Will Durant on the Emperor Constantine and Christianity

Will Durant, Caesar and Christ

(New York: Simon and Schuster; 1944), pp. 655, 656.

'Was his [declaration of Christianity] sincere was it an act of religious belief, or a consummate stroke of political wisdom?

Probably the latter.

His mother Helena had turned to Christianity when Constantius divorced her; presumably she had acquainted her son with the excellences of the Christian way; and doubtless he had been impressed by the invariable victory that had crowned his arms under the banner and cross of Christ. . . .

After his conversion he seldom conformed to the ceremonial requirements of Christian worship.

His letters to Christian bishops make it clear he cared little for the theological differences that agitated Christendom though he was willing to suppress dissent in the interests of imperial unity.

Throughout his reign he treated the bishops as his political aides; he summoned them, presided over their councils, and agreed to enforce whatever opinion their majority should formulate.

A real believer would have been a Christian first and a statesman afterward; with Constantine it was the reverse. Christianity was to him a means, not an end.'

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