christianity in the roman empire essay

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The Growth of Christianity in the Roman Empire

Colin Ricketts

09 aug 2018.

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The Rome of today is no longer the centre of a great empire. It is still globally important though, with more than one billion people looking to it as the centre of the Roman Catholic faith.

It’s not a coincidence that the capital of the Roman Empire became the centre of Roman Catholicism; Rome’s eventual adoption of Christianity, after centuries of indifference and periodic persecution, gave the new faith enormous reach.

Saint Peter was killed in Nero’s persecution of Christians following the Great Fire of 64 AD ; but by 319 AD, Emperor Constantine was building the church that was to become St Peter’s Basilica over his grave.

Religion in Rome

Since its foundation, Ancient Rome was a deeply religious society and religious and political office often went hand in hand. Julius Caesar was Pontifex Maximums, the highest priest, before he was elected as Consul, the highest Republican political role.

The Romans worshipped a large collection of gods , some of them borrowed from the Ancient Greeks, and their capital was full of temples where by sacrifice, ritual and festival the favour of these deities was sought.

Wedding of Zeus and Hera on an antique fresco from Pompeii. Image credit: Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Julius Caesar approached god-like status at the height of his powers and was deified after his death. His successor Augustus encouraged this practice. And although this apotheosis to divine status happened after death, the Emperor became a god to many Romans, an idea Christians were to later find highly offensive.

As Rome grew it encountered new religions, tolerating most and incorporating some into Roman life. Some, however, were singled out for persecution, usually for their ‘un-Roman’ nature. The cult of Bacchus, a Roman incarnation of the Greek god of wine, was repressed for its supposed orgies, and the Celtic Druids were all but wiped out by the Roman military, reportedly for their human sacrifices.

Jews were also persecuted, particularly after Rome’s long and bloody conquest of Judea.

Christianity in the Empire

Christianity was born in the Roman Empire. Jesus Christ was executed by Roman authorities in Jerusalem, a city in a Roman province.

His disciples set about spreading the word of this new religion with remarkable success in the crowded cities of the Empire.

Early persecutions of Christians were probably carried out at the whim of provincial governors and there was also occasional mob violence. Christians’ refusal to sacrifice to Roman gods could be seen as a cause of bad luck for a community, who might petition for official action.

The first – and most famous – great persecution was the work of Emperor Nero . Nero was already unpopular by the time of the Great Fire of Rome in 64 AD. With rumours that the Emperor himself was behind the fire circulating, Nero picked on a convenient scapegoat and many Christians were arrested and executed.

‘Triumph of Faith’ by Eugene Thirion (19th century) depicts Christian martyrs in the time of Nero. Image credit: Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons

It wasn’t until the reign of the Emperor Decius in 250 AD that Christians were again put under Empire-wide official sanction. Decius ordered every inhabitant of the Empire to make a sacrifice in front of Roman officials. The edict may not have had specific anti-Christian intent, but many Christians did refuse to go through the ritual and were tortured and killed as a result. The law was repealed in 261 AD.

Diocletian, the head of the four-man Tetrarch, instituted similar persecutions in a series of edicts from 303 AD, calls that were enforced in the Eastern Empire with particular enthusiasm.

The ‘conversion’

The apparent ‘conversion’ to Christianity of Constantine, Diocletian’s immediate successor in the Western Empire, is seen as the great turning point for Christianity in the Empire.

Persecution had ended before Constantine’s reported miraculous vision and adoption of the cross at the Battle of Milvian Bridge in 312 AD. He did, however, issue the Edict of Milan in 313, allowing Christians and Romans of all faiths ‘liberty to follow that mode of religion which to each of them appeared best.’

Christians were allowed to take part in Roman civic life and Constantine’s new eastern capital, Constantinople, contained Christian churches alongside pagan temples.

Constantine’s vision and the Battle of the Milvian Bridge in a 9th-century Byzantine manuscript. Image credit: Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The extent of Constantine’s conversion is still not clear. He gave money and land to the Christians and founded churches himself, but also patronised other religions. He wrote to Christians to tell them that he owed his success to their faith, but he remained Pontifex Maximus until his death. His deathbed baptism by Pope Sylvester is only recorded by Christian writers long after the event.

