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Historiography of the Christianization of the Roman Empire

The growth of Christianity from its obscure origin c. 40 AD, with fewer than 1,000 followers, to being the majority religion of the entire Roman Empire by AD 400, has been examined through a wide variety of historiographical approaches.

Until the last decades of the 20th century, the primary theory was provided by Edward Gibbon in The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 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, the first Christian emperor, and his successors in the fourth century AD.

Map of the Roman Empire with the distribution of Christian congregations of the first three centuries 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 published in AD 438.

In the last decade of the 20th century and into the 21st century, multiple new discoveries of texts and documents, along with new 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 (reign 527 to 565).[1][2][3][4] In the twenty-first century, the conflict model has become marginalized, while a grassroots theory has developed.[5][6]

Alternative theories involve psychology or evolution of cultural selection, with many 21st-century scholars asserting that sociological models such as network theory and diffusion of innovation provide the most insight into the societal change.[7][8] 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, egalitarianism, 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 edit

Of historiography edit

 
Edward Gibbon, author of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

The standard view of paganism (traditional city-based polytheistic Graeco-Roman religion) 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 (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.[9] 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.[10]

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.[11] 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".[12][13] It wasn't until 1936 that scholars such as Arnaldo Momigliano began to question Gibbon's view.[14]

In 1953, art historian Alois Riegl provided the first true departure, writing that there were no qualitative differences in art and no periods of decline throughout Late Antiquity.[15] In 1975, the concept of "history" was expanded to include sources outside ancient historical narrative and traditional literary works.[16] The evidentiary basis expanded to include legal practices, economics, the history of ideas, coins, gravestones, architecture, archaeology and more.[17][18] In the 1980s, syntheses began to pull together the results of this more detailed work.[19] In the closing quarter of the twentieth century, scholarship advanced significantly.[20]

Gibbon's historical sources were almost exclusively Christian literary documents.[21] These documents have a starkly supernatural quality, and many are hagiographical. 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".[22]

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".[23] Ramsay MacMullen 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".[24] Historian Rita Lizzi Testa adds "Transcending the limitations of the Enlightenment's interpretive categories" has meant restructuring understanding of the late Roman empire.[25] The result has been a radically altered picture.[17] According to the Oxford Handbook of Late Antiquity, scholars have largely abandoned Gibbon's views of decline, crisis and fall.[26]

Most contemporary scholars, such as philosophy professor Antonio Donato, consider current understanding to be more precise and accurate than ever before.[20] However, this "new view" has also been criticized, and the decline of paganism has been taken up again by some scholars.[27][28] Not all the classic themes have lost their value in current scholarship. In 2001, Wolf Liebeschuetz 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.[29]

Roman religion edit

 
The Capitoline Triad, second century sculpture. The Roman gods Minerva, Jupiter and Juno

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.[30][31]

Roman historians, such as the classicist J. A. North, have 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.[32] Roman religion's willingness to adopt foreign gods and practices into its pantheon meant that, as Rome expanded, it also gained local gods which offered different characteristics, experiences, insights, and stories.[33][34] 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.[35][33]

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.[36][37] 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.[38][39]

Context and other evidence edit

 
Temple of Augustus and Livia, Vienne (modern France). Originally dedicated to Augustus and Roma. Augustus was deified on his death in 14 AD: his widow Livia was deified in 42 AD by Claudius

After 1990, evidence expanded and altered the picture of late antique paganism.[40] For example, private cults of the emperor were previously greatly underestimated.[41] 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".[42] However, scholarship of the twenty-first century has shifted toward seeing it as a genuine religious phenomenon.[42]

Classical scholar Simon Price 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.[43] The emperor was "conceived in terms of honors ... as the representation of power" personifying the intermediary between the human and the divine.[44][42] According to Rives, "Most recent scholars have accepted Price's approach".[41]

Recent literary evidence reveals emperor worship at the domestic level with his image "among the household gods".[45] Innumerable small images of emperors have been found in a wide range of media that are being reevaluated as religiously significant.[45] 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".[45] 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".[45]

Spread of Christianity edit

Origin edit

Christianity emerged as a sect of Second Temple Judaism in Roman Judaea, part of the syncretistic Hellenistic world of the first century AD, which was dominated by Roman law and Greek culture.[46] It started with the ministry of Jesus, who proclaimed the coming of the Kingdom of God.[47] 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.[48][49]

When Christianity spread beyond Judaea, it first arrived in Jewish diaspora communities.[50] The early Gospel message spread orally, probably originally in Aramaic,[51] but almost immediately also in Greek.[52] Within the first century, the messages began to be recorded in writing and spread abroad.[53][54] The earliest writings are generally thought to be those of the Apostle Paul who spoke of Jesus as both divine and human.[55] The degree of each of these characteristics later became cause for controversy beginning with Gnosticism which denied Jesus' humanity and Arianism which downgraded his divinity.[56]

Christianity began to expand almost immediately from its initial Jewish base to Gentiles (non-Jews). Both Peter 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 including the requirement for circumcision.[57][58] 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, Acts 15:20–21).[59] As Christianity grew in the Gentile world, it underwent a gradual separation from Judaism.[60][61]

Christianization was never a one-way process.[62] Instead, there has always been a kind of parallelism as it absorbed indigenous elements just as indigenous religions absorbed aspects of Christianity.[63] Michelle Salzman has shown that in the process of converting the Roman Empire's aristocracy, Christianity absorbed the values of that aristocracy.[64] Several early Christian writers, including Justin (2nd century), Tertullian, and Origen (3rd century) wrote of Mithraists "copying" Christian beliefs.[65] 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.[66][67] 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 [drunken] excesses. Most likely all three".[68] Some scholars have suggested that characteristics of some pagan gods — or at least their roles — were transferred to Christian saints after the fourth century.[69] Demetrius of Thessaloniki 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.[69]

Reception and growth in Roman society edit

For the followers of traditional Roman religions, Christianity was seen as an odd entity, not quite Roman, but not quite barbarian either.[70] Christians criticized fundamental beliefs of Roman society, and refused to participate in rituals, festivals and the imperial cult.[70][71][72] They were a target for suspicion and rumor, including rumors that they were politically subversive and practiced black magic, incest and cannibalism.[73][74] Conversions tore families apart: Justin Martyr tells of a pagan husband who denounced his Christian wife, and Tertullian tells of children disinherited for becoming Christians.[75] 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.[76] Suetonius and Tacitus both record emperor Nero 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.[77]

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.[78] These churches were a segmented series of small groups.[79] 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.[80] The earliest dated church building to survive comes from around this time.[81]

In his mathematical modelling, Rodney Stark estimates that Christians made up around 1.9% of the Roman population in 250.[82] That year, Decius made it a capital offence to refuse to make sacrifices to Roman Gods, although it did not outlaw Christian worship and may not have targeted Christians specifically.[83] 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". 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.[82] The last and most severe official persecution, the Diocletianic Persecution, took place in 303–311.[72]

Under Constantine and his Christian successors edit

 
Jugate gold multiple issued by Constantine at Ticinum in 313, showing the emperor and the god Sol, with Sol also depicted in his quadriga (chariot) on Constantine's shield.[84]

Constantine, 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 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.[85] He also sponsored the First Council of Nicea to codify aspects of Christian doctrine.[86]

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) from its rate of growth in the first three centuries. 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".[87] By the middle of the century, it is likely that Christians comprised just over half of the empire's population.[82]

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".[2] Critical mass 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.[88] There was a significant rise in the absolute number of Christians in the rest of the third century.[89][90] Classics professor Seth Schwartz states the number of Christians in existence by the end of the third century indicates Christianity's successful establishment predated Constantine.[91]

Under Constantine and his sons, certain pagan rites, including animal sacrifice and divination, began being deprived of their previous position in Roman civilization.[92][93] 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.[94] Constantine's policies were largely continued by his sons though not universally or continuously.[95]

Peter Brown has written that, "it would be profoundly misleading" to claim that the cultural and social changes that took place in Late Antiquity reflected "in any way" a process of Christianization.[96] Instead, the "flowering of a vigorous public culture that polytheists, Jews and Christians alike could share... [that] could be described as Christian "only in the narrowest sense" developed. It is true that blood sacrifice played no part in that culture, but the sheer success and unusual stability of the Constantinian and post-Constantinian state also ensured that "the edges of potential conflict were blurred... It would be wrong to look for further signs of Christianization at this time. It is impossible to speak of a Christian empire as existing before Justinian". [97]

Theodosius I edit

In the centuries following his death, Theodosius I (347 – 395) gained a reputation as the emperor who targeted and eliminated paganism in order to establish Nicene 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, Constantius, and Valens had all been semi-Arians; therefore, Christian literary tradition gave the orthodox Theodosius most of the credit for the final triumph of Christianity.[98][99][100][note 1]

In keeping with this view of Theodosius, some previous scholars interpreted the Edict of Thessalonica (380) as establishing Christianity as the state religion.[108] German ancient historian Karl Leo Noethlichs [de] 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.[109] The Edict was addressed to the people of the city of Constantinople, it opposed Arianism, attempted to establish unity in Christianity and suppress heresy.[110][note 2] 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."[113]

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 several laws against all forms of heresy.[100][114] 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 seen by some as a marked change in Theodosius' policy putting an end to both tolerance and paganism.[115] 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.[116]

 
Theodosius I's empire

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.[117][118] 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.[119][120] The lares is the god who takes care of the home, write archaeologists Konstantinos Bilias and Francesca Grigolo.[121] The genius was fixed on a person, usually the head of the household.[122] The penates were the divinities who provided and guarded the food and possessions of the household.[119] 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".[123][124][125] Sozomen, 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.[126]

Historical and literary sources, excepting the laws themselves, do not support the view that Theodosius created an environment of intolerance and persecution of pagans.[127][128] During the reign of Theodosius, pagans were continuously appointed to prominent positions, and pagan aristocrats remained in high offices.[113] 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.[129] Theodosius also nominated the last pair of pagan consuls in Roman history (Tatianus and Symmachus) in 391.[130] Theodosius allowed pagan practices – that did not involve sacrifice – to be performed publicly and temples to remain open.[92][131][132]

He also voiced his support for the preservation of temple buildings, but failed to prevent damaging several holy sites in the eastern provinces which most scholars believe was sponsored by Cynegius, Theodosius' praetorian prefect.[132][133][134] 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.[135][100][136] 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.[137][138]

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.[139] In his 2020 biography of Theodosius, Mark Hebblewhite concludes that Theodosius never saw himself, or advertised himself, as a destroyer of the old cults.[114][140]

Theodosius II and Pope Leo I edit

By the early fifth century, the senatorial aristocracy had almost universally converted to Christianity.[141] 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.[142] This survival of secular tradition was aided by the Imperial government, but also by Pope Leo I. 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".[143]

The Western Roman Empire declined during the 5th century, while the eastern Roman Empire during the reign of emperor Theodosius II (408–50) was functioning well. Theodosius II enjoyed a strong position at the centre of the imperial system.[144] Decline in the west led both eastern and western authorities to assert their right to power and authority over the western empire.[145] Theodosius II claim was based on Roman law and military power.[146] Leo responded, using the concept of inherited 'Petrine' authority.[147] 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.[148] 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).[148][149]

 
Western and Eastern Roman Empires 476 AD

Pope Leo was not successful.[148][149] 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.[150] The Christian Eastern Emperors, on the other hand, believed the regulation of religious affairs to be one of their prerogatives.[151] The western emperor Valentinian III (425–55) was, in essence, appointed by Theodosius, and there is some evidence for Valentinian willingly acquiescing to the east's policies.[152] Without the support of the western emperor Leo accepted Theodosius' authority over the West, thereby beginning the trend toward state control of the church.[148][149]

Sixth to eighth centuries edit

 
Byzantine Empire under Justinian's uncle Justin I shown in the darker color (orange). The lighter color (gold) shows the conquests of his successor, Justinian I with the Byzantine empire (about 550) at its greatest extent

In 535, Justinian I attempted to assert control of Italy, resulting in the Gothic War which lasted 20 years.[153] 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.[154] Bishops stepped into roles of civic leadership in the former senator's places.[153] The position and influence of the pope rose.[155]

Justinian took an active concern in ecclesiastical affairs and this accelerated the trend towards the control of the Church by the State.[151][156] 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.[157][158] Under emperor Justinian, "the full force of imperial legislation against deviants of all kinds, particularly religious" ones, was applied in practice, writes Judith Herrin, historian of late antiquity.[159] Pierre Chuvin describes the severe legislation of the early Byzantine Empire, as causing the freedom of conscience that had been the major benchmark set by the Edict of Milan to be fully abolished.[160]

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.[161] 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.[161] 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.[162]

The union of church and state buoyed the power and influence of both, but the Byzantine papacy, along with losses to Islam, and corresponding changes within Christianity itself, put an end to Ancient Christianity.[163][164][165] Most scholars agree the 7th and 8th centuries are when the 'end of the ancient world' is most conclusive and well documented.[166][167] Christianity transformed into its medieval forms as exemplified by the creation of the Papal state, and the alliance between the papacy and the militant Frankish king Charlemagne.[168][165]

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.[169] 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".[170] 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.[171]

Mathematical modelling edit

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.[172] Reliability of each varies based on the quality of the data.[172] Romans were "inveterate census takers," but few of their records remain.[173] 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".[173]

Sociologists Rodney Stark and Keith Hopkins 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.[174][1] Ancient historian Adam Schor writes that "Stark applied formal models to early Christian material... [describing] early 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."[175] Stark states a 3.4% growth rate compounded annually while Keith Hopkins uses what he calls "parametric probability" to reach 3.35%.[174][1]

Art historian Robert Couzin, who specializes in Early Christianity, has studied numbers of Christian sarcophagi 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".[176]

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.[177][178] 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.[179][177]

Though the reliability of population numbers remains open to question,[173] 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".[180]

Possible reasons for a top-down spread edit

Traditional conflict models edit

According to Bagnall, the story of the rise of Christianity has traditionally been told in terms of contest and conflict ending Roman paganism in the late fourth and early fifth centuries.[181][182] Recent scholarship has produced large amounts of data, with modern computer technology providing the ability to analyze it, leading to the view that paganism did not end in the late fourth century.[183][184][185] There are many signs that a healthy paganism continued into the fifth century, and in some places, into the sixth and beyond.[186][187] Archaeology indicates that in most regions the decline of paganism was slow, gradual and untraumatic.[188][189]

Violence and temple destruction edit

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 in 391, its supposed connection to the murder of Hypatia, and the application of the Theodosian law code.[190][191] Written historical sources are filled with episodes of conflict, yet events in late antiquity were often dramatized by both pagans and Christians for their own ideological reasons.[192] 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.[193] 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.[194]

 
Temple of Hathor, Dark interior, Dendera, Egypt. Original construction is estimated at the 1st century BC with subsequent additions in Roman times. The temple is one of the well preserved temples in Egypt.

