Decline Of Greco-Roman Polytheism
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The growth of
Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global pop ...
from its obscure origin 40 AD, with fewer than 1,000 followers, to being the majority religion of the entire
Roman Empire The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post-Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings around the Mediterr ...
by AD 350, has been examined through a wide variety of historiographical approaches. Until the last decades of the twentieth century, the primary theory was provided by
Edward Gibbon Edward Gibbon (; 8 May 173716 January 1794) was an English historian, writer, and member of parliament. His most important work, ''The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'', published in six volumes between 1776 and 1788, is k ...
in ''
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire ''The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'' is a six-volume work by the English historian Edward Gibbon. It traces Western civilization (as well as the Islamic and Mongolian conquests) from the height of the Roman Empire to th ...
'', published in 1776. Gibbon theorized that paganism declined from the second century BC and was finally eliminated by the top-down imposition of Christianity by
Constantine Constantine most often refers to: * Constantine the Great, Roman emperor from 306 to 337, also known as Constantine I *Constantine, Algeria, a city in Algeria Constantine may also refer to: People * Constantine (name), a masculine given name ...
, the first Christian emperor, and his successors in the fourth century AD. For over 200 years, Gibbon's model and its expanded explanatory versions—the conflict model and the legislative model—have provided the major narrative. The conflict model asserts that Christianity rose in conflict with paganism, defeating it only after emperors became Christian and were willing to use their power to require conversion through coercion. The legislative model is based on the
Theodosian Code The ''Codex Theodosianus'' (Eng. Theodosian Code) was a compilation of the laws of the Roman Empire under the Christian emperors since 312. A commission was established by Emperor Theodosius II and his co-emperor Valentinian III on 26 March 429 a ...
published in AD 438. In the last decade of the twentieth century and into the twenty–first century, multiple new discoveries of texts and documents, along with new methods of research (such as modern archaeology and numismatics), combined with new fields of study (such as sociology and anthropology) and modern mathematical modeling, have undermined much of this traditional view. According to modern theories, Christianity became established in the third century, before Constantine, paganism did not end in the fourth century, and imperial legislation had only limited effect before the era of the eastern emperor
Justinian I Justinian I (; la, Iustinianus, ; grc-gre, Ἰουστινιανός ; 48214 November 565), also known as Justinian the Great, was the Byzantine emperor from 527 to 565. His reign is marked by the ambitious but only partly realized ''renovat ...
(reign 527 to 565). In the twenty-first century, the conflict model has become marginalized, while a grassroots theory has developed. Alternative theories have been generated from psychology and
game theory Game theory is the study of mathematical models of strategic interactions among rational agents. Myerson, Roger B. (1991). ''Game Theory: Analysis of Conflict,'' Harvard University Press, p.&nbs1 Chapter-preview links, ppvii–xi It has appli ...
, while many twenty-first century scholars assert sociology's network theory and
diffusion of innovation Diffusion of innovations is a theory that seeks to explain how, why, and at what rate new ideas and technology spread. Everett Rogers, a professor of communication studies, popularized the theory in his book ''Diffusion of Innovations''; the book ...
as the best models for understanding how this extensive social change took place. Sociology has also generated the theory that Christianity spread as a grass roots movement that grew from the bottom up; it includes ideas and practices such as
charity Charity may refer to: Giving * Charitable organization or charity, a non-profit organization whose primary objectives are philanthropy and social well-being of persons * Charity (practice), the practice of being benevolent, giving and sharing * Ch ...
,
egalitarianism Egalitarianism (), or equalitarianism, is a school of thought within political philosophy that builds from the concept of social equality, prioritizing it for all people. Egalitarian doctrines are generally characterized by the idea that all hu ...
, accessibility and a clear message, demonstrating its appeal to people over the alternatives available to most in the Roman empire of the time. The effects of this religious change are seen as mixed and are debated.


History


Of historiography

The standard view of paganism (traditional city-based polytheistic
Graeco-Roman religion Religion in ancient Rome consisted of varying imperial and provincial religious practices, which were followed both by the people of Rome as well as those who were brought under its rule. The Romans thought of themselves as highly religious, ...
) in the Roman empire has long been one of decline beginning in the second and first centuries BC. Decline was interrupted by the short-lived ‘Restoration’ under the emperor
Augustus Caesar Augustus (born Gaius Octavius; 23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14), also known as Octavian, was the first Roman emperor; he reigned from 27 BC until his death in AD 14. He is known for being the founder of the Roman Pri ...
(reign 27 BC – AD 14), then it resumed. In the process of decline, it has been thought that Roman religion embraced emperor worship, the ‘oriental cults’ and Christianity as symptoms of that decline. Christianity emerged as a major religious movement in the Roman Empire, the barbarian kingdoms of the West, in neighboring kingdoms and some parts of the Persian and Sassanian empires. The major narrative concerning the rise of Christianity has, for over 200 years since its publication in 1776, been taken primarily from historian Edward Gibbon's ''Decline and Fall.'' Gibbon had seen Constantine as driven by "boundless ambition" and a desire for personal glory to force Christianity on the rest of the empire in a cynical, political move thereby achieving, "in less than a century, the final conquest of the Roman empire". It wasn't until 1936 that scholars such as
Arnaldo Momigliano Arnaldo Dante Momigliano (5 September 1908 – 1 September 1987) was an Italian historian of classical antiquity, known for his work in historiography, and characterised by Donald Kagan as "the world's leading student of the writing of history i ...
began to question Gibbon's view. In 1953, art historian
Alois Riegl Alois Riegl (14 January 1858, Linz – 17 June 1905, Vienna) was an Austrian art historian, and is considered a member of the Vienna School of Art History. He was one of the major figures in the establishment of art history as a self-sufficient a ...
provided the first true departure, writing that there were no qualitative differences in art and no periods of decline throughout Late Antiquity. In 1975, the concept of "history" was expanded to include sources outside ancient historical narrative and traditional literary works. The evidentiary basis expanded to include legal practices, economics, the history of ideas, coins, gravestones, architecture, archaeology and more. In the 1980s, syntheses began to pull together the results of this more detailed work. In the closing quarter of the twentieth century, scholarship advanced significantly. Gibbon's historical sources were almost exclusively Christian literary documents. These documents have a starkly supernatural quality, and many are
hagiographical A hagiography (; ) is a biography of a saint or an ecclesiastical leader, as well as, by extension, an adulatory and idealized biography of a founder, saint, monk, nun or icon in any of the world's religions. Early Christian hagiographies mig ...
. They present the rise of Christianity in terms of conquest which had taken place in Heaven where the Christian god had defeated the pagan gods. Fourth century Christian writers depict Constantine's conversion as proof of that defeat, and Christian writings are filled with proclaiming their heavenly "triumph". According to Peter Brown: "The belief that Late Antiquity witnessed the death of paganism and the triumph of monotheism, ... is not actual history but is, instead, a "representation" of the history of the age created by "a brilliant generation of Christian writers, polemicists and preachers in the last decade of this period".
Ramsay MacMullen Ramsay MacMullen (March 3, 1928 – November 28, 2022) was an American historian who was Emeritus Professor of History at Yale University, where he taught from 1967 to his retirement in 1993 as Dunham Professor of History and Classics. His scholar ...
writes that: "We may fairly accuse the historical record of having failed us, not just in the familiar way, being simply insufficient, but also through being distorted". Historian Rita Lizzi Testa writes that "Transcending the limitations of the Enlightenment's interpretive categories" has meant restructuring understanding of the late Roman empire. The result has been a radically altered picture. According to the ''Oxford Handbook of Late Antiquity'', scholars have largely abandoned Gibbon's views of decline, fall and catastrophe. Most contemporary scholars, such as philosophy professor Antonio Donato, consider current understanding to be more precise and accurate than ever before. However, this "new view" has also been criticized, and the decline of paganism has been taken up again by some scholars. Not all the classic themes have lost their value in current scholarship. In 2001,
Wolf Liebeschuetz John Hugo Wolfgang Gideon Liebeschuetz (22 June 1927 - 11 July 2022) was a German-born British historian who specialized in late antiquity. Early life John Hugo Wolfgang Gideon Liebeschuetz was born in Hamburg on 22 June 1927, the son of his ...
suggested that some special situations, such as the era between the imperial age and the Middle ages, require the concept of crisis to be understood.


Roman religion

Religion in Graeco-Roman times differed from religion in modern times. In the early Roman Empire religion was polytheistic and local. It was not focused on the individual but was focused on the good of the city: it was a civic religion in which ritual was the main form of worship. Politics and religion were intertwined, and many public rituals were performed by public officials. Respect for ancestral custom was a large part of polytheistic belief and practice, and members of the local society were expected to take part in public rituals. Roman historians, such as the classicist J. A. North, has written that Roman imperial culture began in the first century with religion embedded in the city-state, then gradually shifted to religion as a personal choice. Roman religion's willingness to adopt foreign gods and practices into its
pantheon Pantheon may refer to: * Pantheon (religion), a set of gods belonging to a particular religion or tradition, and a temple or sacred building Arts and entertainment Comics *Pantheon (Marvel Comics), a fictional organization * ''Pantheon'' (Lone S ...
meant that, as Rome expanded, it also gained local gods which offered different characteristics, experiences, insights, and stories. There is consensus among scholars that religious identity became increasingly separated from civic and political identity, progressively giving way to the plurality of religious options rooted in other identities, needs and interests. Formerly, scholars believed that this plurality contributed to the slow decline of polytheism that began in the second century BC, and this axiom was rarely challenged. James B. Rives, classics scholar, has written that:
Evidence for neglect and manipulation could readily be found,  ... But, as more recent scholars have argued, this evidence has often been cited without proper consideration of its context; at the same time, other evidence that presents a different picture has been dismissed out of hand.


Context and other evidence

After 1990, evidence expanded exponentially and altered the picture of late antique paganism. For example, private cults of the emperor were previously greatly underestimated. For many years, the imperial cult was regarded by the majority of scholars as both a symptom and a cause of the final decline of traditional Graeco-Roman religion. It was assumed this kind of worship of a man could only be possible in a system that had become completely devoid of real religious meaning. It was, therefore, generally treated as a "political phenomenon cloaked in religious dress". However, scholarship of the twenty-first century has shifted toward seeing it as a genuine religious phenomenon. Classical scholar
Simon Price Simon Price (born 25 September 1967) is a British music journalist and author. He is known for his weekly review section in ''The Independent on Sunday'' and his book ''Everything (A Book About Manic Street Preachers)''. Career Writer Pric ...
used anthropological models to show that the imperial cult's rituals and iconography were elements of a way of thinking that people formed as a means of coming to terms with the tremendous power of Roman emperors. The emperor was "conceived in terms of honors ... as the representation of power" personifying the
intermediary An intermediary (or go-between) is a third party that offers intermediation services between two parties, which involves conveying messages between principals in a dispute, preventing direct contact and potential escalation of the issue. In l ...
between the human and the divine. According to Rives, "Most recent scholars have accepted Price's approach". Recent literary evidence reveals emperor worship at the domestic level with his image "among the household gods". Innumerable small images of emperors have been found in a wide range of media that are being reevaluated as religiously significant. Rives adds that "epigraphic evidence reveals the existence of numerous private associations of 'worshippers of the emperor' or 'of the emperor's image', many of which seem to have developed from household associations". It is now recognized that these private cults were "very common and widespread indeed, in the domus, in the streets, in public squares, in Rome itself (perhaps there in particular) as well as outside the capital".


