By Lewis Loflin
As of 11:45 PM EDT, March 31, 2025, I’m examining Constantine’s role in shaping Christianity. Nicaea was not an act of faith but a strategic bid for control. My Deist perspective, grounded in reason, reveals a Church driven by power, not spiritual integrity.
Constantine, ruling from 306-337 CE, lacked genuine faith in Christianity. His actions—executing his son Crispus and wife Fausta in 330 CE, per Zosimus in *Historia Nova* (2.29)—and delaying baptism until his deathbed in 337 CE, as Eusebius records in *Vita Constantini*, expose a ruler guided by pragmatism, not belief. The Council of Nicaea in 325 CE, convened under his oversight, sought to unify an Empire divided by East-West tensions and rife with cults like Mithraism, noted in *Historia Augusta* (Commodus 9). It was a political necessity, not a spiritual quest.
By the 4th century, Rome had drifted far from its disciplined Republic of 150 BCE. Eastern influences—Mithraism among soldiers, mystery religions—had eroded its cultural core. Constantine latched onto Christianity, building on Paul’s earlier work with diaspora Jews and God-Fearers, not for piety, but to stabilize a faltering Empire.
The Church, solidified at Nicaea, became Rome’s instrument of dominance. Paul’s message—faith over law (Galatians 3:11)—had already attracted God-Fearers, Gentiles adhering to the Noachide Laws without full Jewish conversion, easing their shift to Christianity. Nicaea enforced a singular doctrine—Trinitarian over Arian—integrating Old Testament elements (Romans 5:12, sin’s origin) for legitimacy, not ethics. Elaine Pagels, in *The Origin of Satan*, traces how this evolved Satan from a Jewish obstructer to a Christian tool against Jews rejecting Jesus (John 8:44), later pagans and heretics—a political lever, not a divine truth.
This system absolved personal accountability—suffering pinned on Jews, Arians, or the devil (Ephesians 6:12)—promising reward after death. Rome crushed dissent, as with Theodosius’ 380 CE edict (*Codex Theodosianus* 16.1.2), while the Church reaped wealth—land and tax breaks by 400 CE (*Codex Theodosianus* 16.2). The State handled enforcement; the Church shaped ideology. Pelagius, championing free will, faced Western condemnation (418 CE, Council of Carthage) but Eastern approval, highlighting Rome’s fading control and the Church’s bias for obedience over agency.
I endorse Arian monotheism—a singular God, free of Trinitarian convolution—and Pelagian free will, where individuals bear responsibility, not wait for afterlife gains. Science upholds purpose in life, not chance. Constantine’s Church, amplifying Paul’s filtered legacy, chose power over piety—Rome’s order over spiritual substance.
Modern echoes persist—progressives push abstract “equity” without action, akin to the Church’s deferred salvation. Wealthy advocates hoard their gains, as Rome and the Church once divided theirs.
Section updated, added 3/30/2025