What if Constantine never converted?

[CountDVB]

Doubt so. Manichaeism is even more elitist than Christianity and had an utterly dualistic view of morality where everything evil was infected by Ahriman and had to either be transformed or destroyed, unlike the view of Christianity where Satan certainly controls mankind but everyone, even non-Christians, have the innate capacity to resist him and know God as Satan is not as all-powerful as Ahriman. Manichaeism is also arguably even more anti-Semitic since they probably held the Gnostic view that the Old Testament God is actually Ahriman himself. The idea that Gnosticism, and by extension Manichaeism, were almost a proto-Renaissance Protestantism simply has no validity, and all apologists of these religions should be ashamed of themselves for supporting religions that would have made Hadrian's anti-Jewish massacres look like a humanitarian mission by comparison.

Manichaeism was actually fairly different when it came to Gnosticism. He viewed the material world as containing both light and dark. Furthermore, he was born as part of the Elcesaites. That, alongside with the fact he mentions Jesus as inspiration alongside Zoroaster and Buddha, kinda makes me think that he probably did view the Old Testament God as that.

While it was inspried by Gnostic traditions, that doesn't make them the same and presumably, the Mesopotamian ones would be different than that of the west. The fact that Manichaeism did appeal to alot of people means that it clearly had a draw to it, enough to briefly challenge Christianity as the successor to paganism as the mainstream religion.

 

[wcv215]

What is likely to happen to the Roman Empire if Constantine never converts to Christianity???

I mean...he only became a Christian on his deathbed. So...not much?

 

[samcster94]

I mean...he only became a Christian on his deathbed. So...not much?

By never convert, I mean, he never even considers it at all and never comes close. He is not pro-Christian in TTL.

 

[Mikestone8]

I mean...he only became a Christian on his deathbed. So...not much?

He was only baptised on his deathbed, but Iirc that was common in those days. Baptism washed away all one's sins, but could only be done once. So if you were in a position where you might have to do a lot of sinful things,, there was a lot to be said for postponing it to the last minute.

 

[samcster94]

He was only baptised on his deathbed, but Iirc that was common in those days. Baptism washed away all one's sins, but could only be done once. So if you were in a position where you might have to do a lot of sinful things,, there was a lot to be said for postponing it to the last minute.

Remember Christianity's early centuries promote Martyrdom a lot. Every religion acts a bit "off" early on. Early Islam didn't have the crescent moon as a symbol, early Buddhism was closer to Jainism, etc ....

 

[Kerney]

Christianity will eventually overtake the Empire; Constantine was a product of this, not a driver yeah that sounds about right for a public infrastructure project

I respectfully disagree and have seen no evidence to back this statement. If the Empire was 5-15% Christian (the sources I've read, I've heard 5-10% but it's not important to my basic arguement). It misses the #1 underlying Roman Theologic aim and something that is mostly alien to us, which is why I don't think we fully grasp. Good evidence of this how many here argue how attractive Christianity was on individual level. That is a modern argument seen through modern eyes.

What was important was the Pax Deorum, the peace of the gods. Basically, a large number of Romans, perhaps a majority, will go along with whatever the Emperor supports, and if it works, good and fine and maybe we'll stick with it until it stops working.

http://www.ancientpages.com/2018/05/01/what-was-pax-deorum-and-how-important-was-it/ i.e.

This is key to Roman thinking and why Christianity was a able to "short circuit" and take over in a Roman context. Basically, there was almost a century where Christianity was supported by the Roman state. It was a stable century and a pretty good time for the Empire, so initially people go along with that Christ thing. Over that century more and more people begin to believe and believe their salvation is tied to Christianity, things change.

A "Constantine" expy, but late. I think Christianity might develop differently theologically.

And if the "Constantine expy" isn't Constantine the Great but only sorta okay or better yet the moron who let all those barbarians overrun half the empire, the minute he's dead the new Emperor makes a Sacrifice on the altar of victory, endows the Vestal Virgins with a big gift, maybe looks at Manichesim but probably decides to stick with what works, and the vast majority go back to being pagan and when ever someone suggests going Christian again, he's laughed out of the room. Christian numbers probably decline from 15% (lets be generous) as the less devout begin to doubt, or their children marry nice Pagan lads and lasses and slowly assimilate back into the Pagan Majority.

