Impacts of Christianity on the Roman and Byzantine Empires - Report Example

Impacts of Christianity on the Roman and Byzantine Empires Roman Empire Rome was a great nation between the period 47BC and1453 AD. During this period, they heavily cherished their religion, and any other external religion was seen as an invasion to their culture. Therefore, Christians, who tried to spread the gospel of Christianity, suffered so much in the hands of the Roman leaders. They were persecuted and even killed by being thrown to the lions and many other worse deaths. However, their efforts did not go completely to waste as the gospel was able to reach and have some impacts on this ignorant nation. During this period, one prominent person who can be remembered for spreading Christianity was none other than St Paul. This great person was able to lead many other people in spreading Christianity in the entire Roman Empire. He was able to start Christian churches in Asia Minor and even Greece and finally landed in Rome too. The first group of people who received this message was often the poor and the slaves who thought the Christians were successful and wanted to take the opportunity for their growth. This was met by great hostility from the emperor who felt that he was the one who deserved to be worship. Hence, he subjected such people to torture and killings to make them renounce their faith. At one time in AD 64, Rome was attacked, and some parts of the nation burned down. The emperor of the time, Emperor Nero assumed it was a retaliatory move by the Christians. He mobilized the non-converted Romans who then turned on these Christians. (History Learning Site web) Converts found their lifestyles negatively impacted on by the message they were passing on to the Romans. They could not afford to hold their meetings in public, as this alone was enough to send them off to their graves. They completely suffered insecurity during this time. Underground tombs were some of the common meeting places they adopted. However, in AD 313, the Emperor Constantine came out and announced to the Romans that Christianity was now legalised in the country. This meant that they could now worship openly in the country. To add salt to the stew, Churches were built in Rome and even spread out through the entire empire. This was a positive impact as worshipping other gods became illegalized. ( History Learning Site Web) However, later on Constantine’s reign was succeeded by Emperor Julian the Apostate, who unlike his predecessor, tried to uproot the Christianity from Rome once again. His efforts did not yield many fruits as his goals were not accomplished. He tried to bring back to the people the very ancient religion they had before. It was unfortunate that by the time he came to power Christianity had already gained its roots deep into the lives of most Romans. Some pressure the priests, and churches were stripped off of them. The Christian teachers were removed from their positions and their positions given to the pagans. This was a fight, which sometimes turned out brutal once again after the death of Constantine. This was once again a negative impact to the Christians who held such positions due to spreading of the gospel. (UNRV History) Christians also made a move during this period of destroying all the books they saw as irrelevant since these books were seen not to benefit the Christians in any way. This destruction included the Great Library of Alexandria. Further still, they restricted education to the clergy. This resulted in inaccessibility to knowledge and intellectual skills in Rome, thus, the Romans witnessed a period or unawareness, and some important developments could not be realised during this period until very many years later. (Harfield Web) Constantine addresed Christianity as a factor that could help unite the empire. He first supported the Church leaders to be united purposely to unite the whole empire later on. The church also impacted on the Roman empire in one major recognizable way by the Christian leaders being on the forefront of making critical decisions concerning governance of the empire. For example, in the Council of Nicaea in 325, where the Bishops themselves decided on the agenda and even reached a consensus. This was more of an advisory team to emperor Constantine, and hence the whole Rome was shaped in a Christian way and unity prevailed all thanks to Christianity. There are wars that had been there earlier on were reduced, and Rome was now seen as a Nation that was out to spread Christianity to the whole world. (Hoovers Web) Byzantine Empire Christianity in Byzantine Empire was quite different with the one experienced in the other areas. Their Christianity was termed as Eastern Orthodox. A critical issue the area was the role that the emperor would play in religious matters. The emperors faced opposition from the Latin churches over the control of the religious matters. The Byzantines held the idea that the Emperor was highly placed to have a say in religious matters. This idea was in similar to that held by the Constantine in the Roman Empire. This led to struggles between the Catholics in the West (Latin) and Eastern Patriarchs concerning the matter that even saw them settle some of this in battles (Giotto Web). Byzantine Empire faced several effects from the influence of Christianity. The Justinian legislation in use in the empire had many elements of Christianity. These included the follow; 1. Entrance into the religion required conversion through baptism. 