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How did Christianity change the Roman Empire?
- Aloha 3y agoDeclining religious tolerance was another effect - though what the practical effect of that was? hard to say.
- nyokodo 3y ago> Declining religious tolerance was another effect Pagan Rome had centuries of persecution of Christianity not always and everywhere proactive but often brutal and widespread. The early Christians didn’t gather in the catacombs for the aesthetic! Whereas Christian Rome was highly tolerant of Pagans for centuries while Paganism naturally declined.
- Aloha 3y agoBut what other sects was it tolerant of? Being intolerant of an insurgent monotheistic faith doesn't mean that it was not broadly tolerant of other faiths.
- InTheArena 3y agoHave you ever read any classical period histories? Anything by the Persian Empire, the Assyrian Empire, etc., the Peloponnesian Wars, Carthage, The Mithrandatic Wars, The Galic Wars, and the Wu Hu in China. These were genocides/gendercides that had religious elements and were situations where all where non-monotheistic powers. Think about the Egyptian empires. And that's just genocides. Polythestic tolerance is mostly a noble savage style myth.
- Aloha 3y agoI dont believe it to be an outrageous statement that late polytheistic roman empire was more tolerant than early christian monotheistic roman empire. As a parallel commenter noted however, the level of official tolerance varied by era, who was in charge and where. Another parallel commenter noted that the rituals of the official roman religion were considered ritual first, and religion second.
- InTheArena 3y agoThe goalposts have moved a lot from the original argument, but the only way that you can make an argument about tolerance within the historical record is simply by ignoring intolerance to Jews, Persians, Christians (generally all non-Italians) and the various barbarians that Rome contended with. In fact, the intolerance of Germans and migrants, in particular, by both "pagan" and "Christian" (neither label really fits), was a key reason for the eventual fall of the empire. That was not necessarily religious, but arguing that the martyrdom period, as well as the German wars, were somehow more religiously tolerant the late empire, is ... dubious in my point of view. You can make arguments that the Middle Ages crusading church (i.e., the Catholic Christendom church 500 years later) was less tolerant, but few things in the Middle or late Roman empire (or anywhere in the world) could ever be described as tolerant.
- jltsiren 3y agoThe persecutions were caused by two conflicting views of religion. Christians saw religion a matter of belief, and they refused to participate in rituals that they considered incompatible with Christianity. To Romans, religion was all about rituals, while belief was more in the domain of philosophy. By rejecting Roman rituals, Christians were rejecting the ties that bound the society together. They were therefore rejecting Rome itself. When Christians were persecuted, they were persecuted less because of their religion and more because of their sedition.
- jtbayly 3y agoOne of the common charges that Christians were prosecuted for was atheism.
- InTheArena 3y agoIt's also worth noting that these rituals included worship of the Caesars themselves. The rejection of an imposed faith then, necessarily, also included a rejection of empire.
- jltsiren 3y agoImposed religion, not imposed faith. That difference between religion as a civic duty and religion as a matter of faith was the core issue.
- InTheArena 3y agoI think that's a fair comment. Christianity being a matter of personal faith rather than government mandate was a core issue. Like many empires, Rome could not survive a world where the state itself was not the deity.
- nyokodo 3y ago> Rome could not survive a world where the state itself was not the deity. Except it could, and did for a thousand years depending on how you measure it.
- defrost 3y agoThe successors to the classical Roman Empire shaped the surviving narrative, from the linked article: By putting a stop to its use as a quarry for building materials, Benedict’s intervention rescued the Colosseum, as Edward Gibbon recognised. Gibbon was somewhat sceptical about the centrality of the Colosseum, ‘a spot which persecution and fable had stained with the blood of so many Christian martyrs’, to early Christian history. Despite the stories of Christians thrown to the lions so often repeated there is no solid evidence that any Christian martyr actually died in Rome’s Colosseum. Or, putting it another way, there's a lot of writing from Roman times and not much evidence that Christians as a group were specifically singled out for persecution any more than any other group that was not the ruling elite.
- InTheArena 3y agoGibbon's writings are really not taken as gospel (hah!) truth anymore and are not really supported by any historical research more modern than the late 1800s. Gibbon's core thesis is that Christianity caused the downfall of the Roman Empire leads him to reject quite a lot of evidence that the Roman Empire was a nasty, nasty place well before the Huns sacked Rome.
- Aloha 3y agoThere is a good coherent argument that the conversion to Christianity added additional instability to a system that was already very unstable. It may not have been fatal, but it probably contributed to a process that was already happening. The Roman empire was already both politically and economically unstable by 150 AD - and was shrinking. I think attributing to Christianity as the sole cause of the downfall of the empire shows a lack of the complex (mostly, but not entirely) economic factors involved.
