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Constantino, ¿el primer emperador cristiano? Religión y política en el siglo IV ed. by Josep Vilella Masana

2017; Johns Hopkins University Press; Volume: 25; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/earl.2017.0065

1086-3184

Alberto Ferreiro,

Historical and Religious Studies of Rome

Reviewed by: Constantino, ¿el primer emperador cristiano? Religión y política en el siglo IV ed. by Josep Vilella Masana Alberto Ferreiro Josep Vilella Masana, editor Constantino, ¿el primer emperador cristiano? Religión y política en el siglo IV Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona, 2015 Pp. 608. €45.00. Next to Julius Caesar, perhaps no other Roman emperor has been commented about more than Constantine, and he remains a controversial figure among modern historians. In 2012 and 2013, two academic conferences convened on the 1700th anniversary of the Edict of Milan: the first in Barcelona and the other in Niš, Serbia. The present volume contains the papers that were delivered at the Barcelona conference. Although Constantine was never elevated to sainthood in the West—as he was in the Orthodox churches—he was promoted nevertheless as a “model” Christian ruler, notably beginning in the converted early Germanic kingdoms. We find this idealized Constantine promoted in the works of Gregory of Tours, John of Biclar, and Isidore of Seville. This remained so well into the Middle Ages. The essays do not enter into the many controversial theories that are currently found in scholarship about Constantine, e.g. that he was responsible for creating the canon of Christian scripture, or that he had a direct hand in creating the Catholic-Orthodox Christian faith by suppressing alternative Christianities (the heresies). The authors in the main situate the person and era of Constantine as an essential component in the ongoing development of Christianity. That he had an impact is undeniable; that he was the decisive catalyst during his reign and after his death is an exaggeration that is unsustainable. Christianity was far bigger than his person. Thus, the authors of the present volume deepen our understanding of the man and the context under which he flourished. Among the authors we find well established scholars such as Michel-Yves Perrin, Rita Lizi Testa, Ramón Teja Casuso, Timothy David Barnes, Luce Pietri, Angelo di Berardino, Mar Marcos Sánchez, Raul González Salinero, Pierre Maraval, Josep Vilella Masana, Pere Maymó Capdevila, María Victoria Escribano Paño, Margarita Vallejo Girvés and others who offer a wide variety of approaches on the person and the context. There is a total of forty-one essays, making it impossible to comment on all of them in this brief review. The essays are in Spanish, Italian, French, and one in English by Barnes. The collection is organized under thematic headings. “Dos relatores y coetáneos de la svolta” explores in two essays the figure of Constantine as recorded by Lactantius and Eusebius of Caesaria. The section “Visiones y conversión” comprises five essays that explain the emperor’s gradual conversion from paganism with all of its ramifications. The themes that are expounded are the figures of Apollo and Christ as models in creating the portrait of the emperor, the panegyric to Constantine of 310, a monogram of Christ, the vision of Constantine, and the conversion as a political strategy through the works of Sozomen and Orosius. In the section “Italia,” five authors unpack the impact that Constantine’s conversion had in Italy by considering its effect on urban space, the Arch of Constantine, the Christianization of Campania, Constantine and the senatorial aristocracy, and [End Page 653] Constantine, Africa, and Italy. In “Iglesias y eclesiásticos,” seven essays treat the Church: Arianism, Donatism, the pre-Nicaean Arian conflict, the churches of the Council of Nicaea, Church and Empire, the Synod of Tyre 335, the question of whether Constantine was ever an Arian, and the state of the episcopate under him. Eight essays, one of them by three authors, are thematically diverse under the title “Tradición pagano-imperial”: Constantine’s edict to the eastern churches, anti-pagan legislation attributed to Constantine in the Vita Constantini, tradition and innovation by Constantine across the Empire, Constantine and the aeternitas Romae, the emperor Constantine as a figure of Augustus or a revolutionary prince, Augustus as a model for Constantine, Constantine and the imperial succession, and the propagandistic function of epigraphy under Constantine in the Catalán region. Seven articles are dedicated to the section “Aspectos legislativos” and address the Edict of...