 

[Fabius Maximus]

Manichaeism was actually fairly different when it came to Gnosticism. He viewed the material world as containing both light and dark. Furthermore, he was born as part of the Elcesaites. That, alongside with the fact he mentions Jesus as inspiration alongside Zoroaster and Buddha, kinda makes me think that he probably did view the Old Testament God as that.

While it was inspried by Gnostic traditions, that doesn't make them the same and presumably, the Mesopotamian ones would be different than that of the west. The fact that Manichaeism did appeal to alot of people means that it clearly had a draw to it, enough to briefly challenge Christianity as the successor to paganism as the mainstream religion.

"[R]eligions that would have made Hadrian's anti-Jewish massacres look like a humanitarian mission by comparison" is an exaggeration, but Manichaeism was a pretty elitist and unattractive religion. For example, killing animals, picking fruit, harvesting crops and making bread were all considered bad, as they caused particles of Light to be trapped in the world. As you may have noticed, this poses a bit of a problem for anybody who wants to eat. The solution? Get the non-elect to do all this stuff, so the elect don't have to get their hands dirty and can continue to eat whilst passing blame onto someone else!

And I'm not sure that Manichaeism was ever actually a threat to Christianity's position as successor to paganism. Sure there was the odd moral panic about it, but in terms of actual numbers, I'm not aware of it ever really approaching Christianity, at least not in the Roman Empire.

 

[water123]

The thing is Manicheanism was always a bit "too little too late." By the time Manicheans were actually starting to take hold in places, the Christian juggernaut was already in firm place and Persia was pretty much impossible to convert. Maybe have Manicheanism become more accepted in Persia, and due to most ancient borders being extremely weak when it comes to travelers, it slowly seeps into the levant?

 

[Mikestone8]

Christianity will eventually overtake the Empire; Constantine was a product of this, not a driver

yeah that sounds about right for a public infrastructure project

Christianity doesn't even need to take over the Empire. It can simply outlive it.

It has already been growing steadily for three hundred years, and that growth won't stop, whether Constantine converts or not. And as of 312 it has survived the most intense period of persecution since its beginning. Note that Galerius had already called off the persecution even before the Milvian Bridge. If worst comes to worse the Church can survive and even continue to grow, until the Empire disintegrates and it no longer matters what Caesar thinks. Most of the Pagan cults will be impoverished when the Barbarians plunder their Temple treasures, and Christians can get to work trying to convert a Barbarian king or two.

 

[TheCataphract]

Christianity doesn't even need to take over the Empire. It can simply outlive it.

It has already been growing steadily for three hundred years, and that growth won't stop, whether Constantine converts or not. And as of 312 it has survived the most intense period of persecution since its beginning. Note that Galerius had already called off the persecution even before the Milvian Bridge. If worst comes to worse the Church can survive and even continue to grow, until the Empire disintegrates and it no longer matters what Caesar thinks. Most of the Pagan cults will be impoverished when the Barbarians plunder their Temple treasures, and Christians can get to work trying to convert a Barbarian king or two.

Well that very much depends on what happens to the Empire doesn't it? Frankly there was nothing inevitable about the Empire's fall, it took centuries to happen (longer than many modern nations have existed in fact) and that's not including the extra thousand years that the East carried on. Christianity not becoming the majority, or at least politically dominant religion in this time is a pretty huge butterfly. For example, while I don't subscribe to the idea that somehow the adoption of Christianity catastrophically weakened the Romans, one major problem that the Emperors had to contend with once Christianity became dominant in the cities was the sheer power held by a city's bishops due to their influence over the urban mob.

That was a distraction that the Empire most certainly did not need while it was also having to contend with the Gothic migrations, so who knows? Perhaps not having that distraction frees up a few thousand extra troops for a key battle somewhere along the way and we see a major point of divergence because of it. Or just as possible, internal strife between the different religions within the cities requires even larger garrisons and thus some troops are missing at a key moment, having the opposite effect of my more optimistic scenario.

Also, Islam could be massively changed by this. Perhaps it never rises at all and no religion manages to unite the various Arab tribes at the perfect moment to take advantage of critical weak points in the Roman and Sassanian empires' histories and we don't see Egypt and North Africa, both the first and second most valuable provinces in the Empire from a tax and food standpoint, lost to an emerging Arab empire, and the Romans are left to recover and are deprived of their single greatest adversary of the Middle Ages. (The Byzantine-Arab battles for control of the Mediterranean are the stuff of legends.)

