We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed;

Perplexed, but not driven to despair;

Persecuted, but not forsaken;

Struck down, but not destroyed.

(2 Corinthians 4:7-9)

The Roman Catholic Church does not wield the kind of power and authority that it had during the medieval period. Today the Vatican still upholds its structure and influence among the Catholic world with only memories of its control over Kingdoms and their millions of people. It is interesting to consider how the Christian Church, centered at Rome, gained this kind of power in the first place. After all it was the Roman method of execution that killed Jesus of Nazareth during the fourth decade of the first century CE and continued to be at odds with the growing Christian community well after the crucifixion. Somehow, over the 280 years or so following the crucifixion, the Christian community grew and spread enough to thwart the official efforts to subdue the Church.

Growth of the Christian church within the Roman Empire before 313 CE

What was it about the early Christian community that allowed the church to defeat the Roman persecution; why did Constantine convert the Roman Empire to the religion that it had been trying to destroy for decades? It was a combination the Roman policy of tolerance of “alien gods,” martyrs to the Christian faith, the Church’s influence among the elite in addition to the masses within the Roman Empire, and, perhaps, an experience that Constantine had concerning the power of the Christian God. In essence, like water flowing over a sharp rock for centuries, Christianity eventually molded and softened the Roman Empire until it conformed to the Church. The Christians did not relent while faced with the powerful Roman threat; their strength, will, and perseverance allowed the Christian community to outlive the Empire and become the Catholic Church.

The Romans had a pantheon of Gods—Jupiter, Mercury, Neptune, etc—so it was not a big deal that the Christians would have another one of their own. More significant to this discussion is the fact that the Roman Empire had “no general law against non-Roman cults in the empire.”[1] The Christians were generally tolerated for most of the first, second, and third centuries. This allowed the Christian community to grow in relative peace and to spread the word to many reaches of the Roman world before the Empire viewed the Christian monotheism as a threat. But during the third and fourth centuries edicts were issued against Christians beginning with Deicius around 250 CE. These persecutions caused little panic among the Christians initially because the scriptures warned that such things would occur and the Church took it as a necessary step towards the return of Jesus and the awaited Resurrection.

The issue, for the Romans, was the conflicts in theism and rituals associated with the Roman Pagan religion in opposition to the non-sacrificing Christian religion. The Romans were not comfortable with the concept of monotheism because their religion believed in many gods. Norbert Brox puts it this way; “Certainly the notion of a dominant god was known in the pantheon of Roman polytheism, but other gods existed nevertheless.”[2] He continues a little later, “With their absolute monotheism, Christians put this view of the world in question and thus ran counter to fundamental notions of order.”[3] It seems, therefore, that the Christians didn’t just challenge the Roman religion, but the very base for order in the empire.

If this is true, then it is important to explore why the Romans paid so little attention to the Christians for the first two hundred years of their existence within the empire. Surely there were small conflicts among Romans and Christians before Deicius’ edicts, but something caused him and many emperors after him to attack the Christian community. Up to a certain point, the Christian community had not broken the threshold of political attention. Sometime during the middle of the third century this threshold had been broken and the Empire felt it needed to counter the Christian growth in some way.

Many scholars have noticed this and concluded that some miraculous growth had occurred during this time making a large portion of the Roman population Christian. Rodney Stark, a sociologist by profession, has another explanation that may be important to consider. In Starks’ words:

As late as the middle of the third century . . . Christians made up ‘just a few’ of the population. Yet only six decades later, Christians were so numerous that Constantine found it expedient to embrace the church. This has caused many scholars to think that something really extraordinary, in terms of growth, happened in the latter half of the third century[4]

Comparing the growth rate of the Mormons during the 19^th and 20^th centuries, he demonstrates that there was not necessarily any miraculous growth of the Christian community. Using the Mormon growth in the last 100 years, Stark extrapolates that the Christian church might have grown at a rate of 40% per decade (3.42% per year). After a while the growth would appear to be very rapid—this occurred in the latter half of the third century. One problem with doing this comparison is the difficulty of finding reliable statistics for the number of Christians at given times throughout the first four centuries of the Christian era. Stark assumes that the Roman Empire contained 60 million people around the year 300 CE, only 13 years before the conversion. Of this 60 million, the number of Christians range from Edward Gibbon’s “no more than ‘a twentieth part of the subjects of the empire’ at the time of Constantine’s conversion”[5] to Von Hertling’s estimate of 7.5-15 million for the year 300.[6] In any case, assuming the population estimate of 60 million, the Christian community was not a majority around the time of the conversion in 313 CE.

