title: Defending Constantine: The Twilight of an Empire and the Dawn of Christendom
author: Peter J. Leithart
description: Leithart (Deep Exegesis), a pastor who teaches at New St. Andrews College in Moscow, Idaho, takes aim at the received wisdom that Constantine's establishment of Christianity as the religion of the Roman Empire was a political co-optation that made the church the creature and justification of the imperial state. He reads the original ancient, the seminal secondary, and lots of other sources to contend that Constantine was a believer and a conciliator who sought theological agreement for the political stability it brought. Contra the influential interpretation of Anabaptist theologian John Howard Yoder, Leithart maintains that when Constantine is understood in historical context, his disestablishment of pagan religion opens a place for a Christian understanding of sacrifice and of the significance of the kingdom of God. His provocative view deserves examination. Besides his peers, general readers with a close knowledge of early church history will appreciate his well-supported argument, and anybody whose understanding of early church history comes from The Da Vinci Code needs to read this. (Nov.) <br />(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
zlib_text: Colin Thubron
  
  
  ———  
  
  
  Emperor
  
  
  A Novel
  
  
    
  
  
  Penguin Books
  
  
  _For Monica Mason_
  
  
  The conversion to Christianity of the Emperor Constantine is a watershed in
  Western history. But this book is not a historical inquiry. Of Constantine too
  little is known to ascertain so ambiguous a character as I have indicated. Of
  the Empress Fausta almost nothing is known at all.
  
  
  Rather I have attempted to explore regions on which history is silent. I have
  been anxious only not to trespass beyond the bounds of the possible.
  
  
  Colin Thubron
  
  
  Melitius, lately Master of Studies to the Augustus Constantine. To Celsus,
  professor of rhetoric.
  
  
  Constantinople, 30 May [A.D. 338]
  
  
  I am sending you these papers by my personal messenger. You I will understand
  why, after you have read them. What I have to tell you is in strictest
  secrecy.
  
  
  A year ago I dined with the Augustus Constantine and several of his close
  ministers. It was not a formal evening, but the kind of relaxation in which he
  indulged towar