Russellonius

If Constantine sided with Christian power brokers due to being overwhelmed by their demographic clout, then yes, he probably perceived that he had to deal them in and not just send them a nice card.

I'm not sure what you think Constantine did, but there is a list in the OP. He did not seem to be rewarding evil. Looks like the effect of those laws would tend to decrease the inhumanity of those with power toward others who possessed less power.

Joan of Bark

The point is, that up to that point in their history Christians weren't really interested in secular power. It was more or less a religion of spirituality, as Jesus taught. After Constantine (and later, Theodosius) Christians had physical wealth to protect and nurture, and the Church became just another political party, with the trappings of religion.

mountainman

From that page.

I follow the above, but the product description then goes on to say

In arms, gold, books or blood?

Just ask Crispus.

The real strawman vs Strawmanism. Sounds like a new slant.



Sets the terms for a new conversation about this pivotal emperor Bullneck and the Christendom that emerged with that emperor? My foot. The evidence itself sets the terms. I mean look at the corrupt organisation that he established, starting at 325 CE, decade by decade to the present decade. What exactly has emerged?

Russellonius

This seems a romanticized notion. It was reported that in Paul's time the silversmiths were already complaining about the economic effect of the Judaic belief system overflowing its traditional containment by ethnic identity.

The names given to the structural hierarchy of the church were identical to those of the hierarchy of civil government, ecclesia, episkopos, basilikos, pontifex, etc. The claim that Christian groups 'unintentionally' ascended to civil power after 300 years of organized resistance is quaint, but ignores a lot of evidence. At the end of Acts, Paul is set to go to Rome to teach the gospel of the God/man of the Jews to the God/man of the empire, Caesar. Seems that civil confrontation was an early stated intention of the group, possibly prior even to the name "Christian".

But I agree that a principled social movement normally shifts aims, possibly re-evaluating previously held values, once it attains civil power. Erosion by compromise is often (and unfortunately) a practical matter.

mountainman

The review is entitled The Vindication of Constantine and subtitled .... "The much maligned emperor receives a much needed makeover. A review of 'Defending Constantine.". The book reviewed is Defending Constantine: The Twilight of an Empire and the Dawn of Christendom" (or via: amazon.co.uk) - by Peter J. Leithart, September 2010, 367 pp. Here are some extracts from the review:

mountainman

All the good that God brought during Constanine's despotic rule? What might that be? Basilicas? Did anyone think to ask Crispus what that good might have been?

Constantine sent the 4th century Greek civilisation spinning backwards into the depraved darkness of a plain and simple superstitious belief, and it took more than a thousand years to recover.

PhilosopherJay

Hi Pete,

One can see what a sweet, kind, gentle and good shepherd Constantine was to all the many diverse people of the Roman empire by his Edict against the Heretics:


“VICTOR CONSTANTINUS, MAXIMUS AUGUSTUS, to the heretics

“Understand now, by this present statute, ye Novatians, Valentinians, Marcionites, Paulians, ye who are called Cataphrygians, and all ye who devise and support heresies by means of your private assemblies, with what a tissue of falsehood and vanity, with what destructive and venomous errors, your doctrines are inseparably interwoven; so that through you the healthy soul is stricken with disease, and the living becomes the prey of everlasting death. Ye haters and enemies of truth and life, in league with destruction! All your counsels are opposed to the truth, but familiar with deeds of baseness; full of absurdities and fictions: and by these ye frame falsehoods, oppress the innocent, and withhold the light from them that believe. Ever trespassing under the mask of godliness, ye fill all things with defilement: ye pierce the pure and guileless conscience with deadly wounds, while ye withdraw, one may almost say, the very light of day from the eyes of men. But why should I particularize, when to speak of your criminality as it deserves demands more time and leisure than I can give? For so long and unmeasured is the catalogue of your offenses, so hateful and altogether atrocious are they, that a single day would not suffice to recount them all. And, indeed, it is well to turn one’s ears and eyes from such a subject, lest by a description of each particular evil, the pure sincerity and freshness of one’s own faith be impaired. Why then do I still bear with such abounding evil; especially since this protracted clemency is the cause that some who were sound are become tainted with this pestilent disease? Why not at once strike, as it were, at the root of so great a mischief by a public manifestation of displeasure?.

“FORASMUCH, then, as it is no longer possible to bear with your pernicious errors, we give warning by this present statute that none of you henceforth presume to assemble yourselves together. We have directed, accordingly, that you be deprived of all the houses in which you are accustomed to hold your assemblies: and our care in this respect extends so far as to forbid the holding of your superstitious and senseless meetings, not in public merely, but in any private house or place whatsoever. Let those of you, therefore,.774 who are desirous of embracing the true and pure religion, take the far better course of entering the catholic Church, and uniting with it in holy fellowship, whereby you will be enabled to arrive at the knowledge of the truth. In any case, the delusions of your perverted understandings must entirely cease to mingle with and mar the felicity of our present times: I mean the impious and wretched double-mindedness of heretics and schismatics. For it is an object worthy of that prosperity which we enjoy through the favor of God, to endeavor to bring back those who in time past were living in the hope of future blessing, from all irregularity and error to the right path, from darkness to light, from vanity to truth, from death to salvation. And in order that this remedy may be applied with effectual power, we have commanded, as before said, that you be positively deprived of every gathering point for your superstitious meetings, I mean all the houses of prayer, if such be worthy of the name, which belong to heretics, and that these be made over without delay to the catholic Church; that any other places be confiscated to the public service, and no facility whatever be left for any future gathering; in order that from this day forward none of your unlawful assemblies may presume to appear in any public or private place. Let this edict be made public.”


Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

avi

Thanks, Jay. Too many forum participants assume that Constantine was just another in a long list of Roman emperors. As you have illustrated, he was a tyrant, a despot, and a general running an empire by military methods.

avi

mountainman

Hi Philospher Jay and avi,

My primary concern is that Constantine was the first major publisher of the Bible. Almost the same bible that was handed to all of us at some stage, or if not, we took it up to read ourselves. There must have been a very good reason that Constantine failed to canonize the books of the Constantine Bible at Nicaea, which most commentators associate with the evidence of books found within Codex Sinaiticus (and the Vaticanus??).


It took another forty years of Arian controversy to reject the two books "The Shepherd of Hermas"
and The Epistle of Barnabas and find agreement on the canon of NT books that we each are examining today.


What was the delay in canonization caused by the Arian controversy all about? The problem has always been ... "well we dont know". The reason that this is the case is because of the pattern of evidence from Constantine's rule, and about Constantine's rule.


Supermassive Blackhole of Evidence

Its as if ancient historical literary evidence has been "swept clean" from the orbit of Constantine's critical rule, between 312 and 337 CE, the precise epoch when Christianity was raised from obscurity and placed in the imperial spotlight. The historical sources for the epoch are meagre, and are typified by Ammianus's Missing Books of history, and many "lost ecclesiastical histories" by 4th and 5th century authors.

But we now have new discoveries being made public within a few years, and new translations of fragments becoming available out of this lost material, such as the Philip of Side Fragments.

Best wishes for now,



Pete