What Would The World Be Like Without Christianity?

[Zeke]

What would the world be like without Christianity? What if it had no spread and the Roman State had presuecuted it until it had been destroyed. What would the world be like? What social events might not have happened? What systems might have stayed the same and what might have changed? Do you think Democracy still could have happened? These are all important things to consider for Christianity influences almost all aspects of Western Culture. What would have happened if it had no developed?

 

Zeke

[Ursus]

Oh, boy. This is a powder keg of a thread. Could we have at least waited until after Xmass to start this?

[Zeke]

mmm true Ursus, you can choose to freeze it temporaily but I did start it with Christimas in my mind.

 

Your choice Caeser

[M. Porcius Cato]

Gibbon was right: "a large portion of public and private wealth was consecrated to the specious demands of charity and devotion; and the soldiers pay was lavished on the useless multitudes of both sexes, who could plead only the merits of astinence and charity."

 

Without the church, Rome would have lasted a little longer against the barbarian hordes, er, I mean terribly misunderstood Germanic tribes.

[Valerius]

Hi,

 

Funnily enough I've spent quite a lot of time over this question. I don't think that Christianity had any real effect on the Empire's chances of survival. Despite its adoption as the state religion it didn't seem to have a great influence in terms of the overall character of Rome. The wars continued, the games went on (in fact they became more perverse), slavery continued and money making seemed to remain the principle preoccupation of the vast majority. Crucifixion was dropped since it was regarded as "bad taste" but, otherwise, public executions were common. What it did do was to take the fun out of life and persuade people that living life should take second place to beating yourself up over it. What strikes me most is the continuities between Roman civilization and our own. In a sense the Empire didn't fall but rather morphed into something else. If not exactly a seamless change from the Roman to the Medieval period, then at least a change that retained the idea of Rome. By and large people stayed where they were and continued to live their lives as they had always done. I understand from modern genetic research that most people in Europe have remained largely unchanged in the last 2000 years. In that sense we are all Romans - the Empire might be gone but the people who made it up are still alive and kicking!

[M. Porcius Cato]

In a sense the Empire didn't fall but rather morphed into something else.

 

Boy this claim sets my teeth on edge! All I can say is read the chapter "The Disappearance of Comfort" in Bryan Ward-Perkins' book, "The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization." The coin counts, pottery quality, tabulations of roof tiles, and livestock weights indicate a precipitous drop in quality of life with the arrival of the Germanic hordes in the Western empire and with the Slavs in the Balkans and Greece.

 

Anybody here read Augustine??? The guy was falling over backwards to defend his religion from the widespread charge that Christianity weakened the empire and let it get overrun by illiterate, thieving, raping, baby-splitting barbarians. "Morphing" is the last word anyone would have used.

[Germanicus]

Boy this claim sets my teeth on edge! All I can say is read the chapter "The Disappearance of Comfort" in Bryan Ward-Perkins' book, "The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization." The coin counts, pottery quality, tabulations of roof tiles, and livestock weights indicate a precipitous drop in quality of life

 

Cato, does Ward-Perkins mention the decline in realism in later Roman portrait sculpture as an indicator ? I always found it ironic that the Arch of Constantine was decorated with facades from earlier, better arches....as if Romans had forgotten or grown less interested in craftsmanship.

[M. Porcius Cato]

Cato, does Ward-Perkins mention the decline in realism in later Roman portrait sculpture as an indicator ? I always found it ironic that the Arch of Constantine was decorated with facades from earlier, better arches....as if Romans had forgotten or grown less interested in craftsmanship.

 

No, but you are right. After the Christians, all artistic representations of the human form went into technical decline (less realistic, less polished, etc). In their topsy-turvy world, ignoring the flesh was a virtue--even while depicting it. The fact that they robbed earlier sculpture to adorn their public works is good evidence that craftsmanship had degenerated rather than artistic tastes merely changing. If changing artistic tastes were repsonsible for the anatomical monstrostities that the Christians produced, they wouldn't have preferred the earlier stuff to their own.

