Since the 4th century AD, a firm conviction existed among Christians not only regarding the breakthrough occasioned in the world by the revelation of Jesus Christ, but also as to that associated with the reign of Emperor Constantine the Great. Contemporary scribes often referred to the “extraordinary” or “miraculous transformation” that had happened to the world by virtue of God's arrangement, and had led to the abandonment of both the previous religion and native traditions. Christians believed that it had all taken place as a result of the alliance of Emperor Constantine I with the Supreme God – the emperor’s guardian and ally. This book is devoted to some aspects of this particular alliance, or symmachia, in which the military dimension played a significant (and initially even dominant) role. It is the first part of the two-volume dissertation and contains reflections on the broadly understood genesis of the alliance of the Roman Empire (Imperium Romanum) with the God of Christians. It contains deliberation on the search for the Supreme God by Constantine, the ideology of victory adhered to by the rulers, or the birth of monasticism treated as a new (and typical at the time) way of practising the love of wisdom, i.e. a |