Mr. (Dr. Prof.) Robert Louis Wilken on First Documents that Examined Religious Freedom, Indulgence & Clemency

December 14, 2012 | Political turbulence in the Middle East poses a grave threat to some of the oldest and most vibrant Christian communities in the world. Within the West, debates about the roots of freedom have often sidestepped the contributions of Christians and Christian ideas. Against this backdrop, the Religious Freedom Project launched a major initiative on "Christianity and Freedom: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives," a two-year exploration of Christianity's contributions to the construction and diffusion of freedom in its political, religious, and economic dimensions, in interaction with other religious traditions and secular ideas and institutions. Robert Louis Wilken is a Distinguished Fellow of the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology and William R. Kenan, Jr.


Professor of the History of Christianity Emeritus at the University of Virginia. Wilken is the author of ten books, including The Spirit of Early Christian Thought: Seeking the Face of God (2005), Remembering the Christian Past (1995), and The Christians as the Romans Saw Them (2003). He received his PhD from the University of Chicago, and has taught at Gregorian University, Institutum Patristicum Augustinianum, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the University of Notre Dame, Fordham University, and Lutheran Theological Seminary.

Mr. (Dr. Prof.) E. J. Hutchinson of Hillsdale: "The Emperor Constantine"

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/

25 July 2013: 1707th Anniversary of Constantine's Accession

http://calvinistinternational.com/2013/07/26/the-1707th-anniversary-of-constantines-accession/

The 1707th Anniversary of Constantine’s Accession

 26 Jul 2013            

Posted by E.J. Hutchinson      

Yesterday marked the 1707th anniversary of Constantine’s accession to the purple in York. At the OUP blog, Michigan’s David Potter uses this as an entrée to discuss an exhibition on Constantine currently underway in the Colosseum in Rome:

July is a month of historic anniversaries. The Fourth of July and Bastille Day celebrate moments that have shaped the modern world. No less important is the 25th of July. This Thursday will mark the 1707th anniversary of Constantine’s accession to the throne of part of the Roman Empire (the part that included York in the UK). Within five years he would have taken over a good deal of the rest of the Roman world and converted to Christianity, setting in motion the transformation of the Roman Empire, and subsequently, Western Europe into Christian societies.

Although Constantine took the throne in York, Rome is the city where Constantine rules this summer. This past fall the Superintendenza speciali per bene di Archeologici di Rome began celebrating the 1700th anniversary of Constantine’s occupation of Rome and conversion to Christianity with a spectacular exhibition in the Colosseum: “Constantino 313 d.C”. The exhibition’s location couldn’t be better, nor could its content be more spectacular. Thousands of people who pass through every day can look out at the great arch celebrating Constantine’s victorious entry into the city. The exhibition puts on view an extraordinary range of unique objects enabling us to appreciate the complexity of the world in which Constantine lived, the remarkable nature of his career, and his relationship with the extraordinary woman who was his mother.

Though the Church would later claim preeminence over the civil power and still later eras would separate them, things did not begin this way, for Constantine was assertive and he was, well, the Roman emperor–and thus was the chief religious authority in his realm, the pontifex maximus. Neither councils nor popes operated except under his auspices. As A.H.M. Jones writes in the conclusion to his overview of the Donatist controversy in his classic Constantine and the Conversion of Europe,

[I]n the course of the struggle Constantine unawares achieved a victory over the Church. He claimed, and the Church admitted, his right as emperor to adjudicate ecclesiastical disputes, whether through councils of bishops, summoned at his behest, or in his own person. He claimed–and once again the Church raised no protest–to exile bishops, seize churches and prohibit religious meetings. The Church had acquired a protector, but it had also acquired a master. (p. 107)

Nicene Creed as "Complete Fairy Tale?"

Following a study of Jeremiah recently, we've begun to think about the subject of theological "defamation, deceit, distortion, distraction and dismissal."  Such mental (epistemological), moral (ethics), aesthetic (affections) and volitional (choices) cut across all socio-economic, socio-political and religious classes in Jeremiah's time.  Corrupt doctrine, thinking, teachers, and people--disabled and utterly disoriented and deceived is a theme in Jeremiah.  Here's Byran Owen's post in behalf and in favour of the Nicene Creed, the historic Anglican perspective.  Of course, many (majority?) of self-identifying Christians would know few of these things, although the implications are substantial, significant and important.  Nicene Churchmanship prevailed in the East, Western Romanism, and classical Protestant faiths--Anabaptistic, Pentecostalist and other tub-thumping revivalists excluded. (Bryan is a TEC Rector in Jackson, MS.)

http://creedalchristian.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-truth-about-council-of-nicaea.html

The Truth about the Council of Nicaea

According to pop culture accounts, the Council of Nicaea (325 AD) made up a new version of Christianity that includes the divinity of Jesus and the doctrine of the Trinity. And the Council also gave orthodox bishops absolute political power to stamp out rival, more tolerant followers of Jesus. The subtext, of course, is that orthodox Christianity is bad if not evil. And its core doctrine is false because it was the byproduct of efforts to consolidate political power and control.

According to the following video, this view of the Council of Nicaea is "a complete fairy tale" grounded in a lack of historical evidence. The video is a good antidote to some of the anti-Christian, "let's make up our own religion" hype out there, so watch it all:

"Defending Constantine" by Dr. Charles Erlandson

Defending Constantine

Book Review by: Dr. Charles Erlandson ~

"Dr. Peter Leithart’s latest book, “Defending Constantine,” should, in my opinion, be

considered THE Christian Book of the Year. “Defending Constantine” is a stunning work

of scholarship on a closely related collection of issues that are among the most important

in Christianity: the life of Constantine, the meaning of Constantinianism, and the

radical transformation of the world that took place while he was Emperor."

For more, see:

http://www.39articles.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/constantine.pdf