2. All the pagans in the empire would be required by law to go to church and repent. 3. In many cases, it was only the wife to the orthodox who would receive the benefits of her dowry. 4. All the Jews and Samaritans in the empire would not be allowed to their right to testamary inheritance until they convert to Christianity. In Byzantine Empire, Justinian limited the number of churches. Through this, he managed to control the interest of the people and the church. He forbade bishops from taking advantage of their positions (Hoovers). In the 4th century, Christian in the empire adopted the use of images in spreading Christianity. This was because the Romans used the image of the emperor to establish unity and commitment. The Christian leaders believed that it was important the people use the symbols to improve their faith. They believed that the image represented the power of the unseen God. However, not all the people accepted the image as that of Christ. The resistance to the pagan image did not stand for long as the following generations grew less resistance to the image. The Iconoclastic theologians in the Byzantine Empire saw the worship of images as a pagan belief. According to them, God could not be worshipped by the use of symbols created by human beings. They stood for the fact that only Christ and God could be worshipped as the only objects of veneration (Aristeides). In the 7th century, Byzantine Empire was under ecclesiastical leadership. The Christian leaders were given some political roles in the empire. It was easy to find bishops taking leadership roles in parts that were not religious. They could collect taxes, participate in organizing commerce, the pillar of justice and could even muster the empires army. Justinian’s attempt of reconciling the Monopyite and the orthodox Chalcedonians accounts to one of the major failures of the policies in the empire. The plan was to separate the Monophyites from the Chalcedonians. To do this, Justinian was to establish an agreement that would moderate the Monophyites but it failed. Thus, there was a constant religious problem in the empire even in the reign of other rulers ( Orthodoxwiki). In addition, during this period, Christianity witnessed a transformation. Initially, they were without the new testament of the Bible. To the Byzantines, the word “Scripture” totally referred to the Old Testament. Following this, the Church went on to collect the other twenty-seven books of the New Testament. Hence a two Testament Christian religion, still practiced to date was started. Acceptance of Christianity in the Byzantine Empire also led to the seven ecumenical councils which somewhat may be considered as the greatest influence on the church to date. This majorly contained guiding principles to the lives of the Christians. Through this, the level of one’s theology could be measured (Crabben). It is from this Orthodox Christianity that some of the prominent writers emerged. Fathers and saints such as Basil, Athanasius, Chrysosom and Gregory of Nyssa wrote some important articles to guide Christianity of the whole empire. These writings still valued to date. However, it also came with negative impacts as it saw a section of the Church deviate from the rest. Groups such as the Jacobites, Armenians, Copts and the Nestorians chose to rebel away from the Orthodox Christianity. The leaders’ efficiency at the time in Byzantine Empire was also measured by their secular status (majorly the Christian content). The less Christian were chucked from their senior positions and handed lower positions as others were uplifted according to their merits. This saw leaders like Alexandria demotion to third place as Constantinople rose to second place. In conclusion, Christianity had both the positive and the negative impacts on the Roman and Byzantine Empires. Some of these impacts are still felt to date in the Christian churches as discussed above in the article (Rockliffe). Work cited “Byzantine religion and influence” http://www.historydoctor.net/Advanced%20Placement%20World%20History/byzantine_religion_and_influence.htm Dr Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe. 17-02-2014. “Christianity and the Roman Empire” http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/romans/christianityromanempire_article_01.shtml Harfield Dick. “ What were the long effects or impacts on the Roman Empire from Christianity?”. http://www.answers.com/Q/What_were_the_long_effects_or_impacts_on_the_Roman_Empire_from_Christianity History Learning Site. “Rome and Christianity.” Web. http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/rome_and_christianity.htm Hoovers. April 2011. “Roman Impact on Christianity” http://www.studymode.com/essays/Roman-Impact-On-Christianity-680473.html Jan van der Crabben. 28-4-2014. Ancient history encyclopedia. “Byzantine Empire” http://www.ancient.eu/Byzantine_Empire/ Mr Giotto’s site. Emperor Justinian and the Byzantine Empire. “The Byzantine Empire” http://www.penfield.edu/webpages/jgiotto/onlinetextbook.cfm?subpage=1679589 Orthodoxwiki.”Byzantine Empire” http://orthodoxwiki.org/Byzantine_Empire Papadakis Aristeides. Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America. “History of the Orthodox Church” http://www.goarch.org/ourfaith/ourfaith7053 UNRV History. “Christianity: The official Religion of the Roman Empire” http://www.unrv.com/culture/christianity.php Read More