We know that Constantine And if Constantine the emperor were not problem enough, we all know that Constantinianism has been very bad for the church. Or do we know these things? Peter Leithart weighs these claims and finds them wanting. And what's more, in focusing on these historical mirages we have failed to notice the true significance of Constantine and Rome baptized. For beneath the surface of this contested story there emerges a deeper narrative of the end of Roman sacrifice--a tectonic shift in the political theology of an empire--and with far-reaching implications. In this probing and informative book Peter Leithart examines the real Constantine, weighs the charges against Constantinianism, and sets the terms for a new conversation about this pivotal emperor and the Christendom that emerged.
Defending Constantine
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From Publishers Weekly
Leithart (Deep Exegesis), a pastor who teaches at New St. Andrews College in Moscow, Idaho, takes aim at the received wisdom that Constantine's establishment of Christianity as the religion of the Roman Empire was a political co-optation that made the church the creature and justification of the imperial state. He reads the original ancient, the seminal secondary, and lots of other sources to contend that Constantine was a believer and a conciliator who sought theological agreement for the political stability it brought. Contra the influential interpretation of Anabaptist theologian John Howard Yoder, Leithart maintains that when Constantine is understood in historical context, his disestablishment of pagan religion opens a place for a Christian understanding of sacrifice and of the significance of the kingdom of God. His provocative view deserves examination. Besides his peers, general readers with a close knowledge of early church history will appreciate his well-supported argument, and anybody whose understanding of early church history comes from The Da Vinci Code needs to read this. (Nov.)
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(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Review
"For a generation that thinks it approves of those who challenge the conventional wisdom, it can come as quite a shock when someone actually does it. In this book, Peter Leithart takes up the daunting challenge of defending Constantine, and he does it with biblical grace, deep wisdom, profound learning and scholarship that has let the clutch out. This is a magnificent book." (Douglas Wilson, senior fellow of theology, New Saint Andrews College, Idaho)
"An excellent writer with a flair for the dramatic, Peter Leithart is also one of the most incisive current thinkers on questions of theology and politics. In this book, Leithart helpfully complicates Christian history, and thereby helps theologians recover the riches of more than a millennium of Christian life too easily dismissed as 'Constantinian.' If the Holy Spirit did not simply go on holiday during that period, we must find ways to appreciate Christendom. Any worthwhile political theology today cannot fail to take Leithart's argument seriously." (William T. Cavanaugh, Research Professor, Center for World Catholicism and Intercultural Theology, DePaul University, Chicago)
"There have been of late a splurge of populist history books damning Constantine the Great as the villain of the piece. Almost without exception they have drawn their picture of this most complex and complicated of late-antique Roman emperors from secondhand, clichéd and hackneyed books of an older generation, adding their own clichés in the process. Constantine has been sketched luridly, as the man who corrupted Christianity either by financial or military means. At long last we have here, in Peter Leithart, a writer who knows how to tell a lively story but is also no mean shakes as a scholarly historian. This intelligent and sensitive treatment of one of the great military emperors of Rome is a trustworthy entrée into Roman history that loses none of the romance and rambunctiousness of the events of the era of the civil war, but which also explains why Constantine matters: why he was important to the ancient world, why he matters to the development of Christianity (a catalyst in its movement from small sect to world-embracing cultural force). It does not whitewash or damn on the basis of a preset ideology, but it certainly does explain why Constantine gained from the Christians the epithet 'The Great.' For setting the record straight, and for providing a sense of the complicated lay of the land, this book comes most highly recommended." (John A. McGuckin, Columbia University)
"Too many people, for far too long, have been able to murmur the awful word Constantine, knowing that the shudder it produces will absolve them from the need to think through how the church and the powers of the world actually relate, let alone construct a coherent historical or theological argument on the subject. Peter Leithart challenges all this, and forces us to face the question of what Constantine's settlement actually was, and meant. Few will agree with everything he says. All will benefit enormously from this challenge to easygoing received 'wisdom.'" (N. T. Wright, University of St. Andrews, Scotland)