The point is, there is no guarantee that the Empire falls here. Who knows what could happen next? This is a very, very large butterfly.

 

[Mikestone8]

Also, Islam could be massively changed by this. Perhaps it never rises at all and no religion manages to unite the various Arab tribes at the perfect moment to take advantage of critical weak points in the Roman and Sassanian empires' histories .

Why should the Arabs need a religios leader to unite them? The Germanic Barbarians managed perfectly well without one.

 

[Gloss]

-Edward Gibbon
You mean the reactionary colonial proto-fascist sycophant of the Roman Empire? The fact that people even today still make a lot of apologia for Roman proto-colonialism and proto-fascism has always caused revulsion in me. Many go as far as to even justify slavery in the Roman Empire. I had a friend who did that and you see that stuff in places like Historum. If Christianity helped cause the carving and partition of the Roman Empire by Germanics, Slavs and Arabs, then that should be seen as a good thing.

Dude, slavery took centuries do disappear from (even just Western) Europe after Rome.

 

[Gloss]

I'm not so sure Christiantiy would over take anyway, what I'm sure though is that with a Christian Armenia Christianity in the East would be more legitimized and strengthened in the East, which would create interesting butterflies, maybe Christianity becomes a insurgent force locally or a early imperial split would have one empire being Christian and the other mostly Pagan, although at point I think Christianity would spread West as well.

 

[CountDVB]

"[R]eligions that would have made Hadrian's anti-Jewish massacres look like a humanitarian mission by comparison" is an exaggeration, but Manichaeism was a pretty elitist and unattractive religion. For example, killing animals, picking fruit, harvesting crops and making bread were all considered bad, as they caused particles of Light to be trapped in the world. As you may have noticed, this poses a bit of a problem for anybody who wants to eat. The solution? Get the non-elect to do all this stuff, so the elect don't have to get their hands dirty and can continue to eat whilst passing blame onto someone else!

And I'm not sure that Manichaeism was ever actually a threat to Christianity's position as successor to paganism. Sure there was the odd moral panic about it, but in terms of actual numbers, I'm not aware of it ever really approaching Christianity, at least not in the Roman Empire.

Yes, which is why it was very attractive over from Rome all the way to China...

There is a serious amount of contention against Gnosticism I am sensing. But, the religion was very popular and pretty much only got stomped out because of Christianity, Islam and Chinese faith religion had to stomp it out. Manichaeism was actually pretty popular. Sure there were the elect and the hearers.

 

[TheCataphract]

Why should the Arabs need a religios leader to unite them? The Germanic Barbarians managed perfectly well without one.

Now early Islam is not an area that I am super familiar with, so I could be wrong. However my understanding is that being united under the Caliphate is what got them to start looking beyond the Arabian Peninsula rather than the much smaller tribal conflicts among themselves. Otherwise they were mostly content to just stay where they were.

The Germanic tribes would likely have stayed where they were minus the occasional raids and frontier conflicts that characterized the Pax Romana if it hadn't been for outside pressure (the massive population migrations from the Huns) along with climate change that pushed them to migrate en-mass into Roman lands. It was these mass migrations that were the real problem for the Romans because they tended to occur all at the same time and were successful often due to the long standing Roman tradition of fighting bloody civil war, leaving the frontiers critically low on manpower while the legions were away fighting each other.

The Arabian Peninsula had no such pressure, as it was a peninsula and surrounded by ocean on three sides, and so there was no external force pressuring them to migrate into Roman lands. Central leadership via the Caliphate shifted their focus outward to foreign conquest.

 

[Fabius Maximus]

The point is, there is no guarantee that the Empire falls here. Who knows what could happen next? This is a very, very large butterfly.

The Roman Empire of the fourth century had some pretty major structural flaws (the most serious being the chronic civil wars that flared up every few years). Maybe its fate would be different with a POD in 312, but I'm inclined to suspect it would have fallen sooner or later anyway.

There is a serious amount of contention against Gnosticism I am sensing. But, the religion was very popular and pretty much only got stomped out because of Christianity, Islam and Chinese faith religion had to stomp it out. Manichaeism was actually pretty popular. Sure there were the elect and the hearers.

