The ROMAN CIVILIZATION
IMAGES OF THE ROMAN CIVILIZATION
ROMAN Christianity
Constantine's decision to cease the persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire was a turning point for Early Christianity, In 313, Constantine and Licinius issued the Edict of Milan decriminalising Christian worship..
Early Christians suffered sporadic persecution as the result of local pagan populations putting pressure on the imperial authorities to take action against the Christians in their midst, who were thought to bring misfortune by their refusal to honour the gods. Persecution was on the rise in Asia Minor towards the end of the 1st century. The first action taken against Christians by the order of an emperor occurred half a century earlier under Nero after the Great Fire of Rome in 64 AD.
During the Ante-Nicene period following the Apostolic Age, a great diversity of views emerged simultaneously with strong unifying characteristics lacking in the apostolic period. Early Christianity gradually grew apart from Judaism during the first two centuries and established itself as a predominantly gentile religion in the Roman Empire.
Constantine the Great
and Christianity
While the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great reigned (306–337 CE), Christianity began to transition to the
dominant religion of the Roman Empire. Historians remain uncertain about Constantine's reasons for favoring
Christianity, and theologians and historians have argued about which form of Early Christianity he subscribed to.
There is no consensus among scholars as to whether he adopted his mother Helena's Christianity in his youth.
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THE ROMAN Christan EMPIRE
CHRISTIANTY
The Civil wars of the Tetrarchy order was eventually restored by Constantine, who became the first emperor to convert to Christianity, and who established Constantinople as the new capital of the eastern empire. During the decades of the Constantinian and Valentinian dynasties, the Empire was divided along an east–west axis, with dual power centers in Constantinople and Rome. The reign of Julian, who attempted to restore Classical Roman and Hellenistic religion, only briefly interrupted the succession of Christian emperors. Theodosius I, the last emperor to rule over both East and West, died in 395 AD after making Christianity the official religion of the Empire.