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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One of the tenets of Christianity is to “make disciples of all the nations”, so Christians had the motivation to proselytize throughout the empire. However, because Christianity was monotheist, and unlike Judaism, was intent on spreading their religion, the Romans viewed it as a threat to their polytheistic state religion. To deal with this threat, they began persecuting Christians.
However, the Christians also believed that persecution and death as a result of their faith would lead them to heaven. Consequently, those that would be remembered as early saints and martyrs gladly accepted the death sentences imposed by the Romans. Consequently, the masses who witnessed these deaths saw that these Christians really believed what they preached, and the religion further spread, particularly amongst the lower classes who were attracted to the idea of all being equal in the eyes of an all loving God who would allow them into the same paradise for kings and commoners alike.
Eventually, with the spread amongst the lower classes, the Roman military saw more and more recruits who were Christian, and it was basically an open secret. This culminated in the Battle of the Milvian Bridge, where one of the emperor’s vying for power at the time, Constantine, claimed to have had a vision promising victory if his soldiers painted a Christian symbol on their shields. They won the battle, Constantine eventually became the sole emperor, and he passed the Edict of Milan in 313 A.D. which legalized the practice of Christianity in the empire.
With Christianity now legalized, Roman citizens could publicly practice their religion alongside Greco-Roman pagans. However, Greco-Roman paganism had already been on a decline before Christian legalization, and so Christianity continued to spread until it was adopted as the official religion of the empire by Emperor Theodosius I with the Edict of Thessalonica in 380 A.D.
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