New archaeological research has revealed that the Serapeum was the only temple destroyed in this period in Egypt.[195] Classicist Alan Cameron writes that the Roman temples in Egypt "are among the best preserved in the ancient world".[196] Temple destruction is attested to in 43 cases in the written sources, but only four have been confirmed by archaeological evidence.[197] [note 3] Recent scholarship has become that Hypatia's murder was largely political and probably occurred in 415 not 391.[203][190] There is no evidence that the harsh penalties of the anti-sacrifice laws were ever enforced.[204]

Some of the most influential textual sources on pagan-Christian violence concerns Martin, Bishop of Tours (c. 371–397), the Pannonian ex-soldier who is, as Salzman describes, "solely credited in the historical record as the militant converter of Gaul".[205] 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.[206] 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.[207]

In a comparative study of levels of violence in Roman society, German ancient historian Martin Zimmermann [de], concludes there was no increase in the level of violence in the Empire in Late Antiquity.[208][209] Acts of violence had always been an aspect of Roman society, but they were isolated and rare.[210][211][212] Archaeologist David Riggs writes that evidence from North Africa reveals a tolerance of religious pluralism 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, appears to have played a more critical role in the eventual "triumph of Christianity" than was previously assumed".[213][214]

The Oxford Handbook of Late Antiquity says that "Torture and murder were not the inevitable result of the rise of Christianity."[215] 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."[216] 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.[217] 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'."[218]

As a result, the conflict model has become marginalized in the twenty first century.[5] 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".[219] Archaeologists Luke Lavan and Michael Mulryan of the Centre for Late Antique Archaeology indicate that archaeology does not show evidence of widespread conflict.[220] 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.[221][222]

Socio-economic factors edit

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.[223] Judaism was also important to the spread of Christianity; evidence clearly shows the Diaspora communities were where Christians gave many of their earliest sermons.[224]

The fourth century developed new forms of status and wealth that included moving away from the old silver standard.[225] 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.[226] The imperial bureaucracy soon began demanding that taxes also be paid in gold.[227] This created multiple problems.[228]

"The fourth century scramble for gold ensured that the rural population was driven" hard says Brown.[229] Eighty percent of the population provided the labor to harvest 60% of the empire's wealth, most of which was garnered by the wealthy.[230] This contributed to unrest.[231] 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.[232] 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.[233] In response to all of this, bishops became intercessors in society, lobbying the powerful to practice Christian benevolence.[234] After 370/380, wealth and cultural prestige began moving toward the Catholics.[235]

Influence of legislation edit

In 429, Emperor Theodosius II (r. 402 – 450) ordered that all of the laws, from the reign of Constantine up to himself and Valentinian III, be found and codified.[236] 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.[237][238] The code covers political, socioeconomic, and cultural subjects with religious laws in Book 16.[239]

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.[240][241] Laws that favored Christianity increased the church's status which was all important for the elites.[242][243] Constantine had tremendous personal popularity and support, even amongst the pagan aristocrats, prompting some individuals to become informed about their emperor's religion.[244] This passed along through aristocratic kinship and friendship networks and patronage ties.[245] 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.[246][247]

 
Sacrifice in honour of the goddess Diana, first century wall-painting. House of the Vettii in Pompeii

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,[248][249][250] most scholars agree that Constantine issued the first law banning paganism's public practice of animal sacrifice.[251][252] Blood sacrifice of animals (or people) was the element of pagan culture most abhorrent to Christians, though Christian emperors often tolerated other pagan practices.[253] 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.[254]

However, the Code does not have the ability to tell how, or if, these policies were actually carried out.[255][256] 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.[257][258] 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 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.[4] Humfress writes that Roman imperial law, though not irrelevant, was not a determining factor in Roman society before the sixth century.[4]

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.[124][125] 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".[259]

Paganism in a broader sense did not end when public sacrifice did.[260] 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.[261] The end of sacrifice led to the birth of new pagan practices such as adding Neoplatonic theurgy to philosophical practices like stoicism.[262] Pagan religions also directly transformed themselves over the next two centuries by adopting some Christian practices and ideas.[263] Paganism thereby continued up through the sixth century with still existing centers of paganism in Athens, Gaza, Alexandria, and elsewhere.[260]

Possible reasons for a grassroots spread edit

 
Progress of growth: lines show which congregations developed other congregations, when, and where

This approach sees the cultural and religious change of the early Roman Empire as the cumulative result of multiple individual behaviors.[264] 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.[6]

Peter Brown writes that the emergence of ethical monotheism in a polytheistic world was the single most crucial change made in a Late Antique culture experiencing many changes.[265] 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".[266][267][268]

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.[269]

Runciman writes that recent research has shown it was the formal unconditional altruism of early Christianity that accounted for much of its early success.[270] 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 of Rome.[7][8]

New ideas edit

Inclusivity and exclusivity edit

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.[271] Many scholars see this inclusivity as the primary reason for Christianity's success.[272]

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".[219] Christianity embraced all, including "sinners"; the term for sinner (Ancient Greek: αμαρτωλοί), meaning the immoral, is a Greek term for those 'on the outside'. Its use was undermined by Jesus. 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 is an outsider who can become an insider.[273]

A key characteristic of these inclusive communities was their unique type of exclusivity which used belief to construct identity and social boundaries.[274] 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".[275] 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.[276] 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).[277] 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.[278] He adds that this gave Christianity the powerful psychological attraction of elitism.[279]

Kerygma (central message) edit

 
The Christian Graces, Faith, Hope & Charity. 19th century trade card

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.[280] 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" [God] has 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",[281] and it redefines the nature and practice of power and authority as service to others.[280] Meeks concludes "this must have had a very powerful, emotional appeal to people".[281]

This included a "conscious dismantling of [Roman] concepts of hierarchy and power".[282][283] From the beginning, the Pauline communities cut across the social ranks. Paul's understanding of the innate paradox of an all powerful Christ dying as a powerless man created a new social order unprecedented in classical society.[284] New Testament scholar N. T. Wright argues that these ideas were revolutionary to the classical world.[285]

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.[286] Afterlife punishments can be found in other religions preceding Christianity. One scholar has concluded "Hell is a Greek invention".[287] 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.[287] While it may or may not have been a major cause of conversion, writings from the Christians Justin and Tatian, the pagan Celsus, 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.[279]

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.[288] 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.[289] Praet writes that anti-Christian polemics of the era never questioned that: "[Jesus'] 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".[289] Many modern scholars have seen this historical base as one of the major reasons for Christianity's success.[289]

Social practices edit

Women edit

 
Christian charity, 19th century work by Bertel Thorvaldsen

It has, for many years, been one of the axioms of scholars of early Christianity that significant numbers of women composed its earliest members.[290] Theologian and historian Judith Lieu writes that the presence of large numbers of female converts within Christianity is not statistically documented.[291] 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.[292] Lieu also notes that, "No Christian source explicitly celebrates the number of women joining their ranks".[293]

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".[294] Feminist theologian Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza wrote in her seminal work In Memory of Her: a Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins that many of Jesus' followers were women.[295] The Pauline epistles in the New Testament provide some of the earliest documentary sources of women as true missionary partners in expanding the Jesus movement.[296][297]

In the church rolls from the second century, there is conclusive evidence of groups of women "exercising the office of widow".[298][299] 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".[300] 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".[298][301]

Professor of religious studies at Brown University, Ross Kraemer, argues that Christianity offered women of this period a new sense of worth.[302] Lieu affirms that women of note were attracted to Christianity as evidenced in the Acts of the Apostles, 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).[303] 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".[304] As classics scholar Moses Finley writes, "there is no mistaking the fact that Homer fully reveals what remained true for the whole of antiquity: that women were held to be naturally inferior."[305]

There is some evidence of disruption of traditional women's roles in some of the mystery cults, such as Cybele, 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.[306] There is no evidence of any effort in Second Temple Judaism to harmonize the roles or standing of women with that of men.[307] 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.[308] 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.[308]

Having their female (and imperfect male) babies taken from them and exposed, was an accepted fact of Roman life for most women.[309] In 1968, J. Lindsay reported that even in large families "more than one daughter was practically never reared."[310][311] There was also a high mortality rate among women due to childbirth and abortion.[312] Elizabeth Castelli 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".[313][314]

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'."[315] 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.[316] 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.[317] 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.[318] 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.[319][320]

Sexual morality edit

Both the ancient Greeks and the Romans cared and wrote about sexual morality within categories of good and bad, pure and defiled, and ideal and transgression.[321] 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.[322] 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.[322]

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."[323] Men, on the other hand, were allowed sexual freedoms such as live-in mistresses and sex with slaves.[324] 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.[325]

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".[326] Paul the Apostle and his followers taught that "the body was a consecrated space, a point of mediation between the individual and the divine".[327] This meant the ethical obligation for sexual self-control 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".[328] In the Pauline epistles, porneia was a single name for the array of sexual behaviors outside marital intercourse. This became a defining concept of sexual morality.[327] Such a shift in definition utterly transformed "the deep logic of sexual morality".[329]

Care for the poor edit

 
Charity, 19th century sculpture by Christian Daniel Rauch

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".[330] Christians showed the poor great generosity, and "there is no disputing that Christian charity was an ideology put into practice".[331][note 4] 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.[333][334][335] Salzman writes that the Roman practice of civic euergetism ("philanthropy 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".[336][note 5]

Health care edit

Two devastating epidemics, the Antonine Plague in 154 and the Plague of Cyprian in 251, killed a large number of the empire's population, though there is some debate over how many.[342] Graeco-Roman doctors tended largely to the elite, while the poor mostly had recourse to "miracles and magic" at religious temples.[343] Christians, on the other hand, tended to the sick and dying, as well as the aged, orphaned, exiled and widowed.[344][345] Many of these caretakers were monks and nuns. Christian monasticism 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".[346][347]

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.[348] According to Albert Jonsen, a historian of medicine, "the second great sweep of medical history [began] at the end of the fourth century, with the founding of the first Christian hospital for the poor at Caesarea in Cappadocia."[349][350][note 6] By the fifth century, the founding of hospitals for the poor had become common for bishops, abbots and abbesses.[353] 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".[354]

Community edit

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".[355][356] Praet has written that, "in his very influential booklet Pagans and Christians in an Age of Anxiety, E. R. Dodds acknowledged ... 'Christians were in a more than formal sense 'members one of another': [Dodds thinks] that was a major cause, perhaps the strongest single cause, of the spread of Christianity".[356]

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 and the eucharist.[357] As far back as it can be traced, evidence indicates the rite of initiation into Christianity was always baptism.[358] In Christianity's earliest communities, candidates for baptism were introduced by a teacher or other person willing to stand surety for their character and conduct. Baptism created a set of responsibilities within each Christian community, which some authors described in quite specific terms.[359] 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's commands before being accepted into the community as a full member.[360]

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 of Nazareth.[358] According to Dodds, "A Christian congregation was from the first a community in a much fuller sense than any corresponding group of Isis followers or Mithras devotees. Its members were bound together not only by common rites but by a common way of life".[361]

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.[362] 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".[363] 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".[364] 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.[364]

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.[365][366] 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".[365] Sociologist E. A. Judge writes of the fourth century diary of Egeria which documents her travels throughout the Middle East, seeing the old sites of the Biblical period[broken anchor], the monks, and even climbing Mount Sinai: "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.[365]

Martyrdom edit

 
Faithful Unto Death by Herbert Schmalz, 19th century

The Roman government practiced systematic persecution of Christian leaders and their property in 250–51 under Decius, in 257–60 under Valerian, and expanded it after 303 under Diocletian. While it is understood by scholars that persecution did cause some apostasy 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."[367] 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.[368] 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".[369]

The result of this was summed up in the second century by Justin Martyr: "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 [of 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".[370] 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".[371]

Miracles edit

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.[372] These events provide some of the best documented ancient conversions.[373] 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".[372]

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.[374]

Alternative approaches edit

Network theory edit

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".[375] 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.[376] Collar says that archaeological remains demonstrate that networks are formed wherever there are connections.[377] 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.[378] Diffusion is the primary method by which societies change; (it is distinct from colonialization which forces elements of a foreign culture into a society).[379]

To understand patterns of development, social network theory treats society as a web of overlapping relationships and ties early Christian growth to its preexisting relationships.[379] 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".[379] Historian Paula Fredriksen says that it is "because of Diaspora Judaism, which is extremely well established [in the empirical age], that Christianity itself, as a new and constantly improvising form of Judaism, is able to spread as it does through the Roman world".[380]

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.[79]

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.[381] Schor adds that "Persecutions (like Valerian's) might have thinned the Christian leadership without damaging the network's long-term growth capacity."[79] Keith Hopkins attests that rapid growth in absolute numbers occurred only in the third and fourth centuries.[382]

Psychology edit

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.[383][384] These anxious individuals were seen as the ones who sought refuge in religious communities which offered socialization.[385] 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.[386][387] Psychologist Pascal Boyer 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.[388]

Evolution edit

This is grounded in a Neo-Darwinian theory of cultural selection.[389] 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.[390] 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.[391] 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".[390] 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".[390] According to Runciman, a distinctly Christian phenotype of strong reciprocity and unconditional benevolence produced the growth of Christianity.[389]

Diffusion of innovation edit

 
Diffusion of innovative ideas

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.[378][392] 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.[393]

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 – on a large scale.[394] Collar argues that even though "the philosophical argument for one god was well known amongst the intellectual elite, ... monotheism can be called a religious innovation within the milieu of Imperial polytheism."[395]

