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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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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