The Conqueror: Rome, Romance, and Religion
“With an eye for detail and an engaging fictional story, Dr. Bryan Litfin makes history come alive. If you’ve ever wondered what life was like for early believers, you will love The Conqueror.”
Dr. Bryan Litfin’s latest historical fiction The Conqueror fully entrenched my intellect and imagination. I felt as if I were the Germania Barbarian Rex himself, fighting for the Christian seeker would be Emperor Constantine.
It is week 36 of 52 in the Tim Challies 2020 reading challenge, and my assignment was to read a novel by an author I haven't read. Well, I cheated. Litfin’s new book was released last week and I couldn’t wait to jump into ancient Rome, learn from a brilliant Christian historian, and engage in this intriguing story.
I have written on two other of Bryan Litfin’s books in the Trevis Trilogy, and I am looking to complete the trilogy later this year. But I decided to put book three on hold to free fall jump into the Roman Empire at the beginning of the fourth century as it is primed for internal violence in a competitive power surge.
For those of you who want the bottom-line upfront, I have it for you.
Buy this book.
Conqueror is remarkably engaging, historically instructive, and spiritually stimulating. This is a "Buy Now" book. If you can't buy it now, add it to your wish list, Amazon Christmas list, or whatever other crazy lists you have of things you need. My complaints are trivial so I will give all praises in this review!
Remarkably Engaging
The Conqueror is set in AD 309.
“Rome teeters on the brink of war. Constantine’s army is on the move. On the Rhine frontier, pagan Germanic barbarian Brandolf Rex joins the Roman army as a spy. Down in Rome, senator’s daughter Junia Flavia finds herself embroiled in anti-Christian politics as she works on behalf of the church.”
Dr. Bryan Litfin
Litfin pours his competitive adventurous intellect into every ink-stained page of Conqueror. Litfin has the heart of both romantic and warrior, the ambition of a pastor and thrill-seeker, and the mind of a professor and explorer. He takes these influential traits and plunges them into the characters of this story set at the beginning of the fourth century before the rise of Emperor Constantine.
Conqueror is a blend of real history, bloody warfare, old school special operations, young love, and religious conviction. The storyline starts off with a young fearless fighting barbarian, often just called Rex, whose life is in the palm of Augustus Constantine. After earning the favor of the Augustus, Rex sets off to train as one of the legendary Roman Spectaculars, an older Jason Bourne type of Roman elite soldier.
Naturally, I was immediately hooked.
Historically Instructive
“About a mile outside the walls, the mourners reached an ancient pagan necropolis. It was here that Saint Paul had been buried after he was beheaded by Nero” (p. 34).
Litfin seamlessly weaves a college course full of historical theology into this engaging novel. He tells the story of how Rome went from a tetrarchy (four rulers) to a divided diarchy temporarily shared by two of the previous Augustus’.
During this time, Rome radically pivots from a predominately long-standing pagan worshiping Empire to monotheistic Christianity. This drastic change in religious observation ignites the gospel to be spread among the nations, something I believe future books in this series will get into!
Spiritually Stimulating
Conqueror doesn’t attempt to portray an optimistic revisionist history. While some Christians want to readily embrace Emperor Constantine as a committed born-again Christian, Litfin doesn’t hold back his natural political motivations for embracing the new religion.
Throughout the story, you will find yourself wrestling with the characters, some fictional while others historic, whose previous religious convictions are being assaulted by the exclusivity and steep demands of Christianity.
Litfin highlights the struggles that commoners to aristocrats would have encountered as they sought to convert to Christianity. Most of these struggles are not so different than what we face today.
While I want to write much more, I don't want to ruin the story for you. Perhaps I will revisit some of the intriguing storylines and their significance upon how humanity sees the world in a follow-up review.
For now, just buy the book!
Disclaimer: The content of this book is for mature audiences. There is references to warfare, murder, strangulation, prostitution, sex, pagan gods, and other vices. Some readers will likely be offended by the raw but honest portrayal Dr. Litfin gives of the ancient world. Realize that Litfin writes equally of the high moral standard of Christianity and the significant debauchery of the Roman Empire. If a teenager wishes to read this book, I recommend parents read the book first. This will provide full knowledge of the material before letting their children think through the material on their own. This will also produce excellent thought-provoking discussion afterward!
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John Owen came from Welsh descent, was educated at Queens College, and became a renowned Puritan theologian, Oxford professor, and passionate pastor who lived from 1616 to 1683. In 1647, he wrote the exhaustive treatise The Death of Death defending Limited or Definite Atonement against the Arminian view of Universal Atonement or Unlimited Atonement.