Not contention, no; I think it's great fun to study.

But, define "popular". Sure Manichaeism was widespread, but I don't think it ever became the majority religion anywhere. Maybe Rome would be the exception, but I don't think there's any particular reason to think so.

 

[123456789blaaa]

Same type of thread, same type of posts...

Probably not even half. However, it did have several factors favouring its expansion, the biggest of which were probably (1) its members actively sought to win converts, unlike most pagan cults, and (2) it had both a system of theological doctrine which could appeal to intellectuals and a system of cultic praxis which could appeal to everybody. Most pagan cults were very much centred on orthopraxy (doing the right thing, worshipping in the right way) rather than on orthodoxy (believing the right things), meaning that, whatever benefits they offered, they couldn't really provide a satisfying comprehensive explanation of life; there were philosophical schools which could offer such an explanation, but for obvious reasons only the well-educated could really be part of them, limiting their potential appeal to the top few percent of society. Julian realised this, and his sun-worshipping religion was an attempt to provide a religion which could compete with Christianity both in providing an intellectual explanation for life and in providing a set of rituals which everybody could participate in, though it withered away pretty quickly after Julian himself died.

...do you think Julian invented the religion he converted to? His religion was simply the Iamblichean tradition of Platonism that went on to survive and intellectually develop until Justinian's closure of the philosophical schools in the 6th century. There's no evidence it was "invented" to "compete with Christianity". Iamblichus had already provided a theurgic justification for traditional cult in opposition to another pagan Platonist-Porphyry.

I'd say Christianity would still do rather well. Modern estimates have placed Christians as making up around 10-15% of the Roman population around the time of Constantine's conversion, and that was concentrated considerably in the East of the Empire (Alexandria, Galatia, Asia Minor, etc.). Roman paganism had been on the decline since at least the mid-2nd century, so even without his conversion, a decent portion of the highly urbanized Eastern Empire would be Christian, at by the 5th century, it's likely that at least 1/3 of the Eastern Empire's population would be some form of Christian

There is no evidence for this. If anything, recent scholarly work has shown the surprising vitality of various forms of "paganism". For example, see Julians Gods page xiii:

The focus of attention in this book is the cultural mentality of an individual Emperor, not the controversy over Christianization. On the broader issue it does not presuppose or argue for a definite ,answer. But to insist on discussing the individual case wholly in isolation from the broader issue would perversely underplay its interest, and though I have preferred for the most part to leave my view of the broader debate implicit, it is not neutral. Disagreement over the pace of Christianization continues partly because of a basic imbalance in the amount and types of evidence surviving from the third century as against the fourth: as the evidence stands, the debate is likelier to refine probabilities than to commend a conclusive ,answer. Nevertheless, it is fair to say that recent work has signally ,advanced and shifted the terms of the debate. We have been forcefully reminded that pagan practices, beliefs, and attitudes remained lively and resilient through the third century - and in important respects, well beyond it; after Lane Fox's Pagans and Christians and Bowersock's Hellenism in Late Antiquity, any general notion that the religious culture on which Christianity intruded was moribund looks distinctly unpersuasive.

The continuing vitality and persistence of various form of paganism even after Christianity became the official religion of the Empire has been reinforced again and again in recent scholarship. Furthermore, it has also highlighted how "paganism" did not stay the same over the centuries. It changed and evolved significantly. You can't talk about Constantine not converting without taking into account people like Maximin Dias who created a professional hierarchy of high priests to act as a state clerisy over his portion of the Empire (no Julian the apostate did not invent the idea first). The development of the pagan holy man and hagiographies analogous to Christian saint hagiographies for philosophers like Iamblichus are also part of these changes. Hell, there are many works detailing the change among platonists from being just philosophers, to being philosopher-priests in the fourth century. Religion in the Roman Empire was constantly evolving and changing. The "paganism" of the 2nd century was very different to that of later centuries.