- InTheArena 3y agoIt certainly did add instability. The Roman Empire depended on god worship (Caeser's power as a religious leader in particular), depended on slavery, and was very ethnocentric - all anathema to early Christianity. Gibbon, on the other hand, had a thesis and let the thesis shape the facts, rather than the other way around. Mike Duncan's Roman history podcast is still an awesome way to see all of the forces involved.
- boomboomsubban 3y agoAs someone who somewhat agrees with what you said, your one sentence makes it look like a terrible argument. Rome was fine with you worshiping pretty much any god, so long as you put them under Jupiter. In a way that's religious tolerance, yet it also led to them going terrible things to the Jews and later the Christians, plus many now largely forgotten cults. Christianity was actually somewhat similar for a while, they were fairly fine with you worshiping your pagan god if you could call them a saint and you accepted Jesus. And their acceptance of pagan rituals led to much of what we consider Christmas. Neither were truly tolerant, but both could be fairly lax if you dressed things up correctly. Plus both had periods of greater tolerance and intolerance.
- Aloha 3y agoNo disagreement - my point was that the adoption of Christianity all at once as the state faith, reduced religious tolerance, particularly in the early years. But yeah that was part of what I was getting at - but I kinda just responded with my first thoughts off the cuff. My broader point was that its very hard to have a multi-language, multi-ethnic, continent spanning empire - while also having a nascent single religion that ignores local customs. Eventually tolerance under the new faith evolved to be similar to the old, but it was a process.
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- Slava_Propanei 3y ago[dead]
- brightball 3y agoThat was an interesting read and some details I’d not heard before. Thank you.
- matrix87 3y agoThere's a really good Yale lecture on this, kind of long but interesting nonetheless https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcIuAJ-jaSg&t=0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcIuAJ-jaSg&t=0 He makes an interesting point in a subsequent lecture on Islam. Because Christianity was persecuted early on and was a distinct entity from the Roman government at first, this is reflected in the beliefs themselves (e.g. "Render unto Caeser what is his" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Render_unto_Caesar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Render_unto_Caesar), which later contributed to the modern concept of separation of church and state On the other hand, Muhammad was not only a religious leader but a political one as well The religious framework and political framework were more tightly coupled, giving us the slightly different overlap you can see in Muslim countries even today
- InTheArena 3y agoThat separation of church and state was always a factor in middle ages Europe - it meant that power was fragmented between the church and state and was broadly a liability once disasters of the middle ages unfolded. After the rise of Liberalism and the rise of the nation-states that separation became an advantage for European states and a huge competitive disadvantage to theocratic states.
- bruce511 3y agoI'm not downvoting you, but I do disagree with your hypothesis. In Europe religious power was heavily conflated with political power. Rome, through Catholisism, remained the symbol of political legitimacy well into the Middle ages, and into the modern day. Especially in England where the Catholic / Protestant battle raged one way and other for hundreds of years, determining who should be king/queen, who the aristocracy were, who were worshiping in secret and so on. In our time we see this playing out in Northern Ireland, where issues of nationalism (English, Irish) are proxied into issues of religion (Catholic and Protestant). The concept of separation of church and state would happen in the US specifically because most immigrants there were fleeing state-sponsored religious persecution. They wished to create a place of religious tolerance, which alas has been somewhat imperfect in execution.
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- mensetmanusman 3y agoConstantine declared Rome Christian after the profound success of the jewish adopted family structure was opened to gentiles and had converted nearly half the population. The insight has profoundly shaped billions of families since.
- tomrod 3y ago> "Jewish adopted family structure" What? I don't think that had anything to do with Christianity becoming a political force. Citation, please.
- koofdoof 3y agoCould you expand on what you mean by "jewish adopted family" structure? Is there something special about the way Jewish families were organized that led to rapid conversions to Christianity?
- jackcosgrove 3y agoIt is true that Christianity was growing exponentially within Rome during the 3rd and 4th centuries, and that Constantine was, in classic politician form, simply acknowledging events on the ground that had long been happening. Likewise Theodosius established Christianity as the state religion as Christians became a supermajority. The story that Constantine's conversion somehow enabled the spread of Christianity is a myth. However, I have never heard anything about a Jewish family structure being an attraction of Christianity. If anything after the first century Christianity was much more a Greek-influenced religion.
- solumunus 3y agoCan you describe this family structure? I honestly don’t know what you’re talking about.
- lazyninja987 3y ago[dead]
- monero-xmr 3y agoPagans / polytheists would respect other people’s gods. They would even worship them at times. They saw gods everywhere and in everything. One reason the Jews were seen as so weird was that they had one god, and refused to worship any others, but their culture was recognized as very old so the Romans respected their god as very powerful. The Christians had the baptism ceremony, and part of being baptized is to forsake all other gods from this point forwards. Barbarians / pagans knew the Christian world as quite rich - the Vikings called Constantinople “the big city” and knew it as the place where they could sell all the cool stuff they stole during raids. A missionary would go to the barbarian leaders and tell them about their powerful Christian god, which was why the Roman empire(s) they fought were so grand and powerful. It was like a mind virus where one chieftain or leader would convert, win some battles, then assume the reason they won was their baptism. Because Christianity required ending worship of all other gods, they would aggressively convert the people under their control, and their nobles under them.
