I've always had a hard time believing that Constantine the Great ever sincerely converted to Christianity. Take a look at this example way after his "conversion": Constantine I the Great 306-337 AD Follis Mint: Thessalonica, 312-313, 5th Office. Obv: IMP C CONSTANTINVS P F AVG Draped, cuirassed bust with laurel wreath to the right. Rev: IOVI CONS-ERVATORI AVGG NN Jupiter standing to the left, leaning on a scepter with his left hand, Victoria holding a globe in her right hand, an eagle with a wreath in its beak on the left.
Maybe at that time he was still learning the true meaning of Christianity? Things take time to change
Your coin is from Thessalonica; which, when this coin was struck, was controlled by Licinius...so it probably says more about Licinius than it does about Constantine. Of course, Constantinian mints continued using pagan types, mainly Sol, for years. This then brings up the discussion of how much did the Emperor involve himself in designing coins...perhaps mostly leaving it up to mint officials. It may be tempting to assign great importance to coins and believe that they reveal intimate details; but coins, like any other source, must be taken in context. Back to A.D. 312, shortly after Constantine defeated Maxentius, he began building churches in honor of God. He demolished the camp belonging to the honor guard of Maxentius, the Equites singulares, and built a huge Christian basilica on the spot. Take a guess as to how many pagan temples he built.
Even though he converted to Christianity, most Romans were still Pagans, and a good king has to appease his people.
The vision at the Milvian Bridge was not a conversion for Constantine. He just saw a sign, a logo : ☧, and considered it was a sign from "the Divinity". This is more philosophical than Christian. That's not like saint Paul's vision of the Christ himself asking "Why are you persecuting me"? Constantine did not formally convert to Christianity before the last minute. He favoured the Christians, but that does not mean he was a Christian himself. In his new city of Constantinople he had two temples built : one dedicated to Sophia, that means Wisdom, the other one to Eirene, that means Peace. Like the old temple of Pax in Rome... Wisdom and Peace were deities in his mind. It is his son and successor Constantius II who turned these temples into churches called Saint Sophia and Saint Irene. Though he had organized for the Christians the Council of Nicaea where Arianism was condemned, he did nothing to enforce this condemnation. Even more, he was baptized on his deathbed by Eusebius of Nicomedia, an arian bishop. His sons were arian...
Whatever you think of Constantine's understanding of and conversion to Christianity, I think it's extremely hard to argue that he wasn't sincere about it. Exactly. Again, I don't really understand how someone can take the stance that his conversion wasn't sincere, given his subsequent actions. This is also an excellent point. Remember that Constantine was first and foremost the sole ruler of an empire that had for the past generation been ruled by a college of Augusti and Caesars. Unity in the empire was of primary concern for him and he was extremely careful in his political dealings with his pagan subjects - who still made up the majority of his empire. This seems to be splitting hairs. Whether or not Constantine actually converted in the technical sense at the Milvian Bridge vision, it clearly had a profound influence on turning his mind towards conversion. And while he did wait until the end of his life to be baptized, from what I've read there's not much reason to doubt that Constantine thought of himself as a Christian long before that. I think his understanding of Christianity was flawed in many ways and he was by no means the paragon of virtue that many later writers make him out to be. But putting that aside, I see no reason to doubt his sincerity.
Thank you for the comments. All very interesting and I love these debates when it comes to the historical part of coins like in this case Without taking any importance to his reign and how crucial he was to Christianism and the Roman empire, to me, the whole thing was perhaps more political than religious.
I don't remember discussing it with him personally, but I suspect he was a Christian in the same sense that many pagans become Christian even today. Without a full understanding of the uniqueness of Christ, he may well have added Jesus to the list of gods he believed in, another icon on the mantel so to speak, even if he mainly worshiped Christ. His "conversion" came more from a personal experience than as a result of a study of the Bible or a discussion with a learned disciple, so who's to say what concept he had of Christ. As pointed out above, the political considerations were also very important, and many important individuals and groups remained pagan. As for the relevance of the coin images to the discussion, they and archeology are essentially the only truly contemporary witnesses to his beliefs, since the historical accounts generally come from later writers. And yes, for whatever personal reasons, I do believe the emperors concerned themselves with the designs on coins, which were used for political and propaganda purposes.
I think Constantine was an intelligent, savvy politician who rode the wave of Christian discontent towards the then-recent Great Persecution while also going out of his way to ensure he wasn't stepping on the toes of pagans on his way to the top of the imperial food chain. It's kind of a difficult balancing act which is why his conversion to Christianity is so enigmatic and mysterious today, seeing as how there's no Christian symbols on his triumphal arch in Rome but still plenty of pagan symbols on both that monument and the coins he minted, with its prominent depictions of Sol Invictus, for a good chunk of his imperial tenure at least until he became sole ruler in 324 after his final defeat of Licinius. After that point he almost certainly became more biased in favor of the Christians since there were no longer any rivals for power to get in the way of him making his mark on the religious life of the empire, holding the first ecumenical council in Nicaea, building grand new churches like the original St. Peter's in Rome, the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, etc. Even then though there's still a bit of mystery since even after he became sole ruler there's still not a whole lot of coins with Christian imagery on them. Pagan gods have stopped appearing on his coins right around this time (unless you count his commemorative coins showing the goddesses of Rome and Constantinople, which I mostly lump in with how we view the Statue of Liberty or Uncle Sam today) but he mostly employs standard military imagery from this point on instead of overtly Christian themes. There are depictions of the labarum with the Chi-Ro symbol on some of his coins and medallions but they're pretty rare and the Chi-Ro used to be a fairly innocuous good luck charm up until Constantine appropriated it for his own use and his successors would set it in stone as a distinctly Christian emblem. Even the Council of Nicaea and his building of new churches could just be him trying to make sure that his staunchest defenders are happy and continue supporting his right to rule. Then again, we do hear of him pilfering from and demolishing some old pagan temples and neglecting the rest in favor of those new Christian constructions so there's that. Overall I believe Constantine was definitely sincere in his Christian leanings but had to navigate a very complicated political and religious landscape where there are several rivals for power competing within the remnants of Diocletian's Tetrarchy who all continued to uphold classical polytheism with its vast scores of gods and goddesses. He had to make his moves very carefully and play the game in order to succeed and he clearly did. His unchallenged sole rule of 13 years gave his successors the breathing room to adopt more overtly Christian regimes moving forward, with Julian being the one exception to try and revert back to traditional polytheism. Without Constantine having to put in the hard work and effort within a classical polytheistic world at the beginning of the 4th century, there wouldn't be a Theodosius to easily make Nicene Christianity the empire's official religion at the end of it. I'm not even Christian myself, I just think this era is a fascinating period of cultural transition.
