No emperor Constantine, what about Christianity?

Constantine was lucky and could have been defeated by Maxentius so what if Constantine was defeated?

Christianity would still survive, it was already a fast-growing religion in the empire and it was already gaining considerable power but would it still take over if not who does?

Would Christianity look much different?

What about the East-West split in Christianity?
 
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Constantine was lucky and could have been defeated by Maxentius so what if Constantine was defeated?
Maxentius would have enough time to save his ally in the East, unless new problems arise in Gaul.
Christianity would still survive, it was already a fast-growing religion in the empire and it was already gaining considerable power but would it still take over if not who does?
Only if a christian emperor push for its enforcement, otherwise it’ll remain the religion of a minority. However pagan cults could be indirectly influenced by it and therefore “evolve”.
Would Christianity look much different?
Christianity would surely look different without Nicea, the condemnation of the Donatist and all the privileges granted to the Church by Constantine.
What about the East-West split in Christianity?
You don’t even have here the city (Constantinople) that historically represented the eastern christian world while opposing Rome: too many butterflies. Unless you’re referring to the division between Chalcedonians and the (further) East. Which would be butterflied anyway along with the four councils that led to that precise outcome.
 

Philip

Donor
Christianity would surely look different without Nicea

The conversion of Constantine is not necessary for an alt-Nicaea. As long as Constantine decides to tolerate Christianity, something like Nicaea becomes likely. The Christians were a significant minority and their disputes could disrupt the peace of the empire. Constantine would still benefit from resolving the issue.

You don’t even have here the city (Constantinople) that historically represented the eastern christian world while opposing Rome:

Rome would retain its prestige as the site of martyrdom for Peter and Paul and the church in the Eternal City. Alexandria and Antioch (perhaps with Ephesus/Smyrna) were and would likely remain the theological centers.
 
Only if a christian emperor push for its enforcement, otherwise it’ll remain the religion of a minority. However pagan cults could be indirectly influenced by it and therefore “evolve”.

Although I think these figures should be taken with a grain of salt, what it does show is that Christians are a rapidly growing movement in Rome.

40AD.....1,000 Christians.....0.0017% of Rome's population
50 ......1,400.....................0.0023%
100 .....7,530....................0.0126%
150 .....40,496...................0.07%
200 .....217,796..................0.36%
250 .....1,171,356................1.9%
300 .....6,299,832...............10.5%
350 .....33,882,008..............56.5%

(From Stark's 'The Rise of Christianity: How the Obscure, Marginal Jesus Movement Became the Dominant Religious Force in the Western World in a Few Centuries')


As you can see they are increasing their numbers by about 500% every 50 years. I am not so sure they are going to be a minority if these growth rates continued from 300 CE with or without Constantine. Even if these growth rates slow down it will probably be the biggest religion in the Roman Empire.

Putting in here of what these figures would show without Constantine

Using an S-curve

https://stats.areppim.com/calc/calc_scurve.php
the 200 and 300 figure and a Roman Empire of 60 million and then going to 400 CE

At 350 CE without Constantine, they would be 22,907,436, they would hit Constantine 350 CE figure about 20 years later at 370 CE

I get them being the majority by 366CE with 30,983,043,
By 400 CE they are 46,418,906 well and truly the majority. Once they hit these figures the Emperors will adopt Christianity.

Probably Constantine speeded up the process by 20 years.


Christianity would surely look different without Nicea, the condemnation of the Donatist and all the privileges granted to the Church by Constantine.


You don’t even have here the city (Constantinople) that historically represented the eastern christian world while opposing Rome: too many butterflies. Unless you’re referring to the division between Chalcedonians and the (further) East. Which would be butterflied anyway along with the four councils that led to that precise outcome.

Agreed.

The conversion of Constantine is not necessary for an alt-Nicaea. As long as Constantine decides to tolerate Christianity, something like Nicaea becomes likely. The Christians were a significant minority and their disputes could disrupt the peace of the empire. Constantine would still benefit from resolving the issue.

Constantine is not in power in this POD and here in this POD, Rome would be more interested in keeping the peace than getting involved in these theological disputes.