Spread of Christianity


Origin

Christianity emerged as a sect of
Second Temple Judaism Second Temple Judaism refers to the Jewish religion as it developed during the Second Temple period, which began with the construction of the Second Temple around 516 BCE and ended with the Roman siege of Jerusalem in 70 CE. The Second Temple ...
in
Roman Judaea Judaea ( la, Iudaea ; grc, Ἰουδαία, translit=Ioudaíā ) was a Roman province which incorporated the regions of Judea, Samaria, and Idumea from 6 CE, extending over parts of the former regions of the Hasmonean and Herodian kingdoms of ...
, part of the syncretistic Hellenistic world of the first century AD, which was dominated by Roman law and Greek culture. It started with the ministry of
Jesus Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label=Hebrew/Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and religious ...
, who proclaimed the coming of the Kingdom of God. After his death by crucifixion, some of his followers are said to have seen Jesus, and proclaimed him to be alive and resurrected by God. When Christianity spread beyond Judaea, it first arrived in
Jewish diaspora The Jewish diaspora ( he, תְּפוּצָה, təfūṣā) or exile (Hebrew: ; Yiddish: ) is the dispersion of Israelites or Jews out of their ancient ancestral homeland (the Land of Israel) and their subsequent settlement in other parts of t ...
communities. The early Gospel message spread orally, probably originally in
Aramaic The Aramaic languages, short Aramaic ( syc, ܐܪܡܝܐ, Arāmāyā; oar, 𐤀𐤓𐤌𐤉𐤀; arc, 𐡀𐡓𐡌𐡉𐡀; tmr, אֲרָמִית), are a language family containing many varieties (languages and dialects) that originated in ...
, but almost immediately also in
Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
. Within the first century, the messages began to be recorded in writing and spread abroad. The earliest writings are generally thought to be those of the Apostle Paul who spoke of Jesus as both divine and human. The degree of each of these characteristics later became cause for controversy beginning with
Gnosticism Gnosticism (from grc, γνωστικός, gnōstikós, , 'having knowledge') is a collection of religious ideas and systems which coalesced in the late 1st century AD among Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people ...
which denied Jesus' humanity and
Arianism Arianism ( grc-x-koine, Ἀρειανισμός, ) is a Christological doctrine first attributed to Arius (), a Christian presbyter from Alexandria, Egypt. Arian theology holds that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, who was begotten by God ...
which downgraded his divinity. Christianity began to expand almost immediately from its initial Jewish base to Gentiles (non-Jews). Both
Peter Peter may refer to: People * List of people named Peter, a list of people and fictional characters with the given name * Peter (given name) ** Saint Peter (died 60s), apostle of Jesus, leader of the early Christian Church * Peter (surname), a sur ...
and Paul are sometimes referred to as Apostles to the Gentiles. This led to disputes with those requiring the continued observance of the whole
Mosaic law The Law of Moses ( he, תֹּורַת מֹשֶׁה ), also called the Mosaic Law, primarily refers to the Torah or the first five books of the Hebrew Bible. The law revealed to Moses by God. Terminology The Law of Moses or Torah of Moses (Hebrew ...
including the requirement for
circumcision Circumcision is a surgical procedure, procedure that removes the foreskin from the human penis. In the most common form of the operation, the foreskin is extended with forceps, then a circumcision device may be placed, after which the foreskin ...
. James the Just called the Council of Jerusalem (around 50 AD) which determined that converts should avoid "pollution of idols, fornication, things strangled, and blood" but should not be required to follow other aspects of Jewish Law (
KJV The King James Version (KJV), also the King James Bible (KJB) and the Authorized Version, is an English translation of the Christian Bible for the Church of England, which was commissioned in 1604 and published in 1611, by sponsorship of K ...
, Acts 15:20–21). As Christianity grew in the Gentile world, it underwent a gradual separation from Judaism. Christianization was never a one-way process. Instead, there has always been a kind of parallelism as it absorbed indigenous elements just as indigenous religions absorbed aspects of Christianity. Michelle Salzman has shown that in the process of converting the Roman Empire's aristocracy, Christianity absorbed the values of that aristocracy. Several early Christian writers, including Justin (2nd century), Tertullian, and Origen (3rd century) wrote of Mithraists "copying" Christian beliefs. Christianity adopted aspects of Platonic thought, names for months and days of the week – even the concept of a seven-day week – from Roman paganism. Bruce David Forbes says that "Some way or another, Christmas was started to compete with rival Roman religions, or to co-opt the winter celebrations as a way to spread Christianity, or to baptize the winter festivals with Christian meaning in an effort to limit their runkenexcesses. Most likely all three". Some scholars have suggested that characteristics of some pagan gods — or at least their roles — were transferred to Christian saints after the fourth century.
Demetrius of Thessaloniki Saint Demetrius (or Demetrios) of Thessalonica ( el, Ἅγιος Δημήτριος τῆς Θεσσαλονίκης, (); bg, Димитър Солунски (); mk, Свети Димитрија Солунски (); ro, Sfântul Dumitru; sr ...
became venerated as the patron of agriculture during the Middle Ages. According to historian Hans Kloft, that was because the Eleusinian Mysteries, Demeter's cult, ended in the 4th century, and the Greek rural population gradually transferred her rites and roles onto the Christian saint Demetrius.


Reception and growth in Roman society

For the followers of traditional Roman religions, Christianity was seen as an odd entity, not quite Roman, but not quite
barbarian A barbarian (or savage) is someone who is perceived to be either Civilization, uncivilized or primitive. The designation is usually applied as a generalization based on a popular stereotype; barbarians can be members of any nation judged by som ...
either., citing Eusebius, '' Praeparatio Evangelica'' 1.2.1. Christians criticized fundamental beliefs of Roman society, and refused to participate in rituals, festivals and the
imperial cult An imperial cult is a form of state religion in which an emperor or a dynasty of emperors (or rulers of another title) are worshipped as demigods or deities. "Cult" here is used to mean "worship", not in the modern pejorative sense. The cult may ...
. They were a target for suspicion and rumor, including rumors that they were politically subversive and practiced black magic,
incest Incest ( ) is human sexual activity between family members or close relatives. This typically includes sexual activity between people in consanguinity (blood relations), and sometimes those related by affinity (marriage or stepfamily), adoption ...
and
cannibalism Cannibalism is the act of consuming another individual of the same species as food. Cannibalism is a common ecological interaction in the animal kingdom and has been recorded in more than 1,500 species. Human cannibalism is well documented, b ...
. Conversions tore families apart:
Justin Martyr Justin Martyr ( el, Ἰουστῖνος ὁ μάρτυς, Ioustinos ho martys; c. AD 100 – c. AD 165), also known as Justin the Philosopher, was an early Christian apologist and philosopher. Most of his works are lost, but two apologies and ...
tells of a pagan husband who denounced his Christian wife, and
Tertullian Tertullian (; la, Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus; 155 AD – 220 AD) was a prolific early Christian author from Carthage in the Roman province of Africa. He was the first Christian author to produce an extensive corpus of L ...
tells of children disinherited for becoming Christians. Despite this, for most of its first three centuries, Christianity was usually tolerated, and episodes of persecution tended to be localized actions by mobs and governors.
Suetonius Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus (), commonly referred to as Suetonius ( ; c. AD 69 – after AD 122), was a Roman historian who wrote during the early Imperial era of the Roman Empire. His most important surviving work is a set of biographies ...
and
Tacitus Publius Cornelius Tacitus, known simply as Tacitus ( , ; – ), was a Roman historian and politician. Tacitus is widely regarded as one of the greatest Roman historiography, Roman historians by modern scholars. The surviving portions of his t ...
both record emperor
Nero Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus ( ; born Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus; 15 December AD 37 – 9 June AD 68), was the fifth Roman emperor and final emperor of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, reigning from AD 54 un ...
persecuting Christians in the mid-1st century, however this only occurred within Rome itself. There were no empire-wide persecutions until Christianity reached a critical juncture in the mid-third century. Beginning with less than 1000 people, by the year 100, Christianity had grown to perhaps one hundred small household churches consisting of an average of around seventy (12–200) members each. These churches were a segmented series of small cells. By 200, Christian numbers had grown to over 200,000 people, and communities with an average size of 500–1000 people existed in approximately 200–400 towns. By the mid-3rd century, the little house-churches where Christians had assembled were being succeeded by buildings adapted or designed to be churches complete with assembly rooms, classrooms, and dining rooms. The earliest dated church building to survive comes from around this time. In his mathematical modelling, Rodney Stark estimates that Christians made up around 1.9% of the Roman population in 250. That year,
Decius Gaius Messius Quintus Traianus Decius ( 201 ADJune 251 AD), sometimes translated as Trajan Decius or Decius, was the emperor of the Roman Empire from 249 to 251. A distinguished politician during the reign of Philip the Arab, Decius was procla ...
made it a capital offence to refuse to make sacrifices to
Roman Gods The Roman deities most widely known today are those the Romans identified with Greek counterparts (see ''interpretatio graeca''), integrating Greek myths, iconography, and sometimes religious practices into Roman culture, including Latin lite ...
, although it did not outlaw Christian worship and may not have targeted Christians specifically. Valerian pursued similar policies later that decade. These were followed by a 40-year period of tolerance known as the "
little peace of the Church In the history of the Roman Empire, the "Little Peace of the Church" was a roughly 40-year period in the latter 3rd century when Christianity flourished without official suppression from the central government. It is particularly associated with t ...
". Christianity grew in that time to have a major demographic presence. Stark, building on earlier estimates by theologian Robert M. Grant and historian Ramsay MacMullen, estimates that Christians made up around ten percent of the Roman population by 300. The last and most severe official persecution, the
Diocletianic Persecution The Diocletianic or Great Persecution was the last and most severe persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire. In 303, the emperors Diocletian, Maximian, Galerius, and Constantius issued a series of edicts rescinding Christians' legal rights ...
, took place in 303–311.


Under Constantine and his Christian successors

Constantine Constantine most often refers to: * Constantine the Great, Roman emperor from 306 to 337, also known as Constantine I *Constantine, Algeria, a city in Algeria Constantine may also refer to: People * Constantine (name), a masculine given name ...
, who gained full control of the empire in 312, became the first Christian emperor. Although he was not baptised until shortly before his death, he pursued policies that were favorable to Christianity. The
Edict of Milan The Edict of Milan ( la, Edictum Mediolanense; el, Διάταγμα τῶν Μεδιολάνων, ''Diatagma tōn Mediolanōn'') was the February 313 AD agreement to treat Christians benevolently within the Roman Empire. Frend, W. H. C. ( ...
of 313 ended official persecutions of Christianity extending toleration to all religions. Constantine supported the Church financially, built basilicas, granted privileges to clergy which had previously been available only to pagan priests (such as exemption from certain taxes), promoted Christians to high office, and returned property confiscated during the persecutions. He also sponsored the
First Council of Nicea The First Council of Nicaea (; grc, Νίκαια ) was a council of Christian bishops convened in the Bithynian city of Nicaea (now İznik, Turkey) by the Roman Emperor Constantine I in AD 325. This ecumenical council was the first effort ...
to codify aspects of Christian doctrine. According to Stark, the rate of Christianity's growth under its first Christian emperor in the 4th century did not alter (more than normal regional fluctuations). However, since Stark describes an exponential growth curve, he adds that this "probably was a period of 'miraculous seeming' growth in terms of absolute numbers". By the middle of the century, it is likely that Christians comprised just over half of the empire's population. A study by Edwin A. Judge, social scientist, shows that a fully organized church system existed before Constantine and the Council of Nicea. From this, Judge concludes "the argument Christianity owed its triumph to its adoption by Constantine cannot be sustained".
Critical mass In nuclear engineering, a critical mass is the smallest amount of fissile material needed for a sustained nuclear chain reaction. The critical mass of a fissionable material depends upon its nuclear properties (specifically, its nuclear fi ...
had been achieved in the hundred years between 150 and 250 which saw Christianity move from fewer than 50,000 adherents to over a million. There was a significant rise in the absolute number of Christians in the third century. Classics professor Seth Schwartz states the number of Christians at the end of the third century indicates Christianity's successful establishment predated Constantine. Under Constantine and his sons, certain pagan rites, including animal sacrifice and divination, began being deprived of their previous position in Roman civilization. Yet other pagan practices were tolerated, Constantine did not stop the established state support of the traditional religious institutions, nor did society substantially change its pagan nature under his rule. Constantine's policies were largely continued by his sons though not universally or continuously.


=Theodosius I

= In the centuries following his death, Theodosius I (347 – 395) gained a reputation as the emperor who established Christianity as the official religion of the empire. Modern historians see this as an interpretation of history rather than actual history. Cameron writes that Theodosius's predecessors
Constantine Constantine most often refers to: * Constantine the Great, Roman emperor from 306 to 337, also known as Constantine I *Constantine, Algeria, a city in Algeria Constantine may also refer to: People * Constantine (name), a masculine given name ...
, Constantius, and
Valens Valens ( grc-gre, Ουάλης, Ouálēs; 328 – 9 August 378) was Roman emperor from 364 to 378. Following a largely unremarkable military career, he was named co-emperor by his elder brother Valentinian I, who gave him the eastern half of ...
had all been
semi-Arian Semi-Arianism was a position regarding the relationship between God the Father and the Son of God, adopted by some 4th-century Christians. Though the doctrine modified the teachings of Arianism, it still rejected the doctrine that Father, Son, ...
s, therefore Christian literary tradition gave the orthodox Theodosius most of the credit for the final triumph of Christianity. In keeping with this view of Theodosius, some previous scholars interpreted the
Edict of Thessalonica The Edict of Thessalonica (also known as ''Cunctos populos''), issued on 27 February AD 380 by Theodosius I, made the Catholic (term), Catholicism of Nicene Christians the state church of the Roman Empire. It condemned other Christian creeds s ...
(380) as establishing Christianity as the state religion. German ancient historian writes that the Edict of Thessalonica did not declare Christianity to be the official religion of the empire, and it gave no advantage to Christians over other faiths. The Edict was addressed to the people of the city of Constantinople, it opposed Arianism, attempted to establish unity in Christianity and suppress heresy. Hungarian legal scholar Pál Sáry says it is clear from mandates issued in the years after 380 that Theodosius had made no requirement in the Edict for pagans or Jews to convert to Christianity: "In 393, the emperor was gravely disturbed that the Jewish assemblies had been forbidden in certain places. For this reason, he stated with emphasis that the sect of the Jews was forbidden by no law." There is little, if any, evidence that Theodosius I pursued an active policy against the traditional cults, though he did reinforce laws against sacrifice, and write a number of laws against all forms of heresy. Scholars generally agree that Theodosius began his rule with a cautiously tolerant attitude and policy toward pagans. Three successive laws issued in February 391 and in June and November of 392 have been supported by some previous scholars as marking a change in Theodosius' policy putting an end to both tolerance and paganism. Roman historian Alan Cameron has written on the laws of 391 and June 392 as being responses to local appeals that restated, as instructions, what had been requested by the locals. Cameron says these laws were never intended to be binding on the population at large. The law of 8 November 392 has been described by some as the universal ban on paganism that made Christianity the official religion of the empire. The law was addressed only to Rufinus in the East, it makes no mention of Christianity, and it focuses on practices of private domestic sacrifice: the ''lares'', the ''penates'' and the ''genius''. The ''lares'' is the god who takes care of the home, write archaeologists Konstantinos Bilias and Francesca Grigolo. The ''genius'' was fixed on a person, usually the head of the household. The ''penates'' were the divinities who provided and guarded the food and possessions of the household. Sacrifice had largely ended by the time of Julian (361-363), a generation before the law of November 392 was issued, but these private, domestic, sometimes daily, sacrifices were thought to have "slipped out from under public control".
Sozomen Salamanes Hermias Sozomenos ( grc-gre, Σαλαμάνης Ἑρμείας Σωζομενός; la, Sozomenus; c. 400 – c. 450 AD), also known as Sozomen, was a Roman lawyer and historian of the Christian Church. Family and home He was born aro ...
, the Constantinopolitan lawyer, wrote a history of the church around 443 where he evaluates the law of 8 November 392 as having had only minor significance at the time it was issued. Historical and literary sources, excepting the laws themselves, do not support the view that Theodosius created an environment of intolerance and persecution of pagans. During the reign of Theodosius, pagans were continuously appointed to prominent positions, and pagan aristocrats remained in high offices. During his first official tour of Italy (389–391), the emperor won over the influential pagan lobby in the Roman Senate by appointing its foremost members to important administrative posts. Theodosius also nominated the last pair of pagan consuls in Roman history (
Tatianus Tatian of Adiabene, or Tatian the Syrian or Tatian the Assyrian, (; la, Tatianus; grc, Τατιανός; syc, ܛܛܝܢܘܣ; c. 120 – c. 180 AD) was an Assyrian Christian writer and theologian of the 2nd century. Tatian's most influential w ...
and Symmachus) in 391. Theodosius allowed pagan practices – that did not involve sacrifice – to be performed publicly and temples to remain open. He also voiced his support for the preservation of temple buildings, but failed to prevent the damaging of several holy sites in the eastern provinces which most scholars believe was sponsored by
Cynegius Cynegius ( gr, Κυνήγιος, ''Kunegios''), as he is known in the Greek text of Mark the Deacon's ''Life of Porphyry'', or Ğeniḡos (from Greek Γενικός, ''Genikos''), as he is known in the Georgian, was a Christian counsellor of the ...
, Theodosius' praetorian prefect. Some scholars have held Theodosius responsible for his prefect's behavior. Following Cynegius' death in 388, Theodosius replaced him with a moderate pagan who subsequently moved to protect the temples. There is no evidence of any desire on the part of the emperor to institute a systematic destruction of temples anywhere in the Theodosian Code, and no evidence in the archaeological record that extensive temple destruction took place. While conceding that Theodosius's reign may have been a watershed period in the decline of the old religions, Cameron downplays the emperor's religious legislation as having a limited role. In his 2020 biography of Theodosius, Mark Hebblewhite concludes that Theodosius never saw himself, or advertised himself, as a destroyer of the old cults.