"An excellent writer with a flair for the dramatic, Peter Leithart is also one of the most incisive current thinkers on questions of theology and politics. In this book, Leithart helpfully complicates Christian history, and thereby helps theologians recover the riches of more than a millennium of Christian life too easily dismissed as 'Constantinian.' If the Holy Spirit did not simply go on holiday during that period, we must find ways to appreciate Christendom. Any worthwhile political theology today cannot fail to take Leithart's argument seriously." (William T. Cavanaugh, Research Professor, Center for World Catholicism and Intercultural Theology, DePaul University, Chicago)
"There have been of late a splurge of populist history books damning Constantine the Great as the villain of the piece. Almost without exception they have drawn their picture of this most complex and complicated of late-antique Roman emperors from secondhand, clichéd and hackneyed books of an older generation, adding their own clichés in the process. Constantine has been sketched luridly, as the man who corrupted Christianity either by financial or military means. At long last we have here, in Peter Leithart, a writer who knows how to tell a lively story but is also no mean shakes as a scholarly historian. This intelligent and sensitive treatment of one of the great military emperors of Rome is a trustworthy entrée into Roman history that loses none of the romance and rambunctiousness of the events of the era of the civil war, but which also explains why Constantine matters: why he was important to the ancient world, why he matters to the development of Christianity (a catalyst in its movement from small sect to world-embracing cultural force). It does not whitewash or damn on the basis of a preset ideology, but it certainly does explain why Constantine gained from the Christians the epithet 'The Great.' For setting the record straight, and for providing a sense of the complicated lay of the land, this book comes most highly recommended." (John A. McGuckin, Columbia University)
"Too many people, for far too long, have been able to murmur the awful word Constantine, knowing that the shudder it produces will absolve them from the need to think through how the church and the powers of the world actually relate, let alone construct a coherent historical or theological argument on the subject. Peter Leithart challenges all this, and forces us to face the question of what Constantine's settlement actually was, and meant. Few will agree with everything he says. All will benefit enormously from this challenge to easygoing received 'wisdom.'" (N. T. Wright, University of St. Andrews, Scotland)
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118 of 126 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Peter Leithart's latest book, "Defending Constantine," should, in my opinion, be considered THE Christian Book of the Year. "Defending Constantine" is a stunning work of scholarship on a closely related collection of issues that are among the most important in Christianity: the life of Constantine, the meaning of Constantinianism, and the radical transformation of the world that took place while he was Emperor. Leithart's work is especially impressive because he has taken on a host of scholars who have so thoroughly denigrated Constantine and "Constantinianism" that it is a truism among most Christians that Constantine was bad for the church and still is. In this scholarly contest, Leithart clearly has proven himself to be the more careful and insightful scholar. It is a work that particularly appeals to me as an Anglican priest, school teacher, and professor of Religious Studies, but it should also be read by every thinking Christian. Despite the lofty themes Leithart tackles, he writes in wonderfully clear English prose.
If you read one book on Christian history, Christianity and politics, or Christianity and culture this - this book should be the one: it's THAT good! Don't let the academic topic of the book fool you: this book has radical implications for every thinking Christian and every church.
"Constantine," as Leithart reminds us, "has been a whipping boy for a long time, and still is today." His name is identified with tyranny, anti-Semitism, hypocrisy, apostasy, and heresy. While experts in the field of early Christianity now believe that Constantine was a genuine Christian who earnestly tried to apply his faith to his role as Emperor, many other scholars and laymen incorrectly continue to claim otherwise.
In "Defending Constantine," Leithart audaciously sets out to redeem the reputation of both Constantine and Constantinianism. In both of these tasks, Leithart succeeds admirably. He defines his tasks, more specifically, as being four-fold: to write a life of Constantine, to rebut the popular caricatures of Constantine, to redeem the notion of Constantianism, and to demonstrate that Constantine provides a model for Christian political practice. It is safe to say that anyone who succeeds to a large degree in these tasks has written a magisterial work. "Defending Constantine" is just such a work.