Rome would retain its prestige as the site of martyrdom for Peter and Paul and the church in the Eternal City. Alexandria and Antioch (perhaps with Ephesus/Smyrna) were and would likely remain the theological centers.

Without Constantinople YES.
 
How does Rome keep the peace?

By staying out the Christian disputes like Nicea which aggravated the situation and arresting people that cause trouble, Note if you accept my logic, this policy of keeping the peace only lasts for about 20 years.
 
Well, we’re not actually sure that Constantine actually was personally converted. It’s certain that he built churches, but he also built temples to the pagan gods, e.g sol invictus as well as statues depicting him personally as a god.
 
Well, we’re not actually sure that Constantine actually was personally converted. It’s certain that he built churches, but he also built temples to the pagan gods, e.g sol invictus as well as statues depicting him personally as a god.

True. It seems that Constantine was ratherly pragmatic man instead being truly intrested about the religion. He even was baptised only very near of his death.
 
Well, we’re not actually sure that Constantine actually was personally converted. It’s certain that he built churches, but he also built temples to the pagan gods, e.g sol invictus as well as statues depicting him personally as a god.

He certainly pushed Christianity much more. His children were Christians.

True. It seems that Constantine was ratherly pragmatic man instead being truly intrested about the religion.

He did take a chance on Christianity and although pragmatic in his theology, he did get into it.

He even was baptised only very near of his death.

A person baptized is considered to being free of sin in his brand of Christianity, by being baptized just before death, he dies sinless.
 
The conversion of Constantine is not necessary for an alt-Nicaea. As long as Constantine decides to tolerate Christianity, something like Nicaea becomes likely. The Christians were a significant minority and their disputes could disrupt the peace of the empire. Constantine would still benefit from resolving the issue.
Another Christian emperor could favour a totally different outcome during the first Council: Constantine was probably Arian, yet he accepted Nicea but another emperor (someone like Constantius II or Valens) could enforce the victory of Arius and his followers. Maybe later an emperor could revert this outcome, but this would provoke a conflict inside the church between those still loyal to the first Council and those opposed to it (basically what happened after Chalcedonia). This obviously assuming the rise of a christian emperor: a pagan emperor couldn’t care less about the council and the need to enforce its decisions throughout the empire.


Although I think these figures should be taken with a grain of salt, what it does show is that Christians are a rapidly growing movement in Rome.

40AD.....1,000 Christians.....0.0017% of Rome's population
50 ......1,400.....................0.0023%
100 .....7,530....................0.0126%
150 .....40,496...................0.07%
200 .....217,796..................0.36%
250 .....1,171,356................1.9%
300 .....6,299,832...............10.5%
350 .....33,882,008..............56.5%

(From Stark's 'The Rise of Christianity: How the Obscure, Marginal Jesus Movement Became the Dominant Religious Force in the Western World in a Few Centuries')


As you can see they are increasing their numbers by about 500% every 50 years. I am not so sure they are going to be a minority if these growth rates continued from 300 CE with or without Constantine. Even if these growth rates slow down it will probably be the biggest religion in the Roman Empire.

Putting in here of what these figures would show without Constantine

Using an S-curve

https://stats.areppim.com/calc/calc_scurve.php
the 200 and 300 figure and a Roman Empire of 60 million and then going to 400 CE

At 350 CE without Constantine, they would be 22,907,436, they would hit Constantine 350 CE figure about 20 years later at 370 CE

I get them being the majority by 366CE with 30,983,043,
By 400 CE they are 46,418,906 well and truly the majority. Once they hit these figures the Emperors will adopt Christianity.

Probably Constantine speeded up the process by 20 years.
This implies that Christianity is destined to convert every single roman citizen inside the empire even without the decisive support of the state. Personally I don’t think this is true. Especially since without Constantine, the Church won’t be granted certain privileges like tax exemption, access to the cursus publicus, exemption from military service, exemption from the burdens of the Curiales, shared power with the provincial governors, judicial power…

What I mean is everything could happen after this alternate battle between Constantine and Maxentius and certainly Christianity wouldn’t fare badly under Licinius and Maxentius (pro-christians emperors), but to assume that, no matter what, Christianity is going to wipe out paganism before the end of the IV/V century is a little bit predeterministic.
 
