The Rise of Christianity and the Fall of Rome

I. The Official Christianization of the Empire, 312-540

A. Polytheism and Christianity in Competition—although Constantine converted in 312 (and favored Christianity), it did not become the official state religion until near the end of the fourth century. Christianity grew because it offered men and women of all classes support and security, and nourished a sense of community.

1. Persistence of Polytheism—Polytheism prevailed because many could not accept that someone who could promise eternal salvation could not, at the same time overthrow Roman rule. Although many polytheists worshipped one main god, they also had some difficulty believing that one doctrine could be the only path to salvation. Finally, the ready acceptance of sinners into Christianity also raised eyebrows.

2. Making Christianity Official—after Julian the Apostate was killed, the emperors after him were all themselves Christian, and they halted state support for other religious practices. Christianity was proclaimed the official state religion in 391. Polytheistic practices prevailed in the empire for a number of years afterward, but gradually faded away. Judaism presented a complex problem; since Jesus himself had been a Jew, shouldn’t Jews be treated as a special case? But if an exception was made for Jews and their religious practices, accommodations would have to be made for other sects, as well.

3. Christianity’s Growing Appeal—Christianity was able to maintain the sense of community that it had as a small sect, when Christians were welcomed into local Christian communities wherever they went. Christianity also maintained a social assistance network, particularly for widows and poor people. Women who chose not to marry and remain virgins, and widows who chose not to remarry, were especially revered—although that won them no place in the church hierarchy

4. Hierarchy in the Church—was reinforced by the increased power of bishops over the churched in their region—which in turn decreased the influence women had in the early church. The early bishops were fairly equal in their status, and bishops were appointed by regional councils of bishops. The bishop of Rome, claiming descent from Simon Peter, claimed the title pope (“father”), and gradually was able to exercise the authority this title claims in the West—but never gained this authority in the East.

B. Struggle for Clarification in Christian Belief—Jesus himself left no written teachings, and early Christians frequently argued over what he meant for them to believe. Controversy centered on what was orthodoxy, and what was heresy.

We believe in one God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.

And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, Very God of Very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father by whom all things were made; who for us men, and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary, and was made man, and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate. He suffered and was buried, and the third day he rose again according to the Scriptures, and ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of the Father. And he shall come again with glory to judge both the quick and the dead, whose kingdom shall have no end.
And we believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life, who proceedeth from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified, who spoke by the prophets. And we believe one holy catholic and apostolic Church. We acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins. And we look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.—Nicene Creed (325 C.E.)

1. Arianism—named after a priest named Arian in Alexandria, Arianism contested the depiction of the Holy Trinity. Arian and his followers held that Jesus, although the son of God, was not his co-equal, but rather that Jesus was subordinate to God the Father. The controversy stirred by Arian persisted for a number of years.

2. Monophysitism, Nestorianism, and Donatism—numerous other disputes also wracked the early Church.

a. Monohysitism—argued that the divine nature of Jesus took precedence over his human appearance, and that he was therefore not god and man, but simply god

b. Nestorianism—Nestorius, the bishop of Constantinople, argued that Mary in giving birth to Jesus produced the human being who became the temple for the in-dwelling god, also rejecting the duel nature of Jesus. This got him deposed from his position, but Nestorian Christians found refuge in Persia and in parts of India, where they flourished under the protection of non-Christian rulers.

c. Donatism—argued that clerics who had collaborated with imperial officials during the Great Persecution (under Diocletian), and then were welcomed back into the Church, were illegitimate—as were all of the clergy associated with them.

d. Council of Chalcedon—held in 451 to settle the issue of Nestorianism, the council attempted to clarify exactly what was orthodox belief—and was largely successful. Much of what we recognize as Christian orthodoxy today on the nature and relationship of Jesus to God, and the triune nature of God (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) is a result of this council.

3. Augustine of Hippo—the leading intellectual of the early Church, along with Ambrose and Jerome he has been bestowed with the unofficial title of church fathers. The author of hundreds of tracts, he is best known today for two of them: City of God and Confessions.

a. City of God—argued that humans were torn between their desires for earthly pleasures and for spiritual purity. Love was desirable and encouraged, but only when it was directed toward God. Augustine also argued that history had a divine purpose, and because of that only God could know what that purpose was (which doesn’t get you off the hook, by the way).