Leithart's history of Constantine is good, but the real virtuoso nature of the book begins with his discussion of whether or not Constantine was a genuine Christian or not. Leithart's unequivocal (and correct) answer is "Yes." One of the reasons we misunderstand Constantine is that we import our own cultural and historical expectations into Constantine and his time. This is an important and recurring theme throughout "Defending Constantine." In this case, false views of the way conversion really works have led some to deny that Constantine was ever a Christian. But Leithart demonstrates how Constantine constantly appeals in his writings to the Christian God who is the heavenly Judge and who, in history, opposes those how oppose Him. Constantine also demonstrated a genuine and sustained desire to protect the Church - not from political motivations (although they were likely also present) - but from a genuine desire to see the Church remain pure and united.
Another common damnation of Constantine is based on the notion that he meddled terribly in ecclesiastical matters and acted, apart from the bishops, as the defender of Christian orthodoxy. Once again, Leithart has done his homework and dramatically, though graciously, dismantles Constantine's critics. There is no evidence, contrary to assertions by scholars such as Burckhardt and Carroll, that Constantine ever acted as the final authority in church matters. In dealing with the Donatist controversy, Constantine deflected responsibility to the bishops assembled in Rome. Constantine refused to be seated at the Council of Nicea until he was invited by the bishops. It's true that he facilitated the work of the Church's councils by calling them and providing venues, but these and the legal recognition of the conciliar decisions were unavoidable in the political and cultural situation of the time. Constantine not only did not dominate the discussions at Nicea: he also did not formulate the final creed nor sign off on it.
Leithart's discussion of Constantianism is also excellent. He defines it as "a theology and ecclesial practice that took form when the church assumed a dominant position in Roman society. Constantianism is "the wedding of power to piety, the notion that the empire or state, the ruler of civil government rather than the church, is the primary bearer of meaning in history." Leithart reserves his most withering and sustained attack for the Anabaptist theologian, John Howard Yoder, on this point. He shows that Yoder misrepresents the facts and has an axe to grind that comes from his presupposition as an Anabaptist that the church had been in a state of apostasy from the fourth to seventeenth centuries.
If this popular hypothesis were true, we would expect to see dramatic evidence of decline in the lives of Christians and their godly effect on Roman culture. But the opposite is true. In the first place, the bishops refused to be reduced to mere chaplains of the Empire. Second, it was at the instigation of Constantine that the gladiatorial shows and other immoral public entertainments were reduced and eventually abolished. Constantine's legislation looks very much like the kind of legislation Christians should desire the civil magistrates to enact. Constantine removed previous Roman penalties against the celibate and the childless. He extended the rights of women, removing deprivations such as loss of property and double standards for divorce. He discouraged sex with slaves and was the first in Roman history to legislate against rape. In turn, all of these reforms fostered a new kind of Christian masculinity that relied less on sexual prowess, victory in battle, and political power. Constantine also provided for many laws that elevated true justice and protection for the poor, including children who were exposed, orphans, outcasts, and slaves. He issued laws that enabled slaves to be liberated, as well as those to ameliorate slave conditions (for example, trying to keep slave families together). Finally, in the area of law, Constantine began the "Christianization" of the law, not by legislating for the Church but by giving the Church freedom to be itself, build its own buildings, erect its own legal structures, organize its own system of conflict resolutions, and to carry out its own sanctions.
Leithart concludes his magnum opus by refuting three related errors concerning Constantine and Constantinianism: the early church was uniformly opposed to Christians serving in the Roman army; the earliest Christians opposed the Roman Empire; the Roman Christians so identified the Church with the Empire that they ignored or despised the barbarians. In each of these three cases, Leithart demonstrates conclusively that the attitudes of early Christians were ambiguous and not uniformly anti-Empire as Yoder and others have assumed.
As if all of this weren't enough, Leithart saves the best for last. He argues brilliantly that what Constantine actually did was to "desacrifice" Rome in order to establish it upon the true sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Constantine enacted a "baptism" out of the world of Rome, and so he eliminated the competing Roman sacrifices: those associated with senatorial decisions, military victories, and the emperor. Instead, it was the sacrifice of Jesus Christ that became the founding sacrifice of the new city, the eschatological city. As with our individual baptisms, the consistent and holy implications of this baptism of the Empire would have to be worked out, imperfectly, in history.