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Well, we’re not actually sure that Constantine actually was personally converted. It’s certain that he built churches, but he also built temples to the pagan gods, e.g sol invictus as well as statues depicting him personally as a god.

Everyone at the time seems to have regarded him as a Christian, and he did much more to support Christianity than was pragmatically necessary to keep the peace or secure the Church's loyalty.

He even was baptised only very near of his death.

That was a common practice in those days: since sins committed after baptism were seen as more serious than sins committed before, it was considered expedient to delay being baptised so as to reduce your opportunity to sin afterwards.
 
I love this topic.

I actually think Christianity was larger than 10 percent by 300AD if we are to believe that at the time of Christ 10 percent (!) of the Roman Empire was Jewish. TO have such a high number, many of these Jews were not Hebrews but rather Gentile converts. And, if we read Acts of the Apostles, it is obvious that Paul found Jews "in every city" and his success was in converting the Gentile Jews over to Christianity. THere was a big reason for this, as it was a Jewish religion that did not require circumcision. The circumcision controversy in the early Church was not small and all but two of Paul's epistles mention arguments with Jewish Christians who insisted on circumcision. So, in short Jews (even the Christian ones) really did not Gentiles to be full members of their communion without circumcision--Paul, like a reformer, said hogwash to this and this led to mass Gentile conversion. Hence, shortly after the time of he diaspora, it is my belief that most of the gentile Jews converted to Christianity, especially as the whole focal point of the Jewish religion (Jerusalem) disappeared.

This means Christianity was upwards of 10 percent of Rome by the mid second century. Even if this is too rosy a view, we have certainly exceeded this number by the third century. If Dionysus of Alexandria and Eusebius is to be believed, at least two Roman Emperors during the third century appeared to be cradle Christians, though they appeared to have apostatized as adults. Cyprian in the mid third century writes of financial corruption. Also, during the mid third century, Paul of Samosata at patronage from Zenobia (leader of a large rebellion against Rome). THe next Bishop of ANtioch had imperial sanction. All of these things are consistent with the idea that Christianity was a rather larger religion, especially in the cities.

I have heard the numbers that Christianity was 10 percent of the West and 50 percent of the East by the time of Constantine. I would venture to guess that it was considerably higher in the West (high teens) and lower in the East (high 30s). But, being that Helen (Constantine's mother) was a Christian and likely brought up Constantine in a matter akin to Monica bringing up Augustine (Chritianized, but not religiously so in order that he can be trained for his career) this speaks to Christianity pretty much being everywhere, from the oppressed North African peasant to the wielders of power in Rome.

In my opinion, Constantine only began officially tolerating a religion that was so big, that to not do so seriously compromised the size of Roman armies and their tax base. Christianity was probably 30 percent of the entire empire at this point and they took their religion more seriously than the pagans, who themselves were split between Gnostic sects, eastern mystery religions, and local folk religions. Propping up the imperial Roman religion was becoming untenable. There's a reason why Romanized lands, like Armenia and Georgia, later Ethiopia, were going Christian with the hammer of the Roman state. This is also why the Parthians had to so strongly resist its growth. Christianity was already making big waves with or without state influence.

Constantine co-opted Christianity and later the Edict of Thessalonica essentially made it a sacralist institution (i.e. new state religion/imperial cult.)

So, what happens to Christianity without Constantine. Obviously, some later Roman Emperor will go Christian. And consistent with every other people that has gone Christian, they will make it the state religion and what we have today is pretty much the same as what we had in the past.

However, is there a way to maybe, just maybe, delay imperial sanction in favor of Christianity in order to make it anti-sacralist and change the face of Christianity? Maybe.

Here's my POD. Helen gets murdered and Constantine does become Roman Emperor, but not Christian. He does move the capital to Byzantium. His sons likewise see to the east-west split of the empire. Here's what I think happens.