=Theodosius II and Pope Leo I

= By the early fifth century, the senatorial aristocracy had almost universally converted to Christianity. This Christianized Roman aristocracy was able to maintain, in Italy, up to the end of the sixth century, the secular traditions of the City of Rome. This survival of secular tradition was aided by the Imperial government, but also by
Pope Leo I Pope Leo I ( 400 – 10 November 461), also known as Leo the Great, was bishop of Rome from 29 September 440 until his death. Pope Benedict XVI said that Leo's papacy "was undoubtedly one of the most important in the Church's history." Leo was ...
. Peter Brown writes that from the very beginning of his pontificate in the Western Empire (440–61), Leo "ensured that the 'Romans of Rome' should have a say in the religious life of the City". The Western Roman Empire declined during the 5th century, while the eastern Roman Empire during the reign of emperor
Theodosius II Theodosius II ( grc-gre, Θεοδόσιος, Theodosios; 10 April 401 – 28 July 450) was Roman emperor for most of his life, proclaimed ''Augustus (title), augustus'' as an infant in 402 and ruling as the eastern Empire's sole emperor after ...
(408–50) was functioning well, and Theodosius II enjoyed a strong position at the centre of the imperial system. Decline in the west led both eastern and western authorities to assert their right to power and authority over the western empire. Theodosius II claim was based on Roman law and military power. Leo responded, using the concept of inherited 'Petrine' authority. The Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon in 449 and 451, convened by the Eastern emperors Theodosius II (407–450) and Marcianus (450–457), were unacceptable to the papacy. Pope Leo attempted to challenge the imperial decisions taken at these councils. He argued that the emperor should concern himself with ‘secular matters’, while ‘divine matters’ had a different quality and should be managed by ‘priests’ (sacerdotes). Pope Leo was not successful. The Roman emperors of the first three centuries had seen the control of religion as one of their functions, taking among their titles pontifex maximus ("chief priest") of the official cults. The Western Christian Emperors did not see themselves as priests, surrendering the title pontifex maximus under the emperor
Gratian Gratian (; la, Gratianus; 18 April 359 – 25 August 383) was emperor of the Western Roman Empire from 367 to 383. The eldest son of Valentinian I, Gratian accompanied his father on several campaigns along the Rhine and Danube frontiers and wa ...
. The Christian Eastern Emperors, on the other hand, believed the regulation of religious affairs to be one of their prerogatives. The western emperor
Valentinian III Valentinian III ( la, Placidus Valentinianus; 2 July 41916 March 455) was Roman emperor in the West from 425 to 455. Made emperor in childhood, his reign over the Roman Empire was one of the longest, but was dominated by powerful generals vying ...
(425–55) was, in essence, appointed by Theodosius, and there is some evidence for Valentinian willingly acquiescing to the east’s policies. Without the support of the western emperor, by the end of his pontificate, Leo accepted Theodosius' authority over the West, thereby beginning the trend toward state control of the church that was realized in the next century.


Sixth to eighth centuries

In 535, Justinian I attempted to assert control of Italy, resulting in the Gothic War which lasted 20 years. Once fighting ceased, the senatorial aristocracy returned to Rome for a period of reconstruction. Changes from the war, and from Justinian's 'adjustments' to Italy's administration in the decades after it, removed the supports that had allowed the aristocracy to retain power. The Senate declined rapidly at the end of the sixth and early seventh century coming to its end sometime before 630 when its building was converted into a church. Bishops stepped into roles of civic leadership in the former senator's places. The position and influence of the pope rose. Justinian took an active concern in ecclesiastical affairs and this accelerated the trend towards the control of the Church by the State. Where Constantine had granted, through the Edict of Milan, the right to all peoples to follow freely whatever religion they wished, the religious policy of Justinian I reflected his conviction that a unified Empire presupposed unity of faith. Under emperor Justinian, "the full force of imperial legislation against deviants of all kinds, particularly religious" ones, was applied in practice, writes
Judith Herrin Judith Herrin (; born 1942) is a British archaeologist, byzantinist, and historian of Late Antiquity. She was a Professor of Late Antique and Byzantine Studies and Constantine Leventis Senior Research Fellow at King's College London (now emeri ...
, historian of late antiquity.
Pierre Chuvin Pierre Chuvin (18 July 1943 – 26 December 2016) was a French hellenist and historian. He was specialized on ancient Greece and Greek mythology, as well as modern Central Asia and the Turkic-speaking world. Biography He studied at the Universit ...
describes the severe legislation of the early Byzantine Empire, as causing the
freedom of conscience Freedom of thought (also called freedom of conscience) is the freedom of an individual to hold or consider a fact, viewpoint, or thought, independent of others' viewpoints. Overview Every person attempts to have a cognitive proficiency by ...
that had been the major benchmark set by the
Edict of Milan The Edict of Milan ( la, Edictum Mediolanense; el, Διάταγμα τῶν Μεδιολάνων, ''Diatagma tōn Mediolanōn'') was the February 313 AD agreement to treat Christians benevolently within the Roman Empire. Frend, W. H. C. ( ...
to be fully abolished. Before the 800s, the 'Bishop of Rome' had no special influence over other bishops outside of Rome, and had not yet manifested as the central ecclesiastical power. There were regional versions of Christianity accepted by local clergy that it's probable the papacy would not have approved of – if they had been informed. From the late seventh to the middle of the eighth century, eleven of the thirteen men who held the position of Roman Pope were the sons of families from the East, and before they could be installed, these Popes had to be approved by the head of State, the Byzantine emperor. The union of church and state buoyed the power and influence of both, but the
Byzantine papacy The Byzantine Papacy was a period of Byzantine domination of the Roman papacy from 537 to 752, when popes required the approval of the Byzantine Emperor for episcopal consecration, and many popes were chosen from the '' apocrisiarii'' (liaisons ...
, along with losses to Islam, and corresponding changes within Christianity itself, put an end to Ancient Christianity. Most scholars agree the 7th and 8th centuries are when the 'end of the ancient world' is most conclusive and well documented. Christianity transformed into its medieval forms as exemplified by the creation of the
Papal state The Papal States ( ; it, Stato Pontificio, ), officially the State of the Church ( it, Stato della Chiesa, ; la, Status Ecclesiasticus;), were a series of territories in the Italian Peninsula under the direct sovereign rule of the pope fro ...
, and the alliance between the papacy and the militant Frankish king
Charlemagne Charlemagne ( , ) or Charles the Great ( la, Carolus Magnus; german: Karl der Große; 2 April 747 – 28 January 814), a member of the Carolingian dynasty, was King of the Franks from 768, King of the Lombards from 774, and the first Holy ...
. With the formation of the Papal State, the emperor’s properties came into the possession of the bishop of Rome, and that is when conversions of temples into churches truly began in earnest. According to Schuddeboom, "With the sole exception of the Pantheon, all known temple conversions in the city of Rome date from the time of the Papal State". Scholarship has been divided over whether this represents Christianization as a general effort to demolish the pagan past, or was simple pragmatism, or perhaps an attempt to preserve the past's art and architecture, or some combination.


Mathematical modelling

Demographer John D. Durand describes two types of population estimates: ''benchmarks'' derived from data at a given time, and ''estimates'' that can be carried forward or backward between such benchmarks. Reliability of each varies based on the quality of the data. Romans were "inveterate census takers," but few of their records remain. Durand says historians have pieced together the fragments of census statistics that still exist "with such historical and archaeological data as reported size of armies, quantities of grain shipments and distributions, areas of cities, and indications of the extent and intensity of cultivation of lands". Sociologists
Rodney Stark Rodney William Stark (July 8, 1934 — July 21, 2022) was an American sociologist of religion who was a longtime professor of sociology and of comparative religion at the University of Washington. At the time of his death he was the Distinguished ...
and
Keith Hopkins Morris Keith Hopkins, FBA (20 June 1934 – 8 March 2004) was a British historian and sociologist. He was professor of ancient history at the University of Cambridge from 1985 to 2000. Hopkins had a relatively unconventional route to the Cam ...
have estimated an average compounded annual rate of growth for early Christianity that, in reality, would have varied up and down and region by region. Ancient historian Adam Schor writes that "Stark applied formal models to early Christian material... escribingearly Christianity as an organized but open movement, with a distinct social boundary, and a set kernel of doctrine. The result, he argued, was consistent conversion and higher birth rates, leading to exponential growth." Stark states a 3.4% growth rate compounded annually while Keith Hopkins uses what he calls "parametric probability" to reach 3.35%. Art historian Robert Couzin, who specializes in Early Christianity, has studied numbers of Christian
sarcophagi A sarcophagus (plural sarcophagi or sarcophaguses) is a box-like funeral receptacle for a corpse, most commonly carved in stone, and usually displayed above ground, though it may also be buried. The word ''sarcophagus'' comes from the Greek ...
in Rome. He has written that "more sophisticated mathematical models (for the shape of the expansion curve) could affect certain assumptions, but not the general tendency of the numerical hypotheses". Classical scholar Roger S. Bagnall found that, by isolating Christian names of sons and their fathers, he could trace the growth of Christianity in Roman Egypt. While Bagnall cautions about extrapolating from his work to the rest of the Roman Empire, Stark writes that a comparison of the critical years 239–315 shows a correlation of 0.86 between Stark's own projections for the overall empire and Bagnall's research on Egypt. Though the reliability of population numbers remains open to question, Garry Runciman, historical sociologist, has written that "It seems agreed by all the standard authorities that during the course of the third century there was a significant rise, unquantifiable as it is bound to be, in the absolute number of Christians".


Possible reasons for a top-down spread


Traditional conflict models

According to Bagnall, the story of the rise of Christianity has traditionally been told in terms of contest and conflict with Roman paganism. Markus challenges this view: "The image of a society neatly divided into "Christian" and "pagan" is the creation of late–fourth century Christians, and has been too readily taken at its face value by modern historians". Graeco-Roman polytheism was not one uniform entity, nor were its many versions uniformly hostile to Christianity. Recent scholarship has developed studies of
coins A coin is a small, flat (usually depending on the country or value), round piece of metal or plastic used primarily as a medium of exchange or legal tender. They are standardized in weight, and produced in large quantities at a mint in order to ...
, inscriptions, material remains, and art within this period, as well as whole new fields of scholarship that have produced "an abundance of evidence unavailable to Gibbon". Modern computer technology has brought the ability to analyze the large amounts of data contained in that abundance. This has led to the view that paganism did not end in the late fourth century. There are many signs that a healthy paganism continued into the fifth century, and in some places, into the sixth and beyond. Archaeology indicates that in most regions the decline of paganism was slow, gradual and untraumatic.


