Constantine: Religious Faith and Imperial Policy

161 Pages·2017·6.08 MB·English

by  A. Edward Siecienski

Constantine: Religious Faith and
Imperial Policy
Constantine: Religious Faith and Imperial Policy brings together some of the
English-speaking world’s leading Constantinian scholars for an interdisciplinary
study of the life and legacy of the first Christian emperor. For many, he remains a
“sign of contradiction” (Luke 2:34) whose life and legacy generate intense debate.
He was the first Christian emperor, a protector of the Church, and eventually
remembered as “equal to the apostles” for bringing about the Christianization
of the Empire. Yet there is another side to Constantine’s legacy, one that was
often neglected by his Christian hagiographers. Some modern scholars have ques-
tioned the orthodoxy of the so-called model Christian emperor, while others have
doubted the sincerity of his Christian commitment, viewing his embrace of the
faith as merely a means to a political end.
Drawing together papers presented at the 2013 symposium at Stockton Uni-
versity commemorating the 1700th anniversary of the Edict of Milan, this volume
examines the very questions that have for so long occupied historians, classicists,
and theologians. The papers in this volume prove once again that Constantine is
not so much a figure from the remote past, but an individual whose legacy contin-
ues to shape our present.
A. Edward Siecienski is Associate Professor of Religion and Pappas Professor
of Byzantine Culture and Religion at Stockton University, New Jersey, USA.
He is the author of The Filioque: History of a Doctrinal Controversy (2010) and
The Papacy and the Orthodox: Sources and History of a Debate (2017).