After Constantine, Emperors either tolerated or embraced Christianity, which continued to grow in popularity, until in 380 AD Emperor Theodosius I made it the official state religion of the Roman Empire.

Theodosius’ Edict of Thessalonica was designed as the final word on controversies within the early church. He – along with his joint rulers Gratian, and Valentinian II – set in stone the idea of an equal Holy Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Those ‘foolish madmen’ who did not accept this new orthodoxy – as many Christians didn’t – were to be punished as the Emperor saw fit.

The old pagan religions were now suppressed and sometimes persecuted.

Rome was in decline, but becoming part of its fabric was still a massive boost for this growing religion, now called the Catholic Church. Many of the Barbarians who are credited with ending the Empire in fact wanted nothing more than to be Roman, which increasingly came to mean converting to Christianity.

While the Emperors of Rome would have their day, some of the Empire’s strengths were to survive in a church led by the Bishop of Rome.

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• Christianity within the Roman Empire

The Romans viewed religion as very important, though they banned Christianity and punished Christians for a long time. Christians were at first targeted for persecution by Nero in 64 AD - some were killed and eaten by dogs and others set on fire. They continued to be persecuted over the next 100 years, with some Christians even fed to the lions as a form of entertainment within  ancient Rome .

Christianity’s message began to spread throughout the vast Roman Empire thanks to the work of St Paul, the man who had already established churches in Greece and Asia Minor before targeting Rome itself.

The first Christian converts were normally poor people and those locked in the chains of slavery - this is because these sections of society stood to gain the most should Christianity successfully spread through Rome as the religion preached helping those most in need. It was a risky practice though; if they got caught then Christians could be killed as they were only supposed to worship the Roman emperor of the time, even if that leader did little to help their cause.

The tension between Christians and the Romans heightened in 64 AD when a section of Rome was burnt. The Emperor Nero responded by blaming Christians and there was a swift backlash as the Roman people quickly turned against them, with a large number of Christians either arrested or executed. Nero ordered the arrest and torture of all the Christians in Rome. They were then executed in front of huge crowds. Some were crucified, some were thrown to wild animals and others were burned alive.

A Christian’s faith was tested by forcing them on pain of death to swear by the emperor and offer incense to his images, or a sacrifice to the gods.

Christians in ancient Rome were forced to carry out their meetings and worship in secret because of the continual dangers they faced - usually in underground tombs which were out of sight. Christianity kept on growing and in 313 AD, Emperor Constantine made the religion legal - meaning it was acceptable for them to worship openly. Churches were then built throughout the whole empire and in 391 AD it was illegal to worship other gods.

However, Nero’s persecution of Christians was brief and not widespread. In other areas of the empire, Christians were not actively pursued but they could be punished if they refused to surrender their beliefs.

See also: Julius Caesar

MLA Citation/Reference

"Christianity within the Roman Empire". HistoryLearning.com. 2024. Web.

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5 Ways Christianity Spread Through Ancient Rome

By: Becky Little

Updated: June 8, 2023 | Original: July 27, 2022

How did Christianity go from a small sect in a corner of the Roman Empire in the first century, to the religion that the emperor converted to in the early fourth century? Its spread was greatly aided by the empire’s political unification and extensive road system , as well as the belief among many Christians that the religion was something anyone could adopt, regardless of regional or religious background.

1. Everyday Citizens Spread the Word

Missionaries like Paul, a major figure in the Bible ’s New Testament, traveled around the empire with the intention to spread Christianity. However, most of the people who helped spread the religion did so just by talking about it with their neighbors, friends and family members, says Edward Watts , a history professor at the University of California San Diego and author of The Final Pagan Generation: Rome's Unexpected Path to Christianity .

“Missionaries are a part of the story, but most of the story is about regular Christians talking to regular people,” he says. “And that, I think, is the most important reason that Christianity emerges in the way that it does in the Roman world. It’s not mission activity by people like Paul so much as it is people whose name we don’t know.”