Doubt so. Manichaeism is even more elitist than Christianity and had an utterly dualistic view of morality where everything evil was infected by Ahriman and had to either be transformed or destroyed, unlike the view of Christianity where Satan certainly controls mankind but everyone, even non-Christians, have the innate capacity to resist him and know God as Satan is not as all-powerful as Ahriman. Manichaeism is also arguably even more anti-Semitic since they probably held the Gnostic view that the Old Testament God is actually Ahriman himself. The idea that Gnosticism, and by extension Manichaeism, were almost a proto-Renaissance Protestantism simply has no validity, and all apologists of these religions should be ashamed of themselves for supporting religions that would have made Hadrian's anti-Jewish massacres look like a humanitarian mission by comparison.

Hey Maoistic, Do you still think you know more than trained scholars who have spent years studying their material? You always sound very confident in your posts so I think people should know that you have no problem pulling theories out of your ass and acting like they're obviously correct.

"[R]eligions that would have made Hadrian's anti-Jewish massacres look like a humanitarian mission by comparison" is an exaggeration, but Manichaeism was a pretty elitist and unattractive religion. For example, killing animals, picking fruit, harvesting crops and making bread were all considered bad, as they caused particles of Light to be trapped in the world. As you may have noticed, this poses a bit of a problem for anybody who wants to eat. The solution? Get the non-elect to do all this stuff, so the elect don't have to get their hands dirty and can continue to eat whilst passing blame onto someone else!

And I'm not sure that Manichaeism was ever actually a threat to Christianity's position as successor to paganism. Sure there was the odd moral panic about it, but in terms of actual numbers, I'm not aware of it ever really approaching Christianity, at least not in the Roman Empire.

You're projecting your own intuition here. There is no scholarly evidence that Manichean doctrine was particularly unattractive. If anything the success of Manicheaism in getting converts across the entire Roman Empire (even the less urbanized west like Gaul and Spain) and in being powerful enough to get people like Augustine important positions in Rome, suggests that it was particularly attractive. Especially given the relatively short timespan compared to Christianity which it had to penetrate the Roman Empire. One might wonder why the Uyghur Khaganate made Manichaeism the state religion if it was so unattractive.

 

[funnyhat]

Early Islam didn't have the crescent moon as a symbol.

Not only early Islam. It has only had an association with Islam since the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople, and even now some Muslims disagree with its use (as the moon was originally in honor of the goddess Diana).

 

[Seandineen]

Perhaps Adoptivisim would find a home.

 

[Fabius Maximus]

...do you think Julian invented the religion he converted to? His religion was simply the Iamblichean tradition of Platonism that went on to survive and intellectually develop until Justinian's closure of the philosophical schools in the 6th century. There's no evidence it was "invented" to "compete with Christianity". Iamblichus had already provided a theurgic justification for traditional cult in opposition to another pagan Platonist-Porphyry.

I think you're overstating the case here. Yes, Iamblichus had supported participating in the traditional cults, but there's no reason to think that he envisioned the kind of centralised religion established by Julian. And Julian's religion did actually incorporate a fair few features that were found in contemporary Christianity but not in paganism, even of the Iamblichan kind -- an episcopal organisation, for example, or religious catechisms, or a set of centrally-defined doctrines. Plus, most pagans' reactions to Julian's reforms ranged from indifference to derision, and the religion quickly withered away once Julian was dead. That would be unlikely if Julian really was just a run-of-the-mill Iamblichan.

You're projecting your own intuition here. There is no scholarly evidence that Manichean doctrine was particularly unattractive. If anything the success of Manicheaism in getting converts across the entire Roman Empire (even the less urbanized west like Gaul and Spain) and in being powerful enough to get people like Augustine important positions in Rome, suggests that it was particularly attractive. Especially given the relatively short timespan compared to Christianity which it had to penetrate the Roman Empire. One might wonder why the Uyghur Khaganate made Manichaeism the state religion if it was so unattractive.

Maybe I am just projecting my own intuitions here, although as I said above, with the exception of the Uyghurs (thanks for reminding me of them, BTW), Manichaeism never seems to have become numerically dominant, even in places where it was around for much longer than it was in the Roman Empire. Most of Manichaeism's influence in Rome came from the fact that it was disproportionately concentrated among the upper classes (hence why someone like Augustine was able to use his Manichaean connections to get a job), but that doesn't mean that it was popular with anything like as broad a section of society as Christianity was. I guess in a sense you could compare it to something like Freemasonry -- there used to be (and maybe still are, for all I know) lots of Freemasons in the British elite, but not many ordinary people were ever members, and the chances of any country becoming majority-Freemason are slim.