{"id":4790,"date":"2009-06-01T10:31:29","date_gmt":"2009-06-01T10:31:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leithart.level2d.com\/?p=1790"},"modified":"2017-09-06T23:50:46","modified_gmt":"2017-09-06T17:50:46","slug":"unite-and-submit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2009\/06\/unite-and-submit\/","title":{"rendered":"Unite and submit"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n<\/head>

<\/p>

If Constantine wanted to dominate the church, the obvious thing for him to do would be to try to widen the divisions in the church and keep them competing with each other. <\/p>\n

That\u2019s not what he did. Instead of \u201cdivide and conquer,\u201d he did his best to unite the church, often against the inclinations of the bishops. Drake points ou that by devoting \u201cconsiderable personal resources to achieving Christian consensus,\u201d Constantine \u201cweakened considerably his own capacity for independent action \u2013 his own, and that of his successors.\u201d <\/p>\n

Ultimately, his policy (conscious or no) was not \u201cdivide and conquer\u201d but \u201cunite and submit.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If Constantine wanted to dominate the church, the obvious thing for him to do would be to try to widen the divisions in the church and keep them competing with each other. That\u2019s not what he did. Instead of \u201cdivide and conquer,\u201d he did his best to unite the church, often against the inclinations of […]<\/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-4790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history"],"yoast_head":"\nUnite and submit<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"If Constantine wanted to dominate the church, the obvious thing for him to do would be to try to widen the divisions in the church and keep them competing\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2009\/06\/unite-and-submit\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" 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