Knowing the biblical history associated with Jesus (I.e. Pontius Pilate crucifying him to appease the Jews), how did Roman Catholicism end up becoming the dominant religion in the Roman world? It seem like they’d want to distance themselves from that, sort of like how it would be kind of awkward for Jews to accept Jesus as the messiah, ya know?
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Christians were persecuted by the Roman Empire for quite some time. With time, it gained popularity and the Empire started allowing Christians to practice their religion. At one point, it reached the ruling class. Constantine I was the first Emperor to convert. He made Christianity the primary religion of the Empire. It is believed he was exposed to it through his mother.
At first, Christianity was just a small religious movement that started after Jesus’ death. The Romans didn’t pay much attention to it initially. But as Christianity spread and gained more followers, some Romans saw it as a threat to their beliefs. For a long time, Christians were persecuted and punished by Roman authorities for not worshipping the Roman gods. Many were even killed for their faith, like when the Romans threw them to the lions in arenas! However, around 300 years after Jesus, a Roman emperor named Constantine had a change of heart. He claimed that he had a vision that made him convert to Christianity. Constantine then made Christianity legal and embraced it himself. Over time, more and more Romans became Christians too. By the 300s and 400s, Christianity had grown so widespread that it became the official religion of the Roman Empire.
This might be wrong as i just wrote what was taught to us by my History Teacher (It was not in the syllabus) in India. So take this comment with a grain of salt.
Well there was ~300 years between those events. Not to say it was an easy transition, because the Romans persecuted many Christian during those 300 years. But Christianity survived and spread and continued to gain support. The first major tipping point was Constantine’s legalization of, and subsequent conversion to, Christianity. Soon after it became the official state religion.
Religion is an effective means to control people and Christianity was particularly useful since: a) it was universal (anyone could become a Christian); b) lent itself to a hierarchical structure (meaning if you control the chief Christian leaders, that control trickles down). The relationship between the Christian churches and nations was one of mutual exploitation. Churches would encourage kings and other leaders to convert as a means to use said leaders to spread Christianity and those kings and leaders would try and use the religion to “civilize” and thus control their non-Christian neighbors and enemies.
Romans in particular were a very political people and would not scoff at using Christianity as a means to solidify power within their own borders not to mention the age old adage: “If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em!”
At first, Christianity was a tiny sect inside Judaism. Over time they started de-emphasizing the whole “Rome is the enemy” in favor of “the Jews killed Jesus”. It helped that the Jews started several uprisings against the Roman empire (that they lost badly) making them “bad guys” in the eyes of the Romans. The destruction of Jerusalem etc. by the Romans led to a crisis in Judaism, and for a minority of Jews the answer was that the messiah wasn’t actually a “king of the Jews” who would create heaven on earth, but actually a spirtual leader who ushers in the end times by being killed in a sort of complicated religious sacrifice. Which sort of echoed the destruction of Jerusalem.
It didn’t. Nicene Christianity first became the tolerated faith, and the state religion under Theodosius in 380 because it was useful to the empire – it basically proved to be politically helpful to promise the masses a great afterlife if they stayed compliant and obedient in this life. 700 years later, when the western empire was definitely gone, the church split into Eastern (the official faith of the Empire in the East and territories around it), commonly known as the Orthodox, and Western (faith of the papal state in Rome and kingdoms of Franks, Britain, Ireland etc in Western Europe), commonly known as Roman Catholic.
Constantine’s wife, actually. If it weren’t for her, Europe would probably not be Christian.
The Roman Empire was too big to be micro managing everyone everywhere, so they gave large autonomy to each region as long as they kept paying their taxes.
One of those regions was Judaea, where the Jews lived and Jesus (which was also Jew) was born too. It was officially ruled by its governor (Pontius Pilate – Roman) but the *de facto* ruling was handed off to the Jews, in the person of their King (Herod, by the time Jesus was born)… And yeah, they even let the Judaean King call himself King. That’s how hands-off they were.
