Wednesday, December 11, 2024

*** This is a rough transcript of today’s show ** 

It is the 11th of December 2024. Welcome to the Christian History Almanac, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org; I’m Dan van Voorhis.

We head back to the Roman Empire and the 4th century- the 300s- today as we remember, as always…. It’s the same as it ever was in both politics and religion.

You might remember parts of the 300s in the Roman Empire as the early golden age of the church! After all, after a gaggle of co-ruling Augusti and Caesars, all was unified in Constantine the Great, who would credit his victory to a vision of Christ- he would “legalize” Christianity (that’s a fine way to put it), and he even called the Council of Nicaea in 325 to help straighten out some central questions to the faith.

And all was seemingly well until it wasn’t. Constantine the Great split the empire between his three sons. This didn’t end well, with the second son, Constantius II, unleashing a massacre of possible heirs, leading to the death and exile of those who might threaten Constantine’s last surviving son.

Eventually, Constantius called on Julian, his cousin and Constantine’s nephew, to be a Caesar under him. When Julian became popular with a faction who wanted to declare him Augustus, a civil war was at hand. Constantius, however, died before the battle and is said to have bequeathed the kingdom to Julian. And for Christians, this may have been a relief. Constantius was an Arian Christian and had banished some orthodox Nicene Christians, and all would be set right.

Except Julian was a “loner, dottie: a rebel” and had been trained by pagan teachers at the finest centers of Greek learning. He had become convinced that Christianity had been the cause of the troubles in the empire. He allowed exiled Christians to come back to cause division in the church, hoping that the church would devour itself. In a contemporary report of this, one historian wrote:  “No wild beasts are so dangerous as Christians are to one another.” Ouch!

When it didn’t, he became more militant against these “atheists”- that was his word and others for those who didn’t believe in “no gods” (that was unthinkable) but rather “the wrong gods.”  

Julian, who would enter Constantinople as sole emperor on the 11th of December in 361, would eventually be given the sobriquet “the Apostate” as he banned Christians from teaching in the academies and revived old and newly invented cults. Amongst the volumes we have written both by him and about him by his contemporaries, he is said to have claimed that “through the folly of the Galileans (as he calls the Christians), almost everything has been overturned.

But part of his problem is that he took the dogmatism he claimed to dislike amongst the “Galileans” and applied them to his particular pagan practices and especially to worship a newfangled Sun God who he believed to be over all the other gods.

Not only was his anti-Christian activity unappealing to those who saw themselves as now “tolerant Romans” (even if they weren’t Christians), but he doubled down on foolish expansion in the tempting but treacherous Middle East. Not yet two years into his reign, while leading a raid on the Sassanids, he was mortally struck with an arrow and, having not named a successor, left the empire in limbo.

This is the beginning of the end of the Roman Empire (although there are many), and it is worth noting that Christians who had remained outside of imperial politics became involved so as to never let another pagan Emperor threaten their political safety in the empire.

Julian has been called “the last of the Pagans,” although to be fair, his paganism was of a particular and rigorously dogmatic sort, which the people had no taste for. It seems the Galileans had indeed changed everything.  

The last word for today is from the daily lectionary and a great Advent text from Luke 7:

Jesus began to speak to the crowd about John: “What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed swayed by the wind? 25 If not, what did you go out to see? A man dressed in fine clothes? No, those who wear expensive clothes and indulge in luxury are in palaces. 26 But what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. 27 This is the one about whom it is written:

“‘I will send my messenger ahead of you,
    who will prepare your way before you.’

28 I tell you, among those born of women there is no one greater than John; yet the one who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.”

This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 11th of December 2024, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org.

The show is produced by a man determined not to foolishly divide his kingdom amongst his children…. He is Christopher Gillespie.

The show is written and read by a man who is ok if only 6 of you got the movie reference tucked inside today’s show, I’m Dan van Voorhis.

You can catch us here every day- and remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness, and the redemption of all things are true…. Everything is going to be ok.