The Pokey Finger of God

Since discovery of PRF Brown’s site[1], I have burned a good many hours both reading and thinking. It’s clear that the “Eusebian Fiction Postulate”[2] has forced me to re-examine what I thought I understood about early church history. I have been relatively pleased, so far, to find that it seems to make more sense, given [...]

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I just got pointed to P.R.F. Brown’s amazing site. He has posted quite a bit of research to his site — including a few projects I had started myself and am right glad I don’t have to finish them, now, like the list of all known writers in the ancient Western world, categorized and dated. [...]

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I mentioned Dungan’s Constantine’s Bible the other day before I had finished reading it. I fear that I made it sound like a lame book, and I’m glad I didn’t let my waning enthusiasm sour me on it before I was done. Dungan didn’t go on and on about Eusebius like I had expected. Instead, [...]

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Yes, another book. David Dungan’s Constantine’s Bible has an amazing reach, starting from the beginnings of civilization, through the development of Greek philosophy and its distribution through the ancient East. Only a third of the way through, but I’m pretty sure I know how this one ends. Actually, I’m having such a severe case of [...]

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First, two biographies on the emperor Constantine. Constantine the Great: The Man and his Times, by Michael Grant, and the ingeniously named Constantine the Great, by John Holland Smith. These are followed by a review of Cities of God: The Real Story of How Christianity Became an Urban Movement and Conquered Rome, by Rodney Stark [...]

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This whole Constantine series has been riddled with errors, and the more I re-read them, the more problems I find. In this first one, I totally trash the Roman Emperors portion of the quiz. 1. Big C was the last Tetrarch of the Roman Empire In a sense, he was never really an official Tetrarch, [...]

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Fourth Century Christianity The History Department of Wisconsin Lutheran College under the direction of Dr. Glen L. Thompson, presents a number of hard-to-find texts, insightful charts, and much relevant documentation regarding the first century of Roman Christianity. Awesome stuff.

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Like most great conquerors of history, Flavius Valerius Constantinus was also a bastard and a usurper. Beginning with his father, the neo-Flavians had a knack for the early, embarrassing sexual entanglements. Constantine’s dad dropped his mother, Helena, like a rock when an opportunity arose to marry into an Imperial family — some question whether the [...]

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I’ve studied Christian history for years now, and the emperor Constantine has occasionally graced my mental stage as I try to imagine how the Christianity that I know today developed from the pastiche of pagan practice common in the ancient world. Recently, Constantine himself has taken center stage as I have taken special pains to [...]

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More notes on the development of culture and the creation of Roman Christianity. Ancient city-states often worshiped a triad of deities who were, collectively, believed to represent and protect their host city. While several cities may have shared one god or another, the people within a particular city would be faithful to the specific manifestation [...]

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