46Charles Freeman, The Closing ofthe Western Mind: The Rise ofFaith and the Fall ofReason (New York: Vintage, 2002).
47Elizabeth Gilmore Holt, ed., A Documentary History ofArt, vol. 1, The Middle Ages and the Renaissance (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1981), p. 294.
48 Quoted in R. Ross Holloway, Constantine and Rome (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2004), pp. 37, 48.
49Burckhardt, Age of Constantine, chap. 7.
"Jas' Elsner, "Perspectives in Art," in The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Constantine, ed. Noel Lenski (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), pp. 255-77, esp. 272.
51This entire paragraph is dependent on Tonio Holscher, The Language ofImages in Roman Art, trans. Anthony Snodgrass and Annemarie Kunzl-Snodgrass (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004). The quotation comes from p. 58, and photos of different depictions of Bacchus are found on pp. 66-68.
"Holloway, Constantine and Rome, p. 49.
"See chapter 1.
"Nancy H. Ramage and Andrew Ramage, Roman Art, 5th ed. (Upper Saddle River, NJ.: Pearson/Prentice Hall, 2009), pp. 334-40, 355-57.
"See Holloway, Constantine and Rome, pp. 19-53; Mark Wilson Jones, "Genesis and Mimesis: The Design of the Arch of Constantine in Rome," Journal ofthe Society ofArchitecturalHistorians 59 (2000): 50-77; Jas Elsner, "From the Culture of Spolia to the Cult of Relics: The Arch of Constantine and the Genesis of Late Antique Forms," Papers of the British School at Rome 68 (2000). Dale Kinney (" `SPOLIA. DAMNATio' and `RENOVATIO MEMORIAE,' " Memoirs ofthe American Academy in Rome 42 [1997]: 117) attributes this conclusion to Hans Peter L'Orange.
16 See Kinney, "sPOLIA," pp. 117-48; see also Kinney, "Roman Architectural Spolia," Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 145, no. 2 (2001): 138-61. Kinney ("sroLIA," pp. 118-20) argues that the term itself is an anachronistic projection of modern standards of artistry, and provides evidence of pre-Constantinian spolia at pp. 124-26, 134.
57Elsner, "From the Culture of Spolia," p. 154.
"Jones, "Genesis and Mimesis," p. 70.
59Elsner, "From the Culture of Spolia," makes this connection and links it to literary habits of the time, as well as to the cult of the saints. My student Lisa Beyeler offered the same analogy of spolia and typology.
60Holloway, Constantine and Rome, pp. 21-25; Jones, "Genesis and Mimesis," pp. 69-70.
61Jones, "Genesis and Mimesis," pp. 70-71.
62Ibid., p. 70, quotes Jose Ruysschaert's "masterful remark" that "the arch is pagan for that which it says, Christian for that which it doesn't."
63Ibid., pp. 50, 69.
64Potter, Roman Empire at Bay, p. 383.
65Eusebius Life 3.48.
661bid., 3.49.
67Richard Krautheimer, Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture, Pelican History of Art, 3rd ed. (New York: Penguin, 1979), p. 72, notes that the city today has few remains of the original Constantinian constructions.
68A general discussion of the founding and adornment of Constantinople is found in Gilbert Dagron, Naissance dune capitale: Constantinople et ses institutions de 330 a 451, 2nd ed. (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1984), pp. 13-47.
71Ibid., pp. 43-47.
72R. P. C. Hanson, "The Christian Attitude to Pagan Religions up to the Time of Constantine the Great," ANRW 23 (1980): 968.
'Potter, Roman Empire at Bay, p. 384.
69Krautheimer, Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture, pp. 72-73.
70Dagron, Naissance dune capitale, p. 26.
'Holloway, Constantine and Rome, chap. 3.
75Gregory T. Armstrong, "Imperial Church Building and Church-State Relations, A.D. 313363," Church History 36, no. 1 (1967): 7. Thanks too to my student Lisa Beyeler for a helpful conversation on this point.
'Ibid., p. 8, points out that Constantine's buildings were selective, often erected in order to embody a Christian conquest of a pagan site.
77Sozomen Ecclesiastical History 2.4. On Constantine's building at Mature, see Van Dam, Roman Revolution, pp. 301-2.
78Krautheimer, Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture, pp. 41-42. There is evidence that the few pre-Constantinian church buildings were also basilicas.
79Richard Krautheimer, "The Constantinian Basilica," Dumbarton Oaks Papers 21 (1967): 122.
801bid., p. 125.
81lbid., pp. 123-24.
