Constantine Versus Christ

Constantine Versus Christ PDF Author: Alistair Kee
Publisher: Wipf and Stock
ISBN: 9781498295734
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
The subject of this book is politics and religion, the relationship between Constantine and Christianity. Something happened in the reign of the Emperor Constantine that transformed both politics and religion in Europe, and anyone who seeks to understand modern Christianity must analyze this transformation and its consequences. The reign of Constantine is remembered as the victory of Christianity over the Roman Empire; the subtitle of the book indicates a more ominous assessment: ""the triumph of ideology."" Through a careful analysis of the sources, Dr. Kee argues that Constantine was not in fact a Christian and that the sign in which he conquered was not the cross of Christ but a political symbol of his own making. However, that is only the beginning of the story. For Constantine, religion was part of an imperial strategy, and the second part of this book shows just what that strategy was. Here is the development which marks a transition to a further stage, the way in which by using Christianity for his own ends, Constantine transformed it into something completely different. Constantine, Dr. Kee argues, along with his biographer and panegyrist Eusebius, succeeded in replacing the norms of Christ and the early church with the norms of imperial ideology. Why it has been previously thought that Constantine was a Christian is not because what he believed was Christian, but because what he believed came to be called Christian. And that represents ""the triumph of ideology."""

Constantine Versus Christ

Constantine Versus Christ PDF Author: Alistair Kee
Publisher: Wipf and Stock
ISBN: 9781498295734
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
The subject of this book is politics and religion, the relationship between Constantine and Christianity. Something happened in the reign of the Emperor Constantine that transformed both politics and religion in Europe, and anyone who seeks to understand modern Christianity must analyze this transformation and its consequences. The reign of Constantine is remembered as the victory of Christianity over the Roman Empire; the subtitle of the book indicates a more ominous assessment: ""the triumph of ideology."" Through a careful analysis of the sources, Dr. Kee argues that Constantine was not in fact a Christian and that the sign in which he conquered was not the cross of Christ but a political symbol of his own making. However, that is only the beginning of the story. For Constantine, religion was part of an imperial strategy, and the second part of this book shows just what that strategy was. Here is the development which marks a transition to a further stage, the way in which by using Christianity for his own ends, Constantine transformed it into something completely different. Constantine, Dr. Kee argues, along with his biographer and panegyrist Eusebius, succeeded in replacing the norms of Christ and the early church with the norms of imperial ideology. Why it has been previously thought that Constantine was a Christian is not because what he believed was Christian, but because what he believed came to be called Christian. And that represents ""the triumph of ideology."""

Constantine and the Christian Empire

Constantine and the Christian Empire PDF Author: Charles Odahl
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136961275
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 440

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Book Description
This biographical narrative is a detailed portrayal of the life and career of the first Christian emperor Constantine the Great (273 – 337). Combining vivid narrative and historical analysis, Charles Odahl relates the rise of Constantine amid the crises of the late Roman world, his dramatic conversion to and public patronage of Christianity, and his church building programs in Rome, Jerusalem and Constantinople which transformed the pagan state of Roman antiquity into the Christian empire medieval Byzantium. The author’s comprehensive knowledge of the literary sources and his extensive research into the material remains of the period mean that this volume provides a more rounded and accurate portrait of Constantine than previously available. This revised second edition includes: An expanded and revised final chapter A new Genealogy and an expanded Chronology New illustrations Revised and updated Notes and Bibliography A landmark publication in Roman Imperial, early Christian, and Byzantine history, Constantine and the Christian Empire will remain the standard account of the subject for years to come.

