade against paganism. Soon after his victory over Licinius at Chrysopolis (Sept. 18, 324), Constantine openly embraced Christianity and became more directly involved in the affairs of the church.

The following year, Constantine assembled the bishops in a council at Nicaea to debate the doctrines of Arius, a presbyter of Alexandria in Egypt, who argued that Christ was a created being and therefore not divine. Although this was not Constantine's first attempt to reconcile orthodox and heretical factions in Christianity, it was the first time he had used the imperial office to impose a settlement. Following a lengthy and heated debate, the bishops condemned ARIANISM and adopted a CREED (the Nicene Creed) that affirmed the divinity of Christ. Heresies such as Arianism were not so easily dismissed, however, and they continued to claim the attention of later church councils.

More important to the pagan majority in the empire, whose beliefs Constantine had rejected but continued to tolerate, were the secular problems that required new and vigorous solutions. Meeting the invasions of the GOTHS and other tribal groups along the western frontiers; the attempt to secure the provinces by dividing the army, increasingly recruited from the barbarian population of the empire, into stationary frontier units and a more mobile reserve; the reform of the coinage to prevent further inflation; the expansion of the bureaucracy to meet the real or imagined needs of an increasingly centralized government--in his own day Constantine's reputation rested more on his handling of these issues than on his arbitration of Christian disputes. In historical terms, though, these actions were less influential than his unexpected, and largely unexplainable, adoption of Christianity. Even the founding in 324 of Constantinople (modern ISTANBUL), the "new Rome" that survived the collapse of the Western empire, was a less important innovation. Embellished with monuments pirated from pagan sanctuaries, Constantinople itself was not only the new capital of the empire but the symbol of the Christian triumph.

The civil war following Constantine's death on May 22, 337, did not destroy the new order he had created. The victor in the struggle, his son CONSTANTIUS II, was an Arian, but he was no less committed to the Christianization of the empire than his father. Paganism survived, but only during the short reign (360-63) of Julian the Apostate was it again represented on the imperial throne.
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