Christianity and the Fall of Rome

[bovismaximus]

so i thought of something i could add in to my last question.

 

do you feel that the fall of rome enabled the rise of the church? if so, then why?

[Primus Pilus]

The Rise of the church contributed to the fall of Rome, IMO. The Church was already an established political force by the fall of the west. Even though it had its trouble in a post Roman world, its continued growth is well attested.

[Ursus]

do you feel that the fall of rome enabled the rise of the church?

If it weren't for Rome there wouldn't have been a Church in the first place. Christianity was spread in Roman roads in Roman towns, using Latin and Greek as common languages. It blended with Greek philosophy and Roman legalism. The Imperial Court in Constantine's New Rome then sponsored the codification and refinement of Christianity.

 

Christianity wasn't a product of the fall of Rome. It was a product of Roman culture period.

 

Although whether or not it was the best product of Greco-Roman culture depends on your personal proclivities.

[PerfectimusPrime]

I really don't think that the Christianity had any thing to do with the Fall of Rome, there are dozens of much more logical explonations, such as the inflation, economical crisis, civil wars, etc

[Perseverantius]

And then there's the idea that Rome never really fell but coopted Christianity and that the very world we live in, with it's linear understanding of cause and effect, our political systems, our general societal self-consciousness is a natural outgrowth of Romanitas.

 

So, Rome is us. Rome is the West. It's an idea that has never fallen.

 

But if we're talking about the fall of the city of Rome from an identifiable and taxonomically successive Roman political origin then it happened in 402 AD when Honorius fled to Ravenna and was made complete when he left there in 476 leaving the city to the Bishop.

 

Which Bishop, by the way, kept all the trappings of Roman government and political division assuming as well the ancient Roman religious title "Pontifex Maximus".

 

And when the Goths took it, they didn't exactly impose Gothic political structures on it, rather, they became Roman.

[Northern Neil]

I do not believe that the rise of Christianity had anything whatsoever to do with the fall of Rome. Christianity was adopted, edited and then defined in its current form by Romans, and subsequently acted as a unifying force. Christian emperors such as Valentinian and Justinian were fanatical Romans, and used military might just as liberally as Caesar or Marcus Aurelius if it furthered the interests of the State. Christianity had nothing to do with the rise of the Persian Sassanian dynasty or the Hunnic-and subsequent German migrations, both of which had massive repercussions on the Empire and its fortunes.

 

I think what is often under discussion here is not wether Christianity contributed to Rome's fall, but wether Christianity contributed to the extinction of the Classical World, which it undoubtably did. The Roman Empire and the Classical World are not, as some people believe, synonymous: Rome adopted Classical culture from the Greeks sometime around 350BC and rejected it, by degrees, as Christianity took hold. By 500 the classical world was dead, but the actual Roman state carried on.

[PerfectimusPrime]

Rome adopted Classical culture from the Greeks sometime around 350BC and rejected it, by degrees, as Christianity took hold. By 500 the classical world was dead, but the actual Roman state carried on.

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Well, that falls on how you define ''classical culture'', because hellenic culture lives on even in the Christianity and it had deeply rooted itself on the Islamic world.

 

Greco-Roman culture is the very basis of Christianity and Christianity is a reflection of the nature of Rome.

[Imperator Marzullius]

Definately! Christianity ruined Rome. It made them worship an imaginary friend instead of standing by their state. In the end, abandoning the roman gods/goddesses is what collapsed rome. They were strong when they practiced roman paganism, but declined once more christians were converted than they could feed to the lions....... It was all downhill from there.

[Perseverantius]

Definately! Christianity ruined Rome. It made them worship an imaginary friend instead of standing by their state. In the end, abandoning the roman gods/goddesses is what collapsed rome. They were strong when they practiced roman paganism, but declined once more christians were converted than they could feed to the lions....... It was all downhill from there.

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Rubbish, the Roman State began declining when Augustus became Princeps. It was he, as great and necessary as he was, who opened the door for all the subsequent problems.

 

Remember, Rome did not embrace Christianity until the 4th Century. Tiberius, Nero and Caligula were all pagans at the helm of a pagan state. If you're going to point to anyone as the harbinger of Rome's 'downfall' it would be these tyrannical jokers.

[DanM]

The Rise of the church contributed to the fall of Rome, IMO. 

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I don't dispute that the Church diverted financial and manpower resources, but I question whether that makes the church a cause for the fall of Rome of simply one of the factors that contributed to its fall.

 

During the early Empire, the backbone of the imperial government was the collection of city governments that raised levies, collected taxes and built public projects such as baths, aqueducts and harbors. These local city governments were led by the wealthier members of the city population and they were called decurions. In the later Empire, however, this class was seriously curtailed because people began to do everything they could to avoid service in their city government. Many of the wealthier members joined the Senate and by virtue of their new class were exempt from curial service. Many bribed influential members of the Comitatus for some bogus appointment that had absoutely no use except to exempt them from curial duties. Many others also joined the clergy for exactly this same reason.

 

You ever wonder why so many people were willing to do so much to avoid the public service that was so vital to the Empire? Maybe that is a more important reason for the fall of the Empire since it pushed so many wealthy and educated people out of government service and, therefore, weakened the Imperial government's ability to hold its ground.

