Jacquelyn Winston - The Making of an Emperor: Constantinian Identity Formation in his Invective Letter to Arius

The invective letter of Constantine the Great to Arius and the Arians is often mentioned, but seldom examined.  In one of the few published English translations, P.R. Coleman-Norton (1966) introduced the letter by stating “it is valuable not so much for its repertoire of imperial invective, as for its evidence of the emperor’s interest in securing uniformity of theological belief among his subjects” (Coleman-Norton, vol. 1:185).  This paper challenges that supposition, asserting that this letter is valuable particularly because of its repertoire of invective.   Why does it appear that Constantine loses his emotional composure in an intellectual environment where self-control was a highly prized virtue?  What possible threat did Arius’s challenges pose to arouse such rancour?  Or is Constantine’s response in this letter instead a calculated use of declamatory methods designed to portray Arius and his affiliates as “other” by employing normative literary techniques based on Roman commonplaces?  An examination of the invective letter of Constantine to Arius and the Arians, written c. 333 CE, discloses Constantine’s use of common rhetorical strategies learned by Roman elites through their education in paideia.  In the fourth century, many Christian heresiologists, educated in similar venues, adapted these same rhetorical strategies to create discrete zones of religious and social authenticity which they labelled orthodoxy and heresy.  Physiognomic invective, argument from tradition, and argument from antiquity were three ways that Constantine sought to silence the threat which Arius posed to Christian unity, and above all to his imperial and religious legitimacy.  The cultural, political, and religious role of pontifex maximus did not disappear with Constantine’s elevation of Christianity, instead the well-worn patterns of the pagan emperors and Roman elite before him became the basis for his reconfiguration of the mos maiorum using the Roman rhetoric, symbols, and might of empire.  Constantine’s invective letter to Arius and the Arians is one example of his multi-pronged approach to assert his authority as the legitimate head of the fourth century Roman Empire and the progenitor of Christendom.