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Christianity In The Roman Empire Essay

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Introduction Christianity is the most influential and dominant religion in today's world. In the 3rd century, Christianity was one of the most hated and minor religion in the Roman empire. At that time, there was only 10% of the population who followed Christianity. Despite all this hatred, in few hundred years, Christianity achieved a status of the official state religion of the Roman empire. This is really surprising that in few hundred years, minor religion became so influential and developed in the empire who hated it the most. It will be really interesting to know how this transformation occurred. The reason given for the expansion was that Christianity was provided suitable context to grow in whereas there were other religions too that were present in Rome such as state religion, mystery religion and quasi-religious philosophies who have the same context. However, these religions have no existence after the establishment of Christianity. This essay will focus on the reasons behind Romans abandoning their own god and accepting Christianity.

Growth of early Christianity Christianity was born in the Rome but Christians were never welcomed in the Roman Empire. The earliest church was considered illegal and …show more content…

During this period, many civil wars and battles occurred due to which many emperors got killed, some of them were in favour of Christianity such as emperor Philips. He was interested in Christianity whereas Decius the emperor after Philips didn’t favoured Christianity at all. In fact, he ordered Rome citizens to accept emperor divinity and they also should have received the certificate as a proof that they agreed to this. The person who was without a certificate will be persecuted. However, this idea failed to eradicate

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At the time, religion was a necessity for an empire to flourish because often times they created moral standards for people to follow not only in their daily lives, but also in their government. The Roman Empire had several religions before Christianity arose so in the beginning, the idea of a monotheistic religion was rejected. It was looked down upon because it was based on the idea of a “kingdom” of heaven. As it spread more and more, it started to become more widely accepted because of its philosophy of an orderly world and concern for social welfare. This led to most of Rome now believing in one socially interactive God.

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The final reason that Christianity took hold in the ancient world is because of how devoted the followers of Christianity were. Christians would take people into their homes and take care of them if they were in need, and would do their best to help them get back on their feet. (Doc D) A man named Paul who came to know the Christian religion spent 30 years of his life traveling the eastern Mediterranean sea, preaching the word of Jesus, and he single handedly wrote most of the New Testament letters on his journey. (Doc F) A group of Christians were sentenced to execution for not buying sacrificial items for the Roman gods.

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Right at the time that people saw the empire falling, the Christians were preaching salvation and the afterlife and some of the Romans saw this as an option to get out of the declining. Even people in positions of power started to turn their attention to Christianity and became more open to it. The severity of the decline was striking. There were constant invasions by barbarian tribes along with economic troubles and government corruption. And although Christianity was a safety net for many Romans that were suffering in this decline, it was a risk taking option for salvation.

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