Much ado has been made about how bad Constantine was for the church, but newer scholarship is beginning to show how good the church was for the Roman empire.
It was once common to see Constantine’s conversion as an act, a power-play to grab support from a once marginalized sect. Thus his subsequent lavishing of power and wealth on the church and its leaders was an ostensible attempt to solidify his power. But more sober scholarship is showing such depictions to be little more than highly anachronistic caricatures. Continue reading “Three Positive Ways Christianity Helped Change the Roman Empire”