Quote:
Originally Posted by Knalus
But it wasn't insignificant in the time of Constantine, it was very significant. The Christian church by the time of Constantine was a major part of the Roman Empire, but it tended to resist many of the controlling forces the Emperor and the Empire used to maintain the status quo. Emperors spent centuries attempting to quell the anti-emperor stance of the Christian Church, why do you think so many were fed to the lions? Why would you feed Christians to the lions if you invented it to control those people? This makes absolutely no sense. If anything, you could say that Constantine twisted the early Christian church, but you couldn't say that it was invented in order to create a mechanism of control over the regular folk. The emperor cults WERE the "invented" tool to control the masses, why build a new one? Christianity was divisive to Romans, not uniting. It's not just "not the most awesome tool", but it's possibly the worst tool available if control is your goal.
Christianity took off because he embraced it, not because he constructed it, and allowed the Good News to spread.
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I have to disagree with you here, christianity was only divisive to the empire if kept outside, once it became a state religeon its very stubbornness became its strength to bind a devisive empire together, you have to recognise the Roman Empire was in chaos in this time, the ruling structures that had worked reasonably well for a city state had brocken down under the pressure of an eastern and western dual empire, with 2 potential emperors most of the time.
Christianity had soime huge advantages over other faiths at the time, it proslytised for a start, which was unsual, what would be the point of a state religeon that didn't attempt to or even banned allowing converts in, it was the speed that it spread and the fact that it didn't preach anything for this life that made it very desirable for the state to coopt.
The fact that it also preached chastity and poverty was a good thing, it was in line with traditional roman society as opposed to the weirder and wackier sects coming out of the east and Egypt.
Embracing early christianity would make perfect sense assuming an emperor was looking for a unifiying faith, what better way to prevent the christians themselves from spreading disent within the empire, they would also spread the faith themselves enthusiastically and there really wasn't anything about the church that was likley to offend conservative roman sensabilities, no drunkenan bachanalian rights involving little boys or the like (that, it would appear, would have to wait)