- lazyninja987 3y ago[dead]
- socceroos 3y agoThis conception unduly desecrates the dignity of any leaders who genuinely converted and falls into the category of a "hot take" by my estimation.
- monero-xmr 3y agoI’m a practicing Catholic but I am a passionate consumer of history in many different forms. I agree there is genuine belief but it’s unlikely to me that a Jarl in Norway woke up one morning and thought “today I shall be baptized!” and suddenly renounced all of their ancestors and prior beliefs. There is a path from A to Z and I believe it always included tangible benefits in their reality. Things they can feel and see. This is why I believe in Christ so deeply - I know it to be true with what I have felt and experienced.
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- lazyninja987 3y ago[dead]
- schneems 3y ago“The Holy Roman Empire was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire, discuss” - Linda Richman
- labster 3y agoI don’t know who she is, but she’s quoting Voltaire.
- jackcosgrove 3y agoLinda Richman was a character played by Mike Myers on SNL, who hosted a local access TV show called Coffee Talk. I don't get the connection to the topic.
- labster 3y agoIt’s only connected insofar as the HRE was one of many claimants to the legacy of Rome, which is to say not at all connected.
- Podgajski 3y agoChristianity didn’t do anything that article states. People did. It is safe to say that what the Christians of Rome did to the pagans was not Christianity and was not an act of Christ.
- makeitshine 3y agoHow else do you judge a religion/philosophy/way of life except by the people, societies and actions it produces?
- Podgajski 3y agoI am homeless. America didn’t cause my homelessness, people did. You didn’t cause my homelessness, well, maybe you didn’t or probably you didn’t. You see, I judge people, not religions, or philosophies or ways of life. Because a religion can hold a varying type of people, even people who can act in ways that are 180° Different from what a religion states. Christians follow Christ. To follow Christ to act like Christ. It’s that simple.
- makeitshine 3y agoAmerica was created, is composed of, and run by people. Religions are as well. Looking at the products of the system people take part in is a measure of the underlying people who run it. It's the same as people looking at financial reports to gauge the health of the economy.
- Podgajski 3y agoThank you for agreeing with me?
- makeitshine 3y agoNot really, I'm saying the religion and it's outputs are an indicator of the sort of people it contains. An aggregation, a heuristic, or whatever you want to call it. I can't judge every single person in Christianity individually, but I can look at what it has produced as a whole and not like the majority of what I see.
- antiviral 3y agoYou should check out "The Darkening Age" by Catherine Nixey. Once Christians became the majority, and especially after Constantine, the direction of persecutions reversed, and was then by Christians towards the remaining pagans. Many of the broken statues we now see were vandalized by zealous Christians eager to remove the vestigial influence of the pagan Rome: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Darkening_Age https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Darkening_Age
- InTheArena 3y agoThe "Dark Ages" view of history is mostly rejected by classicists and middle age scholars.
- shusaku 3y agoThe book the person above you linked is basically “backlash against the backlash” on this topic.
- agaaacawefs 3y agoRome was in significant moral, cultural, and economic decline and those that chose to hold on to that failing and disturbed culture are not the ones you should be sympathetic to. They willfully and knowingly drove themselves into ruins. Christianity and it's doctrines (as they are understood in the mostly conventional, trinitarian, organized fashion) are very clearly formulated in direct opposition to late Roman culture and it's vestigial but pernicious influence throughout history. Yes, it is true that the Christians destroyed Rome. That clearly the intent.
- antiviral 3y agoYour comment has merit. Even at it's peak Roman culture was marbled with cruelty and violence. During its decline, these aspects only got worse and became coupled with corruption and decadence. But I think we should see them relative to their historic peers (Gauls, Carthaginians, Parthians), not relative to modern societies to truly see what their contributions were, of which there were many, including in law, engineering, and medicine. Also, there's this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Xad5Rl0N2E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Xad5Rl0N2E
- raincom 3y agoThis article touches on humility. Today, we see humility as a virtue, thanks to Christianity, and secularization of Christianity. That's why we see so many people say "in my humble opinion". To the pagans of Antiquity, humility was a vice, and pride was a virtue. And there is a difference between modesty and humility. Modesty doesn't involve dissimulation. When it comes to humility, there is some kind of hiding--that's dissimulation. Read this interesting article 'How Christian humility upended the world': https://www.abc.net.au/religion/how-christian-humility-upended-the-world/10101062 https://www.abc.net.au/religion/how-christian-humility-upend...
