What were the long-term effects or impacts on the Roman Empire from Christianity?

Answer 1

Edward Gibbon (The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire) suggested that Constantine's conversion of himself and his subjects to Christianity was one of the principal causes of the fall of the western Roman Empire, which ceased to exist 139 years after his death. Michael Grant (The Emperor Constantine) agrees that Christianisation may have accelerated the process, but is less certain about the importance of this one factor, placing greater emphasis on other policies of Constantine.

The Christian policy of destroying all books that did not benefit Christianity, even the Great Library of Alexandria, and of restricting education to the clergy, brought about a sudden loss of knowledge and intellectual skills in the empire, and contributed to the onset of the Dark Ages. Many of the technological developments of the early Roman Empire were not recreated until a thousand years later.

Answer 2

Constantine the Great favoured Christianity. He promoted Christians in the imperial administration. He built Christian churches. He also tried to arbitrate schismatic disputes between Christians in the west (between Western Christianity and the Donatist sect of Africa) and between opposing Christian doctrines (particularly between Eastern Christianity and Arian Christianity). He did so by summoning 'synods', local councils of bishops (as with that of Arles of 314 to deal with Donatism in the west) and 'ecumenical' councils which were meant to be binding on the whole church. In so doing, Constantine started a tradition of emperors becoming involved in church matters and in the politics of the church in an official capacity, even though they did not control the church in a legal manner and they were not its heads.

With his policies, Constantine brought Christianity, which was a relatively small religion within the Roman Empire, to prominence and set in motion the liaison between the Christian church and the emperors and their religious policies which continued after his reign as all subsequent emperors, apart for Julian, were Christians. His summoning of the Council of Nicaea (see below), which was meant to arbitrate the dispute with Arian Christianity, and which produced the Nicene Creed which became the creed of mainstream Christianity, set in motion a process which eventually lead to co-emperors Gratian and Theodosius I to decree this creed as the sole legitimate religion of the empire and ban Arianism, which was branded as heretic and to Theodosius persecuting Arianism.

The churches which Constantine built were 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.

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Constantine summoned the Council of Nicaea (325) which was a watershed. It was the first attempt at gathering all Christian bishops and the first time that a ruling of a council was declared universally binging on the whole of the Christian Church. It affirmed the Nicene Creed of mainstream Christianity with regard to the trinity, which held the consubstantiality of the Father and the Son. The Father (God) and Jesus were "of the same substance" or "of one being" and therefore, Jesus was divine and equal to God. It condemned the dissident view of Arian Christianity (preached by Arius a presbyter in Alexandria, Egypt) as heretic. This held that Jesus was not equal to the Father (infinite, primordial origin) and to the Holy Spirit (giver of life) and that the Son (Jesus) was a subordinate entity to God the Father.

Constantine attended all the meetings of the council of Nicaea. He endorsed its ruling, exiled Arius and two of his supporters and issued an edict against Arianism which ordered all the writing by Arius to be burned to obliterate his teaching and his memory and established the death penalty for those who secretly owned copies of his writings. Since the Arian controversy did not abate, Constantine became more lenient and he lifted the exile.

Constantine also summoned the First Synod of Tyre (335)to hear allegations against Athanasius, the most virulent opponent of Arius who was accused of immoral conduct, illegally taxing the Egyptians, supporting rebels against the emperor, murdering a bishop and keeping his hand for magical rites. The council was presided over by Irene, Constantine's wife, and condemned Athanasius. Still in 335 Constantine summoned the Synod ofJerusalem of 325 to consecrate the Church of the Holy Apostles and, more importantly, to ask the bishops to readmit Arius to the church, which the bishops agreed to. He he also ordered all the bishops who had been at Tyre to come to Constantinople because Athanasius had met him there and had asked him to allow him to appeal before the emperor and these bishops. The bishops brought a new accusation of having threatened to cut off the grain supply to Constantinople from Egypt. Constantine angered by this exiled Athanasius to Gaul. This was primarily a means for restoring the peace of the church. The bishops also held the Synod of Constantinople of 335 to depose Marcellus of Ancyra (another strong opponent of Arianism) accusing him of disrespect to the emperor and heresy.