Violence and temple destruction

Peter Brown writes that much of the previous framework for understanding Late Antiquity has been based on the dramatized "tabloid-like" accounts of the destruction of the
Serapeum of Alexandria The Serapeum of Alexandria in the Ptolemaic Kingdom was an ancient Greek temple built by Ptolemy III Euergetes (reigned 246–222 BC) and dedicated to Serapis, who was made the protector of Alexandria. There are also signs of Harpocrates ...
in 391, its supposed connection to the murder of
Hypatia Hypatia, Koine pronunciation (born 350–370; died 415 AD) was a neoplatonist philosopher, astronomer, and mathematician, who lived in Alexandria, Egypt, then part of the Eastern Roman Empire. She was a prominent thinker in Alexandria where ...
, and the application of the
Theodosian law code The ''Codex Theodosianus'' (Eng. Theodosian Code) was a compilation of the laws of the Roman Empire under the Christian emperors since 312. A commission was established by Emperor Theodosius II and his co-emperor Valentinian III on 26 March 429 a ...
. The language of the Code parallels that of the late fourth and early fifth century Christian apologists in Roman–style rhetoric of conquest and triumph. For many earlier historians, this created the impression of on–going violent conflict between pagans and Christians on an empire-wide scale with the destruction of the Serapeum being only one example of many temples having been destroyed by Christians. New archaeological research has revealed that the Serapeum was the only temple destroyed in this period in Egypt; classicist Alan Cameron writes that the Roman temples in Egypt "are among the best preserved in the ancient world". Written historical sources are filled with episodes of conflict, yet events in
late antiquity Late antiquity is the time of transition from classical antiquity to the Middle Ages, generally spanning the 3rd–7th century in Europe and adjacent areas bordering the Mediterranean Basin. The popularization of this periodization in English ha ...
were often dramatized by both pagans and Christians for their own ideological reasons. Temple destruction is attested to in 43 cases in the written sources, but only four have been confirmed by archaeological evidence. Recent scholarship has become that Hypatia's murder was largely political and probably occurred in 415 not 391. There is no evidence that the harsh penalties of the anti-sacrifice laws were ever enforced. Jan N. Bremmer has written that recent evidence shows "religious violence in Late Antiquity is mostly restricted to violent rhetoric: 'in Antiquity, not all religious violence was that religious, and not all religious violence was that violent'." Some of the most influential textual sources on pagan-Christian violence concerns Martin, Bishop of Tours (–397), the Pannonian ex-soldier who is, as Salzman describes, "solely credited in the historical record as the militant converter of Gaul". The portion of the sources devoted to attacks on pagans is limited, and they all revolve around Martin using his miraculous powers to overturn pagan shrines and idols but not to ever threaten or harm people. Salzman concludes that "None of Martin's interventions led to the deaths of any Gauls, pagan or Christian. Even if one doubts the exact veracity of these incidents, the assertion that Martin preferred non-violent conversion techniques says much about the norms for conversion in Gaul" in 398 when Sulpicius Severus, who knew Martin, wrote Martin's biography. In a comparative study of levels of violence in Roman society, German ancient historian , concludes there was no increase in the level of violence in the Empire in Late Antiquity. Acts of violence had always been an aspect of Roman society, but they were isolated and rare. Archaeologist David Riggs writes that evidence from
North Africa North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in ...
reveals a tolerance of
religious pluralism Religious pluralism is an attitude or policy regarding the diversity of religious belief systems co-existing in society. It can indicate one or more of the following: * Recognizing and tolerating the religious diversity of a society or coun ...
and a vitality of traditional paganism much more than it shows any form of religious violence or coercion: "persuasion, such as the propagation of Christian
apologetics Apologetics (from Greek , "speaking in defense") is the religious discipline of defending religious doctrines through systematic argumentation and discourse. Early Christian writers (c. 120–220) who defended their beliefs against critics and ...
, appears to have played a more critical role in the eventual "triumph of Christianity" than was previously assumed". The ''Oxford Handbook of Late Antiquity'' says that "Torture and murder were not the inevitable result of the rise of Christianity." There were a few ugly incidents of local violence, but there was also a fluidity in the boundaries between the communities and what Salzman describes as "coexistence with a competitive spirit." In most regions of the Empire, pagans were simply ignored. Current evidence indicates "Jewish communities also enjoyed a century of stable, even privileged, existence" says Brown. As a result, the conflict model has become marginalized in the twenty first century. According to historian Raymond Van Dam, "an approach which emphasizes conflict flounders as a means for explaining both the initial attractions of a new cult like Christianity, as well as, more importantly, its persistence". Archaeologists Luke Lavan and Michael Mulryan of the Centre for Late Antique Archaeology indicate that archaeology does not show evidence of widespread conflict. Historian Michelle Renee Salzman writes that, in light of current scholarship, violence can not be seen as a central factor in explaining the spread of Christianity in the western empire.


Socio-economic factors

Some innate characteristics of Roman Empire contributed to Christianization: travel was made easier by universal currency, laws, relative internal security and the good roads of the empire. Religious syncretism, Roman political culture, a common language, and Hellenist philosophy made Christianization easier than in places like Persia or China. Judaism was also important to the spread of Christianity; evidence clearly shows the Diaspora communities were where Christians gave many of their earliest sermons. The fourth century developed new forms of status and wealth that included moving away from the old silver standard. Brown says Constantine consolidated loyalty at the top through his spectacular generosity, paying his army and his high officials in gold and thereby flooding the economy with gold. The imperial bureaucracy soon began demanding that taxes also be paid in gold. This created multiple problems. "The fourth century scramble for gold ensured that the rural population was driven" hard says Brown. Eighty percent of the population provided the labor to harvest 60% of the empire's wealth, most of which was garnered by the wealthy. This contributed to unrest. Constantine reached out to the provincial elite for help with unrest and other problems, enlarging the Senate's membership from about 600 to over 2,000. This also contributed to unrest and change as the novi homines ("new men", first in their family to serve in the Roman Senate) were more willing to accept religious change. In response to all of this, bishops became intercessors in society, lobbying the powerful to practice Christian benevolence. After 370/380, wealth and cultural prestige began moving toward the Catholics.


Influence of legislation

In 429, Emperor
Theodosius II Theodosius II ( grc-gre, Θεοδόσιος, Theodosios; 10 April 401 – 28 July 450) was Roman emperor for most of his life, proclaimed ''Augustus (title), augustus'' as an infant in 402 and ruling as the eastern Empire's sole emperor after ...
(r. 402 – 450) ordered that all of the laws, from the reign of Constantine up to himself and Valentinian III, be found and codified. For the next nine years, twenty-two scholars, working in two teams, dug through archives and assembled, edited and amended empirical law into 16 books containing more than 2,500 constitutions issued between 313 and 437. It was published as the Theodosian Code in 438. The code covers political, socioeconomic, and cultural subjects with religious laws in Book 16. Constantine and his descendants used law to grant "imperial patronage, legal rights to hold property, and financial assistance" to the church, thereby making important contributions to its success over the next hundred years. Laws that favored Christianity increased the church's status which was all important for the elites. Constantine had tremendous personal popularity and support, even amongst the pagan aristocrats, prompting some individuals to become informed about their emperor's religion. This passed along through aristocratic kinship and friendship networks and patronage ties. Emperors who modeled Christianity's moral appeal with aristocratic honor, combined with laws that made Christianity attractive to the aristocratic class, led to the conversion of the aristocracy beginning in the 360s under
Gratian Gratian (; la, Gratianus; 18 April 359 – 25 August 383) was emperor of the Western Roman Empire from 367 to 383. The eldest son of Valentinian I, Gratian accompanied his father on several campaigns along the Rhine and Danube frontiers and wa ...
. The Imperial laws collected in Chapter 10, Book XVI of the Theodosian Code provide important evidence of the intent of Christian emperors to promote Christianity, eliminate the practice of sacrifice and control magic. While it is difficult to date with any confidence any of the laws in the Code to the time of Constantine a century earlier, most scholars agree that Constantine issued the first law banning paganism's public practice of animal sacrifice. Blood sacrifice of animals (or people) was the element of pagan culture most abhorrent to Christians, though Christian emperors often tolerated other pagan practices. Brown notes that the language of the anti-sacrifice laws "was uniformly vehement", and the "penalties they proposed were frequently horrifying", evidencing the intent of " terrorizing" the populace into accepting the absence of public sacrifice being imposed by law. However, the Code does not have the ability to tell how, or if, these policies were actually carried out. There is no record of anyone in Constantine's era being executed for sacrificing, nor is there evidence of any of the horrific punishments ever being enacted. Imperial commands provided magistrates with a license to act, but those magistrates chose how, or whether to act, for themselves, according to local circumstances. Legal anthropologist
Caroline Humfress Caroline Humfress, FRHS, FSLS, is a legal historian who is professor at the University of St Andrews and Director of its Institute of Legal and Constitutional Research. Early life and education Caroline Humfress received her advanced educati ...
says the idea of "an empire-wide 'legal system' being imposed from above" before Justinian does not accurately reflect the social and legal realities of the earlier centuries of the Roman Empire. Humfress writes that Roman imperial law, though not irrelevant, was not a determining factor in Roman society before the sixth century. Sacrifices continued to be performed privately, in the home, and in the country away from the imperial court, but the public ritual killing of animals seems to have largely disappeared from civic festivals by the time of Julian (361 to 363). Evidence for public sacrifices in Constantinople and Antioch altogether runs out by the end of the fourth century. Bradbury states that the complete disappearance of public sacrifice "in many towns and cities must be attributed to the atmosphere created by imperial and episcopal hostility". Paganism in a broader sense did not end when public sacrifice did. Brown says polytheists were accustomed to offering prayers to the gods in many ways and places that did not include sacrifice: at healing springs, in caves, in deep woods, with lights, dancing, feasting and clouds of incense. "Pollution" was only associated with sacrifice, and the ban on sacrifice had fixed boundaries and limits. The end of sacrifice led to the birth of new pagan practices such as adding Neoplatonic
theurgy Theurgy (; ) describes the practice of rituals, sometimes seen as magical in nature, performed with the intention of invoking the action or evoking the presence of one or more deities, especially with the goal of achieving henosis (uniting w ...
to philosophical practices like stoicism. Pagan religions also directly transformed themselves over the next two centuries by adopting some Christian practices and ideas. Paganism thereby continued up through the sixth century with still existing centers of paganism in Athens, Gaza, Alexandria, and elsewhere.


Possible reasons for a grassroots spread

This approach sees the cultural and religious change of the early Roman Empire as the cumulative result of multiple individual behaviors. When one person learned what constituted Christian self-identification from another person, adopting and imitating that for themselves, the societal transformation called "Christianization" emerged naturally. Peter Brown writes that the emergence of
ethical monotheism Ethical monotheism is a form of exclusive monotheism in which God is believed to be the only god as well as the source for one's standards of morality, guiding humanity through ethical principles. Definition Ethical monotheism originated within ...
in a polytheistic world was the single most crucial change made in a Late Antique culture experiencing many changes. The content of Christianity was at the center of this age, Brown adds, contributing to both a "behavioral revolution" and a "cognitive revolution" which then changed the "moral texture of the late Roman world". A minority has argued that moral differences between pagans and Christians were not real differences. For example, Ramsay MacMullen has written that any real moral differences would need to be observable in Roman society at large, and he says there were none that were, offering as examples Christian failure to make any observable impact on the practice of slavery, increasingly cruel judicial penalties, corruption and the gladiatorial shows. Runciman writes that recent research has shown it was the formal unconditional altruism of early Christianity that accounted for much of its early success. Sociologist E. A. Judge cites the powerful combination of new ideas, and the social impact of the church together creating the central pivotal point for the
religious conversion Religious conversion is the adoption of a set of beliefs identified with one particular religious denomination to the exclusion of others. Thus "religious conversion" would describe the abandoning of adherence to one denomination and affiliatin ...
of Rome.


New ideas


Inclusivity and exclusivity

Ancient Christianity was unhindered by either ethnic or geographical ties; it was open to being experienced as a new start, for both men and women, rich and poor; baptism was free, there were no fees, and it was intellectually egalitarian, making philosophy and ethics available to ordinary people who might not even have known how to read. Many scholars see this inclusivity as the primary reason for Christianity's success. Historian Raymond Van Dam says conversion produced a new way of thinking and believing that involved "a fundamental reorganization in the ways people thought about themselves and others". Christianity embraced all, including "sinners"; the term for
sin In a religious context, sin is a transgression against divine law. Each culture has its own interpretation of what it means to commit a sin. While sins are generally considered actions, any thought, word, or act considered immoral, selfish, s ...
ner ( grc, αμαρτωλοί), meaning the immoral, is a Greek term for those 'on the outside'. Its use was undermined by Jesus, who showed that any 'outsider' could become an 'insider'. Jesus did not classify everyone as sinners, but he did call for those who considered themselves insiders to repent. Paul extended the term's application to everyone, arguing that everyone can become an insider. A key characteristic of these inclusive communities was their unique type of exclusivity which used belief to construct identity and social boundaries. Believing was the crucial and defining characteristic of membership; it set a "high boundary" that strongly excluded the "unbeliever". Bible scholar Paul Raymond Trebilco says that these high boundaries were set without social distancing or vilification of the outsiders themselves, since context reveals "a clear openness to these 'outsiders' and a strong 'other regard' for them". Strong boundaries for insiders, and openness to outsiders as possible converts, are both held in very real tension in New Testament and early patristic writings. However, the early Christian had exacting moral standards that included avoiding contact with those that were seen as still "in bondage to the Evil One": ( 2 Corinthians 6:1–18; 1 John 2: 15–18; Revelation 18: 4; II Clement 6; Epistle of Barnabas, 1920). According to Philosopher and philologist Danny Praet, the exclusivity of Christian monotheism formed an important part of its success enabling it to maintain its independence in a society that syncretized religion. He adds that this gave Christianity the powerful psychological attraction of elitism.


