What Happens Christianity Without Roman Empreor Support?

What would have happened to Christianity, if it did not eventually get Roman approval, perhaps no Empreor Consintine or not becomming the official state religeon under Theodosius 1? Indeed how would the Empire itself have fared under its traditional religeons?
 
What would have happened to Christianity, if it did not eventually get Roman approval, perhaps no Empreor Consintine or not becomming the official state religeon under Theodosius 1? Indeed how would the Empire itself have fared under its traditional religeons?

Christianity may have been adopted by a Sassanian ruler eager to lessen the influence of the Zoroastrian priesthood, the Persians looked pretty highly on the faith until it became the state religion of Rome, or might have become a minor Jewish sect...perhaps the Gnostics could have gained more influence?

As for Rome, perhaps if Aurelian doesn't get whacked, he can successfully convert the populace to the henotheistic worship of Sol Invictus, paving the way for a more centralized religion of the empire. Heck, maybe that's your POD.
 
Christianity will continue to grow, although it will have a tendency to fragment without a Council of Nicaea. Relations between these various branches of the Church will be far more cordial than OTL though, apart from the seriously far out groups, who'll be disliked. There might be inter-communal violence between Christian groups, but nothing on a particuarly large scale.

The Empire itself won't see much of a return to the old traditional style of worship- it was moving towards monotheism of some description long before Constantine. Perhaps we could see Roman religion being understood as something like Hinduism, with all of the old Gods being viewed as various parts of a single divinity, as represented by the Unconquered Sun.

Outside the Empire, Christianity may very well become the state religion of Sassanid Iran. The Sassanids themselves may hold some sort of Council of Nicaea, and start persecuting heretics. Which could be fun. Christianity spreading east from Iran into India, whilst remaining only a minority community in Europe. Any form of Iranian Christianity will probably be rather dualistic, since it'll be open to a large amount of Zoroastrian influence.

Hope this helps!
 
Christianity

Christianity will continue to grow, although it will have a tendency to fragment without a Council of Nicaea. Relations between these various branches of the Church will be far more cordial than OTL though, apart from the seriously far out groups, who'll be disliked. There might be inter-communal violence between Christian groups, but nothing on a particuarly large scale.

The Empire itself won't see much of a return to the old traditional style of worship- it was moving towards monotheism of some description long before Constantine. Perhaps we could see Roman religion being understood as something like Hinduism, with all of the old Gods being viewed as various parts of a single divinity, as represented by the Unconquered Sun.

Outside the Empire, Christianity may very well become the state religion of Sassanid Iran. The Sassanids themselves may hold some sort of Council of Nicaea, and start persecuting heretics. Which could be fun. Christianity spreading east from Iran into India, whilst remaining only a minority community in Europe. Any form of Iranian Christianity will probably be rather dualistic, since it'll be open to a large amount of Zoroastrian influence.

Hope this helps!
Christianity was already fragmented before the council of Nicea. Perhaps without Rome, a different sect will dominate, such as the Gnostics or Docetics.
 
I've actually been thinking about doing a timeline where Constantine loses to Maxentius. With this thread up, I might have to hurry up and start it before someone else does. I think that by that point Christianity was a big enough force that it wasn't going to just go away, and Rome might even eventually split in to a pagan Western Empire and a Christian Eastern Empire, though that idea is based more then a bit off the Rule of Cool.
 
I've actually been thinking about doing a timeline where Constantine loses to Maxentius. With this thread up, I might have to hurry up and start it before someone else does. I think that by that point Christianity was a big enough force that it wasn't going to just go away, and Rome might even eventually split in to a pagan Western Empire and a Christian Eastern Empire, though that idea is based more then a bit off the Rule of Cool.

The situation is a bit more complex than that, I'm afraid. Of all the provinces, only those in Anatolia were solidly Christian across all levels of society at the time of Constantine. In the West, North Africa and Britain were pretty Christianised, while in the East, Egypt was not. There was an urban/rural split too, with peasants being overwhelmingly pagan. Then again, the Roman Empire was run by and for city dwellers, and Christians probably made up a very large minority of the total urban population at the time of Constantine.
 
It continues to grow in the eastern half of the Empire much faster than it did the Western, and by the fifth Century is adopted by the Eastern Empire while different sects become state religions of various post-Roman states as quasi-religion, quasi-unifying state ideology.
 
Christianity was already fragmented before the council of Nicea. Perhaps without Rome, a different sect will dominate, such as the Gnostics or Docetics.

I can't quite see that, as IOTL the Roman Empire was really the "Byzantine" Empire after the early 5th Century anyway. And in the Eastern Empire, always the richer and more urbanized half, Christians were much more numerous than in the Western, while cultural diversity is much stronger in the East than in the West, meaning some enterprising Emperor eventually *will* decide to try a new religion to unify the squabbling Empire there.
 
When I was in school, I heard that at Constantine's time, only 10% of the Romans were Christian. But maybe history's got better numbers nowadays.
 
