Constantines Conversion to Christianity. (1 Viewer)

[Stomping Ground]

Can anyone give me some sources who say his conversion way purely a political move?

The ancients say it was genuine. but some moderns will have differing opinions on this.

Thanks

 

[glycerine]

ooh byzantine history! i like!

sorry, i can't really help you, my main area of interest is theodora (justinian II's wife), she was fucking awesome


have you read anything by norwich or, uh, fuck, what's his name... greenwood? green something in any case. i just took a quick look through the constantine chapter in 'a short history of byzantium' by norwich and it discusses whether he actually saw a vision which made him convert or whether eusebius made it up. however he does say there's no doubt that constantine had some kind of spiritual experience although he doubts whether it was divine or not.

hope that helps. if you want to get this book the details are -
"a short history of byzantium"
john julius norwich
penguin publishing
$30 from dymocks in the city

i think he's also done some more specific work on constantine, not 100% though, you'll have to look into it

 

[veridis]

jus look some of the better libraries and you'll prob find summin. a quci ksearch of the state library catalog came up with Constantine and the bishops : the politics of intolerance by H.A. Drake. from the title it would seem that it discusses other motivations for his conversion. but just look around and you can find stuff easier than you think
also check some of the SoR stuff as they probably mention what various historians thought of him

a wierd little fact. Justinian I also married a woman caleld Theodora.

 

[glycerine]

Haha, and I'm a dickhead and got my Justinians mixed up; the Theodora I'm talking about is the wife of Justinian I. I kind of get on my feminist high horse with her and forget about her husband.

 

[veridis]

its still odd that they both had wives called Theodora. but makes more sense to be interested in J Is wife cause J IIs did jack all(that i know of). J II in general is pretty uneventful come to think of it

 

[glycerine]

Yeah, when I did my MRP on her in term 2 I had nooo idea what I was going to do up until about midnight the night it was due and I read about the second Theodora in "Women in Purple", she and her sister Zoe were pretty boring.
The good Theodora was awesome though, I didn't even have to study to do an essay on her for my yearlies, I really wish I could do more stuff on her whilst still in school. :\ Like, I could've contrasted how you've got Procopious's Anekdota which is basically (imo) villified, misogynistic horseshit, but on the other hand you've got these historians who hold her up as some kind of feminist icon without really critically evaluating her.
edit: that was basically what I wrote about in my yearly for ancient though, so it would really just be doing the same thing I did this year

 

[veridis]

hhhmmm villified, misogynistic horseshit. somehow dont think thats the kind of ojectivity they'd like in exams =). anyway i dont think you should blame the bloke seeing as back then almost everyone was a mysogynistic bastard. and anekdota was his, for want of a better word, tabloid history so wouldnt talk about anything of substance anyway
luckily i've never had a change to do agincourt before which i'm obsessed with so had freedom to chose it this time

 

[glycerine]

Haha, yeah, I was a bit more objective and rational when I wrote about it for school. I think I basically said that while Procopious was undoubtedly misogynistic and incredibly biased, it's no better to uncritically construct her as a feminist hero without considering her motives etc. Although I personally come out on the side of "Theodora is the bomb. Discuss".

 

[veridis]

lol
sounds good anyway. kinda like my julio claudian essay from the yearlies cept i was "the JCs were fucked up but so were the aristocratic historians. thus we know nothing".
so nobodies realy taken a more balanced view of her? everyone seems to be polarised?

 

[glycerine]

well personally I liked norwich and, uhhh, the green guy.
sorry, like I've said, I'm not all there tonight.
There are a few balanced reviews of her, but basically the majority are slanted either to feminism or misogyny. most of the misogynistic ones originated from <1950s, the feminist ones generally came from after, so you can see how context has affected views of her.

 

[veridis]

its fun ripping shreds off massively prejudice sources but possibly even more fun ripping shreds off those that you can tell are obviously trying to be uberPC
and the green guy ey. lets just hope that uh, fuck, whats his name never visits these forums or we're in for a flaming =)

 

[Plebeian]

Can anyone give me some sources who say his conversion way purely a political move?

The ancients say it was genuine. but some moderns will have differing opinions on this.

Thanks

I didn't do Constantine but someone in my class did. Judging from his footnotes, the sources he appeared to use are:

"Constantine was a genuine and determined Christian"
- Eusebius, "Ecclesiastical History" Book X, 1942 (Harvard University Press).
- Norman Baynes, "Constantine the Great and the Christian Church" from Proceedings of the British Academy, vol XV 1929 (Oxford University Press).

"Constantine was a syncretist who accepted the Christian God as another member of his polytheistic pantheon"
- Joseph Vogt, "The Decline of Rome", 1965 (George Weidenfeld and Nicholson).
- Andrew Alfoldi, "The Conversion of Constantine and Pagan Rome", 1969 (Oxford University Press)

* "Constantine was a political manipulator, never a true Christian and pretending to accept the new faith for political reasons"
-Jacob Burckhardt, "Age of Constantine the Great", 1956 (Doubleday)


So I suppose Burckhardt is the most obvious one, but Vogt and Alfoldi also tend to the political rather than religious view.

Hope this helps

 

[Stomping Ground]

I met with a teacher at Macq. Uni, and he gave me a resource list.

"Constantine vs. Jesus Christ" - GREAT TITLE!