Free Defending Constantine: The Twilight of an Empire and the Dawn of Christendom by Peter J. Leithart Page B

wants: if Constantine's laws are explicitly Christian, he's a theocratic tyrant; if not, then he's promoting vanilla monotheism.

    "For the prayer, see Potter, Roman Empire at Bay, p. 366.

    "Timothy D. Barnes, Constantine and Eusebius (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1981), p. 63.

    13potter, Roman Empire at Bay, p. 366.

    14The history of this period is complicated and controversial, and what follows is a sketch of events. For a more thorough treatment, see Barnes, Constantine andEusebius, pp. 62-77; Potter, Roman Empire at Bay, pp. 364-66, 377-80. For Daia's role, see Nicholson, "Pagan Churches," pp. 1-10; Mitchell, "Maximinus," pp. 105-24.

    "Charles Matson Odahl, Constantine and the Christian Empire (London: Routledge, 2004), pp. 162-64; A. H. M. Jones, Constantine and the Conversion of Europe (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1978), p. 109. The Origo (5.14) claims that Constantine's aim was to set up a buffer (medius) between the two Augusti (Samuel N. C. Lieu and Dominic Montserrat, eds., From Constantine to fulian: Pagan and Byzantine Views -A Source History [London: Routledge, 1996], p. 45). Barnes (Constantine and Eusebius, pp. 66-67) claims that "chronology suggests a cynical view of Constantine's conduct." Constantine's initial aim in offering Bassianus as a Caesar was to head off Licinius's attempts to put his own infant son in that position. Once Constantine had his own child, Bassianus was a rival rather than an ally, both "expendable, and vulnerable." Whatever Bassianus's follies, Barnes suggests, the charges against him bear too much resemblance to the charges against Maximian to be taken seriously. Potter, Roman Empire at Bay, p. 377, tells a similar story.

    161 am dependent primarily on Barnes, Constantine andEusebius, p. 67. See also Odahl, Constantine and the Christian Empire, pp. 164-65; Potter, Roman Empire at Bay, pp. 377-78.

    "Ramsay MacMullen, Constantine (London: Croom Helm, 1987), p. 132.

    "Jacob Burckhardt, TheAge of Constantine the Great, trans. Moses Hadas (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983), pp. 279-80.

    19This information is taken from Eusebius's Proofofthe Gospel and summarized by Barnes, Constantine and Eusebius, pp. 71-72. Accounts of martyrs under Licinius are almost universally regarded as fictions. Potter (Roman Empire at Bay, p. 378) goes so far as to say that there is no evidence that Licinius was hostile to Christians at all. Barnes (Constantine andEusebius, p. 70) argues instead that Licinius "drifted from toleration of Christianity to implicit disapproval, and finally toward active intolerance."

    20Odahl, Constantine and the Christian Empire, p. 174. Odahl also credits the claims that there were some martyrs in eastern Anatolia during 323-324 and says that it was on this basis that Christians came to regard Licinius as a tyrant and "savage beast" who plunged his territories into "the darkness of a gloomy night."

    21Odahl, Constantine and the Christian Empire, p. 163.

    22Many historians see Constantine as the instigator of this conflict, but Odahl (Constantine and the Christian Empire, pp. 174-75) argues that Licinius, not Constantine, provoked the final showdown by initiating the persecution of Christians in the Eastern Empire.

    23Potter, Roman Empire at Bay, p. 379.

    24Both sources quoted in T. G. Elliott, The Christianity of Constantine the Great (Scranton, Penn.: University of Scranton Press, 1996), pp. 127-28, 131.

    25Eusebius Life 2.3.

    26MacMullen, Constantine, pp. 134-35.

    27Ibid., 2.4-19.

    2$MacMullen, Constantine, p. 135; Jones, Constantine and the Conversion of Europe, p. 112. Odahl (Constantine and the Christian Empire, pp. 176-77) describes it as a religious war.

    29Drake, Constantine and the Bishops. Drake is correct that Constantine did not impose Christianity or completely suppress paganism and that he established a form of religious toleration. As I argue below, however, Drake overstates his case, and besides that, elements