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Constantine and the Bishops: The Politics of Intolerance (Ancient Society and History)

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A book on the fourth century that cites Saul Alinsky and Richard Nixon is not a typical history! The reason is that "Constantine and the Bishops" is as much about political science as history. Using the usual traditional sources, Drake goes further and examines agendas; the people he reveals are refreshingly understandable. In fact, I kept finding myself thinking: "Of course!", and "That reminds me of [name]", and "That's the same kind of mistake I might have made", etc. Constantine comes across as a very believable person trying desperately to bring peace and order to an empire plagued by special interests and external challenges (so what else is new! ). For example, regards special interests, Drake points out that Constantine briefly transferred some legal functions to the bishops. The reason was corruption in the legal profession mirroring today's problems in the legal system (i.e. money buying favorable decisions). How contemporary! ----- In terms of history, this work excels because it offers reasonable perspectives within which events take place. Instead of a mountain of facts, Drake selects currents within which they make sense. The "Big Events" of this period were: The Great Persecution (303-313) by Emperor Diocletian , the reign of Constantine (324-337), the brief counter-revolution of Emperor Julian "the Apostate" (361-263), and the final conquest of power by the Christian bishops under Emperor Theodosius I (379-395). The history in this book is however very detailed. It reaches back to the decline of the Roman Senate under Augustus Caesar three centuries before, and looks ahead to the ratification of the Theodosian Code in 438. Even without much knowledge of the fourth century, a reader will finish with an excellent grounding in the period. Over 51 pages of footnotes, a list of 118 primary sources and 43 PAGES of secondary sources (!), are backed up by an excellent index. The enquiring reader will have no shortage of further reading to pursue! ----- One interesting thought that Drake comes back to repeatedly is that "the ancient state was built on the premise that organized human activity was needed to ensure that [divinity] remained benevolent to the community." He points out another fact that was brushed under the carpet in later times: many pagans were monotheists before the final victory of Christianity, and that Constantine may well have been a monotheist well before he accepted Christianity. Drake shows that the failure of the Great Persecution was due in part to the fact that pagan and Christian neighbors usually got along rather well, contrary to myth. Constantine had no desire to fail (as had Diocletian) by encouraging conflict; Constantine's challenge was to keep the Christian church from tearing itself apart. Within the church, a centralized bureaucracy had not yet emerged, and the bishops reined supreme. Some (not all!) were obsessed with a search for "heretics". Once Christianity "became popular" a flood of new converts, many with little religious motivation, threatened to swamp the church. For those who had suffered under Diocletion the stampede of opportunists was - at best - a mixed blessing! Constantine constantly came down against the exclusionists, favoring an inclusive approach. In fact the evolution of Christianity into an intolerant movement, Drake points out, was not inevitable: internal conflicts had more to do its intolerance (later projected outward) than anything else. Julian's brief counter-revolution just fed internal paranoia and strengthened the hand of the extremists within Christianity. (How familiar! Radicalization of a movement due to unsuccessful external persecution combined with internal "purges" of deviants!) This is an excellent volume. If I were to recommend a "first read" for those wanting to understand fourth century Christianity, this would be The Book!

Drake has taken on and called into serious question some of the most deeply-entrenched notions current among scholars of late antiquity concerning not only the first Christian emperor, but also the very nature of early Christianity as a whole. Even as modern scholarship has moved away from the notion of a "life or death" struggle between pagans and Christians in the fourth and fifth centuries A.D., there has remained an assumption even among careful scholars that the religious intolerance which came to prevail in the later fourth and fifth centuries A.D. as the Roman empire became a Christian empire was in some sense native to Christianity as a faith system. It therefore follows from this dangerous assumption that outcroppings of intolerance and violence committed by members of the late antique Christian community need no further explanation than the faith of the perpetrators. Drake takes this assumption and its implications to task and argues that Christian intolerance in late antiquity has a specific historical and political basis, and that the Christianity Constantine envisioned upon his "conversion" was an inclusive one which was to have created a comparatively neutral public space with regard to religion, and which demanded only worship of a single benevolent creator, a notion very much in keeping with elite pagan religious and intellectual trends. This vision, however, was sublimated to a separate and distinct agenda advanced by such Christian hardliners as the historians and panegyrists Eusebius and Lactantius, for whom the history of the Christian community was an unceasing struggle against the "error" of paganism, and in whose eyes the defining traits of a "good Christian emperor" not only included all the traditional virtues of a Good Roman Emperor, but came to include also a militant advocacy of "orthodox Christianity," and an unwillingness to fully tolerate any other religious expression. Drake's book is an impressive pulling apart of time-worn and, as he frequently proves through careful consideration of primary source documentation, ill-founded ideological constructs upon which many modern notions of Constantine are based. Indeed, Constantine and the Bishops is a subtle, quietly profound study in subject formation and rhetorical determinacy which is nevertheless simply stated throughout and accessible to readers of every background.