But there was no Judaean army/soldiers, so when it came to actually enforcing the law it was the Roman Soldiers doing it, which is why Pontius (the Roman Governor of Judaea) did the whole “I wash my hands out of this”. The implication being that he didn’t understand why they wanted to kill a man who had done nothing wrong in his eyes.
So yeah, the Roman Empire was never really invested in religion at all… Until Constantine converted to Christianism and made it the official religion of the empire.
You might try asking this question on r/AskHistorians. They have a lot of experts in Roman and Christian history who could give you a very detailed, well researched answer.
Roman Empire was the country of Jews. Jews were not first class citizens in Rome. Romanized Jews wanted a “softened” Judaism for being able to live as a Jew and Roman at the same time. Christianity first spread among those Romanized Jews that existed all around the Roman Empire. At that time Christianity was just a sect of Judaism.
However, being Christian didn’t automatically make them first class citizens because Jesus claimed to be the king of the world hence defied the king of the Roman Empire -the emperor.
At the same time, Rome was constantly in civil wars. There was a lack of unity. Multiple versions of Roman religion caused a morally “non-standard” society. Some of the parts of the society such as slaves were in quite a very bad position.
Moreover, Roman religion was not like Judaism. It didn’t make you live forever in a heaven after dying. Going into a religious building for praying also didn’t exist and women were also in an even worse relationship with the religious life.
So, Christianity provided Romanized Jews to be somewhat Jew and a Roman at the same time. It first spread among those Jews who wanted to slash some parts of Judaism so that they wouldn’t stand out in a negative manner. Then others who saw Christians going “into” the church building, being part of the church itself, and and who see that Christians believe that they are going to heaven were affected by Christians. So the numbers further increased passing the number of Romanized Jews.
Opportunities that Christianity provided to the women also further accelerated the appeal of Christianity. While Roman religion was vague and ambiguous about many things, Christianity was loud and clear about the family life. Numbers further increased.
Human life was somewhat sacred in Christianity. Slavery was not compatible. Numbers increased among slaves, former slaves, and others in very bad situation. Economic inequality worked for the tide of change.
After a period of time Christians became a group of people with considerable numbers in every part of Rome. That point was the time when Christians became an asset. A community that can be “used” to achieve a political goal: READ an army. That army started to achieve minor victories here and there. Some big Roman families used them, and hence, gave Christians more power. Their population further increased.
Christians were “standard” in morality. All a single community. They were united as a fist. Controlling that fist, after a while, provided an advantage. They called themselves “Militia Christi” (army/soldiers of Christ). A religious terrorist organization with many cells existing everywhere in Rome.
Finally, a Roman general needed an army that can be used to become an emperor. Constantine, betrayed his empire and turned to Christian army to become an emperor. This was a “cheat” he used in the game.
At that point Christians were still a minority. But a minority that was organized as an army and that made a man the king of Romans. So, Constantine “the traitor” destroyed Rome. Consider it like Anakin going to the Jedi Temple after killing Mace Vindu. Constantine the traitor had to demolish former gods to prevail after his first victory. So he attacked his father’s nation and country of his ancestors leaving Romans unguarded against Militia Christi -the new Roman army.
In a nutshell, Roman demographics and economics were *truly awful*, Christianity was the ultimate counter-cultural movement. And a cheeky Roman emperor converted to get mass support to win the battle of Milvian bridge and beyond.
Firstly, it’s important to discuss the economics and demographics of the Roman Empire around the time.
Basically, they *were not good.* GDP per capita adjusted for modern inflation leaves most Roman citizens poorer than even the poorest places on Earth today. Now of course, that’s not a perfect comparison, but in the context of living in the empire at this time, and giving that capital gives you power, it essentially meant the chance of you being utterly powerless is almost 100%. This is why Romans invested in massive public works. No capital was private, it was all wielded by the state, to pacify the populace. Bread and circuses etc, and for the soldiers they were rewarded with land. If you were a Roman citizen, you were likely poor, likely the wrong culture, and actually *likely literally a slave* (up to 20% of the Roman population was a slave)*.* All the wealth was concentrated in very select powerful families, and the overwhelming majority of the power of Rome was essentially an extension of these families’ will. You, as a Roman citizen exist as an incredibly unproductive cog in the machine to keep these elites in power.
