Defending Constantine

Book

Peter J. Leithart, Defending Constantine:  TheTwilight of an Empire and the Dawn of Christendom. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2010.

Reviewer

Elmer J. Thiessen, Research Professor of Education, Tyndale University College, Toronto, ON

What does an emperor do when he becomes a Christian? What should he do? Does the life of Constantine have something to teach us? These are the questions that Peter Leithart tries to answer in this book. Defending Constantine is mainly a careful yet engaging biography of the first overtly Christian Roman emperor.

Leithart tries to summarize the results of the extensive recent scholarship on Constantine at a fairly popular level. The reader is warned in the preface that the author has an ax to grind. Indeed, “as the book progresses biography recedes as polemic comes to the forefront” (10). The author’s aim is to take sides on the many things that are disputed about Constantine and to rebut the many caricatures that have arisen. As the title suggests, his aim is to defend Constantine. 

Is the story only a positive one? By no means.

Yes, any number of very unchristian attitudes and actions can be held against Constantine; yet complicating circumstances that can partly explain these negatives. Yes, he was in some ways like any other Roman emperor, but he initiated significant changes to Rome’s political landscape because he was a Christian (Leithart judges that Constantine’s conversion was genuine).

After an apparently careful tallying of the balance sheet, the author finds more positives than negatives in Constantine. I am not an historian and thus not able to assess the fairness of his evaluation, except to say that historical evaluations of political figures are unavoidably subjective.

Leithart relies heavily on the writings of Eusebius, a fourth-century bishop, whom he admits exaggerated Constantine’s virtues and ignored his vices (28). Other writers of the time were much more critical of the emperor. In any case, according to Leithart, Constantine left an enduring legacy, and provides in many respects a model for Christian political practice. 

There is, of course, the charge of “Constantinianism” leveled by John Howard Yoder and others. Another purpose of this book is to counter that charge. Here again, Leithart provides a nuanced argument because he agrees with much of Yoder’s critique.

However, he faults Yoder for not paying enough attention to the intellectual, legal, and constitutional context in which Constantine lived (182). Yoder also fails to do justice to the many positive political changes initiated by Constantine (e.g., ending the persecution of Christians and the Roman practice of sacrifice).

Important too is the fact of a brand-new challenge facing Constantine: “no emperor had ever had to deal with the church” (182). Nor did he have models to follow. Besides, is there anything inherently wrong with a Christian emperor seeking to bring about an end to cruel practices and to creating an environment where positive Christian values can flourish? I am not sure that either Yoder or contemporary Anabaptists have an entirely satisfactory answer to this question. 

However, I do have some problems with Leithart’s final chapters, where he continues to challenge Yoder and to provide an alternative approach to Christian political practice. The author  maintains that Yoder gets his early church history wrong, and “if he got Christian history wrong, that sets a question mark over his theology” (254).

Surely in some sense theology should come first and be used to critique history. Leithart challenges the claim that the early church was pacifist. In fact, the story of the church and war is an ambiguous one before and after Constantine (ch. 12). The author provides a rather ingenious interpretation of the biblical story, arguing that “the Bible is from beginning to end a story of war” (333).

Indeed, it is a story of Yahweh giving to humans increasing responsibility to wage war. Yoder would give a very different interpretation. Leithart’s own interpretation fails to take into account the difference between spiritual and worldly weapons.

Interestingly, the author agrees with Yoder that Jesus must be the center of a political theology. But Leithart’s “politics of Jesus” is very different from Yoder’s (337-9).  Unfortunately for Leithart, Jesus’ example and teaching include an explicit rejection of violence and war, and it won’t do to interpret certain passages of Scripture metaphorically.

And a question remains: Isn’t the project of seeking to reshape political and cultural institutions, values, and practices in accordance with the gospel an implication of the gospel’s proclamation that Jesus is Lord?

Leithart’s defense of Constantine deserves a careful reading by all Anabaptist sympathizers and critics, and a careful critical response by Anabaptist scholars.