 

Much later, sculptors in Christendom rediscovered the lost techniques of figural sculpture. For example, Michelangelo mastered figural sculpture by studying Hellenistic works such as the Belvedere torso.

[Valerius]

In a sense the Empire didn't fall but rather morphed into something else.

 

Boy this claim sets my teeth on edge! All I can say is read the chapter "The Disappearance of Comfort" in Bryan Ward-Perkins' book, "The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization." The coin counts, pottery quality, tabulations of roof tiles, and livestock weights indicate a precipitous drop in quality of life with the arrival of the Germanic hordes in the Western empire and with the Slavs in the Balkans and Greece.

 

Anybody here read Augustine??? The guy was falling over backwards to defend his religion from the widespread charge that Christianity weakened the empire and let it get overrun by illiterate, thieving, raping, baby-splitting barbarians. "Morphing" is the last word anyone would have used.

 

 

Sorry about setting your teeth on edge, but I maintain my stance. All the things you mention are material things. Even today Western Law is based on Roman law, as is the judicial system, literature, poetry, politics. I was especially amused by one question put forward by another contributor - "Would democracy have been possible without Christianity?" I hate to say this but democracy was invented by the Greeks without any help from Christians, while the development of the religion during the Medieval period was a direct offshoot of the development of kingship. Compared to what came after Rome was a democratic paradise!

 

The term morphing is certainly a better description of what happened in Britain than the alternatives. The evidence for the gradual collapse of the Roman infrastructure is quite clear. British historians have often been guilty in the past of over-dramatising events and seeing the invasion by the Anglo-Saxons as a clear-cut and dramatic event. Recent research clearly shows that the English were represented by a much smaller population than previously thought while the indigenous population has remained largely unchanged for ten thousand years.

 

As for Augustine - methinks he doth protest too much! He saw everything in terms of his religion and gave it a significance out of all proportion to its real importance. I really don't see the Roman legions sitting around and philosophizing about the morality of warfare while their Empire was being overrun. The main problem seems to have lain in the Romans diluting their armies with barbarian auxiliaries and forgetting the tactics of close order drill. They probably had the same problem we have today with recruiting their own citizens. Most people today would prefer to stay at home and earn money rather than join the army! I include myself in this.

[M. Porcius Cato]

Sorry about setting your teeth on edge, but I maintain my stance. All the things you mention are material things.

Which is how people manage to survive, to enjoy life, and which can be measured systematically across time. If you want to propose another objective metric for evaluating decline, propose it.

 

The term morphing is certainly a better description of what happened in Britain than the alternatives. The evidence for the gradual collapse of the Roman infrastructure is quite clear. British historians have often been guilty in the past of over-dramatising events and seeing the invasion by the Anglo-Saxons as a clear-cut and dramatic event. Recent research clearly shows that the English were represented by a much smaller population than previously thought while the indigenous population has remained largely unchanged for ten thousand years.

 

Are you hallucinating this evidence or do you have some archaeology to back you up? If you look at the combined metrics of material goods that were available to the indigenous population, there was a precipitous decline in Britain in the 100 years after the Germanic invasions. In fact, it was a faster decline than anywhere else in the Western empire, so Britain happens to be the worst example you could have chosen. During the same period, by the way, there was no drop in the Eastern Empire, demonstrating that the decline cannot be attributed to some larger worldwide event.

 

As for Augustine - methinks he doth protest too much! He saw everything in terms of his religion and gave it a significance out of all proportion to its real importance.

 

Vandals invading North Africa devasted the countryside, burning villages, enslaving Romans, raping nuns, and splitting babies in two--call me crazy but that's not for nothing if even if you're not a Christian (and I'm not).

 

The main problem seems to have lain in the Romans diluting their armies with barbarian auxiliaries and forgetting the tactics of close order drill.

 

Barbarian auxiliaries weren't the main problem. It was that there were NO troops guarding the frontiers because they were needed to fight off foreign-sponsored usurpers.