Kerygma (central message)

According to Greek scholar Matthew R. Malcolm, central to the kerygma is the concept that the power of God is manifested through Jesus in a reversal of power. In the gospel of Matthew (20:25–26) Jesus is quoted as saying: "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be a servant..." Biblical scholar Wayne Meeks has written that: "the ultimate power and structure of the universe" odhas manifested itself in human society through Jesus' act of giving up his power for the sake of love. This reversal has impact on all aspects of the message: it redefines love as an "other-regarding sacrificial act", and it redefines the nature and practice of power and authority as service to others. Meeks concludes "this must have had a very powerful, emotional appeal to people". This included a "conscious dismantling of
oman Oman ( ; ar, عُمَان ' ), officially the Sultanate of Oman ( ar, سلْطنةُ عُمان ), is an Arabian country located in southwestern Asia. It is situated on the southeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula, and spans the mouth of t ...
concepts of hierarchy and power". From the beginning, the Pauline communities cut across the social ranks. Paul's understanding of the innate paradox of an all powerful Christ
dying Dying is the final stage of life which will eventually lead to death. Diagnosing dying is a complex process of clinical decision-making, and most practice checklists facilitating this diagnosis are based on cancer diagnoses. Signs of dying ...
as a powerless man created a new social order unprecedented in classical society. New Testament scholar
N. T. Wright Nicholas Thomas Wright (born 1 December 1948), known as N. T. Wright or Tom Wright, is an English New Testament scholar, Pauline theologian and Anglican bishop. He was the bishop of Durham from 2003 to 2010. He then became research profe ...
argues that these ideas were revolutionary to the classical world. This message contained the assertion that Christian salvation was made available to all, and it included eternal life, but not for the unbeliever. Ancient paganism had a variety of views of an afterlife from a belief in Hades to a denial of eternal life completely. Afterlife punishments can be found in other religions preceding Christianity. One scholar has concluded "Hell is a Greek invention". Praet says that much of the Roman population no longer believed in Graeco–Roman afterlife punishments, so there is no reason to expect they would take the Christian version more seriously. While it may or may not have been a major cause of conversion, writings from the Christians
Justin Justin may refer to: People * Justin (name), including a list of persons with the given name Justin * Justin (historian), a Latin historian who lived under the Roman Empire * Justin I (c. 450–527), or ''Flavius Iustinius Augustus'', Eastern Rom ...
and
Tatian Tatian of Adiabene, or Tatian the Syrian or Tatian the Assyrian, (; la, Tatianus; grc, Τατιανός; syc, ܛܛܝܢܘܣ; c. 120 – c. 180 AD) was an Assyrian Christian writer and theologian of the 2nd century. Tatian's most influential wor ...
, the pagan
Celsus Celsus (; grc-x-hellen, Κέλσος, ''Kélsos''; ) was a 2nd-century Greek philosopher and opponent of early Christianity. His literary work, ''The True Word'' (also ''Account'', ''Doctrine'' or ''Discourse''; Greek: grc-x-hellen, Λόγ ...
, and the ''Passio of Ptolemaeus and Lucius'' are just some of the sources that confirm Christians did use the doctrine of eternal punishment, and that it did persuade some non-believers to convert. The Christian teaching of bodily resurrection was new, (and not readily accepted), but most Christian views of an afterlife were not new. What they had was the novelty of exclusivity: right belief became as significant a determiner of the future as right behavior. Ancient Christians backed this up with prophecies from ages old documents and living witnesses, giving Christianity its claim to a historical base. This was new and different from paganism. Praet writes that anti-Christian polemics of the era never questioned that: " esus'birth, teachings, death and resurrection took place in the reigns of the emperors Augustus and Tiberius, and until the end of the first century, the ancient church could produce living witnesses who claimed to have seen or spoken to the Savior". Many modern scholars have seen this historical base as one of the major reasons for Christianity's success.


Social practices


Women

It has, for many years, been one of the axioms of scholars of early Christianity that significant numbers of women composed its earliest members. Theologian and historian Judith Lieu writes that the presence of large numbers of female converts within Christianity is not statistically documented. Pagan writers wrote polemics criticizing the attraction of women to Christianity along with the uneducated masses, children, and "thieves, burglars and poisoners", but Lieu describes this as politically motivated rhetoric that cannot be depended upon to prove the presence of large numbers of women. Lieu also notes that, "No Christian source explicitly celebrates the number of women joining their ranks". Art historian Janet Tulloch says that "Unlike the early Christian literary tradition, in which women are largely invisible, misrepresented, or omitted entirely, female figures in early Christian art play significant roles in the transmission of the faith". Feminist theologian
Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza (born 1938) is a Romanian-born German, Roman Catholic feminist theologian, who is currently the Krister Stendahl Professor of Divinity at Harvard Divinity School. Life She was born Elisabeth Schüssler on 17 April ...
wrote in her seminal work ''In Memory of Her: a Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins'' that many of Jesus' followers were women. The
Pauline epistles The Pauline epistles, also known as Epistles of Paul or Letters of Paul, are the thirteen books of the New Testament attributed to Paul the Apostle, although the authorship of some is in dispute. Among these epistles are some of the earliest extan ...
in the
New Testament The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Christ ...
provide some of the earliest documentary sources of women as true missionary partners in expanding the Jesus movement. In the church rolls from the second century, there is conclusive evidence of groups of women "exercising the office of widow". Historian Geoffrey Nathan says that "a widow in Roman society who had lost her husband and did not have money of her own was at the very bottom of the social ladder". The church provided practical support to those who would, otherwise, have been in destitute circumstances, and this "was in all likelihood an important factor in winning new female members". Lieu affirms that women of note were attracted to Christianity as evidenced in the
Acts of the Apostles The Acts of the Apostles ( grc-koi, Πράξεις Ἀποστόλων, ''Práxeis Apostólōn''; la, Actūs Apostolōrum) is the fifth book of the New Testament; it tells of the founding of the Christian Church and the spread of its messag ...
, where mention is made of Lydia, the seller of purple at Philippi, and of other noble women at Thessalonica, Berea and Athens ( 17.4, 12, 33–34). Lieu writes that, "In parts of the Empire, influential women were able to use religion to negotiate a role for themselves in society that existing conceptual frameworks did not legitimate". As classics scholar
Moses Finley Sir Moses Israel Finley, FBA (born Finkelstein; 20 May 1912 – 23 June 1986) was an American-born British academic and classical scholar. His prosecution by the United States Senate Subcommittee on Internal Security during the 1950s, resulted ...
writes, "there is no mistaking the fact that
Homer Homer (; grc, Ὅμηρος , ''Hómēros'') (born ) was a Greek poet who is credited as the author of the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'', two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Homer is considered one of the ...
fully reveals what remained true for the whole of antiquity: that women were held to be naturally inferior." There is some evidence of disruption of traditional women's roles in some of the mystery cults, such as
Cybele Cybele ( ; Phrygian: ''Matar Kubileya/Kubeleya'' "Kubileya/Kubeleya Mother", perhaps "Mountain Mother"; Lydian ''Kuvava''; el, Κυβέλη ''Kybele'', ''Kybebe'', ''Kybelis'') is an Anatolian mother goddess; she may have a possible forer ...
, but there is no evidence this went beyond the internal practices of the religion itself. The mysteries created no alternative in larger society to the established patterns. There is no evidence of any effort in Second Temple Judaism to harmonize the roles or standing of women with that of men. Roman Empire was an age of awareness of the differences between male and female. Social roles were not taken for granted. They were debated, and this was often done with some misogyny. Paul uses a basic formula of reunification of opposites, (Galatians 3:28; 1 Corinthians 12:13; Colossians 3:11) to simply wipe away such social distinctions. In speaking of slave/free, male/female, Greek/Jew, circumcised/uncircumcised, and so on, he states that "all" are "one in Christ" or that "Christ is all". This became part of the message of the early church and the practice of the Pauline communities. Professor of religious studies at Brown University, Ross Kraemer, argues that Christianity offered women of this period a new sense of worth. Having their female (and imperfect male) babies taken from them and
exposed Expose, exposé, or exposed may refer to: News sources * Exposé (journalism), a form of investigative journalism * '' The Exposé'', a British conspiracist website Film and TV Film * ''Exposé'' (film), a 1976 thriller film * ''Exposed'' (1932 ...
, was an accepted fact of Roman life for most women. In 1968, J. Lindsay reported that even in large families "more than one daughter was practically never reared." There was also a high
mortality rate Mortality rate, or death rate, is a measure of the number of deaths (in general, or due to a specific cause) in a particular population, scaled to the size of that population, per unit of time. Mortality rate is typically expressed in units of de ...
among women due to childbirth and
abortion Abortion is the termination of a pregnancy by removal or expulsion of an embryo or fetus. An abortion that occurs without intervention is known as a miscarriage or "spontaneous abortion"; these occur in approximately 30% to 40% of pregn ...
.
Elizabeth Castelli Elizabeth Castelli is an author and Professor of Religion at Barnard College. She specializes in biblical studies, late ancient Christianity, feminist studies in religion along with theory and method in the study of religion, with a particular focu ...
writes: "The ascetic life, especially the monastic life, may have provided women with a mode of escape from the rigors and dangers of married and maternal existence, with the prospect of an education and (in some cases) an intellectual life, and with access to social and economic power that would otherwise have eluded them". Judith Lieu cautions that there is "good reason for rejecting a model that understands women’s attraction to early Christianity... purely in terms of ’what it did for them’." A survey of the literature of the early period shows female converts as having one thing in common: that of being in danger. Women took real risks to spread the gospel. Ordinary women moved in and out of houses and shops and marketplaces, took the risk of speaking out and leading people, including children, outside the bounds of the "proper authorities". This is evident in the sanctions and labels their antagonists used against them. Power resided with the male authority figure, and he had the right to label any uncooperative female in his household as insane or possessed, to exile her from her home, and condemn her to prostitution. Kraemer theorizes that "Against such vehement opposition, the language of the ascetic forms of Christianity must have provided a strong set of validating mechanisms", attracting large numbers of women.


Sexual morality

Both the ancient Greeks and the Romans cared and wrote about
sexual morality Sexual ethics (also known as sex ethics or sexual morality) is a branch of philosophy that considers the ethics or morality or otherwise in sexual behavior. Sexual ethics seeks to understand, evaluate and critique interpersonal relationships and ...
within categories of good and bad, pure and defiled, and ideal and transgression. These ethical structures were built on the Roman understanding of social status. Slaves were not thought to have an interior ethical life because they had no status; they could go no lower socially. They were commonly used sexually, while the free and well-born who used them were thought to embody social honor and the ability to exhibit the fine sense of shame and sexual modesty suited to their station. Sexual modesty meant something different for men than it did for women, and for the well-born, than it did for the poor, and for the free citizen, than it did for the slave — for whom the concepts of honor, shame and sexual modesty were said to have no meaning at all. In the ancient Roman Empire, "shame" was a profoundly social concept that was always mediated by gender and status. "It was not enough that a wife merely regulate her sexual behavior in the accepted ways; it was required that her virtue in this area be conspicuous." Men, on the other hand, were allowed sexual freedoms such as live-in mistresses and sex with slaves. This duality permitted Roman society to find both a husband's control of a wife's sexual behavior a matter of intense importance, and at the same time see that same husband's sex with young slave boys as of little concern. The Greeks and Romans said humanity's deepest moralities depended upon social position which was given by fate; Christians advocated the "radical notion of individual freedom centered around ... complete sexual agency".
Paul the Apostle Paul; grc, Παῦλος, translit=Paulos; cop, ⲡⲁⲩⲗⲟⲥ; hbo, פאולוס השליח (previously called Saul of Tarsus;; ar, بولس الطرسوسي; grc, Σαῦλος Ταρσεύς, Saũlos Tarseús; tr, Tarsuslu Pavlus; ...
and his followers taught that "the body was a consecrated space, a point of mediation between the individual and the divine". This meant the ethical obligation for sexual
self-control Self-control, an aspect of inhibitory control, is the ability to regulate one's emotions, thoughts, and behavior in the face of temptations and impulses. As an executive function, it is a cognitive process that is necessary for regulating one' ...
was to God, and it was placed on each individual, male and female, slave and free, equally, in all communities, regardless of status. It was "a revolution in the rules of behavior, but also in the very image of the human being". In the
Pauline epistles The Pauline epistles, also known as Epistles of Paul or Letters of Paul, are the thirteen books of the New Testament attributed to Paul the Apostle, although the authorship of some is in dispute. Among these epistles are some of the earliest extan ...
, ''porneia'' was a single name for the array of sexual behaviors outside marital intercourse. This became a defining concept of sexual morality. Such a shift in definition utterly transformed "the deep logic of sexual morality".