Drake's "Constantine and the Bishops" is a fine study of the politicial, sociological and theological currents at the time when Christianity became a political power within the Roman Empire. Focusing on the reign of Constantine, but ranging from the persecution of Diocletian to the time of Theodosius, it offers a much more complicated view of both Christianity and Constantine's efforts to integrate Christianity into the structure of the Roman Empire. In particular, the book appreciates the variety of Christian practices and beliefs that existed throughout the (huge) empire and the constant struggle among many Christian groups to define Christianity along their own beliefs. We tend to see that variety only through the very colored lens of heresy and its suppresion. Constantine comes out rather well in this book; he is a far more sympathetic, complex and impressive person than represented in the writings of Eusebius, where he frequently appears as little more than a puppet of God. Where the book is weakest is in Drake's argument on how official Christianity became more intolerant. It certainly did after Constantine, but whether a Constantine could have avoided this result is not proven in the book. Where the book is strongest is in demonstrating that Constantine, while he might be considered a "Christian" emperor (he didn't receive baptism until he was on his deathbed), he still saw and ruled the Roman Empire with a keen knowledge of the Classical heritage. The book is also provides an excellent counterbalance to the impressions we might get from the writings of Eusebius and Athanasius, the winners in the Christian theological wars of that period. Overall, the book is very well-written (if in a leisurely fashion) and has superb notes and bibliography (the notes are as interesting as the text). It is not light reading, but if you are interested in the late Classical period or in the foundations of Christianity, this book is well worth reading.

This is a detailed analysis of Constantine's role in Church history. It is occasionally a little slow going, but it provides some interesting perspectives. One of the main thrusts is that Constantine's behavior around Christianity needs to be viewed much more from a political context that from a theological one.

Major topics include:

* The Emperors needed legitimacy. As the senate faded into the background, that legitimacy had come increasingly from a divine endorsement of the emperor. Diocletian's persecution had failed, which meant the empire was stuck with a large Christian minority who would not accept the traditional pagan legitimization of the emperor. So Constantine was well motivated to find a solution that could include the Christians recognizing the imperial mandate.

* Constantine's initial conversion seems to have focused on his blessing from a vague supreme heavenly father. By this time the pagan aristocracy had already largely shifted in a monotheistic direction and thus Constantine could hope to satisfy both Christians and monotheistic pagans.

* In a series of church councils, Constantine seemed extremely inconsistent on theological issues. Drake argues that this is because Constantine was much more interested in having an inclusive church than in resolving what he saw as unimportant theological niceties. (Why can't these guys just get along?) So Constantine tended to support whichever individuals or factions appeared more focused on consensus and inclusion, and to oppose those individuals and factions that seemed interested in disruption and disunity.

* As the church evolved, with new converts and many doctrinal disputes, the path to proving oneself a true convert (and to success in the church) tended to emphasize taking a hard line against "the other side". This often involved hearkening back to an imagined early church where everything was clear and simple. Initially this intolerance was mostly focused on dissidents inside the church. But particularly after the brief interlude of Julian's pagan revival, the church felt insecure against the risk of potential future pagan revivals and became increasingly intolerant of paganism.

Drake concludes with a discussion of the confrontations between Bishop Ambrose of Milan and the Emperor Theodosius, where the Emperor agreed to do penance for the massacre at Thessalonica. But again, there is more politics to this than first meets the eye and the final "confrontation" was probably carefully stage managed. The emperor now needs the bishop to confirm his divine legitimacy - but the bishop also knows not to push the emperor too far.

