Catholic Rome?

[skel]

i have been wondering for a while now and searching for just as long... when did rome conform to christianity over their ancient gods? also how did the change take place?

[Primus Pilus]

There is the common misconception that Constantine officially made Christianity the state religion of Rome in 313 AD. All that the 'edict of Milan' did was enforce tolerance and freedom, thereby making Christianity an accepted form of religion within the empire.

 

The Romans converted officially during the reign of Theodosius between 380 and 394. He mandated the destruction of pagan temples and outlawed pagan customs throughout the empire. Even the eternal flame kept by the Vestal Virgins was extinguished.

 

The transformation from Pagan gods to Christianity was a very long process that obviously took nearly 400 years before completion. The Christian faith spread slowly at first, but its many similarities to Mithraism, which was highly popular in the legions, helped spur its growth in the 2nd and 3rd centuries. A hope for equal status 'in the kingdom of God' among the common masses helped drive it into the social fabric of the empire, and the growing strength of the organized church by the 4th century, slowly crippled resistance to the more free-spirited and less structured concept of Paganism.

[Ursus]

i have been wondering for a while now and searching for just as long... when did rome conform to christianity over their ancient gods? also how did the change take place?

In addition to what primuspilus articulated, I can just add a few things.

 

By the time Christianity was on the rise, the "native" gods of Rome had already lost prestige at a public level. The intellectual classes adopted Greek philosophy, much of which taught strict ethics, a disdain for worldly glory, and a single ultimate source of divinity. Much of the lower classes were initiating themselves into foreign cults who had colorful and emotional rites, and whose gods promised either a better afterlife or a spiritual enlightenment.

 

It was in this environment in which Christianity slowly spread. On an intellectual level Christianity incoporates something of the Greco-Roman philosophies of Stoicism and Platonism. On a more mundane level it shares some things in common with the various mystery cults so popular in the Roman Empire. I don't think Christianity defeated the other religions and philosophies so much as it absorbed them and reworked them into a new universal premise.

 

The point though is that the straightforward religions we normally associate with Roman paganism had lost some of their luster into the imperial era even before Constantine and Theodosius. As times became more troubled and more chaotic and more exotic, people increasingly turned away from traditional modes of belief into alternative systems that offered different solutions and flavors.

 

I think you can see the same thing happening today in the modern West. Mainstream Christianity seems to be declining. More "charaismatic" versions of Christianity are rising in their place. Also, more people are converting to Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, etc. Then there is the whole New Age and so-called "Pagan" phenomenon. And then there are people like myself and Zeke the Celt who are taking a second look at the religious systems of the Ancients. All of it comes from the fact that as times change (often for the worse) an increasing section of the population is dissatisfied with default religions and values. The same thing happened to the Romans, and Christianity slid very successfully into the chasm.

[DanM]

Hey Ursus, I have a question for you. In your last paragraph you talked about how old guard religions are replaced with more charismatic ones. Would you attribute this to some sort of anti-clerical dynamic? When you look at the spread of heretical Christian sects over the past 2 thousand years, its often among a population that feels the old guard is unresponsive to their needs. Ditto for the protestant movements. Since this is sort of a reoccuring theme in history, I was wondering if you had any thoughts on the causes of this reoccuring shift in religous affiliation.

 

Its true that the Catholic/Orthodox schism was more political and maybe the monophysites were also more politically inspired, but I still think that often there is a sociological explanation for the religous shifts. While any theoretical discussion on the topic of sociology is totally out of my depth, I would be very interested to hear your thoughts on it.

 

Also, on the subjecct of the spread of the church within the Roman Empire, I have a theory of my own. If you look at the behavior of the aristocrats in earlier Rome, there was a lot of meaning placed on the presitige that came from public gifts. They would give all sorts of gifts to their city to enrich it and improve the lives of its citizens. Through this giving, they increased their place in society. As the church gained wealth, it replaced this civic giving with a sense of charity based on caring for the poor that was totally alien to the pre-christian Romans. I remember Julian the apostate's attempt to reform the pagan religion into an effective alternative to the Christian religion led him to set policies for pagan charities for the poor and infirmed. This implies that Christian charity towards the poor was one of the ways that the Christian church was gaining converts and influence.

 

Just maybe the Christian church gained a more dominant role because of the gained prestige it received on the local level through its dominance in the role of giving. If so, then maybe it spread by assuming and altering a very Roman social practice. Also, if we go back to my earlier comment about how new religions often spread by being more responsive to the plight of the less fortunate, then we can assume the charity programs of the early Christian church did much to win new converts as well.

[Primus Pilus]

Just maybe the Christian church gained a more dominant role because of the gained prestige it received on the local level through its dominance in the role of giving.... then we can assume the charity programs of the early Christian church did much to win new converts as well

Certainly true. The Christian faith spread among the urban masses at a rather substantial pace after the 2nd centuries. The aristocracy converted much later of course, as they didn't see a beneficial association with the church. Though this is simplified, when they realized that they were losing touch with the masses because of religious differences, it made much more sense to join the 'conversion'. Of course, the decline of the 'Pax Romana' seems to have a rather interesting affinity with the rise of the church. As the people felt less secure, this new faith of salvation for all began to truly take hold

 

In the rural areas, where the church had less influence, the country folk (the root of the term pagan) continued to practice the 'old faith' for many generations. They were partially converted through the use of interposing Christian holidays upon older pagan rituals, the inclusion of patron saints to make poly-theistic gods obsolete, and certainly the 'charity' of the church. Interestingly enough though, the rural poor were never on the great receiving end of 'bread and circuses' like their urban counterparts, and its the urban folks who gravitated to this new charity source first.

[DanM]

Thanks primuspilus.

 

I always thought the consolidation of the church into more orthodox guidelines had a lot to do with the sponsorship it received from the state and not as much from the church leadership's feeling of losing touch with the masses over leadership differences.

 

For example, the Gnostics and other heretical groups lumped together under the term Manichee by the midevil orthodox church were more or less persecuted out of existence by the state. I always assumed it was due more to their rejection of material possessions, strongly ascetic life, etc that caused the state to move against them because these things would lead to a weaker state if the religion were practiced to widely. Is this incorrect? I mean, if people stop making babies and leave the farms, then tax revenues go down and the pool of available soldiers shrinks over time.

[haimore]

No discussion of the Mithra cult along with Christianity? I think in the end it was these two cults the Mithra cult and the Jesus cult...that was battling for the hearts and minds of the general populace...

 

Some like to claim that Christianity "adopted" aspects of Mithraism to make Christianity more palatable to the "pagans" my read on it is that the religions were similar and that rather than adopt and adapt..the christians set themselves up in opposition to the pagans....for example...Christmas was not an adoption of the feast of Sol Invictus, but rather was set up in opposition to it...just my read on it.

[Onasander]

Did any of Mithra's theologians write an apology that survives to the present day, or at least fragments?

I really don't know too much about them cause everything I've read is by a second hand source that doesn't seem to know a whole lot about them... it's like learning about Krishna from a Mormon.

[Ursus]

I wrote an article on this somewhere. While it was once thought that Mithraism was in competition to Christianity, this has been proven false. The cult was small and appealed to a narrow section of the population. It also infamously excluded women.

 

Some of the outer working of the cult are known, but most of the inner workings are not. People initiated in mystery religions very rarely revealed the secrets therein.

 

I hear the following study is good though I haven't read it myself.

 

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detai...=glance&s=books