2. Early On, Christianity Coexisted With ‘Paganism’

At the Roman Empire’s height in the second century, it stretched into Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. One key reason Christianity was able to spread throughout this vast empire was that many people viewed the new religion as something they could easily adopt without having to change their existing cultural and religious practices.

In the first and second centuries, most people in the Roman Empire worshiped multiple gods at once. When they heard about Christianity, they didn’t necessarily think that worshiping Jesus Christ meant they had to stop worshiping their other gods, like Jupiter, Apollo and Venus. Rather, many adopted Christianity by adding Jesus to the group of gods they already worshiped, Watts says.

The belief that Christianity was compatible with what we now call paganism helped Christianity spread through the Roman Empire. Although some Christians argued there was only one god and Christians shouldn’t worship any others, this wasn't how many people in the Roman Empire understood Christianity at the time, Watts says.

3. Early Christians Didn’t Present Themselves as an Exclusive Club

Christianity also got a boost from the idea that it was a religion for anyone—not just people in a certain region with a specific religious background. Though some Christians debated this point, missionaries like Paul preached that a person didn’t have to obey Jewish laws around circumcision and kosher food practices to become Christians.

“This is a key change because it makes the bar to entry much lower,” Watts says. “If you are a male who wants to convert to Christianity, and there’s an assumption that first you have to convert to Judaism , it’s literally physically painful and dangerous for you to convert.”

In addition, the fact that the authors of the Christian gospels wrote them in Koine Greek, a common language version of Greek, made the gospels accessible to more people in the empire. Unlike Aramaic, a regional language in Judea that Jesus spoke, Greek was spoken throughout the Roman Empire.

4. Early Persecution Wasn’t Widespread

During the first and second centuries, persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire was sporadic and regionally-specific rather than empire-wide. The persecution of Christian martyrs like Ignatius of Antioch, who died in the second century, did not represent the experiences of most Christians.

This didn’t changed until the middle of the third century, when the emperors Decius, who ruled from 249 to 251, and Valerian, who ruled from 253 to 260, launched campaigns to promote traditional Roman values and customs like sacrificing animals to pagan gods. Officials documented these sacrifices with papyrus receipts for people to keep as a record of their sacrifice. Those who didn’t have these receipts and refused to sacrifice could be arrested and killed.

Decius’s campaign didn’t target Christians, specifically, but rather anyone who wasn’t practicing pagan sacrifice. In contrast, Valerian’s campaign targeted Christians more directly. After this, the next major campaign against Christians was the Great Persecution. Beginning in 303 under the Emperor Diocletian, it led to the death of many Christian religious leaders and the seizure of Christian property

5. An Emperor Converted—and Officially Recognized the Faith

The Great Persecution was the Roman Empire’s most severe persecution of Christians—and also its last. This is because after this persecution, in 312, Emperor Constantine I became the first Roman emperor to convert to Christianity. A year later, he helped enact the Edict of Milan, which ended government persecution of Christians and made Christianity a recognized, legal religion within the empire.

Constantine’s rule didn’t mark an immediate shift in the Roman Empire from pagan to Christian. However, “he starts a process that, by the end of the fourth century, will lead to the explicit restriction of pagan practices and the explicit promotion of Christian practices by the imperial government,” Watts says.

Christianity continued to spread through the territories of the western Roman Empire after its fall in 476. Over the next several centuries, it became the dominant religion in the city of Rome as well as the European regions over which the Roman Empire had ruled. The Roman Colosseum , once the site of deadly gladiator battles, even became a sacred Christian site where, in the 17th century, an artist painted an image of ancient Jerusalem.

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Home — Essay Samples — Religion — Christian Worldview — The Rise of Christianity and its Impact on the Roman Empire

The Rise of Christianity and Its Impact on The Roman Empire

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Christianity in the Roman Empire and Its Spread Factors Research Paper

Introduction.

Several factors could be attributed to the spread of Christianity in the Roman Empire. The beginning of the Christianity movement can be traced to the late first century AD under a Nazarene teacher and his disciples. Towards the end of the first century, Christianity had spread in the Roman Empire to the extent that the government officials’ attention was drawn by this new religion. At the end of the fourth century, Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire. This paper examines the factors that contributed to the spread of Christianity.