84For detailed discussion of particular churches, see Krautheimer, Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture, pp. 39-70; for churches in Rome, Holloway, Constantine and Rome.
82Ramage and Ramage, Roman Art, p. 354.
83Krautheimer, "Constantinian Basilica," p. 118.
"Gregory T. Armstrong, "Constantine's Churches: Symbol and Structure," Journal ofthe Society ofArchitecturalHistorians 33, no. 1 (1974): 6.
88Krautheimer, "Constantinian Basilica," p. 128.
86Quoted in Elsner, "Perspectives on Art," pp. 255-77, 266.
87Armstrong, "Constantine's Churches," pp. 13-14.
89Ibid., p. 121.
90Ibid., p. 129.
1R. P. C. Hanson, "The Christian Attitude to Pagan Religions up to the Time of Constantine the Great," ANRW 23 (1980): 969, notes that temples were closed that "encourage immoral practices" or "occupied ground specially holy to Christians." Yet "there was no general policy of closing temples." Pagan shrines, in fact, continued to be built during Constantine's reign (p. 970).
2We could follow a similar line of argument by examining Constantine's legislation regarding haruspication.
'Andreas Alfoldi, The Conversion of Constantine and Pagan Rome, trans. Harold Mattingly (Oxford: Clarendon, 1948), arranges the evidence chronologically and concludes that Constantine's policies toward paganism became increasing repressive over time, especially in the final period of his reign (A.D. 330-37).
4Eusebius Life 2.45.
5The constitution of 341 appears in the Codex Theodosianus 16.10.2: "Contra legem divi prin- cipis parentis nostri et hanc nostrae mansuetudinis iussionem ausus fuerit sacrificia celebrare." Quoted in Timothy D. Barnes, "Constantine's Prohibition of Pagan Sacrifice," American Jour- nalofPhilology 105 (1984): 71.
6Ibid., p. 70. This is a crucial point in Timothy D. Barnes, Constantine and Eusebius (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1981); part of the evidence of his claim is that Constantine considered himself a chosen instrument of God for the Christianization of the Roman Empire.
'Following Drake's lead, Elizabeth DePalma Digeser (The Making of a Christian Empire: Lactantius and Rome [Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2000]) likewise minimizes Constantine's antipagan legislation. She finds (p. 128) only two "minor instances" of Constantine's taking "direct action against polytheists," and though she admits (pp. 131-32) that Constantine "razed" temples, she insists that there were not many. She also admits that there might have been some fairly minor prohibition of sacrifice. These details are much more damaging to her overall thesis, however, than she admits.
'Scott Bradbury, "Constantine and the Problem of Anti-pagan Legislation in the Fourth Century," Classical Philology 89, no. 2 (1994): 134.
'My conclusions here follow those of Bradbury (ibid.), and see also Scott Bradbury, "Julian's Pagan Revival and the Decline of Blood Sacrifice," Phoenix 49, no. 4 (1995).
101bid., p. 134.
"Bradbury (ibid.) quotes Paul Veyne: "Il existe beaucoup de legislations qui legisferent, non pour indiquer et imposer des conduits on des procedures, mais pour proclamer a la face du ciel quelle est la bonne conduite, on un ideal moral."
12Ibid., p. 135.
13Ibid., p. 138. The idea of an "atmosphere" comes from Peter Brown. Bradbury, "Julian's Pagan Revival," shows that Constantine's legislation did have a chilling effect. Combined with declining funding for pagan cults, his edict led to a weakening of paganism. Hanson, "Christian Attitude to Pagan Religions," pp. 913-15, 968, makes the important observation that many pagans already disapproved of animal sacrifice, and so Constantine was on relatively safe ground in prohibiting
it.
14Eusebius Life 3.64-65.
"Barnes, Constantine andEusebius, p. 224.
16Ibid.
17 This summarizes James Carroll, Constantine's Sword: The Church and theJews (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2001), chaps. 17-20. Marcel Simon, Verus Israel.A Study of the Relations between Christians andJews in the Roman EmpireAD 135-425, trans. H. McKeating (London: Littman Library of Jewish of Jewish Civilization, 1996), p. 291, baselessly attributes to Constantine a law threatening the death penalty to converts.
"David S. Potter, The Roman Empire at Bay, Routledge History of the Ancient World (London: Routledge, 2004), pp. 424-25.