[Imperator Marzullius]

Definately! Christianity ruined Rome. It made them worship an imaginary friend instead of standing by their state. In the end, abandoning the roman gods/goddesses is what collapsed rome. They were strong when they practiced roman paganism, but declined once more christians were converted than they could feed to the lions....... It was all downhill from there.

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Rubbish, the Roman State began declining when Augustus became Princeps. It was he, as great and necessary as he was, who opened the door for all the subsequent problems.

 

Remember, Rome did not embrace Christianity until the 4th Century. Tiberius, Nero and Caligula were all pagans at the helm of a pagan state. If you're going to point to anyone as the harbinger of Rome's 'downfall' it would be these tyrannical jokers.

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Bad imperator's are another reason why it collapsed. But when a great culture is compromised, well, then what are you left with? Garbage.

[Northern Neil]

Well, that falls on how you define ''classical culture'', because hellenic culture lives on even in the Christianity and it had deeply rooted itself on the Islamic world.

 

Given the lack of space for such an immense subject, I would summarise the Classical World which Christianity helped to dismantle thus:

 

Achitecturally: Peristyle houses with collonades, Porticoed temples, Theatres, amphitheatres and Stadia.

 

Artistically: realistic portraits of the human form.

 

Spiritualistic: Polytheism with varying degrees of tolerance for one religion by another. Philosophy and rudimentary science flourished in tandem with this.

 

Socially: Cities in which there were public buildings. Political units which had standing armies. A degree of social mobility within the free part of the population.

 

This very sketchy repesentation is the best I can do given the space available: What is pretty certain to me is that most of the above had radically changed by 500. Eratosthenes calculated the circumference of the earth in about 200BC; by 500 it was heresy to suggest it was anything other than flat. In the 1st century women officiated as christian bishops; they were evil seducers of men by the middle of the millenium. In the 5th century, the female philosopher Hypatia was lynched by a mob of 'christian' zealots. Local officials did nothing.

 

In particular for me, the classical world's tolerance of multi - faith societies, the openness to scientific enquiry and the unashamed appreciation of the human form are among the saddest of the many casualties. The onset of the Christian era dispensed with these very positive attributes, heralding in an age of superstition, fear, guilt and repression of women which certainly lasted until the renaissance. In as much as spirituality and science still appear to be at odds - as opposed to working hand in hand - the dark age is still with us.

 

Chrstian and Islamic culture may well have in their make - up remnants of classical culture, just as many European countries speak a language derived from Latin. That does not mean that the parent culture endured.

[Northern Neil]

Definately! Christianity ruined Rome. It made them worship an imaginary friend instead of standing by their state. In the end, abandoning the roman gods/goddesses is what collapsed rome. They were strong when they practiced roman paganism, but declined once more christians were converted than they could feed to the lions....... It was all downhill from there.

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I refer you to my last - but - one entry on this site. What I think you are bemoaning is the death of classical culture rather than the death of the Roman state, which took centuries to occur after the adoption of Christianity. Just as an aside: The christian persecutions lasted for three brief periods of about 18 months each, during which time few were fed to the lions (films such as the Robe and Quo Vadis enflame this superstition).

 

One thing I agree with you entirely - the attiude to paganism once Christianity took root. For a total period of 5 years Christians were persecuted specifically for being Christian. The dismantling of paganism was brutal, and arguably only ended with the last witch trials of the 18th century.

[Perseverantius]

Societies usually change due to external forces incapable of assmiliation without creation of a new paradigm and frankly, that's what happened here.

 

I would submit that the Roman political ideal was crumbling before Christianity appeared and that it's eventual utter breakdown half a millennium later had more to do with it's exposure to a far more 'virile' and utterly different agent in that of the Germanic tribes who invaded and took her over than with it's eventual Christianization. Indeed, it can be argued that it was Christianity which represented Romanitas at the time of the invasions and which eventually succeeded in assimilating the barbarians, effectively Romanizing them.

 

This is true of the west more specifically than the east which remained identifiably Roman for quite a bit longer.

 

And this supports my point. The eastern empire remained identifiably and comfortably Roman as well as Christian both well into the second millennium of the common era.

 

As for the "casualties of Chritianity's expansion". Have you not read where Pompey raided the temple in Jerusalem, taking all the plate and melting it down to pay his legions? Or, of Caesar's brutal suppression of the druidic culture in Gaul? Or Lucullus' razing of Tigranocertes and the virtual extinction of Armenian culture there?

 

The utter destruction of weaker cultures, with their physical expressions by stronger ones is an historical commonplace, without reference to creed.

 

From this I would conclude that while marks of a culture are often lost in processes like these, it cannot be denied; the ideals the things represented are not always lost. In the case of the classical ideals you mentioned though their marks were lost, the ideals these marks were the expression of sprang again into full flower in the renaissance, eventually finding their place within (rather than opposed to) a distinctly Christian worldview.

 

The struggle was enormous, but it was successful.

 

I hope you can understand this. I am not an academic and suffer from muddle-headedness and poor self-expression as from a disease.

[Perseverantius]

One more thing: I think the state adoption of Christianity was far more damaging to Christianity than to the culture; indeed, as I've said, Christianity revivified a moribund culture and received nothing but the stifling patronage of 'The Equal to the Apostles" (One of Constantine's titles) in return.

 

A bad deal for the faith.