"Through Constantine, Rome was baptized into a world without animal sacrifice and officially recognized the true sacrificial city, the one community that does offer a foretaste of the final kingdom." Breathtaking stuff!
Leithart is a fair and careful scholar; however, I wish he'd offered more evidence for the negative sides of both Constantine and Constantianism. Both are present in the book, but only in minor ways. This is a forgivable oversight, due to the complexity of the task Leithart has already taken on.
This is a book that will explode in your mind and then in your soul! You owe it to yourself to read, learn, mark, and inwardly digest this book. Sit back and enjoy the ride as Leithart skillfully and artfully articulates a more edifying way of thinking about Constantine, the church, culture, and our lives. This is one book that deserves 6 stars!
If you read one book on Christian history, Christianity and politics, or Christianity and culture this - this book should be the one: it's THAT good! Don't let the academic topic of the book fool you: this book has radical implications for every thinking Christian and every church.
"Constantine," as Leithart reminds us, "has been a whipping boy for a long time, and still is today." His name is identified with tyranny, anti-Semitism, hypocrisy, apostasy, and heresy. While experts in the field of early Christianity now believe that Constantine was a genuine Christian who earnestly tried to apply his faith to his role as Emperor, many other scholars and laymen incorrectly continue to claim otherwise.
In "Defending Constantine," Leithart audaciously sets out to redeem the reputation of both Constantine and Constantinianism. In both of these tasks, Leithart succeeds admirably. He defines his tasks, more specifically, as being four-fold: to write a life of Constantine, to rebut the popular caricatures of Constantine, to redeem the notion of Constantianism, and to demonstrate that Constantine provides a model for Christian political practice. It is safe to say that anyone who succeeds to a large degree in these tasks has written a magisterial work. "Defending Constantine" is just such a work.
Leithart's history of Constantine is good, but the real virtuoso nature of the book begins with his discussion of whether or not Constantine was a genuine Christian or not. Leithart's unequivocal (and correct) answer is "Yes." One of the reasons we misunderstand Constantine is that we import our own cultural and historical expectations into Constantine and his time. This is an important and recurring theme throughout "Defending Constantine." In this case, false views of the way conversion really works have led some to deny that Constantine was ever a Christian. But Leithart demonstrates how Constantine constantly appeals in his writings to the Christian God who is the heavenly Judge and who, in history, opposes those how oppose Him. Constantine also demonstrated a genuine and sustained desire to protect the Church - not from political motivations (although they were likely also present) - but from a genuine desire to see the Church remain pure and united.
Another common damnation of Constantine is based on the notion that he meddled terribly in ecclesiastical matters and acted, apart from the bishops, as the defender of Christian orthodoxy. Once again, Leithart has done his homework and dramatically, though graciously, dismantles Constantine's critics. There is no evidence, contrary to assertions by scholars such as Burckhardt and Carroll, that Constantine ever acted as the final authority in church matters. In dealing with the Donatist controversy, Constantine deflected responsibility to the bishops assembled in Rome. Constantine refused to be seated at the Council of Nicea until he was invited by the bishops. It's true that he facilitated the work of the Church's councils by calling them and providing venues, but these and the legal recognition of the conciliar decisions were unavoidable in the political and cultural situation of the time. Constantine not only did not dominate the discussions at Nicea: he also did not formulate the final creed nor sign off on it.
Leithart's discussion of Constantianism is also excellent. He defines it as "a theology and ecclesial practice that took form when the church assumed a dominant position in Roman society. Constantianism is "the wedding of power to piety, the notion that the empire or state, the ruler of civil government rather than the church, is the primary bearer of meaning in history." Leithart reserves his most withering and sustained attack for the Anabaptist theologian, John Howard Yoder, on this point. He shows that Yoder misrepresents the facts and has an axe to grind that comes from his presupposition as an Anabaptist that the church had been in a state of apostasy from the fourth to seventeenth centuries.
