دانلود کتاب قدرت و بلاغت در مکاتبات کلیسایی کنستانتین کبیر

Why did Constantine engage in church affairs in the first place? And once  he became involved, how did he interact with those to whom he addressed his  calls for unity? About 40 surviving letters written in Constantine’s name describe  what this emperor publicly desired to achieve in relation to the churches and his stated reasons behind such aims.⁸ The specific problem he addressed in most of these documents concerned various divisions among Christian communities scat­ tered throughout the empire. Two ecclesiastical conflicts, commonly called the  ‘Donatist’ schism and the ‘Arian controversy’, appear prominently in these docu­ments.⁹ The first rupture addressed by Constantine occurred over a contested elec­tion to the episcopal chair of Carthage (c. 312) within a context of tensions since the early third century between rigorist and inclusive traditions among North African Christians.¹⁰ This dispute came to Constantine’s attention in a letter dated 15 April 313 from Anulinus, proconsul of Africa.¹¹ Anulinus’ letter—preserved by Augustine of Hippo in one of his own letters from about a century later (c. 406/408) concerning the same controversy—informed the emperor of certain charges brought against Caecilian by supporters of his rival, Majorinus.¹² The extant letters associated with Constantinian authorship concerning this schism date between the years 313 and 321, with one dated to 330.¹³ Two of these (each  dating to between June 313 and spring 314) appear in the tenth book of Eusebius  of Caesarea’s Ecclesiastical History, along with four others that deal with liberty  in religion, financial grants to churches, and releasing Christian clergy from civil  obligations.¹⁴ Five other letters (dating between 314 and 321) appear as part of a ten-document dossier appended to the end of a polemical work known as Against the Donatists, written by a late fourth-century North African bishop, Optatus of Milevis.¹⁵