Constantine versus Christ

Constantine versus Christ PDF Author: Alistair Kee
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 149829572X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 193

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Book Description
The subject of this book is politics and religion, the relationship between Constantine and Christianity. Something happened in the reign of the Emperor Constantine that transformed both politics and religion in Europe, and anyone who seeks to understand modern Christianity must analyze this transformation and its consequences. The reign of Constantine is remembered as the victory of Christianity over the Roman Empire; the subtitle of the book indicates a more ominous assessment: "the triumph of ideology." Through a careful analysis of the sources, Dr. Kee argues that Constantine was not in fact a Christian and that the sign in which he conquered was not the cross of Christ but a political symbol of his own making. However, that is only the beginning of the story. For Constantine, religion was part of an imperial strategy, and the second part of this book shows just what that strategy was. Here is the development which marks a transition to a further stage, the way in which by using Christianity for his own ends, Constantine trans­formed it into something completely different. Constantine, Dr. Kee argues, along with his biographer and panegyrist Eusebius, succeeded in replacing the norms of Christ and the early church with the norms of imperial ideology. Why it has been previously thought that Constantine was a Christian is not because what he believed was Christian, but because what he believed came to be called Christian. And that represents "the triumph of ideology."

Constantine Versus the Bankers

Constantine Versus the Bankers PDF Author: C. Eliopoulos Nicholas C. Eliopoulos
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 0595503667
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 622

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Book Description
Constantine Versus the Bankers is the epic of what went wrong and still goes wrong in a seemingly Christian setting. In spite of setbacks, it examines what is yet to be accomplished toward Peace in this world. There is, nevertheless, a de facto kind of oneness in politics, religion, education and public ethos, albeit, as four distinctly separate Estates, and not always in harmony. This results at times in human failure and more often in pernicious conspiracies at work. Constantine still is maligned, from contemporary world leaders to historians, while Christians still are selectively being killed with evermore-imaginative cunning. Consider the sources vilifying Christianity: they are the same agencies hunting down the Holy Apostles on their Mission, with the same combination of Murky Forces and modern internationalist adepts. While considered a "sacred cow," the Bankers of all grades are popularly held on the highest pedestal and glorified as saviors, greater than God. As matters today stand, the only solutions to cultural, political, social, economic and educational impasses come through going deeper into private, national and international debt, sinking down into the cavernous jaws of the interest-bearing Vipers. To believe in an irreversibly coming doom is to question whether there is a God, or not.

Defending Constantine

Defending Constantine PDF Author: Peter J. Leithart
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
ISBN: 0830827226
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 374

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Book Description
Peter Leithart weighs what we've been taught about Constantine and claims that in focusing on these historical mirages we have failed to notice the true significance of Constantine and Rome baptized. He reveals how beneath the surface of this contested story there lies a deeper narrative--a tectonic shift in the political theology of an empire--with far-reaching implications.

Constantine, Divine Emperor of the Christian Golden Age

Constantine, Divine Emperor of the Christian Golden Age PDF Author: Jonathan Bardill
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521764238
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 471

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Book Description
"Constantine was the first Roman emperor to convert to Christianity. The book explores the emperor's image as conveyed through literature, art, and architecture, and shows how Constantine reconciled the tradition of imperial divinity with his monotheistic faith. It demonstrates how the traditional themes and imagery of kingship were exploited to portray the emperor as the saviour of his people and to assimilate him to Christ. This is the first book to study simultaneously both archaeological and historical information to build a picture of the emperor's image and propaganda. It is extensively illustrated" --Provided by publisher.

Constantine

Constantine PDF Author: Paul Stephenson
Publisher: Abrams
ISBN: 1468303007
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 374