It is not as important to realize how many people were Christians as to understand who were the Christians. From statements attributed to Jesus such as “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the Earth” it seems safe to assume that the Christian message spread very quickly among the lower class—those who were down and out looking for some kind of redemption in a difficult life. But there is evidence that supports the theory that there was a very significant movement among the educated middle and upper classes; even much of the royalty had embraced Christianity.[7] Stark, quoting Edward Gibbon, observes that Christianity “spread first among the educated more rapidly than among the uneducated; nowhere had it a stronger hold . . . than in the house-hold and at the court of the emperors.”[8]

With high standing often comes power and authority. It seems that many of the Churches, despite the persecutions that were being performed throughout much of the Empire, had considerable political clout. Adolf Harnak has, for example, “noted that Ignatius, in his letter to the Christian congregation in Rome, expressed his concern lest they interfere with his martyrdom . . . Christians in Rome had ‘the power’ to gain him pardon.”[9] This kind of power seems to imply political force of the Christian Church while they were being officially persecuted. This means that within the Roman power structure there were some conflicts of interest. In the ancient world there was a significant shift going on that explains this to some degree. The Roman religion was slowly being influenced by Judeo-Christian monotheism.

Gradually the Pagan Empire was being infiltrated by monotheistic ideas. From a Roman orthodox point of view the Christians were “atheistic” and their refusal to sacrifice to the Roman gods was equivalent to refusing to accept Roman Imperial authority. The Romans viewed the Christian community as a dangerous influence that was challenging the basis for Roman authority. The concept of “newness” was unfavorable in the Greco-Roman world at the time and this Christian monotheism was something that challenged traditional beliefs. Because of the theistic differences between the Christian community and the Empire the Christians were forced into isolation and secrecy.

As people converted the church gained a bad reputation among many people. Brox says that these conversions lead to “widespread unpopularity of the Christians, because it split marriages and families and led many people to apostatize from the well-tried pious traditions of their ancestors.” And continues; “Christians declared worthless all the values prized by [Roman] society—science, education, culture, possessions, career . . . they took a s[k]eptical view of oaths, official positions, and reputations”[10]

All of this seems to be in conflict with what would eventually occur—the conversion of the empire itself. But this reputation that the Christians suffered through would slowly be replaced by respect. As Alexander Pope would observe much later (he would be describing evil—there is no implied antagonism here though) first it, in this case Christianity, is tolerated, then endured, pitied, and finally embraced. Over time the compassion and bravery of the Christian people would gain favor with the people and the Christian numbers grew drastically.

The early relationship with the Roman Empire was relatively placid. Brox claims that “in the first three centuries the relationship of Christians to the state was that of a fundamental loyalty, with strict reservations about the cultic claims of the emperor and empire.”[11] But these “reservations” of the Christians would prove to be too much for the Romans to tolerate. In 250 CE Deicius declared an edict that demanded “universal compulsory sacrifice on pain of death.”[12] His goal was not to destroy the Christians themselves per se, but to annihilate the practice of Christianity. Because everyone was required to sacrifice to the Roman gods, all of the people within the empire would have to be pagans to avoid execution; no Christian would be able to perform sacrifice to the Roman gods and still be a faithful Christian—or Jew for that matter.

