02-11-2011, 12:00 PM
The idea that Christianity caused Rome’s fall is very old – dating back to Gibbon or before. But could this view be backwards? Could Rome’s weakness have allowed the Church to expand and fill a power vacuum?
Here is a provoking passage from a book I’m currently reading:
Here is a provoking passage from a book I’m currently reading:
Quote:The strains and stresses to which the empire was subject during this period were manifested in one symptom above all, the collapse of local civic life. Between the 230s and the 280s the traditional pattern of elite behaviour in the Greek cities changed radically. The members of the local aristocracy, who had both directed and derived prestige from the political and public life of their cities, slipped from prominence… But the troubled years of the third century demanded leadership even if they did not always receive it; and it is tempting to suggest that in many cities the place of the local aristocracy was taken by energetic Christian bishops… With the collapse of organised civic politics… [an] opportunity for leadership was to be found within the Church. As the strength of this Christian leadership became plain, the number of converts would have increased dramatically. The culmination of this process was to come, in Anatolia at least, in the fourth century, when the bishops of Gregory of Nyssa’s day, above all Basil of Caesareia, wielded temporal power on a grand scale.
Mitchell; Anatolia: Land, Men, and Gods in Asia Minor, Vol II
David J. Cord
www.davidcord.com
www.davidcord.com