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Book Description
This “knowledgeable account” of the emperor who brought Christianity to Rome “provides valuable insight into Constantine’s era” (Kirkus Reviews). “By this sign conquer.” So began the reign of Constantine. In 312 A.D. a cross appeared in the sky above his army as he marched on Rome. In answer, Constantine bade his soldiers to inscribe the cross on their shield, and so fortified, they drove their rivals into the Tiber and claimed Rome for themselves. Constantine led Christianity and its adherents out of the shadow of persecution. He united the western and eastern halves of the Roman Empire, raising a new city center in the east. When barbarian hordes consumed Rome itself, Constantinople remained as a beacon of Roman Christianity. Constantine is a fascinating survey of the life and enduring legacy of perhaps the greatest and most unjustly ignored of the Roman emperors—written by a richly gifted historian. Paul Stephenson offers a nuanced and deeply satisfying account of a man whose cultural and spiritual renewal of the Roman Empire gave birth to the idea of a unified Christian Europe underpinned by a commitment to religious tolerance. “Successfully combines historical documents, examples of Roman art, sculpture, and coinage with the lessons of geopolitics to produce a complex biography of the Emperor Constantine.” —Publishers Weekly

Constantine and the Conversion of Europe

Constantine and the Conversion of Europe PDF Author: Arnold Hugh Martin Jones
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 9780802063694
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 228

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Book Description
A study of politics and religion during a key era (AD 284 - 337) when Christianity established itself as the dominant force shaping government and civilization. Reprinted from the 1962 edition, first published in 1948.

Paul and the Hope of Glory

Paul and the Hope of Glory PDF Author: Constantine R. Campbell
Publisher: Zondervan Academic
ISBN: 031052122X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 528

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Book Description
A Unique Study of Pauline Eschatology that Is Both Exegetical and Theological One of the trajectories coming out of Constantine Campbell's award-winning book Paul and Union with Christ is the significance of eschatology for the apostle. Along with union with Christ, eschatology is a feature of Paul’s thinking that affects virtually everything else. While union with Christ is the "webbing" that joins Paul's thought together, eschatology provides the "shape" of his thought, and thus gives shape to his teaching about justification, resurrection, the cross, ethics, and so forth. There is considerable debate, however, about Paul's eschatology, asking whether he is a "covenant" or an "apocalyptic" theologian. In Paul and the Hope of Glory Campbell conducts a thorough exegetical study of the relevant elements of Paul's eschatological language, metaphors, and images including "parousia," "the last day," "inheritance," "hope," and others. He examines each passage in context, aiming to build inductively an overall sense of Paul's thinking. The results of this exegetical study then feed into a theological study that demonstrates the integration of Paul's eschatological thought into his overall theological framework. The study is comprised of three parts: The first part introduces the key issues--both exegetical and theological--and sets the parameters and methodology of the book. It also offers an historical survey of the scholarly work produced on Paul's eschatology through the twentieth century to the present day. The second part contains the detailed exegetical analysis, with chapters on each important Pauline phrase, metaphor, and image related to eschatology. The third part turns its attention to theological synthesis. It recapitulates relevant conclusions from the evidence adduced in part two and launches into theological discussion engaging current issues and debates. This volume combines high-level scholarship and a concern for practical application of a topic currently debated in the academy and the church. More than a monograph, this book is a helpful reference tool for students, scholars, and pastors to consult its treatment of any particular instance of any phrase or metaphor that relates to eschatology in Paul's thinking.

Jesus Before Constantine

Jesus Before Constantine PDF Author: Doug E. Taylor
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1725255235
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 252

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Book Description
That’s now, but what about then? There is much diversity in Christianity today in terms of what constitutes necessary core beliefs, but what can we know about the earliest Christianity? Until the major councils began in the fourth century, were all who claimed to be Christian considered part of the church, or was there more to it than just claiming a name? Is there evidence for how the church understood core and necessary beliefs prior to Constantine’s arrival in history and the Council of Nicea in AD 325? This book examines such questions. Using only those materials that are accepted by most scholars on the subject, whether they are Christian or not, and focusing on the period from AD 30–250, a picture emerges showing what Christians held as a core belief as well as how flexible they were on this belief. Only after identifying where the church stood in this period can we begin to understand whether others such as Ebionites, Docetists, and Marcionites would have been accepted as Christian. A case is made based on writings from the church, the Nag Hammadi, and a completely secular tool from the twentieth century to find the conclusion to this question.