One man's conception of Constantine -- Frank Slaughter

I wonder what the buzz was in the literary world in 1967, when the late Frank Slaughter, a Florida physician and author, published the first in what was to be his series on notables in Christian history.

Of course, I was not yet born. I have come to the party a few decades late. My secondhand copy of his book on Constantine the Great has been well worn since it rolled off the press -- who knows how many hands it has been through -- its pages are yellowed and its cheap paperback binding is failing.

I have thoroughly enjoyed this book, this week. Mr. Slaughter wrote more than 60books in his lifetime. This is the first that I have read. He digs deeply into his subject -- and you have to admire a writer who would dare to take on the excruciatingly complex politics and society of 4th Century Rome, as the Eternal City had its crown wrenched away by Byzantium in the east and the old gods lost out to Christianity.

But I fear that I will have no one to talk with about the book. It's 42 years old, the author has passed away and he never seems to have become a household name.

Spring will bring Byzantium

I got down on my knees this morning and examined a bit of ground near my house. Sure enough, the first tight tips of crocus buds have pushed up into the light and in a few weeks, these pioneers of the spring season will bloom.

Winter storms may still come, but they will go, too, and the seasons will change. My family members who have lost jobs in this ruined economy, will survive, with our arms of support wrapped around them. My grandmother, who fell and badly hurt herself this month, may yet have a few joyful years left with us.

I read through Gnosticism this winter and do not regret the time spent on it, though it was terribly hard to understand. Now I am reading the very last of the "pagans" before I enter the literature of the Byzantine Empire, prelude to the Middle Ages.

This weekend, I read Longus' "Daphnis and Chloe." After the Nag Hammadi library, this book seems almost unbearably simplistic.

More later.