Why Did Christianity Become A Dominate Religion In Roman Empire

For many years, Christianity was illegal. Often, it was essentially ignored, but there were time periods where the Christians in all the conquered areas were persecuted for not making sacrifices to the ancient gods. Finally, when Theodosius made Christianity the favored religion of the state and decided the orthodoxy of the New Testament, the era of European Christianity began. The idea of a fully human and yet fully divine messiah began at this time and also the idea of a Bishop in Rome presiding over the entirety of Christianity. All of this set the stage for the Christian beliefs still held today.

At one time, all of Rome was united by a common religion. This religion, commonly referred to as the Roman religion, was derived from the religion in Greece. Members of this religion, which included the majority, if not all, of the Roman citizens, worshiped many different gods, including the creator or father god, Jupiter, the sun god, Apollo, the god of inspiring wars, Mars, and many others as well. The popularity of this religion began to decline when Christianity arose. It appealed to the majority of the people, particularly the lower class and slaves, who now had something to put their hope and faith in. This religion spread rapidly, and Roman emperors felt that because it was so influential it would become a possible threat. These leaders began persecuting Christians, but many Romans had already committed to this religion and refused to abandon it because they viewed it as the most important part of their life. This led to a lack of patriotism in Roman citizens who then rejected politics and became independent of the government.

During the 17th to 18th century, The Roman Empire had gone through a cultural and religious metamorphous. Throughout this time, the roles of religion in the Islamic, Byzantine and Western European worlds altered the period of 600-750 with their similarities adhering to monotheism for one, and differences in regards to perspectives. These three cultures were all pretty diverse but they also shared some of the same roots and became heritors of the Roman Empire, built on different ideologies. The different ideologies of the Islamic, Byzantine and Western European worlds, consisted of different founders, places, and elements of worship, thus portraying how religion was indeed prominently central to governmental and social structures because of the large impact towards political laws.

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

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.

In the Roman Civilization where the prevalent worship of roman gods were impersonal and did not provide a moral base or a message of hope, in the fourth century Christianity was formed, born as a movement within Judaism Christianity emphasized the personal relationship between God and people slowly spread through the Roman Empire until ultimately dominating the western culture. Three of the several factors that aided to the growth of Christianity in the Roman Empire were; the central beliefs and value of Christianity, prominent figures, and Christianity appeal to women.

There are many differences between Christianity and Roman religion. There are also similarities between the two of how they both worshipped in a place even if the place was different. Big difference is that they believed in gods and also they had different ways of religious. Roman did not like people turning away from Roman religion, and that caused harsh punishment to Christian to occur. Christianity became popular in Rome is after “the Jesus movement” occurred in Judea. Another key point that needs to be discussed is what the Roman did to deal with the people who turned away from Roman religion to Christianity.

Christianity was such a threat to the Roman Empire because the Roman government lost some control of its citizens. Christianity was also spreading at an extremely fast pace. Christians went from the minority to an equal or even great amount in many areas of the Roman Empire. Christianity also had vastly different ideas from the Roman Religions. By the end, of the Roman Empire, Rome had become almost entirely Christian. After Constantine, publicly came out as a Christian the Roman Empire was completely changed. In the last years of the Roman Empire and after the fall, in 476, the two sides of Christianity were shaping, Greek, Eastern, and Latin, Western. In Western Christianity, there were popes, bishops, that had to be flexible and were ever

The relationship between Christianity and the Roman Empire is interconnected with each other in different ways. Heaps of commotion and perspectives were constructed, and it caused several disputes to form all over Europe. In addition to this, there was also a large amount of seclusion, death and persecution during the time. Events such as the Fall of the Roman Empire in 476 AD, the rise of Christianity, and its expansion throughout the Europe were a result of the political conflict. Due to the actions of many individuals and groups that influenced the course of major events, the relationship between the Roman Empire and Christianity was quite tense, problematic and confrontational.

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

Christianity, the world's largest religion, with over 2 billion followers, about a third of the world's population, was at one point almost completely wiped out, but managed to come back to dominate the ancient world. What began as Judaism in the 1st century AD, Jesus of Bethlehem, the Messiah who performed miracles including walking on water, healing, resurrection, fishing and creating thousands of fish and bread for the people from only a couple and dying for our sins. Christianity took hold of the ancient world because of eternal life, compassion and equality for people.

This process began when the Romans laid waste to the city of Jerusalem in 70 C.E., and Christians were dispersed throughout Europe and the Middle East. This led to an increase in churches throughout much of the eastern part of the Roman Empire, some of the western part of the empire, and in many Latin speaking countries throughout the second and third centuries (Duiker 2014, 150). As Christian populations grew in the Roman Empire some Romans felt threatened. Romans thought Christians were harmful to the empire because they did not believe in their Gods and emperors. This lead to sporadic persecutions of Christians during that time (Duiker 2014, 150).

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.

Some may credit Christianity’s domination of the Roman Empire to Constantine’s Edict of Milan. This edict was a continuation of the Edict of Galerius, which essentially stated that despite the disapproval of the Roman government, Christians were allowed to continue worshipping, as long as they prayed for the well being of the state and allowed the government some control of the magistrates (Knipfing 697). The Edict of Milan furthered this by granting “both to Christians and to all men freedom of choice in following such form of worship as they wish” (“The Edict of Milan” 1). However, due to evangelistic practices already in place, the Edict of Galerius and the Edict of Milan was superfluous to the rise and spread of Christianity.

The initial attitude of the Roman Empire toward Christians was total indifference; this caused surprise and admiration, because for Christians, as is the life and death of Christ, is the culmination that divides human history into a before and an after Christ, the Roman Empire and its authorities went completely unnoticed; in any case, the death of Christ was an episode more of the many that were happening at that time in the Roman Empire, especially in Palestine, where very often some revolutionaries rose up against the established power of Rome, which were applied the law without leave footprints in politico-social macrostructure that was the Roman Empire. Christians were soon confronted with the suspicion of the Roman authorities