Christians in the Roman military after Constantine

[entropy204]

I am trying to do some research for a first year university project. I remember reading somewhere that after Constantine, the entire military was made up of Christians. Unfortunately, Google is not helping me in finding further info regarding this issue. Can anyone recommend any sites or books that will help?

 

Thanks!

[ASCLEPIADES]

I remember reading somewhere that after Constantine, the entire military was made up of Christians.

Salve, E.

 

I would think that might be an hyperbolic statement, as some other cults (especially Mithraism) were presumably still quite prevalent amid military ranks.

 

Anyway, "Christians and the Roman army A.D. 173-337" by John Helgeland (Church History, Vol. 43, No. 2, June 1974, pp. 149-163 and 200) may be interesting for you.

Edited October 5, 2007 by ASCLEPIADES

[caldrail]

I am trying to do some research for a first year university project. I remember reading somewhere that after Constantine, the entire military was made up of Christians. Unfortunately, Google is not helping me in finding further info regarding this issue. Can anyone recommend any sites or books that will help?

 

Thanks!

No, it wasn't. Mithraism was a popular religion for soldiers at this time and christianity always suffered from behing ostensibly against violence, something the romans were known for. In fact, one man refused service with the legions because of his christian beliefs and was treated harshly. I'd need to look that up but I'm sure that wasn't the only instance. There was a strong pacifiist movement in early christianity that didn't sit well with military service.

[ASCLEPIADES]

There was a strong pacifiist movement in early christianity that didn't sit well with military service.

 

The Flavian Iulius brothers (Constantinus, Constantius and Constans) did not agree.

[caldrail]

Christianity was useful. Constantine for instance shamelessly used it as a rallying point, both in politics and war. That famous speech he made saying he had seen a vision of the cross in the sky and god telling him to conquer in the name of it. Also, his empire was crumbling under the effects of civil war, so something like a homogenous religion to glue it back together was a bandwagon he jumped on, even though he remained a pagan until his deathbed. Now simply because three leaders decided christianity was useful has no bearing on the feelings of individual soldiers. Yes, there were many christians in military service (and given later history, we see that religions sometimes invent excuses for warfare if its convenient - christianity has done that too) but then christians have different levels of belief. Some adhere strictly to the rules, others pay lip service to them. Many christians are such in name only, to fit in, and avoid controversy, regardless of how they choose to behave. Others refuse to stray from their chosen behaviour, and if that meant telling the centurion they weren't going to fight (killing after all is a transgression of the commandments) then he was going to do that. This pacifist refusal became an issue for the late empire when they were struggling to find recruits. Remember the monk Telemachus in 392AD, rushing into the arena and stopping the fight?

[Ursus]

I am trying to do some research for a first year university project. I remember reading somewhere that after Constantine, the entire military was made up of Christians. Unfortunately, Google is not helping me in finding further info regarding this issue. Can anyone recommend any sites or books that will help?

 

Thanks!

 

 

http://www.unrv.com/book-review/roman-soldier.php

 

Watson claimed he couldn't find much evidence for Christians in the imperial legions until the time of Costantine. Presumably they kept to themselves for fear of alienation. Many of the soldiers also came from the hinterlands of the empire, who were among the last to be converted.

 

I believe the rank and file among the army were one of the last holdouts of Paganism even after Constantine.

[Ludovicus]

What an interesting topic. Does this help:

 

http://www.litencyc.com/php/adpage.php?id=2982

 

 

Quoted:

 

Soldier Saints and Holy Warriors

 

by

John Edward Damon

Image: Book cover for Soldier Saints and Holy Warriors

 

Ashgate, 2003

Hardback. ISBN: 0 7546 0473 X

 

Christian authors of the Late Antique period deliberately set themselves the ambitious goal of revolutionizing the world of Latin letters, particularly concerning the questions of warfare and sanctity. In this new study, John Damon explores how one of these writers, Sulpicius Severus, created in his account of the life of St. Martin of Tours an anti-heroic literary model that reflected the new spiritual, political, and social realities of a Roman society in transformation from a pluralistic polytheism to univocal monotheism. Focusing on the body of early English Christian literature from the arrival of Roman Christianity in England through the period of the Crusades, Damon demonstrates the persistence of Sulpicius's model, despite obvious differences in the representation of saints and warriors in the literature of early England. Between the pious, peaceful saints and willing martyrs of late antiquity and the chivalric Christian heroes of the Middle Ages seems to lie an unbridgeable gulf; yet Damon shows how the two ideals presented intertwining and competing visions of Christian heroism throughout the period. Hagiography is the primary literary genre he examines to document the changing ethos from rejection of warfare to formal accommodation with and eventually active participation in wars considered "just" or "holy. " From Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica, through the works of Alcuin and

[Ludovicus]

Saints Serge and Bacchus were soldiers in the late Roman army. The circumstances of their lives might help your research.

 

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/user/scotts/f...f2mc/serge.html