[FLavius Valerius Constantinus]

The main problem seems to have lain in the Romans diluting their armies with barbarian auxiliaries and forgetting the tactics of close order drill.

 

Barbarian auxiliaries weren't the main problem. It was that there were NO troops guarding the frontiers because they were needed to fight off foreign-sponsored usurpers.

 

I agree, an example of how worse that it can get was when the Huns decided to invaded Rome again for the second time after being beatened at Chalons. The problem with the troops was so bad that Aetius this time could not recruit enough men for an army to fight the Huns. Because of that, who came to save Rome herself. It was Pope Leo the Great who convinced Atila somehow that attacking Rome, God would punish him severely. In Sententia Mea so if Christianity didn't happen, well the Huns would have conquered Rome earlier without Pope Leo.

Edited December 29, 2005 by FLavius Valerius Constantinus

[Skarr]

To add, an example of the worse of the worse of that statement was when the Huns decided to invaded Rome again for the second time after being beatened at Chalons. The problem with the troops was so bad that Aetius this time could not recruit enough men for an army to fight the Huns. Because of that, who came to save Rome herself. It was Pope Leo the Great who convinced Atila somehow that attacking Rome, God would punish me severely. In Sententia Mea so if Christianity didn't happen, well the Huns would have conquered Rome earlier without Pope Leo.

 

I'm not sure what exactly you're trying to say here. Your post is a little muddled and perhaps you need to rephrase your point as I just don't get your drift.

 

Coming to the original question - "What would the world be like without Christianity?" I think one cannot isolate one factor and compare its influence on the world and how mankind would have evolved. Obviously, there would no real effect as we would possibly have some other form of 'religion' or 'religions'. Such questions do not lend itself to intelligent debate, in my opinion, as there are too many other considerations and life is a complex phenomenon and while religion attempts to 'explain' some of life's mysteries, it falls way short when compared to the wealth of knowledge that is available to the average person in the late 20th century. I think people are slowly beginning to realize the archaic theories / models on which most religion is based and what passes for 'fact' in religion is nothing more than a metaphor or myth which only modern sensibilities can readily grasp.

 

All religions are based on a core system of beliefs and I think the lines between them are blurring and to me, the myths propagated by Christianity are no different, on one level, than those that are propagated by other religions. However, behind the various veils under which the true core beliefs of every religion are shrouded under, the enlightened mind invariably finds a commonality in the perceptions or aims of every religion, which is to promote humanity, knowledge, caring, compassion and respect for one another and other values. Stripped of ritual, arcane knowledge and other archaic 'convictions', all religions seem to be a way for humans to know their own selves and to respect one another. In that sense, belonging to any one particular religion, in my opinion, is irrelevant and even unnecessary. In time, all religions will fuse into one universal religion which will be fact and truth based, as opposed to looking to someone like a 'priest' or a book for answers.

 

After all, no book or even science can ever answer the fundamental questions - why are we here? why do we exist at all? why does the world exist ? is there a god? if so, who created that god or was it self created, etc. etc. These are all questions that have no answers since they are human questions, part of our self awareness as a species and if anyone could answer them, they would have already been answered by now as these questions have remained as part of human consciousness for thousands of years.

Edited December 29, 2005 by Primus Pilus

[Valerius]

Whoaaa Cato - you certainly live up to your name!

 

As for evidence, I suggest you have a look at some of the more recent archaeological evidence from Britain. There is a great deal of evidence that the decline of Roman civilization was more gradual than was widely believed a few years ago. The period of transition lasted between 50 and 100 years depending on which site is considered. Wroxeter is a good example, while a recent Time Team programme looked at a Roman town that survived well into the Saxon period and was systematically dismantled by its own inhabitants.

