ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on another necessary and critical condition for ex nihilo to become a power-fi lled support for the “logic of domination”, viz., the “Christianization” of the empire. In other words, as long as ex nihilo functioned as a logic at the periphery of empire, it could hardly lay claim to the colonizing power of wealth and military force. Only as Christianity was absorbed into the empire did it become capable of the colonizing force that it is now known for.2 I suggest that it was adopted by Constantine, and then by the empire, in part for the rhetorical power derived from an ex nihilic creation. Through this foundational narrative of ex nihilo creation a monological view of the world was supported physically by a large empire. The hinterlands of the empire and its peoples were literally (re)created (as if out of nothing) into the Roman, Christian world. Here, ex nihilo becomes a foundation and justifi cation for persecution, missionizing, and colonizing others, and for cultivating “wild” lands for the benefi t of the one, true, Christian empire: Rome.3 This chapter, then, examines the move from tetrarchy to monarchy that takes place with the rise of Constantine, and which parallels the move from polytheism to monotheism. Then, I argue that through this monological vision, all of reality becomes grist for the Roman-Christian mill: peoples must be transformed (through overpowering them and educating/converting them); unity is imposed upon diversity (in both thought/ culture and through the cultivation of lands); and the Christian-Roman self becomes defi ned primarily through subjugation of the heathen-barbarian other. For an Empire whose authority is derived from a Creator ex nihilo, threats to power, unity, and self are seen as chaotic forces, threatening the order established by an ex nihilic creator. Through this initial joining of Christianity with the Roman Empire, the Christian God proves to be the ultimate “power poppa”4 associated with omnipotence. In this move from a religion of “the underside” to a religion of empire, theology reveals its power-fi lled political implications as a theo-politics of omnipotence.5