The story of how Christianity went from a marginal to dominant religion in the Roman Empire has been much debated and discussed among historians. Opinions range from that of Augustine- that it was God's will that Christianity triumph- to that of Gibbon and Voltaire- that Christianity is an essentially intolerant religion and gained its prominence through coercion. H.A. Drake's excellent book cuts through the polemics and gives a fascinating historical take on the subject.

The narrative begins in 335, when Athanasius was being accused of dictatorial behavior in his diocese, and ends in 380, with the complicated relationship between bishop Ambrose and Emperor Theodosius. Constantine is often the whipping boy or the hero in histories such as these. In Drake's work, he is neither. He did indeed institute repressive measures against Pagan and rival Christian sects when he came into power, but the bishops were not his pawns; they were separate forces that he had to reckon with, just as previous Emperors had to deal with the Senators. By the time of Theodosius, the bishops had replaced the senators as the peace-keepers of the Empire. Each bishop, representing one or another theological position, tried to win favor with the Emperor. When one position gained clout, it was in the bishops' interest to repress their rivals.

The reasons why what we call Nicene Christianity won the day were as much political as they were religious. Drake wisely points out that in the Roman Empire, the state was considered a religious institution, where earthly/political success depended on gaining divine favor. This was true of the Roman Empire both in its Pagan and Christian times. The division between secular and religious that characterizes modern thinking simply did not exist then. Pagan persecution of Christians and Christian persecution of other Christians and Pagans was the equivalent of a national security issue, since "wrong" views could invite divine displeasure. It is the great achievement of the modern West to due away this thinking, at least in the form of secular government.

This reappraisal of the era of Constantine the Great and the rise of Christian power provides the reader with a prodigious amount of material to digest as well as insights on a multiple of different levels. Drake takes to task the historiographical assumptions of Gibbon, Bruckhardt and Baynes and in the process shows why the assumption that Christianity is intolerant and coercive by its very nature is a false and misleading proposition. The author finds a consensus for religious toleration in the reign of Constantine both as a reaction to the persecutions of Diocletian and as a matter of Constantinian political policy. The author finds the traditional questions regarding the sincerity of Constantine's conversion and the co-option of Christianity for crass political reasons both shallow and obfuscating. Using multidisciplinary methodologies Drake tries to analyze the source material in a fashion that allows it to speak for itself.

The author refers to this work as a sketch rather than as a definitive history. In sketching various aspects of this period Drake stretches for insights and some are more persuasive that others. For example, with Christians only about ten percent of the population at the onset of Constantine's reign, the book fails to adequately explain how this small segment of the population could and did become an alternative power base. The traditional elites may have been a minute group, but they represented the values and assumptions of the other ninety percent of the population. While dramatic growth of the Christian population during the fourth century is alluded to, it is never quantified. On a positive note, impressively complete and compellingly drawn is the Eusebian connection to Constantine. In this area Drake is able to tease out masses of meaning from a close reading of the Eusebian material. Equally impressive is Drake's reading of the relationships of Constantine and the Bishops. Following up on this with a contrasting section on Ambrose of Milan and Theodosius the Great some fifty years later provides an interesting counterpoint indicating much greater Christian influence and power.

If there is a weakness to the book, it is the size of the subject which the author in no way tries to delimit. Even at that, the post Constantinian material is somewhat truncated. However, on balance, it does provide a plausible explanation for the evolution of Christian power in the direction of a more coercive and less accommodating nature over the period of time surveyed. This is a very long book and an intense read. For a specialist in Roman Imperial and or Early Church history, this book is mandatory but will raise as many questions as it answers. However, in doing so, it will point the diligent reader in the right direction. There is an amazing bibliography included and the end notes are a treasure in themselves. That they are end notes rather than footnotes makes them a nightmare to use. That they are so valuable to the serious student makes the effort to use them worthwhile. Overall, this book is a successful and persuasive refutation of a long lived historical paradigm. Despite its shortcomings this is a major revisionist history which will effect all future scholarship in this area for the foreseeable future.