Christianity And The Roman Empire Research Paper

Christianity and the Roman Empire shared an important bond. Christianity offered the Roman Empire joy, hope, a shift in their world view, and a monotheistic God. Rome offered Christianity a more efficient way of spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

In the Roman Empire centralized religion based off of who was ruling at the time was practiced to an extent. As long as citizens respected the emperor and didn’t try to revolt they were left in peace. One example of a religion that were prosecuted against because of the potential of revolt was Christianity, derived from Judaism until the point of the worship of Jesus. Christianity went from being prosecuted against to becoming a dominate religion in Rome. There were many changes that allowed Christianity to become a dominate religion in the Roman empire. Two main things that contributed were in the end of the teachings of Jesus and the reign of emperor Constantine.

Ever since the beginning of human history, people have searched for a savior or a higher being that will bring the people out of their current predicament. Lucky for the people in the Roman Empire such a being exists. Except for some, they never realized the importance of Jesus Christ until the Romans themselves put their only hope of salvation to death. The Romans Religion was that of polytheism meaning that the Romans worshiped many gods. I am going to explain why the Roman Empire eventually fell, while at the same time Christianity flourished.

Without the support of Roman emperors, christianity would not have become as dominant of a religion that it is today. One reason for this, is Emperor Constantine converted to christianity, and favored people who practiced it. By doing, Emperor Constantine helped make the religion more established because when the people saw that their leader became apart of and favored this group, it made it become taken seriously and made people want to convert. Another reason for this is that Emperor Theodosius made christianity the imperial state religion. Because of this, it made it impossible for the people to not be christians and be citizens at the same time. This expanded christianity even more because people wanted to convert out of fear of prosecution

One reason Christianity affected Rome drastically was during the emperor Nero’s time, when he blamed the christians on a fire he started. Not only were the christians being hated, but hundreds of thousands of christians were killed. Another reason why christianity affected Rome was due to the christians refusing to sacrifice to other gods and not worship the emperor because, “he was not a god, and there is only one god”. Another reason Christians have had a bad effect on rome was due to rumors going around that they are cannibals but misunderstood the fact

Because the people stopped worshipping the emperor, the political importance started to fail. No one really cared if they were the emperor; they were not being praised or worshipped any more so what was the point? Since no one cared to be the Emperor the government started to fail. Popes, Pastors, and other church leaders actually got more into the political affairs, making the government a little bit more complicated than it was before. Before Christianity was even a question, the Roman Empire was becoming bankrupt all because of the Roman politicians. They used all of their money creating huge, amazing, unnecessary empires consisting of roads and extraordinary safe traveling conditions so the people using the roads would have safe and easy travels. Christianity was not blamed for all of this doing and the bankruptcy because the Christians and the Christian religion had nothing to do with the bankruptcy. How could the people put all their faith in someone who was failing to keep their empire going? He was the reason they had no more money. It was hard for them to their trust in a pagan god when their “god” (the leader) was failing them. All the people tried to find a new “religion”, they wanted someone or something to put their

Another reason why the Roman Empire fell was because of the rising of the new religion, Christianity. Christianity was a monotheistic religion, which meant that it had only one god. The roman religion was a polytheistic religion, which meant they had more than one god. At different occasions, the Romans tried to kill and destroy the Christians because of what they believed, which their beliefs were very popular among the poor. Finally the Romans let the Christians stay with

In the year 476 A.D, the Christian era of the Western Roman empire came to a close. What followed would be a series of Germanic Kingdoms such as the Visigoths, Angles, and Saxons. These kingdoms, like most budding nations, founded their own unique political systems, laying the groundwork for future European nations. Although these kingdoms were deemed “independent”, they still found themselves under the jurisdiction of the Church. This subjected them to the political model of the Church, and by extension Rome.

Since the beginning of the Roman Empire, religion has always been a big influence in this state. Romans were polytheists believed in many Gods, they had the God of sun, moon, rain, etc… But it was after the third century when Christianity started to form part and get a place in the Roman Empire. Christianity made a huge impact in Rome. Also, followers of this religion suffered from emperor’s thoughts and conclusion about Christianity. Furthermore, the Christians were in persecution for many years; however, after the emperor Constantine with the constantinian dynasty, everything seems to be effective for the Christians. The long years that took the Christian people to achieve the form of their religion were very challenging. Yet, the doctrine taught by Christian professors made the roman people that followed this doctrine behaved in best way.

The Romans were a well-established civilization of immense power in the Hellenistic era, conquering nearly the whole Italian Peninsula and most of Europe. Unfortunately, a time of continuous difficulty led Rome to its decline in 476 CE. The fall of Rome can be characterized as a series of troubling events that provoked an influx of citizens to Catholicism in the hope of receiving eternal salvation. Most importantly, it allowed the Catholic Church to rise in power from 590 to 1517 CE and become the most dominating and influential community in Europe. For one, Rome was unable to govern its excessively large empire, which set the beginning of a steady economic decline. Moreover, the public executions of Christians piqued the curiosity of the population, causing rumors of salvation to spread like wildfire. Finally, Constantine’s reign as emperor changed the tide of Rome from being initially an anti-Christian empire to being a fully in support of the religion. Accordingly, the fall of Rome influenced people to convert to Catholicism, which allowed it to thrive in power in Europe.

When the pagan Romans wanted Christianity to be the official church of the Holy Empire, they needed to rethink the concept of God; this concept not only vitiated the core of the Christian doctrine from within, but also endangered the Roman Empire itself. Constantine as the leader of the Empire decided to take action and remedy the situation.

Church leaders became influential in the governance. They used prophetic books for guidance to leaders on how to succeed in wars. The Roman people began depending on these leaders for guidance instead of trained military and administrative leaders. The Romans had previously revered the emperors as gods. With the popularity of Christianity and belief in one God, the emperors were less

Ancient Rome’s events led to spread of Christianity around the world. To begin, Rome did not like Christianity until Cincinnatus a well-known and respected leader baptized before his death. This was a great awakening to many Roman’s because they saw Cincinnatus as a role model. Christian leaders in Rome were sent to jail in which they would face death later for not believing in roman gods.

The question of whether or not Christianity was responsible for the fall of the Western Roman Empire is one that has been argued by scholars for centuries. The most famous of these scholars, 18th century English historian Edward Gibbon, placed the blame ultimately on a loss of civic virtue among the Roman citizens. Gibbon, who notoriously openly criticized organized religion , held that Christianity contributed to this shift by making the populace less interested in the worldly here-and-now and more

Christianity has strong relationship with Roman empire at early stage of developments, and even beyond. At the first century, slow but sure, Christian to be adapted in Romans world; many Romans converted to Christian. In term of art, Romans then bring their own art heritage to their new faith; Christian. Roman’s artistic (motif, form and architecture) was applied with new meaning to a new faith and to a new god.