Care for the poor

Professor of religion Steven C. Muir has written that "Charity was, in effect, an institutionalized policy of Christianity from its beginning.  ... While this situation was not the sole reason for the group's growth, it was a significant factor". Christians showed the poor great generosity, and "there is no disputing that Christian charity was an ideology put into practice". Prior to Christianity, the wealthy elite of Rome mostly donated to civic programs designed to elevate their status, though personal acts of kindness to the poor were not unheard of. Salzman writes that the Roman practice of civic
euergetism Euergetism (or evergetism, from the Greek , "do good deeds") was the ancient practice of high-status and wealthy individuals in society distributing part of their wealth to the community. This practice was also part of the patron-client relati ...
("
philanthropy Philanthropy is a form of altruism that consists of "private initiatives, for the Public good (economics), public good, focusing on quality of life". Philanthropy contrasts with business initiatives, which are private initiatives for private goo ...
publicly directed toward one's city or fellow citizens") influenced Christian charity "even as they remained distinct components of justifications for the feeding of Rome well into the late sixth century".


Health care

Two devastating epidemics, the Antonine Plague in 154 and the
Plague of Cyprian The Plague of Cyprian was a pandemic that afflicted the Roman Empire from about AD 249 to 262. The plague is thought to have caused widespread manpower shortages for food production and the Roman army, severely weakening the empire during the Crisi ...
in 251, killed a large number of the empire's population, though there is some debate over how many. Graeco-Roman doctors tended largely to the elite, while the poor mostly had recourse to "
miracle A miracle is an event that is inexplicable by natural or scientific lawsOne dictionary define"Miracle"as: "A surprising and welcome event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws and is therefore considered to be the work of a divin ...
s and
magic Magic or Magick most commonly refers to: * Magic (supernatural), beliefs and actions employed to influence supernatural beings and forces * Ceremonial magic, encompasses a wide variety of rituals of magic * Magical thinking, the belief that unrela ...
" at religious
temple A temple (from the Latin ) is a building reserved for spiritual rituals and activities such as prayer and sacrifice. Religions which erect temples include Christianity (whose temples are typically called churches), Hinduism (whose temples ...
s. Christians, on the other hand, tended to the sick and dying, as well as the aged, orphaned, exiled and widowed. Many of these caretakers were monks and nuns.
Christian monasticism Christian monasticism is the devotional practice of Christians who live ascetic and typically cloistered lives that are dedicated to Christian worship. It began to develop early in the history of the Christian Church, modeled upon scriptural e ...
had emerged toward the end of the third century, and their numbers grew such that, "by the fifth century, monasticism had become a dominant force impacting all areas of society". The monastic health care system was innovative in its methods, allowing the sick to remain within the monastery as a special class afforded special benefits and care. This destigmatized illness and legitimized the deviance from the norm that sickness includes. This formed the basis for future public health care. According to Albert Jonsen, a historian of medicine, "the second great sweep of medical history
egan Egan may refer to: People * Egan (surname) * Egan (given name) Places in the United States * Egan, Illinois, an unincorporated community * Egan, Louisiana, an unincorporated community and census-designated place * Egan, South Dakota, a city * Eg ...
at the end of the fourth century, with the founding of the first Christian hospital for the poor at
Caesarea in Cappadocia Kayseri (; el, Καισάρεια) is a large industrialised city in Central Anatolia, Turkey, and the capital of Kayseri province. The Kayseri Metropolitan Municipality area is composed of five districts: the two central districts of Kocasinan ...
." By the fifth century, the founding of hospitals for the poor had become common for bishops, abbots and abbesses. Koester argues that the success of Christianity is not simply in its message; "one has to see it also in the consistent and very well thought out establishment of institutions to serve the needs of the community".


Community

According to Stark, "Christianity did not grow because of miracle working in the marketplaces ... or because Constantine said it should, or even because the martyrs gave it such credibility. It grew because Christians constituted an intense community" which provided a unique "sense of belonging". Praet has written that, "in his very influential booklet ''Pagans and Christians in an Age of Anxiety'',
E. R. Dodds Eric Robertson Dodds (26 July 1893 – 8 April 1979) was an Irish classics, classical scholar. He was Regius Professor of Greek (Oxford), Regius Professor of Greek at the University of Oxford from 1936 to 1960. Early life and education Dodds wa ...
acknowledged ... 'Christians were in a more than formal sense 'members one of another': odds thinksthat was a major cause, perhaps the strongest single cause, of the spread of Christianity". Christian community was not just one thing. Experience and expression were diverse. Yet early Christian communities did have commonalities in the kerygma (the message), the rites of
baptism Baptism (from grc-x-koine, βάπτισμα, váptisma) is a form of ritual purification—a characteristic of many religions throughout time and geography. In Christianity, it is a Christian sacrament of initiation and adoption, almost inv ...
and the
eucharist The Eucharist (; from Greek , , ), also known as Holy Communion and the Lord's Supper, is a Christian rite that is considered a sacrament in most churches, and as an ordinance in others. According to the New Testament, the rite was instit ...
. As far back as it can be traced, evidence indicates the rite of
initiation Initiation is a rite of passage marking entrance or acceptance into a group or society. It could also be a formal admission to adulthood in a community or one of its formal components. In an extended sense, it can also signify a transformation ...
into Christianity was always baptism. In Christianity's earliest communities, candidates for baptism were introduced by a teacher or other person willing to stand
surety In finance, a surety , surety bond or guaranty involves a promise by one party to assume responsibility for the debt obligation of a borrower if that borrower defaults. Usually, a surety bond or surety is a promise by a surety or guarantor to pay ...
for their character and conduct. Baptism created a set of responsibilities within each Christian community, which some authors described in quite specific terms. Candidates for baptism were instructed in the major tenets of the faith (the kerygma), examined for moral living, sat separately in worship, could not receive the eucharist, and were generally expected to demonstrate commitment to the community and obedience to
Christ Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label=Hebrew/Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other Names and titles of Jesus in the New Testament, names and titles), was ...
's commands before being accepted into the community as a full member. Celebration of the eucharist was the common unifier for Christian communities, and early Christians believed the kerygma, the eucharist and baptism came directly from
Jesus Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label=Hebrew/Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and religious ...
of
Nazareth Nazareth ( ; ar, النَّاصِرَة, ''an-Nāṣira''; he, נָצְרַת, ''Nāṣəraṯ''; arc, ܢܨܪܬ, ''Naṣrath'') is the largest city in the Northern District of Israel. Nazareth is known as "the Arab capital of Israel". In ...
. According to Dodds, "A Christian congregation was from the first a community in a much fuller sense than any corresponding group of
Isis Isis (; ''Ēse''; ; Meroitic: ''Wos'' 'a''or ''Wusa''; Phoenician: 𐤀𐤎, romanized: ʾs) was a major goddess in ancient Egyptian religion whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. Isis was first mentioned in the Old Kingd ...
followers or
Mithras Mithraism, also known as the Mithraic mysteries or the Cult of Mithras, was a Roman mystery religion centered on the god Mithras. Although inspired by Iranian worship of the Zoroastrian divinity (''yazata'') Mithra, the Roman Mithras is linke ...
devotees. Its members were bound together not only by common rites but by a common way of life". According to New Testament professor Joseph Hellerman, New Testament writers choose 'family' as the central social metaphor to describe their community, and by doing so, they redefined the concept of family. In both Jewish and Roman tradition, genetic families were generally buried together, but an important cultural shift took place in the way Christians buried one another: they gathered unrelated Christians into a common burial space, as if they really were one family, "commemorated them with homogeneous memorials and expanded the commemorative audience to the entire local community of coreligionists". The Jewish ethic and its concept of community as family is what made "Christianity's power of attraction ... not purely religious but also social and philosophical". The Christian church was modeled on the synagogue. Christian philosophers synthesized their own views with Semitic monotheism and Greek thought. The Old Testament gave the new religion of Christianity roots reaching back to antiquity. In a society which equated dignity and truth with tradition, this was significant. Community on a larger scale is evidenced by a study of 'letters of recommendation' that Christians created to be taken by a traveler from one group of believers to another. Security and hospitality when traveling had traditionally been undependable for most, being ensured only by, and for, those with the wealth and power to afford them. By the late third and early fourth centuries, Christians had developed a 'form letter' of recommendation, only requiring the addition of an individual's name, that extended trust and welcome and safety to the whole household of faith, "though they were strangers". Sociologist E. A. Judge writes of the fourth century diary of Egeria which documents her travels throughout the
Middle East The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabian Peninsula, Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Anatolia, Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Pro ...
, seeing the old sites of the Biblical period, the monks, and even climbing
Mount Sinai Mount Sinai ( he , הר סיני ''Har Sinai''; Aramaic: ܛܘܪܐ ܕܣܝܢܝ ''Ṭūrāʾ Dsyny''), traditionally known as Jabal Musa ( ar, جَبَل مُوسَىٰ, translation: Mount Moses), is a mountain on the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt. It is ...
: "At every point she was met and looked after". The same benefits were applied to others carrying a Christian letter of recommendation as members of the community.


Martyrdom

The Roman government practiced systematic persecution of Christian leaders and their property in 250–51 under
Decius Gaius Messius Quintus Traianus Decius ( 201 ADJune 251 AD), sometimes translated as Trajan Decius or Decius, was the emperor of the Roman Empire from 249 to 251. A distinguished politician during the reign of Philip the Arab, Decius was procla ...
, in 257–60 under Valerian, and expanded it after 303 under
Diocletian Diocletian (; la, Gaius Aurelius Valerius Diocletianus, grc, Διοκλητιανός, Diokletianós; c. 242/245 – 311/312), nicknamed ''Iovius'', was Roman emperor from 284 until his abdication in 305. He was born Gaius Valerius Diocles ...
. While it is understood by scholars that persecution did cause some
apostasy Apostasy (; grc-gre, ἀποστασία , 'a defection or revolt') is the formal disaffiliation from, abandonment of, or renunciation of a religion by a person. It can also be defined within the broader context of embracing an opinion that i ...
and temporary setbacks in the numbers of Christians, the long term impact on Christian conversion was not negative. Peter Brown writes that "The failure of the Great Persecution of Diocletian was regarded as a confirmation of a long process of religious self-assertion against the conformism of a pagan empire." Persecution and suffering were seen by many at the time of these events, as well as by later generations of believers, as legitimizing the standing of the individual believers that died as well as legitimizing the ideology and authority of the church itself. Drake quotes Robert Markus: "The martyrs were, after the Apostles, the supreme representatives of the community of the faithful in God's presence. In them the communion of saints was most tangibly epitomized". The result of this was summed up in the second century by
Justin Martyr Justin Martyr ( el, Ἰουστῖνος ὁ μάρτυς, Ioustinos ho martys; c. AD 100 – c. AD 165), also known as Justin the Philosopher, was an early Christian apologist and philosopher. Most of his works are lost, but two apologies and ...
: "it is plain that, though beheaded and crucified, and thrown to wild beasts, and chains, and fire, and all other kinds of torture, we do not give up our confession f Christ but the more such things happen, the more do others and in larger numbers become faithful, and worshippers of God through the name of Jesus". Keith Hopkins concludes that in the third century "in spite of temporary losses, Christianity grew fastest in absolute terms. In other words, in terms of number, persecution was good for Christianity".


Miracles

In the minority view, miracles and exorcisms form the most important (and possibly the only) reason for conversion to Christianity in the pre-Constantinian age. These events provide some of the best documented ancient conversions. However, there is a drop-off in the records of miracles in the crucial second and third centuries. Praet writes that "as early as the beginning of the third century, Christian authors admit that the "Golden Age" of miracles is over". Yet, Christianity grew most rapidly at the end of that same third century indicating that the real impact of miracles in garnering new converts is questionable. In Praet's view, even if Christianity had "retained its miraculous powers", the impact of miracles on conversion would still be questionable, since pagans also produced miracles, and no one questioned that those miracles were as real as Christianity's.


Alternative approaches


Network theory

To understand patterns of development,
social network theory A social network is a social structure made up of a set of social actors (such as individuals or organizations), sets of dyadic ties, and other social interactions between actors. The social network perspective provides a set of methods for a ...
treats society as a web of overlapping relationships and ties early Christian growth to its preexisting relationships. Adam M. Schor, a scholar of ancient Mediterranean history, discusses this: "Network theory aided Stark's research (with William Bainbridge) including the ground-breaking conclusion that almost all converts to modern religious groups have friendships or familial bonds with existing members. In fact, Stark used the network concept to back up his projections, positing that Christianity first grew along existing Jewish networks and existing links between Roman cities". Historian
Paula Fredriksen Paula Fredriksen (born January 6, 1951, Kingston, Rhode Island) is an American historian and scholar of early Christianity. She held the position of William Goodwin Aurelio Professor of Scripture at Boston University from 1990 to 2010. Now emerit ...
says that it is "because of Diaspora Judaism, which is extremely well established
n the empirical age N, or n, is the fourteenth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''en'' (pronounced ), plural ''ens''. History ...
that Christianity itself, as a new and constantly improvising form of Judaism, is able to spread as it does through the Roman world". Current studies in sociology and anthropology have shown that Christianity in its early centuries spread through its acquisition by one person from another by forming a distinct
social network A social network is a social structure made up of a set of social actors (such as individuals or organizations), sets of dyadic ties, and other social interactions between actors. The social network perspective provides a set of methods for ...
. Classical archaeologist and ancient historian Anna Collar chooses network theory for explaining Christianization of the Roman Empire, saying: "it does not address why such changes take place, but it can help explain how change happened". She has written that archaeological remains demonstrate that networks are formed wherever there are connections. When groups of people with different ways of life connect, interact, and exchange ideas and practices, "cultural diffusion" occurs. The more groups interact, the more cultural diffusion takes place. Diffusion is the primary method by which societies change; (it is distinct from colonialization which forces elements of a foreign culture into a society). The kind of network formed by early Christian groups is what sociology calls a "modular scale-free network". This is a series of small “cells” that are associations of small groups of people, such as the early home churches in Ephesus and Caesaria, with popular leaders, (such as the Apostle Paul), who are the ones who hold together an otherwise unconnected small cluster of cells. Network theory says that modular scale free networks are "robust": "they grow without central direction, but also survive most attempts to wipe them out." The third century saw the empire's greatest persecution of Christians while also being the critical century of church growth. Schor adds that "Persecutions (like Valerian’s) might have thinned the Christian leadership without damaging the network’s long-term growth capacity." Keith Hopkins attests that rapid growth in absolute numbers occurred only in the third and fourth centuries.


