Constantine does not endorse Christianity

If Constantine has not declared himself (and the Empire) Christian, could we have fast-tracked to an "Enlightenment" of some form, without the need to for the intervening Dark age / Medieval age?
 
If Constantine has not declared himself (and the Empire) Christian, could we have fast-tracked to an "Enlightenment" of some form, without the need to for the intervening Dark age / Medieval age?

What if he had decided to worship Mithras instead??

Whatever god Constantine decided to worship I would imagine he would still have fought Licinius
 
Whatever god Constantine decided to worship I would imagine he would still have fought Licinius

...and therefore might have quashed Licinius's equally pro-Christian stance. Would this have meant monotheism withered, a relatively benign pantheism prevailed, and the development of a reason might have flourished in less adversarial intellectual circumstances than actually prevailed?
 
What if he had decided to worship Mithras instead??

Whatever god Constantine decided to worship I would imagine he would still have fought Licinius

Whatever *other* God Constantine decides to worship (short of YHVH) will not make an ounce of difference. They're all plug-and-play compatible. Jesus is proprietary hardware standard.
 
Whatever *other* God Constantine decides to worship (short of YHVH) will not make an ounce of difference.

The Romans were largely indifferent to their citizen's various beliefs. It was the rise of monotheism that led to the concept of orthodoxy/heresy, and the consequent persecution. That might not have happened in a consistently pantheistic history.

Of course, I agree with you that it's a all hoax, whatever "gods" gets chosen.
 
Christianity was "endorsed" by Constantine because it was a major, growing religion at that time. Most emporers did not "endorse" any one religion (other than their own divinity) and "worshiped" at whatever local temple was around. Unless Christianity (in its many forms even in the 4th century) had not become the prominent religion by the time of Mohammed, sooner or later some emporer would have "endorsed" it, to protect his power base. What other religion could have become top dog before the rise of Islam?
 
If Constantine has not declared himself (and the Empire) Christian, could we have fast-tracked to an "Enlightenment" of some form, without the need to for the intervening Dark age / Medieval age?

Why do you presume Constantine's conversion made the fall of Roman civilization and dark ages (if that's really what they were) inevitable? Economic and social forces independent of whatever state religion the Roman Empire chose to adopt led to the fall of Rome. And once that was underway, a great deal of learning would be lost.
 
It was the rise of monotheism that led to the concept of orthodoxy/heresy, and the consequent persecution. That might not have happened in a consistently pantheistic history..

I seem to remember that Socrates was marked as a hereitic and forced to kill himself by "pantheists". Monotheist Moslems preserved and expanded upon ancient Greek learninig for 600 years, and it can be argued that the development of universal natural laws in the enlightement was made easier by the preexisting notion of a universal natural god in charge of things. Intellectual development in societies can occur in all religious environments.
 
I seem to remember that Socrates was marked as a hereitic and forced to kill himself by "pantheists". Monotheist Moslems preserved and expanded upon ancient Greek learninig for 600 years, and it can be argued that the development of universal natural laws in the enlightement was made easier by the preexisting notion of a universal natural god in charge of things. Intellectual development in societies can occur in all religious environments.

Socrates was not marked as a heretic,in a lot of Latin monasteries, portrets of him alongside the Saints.
Also,his mystical works paint him as a near monotheist.
 
Socrates was not marked as a heretic,in a lot of Latin monasteries, portrets of him alongside the Saints.
Also,his mystical works paint him as a near monotheist.

Which is why the Greeks called him a heretic and forced his "suicide".
 
Socrates was not marked as a heretic,in a lot of Latin monasteries, portrets of him alongside the Saints.
Also,his mystical works paint him as a near monotheist.

You miss my point. He was not a heretic to Christians, but was to his pantheist/polytheist Athenian compatriots, correct?
 
You miss my point. He was not a heretic to Christians, but was to his pantheist/polytheist Athenian compatriots, correct?

Not exactly. That is, of course he was a heretic, in fact he would have to be considered a hairesiarch, but back then, that was something good (it mean a distinct philosophical opinion or school). But what he was accused of was asebeia, which is not an offense against orthodoxy but against orthopraxy - very loosely translated, lack of respect for the Gods. IN the Athenian penal code it was the catchall term for things the majority disapproved of, but did not generally consider crime, sort of a capital offence ASBO.
 
I thought Licinius was pro-pagan

Licinius was pagan, but not anti-Christian. He was instrumental in granting the Christian faith the status of religio licita. Not that he likely *wanted* to, mind, but realities are realities.

IIRC the driving force behind the persecutiuon is supposed to have been Galerius.
 
Could we have fast-tracked to an "Enlightenment" of some form, without the need to for the intervening Dark age / Medieval age?

Jumping ahead to Enlightenment would mean constructing a timeline of 1400 years in one sentence, which I would call ... daring. At best.

You might also want to check out this link:
https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=6536

And although it has no direct connection to Constantine, I do think that a Christian environment was beneficial to the development of Enlightenment. That Christianity and Enlightenment fighted each other afterwards only obscures the circumstances of how the ideas came about.

On the other hand, the conflict between Christians and proudly pagan (former) Senate elite, and thus the way Christianization does seem to be have accelerated the fall of the empire. However, I cannot see how a pagan empire should have overcome its economic and military problems, to name only two areas.
 
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