Was Constantine's Conversion Sincere?

[Oldiesfreak1854]

I was watching Dr. Dwight Nelson on 3ABN not too long ago, and he made an argument based the documents of some ancient historians that Constantine's conversion to the Christian faith was insincere and done for political expediency.  I can get into detail if you'd like, but I don't want to now.  But I thought I would pose the question to you guys: was Constantine's conversion sincere?  Discuss.

[Oswald Acted Alone, You Kook]

I don't really know. Only Constantie himself knows, and he's been dead for hundreds of years.

[Zioneer]

Probably not, since I think he gave pagan sacrifices near the end of his life.

[Torie]

It was done for political reasons, and to make his wife happy. Constantine was a pragmatist. That all is my impression anyway. Somewhere I read, that he really didn't convert. He just made it clear that Christians were now part of the establishment.

[The Mikado]

It was done for political reasons, and to make his wife happy. Constantine was a pragmatist. That all is my impression anyway. Somewhere I read, that he really didn't convert. He just made it clear that Christians were now part of the establishment.

More importantly, Constantine's mother Helena was a deeply pious Christian.

Constantine didn't officially convert to Christianity until his deathbed.  The traditional story (take it with a grain of salt) is that he didn't feel that a Christian ruler could sentence people to death and he needed to keep on with the capital punishment so he waited until after he'd ever have to execute anyone again before converting.  The biggest objection to that story is that very few other Christian rulers ever felt that their religion conflicted with the death penalty (including Constantine's sons, who were Christians who had no compunction about execution).

Either way, whether Constantine himself became Christian or not, he put Christianity on the same level as all the other faiths and in fact gave it a heavily-favored status that, over the next few decades, would leave it utterly dominant, and eventually strong enough that at the end of the 4th century Theodosius was able to ban the pagan faiths.

[afleitch]

The impact was even more immediate than that. At the time of Constantine’s conversion it was estimated that a small minority of the population of the Roman Empire were Christian and we can say than in the loosest sense of the word because there were numerous competing Christian sects. Not only did Constantine prompt the beginning of the Empire’s general edict against paganism, he was also the first Roman Emperor to specifically target unwanted Christian sects. That in turn affected early Christian thinkers like Augustine of Hippo to find ‘merit’ in using violence against heretics which they had previously argued against.

[anvi]

It was sincerely politically motivated.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

As someone currenting writing abour religious conversion at the moment, 'sincerity' strikes me as something of a chimera here.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

As is often the way with this kind of thing, 'does it matter?' seems like a decent answer.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

As is often the way with this kind of thing, 'does it matter?' seems like a decent answer.

Actually imho as is often the way with this kind of thing the best answer is "What does that even mean anyway?"

[Oldiesfreak1854]

It was done for political reasons, and to make his wife happy. Constantine was a pragmatist. That all is my impression anyway. Somewhere I read, that he really didn't convert. He just made it clear that Christians were now part of the establishment.

More importantly, Constantine's mother Helena was a deeply pious Christian.

Constantine didn't officially convert to Christianity until his deathbed.  The traditional story (take it with a grain of salt) is that he didn't feel that a Christian ruler could sentence people to death and he needed to keep on with the capital punishment so he waited until after he'd ever have to execute anyone again before converting.  The biggest objection to that story is that very few other Christian rulers ever felt that their religion conflicted with the death penalty (including Constantine's sons, who were Christians who had no compunction about execution).

Either way, whether Constantine himself became Christian or not, he put Christianity on the same level as all the other faiths and in fact gave it a heavily-favored status that, over the next few decades, would leave it utterly dominant, and eventually strong enough that at the end of the 4th century Theodosius was able to ban the pagan faiths.

Many people waited to be baptized until their deathbeds, though, so that doesn't necessarily mean much.