In response the Christians were often found by imperial forces and asked to sacrifice to the gods. Many would sacrifice, fearing the execution that was sure to follow if they did not.[13] But others brought before the sacrificial refused to perform the rites. Eusebius tells the stories of many people who, in the face of the Roman persecution, held onto their faith and chose martyrdom. The stoic character of the martyrs impressed many Romans. Eusebius tells a story of a Roman guard named Basilides who was directly affected by a woman martyr, Potamiaena, who he took to be executed. Eusebius describes him as having followed his orders in delivering her but was kind to her in doing so. Basilides was supposedly visited by Potamiaena three days after her martyrdom and converted to Christianity. A short time later he was asked to take an oath but refused to in any circumstance; he was quickly imprisoned.[14]

In Basilides-like manner many of the Roman people were directly influenced by Christian people around them. But many of the emperors were still actively trying to destroy the Christian community by means of official edicts of persecution and anti-Christian laws. But not all of the imperial powers were anti-Christian. Shortly after Deicius’ reign Valerian and his son Gallienus rose to power simultaneously. Valerian began by attacking the church clergy and soon after instituted open persecutions against the Christian church. But behind the scenes was his son, Gallienus, who was willing to support toleration of the Christian form of worship despite his father’s intolerance. In 260, after Valerian’s death, Gallienus enacted the first edict of toleration. The peace that followed for the Christians is evident in the pages of Church activity described in Eusebius’ History of the Church after the short word about the peaceful empire under Gallienus.[15] It would not be until Diocletian’s rule (284-305 CE) that persecutions would again be officially instituted.

Around the time of Valerian and Gallenius another event occurred that may have had significant influence on the growth of Christianity. The Roman Empire fought a war against the Armenians—which would later become a Christian nation—that coincided with epidemic disease that sickened and killed a large portion of the Roman Empire. Rodney Stark argues that if the epidemic had “not occurred, and had conversion been the only factor determining the relative sizes of the Christian and pagan populations, then in 260 there would have been 1,157 Christians and 8,842 pagans [in a population of 10,000].”[16] In other words there would have been only around 1 Christian for every 8 pagans.

But this is not what happened. Because the Christians were willing to assist the sick when many pagans would refuse to, they gained a better reputation among many people. And, despite the pagans’ fear of the sickness and subsequent refusal to come near the sick, the pagan population quickly died, according to Cyprian.[17] Eusebius concurs when he writes that the epidemic “did not pass over us [the Christians], though its full impact fell on the heathen.” Dionysius claims that the Christians could cope better and had a “higher rate of survival” than the pagans did.[18] This may have given the impression that the Christian god was helping the Christians deal better with the epidemic.

The willingness to help the sick, which followed the teachings of Jesus (“I am my brother’s keeper”) inspired many more to convert; “Heedless of the danger, [the Christians] took charge of the sick . . . drawing on themselves the sickness of their neighbors and cheerfully accepting their pains. Many . . . died in their stead.”[19] in Jesus-like sacrifice. Later, Eusebius add that the “heathens behaved in the very opposite way. At the first onset of the disease, they pushed the sufferers away and fled from their dearest, throwing them into the roads before they were dead”[20] instead of trying to help them. After the epidemic was over the Christian population had dropped in number but it had grown significantly in relationship to the ratio of Christian to pagan.

Diocletians lack of success to destroy the church later on is evident by further edicts of tolerance issued directly after his rule, by Galarius. Galarius himself was not a supporter of the church, which makes the fact that he instituted declarations of tolerance more interesting. As mentioned earlier it was during the latter half of the third century that an explosion of the Christian church had occurred that continued into the fourth century. By this time it seemed that the Church held so much influence within the Roman Empire that the emperors were forced to offer toleration for some political reason. Galarius followed in Diocletians footsteps in trying to, and in failing to, destroy the church. “Though a persecutor,” says Brox, Galarius “issued his edict [of tolerance] on 30 April 311 and shortly before his death declared that the policy of persecution had come to an end.”[21] Attempts to persecute and destroy the church had failed and the time had come for the Great Persecution of Diocletian and Galarius to end.