-Donatist schism occurs, a Council in Rome excommunicates them but without imperial sanction of the excommunication, Donatists remain in communion with some churches. The schism blows over after a few centuries until only a few hold outs, like the Novationists, are still around. This occurs with a Punic, as opposed to a Latinized, Bishop of Carthage eventually getting the See.
-Arianism still gets anathematized, but local councils and letters exchanged between the metropolita. No Nicene Creed is made. However, the Apostles Creed (which the Nicene Creed is based upon) may be cited as evidence of the orthodox view and this leads to increasing standardization.
-Germans are evangelized as orthodox simply because Arianism is not anti-nicene and there is no political reason to go anti-nicene.
-Great theologians like Hilary of Poitiers, Athanasius, and Ambrose start concocting systematic theologies, as do the Cappadocean fathers, and Augustine after them.
-Sometime during this point, we need some great saint to be martyred in another persecution. In this saint's writings, he must reject imperial power explicitly. In OTL, we seen Cyril of Alexandria's theology in five years after his death become endorsed by the whole Christian world. So, I think this is something cultural that can happen.
-An ATL Emperor goes Christian and ends persecution. To make this timeline work, he has some sort of religious experience that he believes he is patronized by the anti-imperial saint and simply allows for the toleration of the Christian religion. At this point, ATL Council of Serdicia and the precedent of Egyptian Bishops appealing to Rome makes the Roman See the final court of appeals. Constantinople, not the seat of any official Patriarch, cannot lay claim of this especially without state support.
-A Papalist system arises where the Pope is the final court of theological appeals, but his decision must be ratified by councils and a consensus must be forged.
-THis system must become strong enough and entrenched enough that by the time Christianity gets imperial sanction, the Pope's and the Council's power are so independent, that the Emperor at best ratifies their decision into imperial law and jockeys to pay off the Bishops.

Now, my stream of consciousness reveals that we eventually revert back to sacralism, even with everything going against it as I am trying to do above. Perhaps, if we can make it agreed doctrinally during the 4th century that political authorities cannot appoint bishops (simony already existed), that we can get rid of half of the corruption but not all of it. However, if states cannot appoint bishops because the Church universally rejects this as heresy, we can avoid overt state control, even as the religion gains precedence in the whole western world.
 
This implies that Christianity is destined to convert every single roman citizen inside the empire even without the decisive support of the state. Personally I don’t think this is true. Especially since without Constantine, the Church won’t be granted certain privileges like tax exemption, access to the cursus publicus, exemption from military service, exemption from the burdens of the Curiales, shared power with the provincial governors, judicial power…


Yes but it would not change much, it is the way S-curves for example if I was to say max Roman Christain population is 45 million out of 60 million.

Then by 376 CE, the Christians are a majority with 30+ million by 400 CE they are just under 40 million. Somewhere between these figures, I would expect the Roman Emperors will adopt Christianity.

...

but to assume that, no matter what, Christianity is going to wipe out paganism before the end of the IV/V century is a little bit predeterministic.

Never said that and also consider that not all those people are pagan, they are actually a wide range of religious beliefs.
 
I love this topic..

Thanks

I actually think Christianity was larger than 10 percent by 300AD if we are to believe that at the time of Christ 10 percent (!) of the Roman Empire was Jewish. TO have such a high number, many of these Jews were not Hebrews but rather Gentile converts. And, if we read Acts of the Apostles, it is obvious that Paul found Jews "in every city" and his success was in converting the Gentile Jews over to Christianity. THere was a big reason for this, as it was a Jewish religion that did not require circumcision. The circumcision controversy in the early Church was not small and all but two of Paul's epistles mention arguments with Jewish Christians who insisted on circumcision. So, in short Jews (even the Christian ones) really did not Gentiles to be full members of their communion without circumcision--Paul, like a reformer, said hogwash to this and this led to mass Gentile conversion. Hence, shortly after the time of he diaspora, it is my belief that most of the gentile Jews converted to Christianity, especially as the whole focal point of the Jewish religion (Jerusalem) disappeared.

.

I doubt Paul or his comrades did convert that many Jews over. Jews number about 6 million in the Roman Empire in 1 CE (there is no 0 CE)

Now if you look at the figures I quoted earlier,

40AD.....1,000 Christians.....0.0017% of Rome's population
50 ......1,400.....................0.0023%
100 .....7,530....................0.0126%
150 .....40,496...................0.07%
200 .....217,796..................0.36%
250 .....1,171,356................1.9%
300 .....6,299,832...............10.5%
350 .....33,882,008..............56.5%

(From Stark's 'The Rise of Christianity: How the Obscure, Marginal Jesus Movement Became the Dominant Religious Force in the Western World in a Few Centuries')

It is only about 300 CE that we see Christians with anywhere near those numbers and by then the movement was gentile. What it is, is for the movement in 50 CE, which numbers of about 1,400, there were lots of Jews inside it but compared to the total Jewish population it is very small.
 