4. Augustine and Sexual Desire—Confessions is largely autobiographical, and is largely about Augustine’s struggles to overcome the temptations of the pleasures of life—including sex. According to Augustine, sexual relationships between men and women were a result of The Fall in the Garden of Eden, and neither men nor women should take any pleasure in having sex together; it should only be undertaken for procreation. For those able to achieve it, virginity was the most desirable state. By the end of the fourth century, this ascetic virtue was so desirable that congregations began to call for virgin ministers and bishops.

C. Christian Monasticism—Monasticism is a practice in a variety of religious orders—the renunciation of wealth, living the ascetic lifestyle, praying for the salvation of others. Christianity is distinctive in the large numbers of people drawn to live this lifestyle—and the high regard they were held in.

1. The Appeal of Monasticism—Monasticism was a means of achieving fame, initially—which also gave them influence over followers. For some of these early monks, their fame continued to influence people even after their death, as relics of the (body parts, pieces of clothing) came to be venerated for the powers they retained.

2. The Rise of Monastic Communities—around 323, Pachomius organized the first monastic community, establishing the tradition of single sex settlements of monks helping each other along the harsh path of holiness. Some monasteries set very strict regimens; others became committed to community service. Benedict of Nursia developed a rather mild code of monastic conduct; including prayer, scriptural readings, and manual labor—the first time in Greek or Roman history that physical work was seen as noble, even godly.

II. Non-Roman Kingdoms in the Western Roman Empire, c. 370-550

A. Non-Roman Migrations Into the Western Roman Empire—The non-Roman peoples who flooded into the empire had diverse origins, even though historians have traditionally called them Germanic peoples. In fact, most of these people had no ethnic identity that we can discern, but many of them had had long-term contact with Romans through trade and by serving in the Roman Army. Forced across the Danube by their fear of invaders (mainly, the Huns), they continued their practice of conducting raids for a living, and farming small plots of land.

1. Immigrant Traditions—the traditions these people brought with them left them ill-equipped to rule other. They had lived in small settlements whose economies depended upon farming, herding, and ironworking—not with administrating large kingdoms built on central authority. In their homelands, they had lived in chiefdom societies, whose members could only be persuaded, not ordered, to follow the chief, and were based on clan relationships. Families were patriarchal, and men often had more than one wife (and often several concubines, as well).

2. Fleeing the Huns—the Huns arrived on the Russian stepped shortly before 370 as the vanguard of Turkish-speaking nomads moving west. Their fearsome appearance, and skill on horseback, greatly frightened those people living in central Europe, and they sought protections from Rome.

3. Visigoths—the first non-Roman group that created a new identity for themselves were the people who defeated the Roman emperor Valens at Adrianople. The succeeding emperor, Theodosius, died in 395, these people rebelled after years of abuse. Organized by a man named Alaric, they stunned the world by sacking Rome itself in 410—the first time Rome had been invaded in nearly 1000 years. The Visigoths were bought off by allowing them to settle in southern France, and eventually into the Iberian Peninsula (Spain)

4. Vandals—the western government’s concessions to the Visigoths led other groups to seize territory and create new kingdoms and identities. Among these people were the Vandals, who cut a huge swath across Gaul and into Spain, eventually settling in North Africa, where they seized grain and oil shipments meant for Rome.

5. Anglo-Saxons—some groups took advantage of this turmoil—and their distance from the ruling center—to carve out their own fiefdoms. The Angles and the Saxons were able to overcome the resistance of the Celts on most of the main British island (England), and gradually their religious practices supplanted the Christian practices of the Celts except in Wales and in Ireland.

6. Ostrogoths and the Fall of Rome—the Ostrogoths carved out a kingdom in Italy in the fifth century. By the time the Ostrogothic king Theodoric came to power, there had not been a Roman emperor for nearly twenty years—and there never would be. Romulus Augustulus was deposed (but not murdered because of his tender age), but the rebel leader Odoacer did not proclaim himself emperor; instead, he recognized the supremacy of the eastern emperor Zeno. Officially, he was Zeno’s viceroy in Rome; practically, of course, he ruled as he wished.

