http://calvinistinternational.com/2013/09/25/the-emperor-constantine/
The Emperor Constantine
Posted by E.J. Hutchinson
A couple of weeks ago, Peter Leithart mentioned Hans Pohlsander’s little book The Emperor Constantine as a “miracle of concision.” I agree with his assessment and wanted to add a few thoughts of my own.
I’d not read this book until I used it for a class I’m teaching this semester; but it is, I think, the single best introduction to the man and his times that I’ve come across. The problems surrounding Constantine and his reign are notoriously difficult, and Pohlsander handles them judiciously without getting lost in the weeds. One finds here an accessible narrative overview that hits the highlights. The book is unencumbered by footnotes or endnotes–this marks it as an introductory and unassuming text, but it is exactly the right approach for this sort of thing. His select bibliography on pp. 111-16 gives the reader what he needs to continue on in his study of the topic (though only works in English are mentioned).
With admirable brevity, Pohlsander covers the Tetrarchy, Constantine’s rise to power and conversion, his wars to eliminate rivals such as Maxentius and Licinius, his building programs in Rome, Palestine, and Constantinople, the religious conflicts in which he was involved (Donatism, Arianism), and the problem of imperial succession after his death. But he also treats the afterlife of Constantine, something perhaps not to be expected in a book this small, dealing, for instance, with the later and spurious accounts of his baptism in Rome at the hands of Pope Sylvester (a claim which can still be read on the base of an obelisk outside St. John Lateran in Rome, where it was placed in 1588 by Pope Sixtus V), as well as the (fanciful) portrayal of Constantine in the Stanze di Raffaello at the Vatican.
For more on this good read, see: http://calvinistinternational.com/2013/09/25/the-emperor-constantine/
I’d not read this book until I used it for a class I’m teaching this semester; but it is, I think, the single best introduction to the man and his times that I’ve come across. The problems surrounding Constantine and his reign are notoriously difficult, and Pohlsander handles them judiciously without getting lost in the weeds. One finds here an accessible narrative overview that hits the highlights. The book is unencumbered by footnotes or endnotes–this marks it as an introductory and unassuming text, but it is exactly the right approach for this sort of thing. His select bibliography on pp. 111-16 gives the reader what he needs to continue on in his study of the topic (though only works in English are mentioned).
With admirable brevity, Pohlsander covers the Tetrarchy, Constantine’s rise to power and conversion, his wars to eliminate rivals such as Maxentius and Licinius, his building programs in Rome, Palestine, and Constantinople, the religious conflicts in which he was involved (Donatism, Arianism), and the problem of imperial succession after his death. But he also treats the afterlife of Constantine, something perhaps not to be expected in a book this small, dealing, for instance, with the later and spurious accounts of his baptism in Rome at the hands of Pope Sylvester (a claim which can still be read on the base of an obelisk outside St. John Lateran in Rome, where it was placed in 1588 by Pope Sixtus V), as well as the (fanciful) portrayal of Constantine in the Stanze di Raffaello at the Vatican.
For more on this good read, see: http://calvinistinternational.com/2013/09/25/the-emperor-constantine/
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