Psychology

Psychological explanations of Christianization are most often based on a belief that paganism declined during the imperial period causing an era of insecurity and anxiety. These anxious individuals were seen as the ones who sought refuge in religious communities which offered socialization. For most modern scholars, this view can no longer be maintained since traditional religion did not decline in this period, but remained into the sixth and seventh centuries, and there is no evidence of increased anxiety. Psychologist
Pascal Boyer Pascal Robert Boyer is a French-American cognitive anthropologist and evolutionary psychologist, mostly known for his work in the cognitive science of religion. He taught at the University of Cambridge for eight years, before taking up the posit ...
says a cognitive approach can account for the transmission of religious ideas and describe the processes whereby individuals acquire and transmit certain ideas and practices, but cognitive theory may not be sufficient to account for the social dynamics of religious movements, or the historical development of religious doctrines, which are not directly within its scope.


Game theory

Evolutionary game theory is applied to biological populations in an attempt to understand altruism, group development and culture. Economist and game theorist Elias Tsakas writes that game theory demonstrates it is what people believe about their neighboring groups that matters more than what those groups are actually doing. People form beliefs about their opponent's strategies and then act according to those beliefs.


Evolution

This is grounded in a Neo-Darwinian theory of cultural selection. Empirical evidence indicates behaviors spread because people have a strong tendency to imitate their neighbors when they believe those neighbors are more successful. Anthropologists Robert Boyd and Peter J. Richerson write that Romans believed the early Christian community offered a better quality of life than the ordinary life available to most in the Roman Empire. Runciman writes of Christian altruism attracting pagans, yet also exposing the Christian groups to exploitation. It was care for the sick that primarily contributed to the spread of Christianity according to this view. Care-taking was particularly important during the severe epidemics of the Imperial period when some cities devolved into anarchy. Pagan society had weak traditions of mutual aid, whereas the Christian community had norms that created “a miniature welfare state in an empire which for the most part lacked social services”. In Christian communities, care of the sick reduced mortality by, possibly, as much as two-thirds. Extant Christian and pagan sources indicate many conversions were the result of "the appeal of such aid". According to Runciman, a distinctly Christian phenotype of strong reciprocity and unconditional benevolence produced the growth of Christianity.


Diffusion of innovation

This view combines an understanding of Christian ideology, and the utility of religion, with analysis of social networks and their environment. It focuses on the power of social interactions and how social groups communicate. In this theory, an innovation's success or failure is dependent upon the characteristics of the innovation itself, the adopters, what communication channels are used, time, and the social system in which it all happens. Ideology is always an aspect of religious innovation, but societal change is driven by the social networks formed by the people who follow the new religious innovation. Religions adapt, adjust and change all the time, therefore a true religious innovation must be seen as a significant change – such as the shift from polytheism to
monotheism Monotheism is the belief that there is only one deity, an all-supreme being that is universally referred to as God. Cross, F.L.; Livingstone, E.A., eds. (1974). "Monotheism". The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (2 ed.). Oxford: Oxford ...
– on a large scale. Collar argues that even though "the philosophical argument for one god was well known amongst the intellectual
elite In political and sociological theory, the elite (french: élite, from la, eligere, to select or to sort out) are a small group of powerful people who hold a disproportionate amount of wealth, privilege, political power, or skill in a group. D ...
, ... monotheism can be called a religious innovation within the
milieu The social environment, social context, sociocultural context or milieu refers to the immediate physical and social setting in which people live or in which something happens or develops. It includes the culture that the individual was educate ...
of Imperial polytheism." Having quickly begun moving outward from Jerusalem, all the largest cities in the empire had Christian congregations by the end of the first century. These became "hubs" for communicating the ongoing spread of the innovation. The variance in the times of when people responded creates a normal distribution curve. Collar writes, "there is a point on the curve that represents the crux of the diffusion process: the ‘tipping point’. This 'tipping' takes place between 10 percent adoption and 20 percent adoption. Christianity achieved this tipping point between 150 to 250 when it moved from less than 50,000 adherents to over a million. This provided enough adopters for it to be self-sustaining and create further growth.


Effects


Judicial penalties and clemency

In 1986, Ramsay MacMullen wrote "What Difference did Christianity Make?" looking at the consequences of conversion rather than its causes. He has written that "Christianity made no difference"; or that it made a negative difference, saying that under the Christian emperors, judicial cruelty rose. MacMullen attributes this to Christian zeal and a belief in purgatory. On the one hand, this is problematic since, "Until the end of the twelfth century the noun ''purgatorium'' did not exist; ''the'' Purgatory had not yet been born" according to historian
Jacques Le Goff Jacques Le Goff (1 January 1924 – 1 April 2014) was a French historian and prolific author specializing in the Middle Ages, particularly the 12th and 13th centuries. Le Goff championed the Annales School movement, which emphasizes long-term t ...
. On the other hand, it is possible to identify a mounting severity in criminal law. Classicist
Peter Garnsey Peter David Arthur Garnsey, (born 22 October 1938) is a retired classicist and academic. Born in Australia, where he studied classics at the University of Sydney as a member of St Paul’s College, he has spent most of his career at Cambridge. H ...
says this change takes place throughout the entire imperial period beginning under
Augustus Caesar Augustus (born Gaius Octavius; 23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14), also known as Octavian, was the first Roman emperor; he reigned from 27 BC until his death in AD 14. He is known for being the founder of the Roman Pri ...
in the first century. Garnsey writes that increasing severity was the result of the political shift from a
Republic A republic () is a "state in which power rests with the people or their representatives; specifically a state without a monarchy" and also a "government, or system of government, of such a state." Previously, especially in the 17th and 18th c ...
to an autocratic empire. Historian Jill Harries describes Roman justice as always harsh. It was a common belief of those in the Roman Empire that severity was a deterrent. As an example of this, Harries writes of the SC Silanianum, a particularly harsh law passed in 10 AD. The SC Silanianum was originally aimed at slaves who murdered their masters, but its reach and its harshness grew as time passed. Its history documents the establishment of a legal tradition of increasing harshness beginning in the earliest days of empire; its impact was extensive since ancestral customs – the ''
Mos maiorum The ''mos maiorum'' (; "ancestral custom" or "way of the ancestors," plural ''mores'', cf. English "mores"; ''maiorum'' is the genitive plural of "greater" or "elder") is the unwritten code from which the ancient Romans derived their social norms ...
'' – were the most important source of Roman law. On the one hand, increasingly harsh penalties for an ever enlarging number of
capital crimes Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...
were published by emperors. On the other hand, emperors also wanted to be seen as generous in offering mercy and clemency. Beginning in the first century under
Augustus Caesar Augustus (born Gaius Octavius; 23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14), also known as Octavian, was the first Roman emperor; he reigned from 27 BC until his death in AD 14. He is known for being the founder of the Roman Pri ...
, the established Roman understanding of clemency () began a transformation that was completed in the fourth century. Christian writers had embraced the concept of clemency and used it to express the mercy of God demonstrated in salvation, thereby combining the two concepts. The use of ''clementia'' to indicate forgiveness of wrongs and a mild merciful temper becomes common for writers of the
Later Roman Empire The Later Roman Empire spans the period from 284 AD (Diocletian's proclamation as emperor) to 641 (death of Heraclius) in the history of the Roman Empire. Evidence Histories In comparison with previous periods, studies on Later Roman history a ...
. Christianity did not grow outside Roman culture, it grew within it, ameliorating some of Rome's harsh justice and also adopting some of it.
Augustine of Hippo Augustine of Hippo ( , ; la, Aurelius Augustinus Hipponensis; 13 November 354 – 28 August 430), also known as Saint Augustine, was a theologian and philosopher of Berber origin and the bishop of Hippo Regius in Numidia, Roman North Af ...
advocated the harsh discipline of heretics that allowed some of the milder forms of physical torture. Augustine also urged the heretical
Donatist Donatism was a Christian sect leading to a schism in the Church, in the region of the Church of Carthage, from the fourth to the sixth centuries. Donatists argued that Christian clergy must be faultless for their ministry to be effective and the ...
bishop Donatus to practice Christian mildness when dealing with enemies. Augustine praised Marcellinus, who presided over an Imperial inquiry into the Catholic-Donatist controversy, for having conducted his investigation without using torture which was the norm.
Ambrose Ambrose of Milan ( la, Aurelius Ambrosius; ), venerated as Saint Ambrose, ; lmo, Sant Ambroeus . was a theologian and statesman who served as Bishop of Milan from 374 to 397. He expressed himself prominently as a public figure, fiercely promo ...
, bishop of Milan, advised his correspondent Studius, a Christian judge, to show clemency, citing as a model Jesus' treatment of the adulteress. Garnsey has written that "Augustine, Ambrose, and other church leaders of progressive views clearly had a beneficent influence on the administration of the law, utit is evident that they did not attempt to promote a movement of
penal reform Prison reform is the attempt to improve conditions inside prisons, improve the effectiveness of a penal system, or implement alternatives to incarceration. It also focuses on ensuring the reinstatement of those whose lives are impacted by crimes. ...
, and did not conceive of such a movement". As Peter Brown has summarized: "When it came to the central functions of the Roman state, even the vivid Ambrose was a lightweight". MacMullen cites Christian emperors as ceasing to use crucifixion and death by wild beasts as death penalties. Bishops, generally, opposed the death penalty. Such a penalty was consistent with the authority of the state, but it was inconsistent with the expansion of the Church through the conversion of its enemies. Arrests and punishments of heretics and all crimes against clergy were normally processed through the local bishop, and Augustine's correspondence after 405 contains many references to him using the bishop's right, and all his personal influence with Imperial officials, to intercede for those the state condemned. The State responded with the law of January 409 which made a "way the authorities could politely by-pass the 'bishop, the persuader of mercy' in arresting and punishing culprits".


