How did Rome's persecution of Christian's help Christianity grow and spread?

Answer 1

A:From the late fourth century and the fifth century, Christian leaders certainly taught that the Christian faith sufferent constant and severe persecution under the Roman rulers from apostolic times until the time of Emperor Constantine. It became, and probably still is, an article of faith that Christianity had to survive the harshest of persecution and prospered in the face of it.

While it is undoubtedly true that there were brief periods of widespread, official persecution, and also that Christians could be blamed and mistreated by the ordinary people of the empire whenever ill fortune occurred, Edward Gibbon (The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire) tells us that the church enjoyed many intervals of peace and tranquillity. He says the pagan magistrates were moderate in the use of punishments and generally proceeded with caution and reluctance.

On the other hand, some Christians relished the opportunity to emulate Jesus by being executed for their beliefs, even seeking martyrdom. Tertullian taught that flight from persecution was an imperfect, but very criminal apostasy and an impious attempt to elude the will of God. Even so, some stories of martyrdom that have been passed down have been invented, while others have been embellished.

Whether persecution and martyrdom either delayed the growth of Christianity or hastened its growth is a moot point. In the three centuries until the Edict of Toleration that ended the Great Persecution (303-305 in the western empire, 303-311 in the east), Christianity is believed to have been adopted by some ten per cent of the population of the empire.

From the time of Emperor Constantine (306-337), Christianity began to grow strongly. Constantine certainly gave the faith strong impetus by his patronage of the Church, but he also began the long persecution of the pagan temples. Each of his Christian successors increased the intensity of the persecution of pagans, until Theodosius finally made it an offence punishable by death to worship the old gods in public. Persecution was not the only reason for Christianity's remarkable growth in the fourth century, but it undoubtedly played a major part.

Answer 2

What helped the spread of Christianity was imperial sponsorship. Constantine the Great supported Christianity. He promoted Christians in the imperial bureaucracy, introduced measures which favoured the Christians and built Christian churches, most notably the original Basilica of St Peter's in Rome, the St John Lateran's Basilica (the city of Rome's first Cathedral and the original residence of the Popes), the Church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople and Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. Constantine also tried to resolve dispute between rival Christian doctrines by convoking synods (regional church councils) and the Council of Nicaea, the first ecumenical council (these are councils which were meant to be binding on the whole of Christianity). This council issued the Nicene Creed, which was the creed of mainstream Christianity. However, it failed to end dissident doctrines. With these actions, Constantine set a precedent for emperors becoming involved in Christian disputes and the arbiters of such disputes. During the reign of Constantine, Christianity was still a relatively small religion in the Roman Empire

The other emperors of the Constantinian dynasty, apart from Julian, also favoured Christianity. So did the emperors of the next dynasties, the Valentinian (364-392) and the Theodosian dynasties (392-457).

Co-emperors Theodosius I and Gratian issued the Edict of Thessalonica in 380. This made the Nicene Creed, which was endorsed by mainstream Christianity (Latin or Western Christianity and Greek or Eastern Christianity) the sole legitimate religion of the Roman Empire. The purpose of the edict was to ban dissident Christian doctrines which disputed the Nicene Creed. These were branded as heretic. Theodosius I started persecuting them soon afterwards. The main target was Arian Christianity, which the main dissident Christian doctrine and was popular around the empire. Theodosius I immediately started to persecute the dissident Christian doctrines, especially Arianism, in the eastern part of the Roman Empire. He also expelled Demophilus of Constantinople, the most important Arian Bishop. In 389 he issued a law which removed non-Nicene Christians from church office.

At the time the Latin/Western Church and the Greek/Eastern Church were the main church of the western and eastern parts of the empire respectively. They defined themselves as two branches of one church which was called Catholic Church (the word catholic means all embracing, universal). They considered themselves as two branches of the Nicene Creed, which they wanted to be the universal creed of Christianity, in opposition to the dissident Christian creeds. Later there was a schism between these two churches and they came to be called Catholic Church and Orthodox Church.

Theodosius I also persecuted Roman religion from 381. He reiterated Constantine's ban on former customs of Roman religion, established capital punishment for divination (which was a centrepiece of Roman religion) pioneered the criminalization of officials who did not enforce laws against polytheism and tolerated the destruction of Roman temples. Between 389 and 392 issued the Theodosian Decrees. These eliminated the remnants of Roman religion by tuning its holidays into working days, banning blood sacrifices (another centrepiece of Roman religion) and disbanding the very important priesthood of the Vestal Virgins and closed Roman temples. When he became sole emperor of the whole of the Roman Empire in 392 he continued to ignore pleas of toleration by pagans. In 393 he persecuted all pagan religions. He promulgated a set of laws which forbade any public pagan customs and were particularly harsh against the Manicheans.

Answer 3

Persecution occurred off and on over two centuries until 313 AD when Constantine came into power. The persecution did influence the development of Christianity and shaping the theology and structure of the church. Many saints cults were also a by product which may have helped the rapid spread of Christianity.