Constantine’s Conversion

Was Constantine converted? Really, truly, deeply, irreversibly converted ? Not just converted, but converted converted?

It depends on what “conversion” means. Arthur Darby Nock recognized that conversion has preconditions, but describes the actual event as a “chemical process” that involves the “addition of a catalytic agent” to produce a “sense of perceiving truths not known before, a sense of clean and beautiful newness within and without and an ecstasy of happiness.”

This is the kind of jolt and bolt that many look for in Constantine’s life. In vain. But is that fair? Ought we look for this?

H.A. Drake thinks not. Drawing on Rodney Stark and other sociologists who have studied conversion, he says that “it is much more typical for converts to go through a number of progressive awakenings, rather than a single, blinding change, and thus a more gradual process than the classic model assumes.” Further, “there is usually a greater amount of consistency in the belief of the typical convert before and after the moment of conversion than the model would allow, or even than the converts themselves report.” Study and searching precede and follow conversion, and “what really determines whether a conversion experience takes hold or not is the process of socialization into a new community.”

From this perspective, Constantine’s late re-tellings of his early experiences are evidence of genuine conversion. As, paradoxically, is his “continued use of non-Christian symbols and images.” To conclude that Constantine’s conversion is insincere because he doesn’t immediately stop putting Apollo or Sol on his coins is, Drake argues, to impose “a psychological model that may be overly demanding and not a good predictor of normal behavior.”