Constantine and the Bishops: The Politics of Intolerance (Ancient Society and History) <\/a> ![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=leithartcom-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0801871042\")
is a remarkable piece of work. One of his opening moves is to show how, despite clear and overt differences, both Burckhardt\u2019s pure-political Constantine and Baynes\u2019s sincere-Christian Constantine share common assumptions about politics and religion. <\/p>\n He charges that Burckhardt is guilty of a \u201cconceptual anachronism\u201d when he projects the category of \u201cpurely political\u201d motivation back onto the fourth century. Otto Seeck puts it wittily: \u201cShow me a single individual in the fourth century who was not completely superstitious, and I will gladly subscribe to the prevailing opinion.\u201d Religion and political action were simply not separable in the fourth century, which is why Eusebius doesn\u2019t blush to tell us that Constantine\u2019s conversion was bound up with his desire to defeat Maxentius. <\/p>\n
Drake\u2019s critique of Baynes is more subtle. <\/p>\n
Burckhardt\u2019s main evidence of Constantine\u2019s insincerity was his toleration of paganism. A true believer, he thought, must be an intolerant believer. Baynes, intriguingly, makes the same assumption, but saw in Constantine evidence of increasing intolerance of paganism: \u201cSince Baynes, Burckhardt\u2019s critics instead have postulated a series of stages in Constantine\u2019s religious policy to explain this apparent contradiction [i.e., his continued toleration and sometimes favor to other religions], holding that, while Constantine consistently desired the triumph of the Christian Church, he was initially forced by political realities . . . to make tactical concessions.\u201d The burden of Drake\u2019s book is to show that there was a strain of principled toleration within Christianity in the fourth century, and to show that Constantine\u2019s policies followed this strain. <\/p>\n
Given his criticisms of Burckhardt, however, it is odd to find him insisting on providing a \u201cpolitical\u201d as opposed to a \u201ctheological\u201d or \u201creligious\u201d account of Constantine. His construction of a Constantine who wheedles, rants, and blusters, who wheels and deals, is certainly accurate and refreshing. But how is his warning that \u201charm can be done by failing to separate spiritual and secular success\u201d and his insistence that all collective and public behavior \u201cbecomes subject to certain principles of political behavior\u201d not just another form of \u201cconceptual anachronism\u201d? <\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
H.A. Drake\u2019s Constantine and the Bishops: The Politics of Intolerance (Ancient Society and History) is a remarkable piece of work. One of his opening moves is to show how, despite clear and overt differences, both Burckhardt\u2019s pure-political Constantine and Baynes\u2019s sincere-Christian Constantine share common assumptions about politics and religion. He charges that Burckhardt is guilty […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3021,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history"],"yoast_head":"\n
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