Christianity In Rome

It was this refusal that caused its practice to be illegal and those who chose to stick with the faith were prosecuted. Although people were being killed for practicing, Christianity started to become even more popular. After seeing Christian martyrs risk their lives for the sake of Christianity, many Romans were compelled and attracted to the faith. Also, there were Apostles who traveled around the empire spreading the message of Christianity. Then in 312 CE, Emperor Constantine proposed the Edict of Milan that banned all laws against Christianity. That allowed people to freely worship, without the fear of harsh punishment. He eventually converted on his deathbed. Then in 392 CE, Emperor Theodosius made Christianity the official religion of Rome. Christianity went from being an illegal religion to the official religion of the Roman Empire.

The great Roman Empire expanded across all of Europe and into the Middle East. Its military was one of the finest. With major trading in Africa and Britain, the economy flourished with brining many citizens a healthy income. With amazing advancements in culture and technology, Roman society was at its finest. During the Pax Romana, the Romans had 200 years of peace and good ruling by level headed dictators and emperors. Despite Rome’s greatness in all of these areas, Rome would eventually fall. Surprisingly all of these qualities that led up to a flourishing empire were the same ones that led to its demise. As Germanic tribes invaded, the military weakened and the government became unstable.

The Roman Empire is known as one of the strongest empires in history, due to their advanced technology, strong military leaders, and republican government. As the empire started to expand, so did their power. However, after years have gone by, the Roman Empire started to fall. Their fall may have been caused by political reason, such as the empire being just too much to handle, Diocletian splitting the territory in half, and their government corruption.

Henry, M. (2003). I am the truth: toward a philosophy of Christianity. Stanford, Calif: Stanford University Press.

Religion played a key role in the daily life and social system of Ancient Rome. Religion included the worship of many gods and more gods were often adopted from conquered areas. Because most religions were polytheist at the time, the Romans rarely disallowed a cult from a conquered region to continue. A few cults ran into controversy and opposition from citizens or government, such as the cult of Deus Sol Invictus, and that of Isis. Romans were also not keen on monotheistic religion which explains their separation from the Jews. But above all other religions, the Romans disagreed with, persecuted and were threatened most by Christianity.  The introduction of Christianity to the Roman Empire

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.

Rome was such a large powerful empire, so how did it fall? There were different things leading up to the fall of the Roman Empire, not just a singular cause. The main causes of the fall of the Roman Empire were being reliant foreign soldiers, constant change in emperors (unstable/unorganized government), and economic issues.

Factors Which Led to the Spread of Christianity in the Roman Empire Christianity was not born in a vacumn. There were many social, geographical, historical and religious issues prevailing at the time of Christ and all of which were favorable to the spread of Christianity. Geograpicly, Christianity came into being in the Meditation world, the largest of the various centers of civilization at that time. Israel stands almost central to the five continents, dividing the east and west.

Then and now religions shared common dimensions that provide society with a doctrine, narrative, ethics, ritual, experience and a social institution. These six dimensions that Ninian Smart derived spell out the framework for comparative study of religions1. The six dimensions hold true when comparing the daily routine Roman religious thought to modern Christianity. Interwoven into the core of both cultures is a strong unifying spirit that built a strong communal bond for its people.

Throughout history there has been many important civilizations that have fallen. Even though the Roman Empire was so advanced it is also included in this list. The Roman Empire couldn’t handle their population growth which led to their downfall. There were many causes that led to the downfall of the Roman Empire. The fall of the Roman Empire was not unavoidable, because of the bad economy, corrupt government and over expansion.

Christians went from being persecuted to dominating Rome rather quickly. In a world where separation between church and state does not exist, a Christian becoming the sole emperor of Rome symbolized a huge turning point in history. The power switched and the Pagans in turn became persecuted. Christians rose up and took control of all aspects of Roman society. The Pagan past was destroyed, banned, or forgotten about. Those Christians that did not agree with how things were being run either left the empire and became monks or formed their own sect. All of Rome changed.

The relationship between Christians and the Roman Empire is complicated to say the least. Before the summation of the primary sources begin there must be a little background information provided. Rome was in power over a big portion of the Mediterranean region. A good portion of Christians lived under Rome’s rule. Rome was a very tolerant state when it came to religious flexibility. As long as you recognized the Roman God’s then they were tolerant with any other practices you decided to have. The Christians would not recognize the Roman God’s and that caused great friction. There are many primary sources historians have found on the relationship between the Christians and the Romans. The majority of the sources being used in this summation are from the Documents of the Christian Church the fourth edition. Also three primary sources from the times of Constantine, the emperor of Rome in the fourth century. The Romans start as thinking of the Christians as criminals, to being tolerant with them, to eventually they embrace the Christian faith.

The Jewish community started Christianity, but Christianity later spread and convert from all over the Greco-Roman world were attracted by this religion during the progress of the first century CE. Ideas, traditions, ways of worship and traditions were brought along by the new convert of Christianity and it was adopted by their faith. This is through art because Christians who were once pagans of the Roman Empire stick to their artistic heritage when they became followers of Jesus Christ. Roman artistic forms and motifs and also Roman architecture were being used by this new convert to express their new faith. In further explanation, we’ll see how Roman art influenced the developing art of early Christians.

In addition, there were prominent figure during this time that also aided in the growth of Christianity. One person who aided to the growth of Christianity was Constantine. Constantine was a Emperor of the Western Roman Empire and was the first emperor to publicly convert to Christianity in 312 AD. Constantine conversion was prompted before going into war he was Alerted by a vision that the Christian God is on his side, Constantine

Although Christianity was initially practiced within Semitic populations of the Roman Empire, by the 4th century A.D the Christian religion had a huge impact to the Greeks and also the early Byzantine Empire. But by this time Christian communities had been established in all the important cities in the Roman Empire. In 313 the next emperor Constantine legalized Christianity throughout the empire. He also