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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;The Meat man, post: 24851267, member: 135271&quot;]Whatever you think of Constantine&#039;s understanding of and conversion to Christianity, I think it&#039;s extremely hard to argue that he wasn&#039;t sincere about it.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>Exactly. Again, I don&#039;t really understand how someone can take the stance that his conversion wasn&#039;t sincere, given his subsequent actions.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>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.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>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.</p><p>And while he did wait until the end of his life to be baptized, from what I&#039;ve read there&#039;s not much reason to doubt that Constantine thought of himself as a Christian long before that.</p><p><br /></p><p>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.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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