Constantine Archives - The Bart Ehrman Blog

Constantine’s Vision(s): What Did He Really See and When?

OK, I am ready now to finish up my thread on the conversion of Constantine, based on the vision or visions that he had. So far I have narrated the three relevant accounts. If you haven’t read those posts, you should do so to make the very best sense of this one. The differences among the three accounts, and one can readily see why various scholars have suggested different ways of reconciling them. Some think he had just one vision, two years before the Battle at the Milvian Bridge (just before the panegyric of 310 CE), which at the time he took to be of Sol Invictus but later came to interpret as being instead a vision of Christ. In this view, at a still later date Constantine came to think that he had always understood it to be Christ and that, since the vision was so closely connected with his ultimate victory, he came to “remember” that it occurred the night before the battle. At the other extreme of interpretation, others have argued that [...]

BDEhrman2020-04-03T03:28:48-04:00July 26th, 2016|Constantine, Fourth-Century Christianity, Public Forum|

Constantine’s Vision according to Eusebius

In my previous posts I began to talk about the vision(s) that Constantine had that led him to convert. So far I have talked about two accounts, one in the panegyric of 310 CE and the other in the writing, not long after the conversion itself (in 312 CE), of the Christian author Lactantius. The most famous account is found in the only biography of Constantine from the ancient world, the Life of Constantine by Eusebius, the fourth century “Father of Church History” (called this because his other book, Ecclesiastical History, was the first attempt to write a history of Christianity from the time of Jesus down to his own day). The Life of Constantine was published after Constantine’s death in 337 CE, and so it is narrating events that happened earlier – in the case of the conversion, some 25 years earlier. But Eusebius claims that he hear the account from Constantine himself, and that Constantine swore up and down that it was what really happened. This all took place during a military campaign. [...]

BDEhrman2020-04-03T03:28:56-04:00July 24th, 2016|Constantine, Fourth-Century Christianity, Public Forum|

Two Versions of Constantine’s Vision

In this thread I am discussing the conversion of the emperor Constantine to Chrsitianity. I have already given the political and military background to his conversion, and said something about his religious affiliations prior to converting. Now I can begin to address what we know about the conversion itself. We have three principal sources of information for the vision(s) of Constantine that led to the conversion. The first comes to us in a flattering speech – known as a panegyric – delivered by an anonymous orator in 310 CE, before Constantine had initiated his final actions against Maxentius. The speech was occasioned by a military victory in a skirmish with Maxentius’s father, brought out of retirement, Maximian. As was always the case with panegyrics, the speaker had himself written his address and made it entirely sycophantic. Such speeches were designed to praise the recipient as one of the greatest human beings the universe has ever seen, as revealed by the subject’s activities and experiences. It is in the context of celebrating Constantine’s marvelous character that [...]

BDEhrman2020-04-03T03:29:23-04:00July 20th, 2016|Constantine, Fourth-Century Christianity|

Constantine Before His Conversion

We have comparatively excellent sources for Constantine’s adult life, including his own writings, laws he enacted, a biography written about him by the fourth-century Christian bishop of Caesarea and “father of church history” Eusebius, and other contemporary reports. But we are handicapped when it comes to his life prior to his accession to the throne, including his religious life. For this we have very slim records. We do know he was born in the northern Balkans, and so it can be assumed that he originally participated in local indigenous religions that would have included such deities as the Thracian rider-gods, divine beings astride horses. As was true of all citizens in the empire, he would also have participated in civic religious festivals, including the cults worshiping the deceased Roman emperors. The Roman army too had its deities of choice, and as a soldier and then commander Constantine would have worshiped these as well. What we don’t know is how well informed he was of Christianity in the years before his conversion. His mother, Helena... THE [...]

BDEhrman2020-04-04T15:24:45-04:00July 19th, 2016|Constantine, Fourth-Century Christianity, Public Forum|

Constantine and the Battle at the Milvian Bridge

As I indicated in my previous post, when Constantine had been acclaimed emperor by his troops in Britain (at the city of York) in 306 CE (upon the death of his father Constantius), it was taken as a license for Maxentius to assume power in Rome. The reason is this. Diocletian, as we have seen, had tried to move the empire to a new system of governance, the Tetrarchy, in which four leaders, all chosen for their experience and skills, would rule. When a senior member in the East or West retired or died, the junior Caesar serving under him would be elevated and the senior A Augustus would choose, then, the new junior replacement. But Constantine was acclaimed – or so it was thought or claimed – not because he had been appointed but because he was the son of the outgoing Augustus. In other words, his accession came not because of a decision of the Augustus but because of birth. It was succession by the dynasty principle, precisely what Diocletian had tried to [...]

BDEhrman2020-04-03T03:29:51-04:00July 18th, 2016|Constantine, Fourth-Century Christianity, Public Forum|

How Constantine Became Emperor

As background to the conversion of the emperor Constantine I have been explaining how Diocletian had set up the Tetrarchy with a sensible order of succession, so that the Roman emperors would be chosen on a rational basis rather than simply because of accidents of birth or the whims of the army. His plan ended up not working. Because of health issues, after a long and successful reign of over two decades, Diocletian decided to retire from office on May 1, 305. For the sake of a smooth succession, he compelled his rather unwilling co-Augustus, Maximian, to do so as well, to make way for the two Caesars, Galerius and Constantius, to rise to the senior offices. For their replacements, according to the principles that Diocletian had devised, two Caesars were chosen as junior emperors: Maximin Daia (not to be confused with the out-going Augustus Maximian) to serve with Galerius in the East, and Severus to serve with Constantius in the West. There was now a “Second Tetrarchy.” At the time it may have seemed [...]