If this popular hypothesis were true, we would expect to see dramatic evidence of decline in the lives of Christians and their godly effect on Roman culture. But the opposite is true. In the first place, the bishops refused to be reduced to mere chaplains of the Empire. Second, it was at the instigation of Constantine that the gladiatorial shows and other immoral public entertainments were reduced and eventually abolished. Constantine's legislation looks very much like the kind of legislation Christians should desire the civil magistrates to enact. Constantine removed previous Roman penalties against the celibate and the childless. He extended the rights of women, removing deprivations such as loss of property and double standards for divorce. He discouraged sex with slaves and was the first in Roman history to legislate against rape. In turn, all of these reforms fostered a new kind of Christian masculinity that relied less on sexual prowess, victory in battle, and political power. Constantine also provided for many laws that elevated true justice and protection for the poor, including children who were exposed, orphans, outcasts, and slaves. He issued laws that enabled slaves to be liberated, as well as those to ameliorate slave conditions (for example, trying to keep slave families together). Finally, in the area of law, Constantine began the "Christianization" of the law, not by legislating for the Church but by giving the Church freedom to be itself, build its own buildings, erect its own legal structures, organize its own system of conflict resolutions, and to carry out its own sanctions.
Leithart concludes his magnum opus by refuting three related errors concerning Constantine and Constantinianism: the early church was uniformly opposed to Christians serving in the Roman army; the earliest Christians opposed the Roman Empire; the Roman Christians so identified the Church with the Empire that they ignored or despised the barbarians. In each of these three cases, Leithart demonstrates conclusively that the attitudes of early Christians were ambiguous and not uniformly anti-Empire as Yoder and others have assumed.
As if all of this weren't enough, Leithart saves the best for last. He argues brilliantly that what Constantine actually did was to "desacrifice" Rome in order to establish it upon the true sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Constantine enacted a "baptism" out of the world of Rome, and so he eliminated the competing Roman sacrifices: those associated with senatorial decisions, military victories, and the emperor. Instead, it was the sacrifice of Jesus Christ that became the founding sacrifice of the new city, the eschatological city. As with our individual baptisms, the consistent and holy implications of this baptism of the Empire would have to be worked out, imperfectly, in history.
"Through Constantine, Rome was baptized into a world without animal sacrifice and officially recognized the true sacrificial city, the one community that does offer a foretaste of the final kingdom." Breathtaking stuff!
Leithart is a fair and careful scholar; however, I wish he'd offered more evidence for the negative sides of both Constantine and Constantianism. Both are present in the book, but only in minor ways. This is a forgivable oversight, due to the complexity of the task Leithart has already taken on.
This is a book that will explode in your mind and then in your soul! You owe it to yourself to read, learn, mark, and inwardly digest this book. Sit back and enjoy the ride as Leithart skillfully and artfully articulates a more edifying way of thinking about Constantine, the church, culture, and our lives. This is one book that deserves 6 stars!
57 of 62 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I have been wanting to read this book ever since I heard of it. What a terrific idea, topic, book title. Defending Constantine! Someone needs to do it. I'm a Mennonite, but became a medievalist in part because I got uncomfortable with the historical narrative my denomination keeps telling: the church fell at Constantine and rose again in the Reformation. Having read Leithart's really excellent entry on Kings in the Brazos Theological Commentary series, I figured he'd bring clear and compelling prose, dazzling leaps of insight, new perspectives, a charitable reading of an emperor whom my denomination has consistently read uncharitably. And--so far so good. Leithart does write well, and he does have my denomination's problematic church-historical narrative squarely in his sights--and its authoritative exponent, John Howard Yoder.
But the problem with the book, it seems to me, is that it's a little bit of a bunch of things. It's part historical narrative; indeed, most of the chapters start out with an account of a particular section of Constantine's life or the Roman background. It's part historical argument; Leithart objects to how many scholars, Christian and non-Christian, have attacked Constantine. And it's part theological argument. Each of these has some really nice insights, but ends up unable to convince, and that's too bad, because I really would like to be convinced of some of this.
