by Natasha Sheldon

Created on: August 06, 2007   Last Updated: September 08, 2010

It is debatable that Christianity spread by winning the hearts and minds of the people of the Roman Empire. The Emperor Constantine may have legalized its practice but official sanction did not guarantee that it would be embraced by the general populace. Indeed, close analysis shows that politics and the pursuit of power are the real explanations for the rise of Christianity.

By 400AD, Christianity had only really established itself in the major urban centres of the empire. Elsewhere, Paganism maintained a convincing hold. According to Macmullen, Milan, one of the centres of the Imperial court was half pagan, whilst Rome continued to be predominantly pagan up until the 390's AD. Pagan religions and philosophies still continued to thrive: Neo-Platonism, Theurgy and Mithraism. The Cult of Sol Invictus, of which the Emperor Constantine remained a devotee until his death, remained a popular late imperial cult despite Christianities legitimization. Across the empire, people still continued to honour the gods of their own lands.

Clearly the freedom to practice Christianity was no incentive to take it up.

Accordingly, the third and fourth centuries AD were marked by an increase in legislation against pagan religions.  The codex Theodosianus advocated the tearing down of temples so that ‘the material basis for all superstition will be destroyed.' The same codex specifically advocated punishing pagan officials who did not enforce laws prohibiting worship in the temples (9.16.12).  

Christian officials were undoubtedly behind these laws. The acceptance of Christianity within the imperial court open up opportunities for ambitious Christians. Many who had previously been persecuted now achieved positions of prominence, as religious mentors and tutors to imperial children.

 However, the old pagan elite still stood in the way of real, direct political power for new men. Despite the rise of Christianity, Vettius Agorius Praetextanus, the pagan prefect of Rome was able to restore the portico of the twelve Olympians in the fourth century. Emperors would still appoint Pagans to positions based on ability and the fact that paganism still equalled the elite in terms of standing, position and learning. Most Christian officials lacked the education and learning of their pagan opponents. Many certainly felt this keenly. The pagan philosopher Demetrian was expelled from Carthage in the third century AD because he convincingly demolished Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage’s argument for conversion. The only way to get on was to discredit the opposition-by fair means or foul.

  During the fourth century, a series of trials for treason and magic occurred. Those accused were commonly elite pagans and pagan intellectuals. Their accusers were Christian new men. A typical example was Maximinus, a man of humble origins and limited education, who according to the historian Ammianus Marcellinus instigated a number of trials in the late 360s AD. Up until the trials, his career was undistinguished but afterwards he found himself promoted to the vicarate of Rome.

In short, clearing the ground of pagan opposition by discrediting paganism left the field clear for new Christian men to climb the ladder to prominence. In doing so, they were free to impose Christianity on a wider society. The persecuted had now turned the tables and become the persecutors, not from any religious idealism but the desire for profit.

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