Christendom was the default in the West and East for a very long time. Since the ascension of our Lord there were roughly 300 years in which Christianity was not a state religion before Christendom and the American experiment is only 242 years old this summer. The period of time in which Christianity was the state religion somewhere (which it remains nominally in several places) is much greater than the period of time in which it has not been the state-enforced religion. Because of history, Christendom has become our default mode.

So far in this series we have been focusing on the kinds of continuity between the Mosaic theocracy and the post-canonical nation-state claimed by the theonomists and the Christian Reconstruction movement more broadly. There is another way, however, of misconstruing the degree and kind of continuity that exists between the Mosaic theocracy as it existed from Moses until the crucifixion of Christ and the post-canonical civil magistrate. This happened in history with the gradual creation of what came to be known as Christendom under the establishment of the church and the state enforcement of religious orthodoxy.

Christendom: Our Default Mode

In 313 the Emperor Constantine issued the Edict of Milan legalizing Christianity. It was not immediately adopted as the state religion. The decree granted to Christians and other religions, among other things, “full authority to observe that religion which each preferred…”. As a result no one was to be “denied opportunity to give his heart to the observance of the Christian religion.” Those who wished could “observe the Christian religion…freely and openly, without molestation.” Remember, in the middle of the previous century Christians had suffered grievous government-sponsored persecutions. They were put to death merely for refusing to renounce Christ and for refusing to say,”Caesar is Lord,” by which the Romans meant to make the Christians recognize Caesar as a deity and thus required them to pour out of drink offering to the gods. Though Christianity was legalized, the decree was pluralist. It intended that “we may not seem to detract from any dignity or any religion.” Property belonging to Christians that had been confiscated was returned to them. Churches that had been confiscated were returned to the Christians.¹

Under the Emperors Gratian (d. 383) and Theodosius I (d. 395) Christianity was gradually recognized first as the de facto state religion under Gratian and de iure under Theodosius, who issued the Edict of Thessalonica in 380. By the death of Justinian I (565) the Christian church was well established as the state church of the empire.

The transition through the 4th century from a marginal, illegal religion to first a legal religion (religio licta) and then to the state-enforced church whereby heresy was not only forbidden but suppressed and then punishable brought about significant changes for the life and practice of the church. In this period ministers began to imitate the dress and customs of Roman civil officials. Pressure grew for the practice of worship to change. The Romans were familiar with military hymns and hymns honoring the emperor and some churches began to sing them, though not without controversy.

Through the course of the middle ages following Justinian and Gregory I (d. 604), the church gradually began to re-create not only the Mosaic civil order with a state church enforced by civil authority but also the religion of the Mosaic period. Popular elaborations on the sacraments (sacramentals) came, over time to be regarded as sacraments. Gradually pastors became priests. The stage was set in the 9th century the monk Radbertus had theorized about what we now know as transubstantiation, the alleged transformation, at consecration, of the bread and wine into the literal body and blood of Christ.

So, there is a long history in the East and the West of drawing rather straight lines from the Old Testament theocracy to the post-canonical state, of treating the civil magistrate as though he were King David. We see this pattern even in the Protestants who theorized about the right of resistance to tyrants. In his On the Right of Magistrates(1572), Theodore Beza (d. 1605), Calvin’s successor in Geneva, argued both for a separation between church and state (elaborating on Calvin’s distinction argued in his Institutes 4.20) while he treated the magistrate as though he were King David and France was the Israel of God. We see the same sort of paradox in the anonymously written The Vindication Against Tyrants (1579).

Christendom was the default in the West and East for a very long time. Since the ascension of our Lord there were roughly 300 years in which Christianity was not a state religion before Christendom and the American experiment is only 242 years old this summer. The period of time in which Christianity was the state religion somewhere (which it remains nominally in several places) is much greater than the period of time in which it has not been the state-enforced religion. Because of history, Christendom has become our default mode.

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