different consequences, or whether, without him, the Roman Empire would never have been called Holy. But as decisive as Constantine’s act was for his era, he was not a hero. The appellation of “great” was bestowed upon him in thanks by the grateful Christian minority. His later interference in Church affairs gave them second thoughts about his greatness.
Although there is no evidence that any other Roman Emperor would have eased Christianity into its new status, it could have been done readily. The growth of Christianity, the position of the Emperor in Roman society, the decay in traditional belief manifested by the absence of a strong, fanatical opposition, made the adoption of Christianity an objective possibility, but neither a social nor political necessity. Constantine proselytized for Christianity for imperial reasons.[1] But there was no greater justification for believing that he could strengthen the State by using the Church primarily as an instrument of public policy than by playing off Paganism and Christianity against each other. After Constantine and his work, and because of it, the effort to restore the pagan religion was doomed to fail. It is extremely unlikely that the Emperor Julian, despite his superior gifts, would have succeeded in depriving Christianity of its privileged status even if he had lived to a ripe age. But what he failed to do as a successor of Constantine—reduce Christianity to a religious sect contending on equal terms against other sects—he could easily have done in Constantine’s stead. Constantine, therefore, must be regarded as an eventful rather than an event-making historical figure.
Both the eventful man and the event-making man appear at the forking points of history. The possibility of their action has already been prepared for by the direction of antecedent events. The difference is this. In the case of the eventful man, the preparation is at a very advanced stage. It requires a relatively simple act—a decree, a command, a common-sense decision—to make the decisive choice. He may “muff” his role or let someone steal it from him. But even if he doesn’t, this does not prove an exceptional creature. His virtue or vice is inferred from the happy or unhappy consequence of what he has done, not from the qualities he has displayed in the doing of it.
The event-making man, on the other hand, finds a fork in the historical road, but he also helps, so to speak, to create it. He
- ↑ Cf. C. N. Cochrane, Christianity and Classical Culture, p. 211, Oxford, 1940.