Constantine: Religious Faith
and Imperial Policy
Edited by
A. Edward Siecienski
First published 2017
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
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© 2017 selection and editorial matter, A. Edward Siecienski; individual
chapters, the contributors
The right of A. Edward Siecienski to be identified as the author of the
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Names: Siecienski, A. Edward (Anthony Edward), author. | Stockton
University.
Title: Constantine : religious faith and imperial policy / A. Edward
Siecienski.
Description: Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge,
2017. | Includes bibliographical references.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016036082| ISBN 9781472454133 (hardback :
alkaline paper) | ISBN 9781315268460 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Constantine I, Emperor of Rome, –337 – Congresses.
| Constantine I, Emperor of Rome, –337 – Influence – Congresses.
| Constantine I, Emperor of Rome, –337 – Religion—Congresses. |
Constantine I, Emperor of Rome, –337 – Political and social
views – Congresses. | Emperors – Rome – Biography – Congresses.
| Christians – Rome – Biography – Congresses. | Rome – Kings and
rulers – Biography – Congresses. | Rome – History – Constantine I,
the Great, 306–337 – Congresses.
Classification: LCC DG315 .S54 2017 | DDC 937/.08092 [B] – dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016036082
ISBN: 978-1-4724-5413-3 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-26846-0 (ebk)
Typeset in Times New Roman
by Swales & Willis Ltd, Exeter, Devon, UK
Contents
Notes on contributors vii
Foreword by Tom Papademetriou ix
List of abbreviations xi
Introduction 1
A. EDWARD SIECIENSKI
PART I
Debates 9
1 Constantine and religious extremism 11
H. A. DRAKE
2 The significance of the Edict of Milan 27
NOEL LENSKI
PART II
Historiography 57
3 The sources for our sources: Eusebius and Lactantius on
Constantine in 312–13 59
RAYMOND VAN DAM
4 Constantine in the pagan memory 75
MARK EDWARDS
5 Writing Constantine 91
DAVID POTTER
vi Contents
PART III
Legacy 113
6 The Eusebian valorization of violence and Constantine’s
wars for God 115
GEORGE E. DEMACOPOULOS
7 Constantine the pious 129
PETER J. LEITHART
Index 147
Contributors
George E. Demacopoulos is Fr. John Meyendorff & Patterson Family Chair of
Orthodox Christian Studies at Fordham University, USA. He has published
widely on late-antique, Medieval, and Orthodox Christianity, including his
most recent monograph, Gregory the Great: Ascetic, Pastor, and First Man
of Rome (2015).
H. A. Drake is Research Professor of History at the University of California,
Santa Barbara, USA. A specialist in fourth-century Rome, he is the author of
Constantine and the Bishops: The Politics of Intolerance (2000) and co-editor
of The City in the Classical and Post-Classical World: Changing Contexts of
Power and Identity (2014).
Mark Edwards has been Tutor in Theology at Christ Church, Oxford, UK, and
university lecturer in patristics for the Faculty of Theology in Oxford since
1993, and since 2014, Professor of Early Christian Studies in the Faculty of
Theology and Religion. His books include Constantine and Christendom
(2004) and Religions of the Constantinian Empire (2015).
Peter J. Leithart is President of the Theopolis Institute in Birmingham, Alabama,
USA, and a staff teacher at Trinity Presbyterian Church. He is the author of
Defending Constantine (2010) and, most recently, Delivered from the Elements of
the World (2016). He and his wife, Noel, have ten children and eight grandchildren.
Noel Lenski is Professor of Classics and History at Yale University, USA. His
publications are extensive and include many studies of Constantine, including
Constantine and the Cities: Imperial Authority and Civic Politics (2016), as well
as The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Constantine (2nd edition, 2011).
David Potter is Francis F. Kelsey Collegiate Professor of Greek and Roman
History, Arthur F. Thurnau Professor, and a professor of Greek and Latin at the
University of Michigan, USA. His books include The Victor’s Crown: Ancient
Sport from Homer to Byzantium (2011), Constantine the Emperor (2012), The
Roman Empire at Bay (2nd edition, 2014), and Theodora: Actress, Empress,
Saint (2014).
viii Contributors
A. Edward Siecienski is Associate Professor of Religion and Pappas Professor
of Byzantine Culture and Religion at Stockton University, New Jersey, USA.
Along with his work in the field of patristic and Byzantine studies, he is the
author of The Filioque: History of a Doctrinal Controversy (2010) and The
Papacy and the Orthodox: Sources and History of a Debate (2017).
Raymond Van Dam is Professor of History and Near Eastern Studies at the
University of Michigan, USA. His books include The Roman Revolution of
Constantine (2007) and Remembering Constantine at the Milvian Bridge
(2011).
Foreword
History has often recorded how great things happen after an individual has had a
grand vision. Whether the one having the vision claims to be moved by oracular
pronouncements, nighttime fits, or divine inspiration is not so important. What
is important is that the grand vision is accompanied by grand achievement. This
certainly was true for Constantine the Great, who, famous for having had his
vision of a cross of light, vanquished his co-emperor Maxentius at the Battle of
the Milvian Bridge in 312 ad and became one of the most significant and interest-
ing historical figures in Western civilization.
Yet visions do not always have to involve emperors, imperial conquest, or
world domination to have great effect. The modest vision of Rev. Dr. Demetrios
J. Constantelos, on arriving at the newly formed Stockton College in 1971, was to
establish an academic center for the study and teaching of Hellenism in a southern
New Jersey university. In time, his vision bore fruit through the establishment of
the Interdisciplinary Center for Hellenic Studies, now known as the Dean C. and
Zoe S. Pappas Interdisciplinary Center for Hellenic Studies. From his vision then
until today, Stockton’s Pappas Center for Hellenic Studies has grown to include
six endowed professors and teaches more than six hundred students annually in
our courses. The scholarly work of our faculty is of great caliber, resulting in sig-
nificant scholarship represented by this present volume.
We are pleased that in October 2013, Dr. A. Edward Siecienski, the Clement
& Helen Pappas Professor of Byzantine Civilization & Religion, as symposiarch,
called together leading scholars to consider the history and legacy of the Emperor
Constantine in the symposium Constantine: Religious Faith and Imperial Policy.
We are grateful to have co-sponsored this program with the Orthodox Christian
Studies Center of Fordham University. This symposium not only celebrated the
1,700th anniversary of the Edict of Milan, but also celebrated the 10th Anniversary
of Stockton’s Interdisciplinary Center for Hellenic Studies. The opening lec-
ture delivered by Professor H. A. Drake was fittingly presented in honor of
Rev. Dr. Demetrios J. Constantelos.
The presented papers during the symposium and the formal and informal con-
versations that ensued were extremely rich and productive, resulting in the articles