Impact of Christianity in the late Roman Empire and early middle ages
In the first centuries AD, the Roman Empire was composed of pagans who worshiped many gods. The empire covered most parts of Western Europe, Middle East, North Africa, northern Atlantic and Asia. In the early days the emperor prosecuted Christians and captured many Jews and made them slaves. However, after years of prosecution of Christians, Constantine became the first leader of the Roman Empire to be converted to Christianity. Constantine received a vision which stated that with the cross, he will be a conqueror. This vision became a reality when he used the sign by wearing the sign of the cross to conquer and expand the empire. Following this revelation and its reality, the emperor declared Christianity to be the religion of the Roman Empire. He was able to unite all Christians in the empire and also defined the Nicene Creed and established various church councils. Through this, Rome became a religious city and the capital of the church which later was called the Roman Catholic Church (Scarre, p 23).
The emperor however had problems with the Christianity which was a challenge to his leadership. At the time, the Christians doctrines were not well established as a result of persecution of the early Christians by other emperors who ruled the empire. Christianity was also not a political religion and the authority over the whole world was claimed by Jesus of Nazareth and Christians believed that life was not worldly. Moreover, the church teaching was against then Roman rule in the land and the earthly authority. This called for a complete change of the Roman Empire since Christianity was declared the religion of an empire where the emperor had absolute authority and demanded to be worshiped by the subjects. However, Constantine was able to assemble all the bishops of the church and incorporate church doctrines in his leadership which led to the Nicene Creed and the compromise of the absolute divine authority of the world which give room for human authority.
After the death of Constantine, the Roman Empire was divided amongst his sons, which resulted into uprising among them over the control of the entire empire. They all accepted Christianity as their religion although later Julian the Apostate rejected Christianity and rejected all its followers from his leadership. However, his reign was very short to have any effect on the empire. In the fourth century, the empire received a lot of internal conflicts until the reign of Theodosius towards the end of the century that the empire was united again. He made history by declaring that the religion of the Roman Empire to be Christianity. The emperor declared all religions which were practiced by the pagans all over the Roman Empire illegal. This led to the establishment of the roman Christian state by the end of the fourth century.
In the beginning of the fifth century, Visigoths who were from the Germanic tribe had occupied the northern parts of Italy. They had migrated as a result of pressure of Huns and were able to capture the city of Rome. This led to the fall of the Roman Empire. By the mid fifth century, the Roman Empire was ruled by a leader from Hunnish who was called Attila and Rome was finally conquered by the Vandals in the 455AD. The rule over the empire was under the Barbarians chiefs and control over Rome was passed to their sons who controlled Western Europe while the Eastern Europe was controlled by the Byzantines who used the leadership structure which were used by the Romans and in Greece. Many historians claim that the fall of the Roman Empire could be as a result of adoption of Christianity by the roman emperors.
Today, the fall of the Roman Empire has been a major subject among the historians and scholars who seek to find out what caused the fall of the empire that had a total control of the world especially the civilized western regions of the world. The influence of the Romans rule in the European continent is still evident today such as the languages, forms of government, religion and ideologies which are rooted on the ancient Rome. The fall of this empire had a big impact on the civilized world. The empire had achieved significantly in its territories, battles and administration as a result of it influential leaders and well organized form of governance. Some historians have claimed that the adoption of Christianity as the religion of the empire was the main cause of the fall of the empire. Some of these historians argue that the conversion to Christianity angered the Roman gods. Christianity had an impact on the governance structures of the empire as well as the social and moral aspects of the people and the leaders. This contributed to the fall of the empire in one way or the other (Hooker, Para 1).
Edward Gibbon in his book Christians and the Fall Of Rome argues that the rapid spread of Christianity in the empire brought about several changes in the structures of the empire which resulted into its fall. He argues that the Christians were very inflexible and their zeal was intolerant. The doctrine and believes in the miraculous powers of the Christian faith is also seen by Gibbon as a primary cause of the fall of the Roman Empire. These factors attributed to the large increase in the number of Christians in the empire (Gibbon, p 3).
The Christian faith has several characteristics that made it a major contributor to the fall of the empire. The faith guarded the teachings of the apostles who taught against idolatry thus setting the Christians in the empire apart from the rest of the population throughout the empire who were polytheist. This was the major reason why the Christian community was rejected and prosecuted before some of the emperors were converted to Christianity. The internal structures of the empire became weaker since the Christians could not involve themselves in wars or administration. By the time Christianity was spreading rapidly in the empire thus increasing its influence on the politics and social aspects of the empire, there was no genuine believe among the pagans and religion was based on rituals. This enabled Christianity to flourish and the population of the Christians increased tremendously. The high number of Christians reduced the loyalty of the public to the empire which forced the emperors to embrace Christianity. The Christians gain increased influence in the political and social life which resulted in a weak bureaucracy and governance structures thus weakening the empire. However, there are other factors that led to the fall of Rome other than the spread of Christianity (Gibbon, p 60).
After the fall of the Roman Empire and capturing of Rome, the Romans established another empire with its capital in Constantinople which is the present day Istanbul in Turkey. This formed part of the Eastern Roman Empire which was ruled by the Byzantines. The empire flourished especially under Justinian 1 compared to the western empire and was later renamed to the Byzantine Empire. The official language of the empire was Greek and applied the Roman Empire and the Greece structures. The empire started questioning the role of the church leadership especially the Pope and his hierarchy and as the leader of the church. They also challenged the authenticity of Rome as the capital of Christian religion where the eastern empire was considered superior than the western empire because Rome was in the eastern empire. They claimed that Jerusalem which was in the western empire was supposed to be the capital of Christianity since that is where Jesus was born. The two empires differed in some Christian doctrines. The eastern empire also questioned the legitimacy of the leadership in the western empire. The eastern empire had a claim that they had a straight guidance of the Apostles of Jesus. This led to the establishment of the Eastern Orthodox Church Communion in the eastern empire. The members of this church were the Greek orthodox which was made up of two countries, Greece and Cyprus, the Russian orthodox, Ethiopia, Egypt, Jerusalem among others.