- svnt 3y agoHumility was a major factor in most pre-Christian religions and similar efforts, featuring prominently in Patanjali’s yoga sutra, Taoism, Confucianism, Judaism, Buddhism, and so on. The position reiterated in your article is based on a comparison of the New Testament to a naive reading of the Greek philosophers. Christianity did not uniquely bring humility into culture.
- raincom 3y agoWhat's that sanskrit word for humility in Yoga Sutra? Don't cite 'vinaya', as it means modesty. Well, humility is inverse of pride; pride is one of virtues in Aristotle's principia nicomachea. 'Christianity (to some extent Judaism), presented an idea, unknown to the world in which it grew, namely the Pagan world of Rome. The idea was that human beings are creatures of God and that they belonged to His domain. He was the dominus or the Lord of the domain. As a result, human beings should not be arrogant, but must be humble instead. (As the ‘Book of Job’ in the Old Testament makes it clear, there is a very heavy price to be paid for arrogance.) Here, it belonged to the opposite spectrum in Ancient thought, which saw arrogance as a moral virtue and humility as a despicable vice. Protestant Christianity, especially Luther and Calvin, very forcefully propagated this idea: Man was a sinner, worse than the lowest worm, because of which God’s Grace becomes unfathomable and ungraspable.' [1] https://www.hipkapi.com/2017/01/13/humility-is-a-vice/ https://www.hipkapi.com/2017/01/13/humility-is-a-vice/
- anon291 3y agoThe concern of the central government for the poor owes a lot to Christianity, as this article states. Same with equality in marriage.
- christ-mi 3y ago[flagged]
- fiforpg 3y agoEarly Christianity and the phenomenon of martyrdom is discussed in a very nice episode of In Our Time: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0016ptt https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0016ptt If I recall correctly, the panelists express the idea that it might have been the feature that impressed the Romans most and served as a powerful ad for this new religion.
- rglover 3y agoHighly recommend Time is the Ally of Deceit [1] to get a better understanding of how paganism influenced and was weaved into what we know as modern Christianity. Much of what people identify as Christianity today (Catholicism and Protestantism) is antithetical to what's proposed/commanded by God and Christ in the Bible (and what was observed by early Christians). [1] https://www.amazon.com/Time-Ally-Deceit-Richard-Rives/dp/0982284403 https://www.amazon.com/Time-Ally-Deceit-Richard-Rives/dp/098...
- logicchains 3y ago>Much of what people identify as Christianity today (Catholicism and Protestantism) is antithetical to what's proposed/commanded by God and Christ in the Bible Interestingly that's also a claim made in the Quran, that Christianity had changed and become corrupted by pagan practices over time. Like the whole idea of Trinity; there's much more scriptural support for God being greater than Jesus than there is for God and Jesus being equals.
- rglover 3y ago> Interestingly that's also a claim made in the Quran, that Christianity had changed and become corrupted by pagan practices over time. The most basic evidence is ignorance of the 4th commandment (all counter-arguments toward Christ "nailing Mosaic law to the cross" are eliminated by Matthew 5:17-18). There is no Biblical evidence for the Sabbath being moved to Sunday and recognized as "The Lord's Day" or a commemoration of Christ's resurrection. That "move" was an edict of the Roman Emperor Constantine.
- throw0101b 3y ago> There is no Biblical evidence for the Sabbath being moved to Sunday and recognized as "The Lord's Day" or a commemoration of Christ's resurrection. That "move" was an edict of the Roman Emperor Constantine. Fist: just because it is not in Bible does not make it an invalid practice. The canonical form of the (Christian) Bible wasn't 'officially' established until some time into the history of Christianity (Council of Rome), and to a certain extent it was formalizing what was already accepted practice since the beginning of the faith (as mentioned in the Didache). And if you want to argue sola scriptura, good luck. Second: we have records for Sunday worship from First Apology of Justin Martyr (100-165 AD), amongst others. A few centuries before Constantine. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord%27s_Day https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord%27s_Day
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- ck2 3y agoWould be fascinating historical fiction if in an alternate timeline Romans advance glass making good enough to invent microscopes and telescopes 1500 years before this timeline, so instead of embracing made-up stories to explain things and suppress people, they double-down on science instead.
- 8bitsrule 3y agoIMO, Rome saw an advantage in adhering to a -version- of the religion ... and in overcoming what it termed the 'pagan empire' (Greek in part). At Nicaea in 325, the religion was overhauled. Stamping out the Eleusinian mysteries was part of that process. In the 380s, Theodosius helped that along by beginning the destruction of sites and the persecutions (tactics far from Christ-like), as did Theophilus, then Cyril. All designed to consolidate the takeover.