One of your only ways of expressing resistance, or getting involved with a power hierarchy you actually had control over was to get involved with religion. And the hip-young religion on the scene was Christianity. It was so in vogue because it was created as a direct response to Roman rule. It was, in essence, very similar to socialist worker movements. It gave power to the people. It would take in people, give them a purpose, give them a function, a higher purpose, and support resistances across the empire. Love thy neighbour, relative freedom, and adaptation of regional Levantine and Egyptian religious elements was a direct cultural contrast to the Greek and Latin gods that the elites favoured made the ultimate religion for the time. It was inclusive by design. Loving by design. Anti-Roman by design. If you as a Roman citizen wanted any sort of power, you *had* to get into religion. It was the only place you could realistically operate. Christianity was empowerment for the masses.
The Romans saw Christianity for exactly what it was, an attempt to dilute Roman power over regions they saw as subjects. Christian believers swelled, and events in Rome that led to a reduction in power (like the Antonine Plague, which led to a significant drop in manpower) allowed Christianity to grow to become a serious internal concern. Ordinarily, brutality and cruelty would’ve kept Christianity no more than a mere local concern, but several things happened that weakened Roman influence enough so that they couldn’t stamp down on the growing movement. Sassinids sacked cities with inpunity, Goths invaded, Romans themselves were declaring themselves independent and challenging the capital for superiority. This crisis weakened Rome enough for the Christians to become a militant force all of their own, and with a comprehensive network of people willing to spread the message to subjugated peoples all over the empire, the Christian movement went viral.
And then, you have the civil wars of the tetrarchy, a complete and utter clusterfuck of Roman leaders fighting each other for control, that further led to the degredation of overall Roman control, and the opporunity to use the chaos as a ladder to power was there.
In amongst this carnage, was Constantine. Through a few well places alliances, and marriages, and military victories, he emerged as the favourite to win. His last *real* hurdle was to defeat his rival Maxentius who had ruled the western Roman empire. In order to get further support, he appealed to *you guessed it* the Christians to support his claim. Constantine from that moment went hard on appealing to the Christians. He saw the massive support for the movement, and instead of suppressing it, he embraced it. And with their overwhelming help, he won the battle of Milvian bridge, widely agreed to be the point in which Rome had become Christian. Constantine went full PR mode, and claimed to have seen crosses made of light during the battle, and that god had told him that his rule was divine etc etc. After the battle had been won, and Maxentius defeated, Constantine went about rewarding the Christians that had helped him, by introducing the edict of Milan, basically giving the Christians all the restitutions they wanted. Christainity was no longer outlawed and seen as the unwashed masses. They were canonized as proper citizens, and were forcibly thrust into positions of power to support their new “divine” emperor.
From there, Constantine used Christian support to defeat his ally Licinius, defeated the Goths, defeated the Samaritans, and pretty much just win everything. Constantine realized that using a religion that empowered common people as a means for a call to war was one of the greatest innovations of his time. Before you’d fight for Rome for steady pay, a good pension, land to work, higher social status because there was nowhere else you could get that stuff. But in the current climate of Rome, all that shit didn’t matter. Exploiting that fact and promising Christians citizenship to have them fight for your cause made Rome Christian, because it gave Constantine power. Constantine probably didn’t care that the previously heretical, unwashed commoners that were the Christians now had power in Rome, he just needed their numbers to put himself on the throne. From there, Christian support was the default in the empire as it led to a bevy of victories for Rome. And the convenient nature of their enemies like the Huns, the Germans, and Sassanids being infidels likely bolstered the idea of a Christian Rome standing tall defending against barbarian tribes.
Christianity from that moment on became the basis for rulership in Europe, simply because it was so ubiquitous amongst the peasantry.
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