Constantine and Nicaea
Who Was The Last Non-Christian Emperor of Rome?
Most people know that Constantine was the first Christian emperor. Lots of other things they think about him are wrong -- for example, that he decided or helped to decide which books would be in the New Testament or that his conversion was just a political ploy. I deal with these in my book The Triumph of Christianity (Simon & Schuster, 2019). But this one's right. He was the first Christian emperor. It's also right that nearly all the emperors after Constantine were Christian. I say *nearly* because of one brief but highly noteworthy exception: his nephew Julian, most frequently referred to as Julian the Apostate. Julian ruled for nineteen months in 361-63 CE. His short reign was highly significant: Julian tried to turn the empire back to the ways and worship of paganism. He is called “the Apostate” because he started out as Christian but then opted to worship the traditional gods of Rome. And he tried to enforce this view on his Empire. Here is how I describe how he did that (or [...]