Christianity in the roman empire.

[Robert Vermaat]

Personally I think the majority here is quite overestimating what 'the Christian church' really was during the time discussed here. It was certainly not a big, centralised organisation with a centralised leadership, a strict policy of future plans or even a common view on what 'belief' entailed. Nor did it have the means to enforce any policy.

I mean, if even a (highly!) centralised organisation such as the Later Roman Empire could not possibly hope to directly control government beyond the provincial level (or not even that far down), how on earth should we look upon the Christian church as an organisation that could 'persecute pagans' or 'change history'? This, if the case, was mostly due to local views, local influences and most of the time the work of individuals. Whenever there were synods, these were never ever organised for at best half the empire (and even then it was impossible for representatives of all the regions involved to turn up). Decisions made at such synods were (as we know from subsequent communications) impossible to implement, because (as I argued above) the Christian church simply was not a centralised organisation that could even hope to do so.

I think that the view of what ‘the Christian church’ could do is a bit clouded by a view of the later Medieval Roman Catholic church, and it’s role in politics of the time. And even then the Pope was not an absolute ruler with direct power to command millions. :wink: