Essay On The Rise Of Christianity In The Western Roman Empire

When a society that was arguably the greatest to ever have existed falls, the downfall inevitably must have had many causes and couldn't have been preventable. However, there's always one overarching, most important factor that led to the fall. In the case of the Western Roman Empire, this factor was Christianity’s spread. Christianity could not have allowed Rome to prosper because paganism formed a rift between itself and Christianity, prompting Christianity to do the same, and eventually inevitably end up causing fighting between christians themselves. Also, the general incompetence of those implementing the new religious system. Rome, for centuries, had a nearly all-encompassing monopoly on religion in their pagan pantheon, household, and ancestral gods. There were cults that appeared occasionally throughout the empire, so at first, when a small, monotheistic cult popped up in Jerusalem, it batted few eyes. Yet, as it grew, the power saw the threat it posed and knew the threat had to be eradicated. The tradition of paganism wasn't just useful for having a sense of community through the masses, it also was intensely beneficial to the emperor of Rome, as it gave him more power. Since around the turn of the republic to empire, the leader of Rome was considered a

Arius, an Egyptian priest, argued against a fundamental teaching in the church. He said it was impossible for God the father, a key member to Christianity’s policy of a holy trinity, and Jesus the son, to have be co-eternal, or both to have existed for eternity. By this, he was essentially arguing the divinity of Jesus, an opinion one might assume as being particularly frustrating to practicing Christians. As one might expect, this was considered heretical by many, and Arius was exiled. However, this did seem like a very logical question to pose by many, and this led to more division in the Christian