"Potter (ibid., p. 425) denies that it is possible to discern a coherent plan of persecution in Constantine's legislation regarding Jews. Jacob Neusner (Judaism and Christianity in theAge of Constantine: History, Messiah, Israel and the Initial Confrontation [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987], p. 18) agrees that the destruction of Jews during the medieval period and later is not attributable to Constantine's policies. Robert L. Wilken (John Chrysostom and the Jews: Rhetoric and Reality in the Late 4th Century [Eugene, Ore.: Wipf & Stock, 1983], p. 50) claims that Constantine's laws, though making harsh references to Jews like "feral" and "nefarious," still "remain, in the main, within Roman legal tradition."
22The evidence is taken from the Codex Theodosianus and is summarized concisely in T. G. Elliott, The Christianity of Constantine the Great (Scranton, Penn.: University of Scranton Press, 1996), pp. 112-13.
23Cf. Barnes, Constantine andEusebius, pp. 252, 392 n. 74. Barnes suggests a date of 329. If this is true, then Simon (Verus Israel, p. 126) is quite wrong to say that Constantine's legislation against Jews was "one of his first official acts" after the defeat of Maxentius. The decree is found in the Codex Theodosianus 16.8.1.1: "Si quis vero ex populo ad eorum nefariam sectum accesserit et conciliabulis eorum se applicaverit, cum ipsis poenas meritas sustinebit." Simon and Carroll claim that the decree requires the death penalty for converts, but that makes the decree more precise than it is.
20Wilken, John Chrysostom and the Jews, p. 51.
21lbid.
24Potter, Roman Empire at Bay, p. 425.
"John Howard Yoder, The Jewish-Christian Schism Revisited, ed. Michael G. Cartwright and Peter Och (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003).
26This point, which comes from Yoder, is neatly summarized by Stanley Hauerwas and Chris K. Huebner, "History, Theory and Anabaptism: A Conversation on Theology after John Howard Yoder," in The Wisdom ofthe Cross: Essays in Honor of john Howard Yoder, ed. Stanley Hauerwas et al. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), p. 396.
27Paula Fredricksen, Augustine and the Jews: A Christian Defense ofJews and Judaism (New York: Doubleday, 2008), pp. 224-28.
281bid., p. 218.
29Ibid., p. 311.
30R. A. Markus, The End ofAncient Christianity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), p. 51, emphasizes the role of the Genesis commentary in the "re-direction" of Augustine's thought on sexuality, the body and many other topics.
31Fredricksen, Augustine and the Jews, pp. 242-44.
32Ibid., chaps. 11-12. For an account of Christianity and Judaism that stresses the continuity, see Oskar Skarsaune, In the Shadow ofthe Temple: Jewish Influences on Early Christianity (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2002).
33The phrase is from Neusner, Judaism and Christianity, p. 18.
34Robert L. Wilken, The Land Called Holy: Palestine in Christian History and Thought (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1992), p. 83.
35E. D. Hunt ("Constantine and Jerusalem," Journal ofEcclesiastical History 48, no. 3 [1997]: 422) denies any connection with Solomon. There is no overt association, but given the typological imagination of the fourth-century Christians, it beggars belief to think that the thought never crossed Constantine's mind.
36See Hugh Nibley, "Christian Envy of the Temple," pts. 1-2, Jewish Quarterly Review, n.s. 50, nos. 2-3 (1959), quoted by Wilken, Land Called Holy, p. 97. The church was equally a declaration of triumph over paganism. It is probably no accident that the church was dedicated on September 13, the Roman festival of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, to whom Hadrian had dedicated Aelia (Hunt, "Constantine and Jerusalem," pp. 421-22).
37Wilken, Land Called Holy, p. 96.
38lbid., p. 89, argues that Eusebius is deliberately evoking the sacred caves of classical paganism.
39Eusebius Life 3.26.
'Alison Futrell, Blood in the Arena: The Spectacle of Roman Power (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1997).
41Even if this is not quite sufficient reason to conclude that it had not been found, the absence of mention of the cross from the account of the Bordeaux Pilgrim confirms it. See Hunt, "Constantine and Jerusalem," p. 415.
42Eusebius Life 3.36.
43Gregory T. Armstrong, "Constantine's Churches: Symbol and Structure," Journal ofthe Society ofArchitecturalHistorians 33, no. 1 (1974): 16.
44Ibid.
45Hunt, "Constantine and Jerusalem," p. 420; Wilken, Land Called Holy, p. 94. Jas Elsner's brilliant analysis of the "sacred journey" of the Bordeaux Pilgrim reinforces this point ("The Itinerarium Burdigalense: Politics and Salvation in the Geography of Constantine's Empire," Journal ofRoman Studies 90 [2000]: 181-95).
46This is in part based on Mario Turchettti, "Religious Concord and Political Toleration in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century France," Sixteenth Centuryjourna122, no. 1 (1991).
