World order: Rome v/s Christianity.

[trekkiedane]

Originally there was the Roman Empire.

But eventually it turned into the Roman Catholic ('christian' as we know it) Church. How did this happen?

The Romans were very good at assimilating ( ) people: they accepted the gods of the people they conquered into their pantheon, and violà, those people became Romans, and most (if not all) were satisfied by becoming citizens of the empire.

But with the christians this ancient proven strategy (if it could even be called a strategy) didn't work. Why is that?

Christianity, with its insistence on only one god, seemed to threaten the principle of religious toleration which had guaranteed peace for so long among the people of the empire did constitute a problem to Rome; but even after realizing this, Rome had its golden age (the five good emperors for instance).

As a matter of fact, Rome was the entire world until Flavius Theodosius re-united the Roman empires (west and east) and decided to make christianity the single accepted religion of the state (sometime in the late threehundreds).

But.:
What I really don't understand is how christianity -being a monotheist upcoming religion- could begin this journey into total domination of the entire (then) civilized world.*

Sure, there was probably a great number of slaves that found the idea of doing anything that wasn't the same as their masters did (say, having a religion that inferred greatness in humility) would be a grand day out. But history doesn't work the way Hollywood does.
It's even plausible to think that the lower classes revolved! -again: history says: no.

Of course it was some sort of power-struggle, but I just can't seem to understand exactly how it came to be that an inferior minuscule thing like a monotheistic ideology came to overthrow, and even supersede, the greatest empire** the world had ever seen (until the formation of the USA -of course (Which in many ways can be/is seen as the continuation of this christian rebellion)).



Does anyone, of the usually very knowledgeable TBBS'ers, have anything to say that might help me understand this?

Yes, I'm not religious (in any way) and "faith"-based arguments won't do it. Please keep this a "fact" based thread. I'd like to know the historical reasons.

_________________
*) Of course the future (and to some extent the present) is a different game altogether (and ignoring what happened elsewhere )
**) I am totally ignoring China of course

 

[RevdKathy]

There were a number of factors. The Roman Empire was struggling with fragmentation. People seldom actually 'believed' the state religion any more. The Emperor realised that a unifying force was needed, and a new state religion seemed a good candidate. A number of more esoteric, monotheistic religions were in contention (Mithraism for example).

Christianity had gained quite a good foothold, being a religion that appealed particularly to the masses. It contained a degree of egalitarianism which was a little unusual.

In addition, the appeal of monotheism for a 'global' authority is that it is truly universal. Polytheism tends to be highly localised. For example in Britain, there was no one overall water god/dess. There was a local deity: Sulis at Bath, for example, Coventina at the wall (who appears to have only one well to her name.) By comparison, a monotheistic diety is ubiquitous, which is kind of handy for world domination.

Finally, there was the simple fact that one of theEmperors rather liked the Christian god - and was under pressure from his mother to convert. After his death there followed a period of change, as some leaders imposed Christianity, and others reverted to Paganism and persecuted Christians. But ultimately the idea of one state, one faith was so appealing it won out.

 

[trekkiedane]

There were a number of factors. The Roman Empire was struggling with fragmentation. People seldom actually 'believed' the state religion any more. The Emperor realised that a unifying force was needed, and a new state religion seemed a good candidate.
A number of more esoteric, monotheistic religions were in contention (Mithraism for example).

Christianity had gained quite a good foothold, being a religion that appealed particularly to the masses. It contained a degree of egalitarianism which was a little unusual.

In addition, the appeal of monotheism for a 'global' authority is that it is truly universal. Polytheism tends to be highly localised. For example in Britain, there was no one overall water god/dess. There was a local deity: Sulis at Bath, for example, Coventina at the wall (who appears to have only one well to her name.) By comparison, a monotheistic diety is ubiquitous, which is kind of handy for world domination.

Finally, there was the simple fact that one of theEmperors rather liked the Christian god - and was under pressure from his mother to convert. After his death there followed a period of change, as some leaders imposed Christianity, and others reverted to Paganism and persecuted Christians. But ultimately the idea of one state, one faith was so appealing it won out.

I realize that it probably wasn't one single thing that did the empire in and that a lot of 'good romans' believed in a lot of different things (gods) -it is kind of what the whole pantheon was all about (as I understand it anyways).

But this fragmentation you speak of actually (afaik) had always been there; Rome wasn't build in a day, but an amalgamation of all that it assimilated: loads of different cultures and religions. However local or otherwise 'local' (deities even being part of ancestry - or is that the other way 'round (?)) Why did people (in general) stop praying to their ascended ancestors (and whatever gods might have been more commonplace) and begin to only worship this newfangled thing: the one (christian) god?

The question I can't seem to find an answer to is; how come this one single monotheistic idea came to be the one that destroyed the entire empire?

Indeed, there was the one state one god idea, but didn't it actually fragment Rome rather than unify it?

 

[RevdKathy]

Christianity didn't destroy Rome: goths, visigoths and other assorted hoards did that.

Rome overreached itself. It was too big and too unwieldy. While it was largely a mediterranean affair, it was manageable. Once it branched out into northern Europe, it started to have communication issues and commitment issues. Not to mention funding issues. There's a reason why they built a wall and left Scotland to the Picts.

Forcibly uniting under one faith basically bought a dying, bloated empire a bit more time. But ultimately, there wasn't enough energy left to defend the edges (Britain was among the first bits to be abandoned - the legions were pulled back to defend the centre). Then the defence became hard to fund. And the soldiers who they pulled back were by no mean 'Roman' either - they never employed local people, but moved them from one provice to another. If you'd grown up in, say, Germany, joined up and been posted to Britannia, settled there, married a local girl and raised kids, you weren't exactly dead keen to be pulled back to defend Italy from some invasion. Your commitment to its shared religion against the invading force's paganism might tip the balance.

Ultimately, Rome failed because it was fighting too many wars away from home. Draw from that what you will.