Having quickly begun moving outward from Jerusalem, all the largest cities in the empire had Christian congregations by the end of the first century.[396] 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'.[397] This 'tipping' takes place between 10 percent adoption and 20 percent adoption.[398] Christianity achieved this tipping point between 150 and 250 when it moved from less than 50,000 adherents to over a million.[88] This provided enough adopters for it to be self-sustaining and create further growth.[88][90][399]

Effects edit

Judicial penalties and clemency edit

 
"Roman Hall of Justice", Young Folks' History of Rome, 1878

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";[400] or that it made a negative difference,[401] saying that under the Christian emperors, judicial cruelty rose.[402] MacMullen attributes this to Christian zeal and a belief in purgatory.[403] 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.[404] On the other hand, it is possible to identify a mounting severity in imperial criminal law.[405] Classicist Peter Garnsey says this change takes place throughout the entire imperial period beginning under Augustus in the first century. Garnsey writes that increasing severity was the result of the political shift from a Republic to an autocratic empire.[406]

Historian Jill Harries describes Roman justice as always harsh.[407] It was a common belief of those in the Roman Empire that severity was a deterrent.[408] As an example of this, Harries writes of the SC Silanianum, a particularly harsh law passed in 10 AD.[409] The SC Silanianum was originally aimed at slaves who murdered their masters, but its reach and its harshness grew as time passed.[note 7]

On the one hand, increasingly harsh penalties for an ever enlarging number of capital crimes were published by emperors. On the other hand, emperors also wanted to be seen as generous in offering mercy and clemency.[412] Beginning in the first century under Augustus, the established Roman understanding of clemency (clementia) began a transformation that was completed in the fourth century.[413] 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.[414] The use of clementia to indicate forgiveness of wrongs and a mild merciful temper becomes common for writers of the Later Roman Empire.[415]

Christianity did not grow outside Roman culture, it grew within it, ameliorating some of Rome's harsh justice and also adopting some of it.[416][417] Augustine of Hippo advocated the harsh discipline of heretics that allowed some of the milder forms of physical torture.[418] Augustine also urged the heretical Donatist bishop Donatus to practice Christian mildness when dealing with enemies.[419] 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, bishop of Milan, advised his correspondent Studius, a Christian judge, to show clemency, citing as a model Jesus' treatment of the adulteress.[420] Garnsey has written that "Augustine, Ambrose, and other church leaders of progressive views clearly had a beneficent influence on the administration of the law, [but] it is evident that they did not attempt to promote a movement of penal reform, and did not conceive of such a movement".[416] As Peter Brown has summarized: "When it came to the central functions of the Roman state, even the vivid Ambrose was a lightweight".[421]

MacMullen cites Christian emperors as ceasing to use crucifixion and death by wild beasts as death penalties.[402] 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.[420] 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.[422] 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".[422]

Slavery edit

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.[423][424] 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.[425] 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.[426]

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 necessary for comparison have not been established.[427] However, there are ways in which it is likely Christianity did impact slavery.[428][429]

The first can be seen in Paul's Epistle to Philemon, 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.[428][429] Wessels writes: "Onesimus, 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'."[430] 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".[430] If the information in Colossians 4:7–9 is historical, the slave Onesimus was, accordingly, freed.[431] Harper connects Paul's teaching to a "broad religious impulse toward manumission [that] runs as a submerged current through the eastern provinces".[432]

Christianity adopted slavery as a metaphor claiming that all humans are slaves to sin.[433][434] Christian rhetoric, beginning with Paul, is filled with that perspective. John Chrysostom's surviving corpus alone mentions slavery over 5,000 times.[435] Chrysostom wrote baptismal instructions telling the officiating priest to stop at various points to remind the catechumens of how the act of baptism frees them from slavery. In legal 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".[436]

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".[437] These teachings, along with the proliferation of chastity among slaves who became Christian,[438] and the spread of ascetism through Roman society, may have lessened their sexual use and their reproductive value and impacted slavery.[428]

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.[439][440][note 8]

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, we know, had no slave, nor Abel, nor Seth, nor those who came after them. The institution was the fruit of sin".[446] MacMullen has written that slavery was "rebuked by Ambrose, Zeno of Verona, Gaudentius of Brescia, and Maximus of Turin", among others.[447] Evidence indicates this oft repeated discourse on slavery shaped late ancient feelings, tastes, and opinions concerning it, and this may have impacted its practice.[428]

Persecution of heretics edit

 
Saint Augustine Disputing with the Heretics by Vergós Group, part of the 15th century Saint Augustine Altarpiece painting

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.[448] 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.[418]

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.[449] 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.[450][451]

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.[452][453]

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.[454][455] He opposed all the extreme forms of torture and maiming and capital punishment common to the empire of the time.[456] Russell and Brown see Augustine's approach as aimed at reformation of the wrong-doer rather than punitive punishment for the wrong-doing.[457][458]

Russell has written that Augustine's response on coercion was context dependent.[459] 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.[460][461][462]

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.[463] 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".[463][464] The Donatists survived until the Muslim conquest of the Maghreb in the closing years of the seventh century.[465]

Corruption edit

Despite corruption having a long history in Roman society, Ramsay MacMullen "attributes to the fourth century ...the spread of an ethos of venality (greed 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.[448][466] MacMullen's thesis has produced considerable scholarly criticism that has been dubbed the "corruption debate".[467]

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.[228] 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 long after Constantine's death in 337 as Salzman has documented.[468][469]

Modern studies have employed many of the same sources as MacMullen, but have arrived at virtually opposite conclusions.[470] 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 [had] a beneficial impact on a range of important goals: 'nation-building', economic development, administrative capacity, and democratization."[471] 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.[472]

Gladiator games edit

 
Detail of the second century gladiator mosaic floor, at Römerhalle [de], Bad Kreuznach, Germany

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.[473] Gladiators were often prisoners of war, slaves or criminals, were generally poor, non-citizens, and social outcasts with limited choices.[474] Yet in the same era of increasing judicial harshness the courts stopped sentencing criminals to the arena.[475] There is no source of information explaining why.[476]

MacMullen has written that, "the role of Christianity in the abandoning of most western gladiatorial combat was nil."[405] However, as historian Fik Meijer 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.[477] It is likely the games ended from this lack of public support before 440.[478]

Intolerance edit

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.[479] 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'.[480] 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.[480]

Drake writes that the intolerance argument is incomplete. It can't explain why "tolerant" pagans persecuted "intolerant" Christians.[481] It doesn't explain why Christians worried about the validity of coerced faith and resisted such aggressive actions for centuries.[481] 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.[482]

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.[483] This is defined as any threat to core community values with particular regard to behaviors that appear to threaten the security of that community.[484] 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.[485]

Difference in sexual morality edit

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".[486] 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".[487] 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."[328]

Sanctity of life edit

Historians Marc Stauch and Kay Wheat write that "in Greek and Roman times not all human life was regarded as worthy of protection. Slaves and 'barbarians' did not have a full right to life and human sacrifices and gladiatorial combat were acceptable... [F]or Plato, infanticide is one of the regular institutions of the ideal State; ... And whilst there were deviations from these views... such practices...were less proscribed in ancient times. Most historians of western morals agree that the rise of ...Christianity contributed greatly to the general feeling that human life is valuable and worthy of respect".[488]

W.E.H.Lecky gives the now classical account in his history of European morals saying Christianity "formed a new standard" of belief in the sanctity of human life.[489] Legal and ethical scholar John Keown distinguishes this 'sanctity of life' doctrine from "a quality of life approach, which recognizes only instrumental value in human life, and a vitalistic approach, which regards life as an absolute moral value... [Keown says it is the] sanctity of life approach ... which embeds a presumption in favor of preserving life, but concedes that there are circumstances in which life should not be preserved at all costs". This continues to provide a conceptual foundation for modern laws concerning end of life issues.[490]

Education edit

By the second century, the merging of Christianity and the Greek intellectual tradition concerning education formed the belief that Christianity was the new paideia of mankind.[491]: 62, 66  Classicist Werner Jaeger has written a now classic book saying that early Christianity and its essential agreement with Plato and philosophy was understood by the early church fathers as the greatest educational power in history.[491]: 65 

During the period of European history often called the Dark Ages which followed the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in 476 AD, many monks sought refuge at the far fringes of the known world going to places like Cornwall, Ireland, or the Hebrides. These monks were literate, as Christian monks were taught to be, since reading for a period every day was a fixed requirement in the Rules of most monastic Orders. Monasteries routinely included schools.[492]: 36  These monks became some of the last Western European preservers of the poetic and philosophical works of classical Western antiquity.[493] By around 800 AD they were producing illuminated manuscripts, such as the Book of Kells, by which classical learning was re-communicated to Western Europe.[494] As Western Europe became more orderly again, the Church remained a driving force in education, setting up Cathedral schools beginning in the Early Middle Ages as centers of education, which became medieval universities, the springboard of many of Western Europe's later achievements.

Sociological effects edit

The historian Geoffrey Blainey compares the Catholic Church in its first 1200 years to an early version of a welfare state: "It conducted hospitals for the old and orphanages for the young; hospices for the sick of all ages; places for the lepers; and hostels or inns where pilgrims could buy a cheap bed and meal". It supplied food to the population during famine and distributed food to the poor. The church ran schools. This was funded through the church's collection of taxes on a large scale, by the church's ownership of large farmlands and estates from the 800s, and by donations.[495] Christian charity and the practice of feeding and clothing the poor, visiting prisoners, supporting widows and orphan children has had sweeping impact, and charity has become a common and mostly universal practice.[496][497]

The formation of monasteries as organized bodies of believers distinct from the established forms of political and familial authority gradually carved out a series of social spaces with some amount of independence. This revolutionized social history, especially for women, who were then able to establish some power and influence in their own right.[498]

Law edit

The canon law of the Catholic Church (Latin: jus canonicum)[499] is the system of laws and legal principles made and enforced by the hierarchical authorities of the Church to regulate its external organization and government and to order and direct the activities of Catholics toward the mission of the Church.[500] It was the first modern Western legal system[501] and is the oldest continuously functioning legal system in the West,[502] predating the European common law and civil law traditions.

See also edit

Notes edit

  1. ^ Nearly all the sources available on Theodosius are ecclesiastical histories that are highly colored and carefully curated for public reading.[101] Beginning with contemporaries like the bishop Ambrose, and followed in the next century by church historians such as Theodoret, these histories focus on Theodosius' impact on the church as uniformly positive, orthodox and anti-pagan, frequently going beyond admiration into panegyric and hagiography.[102]
    The withdrawal of state funding to pagan cults, which belongs to Gratian, the ending of the Vestal virgins, which continued to 415, and the demolition of temples (for which there is no primary evidence) have been wrongly attributed to Theodosius.[103][104]
    Theodosius was also associated with ending the ancient Olympic Games.[105][106] Sofie Remijsen says there are several reasons to conclude the Olympic games continued after Theodosius I. Among them are two extant scholia on Lucian that connect the end of the games with a fire that burned down the temple of the Olympian Zeus during Theodosius the second's reign.[107]
  2. ^ The Edict applied only to Christians since only Christians could be heretics. Within that group, it was addressed to Arians, since it is opposition to the Nicene religion of Pontiff Damasus and Peter, Bishop of Alexandria, which is specifically referenced.[111] It declared those Christians who refused the Nicene faith to be infames, and prohibited them from using Christian churches. Sáry uses this example: "After his arrival in Constantinople, Theodosius offered to confirm the Arian bishop Demophilus in his see, if he would accept the Nicene Creed. After Demophilus refused the offer, the emperor immediately directed him to surrender all his churches to the Catholics."[112]
  3. ^ Archaeologists Lavan and Mulryan write that earthquakes, civil conflict and external invasions caused much of the temple destruction of this era.[198][199] The Roman economy of the third and fourth centuries struggled, and traditional polytheism was expensive and dependent upon donations from the state and private elites.[200] Roger S. Bagnall reports that imperial financial support declined markedly after Augustus.[201] Lower budgets meant the physical decline of urban structures of all types. This progressive decay was accompanied by an increased trade in salvaged building materials, as the practice of recycling became common in Late Antiquity.[202]
  4. ^ Robin Lane Fox provides examples. In the 250's, it was Christian groups and not the pagan cities which undertook collections to ransom their members from barbarian captors. During the siege of Alexandria in 262 CE, two Christian leaders arranged to rescue many Christian and pagan people who were old and weak. During the great famine of 311–312 CE, rich pagan donors gave at first, but then withheld funds fearing they themselves would become poor. Christians, on the other hand, offered last rites to the dying, buried them, and distributed bread to all others suffering from hunger.[332]
  5. ^ Christian and non-Christian witnesses testify to the zealousness of Christian communities for almsgiving and charity.[337] "That the later church in Rome was actively involved in charity and renowned for its work with the needy is attested".[338] For Chrysostom, almsgiving was an act of "continued redemption" first offered by "the historical Jesus on the cross, and now in the present through the poor. To approach the poor with mercy was to receive mercy from Christ".[339] Hart writes that the emperor Julian, who was hostile to Christianity, is recorded as saying: "It is [the Christians'] philanthropy towards strangers, the care they take of the graves of the dead, and the affected sanctity with which they conduct their lives that have done most to spread their atheism."[340][341]
  6. ^ After the death of Eusebius in 370 and the election of Basil as bishop of Caesarea, the new bishop established the early church's first formal soup kitchen, hospital, homeless shelter, hospice, poorhouse, orphanage, reform center for thieves, women's center for those leaving prostitution and many other ministries. Basil was personally involved and invested in the projects and process, giving all of his personal wealth to fund the ministries. Basil himself would put on an apron and work in the soup kitchen. These ministries were given freely regardless of religious affiliation. Basil refused to make any discrimination when it came to people who needed help saying that "the digestive systems of the Jew and the Christian are indistinguishable."[351][352]
  7. ^ In the first and second centuries, the Roman Senate controlled the implementation of the SC Silanianum. Harries writes that: "The spectacle is not an edifying one. Little heed seems to have been paid to legal precision or to such residual human rights as slaves might still claim".[407]
    Originally written to punish slaves who murdered their master, Senators extended the law's application to include all additional slaves who might have prevented it.
    The law was then extended again to include all slaves "resident under the same roof" at the time of a master's murder. According to Harries, the result was that "slaves who did nothing, and the murderer, faced the same penalty"; accordingly, 400 slaves were executed in 61 CE.[410]
    The law's next expansion is the case of a probable suicide as recorded by Pliny the Younger (61 – c. 113). The Senate proceeded without knowing if a crime had been committed, and without waiting for the questioning to be completed, to address whether the dead man's freedmen were liable for 'failure to protect' along with his slaves. They determined that those 'under his roof', including all his freedmen, were liable for 'failure to protect' regardless of the circumstances of what had actually happened.
    Procedures designed to ensure that the proper processes of investigation, interrogation and conviction were carried out, in the right order, and punishment inflicted on the right people, seem to have been casually disregarded. Harries summarizes: "The absence of reflection or debate on the critical question concerning the rights of freed men is characteristic of court decisions that would later erode even the elite's immunities from judicial torture".[411]
  8. ^ Exposed children were a major source of slaves, and changing this did not begin with Constantine. Constantine did strive to assure others that exposure was wrong, and reform the laws concerning them, but his legislation on abandoned children did not deviate markedly from the classical position.[441][442] Christian influence is first evident in Roman law with the appearance of the word misericordia (compassion) under emperor Honorius and its advancement as a standard under Justinian I.[443][444] Justinian added that, since the collection of an exposed infant was an act of pious compassion, therefore, it cannot lead to the enslavement of the child. Tate concluded that the law went "beyond all classical precedent in permitting even slave children to become free through the act of exposure".[445]