Factors Attributed to the Spread of Christianity in the Roman Empire

The peace of rome.

The Roman Empire had a powerful military that was able to keep pace in the entire region. This means that members of Christian movements were in a position to spread wide and far within Rome in search of new converts without the fear of actual physical harm. Moreover, due to the peaceful Roman Empire environment, there were no information blackouts or curfews that could have limited the movement of the Christians.[1] Therefore, early Christians took advantage of the peaceful Roman-pax Romana to quickly recruit more members to the new faith.

Rome’s Good Infrastructure

The Roman Empire was characterized by advancements in technology as early as the first century, especially in road construction. The government of the day built well-connected, reliable, and widespread road networks throughout the empire. As a result, a renowned subscriber to Christianity, such as the Apostle Paul, was able to utilize these roads to reach potential converts and spread the gospel message. Due to better road network connectivity, Paul established many churches throughout the Roman Empire.[2] Moreover, the road networks made it easy for Christianity believers to quickly spread Paul’s letters and teaching throughout Rome and Beyond.

Common Language

The Roman Empire has two main languages, that is, Greek in the east and Latin in the west. However, the main interaction or standard language was called Koine Greek. The New Testament and Paul’s letters were written in this language. Thus, the language of the main Christianity reference book was similar to the common language. As a result, the gospel message could reach more than 70% of the Roman Empire population because there was no language barrier.[3] Virtually, the entire empire conversed in the same language as Christian letters or scriptures.

Christian Charity and Aid

The foundation of the Christianity movement teaching was that everyone is equal before God. The followers of Christianity in Rome integrated this teaching into practice by giving food, clothing, and shelter to the poor for free, irrespective of race. The Roman Empire government did not have social institutions to take care of the vulnerable members of the society. This means that the poor found a safe haven among the Christian families in Rome. For instance, the slaves and other poor members of the society had few options other than joining Christianity.[4] The ability to embrace the poor and even non-Christians made this religion spread evenly across the entire empire. Moreover, the early Christian community in Rome established hospices and hospital centers to care for the dying or sick for free. Although limited in medical knowledge, these centers helped greatly, especially during infectious plagues and natural disasters. In addition, early Christians established orphanages to take care of abandoned orphans, which was a common occurrence in the early centuries. These orphans were then converted to Christianity. Such acts of charity influenced many non-Christians, and they were drawn to the new philosophical way of life of caring for everyone who needed help.[5]

Freedom from Class Distinctions

Unlike other Roman cultures that easily divided communities according to class, race, and gender, the teachings of Christianity embraced and treated everyone as equals. It was common to hear preachers in the streets proclaiming the message of everyone belonging to Christ in a similar manner. In the early Christian movement, the believers set aside racial, class, and gender distinctions. As a result, the unity found among the Christians as brothers and sisters appealed to diverse groups in Rome.[6] Moreover, the declaration of Jesus as God gave many converts an opportunity to abandon the Roman Empire’s cultural norms perceived as discriminating. For instance, slaves and women were the first largest groups to join this new religion in mass as a safe haven from discriminative cultural laws of the Roman Empire.

Courageous Martyrs and Increased Interest in Monotheism

The courageous persecution of many early Christian martyrs had a positive impact on the spread of Christianity in the Roman Empire. Many people were actually attracted to this new faith with the belief that the resurrected body of Jesus would give them the courage to face any form of death. The stories of martyrs were evenly spread in Rome, and those who believed joined the bandwagon of fearless Christians. If the converts and martyrs had doubts about the resurrection of Jesus, they would not have put their lives in the line of harm.[7]

In the middle of the first century, polytheism was the order of the day in the Greco-Roman region, as confirmed by prominent buildings such as the Pantheon, which was dedicated to many gods. At the time when Christianity reached Rome, there was a growing interest among the population in monotheism, which is a belief in a single all-powerful supernatural being. At the end of the first century, monotheism was generally viewed as trendy and religiously different from polytheism.[8] The affirmation of a trinity God by Christians created a unique monotheism, which appeals to many societies in the Roman Empire.

