Rome in the Hands of God: the WI

How could the Roman Empire convert to Christianity far earlier than Constantine's rule?

I would suggest an early death of Agrippina. Such would stop Nero from gaining the throne. That means a lack of Christian persecution. Unless of course Brittanica (after becoming emperor) chooses to do the same things. I doubt that. If I'm right, this might Christianize Rome between AD 130 and 270.

What do the other members think?
 
In Nero's time, Christians were so few in number, most of their contemporaries never even heard of them. Perhaps, least of all, Nero himself. In fact, it wasn't until the Second Century CE that they were universally known about. The early Christian leaders were great ones for stories.
 
If you want to spread Christianity faster, you need to have a a high profile conversion early on. A good POD might be that Pilate personally observes the crucifixion of Christ and converts on the spot.
 
In Nero's time, Christians were so few in number, most of their contemporaries never even heard of them. Perhaps, least of all, Nero himself. In fact, it wasn't until the Second Century CE that they were universally known about. The early Christian leaders were great ones for stories.

Yep. Not to be insulting anyone's religion, but there really were very few Christians in total persecuted under the Roman Empire.

And that number paled in comparison to the numbers of Pagans murdered by the Christians after they came to power...
 
Yep. Not to be insulting anyone's religion, but there really were very few Christians in total persecuted under the Roman Empire.

And that number paled in comparison to the numbers of Pagans murdered by the Christians after they came to power...

and that number pales in comparison to the numbers of Christians murdered by other Christians supposedly in the name of God. Sigh! :(
 
I rather doubt avoiding the Neronian persecution will be enough to avoid later problems entirely. The Christians were unpopular in many quarters. It is also not that easy to see how a conversion at an earlier point would lead to converting the Roman Empire. Pilate is certainly no good candidate - an equestrian official coming back from a weird, backward, fanatic province with strange convictions; the heat must have gotten to him, poor fellow.

An interesting idea would be for Claudius, Nero or Domitian to extend the privileges of the Jews to the Christians on the assumption that they are more or less the same thing (not that far-fetched). That would assure the status of religio licita later on. I still couldn't see a state conversion before the very late 3rd century, but it might just leave the church less angry and paranoid.
 
On the subject of Pontius Pilate. I don't think that he would have met Jesus anyway (if he existed). There certainly wouldn't have been a trial. Pilate, as a provincial governor, would have given trials for Roman citizens. Jesus was not a citizen, so he would have been executed almost immediately after capture. That is, if he was an actual rebel.
 
Yep. Not to be insulting anyone's religion, but there really were very few Christians in total persecuted under the Roman Empire.

And that number paled in comparison to the numbers of Pagans murdered by the Christians after they came to power...

Do you have any sources for the number of Christians killed by the Romans vs the number of pagans killed by the Christians to back that statement up?
 
Do you have any sources for the number of Christians killed by the Romans vs the number of pagans killed by the Christians to back that statement up?

In Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," he said (IIRC) that the number of Christians martyred by the pagan Romans was only around 5,000 or so and there were much larger killings by the warring theological parties post-Constantine--Arians, Orthodox, Monophysite, etc. took turns persecuting each other, depending on who was in power.

To be fair to the Orthodox, I think the Arians started it.

About the numbers of non-Christians killed, I do know the Christian governor of Alexandria stirred up an angry mob to kill a pagan philosopher named Hypatia and the Christian Empire turned a blind eye to pagan temples being sacked, but I'm not aware of concentration camps and the like.

(I read a web-site once claiming that there were concentration camps for non-Christians in Late Antiquity but they didn't provide any evidence)
 
Do you have any sources for the number of Christians killed by the Romans vs the number of pagans killed by the Christians to back that statement up?

Nobody does. We have at best reasonable estimates. But unless there was some huge massacre of Christians going on that was completely unrecorded at the time and only surfaces in medieval folk memory, the preponderance of evidence indicates that a lot more pagans were killed by Christians than Christians by pagans.
 
How could the Roman Empire convert to Christianity far earlier than Constantine's rule?

I would suggest an early death of Agrippina. Such would stop Nero from gaining the throne. That means a lack of Christian persecution. Unless of course Brittanica (after becoming emperor) chooses to do the same things. I doubt that. If I'm right, this might Christianize Rome between AD 130 and 270.

What do the other members think?

I'm pretty sure that Christians weren't quite persecuted for being Christians, but more for not being worshippers of the Emperor. I'm not sure about numbers, but I'd bet that there weren't massive numbers of Christians by Nero's time anyways.
 
Top