References edit

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historiography, christianization, roman, empire, growth, christianity, from, obscure, origin, with, fewer, than, followers, being, majority, religion, entire, roman, empire, been, examined, through, wide, variety, historiographical, approaches, until, last, de. The growth of Christianity from its obscure origin c 40 AD with fewer than 1 000 followers to being the majority religion of the entire Roman Empire by AD 400 has been examined through a wide variety of historiographical approaches Until the last decades of the 20th century the primary theory was provided by Edward Gibbon in The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire 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 the first Christian emperor and his successors in the fourth century AD Map of the Roman Empire with the distribution of Christian congregations of the first three centuries 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 published in AD 438 In the last decade of the 20th century and into the 21st century multiple new discoveries of texts and documents along with new 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 reign 527 to 565 1 2 3 4 In the twenty first century the conflict model has become marginalized while a grassroots theory has developed 5 6 Alternative theories involve psychology or evolution of cultural selection with many 21st century scholars asserting that sociological models such as network theory and diffusion of innovation provide the most insight into the societal change 7 8 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 egalitarianism 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 Contents 1 History 1 1 Of historiography 1 2 Roman religion 1 2 1 Context and other evidence 1 3 Spread of Christianity 1 3 1 Origin 1 3 2 Reception and growth in Roman society 1 3 3 Under Constantine and his Christian successors 1 3 3 1 Theodosius I 1 3 3 2 Theodosius II and Pope Leo I 1 3 4 Sixth to eighth centuries 2 Mathematical modelling 3 Possible reasons for a top down spread 3 1 Traditional conflict models 3 2 Violence and temple destruction 3 3 Socio economic factors 3 4 Influence of legislation 4 Possible reasons for a grassroots spread 4 1 New ideas 4 1 1 Inclusivity and exclusivity 4 1 2 Kerygma central message 4 2 Social practices 4 2 1 Women 4 2 2 Sexual morality 4 2 3 Care for the poor 4 2 4 Health care 4 2 5 Community 4 2 6 Martyrdom 4 2 7 Miracles 5 Alternative approaches 5 1 Network theory 5 2 Psychology 5 3 Evolution 5 4 Diffusion of innovation 6 Effects 6 1 Judicial penalties and clemency 6 2 Slavery 6 3 Persecution of heretics 6 4 Corruption 6 5 Gladiator games 6 6 Intolerance 6 7 Difference in sexual morality 6 8 Sanctity of life 6 9 Education 6 10 Sociological effects 6 11 Law 7 See also 8 Notes 9 References 10 Bibliography 11 Further readingHistory editOf historiography edit See also Historiography of early Christianity nbsp Edward Gibbon author of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire The standard view of paganism traditional city based polytheistic Graeco Roman religion 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 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 9 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 10 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 11 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 12 13 It wasn t until 1936 that scholars such as Arnaldo Momigliano began to question Gibbon s view 14 In 1953 art historian Alois Riegl provided the first true departure writing that there were no qualitative differences in art and no periods of decline throughout Late Antiquity 15 In 1975 the concept of history was expanded to include sources outside ancient historical narrative and traditional literary works 16 The evidentiary basis expanded to include legal practices economics the history of ideas coins gravestones architecture archaeology and more 17 18 In the 1980s syntheses began to pull together the results of this more detailed work 19 In the closing quarter of the twentieth century scholarship advanced significantly 20 Gibbon s historical sources were almost exclusively Christian literary documents 21 These documents have a starkly supernatural quality and many are hagiographical 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 22 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 23 Ramsay MacMullen 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 24 Historian Rita Lizzi Testa adds Transcending the limitations of the Enlightenment s interpretive categories has meant restructuring understanding of the late Roman empire 25 The result has been a radically altered picture 17 According to the Oxford Handbook of Late Antiquity scholars have largely abandoned Gibbon s views of decline crisis and fall 26 Most contemporary scholars such as philosophy professor Antonio Donato consider current understanding to be more precise and accurate than ever before 20 However this new view has also been criticized and the decline of paganism has been taken up again by some scholars 27 28 Not all the classic themes have lost their value in current scholarship In 2001 Wolf Liebeschuetz 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 29 Roman religion edit nbsp The Capitoline Triad second century sculpture The Roman gods Minerva Jupiter and Juno Main article Religion in ancient Rome 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 30 31 Roman historians such as the classicist J A North have 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 32 Roman religion s willingness to adopt foreign gods and practices into its pantheon meant that as Rome expanded it also gained local gods which offered different characteristics experiences insights and stories 33 34 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 35 33 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 36 37 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 38 39 Context and other evidence edit nbsp Temple of Augustus and Livia Vienne modern France Originally dedicated to Augustus and Roma Augustus was deified on his death in 14 AD his widow Livia was deified in 42 AD by Claudius After 1990 evidence expanded and altered the picture of late antique paganism 40 For example private cults of the emperor were previously greatly underestimated 41 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 42 However scholarship of the twenty first century has shifted toward seeing it as a genuine religious phenomenon 42 Classical scholar Simon Price 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 43 The emperor was conceived in terms of honors as the representation of power personifying the intermediary between the human and the divine 44 42 According to Rives Most recent scholars have accepted Price s approach 41 Recent literary evidence reveals emperor worship at the domestic level with his image among the household gods 45 Innumerable small images of emperors have been found in a wide range of media that are being reevaluated as religiously significant 45 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 45 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 45 Spread of Christianity edit See also History of early Christianity Origin edit Christianity emerged as a sect of Second Temple Judaism in Roman Judaea part of the syncretistic Hellenistic world of the first century AD which was dominated by Roman law and Greek culture 46 It started with the ministry of Jesus who proclaimed the coming of the Kingdom of God 47 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 48 49 When Christianity spread beyond Judaea it first arrived in Jewish diaspora communities 50 The early Gospel message spread orally probably originally in Aramaic 51 but almost immediately also in Greek 52 Within the first century the messages began to be recorded in writing and spread abroad 53 54 The earliest writings are generally thought to be those of the Apostle Paul who spoke of Jesus as both divine and human 55 The degree of each of these characteristics later became cause for controversy beginning with Gnosticism which denied Jesus humanity and Arianism which downgraded his divinity 56 Christianity began to expand almost immediately from its initial Jewish base to Gentiles non Jews Both Peter 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 including the requirement for circumcision 57 58 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 Acts 15 20 21 59 As Christianity grew in the Gentile world it underwent a gradual separation from Judaism 60 61 Christianization was never a one way process 62 Instead there has always been a kind of parallelism as it absorbed indigenous elements just as indigenous religions absorbed aspects of Christianity 63 Michelle Salzman has shown that in the process of converting the Roman Empire s aristocracy Christianity absorbed the values of that aristocracy 64 Several early Christian writers including Justin 2nd century Tertullian and Origen 3rd century wrote of Mithraists copying Christian beliefs 65 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 66 67 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 drunken excesses Most likely all three 68 Some scholars have suggested that characteristics of some pagan gods or at least their roles were transferred to Christian saints after the fourth century 69 Demetrius of Thessaloniki 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 69 Reception and growth in Roman society edit For the followers of traditional Roman religions Christianity was seen as an odd entity not quite Roman but not quite barbarian either 70 Christians criticized fundamental beliefs of Roman society and refused to participate in rituals festivals and the imperial cult 70 71 72 They were a target for suspicion and rumor including rumors that they were politically subversive and practiced black magic incest and cannibalism 73 74 Conversions tore families apart Justin Martyr tells of a pagan husband who denounced his Christian wife and Tertullian tells of children disinherited for becoming Christians 75 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 76 Suetonius and Tacitus both record emperor Nero 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 77 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 78 These churches were a segmented series of small groups 79 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 80 The earliest dated church building to survive comes from around this time 81 In his mathematical modelling Rodney Stark estimates that Christians made up around 1 9 of the Roman population in 250 82 That year Decius made it a capital offence to refuse to make sacrifices to Roman Gods although it did not outlaw Christian worship and may not have targeted Christians specifically 83 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 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 82 The last and most severe official persecution the Diocletianic Persecution took place in 303 311 72 Under Constantine and his Christian successors edit nbsp Jugate gold multiple issued by Constantine at Ticinum in 313 showing the emperor and the god Sol with Sol also depicted in his quadriga chariot on Constantine s shield 84 See also Constantine the Great and Christianity Religious policies of Constantine the Great and Christianity in the 4th century Constantine 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 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 85 He also sponsored the First Council of Nicea to codify aspects of Christian doctrine 86 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 from its rate of growth in the first three centuries 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 87 By the middle of the century it is likely that Christians comprised just over half of the empire s population 82 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 2 Critical mass 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 88 There was a significant rise in the absolute number of Christians in the rest of the third century 89 90 Classics professor Seth Schwartz states the number of Christians in existence by the end of the third century indicates Christianity s successful establishment predated Constantine 91 Under Constantine and his sons certain pagan rites including animal sacrifice and divination began being deprived of their previous position in Roman civilization 92 93 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 94 Constantine s policies were largely continued by his sons though not universally or continuously 95 Peter Brown has written that it would be profoundly misleading to claim that the cultural and social changes that took place in Late Antiquity reflected in any way a process of Christianization 96 Instead the flowering of a vigorous public culture that polytheists Jews and Christians alike could share that could be described as Christian only in the narrowest sense developed It is true that blood sacrifice played no part in that culture but the sheer success and unusual stability of the Constantinian and post Constantinian state also ensured that the edges of potential conflict were blurred It would be wrong to look for further signs of Christianization at this time It is impossible to speak of a Christian empire as existing before Justinian 97 Theodosius I edit Main articles Theodosius I and Christianity in the 5th century In the centuries following his death Theodosius I 347 395 gained a reputation as the emperor who targeted and eliminated paganism in order to establish Nicene 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 Constantius and Valens had all been semi Arians therefore Christian literary tradition gave the orthodox Theodosius most of the credit for the final triumph of Christianity 98 99 100 note 1 In keeping with this view of Theodosius some previous scholars interpreted the Edict of Thessalonica 380 as establishing Christianity as the state religion 108 German ancient historian Karl Leo Noethlichs de 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 109 The Edict was addressed to the people of the city of Constantinople it opposed Arianism attempted to establish unity in Christianity and suppress heresy 110 note 2 Hungarian legal scholar Pal Sary 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 113 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 several laws against all forms of heresy 100 114 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 seen by some as a marked change in Theodosius policy putting an end to both tolerance and paganism 115 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 116 nbsp Theodosius I s empire 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 117 118 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 119 120 The lares is the god who takes care of the home write archaeologists Konstantinos Bilias and Francesca Grigolo 121 The genius was fixed on a person usually the head of the household 122 The penates were the divinities who provided and guarded the food and possessions of the household 119 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 123 124 125 Sozomen 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 126 Historical and literary sources excepting the laws themselves do not support the view that Theodosius created an environment of intolerance and persecution of pagans 127 128 During the reign of Theodosius pagans were continuously appointed to prominent positions and pagan aristocrats remained in high offices 113 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 129 Theodosius also nominated the last pair of pagan consuls in Roman history Tatianus and Symmachus in 391 130 Theodosius allowed pagan practices that did not involve sacrifice to be performed publicly and temples to remain open 92 131 132 He also voiced his support for the preservation of temple buildings but failed to prevent damaging several holy sites in the eastern provinces which most scholars believe was sponsored by Cynegius Theodosius praetorian prefect 132 133 134 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 135 100 136 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 137 138 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 139 In his 2020 biography of Theodosius Mark Hebblewhite concludes that Theodosius never saw himself or advertised himself as a destroyer of the old cults 114 140 Theodosius II and Pope Leo I edit Further information Fall of the Western Roman Empire By the early fifth century the senatorial aristocracy had almost universally converted to Christianity 141 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 142 This survival of secular tradition was aided by the Imperial government but also by Pope Leo I 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 143 The Western Roman Empire declined during the 5th century while the eastern Roman Empire during the reign of emperor Theodosius II 408 50 was functioning well Theodosius II enjoyed a strong position at the centre of the imperial system 144 Decline in the west led both eastern and western authorities to assert their right to power and authority over the western empire 145 Theodosius II claim was based on Roman law and military power 146 Leo responded using the concept of inherited Petrine authority 147 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 