Der Kaiser und sein Gott: Das Christentum im Denken und in der Religionspolitik Konstantins des Grossen (review)

Abstract

Der Kaiser und sein Gott: Das Christentum im Denken und in der Religionspolitik Konstantins des Grossen. By Klaus Martin Girardet. [Millennium-Stuthen zu Kultur und Geschichte des ersten Jahrtausends n. Chr, Band 27.] (New York: de Gruyter. 2010. Pp. ?, 213. $98.00. ISBN 978-3-110-22788-8.) For almost two centuries, field of Constantine scholarship was dominated by a single, overarching question: Was he, or wasn't he? That is, was Constantine truly converted to Christianity, or was he rather a supremely ambitious politician who simply saw Christian as a vehicle to achieve world dominion? The main proponent of latter view was Jacob Burckhardt; an English translation of his Zeit Constantins des Grossen is still in print more than 1 50 years after his work's first publication. Girardet's book follows a counterargument by Norman Baynes in Constantine Great and Christian (London, 1929). Here Baynes argued for sincerity of Constantine's conversion, which followed a test of Christian God's power at Battle of Milvian Bridge in October 312. Henceforward, Baynes said, Constantine sought consistently to achieve the triumph of Christianity and union of Roman state with Christian Church (Baynes, p. 42 ln57). Like Baynes, Girardet dismisses any apparent accommodation of old religion as no more than expethency due to a population, and particularly a Senatorial aristocracy, that remained overwhelmingly pagan. But he has updated Baynes's case, primarily in two ways. First, he accepts argument that Constantine's of occurred not in 312 but in 310 and was a halo phenomenon- an atmospheric condition that makes ice crystals form what appears to be a cross superimposed over sun. Second, Girardet not only accepts authenticity of Constantine's Oration to Saints- dismissed by Baynes as a forgery-but also provides it with a specific date (314) and place (Trier). Girardet has also broadened and deepened Baynes's basic argument.A veteran scholar with a long list of his own writings on church and state in fourth century, Girardet has read widely, and most of his chapters contain a full discussion of evidence and literature for each period or topic, followed by systematic and fully annotated discussion. Nevertheless, an air of staleness hovers over this work.The problem lies in rigidity of Girardet's approach. Intent on laying to rest once and for all any doubt about sincerity of Constantine's conversion, he introduces at outset a monotheism/polytheism dichotomy that serves as an impenetrable defense of his argument. Because there is such a vast and irreconcilable gulf between monotheistic and polytheistic thought, he observes, once Constantine started to believe in a single god, he had no alternative but to reject polytheism completely and utterly. For this reason, Girardet depicts 310 vision, usually described as a pagan vision because orator who relates it identifies god as Apollo, as beginning of a process of conversion that was fully completed with Constantine's victory in 312.To same end, Girardet holds that recent scholarship on pagan monotheism is mistaken since, at best, such thinking could only be labeled henotheism, and, because henotheists recognize lesser gods, same gulf does not exist between them and polytheists; therefore, only Christians qualify as true monotheists (Jews do not enter argument). Accordingly, Constantine's own utterances demonstrate gulf between two systems and prove that Constantine was Christian. This approach works well as a refutation of Burckhardt, but it also freezes Girardet into a historiographie time warp. The question of Constantine's sincerity arose as a subset of theology and church history; few serious scholars now see any reason to doubt that Constantine became a Christian. …