On the other hand, in the western empire, the bishops of Rome who were the church leaders gained control and influence. They controlled the politics of the western parts of Europe with most notable leaders such as Charles the Great being members of the Christian faith. Charles the Great established a Christian state in France. The pope of Rome was the leader of the church and he appointed Charlemagne of Germany who was also a Christian to be the emperor of Rome and declared Rome a holy empire which was later renamed the Holy Roman Empire. The Holy Roman Empire was a major player in the Middle Ages. Under the influence of Christian religion, the empire sponsored the holy war to claim the holy lands held by the eastern empire which was under the Byzantines and those occupied by Muslim Caliphates. They also wanted to gain back the world Christian community under the Pope which was being threatened by the orthodoxy in the eastern empire. The war was also aimed at reclaiming the supremacy of Christianity over Christendom. Almost two thousand years later, the Roman Catholic Church apologized to the Orthodox Church and the Christendom. The effect of these crusades led to the fall of the eastern empire which was taken over by the Muslim Ottomans who converted the whole of Anatolia into an Islamic state. That is why today Turkey has Islam as the major faith and not orthodoxy.
It is believed that if the eastern and the western empires were able to rise against their differences, they could have been able to stop the take over of the eastern empire by the Ottoman and consequently the spread of Islam and Islamic powers in Anatolia. If that was possible, today the Middle East countries could be under the influence of Christianity just like other European nations. Moreover, the religious restriction and Muslim dominance in Middle East which is being experienced today could not have existed.
During the middle ages, the European community experienced a lot of reforms in the social and political arena. Some of these reforms were for the better while others were for the worst. The relationship between the church leadership and the political leadership was instrumental in these reforms. During this historical period, the Roman Catholic Church had a great influence in the society and thus in the politics of Europe. The church had enough authority and powers to influence the political leadership of the whole of Europe and the world at large. The Roman Catholic Church was tactical in the way it exercised its powers over the society leadership which ensured there was a good response from the society. This nature of the church was started by Charlemagne who was appointed by the pope to rule over the western empire which later came to be known as the Western Europe. Since he was a Christian by the time he was appointed the emperor, he established a Christian state in Western Europe and through the support of the church, he was able to become a great leader. His main mandate was to promote the influence of the Roman church not only in Western Europe but in other parts of the world.
Although Charlemagne was a political leader, he was able to coordinate with the church and especially the pope in ensuring that Roman Catholic faith was the only religion in the Western Europe. This led to him being crowned as a holy emperor by the pope. He was very successful since he was able to control the whole of western and central Europe. The church was able to make major political and social reforms in Europe through Charlemagne. The monasteries were reformed and made Benedictine and he also had control over the churches activities. He used church leaders to rule over the people where he established four regions which were all put under an archbishop. The archbishop had authority to appoint bishops who assisted in the exercising political and religious leadership in the region.
The big influence Christianity had in the early Middle Ages is as a result of the significance of the religion to the society as well as its effects on the lives of the people during that period. The fall of the Roman Empire in the second half of the fifth century and the reorganization and establishment of the two empires, the western and the eastern empire, was followed by a new desire for Christianity among the people. This period of history is commonly known as the Dark Ages. Christianity continued to play a major role in the politics and social aspects of the society until around mid 14th century. During this period, the church led by popes was associated with evil political and social activities as a result of greed and corruption among the church leaders who had big influence on the politics of the time. However, despite the immoral acts, the presence of the church in the political arena ensured that there was peace and stability since the church instilled home in the society. The Roman Catholic Church religion had become the state religion and Christianity was the current trend throughout Western Europe.
Despite the large influence of the church in the politics of Europe in the Middle Ages, the rivalry between the western and the eastern empire threatened the supremacy of the church. The supremacy and political influence of the Orthodox Church was lost in the eastern empire as a result of the rivalry. This was as a result of controversies about the church doctrines and the fight for religious lands as well as use of icon in worship. The church was seen to destroy its good reputation among the people where some people thought that the dispute were immoral and instigated by political greed while others thought the fights was agreeable and necessary. The church looked disorganized but it was later able to reestablish itself in the western empire while in the eastern empire its political influence was taken over by Islam. The church also received some challenges which made it lose some of its influence as a result of deteriorating reputation of the church leadership especially the pope. The pope had turned into a political leader which led him to being corrupt and thus ineffective in his religious duties. This led to the decline of the church where private owned monasteries and churches started developing. There were also cases of corruption in the appointment of popes where the position was sold. The result was appointment of incompetent and inefficient popes. Pope John XII is one of the popes of the tenth century who are considered to be incompetent. He was not competent and mature enough to manage the influential position of a pope. He destroyed the good reputation of the institution of papacy by being sinful and ungodly. The result of his leadership was loss of respect for the pope as well as the church by the public. The influence of the church on the politics of the land also deteriorated to a big extent. People started losing hope towards the end of the early middle age in the tenth century and stopped viewing the teaching of the church as the moral way of life. However, the church was able to reestablish itself once more and the popes were able to build their reputation and increase their power gradually in the High Middle Age (Stockman, pg 1).
The spread of Christianity in the Roman Empire had a great impact in the world politics during the Roman rule in the western world and in the early middle Ages. The adoption of Christianity by the Roman Empire has been blamed by some historians as the primary reason that led to the fall of the empire. Moreover, after the fall of the empire, the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church had a great influence on the politics of the world.
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