Christianity

I can't quite see that, as IOTL the Roman Empire was really the "Byzantine" Empire after the early 5th Century anyway. And in the Eastern Empire, always the richer and more urbanized half, Christians were much more numerous than in the Western, while cultural diversity is much stronger in the East than in the West, meaning some enterprising Emperor eventually *will* decide to try a new religion to unify the squabbling Empire there.
True. But remember that Arianism competed with Catholic Christianity in western Europe for quite some time.
 
True. But remember that Arianism competed with Catholic Christianity in western Europe for quite some time.

A Catholic Christianity that had benefited from sanction by Roman imperial authority and thus had more established frameworks to draw from. It's likely as I'd said in my first post in this thread that different Western European rulers may adopt different sects as ideologies, which leads to an even more complicated Medieval political realm, but the motivations that spurred OTL adoption of Christianity (which were often means to secure and extend royal power at the extent of the existing system) will still exist IATL, only much more so without an established church hierarchy to combat heresy.
 
When I was in school, I heard that at Constantine's time, only 10% of the Romans were Christian. But maybe history's got better numbers nowadays.
Even if that's true, Constantine saw them as a way to secure and enhance his own political power regardless of whatever visions he saw or didn't see. Doesn't that indicate that they were a potent force? I think they'd continue on by that time.
 
Assuming it doesn't become the state religion of Persia, I can see Christianity being much less of a formalised faith, and a lot more like a philosophy of thought within in a broader Hellenic-Judaic-Roman cultural sphere. There would be no set Bible, and the division between canonical and non-canonical works would be smaller, if not non-existent.

I also believe Christianity was much bigger among the urban poor than the wealthy elites. Like Islam, Christianity's emphasis on equality had a particularly strong appeal to those at the bottom of a class system. It still has this effect among untouchables in India today.
 
Assuming it doesn't become the state religion of Persia, I can see Christianity being much less of a formalised faith, and a lot more like a philosophy of thought within in a broader Hellenic-Judaic-Roman cultural sphere. There would be no set Bible, and the division between canonical and non-canonical works would be smaller, if not non-existent.

I also believe Christianity was much bigger among the urban poor than the wealthy elites. Like Islam, Christianity's emphasis on equality had a particularly strong appeal to those at the bottom of a class system. It still has this effect among untouchables in India today.

Actually, Islam usually spread top-down. Though its emphasis on equality helped a lot, as did division among christian churches.
Both Christianity and Islam were initially spread in mostly urban enviroment (not necessarily the wealthiest or ruling classes) though their origin was in non-urban, or not-completely urbanized, social enviroments.
 
Assuming it doesn't become the state religion of Persia, I can see Christianity being much less of a formalised faith, and a lot more like a philosophy of thought within in a broader Hellenic-Judaic-Roman cultural sphere. There would be no set Bible, and the division between canonical and non-canonical works would be smaller, if not non-existent.

I also believe Christianity was much bigger among the urban poor than the wealthy elites. Like Islam, Christianity's emphasis on equality had a particularly strong appeal to those at the bottom of a class system. It still has this effect among untouchables in India today.

Also, biblical canon will be probably established: it was more or less there before official Roman endorsement of the faith and there was the parallel Jewish development to influnce this. However, it may not be one unified universal biblical canon, and some texts may be "locally canonical".
 
Actually, Islam usually spread top-down. Though its emphasis on equality helped a lot, as did division among christian churches.
Both Christianity and Islam were initially spread in mostly urban enviroment (not necessarily the wealthiest or ruling classes) though their origin was in non-urban, or not-completely urbanized, social enviroments.

Both Islam and Christianity tended to spread that way. Islam's spread was probably smoother given that Islam's egalitarian and puritanical leanings that applied (in theory) to everyone in contrast to Christianity's always separate and unequal application of things made it more, not less, tempting for the peasant to adopt. Of course in the case of both religions that gap between theory and practice tended to be an abyss.

Assuming it doesn't become the state religion of Persia, I can see Christianity being much less of a formalised faith, and a lot more like a philosophy of thought within in a broader Hellenic-Judaic-Roman cultural sphere. There would be no set Bible, and the division between canonical and non-canonical works would be smaller, if not non-existent.

I also believe Christianity was much bigger among the urban poor than the wealthy elites. Like Islam, Christianity's emphasis on equality had a particularly strong appeal to those at the bottom of a class system. It still has this effect among untouchables in India today.

This applied only in the earliest days of Christianity, like with adoption of Islam the spread of Christianity could be as peaceful as Medieval society got in some areas, and at swordpoint in others.

Also, biblical canon will be probably established: it was more or less there before official Roman endorsement of the faith and there was the parallel Jewish development to influnce this. However, it may not be one unified universal biblical canon, and some texts may be "locally canonical".

I wonder if in that ATL Marcionism would be more powerful than IOTL?
 
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