148 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 148 149 nbsp Western and Eastern Roman Empires 476 AD Pope Leo was not successful 148 149 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 150 The Christian Eastern Emperors on the other hand believed the regulation of religious affairs to be one of their prerogatives 151 The western emperor Valentinian III 425 55 was in essence appointed by Theodosius and there is some evidence for Valentinian willingly acquiescing to the east s policies 152 Without the support of the western emperor Leo accepted Theodosius authority over the West thereby beginning the trend toward state control of the church 148 149 Sixth to eighth centuries edit See also Christianity in the 8th century nbsp Byzantine Empire under Justinian s uncle Justin I shown in the darker color orange The lighter color gold shows the conquests of his successor Justinian I with the Byzantine empire about 550 at its greatest extent In 535 Justinian I attempted to assert control of Italy resulting in the Gothic War which lasted 20 years 153 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 154 Bishops stepped into roles of civic leadership in the former senator s places 153 The position and influence of the pope rose 155 Justinian took an active concern in ecclesiastical affairs and this accelerated the trend towards the control of the Church by the State 151 156 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 157 158 Under emperor Justinian the full force of imperial legislation against deviants of all kinds particularly religious ones was applied in practice writes Judith Herrin historian of late antiquity 159 Pierre Chuvin describes the severe legislation of the early Byzantine Empire as causing the freedom of conscience that had been the major benchmark set by the Edict of Milan to be fully abolished 160 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 161 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 161 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 162 The union of church and state buoyed the power and influence of both but the Byzantine papacy along with losses to Islam and corresponding changes within Christianity itself put an end to Ancient Christianity 163 164 165 Most scholars agree the 7th and 8th centuries are when the end of the ancient world is most conclusive and well documented 166 167 Christianity transformed into its medieval forms as exemplified by the creation of the Papal state and the alliance between the papacy and the militant Frankish king Charlemagne 168 165 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 169 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 170 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 171 Mathematical modelling editDemographer 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 172 Reliability of each varies based on the quality of the data 172 Romans were inveterate census takers but few of their records remain 173 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 173 Sociologists Rodney Stark and Keith Hopkins 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 174 1 Ancient historian Adam Schor writes that Stark applied formal models to early Christian material describing early 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 175 Stark states a 3 4 growth rate compounded annually while Keith Hopkins uses what he calls parametric probability to reach 3 35 174 1 Art historian Robert Couzin who specializes in Early Christianity has studied numbers of Christian sarcophagi 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 176 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 177 178 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 179 177 Though the reliability of population numbers remains open to question 173 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 180 Possible reasons for a top down spread editTraditional conflict models edit See also Constantine the Great and Christianity and Religious policies of Constantine the Great According to Bagnall the story of the rise of Christianity has traditionally been told in terms of contest and conflict ending Roman paganism in the late fourth and early fifth centuries 181 182 Recent scholarship has produced large amounts of data with modern computer technology providing the ability to analyze it leading to the view that paganism did not end in the late fourth century 183 184 185 There are many signs that a healthy paganism continued into the fifth century and in some places into the sixth and beyond 186 187 Archaeology indicates that in most regions the decline of paganism was slow gradual and untraumatic 188 189 Violence and temple destruction edit Further information Battle of the Frigidus 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 in 391 its supposed connection to the murder of Hypatia and the application of the Theodosian law code 190 191 Written historical sources are filled with episodes of conflict yet events in late antiquity were often dramatized by both pagans and Christians for their own ideological reasons 192 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 193 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 194 nbsp Temple of Hathor Dark interior Dendera Egypt Original construction is estimated at the 1st century BC with subsequent additions in Roman times The temple is one of the well preserved temples in Egypt New archaeological research has revealed that the Serapeum was the only temple destroyed in this period in Egypt 195 Classicist Alan Cameron writes that the Roman temples in Egypt are among the best preserved in the ancient world 196 Temple destruction is attested to in 43 cases in the written sources but only four have been confirmed by archaeological evidence 197 note 3 Recent scholarship has become that Hypatia s murder was largely political and probably occurred in 415 not 391 203 190 There is no evidence that the harsh penalties of the anti sacrifice laws were ever enforced 204 Some of the most influential textual sources on pagan Christian violence concerns Martin Bishop of Tours c 371 397 the Pannonian ex soldier who is as Salzman describes solely credited in the historical record as the militant converter of Gaul 205 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 206 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 207 In a comparative study of levels of violence in Roman society German ancient historian Martin Zimmermann de concludes there was no increase in the level of violence in the Empire in Late Antiquity 208 209 Acts of violence had always been an aspect of Roman society but they were isolated and rare 210 211 212 Archaeologist David Riggs writes that evidence from North Africa reveals a tolerance of religious pluralism 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 appears to have played a more critical role in the eventual triumph of Christianity than was previously assumed 213 214 The Oxford Handbook of Late Antiquity says that Torture and murder were not the inevitable result of the rise of Christianity 215 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 216 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 217 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 218 As a result the conflict model has become marginalized in the twenty first century 5 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 219 Archaeologists Luke Lavan and Michael Mulryan of the Centre for Late Antique Archaeology indicate that archaeology does not show evidence of widespread conflict 220 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 221 222 Socio economic factors edit 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 223 Judaism was also important to the spread of Christianity evidence clearly shows the Diaspora communities were where Christians gave many of their earliest sermons 224 The fourth century developed new forms of status and wealth that included moving away from the old silver standard 225 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 226 The imperial bureaucracy soon began demanding that taxes also be paid in gold 227 This created multiple problems 228 The fourth century scramble for gold ensured that the rural population was driven hard says Brown 229 Eighty percent of the population provided the labor to harvest 60 of the empire s wealth most of which was garnered by the wealthy 230 This contributed to unrest 231 Constantine reached out to the provincial elite for help with unrest and other problems enlarging the Senate s membership from about 600 to over 2 000 232 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 233 In response to all of this bishops became intercessors in society lobbying the powerful to practice Christian benevolence 234 After 370 380 wealth and cultural prestige began moving toward the Catholics 235 Influence of legislation edit Main article Persecution of pagans in the late Roman Empire See also Theodosius II In 429 Emperor Theodosius II r 402 450 ordered that all of the laws from the reign of Constantine up to himself and Valentinian III be found and codified 236 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 438 237 238 The code covers political socioeconomic and cultural subjects with religious laws in Book 16 239 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 240 241 Laws that favored Christianity increased the church s status which was all important for the elites 242 243 Constantine had tremendous personal popularity and support even amongst the pagan aristocrats prompting some individuals to become informed about their emperor s religion 244 This passed along through aristocratic kinship and friendship networks and patronage ties 245 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 246 247 nbsp Sacrifice in honour of the goddess Diana first century wall painting House of the Vettii in Pompeii 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 248 249 250 most scholars agree that Constantine issued the first law banning paganism s public practice of animal sacrifice 251 252 Blood sacrifice of animals or people was the element of pagan culture most abhorrent to Christians though Christian emperors often tolerated other pagan practices 253 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 254 However the Code does not have the ability to tell how or if these policies were actually carried out 255 256 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 257 258 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 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 4 Humfress writes that Roman imperial law though not irrelevant was not a determining factor in Roman society before the sixth century 4 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 124 125 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 259 Paganism in a broader sense did not end when public sacrifice did 260 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 261 The end of sacrifice led to the birth of new pagan practices such as adding Neoplatonic theurgy to philosophical practices like stoicism 262 Pagan religions also directly transformed themselves over the next two centuries by adopting some Christian practices and ideas 263 Paganism thereby continued up through the sixth century with still existing centers of paganism in Athens Gaza Alexandria and elsewhere 260 Possible reasons for a grassroots spread edit nbsp Progress of growth lines show which congregations developed other congregations when and where This approach sees the cultural and religious change of the early Roman Empire as the cumulative result of multiple individual behaviors 264 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 6 Peter Brown writes that the emergence of ethical monotheism in a polytheistic world was the single most crucial change made in a Late Antique culture experiencing many changes 265 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 266 267 268 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 269 Runciman writes that recent research has shown it was the formal unconditional altruism of early Christianity that accounted for much of its early success 270 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 of Rome 7 8 New ideas edit Inclusivity and exclusivity edit 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 271 Many scholars see this inclusivity as the primary reason for Christianity s success 272 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 219 Christianity embraced all including sinners the term for sinner Ancient Greek amartwloi meaning the immoral is a Greek term for those on the outside Its use was undermined by Jesus 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 is an outsider who can become an insider 273 A key characteristic of these inclusive communities was their unique type of exclusivity which used belief to construct identity and social boundaries 274 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 275 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 276 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 277 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 278 He adds that this gave Christianity the powerful psychological attraction of elitism 279 Kerygma central message edit Main articles Kerygma and Christian theology nbsp The Christian Graces Faith Hope amp Charity 19th century trade card 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 280 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 God has 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 281 and it redefines the nature and practice of power and authority as service to others 280 Meeks concludes this must have had a very powerful emotional appeal to people 281 This included a conscious dismantling of Roman concepts of hierarchy and power 282 283 From the beginning the Pauline communities cut across the social ranks Paul s understanding of the innate paradox of an all powerful Christ dying as a powerless man created a new social order unprecedented in classical society 284 New Testament scholar N T Wright argues that these ideas were revolutionary to the classical world 285 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 286 Afterlife punishments can be found in other religions preceding Christianity One scholar has concluded Hell is a Greek invention 287 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 287 While it may or may not have been a major cause of conversion writings from the Christians Justin and Tatian the pagan Celsus 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 279 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 288 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 289 Praet writes that anti Christian polemics of the era never questioned that Jesus 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 289 Many modern scholars have seen this historical base as one of the major reasons for Christianity s success 289 Social practices edit Women edit Further information Early Christian Women and Pagan Opinion Women in Christianity and Women in ancient Rome nbsp Christian charity 19th century work by Bertel Thorvaldsen It has for many years been one of the axioms of scholars of early Christianity that significant numbers of women composed its earliest members 290 Theologian and historian Judith Lieu writes that the presence of large numbers of female converts within Christianity is not statistically documented 291 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 292 Lieu also notes that No Christian source explicitly celebrates the number of women joining their ranks 293 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 294 Feminist theologian Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza wrote in her seminal work In Memory of Her a Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins that many of Jesus followers were women 295 The Pauline epistles in the New Testament provide some of the earliest documentary sources of women as true missionary partners in expanding the Jesus movement 296 297 In the church rolls from the second century there is conclusive evidence of groups of women exercising the office of widow 298 299 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 300 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 298 301 Professor of religious studies at Brown University Ross Kraemer argues that Christianity offered women of this period a new sense of worth 302 Lieu affirms that women of note were attracted to Christianity as evidenced in the Acts of the Apostles 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 34 303 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 304 As classics scholar Moses Finley writes there is no mistaking the fact that Homer fully reveals what remained true for the whole of antiquity that women were held to be naturally inferior 305 There is some evidence of disruption of traditional women s roles in some of the mystery cults such as Cybele 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 306 There is no evidence of any effort in Second Temple Judaism to harmonize the roles or standing of women with that of men 307 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 308 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 308 Having their female and imperfect male babies taken from them and exposed was an accepted fact of