Slavery

Early Christianity never openly called for the abolition of slavery, and while theologian G. François Wessels writes that it "must be conceded" that abolition was not a possibility in Paul's day, it must also be affirmed that many of the early Christians were slave owners who voiced no objection to the long–standing institution. Christians of Antiquity advised acceptance of what could not be changed, service to others with a loving attitude, and a focus on true freedom in
Heaven Heaven or the heavens, is a common religious cosmological or transcendent supernatural place where beings such as deities, angels, souls, saints, or venerated ancestors are said to originate, be enthroned, or reside. According to the belie ...
. Their stated purpose was to change the heart of man, not the social order, and ancient Christians did not think of their movement in terms of social reform. It is generally accepted that slavery began a decline in the second century which became more decisive as time passed, but this is usually attributed to economics rather than ideology as actual numbers of slaves have not been established. However, there are several ways in which it is highly likely that Christians did make some contribution to this decreasing slavery. The first can be seen in Paul's
Epistle to Philemon The Epistle to Philemon is one of the books of the Christian New Testament. It is a prison letter, co-authored by Paul the Apostle with Timothy, to Philemon, a leader in the Colossian church. It deals with the themes of forgiveness and re ...
, which indicates that Christianity worked to transform the slave-holding household to recognize Christian brotherhood and manumit (an established Roman practice of freeing slaves) accordingly. Wessels writes: "
Onesimus Onesimus ( grc-gre, Ὀνήσιμος, Onēsimos, meaning "useful"; died , according to Catholic tradition), also called Onesimus of Byzantium and The Holy Apostle Onesimus in the Eastern Orthodox Church, was probably a slave to Philemon of Colo ...
, a slave, had run away from his master Philemon, but both had become Christians, and Paul sends Onesimus back home with a letter. In that letter Paul insists on Philemon's acceptance of Onesimus, no longer as a slave, but as a 'beloved brother'." Theologian Marianne Thompson has argued convincingly that "a reading of the letter to Philemon which views Paul as asking for Onesimus' spiritual reception as a brother in Christ, without the setting free of his body as a slave, assumes a 'dualistic anthropology' in Paul which his writings do not confirm". Historian
Jon H. Roberts Jon Harlan Roberts is an American historian currently serving as the Tomorrow Foundation Professor of History at Boston University. Education *BA, University of Missouri, 1969 *MA, Harvard University, 1970 *PhD, Harvard University, 1980 Selected ...
quotes Wessels as saying that the cumulative weight of Paul's many suggestive phrases "can really only have one meaning: Philemon should set Onesimus free". If the information in Colossians 4:7–9 is historical, the slave Onesimus was, accordingly, freed. Harper argues that a "broad religious impulse toward manumission runs as a submerged current through the eastern provinces". Christianity also likely impacted the world of slaves through its adoption of slavery as
metaphor A metaphor is a figure of speech that, for rhetorical effect, directly refers to one thing by mentioning another. It may provide (or obscure) clarity or identify hidden similarities between two different ideas. Metaphors are often compared wit ...
claiming all are slaves to sin. Christian rhetoric, beginning with Paul, is filled with that metaphorical perspective.
John Chrysostom John Chrysostom (; gr, Ἰωάννης ὁ Χρυσόστομος; 14 September 407) was an important Early Church Father who served as archbishop of Constantinople. He is known for his homilies, preaching and public speaking, his denunciat ...
's surviving corpus alone mentions slavery over 5,000 times. Chrysostom, as one example, wrote baptismal instructions for churches in his jurisdiction, telling the officiating priest to stop at various points to remind the
catechumens Catechesis (; from Greek: , "instruction by word of mouth", generally "instruction") is basic Christian religious education of children and adults, often from a catechism book. It started as education of converts to Christianity, but as the ...
of how the act of baptism frees them from the slavery all humanity had in common with each other. In lawyer and judicial historian Joshua C. Tate's view, "Through their baptism, the catechumens became not only free, holy, and just, but even sons of God and joint-heirs with Christ. Repeated so often, in such an important context, this message must have made a major impact on the thinking of Christian congregations and those with whom they interacted". Outside of defeated enemies, there were three primary sources of slaves. The first most prolific source was natural reproduction (childbearing), since a child born to a slave was automatically a slave, without option, themselves. Early Christian historian Chris L. de Wet writes that Chrysostom attempted to "guard the sexual integrity of the slave by desexualizing the slave's body and criminalizing its violation. Slaves were no longer morally neutral ground – having sex with a slave while married was adultery and if unmarried, fornication". These teachings, along with the proliferation of chastity among slaves who became Christian, and the spread of ascetism through Roman society, may have lessened their sexual use and their reproductive value and impacted slavery. The next best source of slaves was from the abandonment of unwanted children (called ''exposure'' because the babies were left exposed to the dangers of the wilds). These children were often picked up by strangers to be raised and sold as slaves. The third method was kidnapping. Christians interfered with these methods for resupply through new laws and actions taken against them. Chrysostom supported the obedience of slaves to their masters. He also told his audience, which consisted mostly of wealthy slave holders, that "Slavery is the result of greed, of degradation, of brutality, since
Noah Noah ''Nukh''; am, ኖህ, ''Noḥ''; ar, نُوح '; grc, Νῶε ''Nôe'' () is the tenth and last of the pre-Flood patriarchs in the traditions of Abrahamic religions. His story appears in the Hebrew Bible (Book of Genesis, chapters 5– ...
, we know, had no slave, nor
Abel Abel ''Hábel''; ar, هابيل, Hābīl is a Biblical figure in the Book of Genesis within Abrahamic religions. He was the younger brother of Cain, and the younger son of Adam and Eve, the first couple in Biblical history. He was a shepherd ...
, nor
Seth Seth,; el, Σήθ ''Sḗth''; ; "placed", "appointed") in Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Mandaeism, and Sethianism, was the third son of Adam and Eve and brother of Cain and Abel, their only other child mentioned by name in the Hebrew Bible. A ...
, nor those who came after them. The institution was the fruit of sin". MacMullen has written that slavery was "rebuked by
Ambrose Ambrose of Milan ( la, Aurelius Ambrosius; ), venerated as Saint Ambrose, ; lmo, Sant Ambroeus . was a theologian and statesman who served as Bishop of Milan from 374 to 397. He expressed himself prominently as a public figure, fiercely promo ...
,
Zeno of Verona Zeno of Verona ( it, Zenone da Verona; about 300 – 371 or 380) was either an early Christian Bishop of Verona or a martyr. He is a saint in the Roman Catholic Church and in the Orthodox Church. Life and historicity According to a Veronese aut ...
,
Gaudentius of Brescia Saint Gaudentius ( it, San Gaudenzio di Brescia; died 410) was Bishop of Brescia from 387 until 410, and was a theologian and author of many letters and sermons. He was the successor of Saint Philastrius. Biography Gaudentius had studied under P ...
, and
Maximus of Turin Maximus of Turin ( it, San Massimo; ( c.380 – c.465) is the first known Christian bishop of Turin. He was a theological writer who "made a great contribution to the spread and consolidation of Christianity in Northern Italy". Life Maximus is b ...
", among others. Evidence indicates this oft repeated discourse on slavery shaped late ancient feelings, tastes, and opinions concerning it, and this may have impacted its practice.


Persecution of heretics

In a challenge to the assertion that the practice of charity contributed to social change and the spread of Christianity, MacMullen has written that there was hardly any charity amongst Christians toward heretics. One example often used in demonstration of this is Augustine's support of the state's use of coercion in dealing with the "heretical" Donatists. Brown says this has led to modern liberals describing Augustine as the "prince and patriarch of persecutors", since Augustine's views were referenced on into the Middle Ages. The harsh realities Augustine faced can be found in his Letter 28 written to bishop Novatus around 416. Donatists had cut out the tongue and cut off the hands of a Bishop Rogatus who had recently converted to Catholicism, condemning him to a slow death by starvation, also attacking an unnamed count's agent who had been traveling with Rogatus. Rutgers professor of history Frederick Russell says Augustine confesses he does not know what to do. By this time, he had spent twenty years verbally appealing to the Donatists using popular propaganda, debate, personal appeal, General Councils, appeals to the emperor, and even politics, and all attempts had failed. The empire responded with force and coercion, and Augustine came to support that approach. Augustine did not believe coercion could or would convert someone, but he did observe that it softened the "stubborn Donatists" enough to make it possible to reason with them. He thought that reason would then lead to voluntary agreement, true repentance, and change. As Augustine's biographer, Peter Brown has written that Augustine lived in a harsh, authoritarian age of punitive punishment. Yet Augustine placed limits on the type of coercion that could be used for heretics, recommending only the milder forms in common practice in the home, school and ecclesial court. He opposed all the extreme forms of
torture Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons such as punishment, extracting a confession, interrogation for information, or intimidating third parties. Some definitions are restricted to acts c ...
and
maiming Mutilation or maiming (from the Latin: ''mutilus'') refers to severe damage to the body that has a ruinous effect on an individual's quality of life. It can also refer to alterations that render something inferior, ugly, dysfunctional, or imper ...
and
capital punishment Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...
common to the empire of the time. Russell and Brown see Augustine's approach as aimed at reformation of the wrong-doer rather than punitive punishment for the wrong-doing. Russell has written that Augustine's response on coercion was context dependent. However, political scientist Herbert A. Deane says there is a fundamental inconsistency between Augustine's political thought and "his final position of approval of the use of political and legal weapons to punish religious dissidence", and others have seconded this view. Augustine's approach to heresy contributed to a competition – what Brown calls a "rivalry between the two factions" – that not only failed to suppress Donatism but instead contributed to its spread. Where one faction would build a church, the other would follow; Donatists and Catholics built church after church competing with each other for the loyalty of the people causing the entire landscape of Roman Africa to be "covered with a white robe of churches". The Donatists survived until the
Muslim conquest of the Maghreb The Muslim conquest of the Maghreb ( ar, الْفَتْحُ الإسلَامِيُّ لِلْمَغرِب) continued the century of rapid Muslim conquests following the death of Muhammad in 632 and into the Byzantine-controlled territories of ...
in the closing years of the seventh century.


Corruption

Despite
corruption Corruption is a form of dishonesty or a criminal offense which is undertaken by a person or an organization which is entrusted in a position of authority, in order to acquire illicit benefits or abuse power for one's personal gain. Corruption m ...
having a long history in Roman society, Ramsay MacMullen "attributes to the fourth century ...the spread of an ethos of venality (
greed Greed (or avarice) is an uncontrolled longing for increase in the acquisition or use of material gain (be it food, money, land, or animate/inanimate possessions); or social value, such as status, or power. Greed has been identified as und ...
and bribery) and the displacement of aristocratic networks of patronage by the indiscriminate exchange of favors for money". He has written that this practice shows the church, and Christians in government, were universally corrupt in the fourth and fifth centuries. MacMullen's thesis has produced considerable scholarly criticism that has been dubbed the "corruption debate". When Constantine changed from silver to gold as the monetary standard, there is evidence that greed became rampant as the ruling elite "drove a primitive system of taxation and markets to its limits" to acquire gold. One question has been whether or not this constitutes corruption. Another involves the predominance of Christians in the aristocracy as beginning in the 360s under
Gratian Gratian (; la, Gratianus; 18 April 359 – 25 August 383) was emperor of the Western Roman Empire from 367 to 383. The eldest son of Valentinian I, Gratian accompanied his father on several campaigns along the Rhine and Danube frontiers and wa ...
long after Constantine's death in 337 as Salzman has documented. Modern studies have employed many of the same sources as MacMullen, but have arrived at virtually opposite conclusions. For example, in the 1960s, political scientists examined the processes of modernization in the empire, along with those practices considered "corrupt" by modern Western standards, and found that what modern historians have termed "corruption" might "sometimes systematically, have ada beneficial impact on a range of important goals: 'nation-building', economic development, administrative capacity, and
democratization Democratization, or democratisation, is the transition to a more democratic political regime, including substantive political changes moving in a democratic direction. It may be a hybrid regime in transition from an authoritarian regime to a ful ...
." Tim Watson concludes that, "Even if agreement can be reached on what exactly constituted 'corrupt' behavior, there is simply not enough data" in the sources to settle the corruption debate.


Gladiator games

The games continued under Christian emperors delivering their message of Roman power "and the inevitability of Roman justice for criminals and those foreigners who had dared to challenge the empire's authority", writes classicist Roger Dunkle. Gladiators were often prisoners of war, slaves or criminals, were generally poor, non-citizens, and social outcasts with limited choices. Yet in the same era of increasing judicial harshness the courts stopped sentencing criminals to the arena. There is no source of information explaining why. MacMullen has written that, "the role of Christianity in the abandoning of most western gladiatorial combat was nil." However, as historian
Fik Meijer Fik Meijer (born 12 August 1942) is a Dutch historian and author. Life He studied classics and ancient history at Leiden University and graduated in 1973. He is an emeritus professor of ancient history at the University of Amsterdam. Caree ...
has written, while gladiator shows were never effectively officially politically abolished, Christians did speak out against them, and the rising number of Christians in the population in the late fourth century caused the popularity of the games to decline. It is likely the games ended from this lack of public support before 440.


Intolerance

According to Brown, the imperial laws, even though they were not enforced, did have a cumulative effect by 425. They set in place the religious order of Roman society: there was the Catholic church, heresies hostile to the 'true faith', and the two great 'outsiders': Judaism and all of polytheism which was jointly called 'paganism'. It is possible to follow in the laws the emergence of a language of intolerance shared by the Christian court and by vocal elements in provincial society. Christian writers and imperial legislators alike drew on a rhetoric of incessant conquest and reconquest that affected every facet of upper-class society. Gibbon's 'intolerance argument' asserted that Christians, being monotheists, could not emulate the easy acceptance of other deities that characterized a polytheist system, and so were intolerant and oppressive, thereby coercing conversion out of fear. This view can be traced through the scholarship of the two centuries that came after him. Drake writes that the intolerance argument is incomplete. It can't explain why "tolerant" pagans persecuted "intolerant" Christians. It doesn't explain why Christians worried about the validity of coerced faith and resisted such aggressive actions for centuries. Drake suggests the tradition in early Christianity which favored and operated toward peace, moderation, and conciliation held that true belief could not be compelled for the simple reason that God could tell the difference between voluntary and coerced worship. Drake says intolerance in the later centuries of the empire cannot be considered solely a religious issue. Instead, he states that intolerance was a political response to what, today, would be labeled "national security" issues. This is defined as any threat to core community values with particular regard to behaviors that appear to threaten the security of that community. Scholars of antiquity have increasingly turned to theories of identity formation and boundary maintenance to explain the increase in intolerance in the fifth century and beyond.


Sexual morality

MacMullen has written that Christianity did make a moral difference in Roman Empire in the area of sexual conduct: "Here we see an absolutely remarkable impact on manners and morals that was to shape also the whole millennium to come". Classics scholar Kyle Harper states it this way: "the triumph of Christianity not only drove profound cultural change, it created a new relationship between sexual morality and society ... The legacy of Christianity lies in the dissolution of an ancient system where social and political status, power, and the transmission of social inequality to the next generation scripted the terms of sexual morality". He concludes that "there are risks in over-estimating the changes in old sexual patterns that Christianity was able to promote, but there are risks, too, in underestimating Christianization as a watershed."


See also

* Christianity and paganism *
Religious policies of Constantine the Great The Religious policies of Constantine the Great have been called "ambiguous and elusive." Born in 273 during the Crisis of the Third Century (AD 235–284), Constantine the Great was thirty at the time of the Great Persecution. He saw his father b ...
*
Theodosius I Theodosius I ( grc-gre, Θεοδόσιος ; 11 January 347 – 17 January 395), also called Theodosius the Great, was Roman emperor from 379 to 395. During his reign, he succeeded in a crucial war against the Goths, as well as in two ...
* Anti-paganism policies of the early Byzantine Empire *
History of Christianity The history of Christianity concerns the Christianity, Christian religion, Christendom, Christian countries, and the Christians with their various Christian denomination, denominations, from the Christianity in the 1st century, 1st century ...
*
Timeline of Christianity The purpose of this timeline is to give a detailed account of Christianity from the beginning of the current era ( AD) to the present. Question marks ('?') on dates indicate approximate dates. The year one is the first year in the ''Christia ...


Notes


References


Bibliography

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Further reading

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * {{Middle Ages 30s establishments in the Roman Empire Christianity in the Roman Empire Christianity in late antiquity Christianization of Europe Historiography of Christianity Religious demographics