This book is a masterful look at the rise of Christianity and the end of paganism as seen through the eyes of the elites of the day. Did they realize at the time what transformative religious times they were living in? No. None could have imagined an Empire turned majority Christian. Most elites of the era were focused more on economic and political affairs and relegated religion to the back burner. Many early Christians, also, still held vestiges of pagan rituals and belief, while most pagans were willing to mix socially with the new Christian converts. “It was this generation’s faith in the foundations of the imperial system and their craving for stability that enabled Christian emperors to mount increasingly powerful challenges to established religious life.” No man changed the history of Christianity more than Emperor Constantine. It was he who, after himself converting, gave confiscated lands and wealth back to Christians, erected churches throughout the empire, gave Bishops judicial power, and exempted clergy from local taxes and duties. Still, the empire of his day was 80-85% pagan. A few centuries later animal sacrifice and gladiatorial games would be banned and most pagan temples sacked or converted to Christian churches. This shift was enabled by turbulent times, with multiple claimants to the Eastern and Western thrones often engaged in civil war, an expanding bureaucratic state replacing local administration in affairs, crippling tax burdens, and inflation running rampant. The pagan elites were caught unaware of the sea change beneath them as they cultivated the arts of language, rhetoric, and philosophy, while living in a bubble of intertwined social connections.
No comments:
Post a Comment