The historical narrative seems straightforward. In fact, sometimes it just reads like summary. This happened, this happened, this happened, then this happened. What emerges is a problem with sources that lies underneath some of that smooth narrative. The things he says may be true, but as an academic I see things that I've been trained to think are warning signs of wobbly scholarship. Leithart, frankly, relies on secondary sources. In a way, that's OK. He uses very good secondary sources, the Peter Browns and R. A. Markuses and Timothy Barneses of the world. Several times, though, he cites one source for a whole paragraph, borrowing in lump sums, at the mercy of his creditor. And a historical argument, in order to be convincing, needs to engage primary texts. There, he's simply not a scholar of late antiquity. He often cites primary texts as quoted in secondary texts. This means he hasn't gone to the primary texts, hasn't read the excerpts in context. Nor does he, early and systematically, explain his methodology for using primary texts--doesn't acknowledge, for instance, the problems with using Eusebius as literal history until well after he starts citing Eusebius in footnotes. Does he know Latin? Hard to tell. Even though there's a substantial Latin passage in one footnote, untranslated. That seems to have slipped past an editor. In short, Leithart has done a lot of reading, but his authority comes from his ability to pick apart other people's arguments, not as much from what he has gleaned from primary sources. What he's saying may very well be true--I just can't tell. His section on Constantine's laws really does dig into Constantine's language--a good solid section.
The historical argument is emergent, and what I mean by that is, it's buried in chapters and crops up here and there, toward the end of chapters or sections, unsystematically. Part of this may be because the tone of the book falls somewhere between scholarly and popular. Perhaps a popular audience needs a summary of the historical facts before the argument even begins to make sense. But a scholarly audience has to read through his evidence without knowing what argument it's intended to prove. It's a polemic-led argument, not thesis-driven. It's frustrating to have to look for his buried argument, or to read a series of rather dry facts and not know what point they're serving.
And when he goes after Yoder at the end, it's the prime example of this argumentative inversion. The agenda of this book comes clear at the end. We've been thinking that Leithart objects to Yoder's historical treatment on Constantine, but he's after Yoder's theology, and is interested in Yoder's history primarily insofar as it supports Yoder's theology. Thus the theological argument seems incompletely assimilated to the rest of the book, or, in an idiom, tacked on. And oversimplified, far too brief, as he himself admits when introducing his theological alternative that occupies the last ten pages of the book: "What I can say in this brief space is inadequate, but I must say something" (333). Of course, as a Mennonite I'm going to find his argument that the Bible is wholesale anti-pacifism hard to swallow, but he seems to throw away any power to convince when he begins the conclusion of his last chapter with what appears to be the thesis of his book: "In the end it all comes round to baptism, specifically to infant baptism" (341). This comes out of nowhere. Just asserting it, not even bothering to justify it, feels like giving up on persuasion. He's staked his theological and ecclesiological argument on a certain presupposed account of baptism that he does not explain in this text and that by definition alienates an Anabaptist (Mennonite) tradition. As he's said several times of one of Yoder's points, this is rhetorically odd (even if it is true).
This book is what it is. Leithart I think knows what it is, doesn't apologise for its weaknesses but often acknowledges them. It's what he had time, expertise, and interest for. So, don't read it to be convinced of its truth, but follow its footnote trails, and seriously consider its suggestions. It's an account of Constantine and the theological implications of his conversion that has a great deal of truth. Exercise discernment of various kinds, and you'll find good things. I'm intrigued . . . but I wish it were stronger.
But the problem with the book, it seems to me, is that it's a little bit of a bunch of things. It's part historical narrative; indeed, most of the chapters start out with an account of a particular section of Constantine's life or the Roman background. It's part historical argument; Leithart objects to how many scholars, Christian and non-Christian, have attacked Constantine. And it's part theological argument. Each of these has some really nice insights, but ends up unable to convince, and that's too bad, because I really would like to be convinced of some of this.
