Defending Constantine: The Twilight of an Empire and the Dawn of Christendom

Peter J. Leithart

To Dr. Paul W. Leithart
Beloved Physician, Father, Patriot, Friend Above all, Follower of Jesus

Preface

Acknowledgments

I SANGUINARY EDICTS

2 JUPITER ON THE THRONE

3 INSTINCTU DI VINITAT US

4 BY THIS SIGN

5 LIBERATOR ECCLESIAE

6 END OF SACRIFICE

7 COMMON BISHOP

8 NICAEA AND AFTER

9 SEEDS OF EVANGELICAL LAW

10 JUSTICE FOR ALL

II ONE GOD, ONE EMPEROR

12 PACIFIST CHURCH?

13 CHRISTIAN EMPIRE, CHRISTIAN MISSION

14 ROME BAPTIZED

Bibliography

Author Index

Subject Index

Constantine has been a whipping boy for a long time, and still is today. In popular culture (Dan Brown, Da Vinci Code), among bestselling historians (James Carroll, Constantine's Sword), and among theologians (Stanley Hauerwas, John Howard Yoder and their followers), his name is identified with tyranny, anti-Semitism, hypocrisy, apostasy and heresy. He was a hardened power-politician who never really became Christian, a hypocrite who harnessed the energy of the church for his own political ends, a murderer, a usurper, an egotist.