Constantine—The Christian emperor

Constantine’s Milan Protocol of 313 CE was not by any means extraordinary. As we have just discussed, “by 311 the emperor Galerius switched tactics and excused the Christians from praying to roman gods . . . Thus Constantine’s edict of toleration, issued two years later, was simply a continuation of state policy.”[22] The shift from Galarius to Constantine, from persecution to acceptance, was not smooth. After Constantine rose to sole leadership of the Western Roman Empire in 312 CE Christianity was secure in the west. However, persecution continued, even after 313 CE, in the Eastern Empire until Constantine reunited the empire under his rule in 324 CE.

What convinced Constantine to convert to the Christian Church was a combination of two important factors. Constantine’s father, Constantius, was a Christian supporter and so Constantine was raised in an environment that was Christian-friendly. In addition to this there seems to be evidence that Constantine had a direct experience that convinced him of the power of the Christian God. Brox describes the vision as either being the cross or some other Christian symbol with the Sun. This experience was involved with a vision or dream that he had shortly before the battle of Milvian Bridge. Constantine seems to attribute his success against Maxentius to the Christian “Deity,” who chose Constantine to be an instrument of his power. According to Brox, Constantine “determined to pursue a pro-Christian course in religious policy should he be successful.”[23] Constantine won that battle to become the emperor of the West and he did pursue a pro-Christian course.

It is important to realize that the Roman Empire did not become Christian at this time. Christianity was accepted along with the traditional pagan religion as a cult religion. In many cases the Roman gods were demoted and reverence was not paid to them officially, as had been the practice before 312 CE. The officials began “replacing the names of Roman gods in official speeches or declarations with abstract terms (‘deity’/divinitas), ceasing to perform obligatory rites of the pagan cult.”[24] In essence the empire was finally doing what it claimed was its policy for centuries; Eusebius provides us with this Roman ordinance translated from Latin:

For a long time past we have made it our aim that freedom of worship should not be denied, but that every man, according to his own inclination and wish, should be given permission to practise his religion as he chose. We have therefore given command that Christians and non-Christians alike should be allowed to keep the faith of their own religious beliefs and worship.[25]

Constantine may have been Christian to a certain point but the empire was by no means a Christian empire. What Constantine and his supporter, Licinius, accomplished was to move from a state policy of tolerance to acceptance.

I would like to take the time here to take a closer look at the so-called “conversion” of Constantine. Some have questioned the motives of Constantine in this decision and have noticed that perhaps, at least early on, the conversion was a political move. I mentioned earlier that Constantine’s vision might have included the sun and a Christian symbol. While the truth of this vision actually having occurred is disputed by many I don’t think it changes the fact that Constantine chose to attribute his victory to the Christian Deity and his acceptance of Christian theism. What the “vision” would imply if true is that when Constantine attributed his victory to the Christian Deity he might have still been holding onto the pagan Roman gods.

This would imply a shift to a strong Henotheism rather than monotheism. If Constantine had indeed become a Christian then the image of the sun associated with the cross would have been a Roman conception of the Christian Deity. Perhaps Constantine did not fully conceptualize the idea of the Deity and, to fill that conceptual vacuum he placed a familiar symbol of the sun as the traditional religion had used for a long time. It seems that we are looking back at an emperor who synthesized the Christian message with his Roman culture.

Another curious factor was the way that Romans conceived government as associated with religion. As leaders throughout history have done, Constantine used motivational tactics to gain support for his rule. It was common for Roman leaders to promise that their “rise to power was the dawn of a new era”[26] This was something that Constantine was doing with his rule. Further, because of the empire being divided and differences in opinion varied widely east to west Constantine may have understood that a strong unity was necessary to keep peace and order within the empire. Brox tells us that “from Constantine’s perspective the state needed a religion which was strictly monarchical in its view of God and the world, and which was represented and continued on earth in the political monarchy of the absolute emperor”[27] (48). It seems from what Eusebius tells us that this is how many viewed Constantine himself. Of course it should be noted that Eusebius almost worshipped Constantine as a divine ruler[28]

How this reconciles with the view that Constantine still held onto pagan ideas, implying a Henotheistic worldview, is not clear. It seems that Constantine embraced the Christian message to a degree but his Roman background prevented him from fully understanding the radical shift that the Christian religion entailed. “In many respects his [Constantine’s] own piety remained essentially Roman and political, but it gradually took on Christian elements.”[29] This is evident in the fact that Constantine was not baptized until just before his death.