The historical narrative seems straightforward. In fact, sometimes it just reads like summary. This happened, this happened, this happened, then this happened. What emerges is a problem with sources that lies underneath some of that smooth narrative. The things he says may be true, but as an academic I see things that I've been trained to think are warning signs of wobbly scholarship. Leithart, frankly, relies on secondary sources. In a way, that's OK. He uses very good secondary sources, the Peter Browns and R. A. Markuses and Timothy Barneses of the world. Several times, though, he cites one source for a whole paragraph, borrowing in lump sums, at the mercy of his creditor. And a historical argument, in order to be convincing, needs to engage primary texts. There, he's simply not a scholar of late antiquity. He often cites primary texts as quoted in secondary texts. This means he hasn't gone to the primary texts, hasn't read the excerpts in context. Nor does he, early and systematically, explain his methodology for using primary texts--doesn't acknowledge, for instance, the problems with using Eusebius as literal history until well after he starts citing Eusebius in footnotes. Does he know Latin? Hard to tell. Even though there's a substantial Latin passage in one footnote, untranslated. That seems to have slipped past an editor. In short, Leithart has done a lot of reading, but his authority comes from his ability to pick apart other people's arguments, not as much from what he has gleaned from primary sources. What he's saying may very well be true--I just can't tell. His section on Constantine's laws really does dig into Constantine's language--a good solid section.
The historical argument is emergent, and what I mean by that is, it's buried in chapters and crops up here and there, toward the end of chapters or sections, unsystematically. Part of this may be because the tone of the book falls somewhere between scholarly and popular. Perhaps a popular audience needs a summary of the historical facts before the argument even begins to make sense. But a scholarly audience has to read through his evidence without knowing what argument it's intended to prove. It's a polemic-led argument, not thesis-driven. It's frustrating to have to look for his buried argument, or to read a series of rather dry facts and not know what point they're serving.
And when he goes after Yoder at the end, it's the prime example of this argumentative inversion. The agenda of this book comes clear at the end. We've been thinking that Leithart objects to Yoder's historical treatment on Constantine, but he's after Yoder's theology, and is interested in Yoder's history primarily insofar as it supports Yoder's theology. Thus the theological argument seems incompletely assimilated to the rest of the book, or, in an idiom, tacked on. And oversimplified, far too brief, as he himself admits when introducing his theological alternative that occupies the last ten pages of the book: "What I can say in this brief space is inadequate, but I must say something" (333). Of course, as a Mennonite I'm going to find his argument that the Bible is wholesale anti-pacifism hard to swallow, but he seems to throw away any power to convince when he begins the conclusion of his last chapter with what appears to be the thesis of his book: "In the end it all comes round to baptism, specifically to infant baptism" (341). This comes out of nowhere. Just asserting it, not even bothering to justify it, feels like giving up on persuasion. He's staked his theological and ecclesiological argument on a certain presupposed account of baptism that he does not explain in this text and that by definition alienates an Anabaptist (Mennonite) tradition. As he's said several times of one of Yoder's points, this is rhetorically odd (even if it is true).
This book is what it is. Leithart I think knows what it is, doesn't apologise for its weaknesses but often acknowledges them. It's what he had time, expertise, and interest for. So, don't read it to be convinced of its truth, but follow its footnote trails, and seriously consider its suggestions. It's an account of Constantine and the theological implications of his conversion that has a great deal of truth. Exercise discernment of various kinds, and you'll find good things. I'm intrigued . . . but I wish it were stronger.
31 of 37 people found the following review helpful
By A. Smith
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
With Defending Constantine, Peter Leithart has written a well-researched, well-balanced biography on a controversial character in history. Christians don't like Constantine because he combined too much state with church, and non-Christians don't like him because he combined too much church with state. Poor Constantine is left homeless. Leithart, however, attempts to make sense of the controversy and give Constantine credit for his accomplishments within a historical context.
Leithart's nicely footnoted work presents a convincing case for Constantine's genuine conversion. Constantine, having no model of a post-advent, Christian, civic ruler, brought about remarkable cultural changes. Leithart specifically focuses on the end of sacrifice. Moderns think sacrifice is something found only in a secluded, jungle tribe, but in fact, sacrifice was a cultural norm prior to Constantine. In addition to reviewing the Roman history, Leithart attempts to put Constantine's reign in a larger context of Christian history. God has a purpose for His church. The impact of His church in history is more evident by studying characters like Constantine.