Ok to quote Rodney Stark, but the author, beyond the mentioned data schema, says much more about why at the time of Constantine of the over 60 million inhabitants of the Empire (equal to the inhabitants of Italy today) 2/3 were already Christians, about why paganism - now in deep crisis and without more attraction for the majority of the population - was destined to be supplanted, about why Giuliano's attempt was destined in any case to fail, about why Christianity was more attractive as a religion from a social point of view (indistinct solidarity towards even non-Christians; the importance of Christian women, the first witnesses of the "new" faith and first means of conversion of husbands, families; no divorce, no abortion, no infanticide, that led Christians to have more children; etc.).

Simplifying, Constantine found himself only to recognize a fact: 2/3 of the population of the Empire were now Christians, despite bloody persecutions, especially in the cities, as well as Christians were most of the men of the army (many of the first martyrs are soldiers), of the ruling class and of the nobility.
 
I doubt Paul or his comrades did convert that many Jews over.

My argument is that he converted God-fearing Gentiles.

It is only about 300 CE that we see Christians with anywhere near those numbers and by then the movement was gentile.

I disagree with those numbers for the reason I stated.

"What it is, is for the movement in 50 CE, which numbers of about 1,400..."

Unlikely--too small. Christians were already expelled from Rome, such as Priscilla and Aquilla. Had to be a pretty sizeable number to be running into these people miles away. In Jerusalem, the Christian movement appears pretty large as well. Chances are there was a large movement in Alexandria, but because of no 1st century documents we really no nothing about it.

there were lots of Jews inside it but compared to the total Jewish population it is very small.
Do you have contemporary evidence that would lend credibility to this in the 2nd and 3rd centuries (i.e. after the diaspora)?
 
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That was a common practice in those days: since sins committed after baptism were seen as more serious than sins committed before, it was considered expedient to delay being baptised so as to reduce your opportunity to sin afterwards.

Yep - but also a dangerous game to play. You might try to manipulate the timing and then die. Plus God isn't fooled by insincere conversions.
 
Yep - but also a dangerous game to play. You might try to manipulate the timing and then die. Plus God isn't fooled by insincere conversions.

Yes, which is why the practice ended up dying out. But plenty of apparently sincere Christians of the period did delay being baptised till they were on their deathbed, so I don't think it can reasonably be used as evidence that Constantine wasn't sincere.
 
Yes, which is why the practice ended up dying out. But plenty of apparently sincere Christians of the period did delay being baptised till they were on their deathbed

Especially if they were soldiers or magistrates, who might have to condemn people to death or do other things which could be be viewed as unchristian. An Emperor, of course, was both.
 
My argument is that he converted God-fearing Gentiles. ?




I disagree with those numbers for the reason I stated.

"What it is, is for the movement in 50 CE, which numbers of about 1,400..."

Unlikely--too small. Christians were already expelled from Rome, such as Priscilla and Aquilla. Had to be a pretty sizeable number to be running into these people miles away. In Jerusalem, the Christian movement appears pretty large as well. Chances are there was a large movement in Alexandria, but because of no 1st century documents we really no nothing about it.


Do you have contemporary evidence that would lend credibility to this in the 2nd and 3rd centuries (i.e. after the diaspora)?

Paul seems to have directed his energy to both, why else preach in synagogues?

As I stated these figures have to be taken with a grain of salt, here is a brief discussion on the Christian numbers, I quoted.
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/anxiousbench/2017/09/how-many-christians/

According to Paul Johnson's “History of the Jews” there were about 8 million Jews or 10% of the Roman Empire at the time of Augustus. By the time of the rise of Islam, there appear to have been less than half that number - either due to fleeing/ emigrating out or due to assimilation into Roman; Persian; or Arab culture.

At best based on this, there could only be a small minority of Jews that became Christians early on however, among Christians, they probably made a significant percentage.
 
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