Why Is Christianity Responsible For The Fall Of The Roman Empire?

‘Christians to the lions’ as Trajan would say, an emperor in the early centuries Christianity to them have alienated the favour of their gods which has and would continue to cause disasters in the Roman Empire. The misfortune of Christians did not stop during this period, but it did come to a composed halt as Galerius, gave Christians the right to worship in some sense. Christianity during the early stages was clearly a course of persecution and forced pagan accusations. Constantine dramatically changed the recourse of religions with the battle of Milvian Bridge as Christianity became the predominant religion of the Roman Empire.

Upon their return to Palestine after their release from exile, the Jews were struggling to “maintain their religious and social identity” (Wenham & Walton, 2011, p. 7) and found themselves in the midst of great military powers, first the Greeks, and then the Romans. Their influences on the Jews were remarkable. This essay will examine the Roman Empire in the 1st century AD by describing a typical Greco-Roman city, then discuss the various levels of Roman administrative structure, explain where local authority resided in the cities/villages of 1st-century Palestine, and finally support with Scripture the structure of authority within the Gospels and Acts.

Christianity centers on a teacher and preacher named Jesus of Nazareth, who was said to be the Son of God. Jesus began ministering to the public at age 30 which consisted of him doing things like:

McGiffert, A. (1909). The Influence of Christianity upon the Roman Empire. The Harvard Theological Review, 2(1), 28-49. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/1507353

Did you know that Christianity became the official religion of Rome in 380 BC? But, christianity didn’t really work out in Rome, and is one of the main problems that caused the fall of Rome. Also, Rome grew so much that it was almost impossible to control anymore. To conclude Christianity and the growth of the Roman Empire were the main causes of the fall of Rome. Christianity was one of the main causes of the fall of the Roman Empire.

The Christian religion began around 2000 years ago in Judea, which is now Israel. Christianity began with Jesus of Nazareth and his disciples. Jesus traveled from village to village, teaching in the synagogues, and healing those who were sick and suffering. He challenged the authorities to

Constantine “the Great” is credited with being the first Roman Emperor to convert both his views and the Roman Empire to Christianity within the years 306-337 A.D. His conversion took place in 312 A.D. and caused a lasting controversy to arise throughout the religious community. Although he ended the persecution of Christians by the pagan empire and was deeply interested in the studies of theology, the controversy was still alive. What remained was the mind boggling ideas of what kind of impact he left on Christianity and its people, or if his conversion came from the heart. Constantine’s conversion created a negative impact on Christianity.

1 Throughout history, changes are made in organizing civil principles such as laws, leaders, trade, and especially religion. These developments have been influenced by a multitudinal developments, in particular, the rise of authority of both government and the current regime. Constantine, the emperor of the Roman Empire, was an authoritative leader throughout history, but specifically his legacy is largely reflected in the profound changes he made in Christianity. The transformation in the original model of Christianity can be traced to the Rule of Constantine, the religious power he put into place during his reign by the changes made from his ways of uniting the Church, the formation of his empire and the impacts made within it.

Christianity grew very quickly under the rule of the Emperor Constantine and his Christian successors, partialy because of state patronage, including the expenditure of enormous sums of imperial money. At the same time, this patronage contributed to the decline of the Roman empire, although scholars disagree as to whether it was the major single reason or merely a contributing factor to the decline of empire.

Did you know that the Roman Empire was not always at its best? The empire had many different emperors. They were very strict but also very strange. Most of them enjoyed watching people get ripped apart by animals or people. Others enjoyed dancing, singing, and performing. The primary reasons for the “fall” of the Roman Empire were because of the lack of supplies and all the laziness developed.

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.

In my Theatre of History class, we briefly discussed Rome and the fall of the Western Roman Empire as it related to theatre but I was intrigued to learn more. It didn’t seem sensible that the fall of the Western Empire would be placed, even a little, on the rise of Christianity during that time. It didn’t seem sensible for two reasons. The first reason is that Jesus Christ, in whom the Christians believed, had been born, lived, and crucified over 400 years before the Empire fell. His lifetime spanned only until the second emperor of the Roman Empire, before Rome’s crooked ways became noticeable and uncontrollable. The second reason is because the Western Roman Empire that fell was officially, as declared by an emperor, a Christian Rome. In this paper I will present and argue the many contributing factors of Rome’s demise, and answer the question was Christianity responsible for the decline of theatre as a practice in the Western Roman Empire and ultimately its fall?

Justice has been misperceived to go hand and hand with rules in which a society must conform to, mostly in due part to the enlightenment era. In the case with the Romans, the laws they established, especially early on, dealing with the spread of Christianity has been interpreted with a sense of disgust for the unfair treatment targeted towards Christians, and later on to those of other faiths. However, I argue that, Roman law, when concerning religion, was used to strengthen the identity of what it meant to be Roman. Furthermore, as Rome, the political institution, was beginning to decay, as an act of acclamation, the formulation of Roman Laws allowed Christianity to be a main means of connection to what it meant to identify as Roman. Utilizing various primary sources, it is evident that faith had been gradually accepted as the dominant form of unity and law, beginning with Emperor Diocletian to Emperor Theodosia, even among emperors, the Catholic faith had shown that all men were under God, and under God they were all Roman.

A modern secular historian may use this document as a means of evidence illustrating how the adoption of Christianity by political leaders and kings following the collapse of the Western Roman Empire had a great influence on the religious beliefs and practices that spread and were accepted within their states. Based on the information provided regarding Clovis’s conversion, a secular, or non-religious, historian, may determine that Clovis’s difficulties during his war with the Alemanni, or Germanic tribes, humbled him and instilled him with faith in God, enabling his success in war. It can then be inferred that as news of his success reaches new lands, more people decided to convert to Christianity knowing that King Clovis also participated in the belief system and that it had brought him the ascendancy and prosperity needed to consolidate the Franks and defeat external adversaries.

In future research, I wish to explore the interplay of pagan and Christian religious traditions. I want to investigate which ways the average pagan and Christian Romans of the Late Roman Empire integrated each other's seemingly disparate religious beliefs and practices into their own semi-coherent cosmologies. We must first keep in mind that the category of "religion" to describe the pagan and Christian traditions is a modern concept. James B. Rives points out that the Romans had no such concept as "religions." Thus, Rives argues that Roman religion cannot be characterized as religious toleration. Nevertheless, Rives adds that