BDEhrman2020-04-03T03:29:59-04:00July 15th, 2016|Constantine, Fourth-Century Christianity, Public Forum|

Preface to Constantine: The Rule of the Four

In this post I want to explain how Constantine came to power. It is an unusually complicated story, with all kinds of names and dates that only inveterate historians could love. I’ll give a simple version of it here, more suitable for those of us who are mere mortals. The reason it matters is that Constantine’s predecessor’s Diocletian vision of a Tetrarchy (= Rule of Four), in which the empire would be ruled by two senior emperor (each called an Augustus) and two junior emperors (each called a Caesar), with one pair (senior – junior) in the East and one in the West, didn’t last past a year after Diocletian’s abdication. There were usurpations, infightings, civil wars, and a whole mess of things for years until Constantine emerged as the sole ruler of the Empire. He was in power (first as a ruling partner, then as the one guy at the top) for over thirty years, longer than any ruler of the empire apart from the one who started it all, Caesar Augustus, three centuries [...]

BDEhrman2020-04-03T03:30:11-04:00July 13th, 2016|Constantine, Fourth-Century Christianity, Public Forum|

The Emperor Constantine: Some Background

Time for something new, about as different from the Pentateuch as you can get while still staying in the ancient world. I’ve been reading and thinking a lot about the Emperor Constantine over the past ten months and have decided to devote a thread to him on the blog. His conversion to Christianity is usually considered a major turning point in the history of the Christian religion. Before he became Christian all the Roman emperors were, of course, pagan, and some of them, including his immediate predecessors on the throne, were virulently opposed to the Christian movement. He himself converted near the end of what is called the “Great Persecution,” a ten-year period in which, at least in parts of the empire, the imperial forces were trying to wipe out the religion. After he converted, Christianity went from being persecuted, to being tolerated, to being religion-most-favored . It is a mistake to say – as so many people do say! – that Constantine made Christianity the official state religion of the Roman empire. He absolutely [...]

BDEhrman2020-04-03T03:30:21-04:00July 12th, 2016|Constantine, Fourth-Century Christianity, Public Forum|

Constantine and Christianity

One of the readers of this blog pointed out to me in a comment a *third* thing that is commonly said about the emperor Constantine and the council of Nicea that is also wrong (the first two being the ones I mentioned: that at the council they [or even he, Constantine!] decided which books would be in the canon of the New Testament and that it was at the council that a vote was taken on whether or not Jesus was to be considered the Son of God. Wrong, wrong, wrong – both of them). It is widely believed (for some inscrutable reason) that Constantine made Christianity the “state religion” of the Roman empire. This too is wrong. So just a very brief bit of background, which will involve another (more or less unrelated) bit of misinformation that is commonly held having to do with the history of Christian persecution up to Constantine’s time. Many people appear to think that Christianity from the very beginning was an illegal religion that was constantly persecuted by the [...]

BDEhrman2020-04-04T15:34:10-04:00October 11th, 2013|Constantine, Fourth-Century Christianity, History of Christianity (100-300CE), Reflections and Ruminations, Spread of Christianity|

Widespread Misconceptions about the Council of Nicea

One of the reasons I’m excited about doing my new course for the Teaching Company (a.k.a. The Great Courses) is that I’ll be able to devote three lectures to the Arian Controversy, the Conversion of the emperor Constantine, and the Council of Nicea (in 325 CE). It seems to me that a lot more people know about the Council of Nicea today than 20 years ago – i.e., they know that there *was* such a thing – and at the same time they know so little about it. Or rather, what they think they know about it is WRONG. I suppose we have no one more to blame for this than Dan Brown and the Da Vinci Code, where, among other things, we are told that Constantine called the Council in order to “decide” on whether Jesus was divine or not, and that they took a vote on whether he was human or “the Son of God.” And, according to Dan Brown’s lead character (his expert on all things Christian), Lee Teabing, “it was a [...]

BDEhrman2020-04-05T08:33:03-04:00October 9th, 2013|Constantine, Early Christian Doctrine, Fourth-Century Christianity, Heresy and Orthodoxy, Reflections and Ruminations|

The Growth of Early Christianity: A Clarification

In my last post I was discussing why / how Christianity succeeded in taking over the Empire, and a number of readers have pointed out that the conversion of Constantine had something to do with it. Yes indeed!! Constantine had EVERYTHING to do with it. If he/that hadn’t happened, there’s no telling what would have been. Constantine was the real game-changer. But my post (I wasn’t clear about this: my mistake) wasn’t dealing with the cataclysmic events of the fourth century; I was trying to talk about what was going on *before* the game changed. The question I had and have is how Christianity managed to grow exponentially from the time of the apostles up to the early fourth century, when everything took a radical turn with the conversion of the emperor (which led, before century’s end, to Christianity becoming the state religion!). If we assume that the New Testament is basically right, just for the sake of the argument (and in this it cannot be wrong by much, any way you look at it) [...]

BDEhrman2020-04-04T13:39:30-04:00June 20th, 2012|Constantine, Fourth-Century Christianity, History of Christianity (100-300CE), Public Forum, Reader’s Questions, Spread of Christianity|

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