The Rise of Christianity in the West

[Vouthon]

It was standard Roman practice to absorb deities the elite liked into the state cult. Don't really need evidence for something that was standard practice.

I did mention that Julian wanted to absorb Yahweh into the state cult.

That's not really the point I am making In the first and second centuries, the Romans tried to do this but the Christians resisted. They wouldn't budge because their faith taught it to be idolatrous. We have evidence from the anti-Christian polemicist Celsus that he even attempted to convince Christians to accept this but failed. The attempts were thus abandoned. Julian, revived this practice as you say with YHWH. However I see no evidence that Constantine ever tried to do this, not the least because he claimed to believe in One God and his Council of Nicea proclaimed, "We believe in One God". He made Christianity more emphatically dogmatic on its monotheism than it had ever been.

The practice was revived after him by Julian, as you say, in his attempt to return the Empire to its pre-Constantian mode and stop the growth of Christianity which had burgeoned under Constantine as a result of his example and not through state coercion, as Theodosius later did.

The only evidence we have from Constantine is that he believed himself to be a monotheist. He referred to God in the singular and publically voiced his personal abhorrence for pagan temple sacrifices of animals. Now, I see no political expedience behind why it would be necessary for him to promote equal tolerance of paganism yet describe its beliefs as superstitious error when this was the majority religion of his subjects, unless he genuinely believed this to be so. If he was still somewhat pagan, this makes utterly no sense to me, since Christianity was essentially very minor at this stage and widely hated by a public who had been fed anti-Christian propaganda under Diocletian. There were rumours in the first century AD under Nero that Christians participated in wild, incestuous orgies because they called each other "brother and sister", and practised cannibalism. The Emperor not only embraces this strange, mistrusted religion but defends its teachings before the public to the detriment of paganism. I ask you, why?

Constantine did not believe in forcing non-Christians to embrace Christianity because he believed, as Lactantius taught him, that religion was an arena for the freewill and could not be coerced. He therefore had no choice, on account of his belief in religious liberty and the pagan beliefs of his subjects, but to continue with the duties of the imperial cult in what was a pagan state. Constantine did not deviate from his belief in non-coercion in religious matters. His Church, was a different matter, he believed that as Christian Emperor he had the right to intervene in church affairs and promote his particular form of Christian orthodoxy. That was the golden exception to the rule. He took a vested interest in dynamics of the inner workings of the Church, which he did not have for paganism.

 

[Rainbow Mage]

We both know I think that Constantine actually had hardly any role in Nicea. He was more of an observer.

 

[Vouthon]

We both know I think that Constantine actually had hardly any role in Nicea. He was more of an observer.

I agree that he did not directly involve himself in the religious disputes (because they were over his head_, nonetheless he convoked the council on his own initiative and made clear that he wanted a show of unity around core beliefs that all Christians must adhere too. One of these core beliefs was monotheism and he frequently expressed his belief in one God. He didn't ever try to do anything similar with paganism, which was even more diverse.

 

[Rainbow Mage]

That's because paganism is diverse by nature. Honestly I think he was trying to get Christians to stop fighting each other because it was creating civil unrest.

Shall we touch on that topic? How violent Christians were actually by the fourth century?

 

[Vouthon]

That's because paganism is diverse by nature. Honestly I think he was trying to get Christians to stop fighting each other because it was creating civil unrest.

Shall we touch on that topic? How violent Christians were actually by the fourth century?

If you wish I won't be offended in any way I assure you.

IMHO violence among Christians came to the fore post-Nicea with Constantine's promulgation of Christian orthodoxy than before it. Without any judicial means to quell dissenting sects, the church predominantly used canonical measures for groups deemed heretical.

Most early Christians were non-violent pacifists. That changed post-Constantine, obviously since they were henceforth expected to support the Roman Army because of their tolerated, legal status and privileges.

It was when Christianity came under the patronage of the Roman state that some in the ascendancy, the Nicene orthodox, used the state apparatus to criminally discipline and eliminate their enemies within the Church who belonged to dissenting groups.

The Nag Hammadi Gnostic scriptures, for example, were not hidden and buried until post-Constantine when these texts became taboo.

Prior to the age of Constantine, the main violence seems to have come from the Roman authorities first under Nero, then in North Africa and then under Diocletian Empire-wide directed against Christians of all stripes rather than Christians causing the problems. Remember that Christians were the victimized minority back then. They were thought by the public and the Senate to be "atheists" because they believed in an invisible, single and omnipresent Deity rather than physical gods represented by man-made idols.

Christians were the victims of persecution by the authorities because their beliefs did not match up with the imperial cult, in rejecting idols, polytheism, animal sacrifices and what-not. On account of being different, they were persecuted because Roman society assimilated other cultures and deities within its pantheon. If you didn't want to be assimilated but maintain your distinct beliefs that rejected the pantheon and the imperial cult, then you were in for a bad time.

Under Theodosius, the persecution was reversed. Henceforth pagans were the victims and increasingly becoming the minority.

 

[Rainbow Mage]

One name- Hypatia

 

[Alex_G]

I want all of your thoughts on what led to the decline of Pagan religions in the west nearly 1500 years ago and the increase toward Christianity. Was it the political powers of the time or was there more to it then that? Were the people of the empire looking for a new direction and Christianity just happened to catch their fancy? You tell me what factors you think influenced the Pagan world's shift.