47Digeser, Making ofa Christian Empire, p. 110.
48Ibid., p. 125.
49H. A. Drake, "The Impact of Constantine on Christianity," in The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Constantine, ed. Noel Lenski (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), p. 122.
50I return, briefly, to this question at the end of the next chapter.
51For the failure of this Constantinian policy and the growing intolerance of the Christian empire through the fourth century, see H. A. Drake, Constantine and the Bishops: The Politics of Intolerance (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000), pt. 4. Drake, mistakenly in my judgment, does not find the distinction between concord and toleration very meaningful.
'John Locke, "A Letter Concerning Toleration," is available online at
13 To this I would only say: "Take, eat; take, drink." Lockean politics are possible only when sacramental theology has been deleted.
"Cities and kingdoms that "embraced the faith of Christ" retained "their ancient form of government"? Tell that to all the medieval kings who had to swear fealty to Jesus or the Trinity; tell that to the emperors who sought papal anointing; tell that to Alfred the Great, whose laws were expressly based on the Ten Commandments; tell that to Henry standing in the snow outside Gregory's castle at Canossa. Locke's is precisely the conception of Christianity that Yoder identified as "Constantinian." I share Yoder's abhorrence of this non- and antiecclesial brand of Christianity, but I submit that it is better described as "Lockean" than "Constantinian."
"Locke: Political Essays, ed. Mark Goldie, Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought (Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press, 1997), pp. 134-59.
56For the East, and for a somewhat later period, see K. A. Harl, "Sacrifice and Pagan Belief in Fifth- and Sixth-Century Byzantium," Past and Present 128 (1990); for North Africa, Fre- dricksen, Augustine and the Jews, p. 354. Constantius pursued a short-lived and unsuccessful program to shut down pagan temples and prevent sacrifice.
S7Fredricksen, Augustine and the Jews, pp. 357-60.
"Hermann Dorries, Constantine and Religious Liberty, trans. Roland Bainton (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1960), pp. 49-51.
59J. H. W. G. Liebeschuetz, Continuity and Change in Roman Religion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979), p. 296.
'A. H. M. Jones, Constantine and the Conversion ofEurope (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1978), pp. 130-31.
2R. P. C. Hanson, The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God: The Arian Controversy, 318-381 (Gra
nd Rapids: Baker Academic, 2005), p. 152.
3Eusebius Life 3.10. Eusebius is more fashion reporter than historian or theologian throughout this passage.
4H. A. Drake, Constantine and the Bishops: The Politics of Intolerance (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000); Andrew Wall ace-Hadrill, "Civilisprinceps: Between Citizen and King," Journal ofRoman Studies 72 (1982).
SEusebius Life 3.15.
6Alexander Murray, "Peter Brown and the Shadow of Constantine," Journal of Roman Studies 73 (1983): 192, poses this as one of three "consubstantial and coeternal" questions of the Constantinian shift. The others are "the problem that arises when a small church of underdogs becomes a church of the dominant majority" and what happens "when capitals are removed nearly nine hundred miles."
games Carroll, Constantine's Sword: The Church and the Jews (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2001), p. 188.
'John Howard Yoder, The Royal Priesthood: Essays Ecclesiologicaland Ecumenical, ed. Michael G. Cartwright (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994), p. 245, emphasis added.
9Jacob Burckhardt, The Age of Constantine the Great, trans. Moses Hadas (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983), p. 311.
1°Craig A. Carter, Rethinking Christ and Culture: A PostChristendom Perspective (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2006), pp. 80, 105.
"Ibid., pp. 82, 84, 96-97, 103-4.
12Burckhardt, Age of Constantine, pp. 311-15. Yoder (Royal Priesthood, p. 259) claims that Constantine formulated the conclusions of the council and that the emperor had the "decisive voice" in shaping these conclusions (Yoder, Christian Attitudes to War, Peace and Revolution, ed. Theodore J. Koontz and Andy Alexis-Baker [Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2009], p. 58).
13Eusebius Life 3.17-20, from a letter written to the bishops after Nicaea.
14Drake, Constantine and the Bishops, is particularly good on this.
10J. H. W. G. Liebeschuetz, Continuity and Change in Roman Religion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979), pp. 292-93.
"Drake, again, is crucial here. His fundamental methodological and substantive point is given in the plural of his title-not "Constantine and the Church" but "Constantine and the Bishops." To grasp what Constantine attempted and accomplished, accurately, we need to put faces on "the church" (see especially Drake, Constantine and the Bishops, p. 24).
Defending Constantine: The Twilight of an Empire and the Dawn of Christendom Page 41