The Christian and the Pagan
The day upon which I’m writing this missive now before you, 21 May, marks for Eastern Christians the commemoration of the Roman Emperor Constantine, hailed as “Saint,” “the Great,” and “Equal to the Apostles.” Others have not been quite so generous with their praise. For centuries, the Roman Empire persecuted Christianity. Cast out from synagogues after a tragic parting of the ways, Christians had no resort to the legal protections offered by the Senate to ancient religions such as Judaism. Worship in urban centers literally went underground, as house churches became catacomb churches, celebrating the Eucharist atop the martyrs’ tombs. Recent scholarship has sought to downplay the severity of Roman persecution, in part due to the exaggerations of medieval hagiography [defn: the writing of the lives of saints], and in part as a reaction against American Christianity’s recent history of claiming victimhood whilst nakedly pursuing political power. Yet for generations, prominent churchmen ...