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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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.
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