Defending Constantine: The Twilight of an Empire and the Dawn of Christendom by Peter J. Leithart (review)

So many and so great are the changes that can be traced to the reign of Constantine the Great (306–37) that it is hard not to have an agenda when writing about the first Christian emperor. Peter Leithart is refreshingly open about his own, which is twofold. First, he aims to counter the image of Constantine as a demon who corrupted a pure faith with the lure of power, prestige, and riches. Second, he aims to refute the Mennonite theologian John Howard Yoder, who coined the term “Constantinianism” to refer to this mingling of State and Spirit. Through detailed historical reconstruction, Leithart provides a more nuanced view of Constantine’s goals and methods. He then argues that even the modern secular state has a duty to enforce religious values. Leithart is careful to alert the reader when he moves from a historical to a theological argument, thereby showing a degree of self-awareness that is lacking in much Constantinian scholarship. But a question remains: can a consensual union of theology with history be any more congenial than the shotgun marriage that Constantine is accused of performing? There may be a case for using the state to enforce a religious program, but the example of a world with a very different concept of the meaning of such terms as “Church” and “State” may not be the best way to make it.