Gracious Salvation and a Loving God

The Christianity proclamation that the atonement of sin for mankind was done by Jesus Christ through Roman crucifixion appealed to many people in ancient times. For instance, the view of salvation as a special gift from a gracious God, irrespective of social status, race, or sin, was different from other philosophies and religions in the Roman Empire. Since the majority of the early converts were slaves and women, they easily embraced this message of the God who cares for the disadvantaged and poor.[9] This teaching became a magnet for the society that had been taught to appease and fear the numerous Greco-Roman gods.

Several factors have been highlighted as responsible for the spread of Christianity in the Roman Empire. These factors include peace in Rome, common language, good road networks, charity, and freedom from discriminating cultural norms. Moreover, the growing interest in monotheism and the loving nature of the Christian God attracted hordes to Christianity.

Bibliography

Davis, Leo. The First Seven Ecumenical Councils (325-787): Their History and Theology. New York: Liturgical Press, 2017.

Dohrmann, Natalie, and Annette Reed, eds. Jews, Christians, and the Roman Empire. Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013.

Lee, Donald. From Rome to Byzantium AD 363 to 565. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2013.

Wendt, Heidi. At the Temple Gates: The Religion Experts in the Roman Empire. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016.

• Donald Lee, From Rome to Byzantium AD 363 to 565 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2013), 45.
• Heidi Wendt, At the Temple Gates: The Religion Experts in the Roman Empire (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016), 28.
• Davis, The First Seven Ecumenical Councils, 37.
• Leo Davis, The First Seven Ecumenical Councils (325-787): Their History and Theology (New York: Liturgical Press, 2017), 31.
• Lee, From Rome to Byzantium, 49.
• Wendt, At the Temple Gates, 33.
• Lee, From Rome to Byzantium, 63.
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2021, June 25). Christianity in the Roman Empire and Its Spread Factors. https://ivypanda.com/essays/christianity-in-the-roman-empire-and-its-spread-factors/

"Christianity in the Roman Empire and Its Spread Factors." IvyPanda , 25 June 2021, ivypanda.com/essays/christianity-in-the-roman-empire-and-its-spread-factors/.

IvyPanda . (2021) 'Christianity in the Roman Empire and Its Spread Factors'. 25 June.

IvyPanda . 2021. "Christianity in the Roman Empire and Its Spread Factors." June 25, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/christianity-in-the-roman-empire-and-its-spread-factors/.

1. IvyPanda . "Christianity in the Roman Empire and Its Spread Factors." June 25, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/christianity-in-the-roman-empire-and-its-spread-factors/.

IvyPanda . "Christianity in the Roman Empire and Its Spread Factors." June 25, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/christianity-in-the-roman-empire-and-its-spread-factors/.

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EXPANSION OF CHRISTIANITY OUTSIDE THE ROMAN EMPIRE

Christianity in its early period itself could not be contained in Jerusalem alone, it spread throughout the Roman world. Christianity had its origin in the Palestine and had grown to other continents in the first century itself. The Book of Acts of the Apostles recorded one of the earliest accounts of the spread of Christianity to different corners of the Roman Empire and also outside it. The work of the Apostles and the witnesses of martyrs made this rapid growth. The religion had stimulated to Asia in the same phase as it stimulated to the European Continent. The Roman Empire with its good roads, sea routes, trade connections, city ports and learning centres etc played an important role in the spread of Christianity, as it brought people of diverse background, religions and cultures into contact. Also in the flipside, the persecutions too played an important role in spreading Christianity, as many Christians fled to different parts of the world with this newfound faith. After conversion of Emperor Constantine to Christianity, it began to spread into all directions. Christianity became deeply rooted in various parts of the world. One of the important places it reached was "Persia". In the beginning, though certain Sassanid Kings were tolerant towards Christians in Persia, by the time of Saphor II, persecution of Christians started because of religious and political causes. This paper is intended to elucidate the expansion of Christianity

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