Note- I won't be participating in this thread. This is basically to collect data for lack of a better term, and I know you'll all give me some good opinions

There may be some frubals in it for you

As far as i see it, Christianity seems to have been born out of the works of Plato, and his view of the world of forms and the world of ideas creating a gateway to such dualistic concepts as body and spirit that permeate the christian faith. A sort of Plato for the masses if that's not too crude a description.

As with many things, i feel that its popularity and propagation have seen it part from the clean beauty of the philosophy that gave rise to it, and it enter a state of corruption and abuse.

One does not need to list the historic tragedies that have occurred in its name.

(this next bit gets pretty Nietzschean i apologize, but i quite like it)

For me it looks like a tool to control the masses. With the world split into those with power and ability and those without (denoted masters and slaves by Nietzsche), the masters have a morality and value system that centers around action, achievement and self proclamation. Slaves in response have a moral worldview that centers around resentment, by villainizing the masters, and defining good in themselves as 'not the masters'. Through some conceptual stylizing they get some power though defining their separation from the masters as a choice deserving moral credit.

This mindset of the slaves is such that the good they see in themselves is painfully at odds with their life circumstance, making it seem very unfair. Now people can deal with struggle and strife, just not meaningless struggle.

Christianity provides an intervention through which their suffering can make some sense. That sense of resentment and the concept of evil initially directed at the masters is redirected onto themselves, defining them as 'sinners' as reason for their suffering.

Because the evil which has been told is in them must naturally resemble the vitality and free-ness of the master in which it originated when the slaves labled them as such, the way to escape it is to enter a life of progressive forms of life-abnegation and self denial. The sad thing is is that this 'therapy' the religion provides makes things worse for them in the long run.

In an insidious manner, this 'healing' process of religion through guilt, sin, damnation and so on actually exploits the instincts of the sufferer for the purpose of subduing them and ultimately controlling them.

 

[Vouthon]

One name- Hypatia

She died in 415 my friend Constantine came to power in the early 300s and was sole Emperor of Rome from 325.

Her example actually proves my point that Christianity shifted post-Nicea from a peaceable, non-violent creed into the state religion it became in 380.

Christians abandoned de facto pacifism because the religion had to adapt to a military Empire it had seen as its persecutor before but which was now its defender.

By the fifth century when Hypatia was killed by a Christian mob, Theodosius had already made Christianity the state religion of Rome 35 years earlier, and became the Christian Julian the Apostate, abandoning Constantine's tolerance of Paganism and actively persecuting it. Hypatia's death was a result of the regrettable success of his propaganda and this sad reversal in Christian tolerance.

 

[Vouthon]

In answer to the original question though, and in brief:

Christianity became a popular but still minor religion between the years AD 30-313. It was a visible, well-known and growing minority religion that the Roman elites felt threatened by because it rejected almost everything they held dear. Therefore it became increasingly persecuted, first under Nero for largely scapegoating reasons, then in local areas of the empire for example in North Africa and under Diocletian empire-wide persecution again. In good times it was discriminated against; in bad times it was actively persecuted, for the most part on the local or regional level apart from about 3 episodes of state-sponsored, empire wide persecution.

Christianity did not see mass conversions in this period. It rather became widespread by the late first century, establishing itself in all the centres of empire. It had significant numbers over a wide area. This gave it a universal spread and the look of a world religion almost from the word go. A series of great intellectual converts such as St. Justin Martyr, Origen, Clement of Alexandria and others, trained in Greek philosophy, engaged in debates with pagan philosophers and with their sophistry increased the standing of the religion among the intelligentsia even as it led to more distrust from authorities.

As Christianity was persecuted, it became even more popular. By 313 when Constantine had come to power and converted to Christianity, the religion made up around 10% of the population. It was the predominant faith in some urban centres of empire, despite vicious state-sponsored persecution under Diocletian. He upheld religious liberty but through the sheer force of his imperial example, without compulsion, many of his subjects decided convert to the Christian faith.

This was the period of quickest growth, I believe, for the religion.

By 380, with persecution of the faith long since past and decades of freedom to preach, the religion had become the majority in the empire. Theodosius declared it the state religion in 380.

It is only then, in 380, when Christianity had become huge and institutionalized, that persecution of pagans began. It was already top-dog through largely peaceful means.

On other reasons why Christianity actually rose in the Empire, one of them was Christian charity which was open to all including pagans. Wikipedia:

Because Christian charities were open to all, including pagans, it put this aspect of the Roman citizens lives out of the control of the Imperial authority and under that of the Church. Thus Julian envisioned the institution of a Roman philanthropic system, and cared for the behaviour and the morality of the pagan priests, in the hope that it would mitigate the reliance of pagans on Christian charity:

These impious Galileans not only feed their own poor, but ours also; welcoming them into their agapae, they attract them, as children are attracted, with cakes [Emperor Julian]
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[Vouthon]

I should also note this:

Between 324 and 330, Constantine built a new imperial capital at Byzantium on the Bosphorus (it came to be named for him: Constantinople)–the city employed overtly Christian architecture, contained churches within the city walls (unlike "old" Rome), and had no pagan temples.[11] In 330 he established Constantinople as the new capital of the Roman Empire. The city would gradually come to be seen as the center of the Christian world

I am quite sure that a pagan emperor would not have constructed a uniquely new Christian capital for the Empire, without even one pagan temple in it but only churches.

 

[paarsurrey]

Strictly speaking it is not Jesus' religion that rose under the name "Christianity"; it is a misnomer; it is rise of Paul's religion when Jesus had took refuge in India. Jesus had nothing to do with Paul's religion.