7. Franks—the Franks had been allowed to settle in northern France (now the Netherlands), but had gradually drifted south into Gaul. In 507, the Frankish king Clovis, with assistance from Constantinople, overthrew the Visigoth, and crowned himself the new king. Under the influence of his wife Clotilda, he renounced the Arianism he had earlier embraced, and the Merovingian dynasty lasted another 200 years.

B. Social and Cultural Transformation in the Western Roman Empire—these new rulers found it advantageous to meld together Roman practices with their own traditions

1. Visigothic and Frankish Law—Roman law was the most influential precedent for the new kings to construct stable states. The Visigothic kings were the first to issue a written law code. Published in Latin about 475, it made fines and compensation the primary method for resolving disputes. Clovis also emphasized written law for the Merovingian kingdom, and promoted social order through clear penalties for specific crimes.

2. A Transformed Economic Landscape—while these new kingdoms could write and enforce laws as Rome had, the economic dislocation caused by the migrations and resultant war greatly weakened the region economically. Wealthy Romans built sprawling villas on extensive estates, staffed by tenants bound to the land like slaves. These estates aimed at self-sufficiency, but that in turn stifled trade. Unable to collect taxes, infrastructure began falling apart—further damaging trade.

II. The Roman Empire in the East, c. 500-565

A. Imperial Society in the Eastern Roman Empire—the sixth-century eastern empire enjoyed a vitality that had vanished in the west. The rich spent freely on luxuries, and the eastern emperors sponsored religious festivals and entertainments on a massive scale to rally public support.

1. Preserving “Romanness”—eastern emperors worked to maintain Roman tradition and identity, believing that “Romanness” was the best defense against what they saw as the barbarization of the western empire. Cultural unity was impossible to achieve, however, because the eastern empire was thoroughly multicultural and multilingual. Romanness included Christianity, but the eastern empire’s theological diversity rivaled its ethnic linguistic complexity, and bitter controversies over doctrine divided eastern Christians.

2. Women in Society and at Court—like other Mediterranean societies, women in the eastern empire remained close to home, and avoided meeting men outside their family circle. The strict views of Christian theologians on sexuality and reproduction made divorce more difficult and discouraged remarriage for widows. Female prostitution remained legal and common, but penalties for those who forced girls or female slaves into prostitution were made more severe.

3. Social Class and Government Services—government in the eastern empire increased social divisions because it provided services according to people’s wealth. Officials received fees for countless services, from commercial permits to legal grievances. The fee-based system allowed the emperors to pay their civil servants a pittance and spend imperial funds for other purposes. Emperors fought government corruption by publishing a list of maximum fees their employees could charge—but that does not mean there was not corruption.

B. The Reign of Justinian, 527-565—Justinian became the most famous eastern emperor by waging war to reunite the empire as it had been in the days of Augustus, making imperial rule more autocratic, constructing costly buildings in Constantinople, and instituting legal and religious reforms. His aim—as it was for his predecessors—was to preserve social order based on hierarchy and maintain divine goodwill, Unfortunately, the cost of his plans forced him to raise taxes, generating civil strife.

1. Taxes and Social Unrest—High taxes provoked the Nika Riot in 532, which was only put down after imperial troops killed some 30,000 rioters trapped in the racetrack. The costliest part of the plan was to reunite the western and eastern empires. In this he was successful—but at a tremendous cost. The wars—some of which took a decade or more to conclude—decimated the land in the west, and cost a great deal of money out of the treasury in the east. On top of all this, a horrific epidemic raged through the empire for much of the 540s, killing a third of the residents in the empire—including at least 250,000 in Constantinople alone.

2. Strengthening Central Authority—Justinian craved stability, which he sought by strengthening his authority in two ways: emphasizing his closeness to God and increasing the autocratic power of his rule. He also reduced the autonomy of local government; men of ambition and ability could only advance by joining the imperial administration in the capital.

3. Legal and Religious Reform—besides codifying the laws of the empire, Justinian insisted upon enforcing his view of religious orthodoxy, purging and punishing the remaining polytheists, as well as Christians who did not adhere to Justinian’s version of Christianity. Justinian also attempted to outlaw homosexuality for the first time in Roman history.

C. The Preservation of Classical Traditions in the Late Roman Empire—The increased importance of Christianity threatened the continued existence of classical literature from the Greeks, as well as pre-Christian Latin literature. Those classics survived because of their continued importance to the education of elites in the eastern empire (there are later contributions from other cultures to this preservation, as well).