WI roman pagans support heresies and schisms in the early church?

[SpaceRome]

The advance of christianity through the roman empire was neither easy nor lacking in opposition, and one of the main challenges facing christians before constantine was the internal division in the church making the external pressures on christians even worse. however, the tendency for schisms in the church was never exploited by the emperors.

What if it was? what if pagan emperors supported people and ideas that would cause fracturing in the church, like donatism or ATL arianism? could they cause christianity to disintegrate into a thousand little cults too busy to actively proselytize, that they could easily stamp out?

 

[Philip]

What if it was? what if pagan emperors supported people and ideas that would cause fracturing in the church, like donatism or ATL arianism?

Constantine and his immediate successors did support Arianism (if inconsistently). The Nicene hero Athanasius was exiled some five times by various emperors.

I'm not sure supporting Christian heresies is in the emperor's interest. It will cause unrest within the empire.

 

[FillyofDelphi]

The advance of christianity through the roman empire was neither easy nor lacking in opposition, and one of the main challenges facing christians before constantine was the internal division in the church making the external pressures on christians even worse. however, the tendency for schisms in the church was never exploited by the emperors.

What if it was? what if pagan emperors supported people and ideas that would cause fracturing in the church, like donatism or ATL arianism? could they cause christianity to disintegrate into a thousand little cults too busy to actively proselytize, that they could easily stamp out?

There's a catch 22 here: if the Christian Church has decended into a purity spiral and is actively fighting amongest itself, than its not a perceived threat to The State. In that case, why would you continue expending large amounts of attention and resources trying to stamp the embers out? You need a church that's actually robust and widespread enough to be perceived as something that a danger to the rest of the religions in order to motivate a Counter-attack,

 

[Kerney]

There's a catch 22 here: if the Christian Church has decended into a purity spiral and is actively fighting amongest itself, than its not a perceived threat to The State. In that case, why would you continue expending large amounts of attention and resources trying to stamp the embers out? You need a church that's actually robust and widespread enough to be perceived as something that a danger to the rest of the religions in order to motivate a Counter-attack,

This was though, one of the stratagems Julian used. Returning and pardoning heretics so that they could feud with the orthodox, hoping that over a 20 to 30 years time frame many would say, "enough of this brown stuff, I'm going something rational, like good old fashioned paganism."

It, like all of Julian's reforms, were long term and didn't have the long term to work due to the emperor's death(plenty of other threads for discussing Julian) but it is a reasonable strategy against a Christianity that is going from minority to majority and it's hard to judge how much faith is sincere and how much is lip service.

 

[Escape Zeppelin]

what if pagan emperors supported people and ideas that would cause fracturing in the church, like donatism or ATL arianism? could they cause christianity to disintegrate into a thousand little cults too busy to actively proselytize, that they could easily stamp out?

I think the danger here is that they might incite violence and unrest if they start pitting sects against each other.

 

[Anarch King of Dipsodes]

ISTM this is like capitalists supporting Trotskyites against Stalinists. They all want to exterminate you.

 

[Danifa94]

ISTM this is like capitalists supporting Trotskyites against Stalinists. They all want to exterminate you.

But they can´t exterminate you if they´re too busy purging each other. dīvide et imperā.

 

[SpaceRome]

I think the danger here is that they might incite violence and unrest if they start pitting sects against each other.

The violence might actually help, no sane pagan would think about converting to a religion that currently advocates the murder of other believers in the streets because of theological minutiae. A smart emperor could even make 'reverse conversions' back to paganism through this, by framing the internal violence inflicted on Christianity as a punishment from the real gods.