Admittedly, Leithart's book is over this home-schooling mom's head at times - especially as the book turns from history to polemic. The shortcomings are really mine, however. He didn't translate all his Latin phrases, and my high school Latin is rusty. He also refers to a variety of Christian movements that I struggled to keep identified. A glossary for groups like Sabelians, Nestorians, Meletians and Donatists might have been helpful to those of us who aren't as well versed in church history as perhaps we ought to be. He also spends a good deal of time refuting the misconceptions of a Constantinianism promoted by John Howard Yoder, a theologian of whom I've never heard or read. I know I missed a good bit of Leithart's concluding thesis, but regardless, it was good to read a history that tries to get beyond dry facts and delves into the greater purpose and impact of a character in history.
Leithart's nicely footnoted work presents a convincing case for Constantine's genuine conversion. Constantine, having no model of a post-advent, Christian, civic ruler, brought about remarkable cultural changes. Leithart specifically focuses on the end of sacrifice. Moderns think sacrifice is something found only in a secluded, jungle tribe, but in fact, sacrifice was a cultural norm prior to Constantine. In addition to reviewing the Roman history, Leithart attempts to put Constantine's reign in a larger context of Christian history. God has a purpose for His church. The impact of His church in history is more evident by studying characters like Constantine.
Admittedly, Leithart's book is over this home-schooling mom's head at times - especially as the book turns from history to polemic. The shortcomings are really mine, however. He didn't translate all his Latin phrases, and my high school Latin is rusty. He also refers to a variety of Christian movements that I struggled to keep identified. A glossary for groups like Sabelians, Nestorians, Meletians and Donatists might have been helpful to those of us who aren't as well versed in church history as perhaps we ought to be. He also spends a good deal of time refuting the misconceptions of a Constantinianism promoted by John Howard Yoder, a theologian of whom I've never heard or read. I know I missed a good bit of Leithart's concluding thesis, but regardless, it was good to read a history that tries to get beyond dry facts and delves into the greater purpose and impact of a character in history.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great read if you are familiar with other works on Byzantium
This is easy to read and quite interesting although some of the language is very archaic. Full of detail and source material.
Published 1 month ago by Missy212
3.0 out of 5 stars
Not bad
Makes some great points about his life and times. It strikes me as a good summary of the existing scholarship.
Published 3 months ago by anir
3.0 out of 5 stars
Good Historical Context, but Conclusions are Weak
The main purposes of this book are to provide an historical narrative of Constantine's reign, to justify some of his policies related to the integration of church and state, and to... Read more
Published 10 months ago by Frank A. Spaccarotella
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Corrective to centuries of bad history
I read the Kindle version of this book. I am sold out to using Kindle, or some other e-book format for reading and writing book reviews, for the ease of referencing, and being able... Read more
Published 13 months ago by Tim Hawes
3.0 out of 5 stars
Of Orthodox interest?
I recall that, generally, the Eastern Orthodox Church has always tended to have a favorable view of Constantine. Read more
Published 14 months ago by J. Taylor
3.0 out of 5 stars
overly argumentative
The book started well, and was quite interesting, until Constantine makes the mistake of going to fight at Milvan Bridge. Read more
Published 15 months ago by Michael A. Johnson
5.0 out of 5 stars
Rescuing Constantine
In case you've missed it, the pressure is on to toss Constantine and his program into the rubbish bin and to disinfect our hands of his infectious disease. Read more
Published 19 months ago by Michael Philliber
5.0 out of 5 stars
Just Came Through the Door
I just received this book in the door. I haven't read past the first chapter yet, and probably won't until I have finished reading Towards a Fuller Vision: Pt. Read more
Published 19 months ago by Dave Kinsella
5.0 out of 5 stars
God's Man for His Time
Leithart's spirited and extensive depiction of the vastly positive impact of Emperor Constantine on the Roman world and in important ways on our world today may have been aimed... Read more
Published 22 months ago by Happy Camper
4.0 out of 5 stars
A must-read and a new classic
Constantine the Great, the first Christian Roman emperor, has too long been a whipping boy of nearly anyone who needed a scapegoat to pin their misgivings about Christian history... Read more
Published 22 months ago by David Withun
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