Constantine may have also understood that many of his subjects were already Christian and that his conversion would gain him favor in their sight. It is important to remember that by the early fourth century a significant portion of the population was Christian. Many of the upper and middle class citizens were leading a Christian movement that had influence over many people. The middle class had a significant influence on the Roman Empire. They had economic power as well as some political influence. It would not be far fetched that a significant percentage of the lower class was Christian as well. Even those who were not Christian may have agreed upon the importance of religious freedom (much like we do in many of today’s Western Nations who had been influenced much by Roman law and politics). The conversion, therefore, may have been a good move towards popularity.

Paganism slowly began to die out. “In the fourth century paganism began ‘to collapse the moment the supporting hand of the state [was] withdrawn from it’.”[30] No decree or edict can change the attitudes of the masses so the pagan religions held on for a while and had some influences on the Christianization process of the Roman world. The Church flourished in the fourth century, especially after 324 when Constantine reigned alone. With Imperial protection bishops were appointed and the Christian clergy rose in social status. As the Christian church rose in political favor the pagan religion fell. “Paganism was brought down by Christianity and . . . the conversion of Constantine was the killing blow.”[31]

The Catholic Church, now centered at Rome, was formed and the other Christian churches were suppressed because Constantine desired there to be “no schism or division of any kind anywhere”[32] meaning that there was to be one Christian church only. The emperor would grant favor to the “Catholic” church only, meaning that the people such as Anulinus, the Proconsul of Africa, whose theology differed from the church that was in Rome would need to be dealt with in some way[33] Constantine worked to forge the Catholic Church by means of councils, such as the one at Nicea, until “all irreligion passed into oblivion”[34]

From the beginning of the Christian religion to its acceptance by the Roman Empire the Christian people demonstrated diligence, strength, and perseverance. The message that they brought with them must have been something that appealed to the Romans in some way because the church grew and overcame the attempts to destroy it. The message reached the upper classes—to those with power—and the emperors fought among one-another to persecute and to accept the Christian faith. For many of the emperors the power of the Christian God seemed too strong to fight against and some even tried to repent on their death bed as Maximin, in his extreme sickened state, tried to do. Maximin, whom Eusebius called the “Tyrant”, died of a horrible disease that “consumed” him shortly after he had “made open confession to the Lord, begging for death. So at last he acknowledged that he deserved these torments because of his furious onslaught on Christ, and all was over.”[35] In much the same way as the disease killed Maximin the persecution had been killed by the Christian movement in the Roman Empire. The Christians who began as a small group of poor men in Palestine had defeated the Romans.

[1] Norbert Brox, A Concise History of the Early Church (New york, 1995), 43.

[4] Rodney Starks The Rise of Christianity:A Sociologist Reconsiders History (Princeton, NJ), 5-6.

[13] Within the church community this caused a controversy as to whether people who had failed in faith and/or courage in this situation to be allowed to return to the Christians community. The Christian community became much stricter in terms of its discipline requirements and they even became aggressive towards their persecutors (cf. Brox 44-45).

14Eusebius, The History of the Church (London 1989), 184-185 (VI.v*). *I give here the book number and section for easier reference for readers with a different edition than the one I have.

[15] Ibid, 231 (VII.xiii). There is a section of over 20 pages where Eusebius does not discuss any martyrs or persecutions. This section ends book 7 of the last version of the History and one of the early versions of it.

[28] Eusebius was a known supporter of the Subordinationist school of Christian. Those who applied to this theology often identified many Church leaders as being equal to Jesus of Nazareth. Eusebius may have felt similarly about Constantine who he regarded very highly as a Christian leader.