 

As to whether there were any guards at the frontiers - that was a symptom not a cause. If you look at the Roman army at its height you'll see a well disciplined machine designed around the tactics of infantry close order drill. This compares to the army in the fourth, fifth and sixth centuries, in which the tactics of close order drill have been abandoned in favour of cavalry tactics and the shield wall - both dominated by defensive tactics. If two Roman legions could take on 250,000 Britons during the Boudicca revolt of 60 AD and win, the question you must ask is what has changed by the fifth century? The answer seems to lie in the wholesale adoption of fighting methods more usually associated with the barbarians. And the reason for this? Many barbarians were recruited into the service of Rome and fought as complete units, using their own fighting methods. Essentially the Roman army was colonized by barbarian units and, as recruits into the citizen army of Rome dried up, they gradually replaced them. By the time of Romulus Augustus, there were no legions fighting in the old manner. The older legionary methods called for a high level of discipline, something completely abscent amongst the barbarian units that replaced them.

 

Now, as for your objections concerning hoards of barbarians pouring across the borders and cutting a swath through the Empire. The evidence from Britain, and I might add from other parts of the Empire as well, is somewhat of an eye-opener. Rather than wholesale movements of people, it now seems that the barbarian incursions consisted of elite bands which were quite small in number. Many were attempting to carve out a piece of the Empire for themselves without necessarily trying to destroy it - gooses and golden eggs etc. The ordinary people tended to stay where they were, accepted the new barbarian elite and gradually absorbed them. Case in point - the Franks were a Germanic barbarian people who settled in Gaul. However, the French are not a Germanic speaking people but retained their former Latin based language. Nor is English quite as Germanic as many people would assume but is more of a fifty-fifty split. The same is true of Spain and Romania, both using a Latin based language. And I reiterate what I said before. The Western legal and political system is closely modelled on Roman standards and norms and even our military systems owe much to Roman ideas about close order drill.

 

St Augustine - what can we say about this? Did Christianity have any discernable role to play in the fall of Rome? A difficult one to answer, but I point to that evidence which suggests the Roman state changed very little under its influence. As a case in point, the last games were held at the Colosseum in 549 AD under a barbarian king. Christianity had not stamped out the games and they came to an end only when they proved too expensive to maintain and well after the Western Empire had already fallen.

 

If you look closely at Roman society then you see more similarities with ourselves than you do differences. And this despite 1500 years of development dominated, if we are to believe the thesis you propose, by people and cultures from outside the Empire. If what you say is true, then why don't we have politicl, legal and social systems dominated by the ideas of the Alans, Franks, Lombards, Huns and various other Germanic conquerers of the Western Empire. Is it all just a Victorian resurrection of Roman ideas? I think not - Romans we were and Romans we remain.

 

As a P.S.

 

There is no evidence, other than from the Church, that any meeting between the Pope and Atilla ever took place. It is far more likely that Atilla's army found it couldn't operate in Italy successfully because of the lack of grazing for its cavalry. You'll find that, throughout history, cavalry-based barbarians encountered extreme difficulties in maintianing their cohesion west of Hungary where the last of the Steppe grasses run out. It is no coincidence that the Mongols only got as a far as Hungary and were then forced to turn back.

[M. Porcius Cato]

Whoaaa Cato - you certainly live up to your name!

Thank you--I try.

 

As for evidence, I suggest you have a look at some of the more recent archaeological evidence from Britain. There is a great deal of evidence that the decline of Roman civilization was more gradual than was widely believed a few years ago. The period of transition lasted between 50 and 100 years depending on which site is considered.

 

I agree that the transition lasted about 50 to 100 years, but time itself isn't what makes something an abrupt versus a gradual change--it's the status of the society at time 1 minus the status at time 2 divided by the cumulative average state of the society. In the 500 years prior to the Germanic invasions, the rate of change was very gradual, as Britain moved from an iron age civilization to an age of advanced ceramics, agriculture, commerce, and technology that was nearly comparable to that enjoyed in northern Gaul. That cumulative growth was completely destroyed in 50 to 100 years. Yes, 50 to 100 years is not literally overnight; however, compared to the 500-year period over which those advances were acquired in the first place, the change was relatively cataclysmic.