Roman life for most women 309 In 1968 J Lindsay reported that even in large families more than one daughter was practically never reared 310 311 There was also a high mortality rate among women due to childbirth and abortion 312 Elizabeth Castelli 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 313 314 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 315 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 316 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 317 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 318 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 319 320 Sexual morality edit Further information Role of Christianity in civilization Sexual morals Both the ancient Greeks and the Romans cared and wrote about sexual morality within categories of good and bad pure and defiled and ideal and transgression 321 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 322 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 322 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 323 Men on the other hand were allowed sexual freedoms such as live in mistresses and sex with slaves 324 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 325 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 326 Paul the Apostle and his followers taught that the body was a consecrated space a point of mediation between the individual and the divine 327 This meant the ethical obligation for sexual self control 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 328 In the Pauline epistles porneia was a single name for the array of sexual behaviors outside marital intercourse This became a defining concept of sexual morality 327 Such a shift in definition utterly transformed the deep logic of sexual morality 329 Care for the poor edit nbsp Charity 19th century sculpture by Christian Daniel Rauch 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 330 Christians showed the poor great generosity and there is no disputing that Christian charity was an ideology put into practice 331 note 4 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 333 334 335 Salzman writes that the Roman practice of civic euergetism philanthropy 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 336 note 5 Health care edit Two devastating epidemics the Antonine Plague in 154 and the Plague of Cyprian in 251 killed a large number of the empire s population though there is some debate over how many 342 Graeco Roman doctors tended largely to the elite while the poor mostly had recourse to miracles and magic at religious temples 343 Christians on the other hand tended to the sick and dying as well as the aged orphaned exiled and widowed 344 345 Many of these caretakers were monks and nuns Christian monasticism 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 346 347 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 348 According to Albert Jonsen a historian of medicine the second great sweep of medical history began at the end of the fourth century with the founding of the first Christian hospital for the poor at Caesarea in Cappadocia 349 350 note 6 By the fifth century the founding of hospitals for the poor had become common for bishops abbots and abbesses 353 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 354 Community edit 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 355 356 Praet has written that in his very influential booklet Pagans and Christians in an Age of Anxiety E R Dodds acknowledged Christians were in a more than formal sense members one of another Dodds thinks that was a major cause perhaps the strongest single cause of the spread of Christianity 356 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 and the eucharist 357 As far back as it can be traced evidence indicates the rite of initiation into Christianity was always baptism 358 In Christianity s earliest communities candidates for baptism were introduced by a teacher or other person willing to stand surety for their character and conduct Baptism created a set of responsibilities within each Christian community which some authors described in quite specific terms 359 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 s commands before being accepted into the community as a full member 360 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 of Nazareth 358 According to Dodds A Christian congregation was from the first a community in a much fuller sense than any corresponding group of Isis followers or Mithras devotees Its members were bound together not only by common rites but by a common way of life 361 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 362 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 363 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 364 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 364 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 365 366 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 365 Sociologist E A Judge writes of the fourth century diary of Egeria which documents her travels throughout the Middle East seeing the old sites of the Biblical period broken anchor the monks and even climbing Mount Sinai 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 365 Martyrdom edit Main article Persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire See also Christian martyrs nbsp Faithful Unto Death by Herbert Schmalz 19th century The Roman government practiced systematic persecution of Christian leaders and their property in 250 51 under Decius in 257 60 under Valerian and expanded it after 303 under Diocletian While it is understood by scholars that persecution did cause some apostasy 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 367 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 368 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 369 The result of this was summed up in the second century by Justin Martyr 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 of 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 370 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 371 Miracles edit Main article Miracles of Jesus 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 372 These events provide some of the best documented ancient conversions 373 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 372 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 374 Alternative approaches editNetwork theory edit Main article Network theory Further information Christianity in late antiquity 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 375 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 376 Collar says that archaeological remains demonstrate that networks are formed wherever there are connections 377 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 378 Diffusion is the primary method by which societies change it is distinct from colonialization which forces elements of a foreign culture into a society 379 To understand patterns of development social network theory treats society as a web of overlapping relationships and ties early Christian growth to its preexisting relationships 379 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 379 Historian Paula Fredriksen says that it is because of Diaspora Judaism which is extremely well established in the empirical age that Christianity itself as a new and constantly improvising form of Judaism is able to spread as it does through the Roman world 380 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 79 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 381 Schor adds that Persecutions like Valerian s might have thinned the Christian leadership without damaging the network s long term growth capacity 79 Keith Hopkins attests that rapid growth in absolute numbers occurred only in the third and fourth centuries 382 Psychology edit 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 383 384 These anxious individuals were seen as the ones who sought refuge in religious communities which offered socialization 385 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 386 387 Psychologist Pascal Boyer 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 388 Evolution edit This is grounded in a Neo Darwinian theory of cultural selection 389 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 390 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 391 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 390 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 390 According to Runciman a distinctly Christian phenotype of strong reciprocity and unconditional benevolence produced the growth of Christianity 389 Diffusion of innovation edit For broader coverage of this topic see Christianization of the Roman Empire as diffusion of innovation nbsp Diffusion of innovative ideas 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 378 392 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 393 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 on a large scale 394 Collar argues that even though the philosophical argument for one god was well known amongst the intellectual elite monotheism can be called a religious innovation within the milieu of Imperial polytheism 395 Having quickly begun moving outward from Jerusalem all the largest cities in the empire had Christian congregations by the end of the first century 396 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 397 This tipping takes place between 10 percent adoption and 20 percent adoption 398 Christianity achieved this tipping point between 150 and 250 when it moved from less than 50 000 adherents to over a million 88 This provided enough adopters for it to be self sustaining and create further growth 88 90 399 Effects editJudicial penalties and clemency edit nbsp Roman Hall of Justice Young Folks History of Rome 1878 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 400 or that it made a negative difference 401 saying that under the Christian emperors judicial cruelty rose 402 MacMullen attributes this to Christian zeal and a belief in purgatory 403 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 404 On the other hand it is possible to identify a mounting severity in imperial criminal law 405 Classicist Peter Garnsey says this change takes place throughout the entire imperial period beginning under Augustus in the first century Garnsey writes that increasing severity was the result of the political shift from a Republic to an autocratic empire 406 Historian Jill Harries describes Roman justice as always harsh 407 It was a common belief of those in the Roman Empire that severity was a deterrent 408 As an example of this Harries writes of the SC Silanianum a particularly harsh law passed in 10 AD 409 The SC Silanianum was originally aimed at slaves who murdered their masters but its reach and its harshness grew as time passed note 7 On the one hand increasingly harsh penalties for an ever enlarging number of capital crimes were published by emperors On the other hand emperors also wanted to be seen as generous in offering mercy and clemency 412 Beginning in the first century under Augustus the established Roman understanding of clemency clementia began a transformation that was completed in the fourth century 413 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 414 The use of clementia to indicate forgiveness of wrongs and a mild merciful temper becomes common for writers of the Later Roman Empire 415 Christianity did not grow outside Roman culture it grew within it ameliorating some of Rome s harsh justice and also adopting some of it 416 417 Augustine of Hippo advocated the harsh discipline of heretics that allowed some of the milder forms of physical torture 418 Augustine also urged the heretical Donatist bishop Donatus to practice Christian mildness when dealing with enemies 419 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 bishop of Milan advised his correspondent Studius a Christian judge to show clemency citing as a model Jesus treatment of the adulteress 420 Garnsey has written that Augustine Ambrose and other church leaders of progressive views clearly had a beneficent influence on the administration of the law but it is evident that they did not attempt to promote a movement of penal reform and did not conceive of such a movement 416 As Peter Brown has summarized When it came to the central functions of the Roman state even the vivid Ambrose was a lightweight 421 MacMullen cites Christian emperors as ceasing to use crucifixion and death by wild beasts as death penalties 402 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 420 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 422 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 422 Slavery edit Early Christianity never openly called for the abolition of slavery and while theologian G Francois 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 423 424 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 425 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 426 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 necessary for comparison have not been established 427 However there are ways in which it is likely Christianity did impact slavery 428 429 The first can be seen in Paul s Epistle to Philemon 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 428 429 Wessels writes Onesimus 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 430 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 430 If the information in Colossians 4 7 9 is historical the slave Onesimus was accordingly freed 431 Harper connects Paul s teaching to a broad religious impulse toward manumission that runs as a submerged current through the eastern provinces 432 Christianity adopted slavery as a metaphor claiming that all humans are slaves to sin 433 434 Christian rhetoric beginning with Paul is filled with that perspective John Chrysostom s surviving corpus alone mentions slavery over 5 000 times 435 Chrysostom wrote baptismal instructions telling the officiating priest to stop at various points to remind the catechumens of how the act of baptism frees them from slavery In legal 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 436 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 437 These teachings along with the proliferation of chastity among slaves who became Christian 438 and the spread of ascetism through Roman society may have lessened their sexual use and their reproductive value and impacted slavery 428 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 439 440 note 8 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 we know had no slave nor Abel nor Seth nor those who came after them The institution was the fruit of sin 446 MacMullen has written that slavery was rebuked by Ambrose Zeno of Verona Gaudentius of Brescia and Maximus of Turin among others 447 Evidence indicates this oft repeated discourse on slavery shaped late ancient feelings tastes and opinions concerning it and this may have impacted its practice 428 Persecution of heretics edit See also Charity virtue Further information Augustine of Hippo Coercion nbsp Saint Augustine Disputing with the Heretics by Vergos Group part of the 15th century Saint Augustine Altarpiece painting 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 448 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 418 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 449 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 450 451 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 452 453 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 454 455 He opposed all the extreme forms of torture and maiming and capital punishment common to the empire of the time 456 Russell and Brown see Augustine s approach as aimed at reformation of the wrong doer rather than punitive punishment for the wrong doing 457 458 Russell has written that Augustine s response on coercion was context dependent 459 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 460 461 462 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 463 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 463 464 The Donatists survived until the Muslim conquest of the Maghreb in the closing years of the seventh century 465 Corruption edit Despite corruption having a long history in Roman society Ramsay MacMullen attributes to the fourth century the spread of an ethos of venality greed 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 448 466 MacMullen s thesis has produced considerable scholarly criticism that has been dubbed the corruption debate 467 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 228 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 long after Constantine s death in 337 as Salzman has documented 468 469 Modern studies have employed many of the same sources as MacMullen but have arrived at virtually opposite conclusions 470 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 had a beneficial impact on a range of important goals nation building economic development administrative capacity and democratization 471 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 472 Gladiator games edit nbsp Detail of the second century gladiator mosaic floor at Romerhalle de Bad Kreuznach Germany 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 473 Gladiators were often prisoners of war slaves or criminals were generally poor non citizens and social outcasts with limited choices 474 Yet in the same era of