How Did Rome Influenced Christianity?

Early Christianity stemmed from Judaism, and it started off in the Roman empire. At first, Romans did not care about Christianity and they saw it as a subset of Judaism, but in the second, third, and beginning of the fourth centuries, Roman politics persecuted Christians and threw them in jail because of their faith (Duiker and Spielvogel 2015, 151). When Constantine I came to power, though, he advocated for Christianity and converted to Christianity himself (Frassetto 2017). This changed the Roman view of Christianity, and it helped Christianity to rise in power. The politics of the Roman empire influenced Christianity because they caused persecution of early Christians, they caused Christianity to grow, and because they influenced the

In the first and second centuries, the persecution was only sporadic, but by the third and fourth centuries, some emperors put in place systematic persecutions to try to wipe away Christianity (Duiker and Spielvogel 2015, 152). This persecution stemmed from the fact that the Roman government “interpreted Christian refusals to sacrifice to the Roman state gods acts of disloyalty” (Sizgorich 2017). The Roman government viewed Christians as harmful and disloyal because in the Roman faith, people considered the emporer a god, and the Christian belief in one God undermined the authority and credibility of the emperor (“Fall”). Denying the Roman faith also led the Roman government to view Christianity as a sort of uprising or rebellion. To counter this, some emperors of the third and fourth centuries enacted systematic persecutions, but by this time, persecution could not destroy Christianity, as it was too strong (Duiker and Spielvogel 2015, 152). The Roman government’s view of Christianity being harmful or disloyal led to persecution to try and stop Christianity, but this persecution ultimately failed and early Christianity survived in secret, and Constantine I eventually legalized it and allowed it to