 

As to whether there were any guards at the frontiers - that was a symptom not a cause.

Actually, it was both. It was partly a symptom of a political system (the principate) that was prone to civil war due to an absence of any supervening mechanism of accession (e.g., the 'constitution' that permitted peaceful transitions of consuls during the Republic). The civil wars were the proximate cause of the abandonment of the frontiers, which in turn were the efficient cause of the Germanic invasions.

 

If you look at the Roman army at its height you'll see a well disciplined machine designed around the tactics of infantry close order drill. This compares to the army in the fourth, fifth and sixth centuries, in which the tactics of close order drill have been abandoned in favour of cavalry tactics and the shield wall - both dominated by defensive tactics. If two Roman legions could take on 250,000 Britons during the Boudicca revolt of 60 AD and win, the question you must ask is what has changed by the fifth century? The answer seems to lie in the wholesale adoption of fighting methods more usually associated with the barbarians.

 

I'm open to this idea, but I'm not convinced. Two alternative hypotheses seem equally or more probable to me. The first hypothesis is that barbarian auxiliaries were formidable and well-trained troops who could be trained in short order to supplement Italian infantry with experience in close-order tactics. I know of no evidence to support the hypothesis, but I vaguely recall that Italian recruits made up only a small portion of the troops fighting under Aurelian, who managed to re-conquer almost the entire Roman world. This success strongly suggests that the use of non-Italians was not itself an impediment to victory, leading to my second hypothesis about what was the cause of Roman weakness. In a word, poverty. The might of Rome was directly proportional to the wealth of its taxpayers. Without coin, standing armies could not be supported, roads and ships could not be built to transport them, and defensive works could not protect their cities. Germans were nearly hopeless at constructing siege works and naval forces, but these Roman advantages required coin and resources, which had been frittered away on the idle mouths of the monastic orders and on Neville Chamberlain-style appeasement gestures to the barbarians.

 

Did Christianity have any discernable role to play in the fall of Rome? A difficult one to answer, but I point to that evidence which suggests the Roman state changed very little under its influence. As a case in point, the last games were held at the Colosseum in 549 AD under a barbarian king.

 

The Roman state slowly but largely became impoverished with the rise of the Church. Christian demands for useless buildings and idle mouths helped to bankrupt the empire and left it defenseless to the barbarians. The games went on, but as a shell of its former self.

 

If you look closely at Roman society then you see more similarities with ourselves than you do differences.

 

I have a much simpler explanation for this--there is a universal human nature with universal needs that constrain the varieties of human-produced goods and institutions. Consequently, the overlap between historical groups of humans will probably always overwhelm the differences insofar as the obstacles to producing these goods and institutions fall away. It's not that we're all Romans today (or all Greeks, as Shelley maintained), but that we're finally humans who have enough wealth to satisfy our natural desires. To really drive home the point, there is little to no historical continuity between people in modern-day China and the Romans, yet in their manner of living, the modern Chinese are more similar to the Romans than they are to the ancient Chinese.

[phil25]

I haven't yet read the intervening posts, but my answer to the title question would be, not much.

 

Christianity as passed to us by the catholic church is essential paganism dressed up in the guise of an eastern mystery religeon (I speak as a Christian by the way). God and Jesus (Father and son) are not much removed from Ahura Mazda and Mithras (who's bithday was 25 December). The old "gods" became saints - Apollo = Michael (or Lucifer or both). The Mother Goddess = Mary. Christian churches are not so much Jewish synagogues as Roman temples with an altar replacing the cult statue. I could go on. There is little of the faith taught by Jesus in all this.

 

Had Christianity not been to hand then the pagan priests would have co-opted some other religeon - Mithraism without its anti-feminine side perhaps.

 

Personally, I don't think we would recognise much difference, or that the world would be in any less of a crisis of religeon now.

 

All just my opinion of course.

 

Phil