increasing judicial harshness the courts stopped sentencing criminals to the arena 475 There is no source of information explaining why 476 MacMullen has written that the role of Christianity in the abandoning of most western gladiatorial combat was nil 405 However as historian Fik Meijer 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 477 It is likely the games ended from this lack of public support before 440 478 Intolerance edit 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 479 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 480 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 480 Drake writes that the intolerance argument is incomplete It can t explain why tolerant pagans persecuted intolerant Christians 481 It doesn t explain why Christians worried about the validity of coerced faith and resisted such aggressive actions for centuries 481 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 482 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 483 This is defined as any threat to core community values with particular regard to behaviors that appear to threaten the security of that community 484 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 485 Difference in sexual morality edit 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 486 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 487 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 328 Sanctity of life edit Historians Marc Stauch and Kay Wheat write that in Greek and Roman times not all human life was regarded as worthy of protection Slaves and barbarians did not have a full right to life and human sacrifices and gladiatorial combat were acceptable F or Plato infanticide is one of the regular institutions of the ideal State And whilst there were deviations from these views such practices were less proscribed in ancient times Most historians of western morals agree that the rise of Christianity contributed greatly to the general feeling that human life is valuable and worthy of respect 488 W E H Lecky gives the now classical account in his history of European morals saying Christianity formed a new standard of belief in the sanctity of human life 489 Legal and ethical scholar John Keown distinguishes this sanctity of life doctrine from a quality of life approach which recognizes only instrumental value in human life and a vitalistic approach which regards life as an absolute moral value Keown says it is the sanctity of life approach which embeds a presumption in favor of preserving life but concedes that there are circumstances in which life should not be preserved at all costs This continues to provide a conceptual foundation for modern laws concerning end of life issues 490 Education edit By the second century the merging of Christianity and the Greek intellectual tradition concerning education formed the belief that Christianity was the new paideia of mankind 491 62 66 Classicist Werner Jaeger has written a now classic book saying that early Christianity and its essential agreement with Plato and philosophy was understood by the early church fathers as the greatest educational power in history 491 65 During the period of European history often called the Dark Ages which followed the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in 476 AD many monks sought refuge at the far fringes of the known world going to places like Cornwall Ireland or the Hebrides These monks were literate as Christian monks were taught to be since reading for a period every day was a fixed requirement in the Rules of most monastic Orders Monasteries routinely included schools 492 36 These monks became some of the last Western European preservers of the poetic and philosophical works of classical Western antiquity 493 By around 800 AD they were producing illuminated manuscripts such as the Book of Kells by which classical learning was re communicated to Western Europe 494 As Western Europe became more orderly again the Church remained a driving force in education setting up Cathedral schools beginning in the Early Middle Ages as centers of education which became medieval universities the springboard of many of Western Europe s later achievements Sociological effects edit The historian Geoffrey Blainey compares the Catholic Church in its first 1200 years to an early version of a welfare state It conducted hospitals for the old and orphanages for the young hospices for the sick of all ages places for the lepers and hostels or inns where pilgrims could buy a cheap bed and meal It supplied food to the population during famine and distributed food to the poor The church ran schools This was funded through the church s collection of taxes on a large scale by the church s ownership of large farmlands and estates from the 800s and by donations 495 Christian charity and the practice of feeding and clothing the poor visiting prisoners supporting widows and orphan children has had sweeping impact and charity has become a common and mostly universal practice 496 497 The formation of monasteries as organized bodies of believers distinct from the established forms of political and familial authority gradually carved out a series of social spaces with some amount of independence This revolutionized social history especially for women who were then able to establish some power and influence in their own right 498 Law edit The canon law of the Catholic Church Latin jus canonicum 499 is the system of laws and legal principles made and enforced by the hierarchical authorities of the Church to regulate its external organization and government and to order and direct the activities of Catholics toward the mission of the Church 500 It was the first modern Western legal system 501 and is the oldest continuously functioning legal system in the West 502 predating the European common law and civil law traditions See also editChristianity and paganism Religious policies of Constantine the Great Theodosius I Anti paganism policies of the early Byzantine Empire History of Christianity Timeline of ChristianityNotes edit Nearly all the sources available on Theodosius are ecclesiastical histories that are highly colored and carefully curated for public reading 101 Beginning with contemporaries like the bishop Ambrose and followed in the next century by church historians such as Theodoret these histories focus on Theodosius impact on the church as uniformly positive orthodox and anti pagan frequently going beyond admiration into panegyric and hagiography 102 The withdrawal of state funding to pagan cults which belongs to Gratian the ending of the Vestal virgins which continued to 415 and the demolition of temples for which there is no primary evidence have been wrongly attributed to Theodosius 103 104 Theodosius was also associated with ending the ancient Olympic Games 105 106 Sofie Remijsen says there are several reasons to conclude the Olympic games continued after Theodosius I Among them are two extant scholia on Lucian that connect the end of the games with a fire that burned down the temple of the Olympian Zeus during Theodosius the second s reign 107 The Edict applied only to Christians since only Christians could be heretics Within that group it was addressed to Arians since it is opposition to the Nicene religion of Pontiff Damasus and Peter Bishop of Alexandria which is specifically referenced 111 It declared those Christians who refused the Nicene faith to be infames and prohibited them from using Christian churches Sary uses this example After his arrival in Constantinople Theodosius offered to confirm the Arian bishop Demophilus in his see if he would accept the Nicene Creed After Demophilus refused the offer the emperor immediately directed him to surrender all his churches to the Catholics 112 Archaeologists Lavan and Mulryan write that earthquakes civil conflict and external invasions caused much of the temple destruction of this era 198 199 The Roman economy of the third and fourth centuries struggled and traditional polytheism was expensive and dependent upon donations from the state and private elites 200 Roger S Bagnall reports that imperial financial support declined markedly after Augustus 201 Lower budgets meant the physical decline of urban structures of all types This progressive decay was accompanied by an increased trade in salvaged building materials as the practice of recycling became common in Late Antiquity 202 Robin Lane Fox provides examples In the 250 s it was Christian groups and not the pagan cities which undertook collections to ransom their members from barbarian captors During the siege of Alexandria in 262 CE two Christian leaders arranged to rescue many Christian and pagan people who were old and weak During the great famine of 311 312 CE rich pagan donors gave at first but then withheld funds fearing they themselves would become poor Christians on the other hand offered last rites to the dying buried them and distributed bread to all others suffering from hunger 332 Christian and non Christian witnesses testify to the zealousness of Christian communities for almsgiving and charity 337 That the later church in Rome was actively involved in charity and renowned for its work with the needy is attested 338 For Chrysostom almsgiving was an act of continued redemption first offered by the historical Jesus on the cross and now in the present through the poor To approach the poor with mercy was to receive mercy from Christ 339 Hart writes that the emperor Julian who was hostile to Christianity is recorded as saying It is the Christians philanthropy towards strangers the care they take of the graves of the dead and the affected sanctity with which they conduct their lives that have done most to spread their atheism 340 341 After the death of Eusebius in 370 and the election of Basil as bishop of Caesarea the new bishop established the early church s first formal soup kitchen hospital homeless shelter hospice poorhouse orphanage reform center for thieves women s center for those leaving prostitution and many other ministries Basil was personally involved and invested in the projects and process giving all of his personal wealth to fund the ministries Basil himself would put on an apron and work in the soup kitchen These ministries were given freely regardless of religious affiliation Basil refused to make any discrimination when it came to people who needed help saying that the digestive systems of the Jew and the Christian are indistinguishable 351 352 In the first and second centuries the Roman Senate controlled the implementation of the SC Silanianum Harries writes that The spectacle is not an edifying one Little heed seems to have been paid to legal precision or to such residual human rights as slaves might still claim 407 Originally written to punish slaves who murdered their master Senators extended the law s application to include all additional slaves who might have prevented it The law was then extended again to include all slaves resident under the same roof at the time of a master s murder According to Harries the result was that slaves who did nothing and the murderer faced the same penalty accordingly 400 slaves were executed in 61 CE 410 The law s next expansion is the case of a probable suicide as recorded by Pliny the Younger 61 c 113 The Senate proceeded without knowing if a crime had been committed and without waiting for the questioning to be completed to address whether the dead man s freedmen were liable for failure to protect along with his slaves They determined that those under his roof including all his freedmen were liable for failure to protect regardless of the circumstances of what had actually happened Procedures designed to ensure that the proper processes of investigation interrogation and conviction were carried out in the right order and punishment inflicted on the right people seem to have been casually disregarded Harries summarizes The absence of reflection or debate on the critical question concerning the rights of freed men is characteristic of court decisions that would later erode even the elite s immunities from judicial torture 411 Exposed children were a major source of slaves and changing this did not begin with Constantine Constantine did strive to assure others that exposure was wrong and reform the laws concerning them but his legislation on abandoned children did not deviate markedly from the classical position 441 442 Christian influence is first evident in Roman law with the appearance of the word misericordia compassion under emperor Honorius and its advancement as a standard under Justinian I 443 444 Justinian added that since the collection of an exposed infant was an act of pious compassion therefore it cannot lead to the enslavement of the child Tate concluded that the law went beyond all classical precedent in permitting even slave children to become free through the act of exposure 445 References edit a b c Hopkins 1998 p 192 a b Judge 2010 p 4 Trombley 1985 pp 327 331 a b c Humfress 2013 pp 3 76 83 88 91 a b Scourfield 2007 pp 2 4 a b Collar 2013 p 271 a b Judge 2010 pp 217 218 a b Hopkins 1998 p 224 Rives 2010 pp 241 242 The Oxford Handbook of Late Antiquity 2015 p 5 Jordan 1969 pp 83 93 94 Jordan 1969 pp 83 93 95 Gibbon 1906 pp 279 312 Testa 2017 p xiii Testa 2017 pp x xi Testa 2017 pp xxi xxii a b Rives 2010 p 250 Jordan 1969 pp 93 94 Testa 2017 p xi a b Donato 2013 p 1 Brown 1995 p 6 Brown 1993 pp 90 91 Brown 1998 p 633 MacMullen 1986 p 4 Testa 2017 p xii The Oxford Handbook of Late Antiquity 2015 pp xv xx Rives 2010 p 242 The Oxford Handbook of Late Antiquity 2015 p 4 Testa 2017 p xxxvi Rives 2010 p 269 Fredriksen 2006 p 235 North 2013 pp 96 178 a b Rives 2010 pp 272 273 Orlin 2010 p 18 Fredriksen 2006 p 237 Tripolitis 2002 p 2 Rives 2010 pp 241 244 248 Rives 2010 p 248 Markus 1990 p 28 Rives 2010 pp 250 251 a b Rives 2010 p 255 a b c Rives 2010 p 252 Price 1986 pp 7 16 Price 1986 p 52 a b c d Rives 2010 p 256 Burkett 2002 pp 75 chapter 6 McGrath 2006 pp 16 22 Van Daalen 1972 p 41 Kremer 1977 pp 49 50 Bokenkotter 2007 p 18 Ehrman 2012 pp 87 90 Jaeger 1961 pp 6 108 109 Hahn amp Scott 2007 p 225 Barton 1998 pp 3 9 11 17 18 Fredriksen 2012 p 60 Fredriksen 2012 p 69 Westerholm 2015 pp 4 15 Adams amp Adams 2012 p 297 In summary circumcision has played a surprisingly important role in Western history The circumcision debate forged a Gentile identity to the early Christian church which allowed it to survive the Jewish Diaspora and become the dominant religion of Western Europe Fahy 1963 p 249 Dunn 1999 pp 33 34 Boatwright Gargola amp Talbert 2004 p 426 Scourfield 2007 p 2 Kaplan 1995 pp 28 29 Salzman 2002 pp 200 219 Abruzzi 2018 p 24 Rausing 1995 p 229 Scourfield 2007 pp 18 20 22 Forbes 2008 p 30 a b Kloft 2010 p 25 a b Schott 2008 p 2 citing Eusebius Praeparatio Evangelica 1 2 1 Castelli 2004 pp 38 39 a b Gaddis 2005 pp 30 31 Frend 2006 p 504 citing Suetonius Nero 16 2 Dodds 1970 pp 111 112 112 n 1 Dodds 1970 pp 115 116 citing Justin Apologia 2 2 Tertullian Apologia 3 Moss 2012 p 129 Barnes 1968 p 50 Hopkins 1998 p 202 a b c Schor 2009 pp 495 496 Runciman 2004 p 5 Hopkins 1998 pp 203 206 a b c Stark 1996 p 5 de Sainte Croix 2006 pp 139 140 Holloway 2004 p 14 Gerberding amp Moran Cruz 2004 pp 55 56 Fernandez 2020 Stark 1996 pp 7 8 a b c Harnett 2017 pp 200 217 Runciman 2004 pp 3 4 a b Hopkins 1998 p 193 Schwartz 2005 pp 145 146 a b Kahlos 2019 p 35 and note 45 Boyd 2005 p 21 Boyd 2005 p 16 Boyd 2005 pp 21 22 Brown 1998 p 652 Brown 1998 pp 652 653 Cameron 1993 p 74 note 177 Errington 2006 pp 248 249 a b c Hebblewhite 2020 chapter 8 Hebblewhite 2020 p 3 Hebblewhite 2020 p 3 5 Cameron 1993 pp 46 47 72 Testa 2007 p 260 Perrottet 2004 p 190 Hamlet 2004 pp 53 75 Remijsen 2015 p 49 Sary 2019 pp 67 70 Sary 2019 pp 72 74 fn 32 33 34 77 Sary 2019 pp 71 73 77 Sary 2019 pp 73 77 Sary 2019 p 79 a b Sary 2019 p 73 a b Errington 2006 p 251 Cameron 2011 pp 60 62 Cameron 2011 pp 61 62 63 Cameron 2011 pp 60 63 68 Errington 1997 pp 410 411 430 a b Bilias and Grigolo 2019 pp 82 86 Pharr Davidson amp Pharr 2001 pp translation at 473 474 Bilias and Grigolo 2019 pp 80 82 Bilias and Grigolo 2019 p 83 Roux a b Bradbury 1995 p 343 Cameron 2011 pp 65 68 a b Lavan amp Mulryan 2011 p xxiii Errington 1997 p 431 Errington 1997 p 435 Cameron 2011 pp 68 69 75 Cameron 2011 pp 56 64 Bagnall et al 1987 p 317 Errington 2006 pp 245 251 a b Woods Religious Policy Errington 2006 p 249 MacMullen 1984 p 90 Trombley 2001 p 53 Cameron 2011 p 57 Lavan amp Mulryan 2011 p xxx Fowden 1978 p 63 Cameron 2011 pp 60 65 68 73 Cameron 2011 p 71 Brown 1961b pp 1 2 Brown 1961b pp 9 10 Brown 1961b p 10 Barritt 2019 pp 116 119 131 Barritt 2019 p 132 Barritt 2019 pp 122 125 126 Barritt 2019 pp 125 127 131 a b c d Gratsianskiy 2020 abstract a b c Barritt 2019 p 120 Latourette 1965 pp 79 80 a b Latourette 1965 p 80 Barritt 2019 p 126 a b Salzman 2021 p 335 Salzman 2021 pp 298 299 335 Salzman 2021 p 299 Markus 1990 pp intro 11 Irmscher 1988 p 165 Anastos 1967 pp 13 41 Herrin 2009 p 213 Chuvin 1990 pp 59 63 a b Sanmark 2004 p 15 Ekonomou 2007 pp 245 247 Markus 1990 pp title intro 11 228 Brown 2012 p 515 a b Salzman 2021 pp 334 336 Gregory 1986 p 232 Brown 1961b p 85 Miller 1974 pp 79 81 Schuddeboom 2017 p 179 Schuddeboom 2017 p 182 Schuddeboom 2017 pp 166 167 177 a b Durand 1977 p 254 a b c Durand 1977 p 268 a b Stark 1996 pp 4 13 Schor 2009 p 473 Couzin 2014 p 11 fn 61 a b Bagnall 1993 p 4 Bagnall 1987 p 248 Stark 1996 pp 12 13 Runciman 2004 p 4 Bagnall 1993 p 261 Praet 1992 1993 p 7 Brown 2003 p 77 Trombley 1985 pp 327 328 330 331 Cameron 1993 pp 74 75 Cameron 1993 pp 4 112 Irmscher 1988 pp 165 167 Lavan amp Mulryan 2011 pp 156 221 Salzman Saghy amp Testa 2016 pp 2 5 41 a b Brown 1998 pp 26 47 54 Cameron 1993 pp 121 123 Raschle amp Dijkstra 2020 p 5 Brown 1998 pp 639 406 Bayliss 2004 p 68 Lavan amp Mulryan 2011 p xxv Cameron 2011 p 799 Lavan amp Mulryan 2011 p xxiv Leone 2013 p 28 Lavan amp Mulryan 2011 p xxvi Jones 1986 pp 8 10 13 735 Bagnall 2021 p p 261 269 Leone 2013 p 2 Watts 2017 pp 114 115 Bradbury 1994 p 133 Salzman 2006 p 265 Salzman 2006 p 278 279 Salzman 2006 p 280 Salzman 2006 p 282 Drake 2006 p 10 Cameron 2011 p 19 Cameron 1991 pp 121 124 Trombley 2001 pp 166 168 Vol I Trombley 2001 pp 335 336 Vol II Lavan amp Mulryan 2011 pp xxiv xxvi Riggs 2006 pp 297 308 Salzman 2006 pp 266 267 272 285 The Oxford Handbook of Late Antiquity 2015 p 861 Salzman Saghy amp Testa 2016 p 7 Brown 2012 p 643 Bremmer 2020 p 9 a b Van Dam 1985 p 2 Lavan amp Mulryan 2011 p 155 Salzman 2006 p 285 Lavan amp Mulryan 2011 pp xxiv xxx Praet 1992 1993 pp 11 12 Praet 1992 1993 p 16 Brown 2012 p 3 Brown 2012 p 14 Brown 2012 p 15 a b Brown 2012 pp 146 15 Brown 2012 p 20 Brown 2012 p 11 Brown 2012 pp 23 24 Brown 2012 p 22 Brown 2012 p 24 Brown 2012 pp 144 514 Brown 2012 p 170 Buckland 1963 pp 37 38 Lenski 2003 pp 337 340 Berger 1953 p 392 Matthews 2000 pp 10 18 Southern 2015 pp 455 457 Bayliss 2004 p 243 Salzman 2002 pp 17 201 Novak 1979 p 274 Novak 1979 pp 305 312 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Roman Law Vol 43 Part 2 Philadelphia The American Philosophical Society ISBN 978 0 87169 435 5 OCLC 873814450 Biondi Biondo 1952 Il diritto romano cristiano Christian Roman law in Italian Vol 1 Milan Giuffre Boatwright Mary Taliaferro Gargola Daniel J Talbert Richard John Alexander 2004 The Romans From Village to Empire Oxford Oxford University Press ISBN 978 0 19 511875 9 Bokenkotter Thomas 2007 A Concise History of the Catholic Church Revised ed New York Crown Publishing Group ISBN 978 0 307 42348 1 Boyd William Kenneth 2005 The Ecclesiastical Edicts of the Theodosian Code reprint ed Clark The Lawbook Exchange Ltd ISBN 978 1 58477 531 7 Bremmer Jan N 2 Priestesses Pogroms and Persecutions Religious Violence in Antiquity in a Diachronic Perspective In Raschle amp Dijkstra 2020 Bremner Robert H 2017 Giving Charity and Philanthropy in History London Routledge ISBN 978 1 56000 884 2 Brown Peter 1995 Authority and the Sacred Aspects of the Christianisation of the Roman World Cambridge 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Press ISBN 978 1 107 04344 2 Combes I A H 1998 The Metaphor of Slavery in the Writings of the Early Church From the New Testament to the Beginning of the Fifth Century Sheffield Sheffield Academic Press ISBN 978 1 85075 846 4 Crislip Andrew T 2005 From Monastery to Hospital Christian Monasticism amp The Transformation of Health Care in Late Antiquity Ann Arbor University of Michigan Press ISBN 978 0 472 11474 0 Deane Herbert A 2013 The Political and Social Ideas of St Augustine second ed New York Angelico Press ISBN 978 1 62138 034 4 de Sainte Croix G E M 2006 Christian Persecution Martyrdom and Orthodoxy New York Oxford University Press ISBN 978 0 19 927812 1 Digeser Elizabeth DePalma 2000 The Making of a Christian Empire Lactantius amp Rome Ithaca Cornell University Press ISBN 978 0 8014 3594 2 Dodds E R 1970 Pagan and Christian in an Age of Anxiety Some Aspects of Religious Experience from Marcus Aurelius to Constantine New York Norton ISBN 978 0 393 00545 5 Dodds Eric Robertson 1990 Pagan and Christian in an Age of Anxiety Some Aspects of Religious Experience from Marcus Aurelius to Constantine illustrated reprint ed Cambridge Cambridge University Press ISBN 978 0 521 38599 2 Donato Antonio 2013 Boethius Consolation of Philosophy as a Product of Late Antiquity Oxford A amp C Black Dowling Melissa Barden 2006 Clemency and Cruelty in the Roman World Ann Arbor University of Michigan Press ISBN 978 0 472 11515 0 Drake H A ed 2006 Violence in Late Antiquity Perceptions and Practices Aldershot Ashgate ISBN 978 0 7546 5498 8 Dunkle R 2008 Gladiators Violence and Spectacle in Ancient Rome 1st ed London Routledge doi 10 4324 9781315847887 ISBN 9781317905219 Dunn James D G 1999 Jews and Christians The Parting of the Ways A D 70 to 135 Grand Rapids Wm B Eerdmans Publishing ISBN 978 0 8028 4498 9 Ehrman Bart 2012 Did Jesus Exist The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth New York Harper Collins ISBN 978 0 06 208994 6 Ekonomou Andrew J 2007 Byzantine Rome and the Greek Popes Eastern Influences on Rome and the Papacy from Gregory the Great to Zacharias A D 590 752 Washington Lexington Books ISBN 978 0 7391 3386 6 Errington R Malcolm 2006 Roman Imperial Policy from Julian to Theodosius Chapel Hill University of North Carolina Press ISBN 978 0 8078 3038 3 Fiorenza Elisabeth Schussler 1983 In Memory of Her A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins reprint ed New York Crossroads ISBN 978 0 8245 0493 9 Forbes Bruce David 2008 Christmas A Candid History illustrated reprint ed Berkeley University of California Press ISBN 978 0 520 25802 0 Fox Robin Lane 1987 Pagans and Christians New York Alfred A Knopf ISBN 978 0 394 55495 2 Fredriksen Paula 2012 Sin The Early History of an Idea Princeton Princeton University Press ISBN 978 0 691 12890 0 Frend W H C 2006 Persecutions Genesis and Legacy In Mitchell Margaret M Young Frances M eds The Cambridge History of Christianity Volume I Origins to Constantine New York Cambridge University Press pp 503 523 ISBN 978 0 521 81239 9 Gaddis Michael 2005 There Is No Crime for Those Who Have Christ Religious Violence in the Christian Roman Empire Berkeley Los Angeles and London University of California Press ISBN 978 0 520 24104 6 Garrison Roman 1993 Redemptive Almsgiving in Early Christianity Sheffield JSOT Press ISBN 978 1 85075 376 6 Gerberding R Moran Cruz J H 2004 Medieval Worlds New York Houghton Mifflin Company Gibbon Edward 1782 History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Vol III reprint ed Aldine Pub Co Gibbon Edward 1906 XX In Bury J B ed The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Vol 3 New York Fred de Fau and Co Glancy Jennifer A 2002 Slavery in Early Christianity Philadelphia Fortress Press ISBN 978 1 4514 1094 5 Green Bernard 2010 Christianity in Ancient Rome The First Three Centuries London A amp C Black ISBN 978 0 5670 3250 8 Grubbs Judith Evans 2009 Church State and Children Christian and Imperial Attitudes Toward Infant Exposure in Late Antiquity In Andrew Cain Noel Lenski eds The Power of Religion in Late Antiquity Farnham Ashgate pp 119 131 ISBN 978 0 7546 6725 4 Guy Laurie 2011 Introducing Early Christianity A Topical Survey of Its Life Beliefs Practices Westmont InterVarsity Press Hahn Scott W Scott David eds 2007 Letter amp Spirit Volume 3 The Hermeneutic of Continuity Christ Kingdom and Creation Steubenville Emmaus Road Publishing ISBN 978 1 931018 46 3 Harper Kyle 2011 Slavery in the Late Roman World AD 275 425 Cambridge Cambridge University Press doi 10 1017 CBO9780511973451 ISBN 978 0 521 19861 5 Harper Kyle 2013 From Shame to Sin The Christian Transformation of Sexual Morality in Late Antiquity Cambridge Harvard University Press ISBN 978 0 674 07277 0 Harries Jill 2013 Chapter 4 The Senatus Consultum Silanianum Court Decisions and Judicial Severity in the Early Roman Empire In Paul J du Plessis ed New Frontiers Law and Society in the Roman World Edinburgh Edinburgh University Press pp 51 70 ISBN 978 0 7486 6817 5 Hart David Bentley 2009 Atheist Delusions The Christian Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies unabridged ed New Haven Yale University Press ISBN 978 0 300 15564 8 Hebblewhite Mark 2020 Theodosius and the Limits of Empire London Routledge doi 10 4324 9781315103334 ISBN 978 1 138 10298 9 S2CID 213344890 Hellerman Joseph H 2009 When the Church Was a Family Recapturing Jesus Vision for Authentic Christian Community Nashville B amp H Publishing Group ISBN 978 1 4336 6843 2 Herrin Judith 2009 Book Burning as purification In Rousseau Philip Papoutsakis Emmanuel eds Transformations of Late Antiquity Essays for Peter Brown Vol 2 illustrated reprint ed Farnham Ashgate Publishing Ltd ISBN 978 0 7546 6553 3 Hillner Julia 2015 Prison Punishment and Penance in Late Antiquity Cambridge Cambridge University Press ISBN 978 0 521 51751 5 Holloway R Ross 2004 Constantine amp Rome New Haven Yale University Press ISBN 978 0 300 10043 3 Hope Valerie M 2001 Negotiating identity and status the gladiators of Roman Nimes In Laurence Ray Berry Joanne eds Cultural identity in the Roman Empire London Psychology Press pp 179 195 ISBN 978 0 415 24149 6 Hughes Kevin L Paffenroth Kim eds 2008 Augustine and Liberal Education Washington Lexington Books ISBN 978 0 7391 2383 6 Humfress Caroline 2013 5 Laws Empire Roman Universalism and Legal Practice New Frontiers Law and Society in the Roman World Edinburgh University Press ISBN 978 0 7486 6817 5 Jaeger Werner 1961 Early Christianity and Greek Paideia Cambridge Harvard University Press ISBN 978 0 674 22052 2 Johnson Scott Fitzgerald ed 2015 The Oxford Handbook of Late Antiquity Oxford Oxford University Press ISBN 978 0 19 027753 6 Jones Arnold Hugh Martin 1986 The Later Roman Empire 284 602 A Social Economic and Administrative Survey Vol 1 reprint ed Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press ISBN 978 0 8018 3353 3 Jonsen Albert 2000 A Short History of Medical Ethics New York Oxford University Press ISBN 978 0 19 513455 1 Judge E A 2010 Alanna Nobbs ed 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German Stuttgart Katholisches Bibelwerk Langlands Rebecca 2006 Sexual Morality in Ancient Rome Cambridge Cambridge University Press ISBN 978 0 521 85943 1 Latourette Kenneth Scott 1965 Christianity Through the Ages Harper amp Row ISBN 978 0 06 065011 7 Lavan Luke Mulryan Michael eds 2011 The Archaeology of Late Antique Paganism Leiden Brill ISBN 978 90 04 19237 9 Le Goff Jacques 1986 The Birth of Purgatory Chicago University of Chicago Press ISBN 978 0 226 47083 2 Leone Anna 2013 The End of the Pagan City Religion Economy and Urbanism in Late Antique North Africa illustrated ed Oxford Oxford University Press ISBN 978 0 19 957092 8 Lindsay Jack 1968 The Ancient World Manners and Morals New York G P Putnam OL 5602276M MacDonald Margaret Y 2003 Was Celsus Right The Role of Women in the Expansion of Early Christianity In David L Balch Carolyn Osiek eds Early Christian Families in Context An Interdisciplinary Dialogue Grand Rapids Wm B Eerdmans pp 157 184 ISBN 978 0 8028 3986 2 MacMullen Ramsay 1984 Christianizing the Roman Empire A D 100 400 New Haven Yale University Press ISBN 978 0 300 03216 1 Malcolm Matthew R 2013 Paul and the Rhetoric of Reversal in 1 Corinthians The Impact of Paul s Gospel on His Macro Rhetoric Cambridge Cambridge University Press ISBN 978 1 107 03209 5 Markus R A 1970 Saeculum History and Society in the Theology of St Augustine Cambridge Cambridge University Press ISBN 978 0 521 07621 0 Markus Robert Austin 1990 The End of Ancient Christianity illustrated reprint ed Cambridge Cambridge University Press ISBN 978 0 521 33949 0 Matthews John F 2000 Laying Down the Law A Study of the Theodosian Code New York Yale University Press McKinion Steve ed 2001 Life and Practice in the Early Church A Documentary Reader New York New York University Press ISBN 978 0 8147 5648 5 McGrath Alister E 2006 Christianity An introduction 2nd ed Malden Blackwell Pub ISBN 978 1 4051 0901 7 Meeks Wayne A 2002 In Search of the Early Christians Selected Essays New Haven Yale University Press ISBN 978 0 300 09142 7 Meijer Fik 2005 The Gladiators History s Most Deadly Sport illustrated ed New York Macmillan ISBN 978 0 312 34874 8 Milnor Kristina 2011 Women in Roman Society In Peachin Michael ed The Oxford Handbook of Social Relations in the Roman World doi 10 1093 oxfordhb 9780195188004 013 0029 ISBN 978 0 19 518800 4 Moss Candida R 2012 Ancient Christian Martyrdom Diverse Practices Theologies and Traditions New Haven Yale University Press ISBN 978 0 300 15465 8 Muir Steven C 2006 10 Look how they love one another Early Christian and Pagan Care for the sick and other charity Religious Rivalries in the Early Roman Empire and the Rise of Christianity Waterloo Wilfrid Laurier University Press ISBN 978 0 88920 536 9 Nathan Geoffrey 2002 The Family in Late Antiquity The Rise of Christianity and the Endurance of Tradition reprint ed New York Routledge ISBN 978 1 134 70668 6 North J A 2013 The Development of Religious Pluralism In Lieu Judith North John Rajak Tessa eds The Jews among Pagans and Christians in the Roman Empire reprint ed New York Routledge pp 174 193 ISBN 978 1 135 08188 1 Okin Susan Moller 1979 Women in Western Political Thought Princeton Princeton University Press ISBN 978 0 691 02191 1 Orlin Eric 2010 Foreign Cults in Rome Creating a Roman Empire Oxford Oxford University Press ISBN 978 0 19 978020 4 Perrottet Tony 2004 The Naked Olympics The True Story of the Ancient Games New York Random House ISBN 978 1 58836 382 4 Pharr Clyde Davidson Theresa Sherrer Pharr Mary Brown eds 2001 The Theodosian Code and Novels and the Sirmondian Constitutions reprint ed Clark The Lawbook Exchange Ltd ISBN 978 1 58477 146 3 Price S R F 1986 Rituals and Power The Roman Imperial Cult in Asia Minor illustrated reprint revised ed Cambridge Cambridge University Press ISBN 978 0 521 31268 4 Raschle Christian R Dijkstra Jitse H F eds 2020 Religious Violence in the Ancient World From Classical Athens to Late Antiquity Cambridge Cambridge University Press ISBN 978 1 108 84921 0 Remijsen Sofie 2015 The End of Greek Athletics in Late Antiquity Cambridge Cambridge University Press Riggs David Christianizing the Rural Communities of Late Roman Africa A Process of Coercion or Persuasion In Drake 2006 pp 297 308 Russell Frederick H 1999 Persuading the Donatists Augustine s Coercion by Words The Limits of Ancient Christianity Essays on Late Antique Thought and Culture in Honor of R A Markus Ann Arbor University of Michigan Press ISBN 978 0 472 10997 5 Russell James C 1996 The Germanization of Early Medieval Christianity A Sociohistorical Approach to Religious Transformation reprint ed Oxford Oxford University Press ISBN 978 0 19 510466 0 Salzman Michele Renee 2002 The Making of a Christian Aristocracy Social and Religious Change in the Western Roman Empire Cambridge Harvard University Press ISBN 978 0 674 00641 6 Salzman Michele Renee Rethinking Pagan Christian Violence In Drake 2006 pp 265 286 Salzman Michele Renee Saghy Marianne Testa Rita Lizzi eds 2016 Pagans and Christians in Late Antique Rome Conflict Competition and Coexistence in the Fourth Century Cambridge Cambridge University Press ISBN 978 1 107 11030 4 Salzman Michelle Renee 2021 The Falls of Rome Crises Resilience and Resurgence in Late Antiquity Cambridge Cambridge University Press ISBN 978 1 107 11142 4 Sary Pal 2019 Remarks on the Edict of Thessalonica of 380 In Vojtech Vladar ed Perpauca Terrena Blande Honori dedicata pocta Petrovi Blahovi K Nedozitym 80 Narodeninam Trnava Trnavska Univerzity pp 67 80 ISBN 978 80 568 0313 4 Schmidt Charles 1889 Chapter Five The Poor and Unfortunate The Social Results of Early Christianity London William Isbister Ltd ISBN 978 0 7905 3105 2 Schott Jeremy M 2008 Christianity Empire and the Making of Religion in Late Antiquity Philadelphia University of Philadelphia Press ISBN 978 0 8122 4092 4 Schwartz Seth 2005 Chapter 8 Roman Historians and the Rise of Christianity The School of Edward Gibbon In Harris William Vernon ed The Spread of Christianity in the First Four Centuries Essays in Explanation Leiden Brill ISBN 978 90 04 14717 1 Scourfield J H D 2007 Texts and Culture in Late Antiquity Inheritance Authority and Change Bristol ISD LLC ISBN 978 1 910589 45 8 Southern Patricia 2015 The Roman Empire from Severus to Constantine second revised ed London Routledge ISBN 978 1 317 49694 6 Stachura Michal 2018 Enemies of the Later Roman Order A Study of the Phenomenon of Language Aggression in the Theodosian Code Post Theodosian Novels and the Sirmondian Constitutions Krakow Jagiellonian University Press ISBN 978 83 233 4505 3 Stark Rodney 1996 The Rise of Christianity A Sociologist Reconsiders History Princeton Princeton University Press ISBN 978 0 691 02749 4 Testa Rita Lizzi ed 2017 Late Antiquity in Contemporary Debate Newcastle upon Tyne Cambridge Scholars Publishing ISBN 978 1 4438 7656 8 Thompson Glen L 2005 Constantius II and the First Removal of the Altar of Victory In Jean Jacques Aubert Zsuzsanna Varhelyi eds A Tall Order Writing the Social History of the Ancient World Essays in honor of William V Harris Munich K G Saur pp 85 106 doi 10 1515 9783110931419 ISBN 978 3 598 77828 5 Tilley Maureen A 1996 Donatist Martyr Stories The Church in Conflict in Roman North Africa Liverpool Liverpool University Press ISBN 978 0 85323 931 4 Trebilco Paul Raymond 2017 Outsider Designations and Boundary Construction in the New Testament Early Christian Communities and the Formation of Group Identity Cambridge Cambridge University Press ISBN 978 1 108 31132 8 span, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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