Did Christianity cause the downfall of Rome?

>slavery economy
>"anti-slavery" mentality
yeah, not the cause itself but was a part of it

No, but neither I believe that it helped "prolonging" it
>The Byzantine Empire was annihilated by the Turks because Christianity is more peaceful than Islam, for Islam is a religion of war.
Nope, not at all, stop attributing religion to that. Byzantines did not fell because monk and patriarchs preached peace and tolerance.
Revitalization under Constantine? I would say it did it way before, under Diocletian or even Aurelian.

Definitely, Theodosius fucking sent Alaric West to fight the pagans resisting Christianizaton.

It was already on it's way down by the time Christianity started picking up steam.

>resisting christianitzation
?? iirc wasn't it usupers, barbarians , i.e business as usual.
Roman Senate, which was primarly pagan did supported a pagan usurper, but Thedosius was quite lenient on them when he emerged victorious and entered Rome. It is even in the introduction of Codex Theodosius iirc,

This did:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crisis_of_the_Third_Century

The Christian western emperor who was persecuting the pagans was found dead (probably killed). Argobast put in an a Christian emperor that wouldn't persecute them, so Theodosius put an end to that. Theo wasn't lenient, he executed Eugenius, displayed his head in his camp, then enforced his anti-pagan laws on the population. Theodosius was cruel to pagans.

I don't think he was that cruel. Again many roman senators were pagan, why he didnt punish them also? they did supported Eugenius after all.

I'm not saying Theodosius was religious tolerant, but I do believe he was a pragmatic, He preferred stability and order over chaos and instability of extreme conversion. The laws were also mostly ignored in many parts, as Shenoute, a monk from egpyt was put on trial by christians due to him causing shit, he cited the laws that permitted him to do so, but populace did not.

I don't know, compare Theodosius for example to Justinian, who converted people riots-instability be damned, Gaza actually revolted against his attempt.

Anti-pagan laws were enforced. Pagans were killed for practicing or attending sacrafices, copying pagan work was punishable by getting your hands cut off, temples were destroyed. Theodosius punished magistrates who didn't enforce these laws. He abolished pagan holidays and made entering temples illegal. He wasn't just being pragmatic, he was vehemently anti-pagan. At this timw, Western Rome was majority pagan so when he first entered at this point it was harder to enforce these laws, but they inevitably were.

>Anti-pagan laws were enforced.
Can you cite some sources if you have? I'm not trying to debate you and prove mysef correct etc I'm really curious

Christianity improved Rome

The wikipedia page has some sources

>inb4 wikipedia
It's got a summary, it's good enough for this

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_pagans_in_the_late_Roman_Empire

>The anti-paganism policies ofTheodosius Ibegan in 381, following the first few years of his reign over the Eastern Empire. Theodosius reiterated Constantine's ban on pagan sacrifice andharuspicyon pain of death. He pioneered the criminalisation of Magistrates who did not enforce the anti-pagan laws. He broke up some pagan associations and destroyed pagan temples.

Between 389-391 he issued the infamous "Theodosian decrees," which established a practical ban on paganism;[74]visits to the temples were forbidden,[73][75]remaining paganholidayswere abolished, theSacred fire of Vestain the Temple ofVestain theRoman Forumwas extinguished, theVestal Virginsdisbanded,auspicesandwitchcraftpunished. Theodosius refused to restore the Altar of Victory in the Senate House when asked to do so by paganSenators.

In 392 he became emperor of the whole empire. From this moment till the end of his reign in 395, while pagans remained outspoken in their demands for toleration,[76][77]he authorized or participated in the killing of pagan priests, destruction of many temples, holy sites, images and objects of reverence throughout the empire[1][78][79][80][81]and participated in actions by Christians against major Pagan sites.[82]His later decrees were seen as effectively a declaration of war on traditional religious practices[12][13]and for anyone caught, was a death sentence, as well as an automatic confiscation of property, even forprivate familial riteswithin the home. However, it appears that many covertly still chose to do so in defiance of the edicts, despite the risk to their heirs.[83]He likely also suppressed theAncient Olympic Games; the last record of the Olympics being celebrated in ancient Rome is from 393.[84]

Yes

well thats a start I'll check the footnotes, thank you

If by Christianity, you mean Crusaders and by Rome you mean the Empire, then yes.

No. Rome was already on the decline. Corruption and over-reliance on barbarian mercenaries.

The Roman (WRE) empire continued through the Papacy, which ordered European kings around like puppets and held absolute authority and power for centuries to come.

Byzantine fell to the Turks, and Rome lost its power after the Protestant Reformation.

no, rome collapsed because all the hot water baths they took fried their balls and killed their fertility, forcing the empire to rely on germanic subhumans that werent properly integrated into the empire.

>Germanic
>>>>>empires

Okay I checked it and I think they did an amateur work.
Firslty having in the law doesn't mean it was enforced, studies are needed on how much of those laws are enforced, and whether they are enforced or not, there is also a toleration law enacted by Theodosius 16.10.24

Some of the citations quote Gibbon which is bad history imho in talking about modern scholarship. Now "the life of st martin" is proper but I should say that I never disagreed with monks chimping out on pagans, again Life of Shenoute is quite a good example to it. The only valuable citation is Ramsay Macmullen, shame he is retiring (or retired) he wrote few books about pagans and christians in late antiquity.

These are just my opinions though. I still have my doubts, I need to chek the sources whether Theodosius himself ordered the persecutions or persecutors were independent and acted on their own (again shenoute)

The Theodosian code in question: 16.10.24:
‘But we especially command those persons who are truly Christians or who are said to be, that they shall not abuse the authority of religion and dare to lay violent hands on Jews and pagans who are living quietly and attempting nothing disorderly or contrary to law.’

to add, that doesn't mean there were no laws against temples etc but again I have my doubts about how hard they were enforced, and that cannot be seen from lawcodes but from other sources and archaelogical etc evidence (if it is possible to detec temple - sacrifical activity through it)

just some food for thought.

Yes, well, it contributed heavily. Its undeniable that it created a huge fracture line that didn't need to exist in their society. While the empire was crumbling people were sperging out about Christian dogmas. Christians were fighting pagans and vice versa. Everyhwere you see massive amounts of conflict. Moreover, entire wars were fought between romans about religion that served no purpose but self destruction. That is jut the practical problems.

Spiritually, Christianity is foreign to original roman spirit. It asks you to turn away from this life, and to focus on the next. People began to lose themselves in religion and ignore the real world issues. The clergy also gained immense power, siphoning the strength of the state into their own hands. It essentially became a parasitical class that was much larger than the original pagan priesthood. They had very little interest in the continuation of Rome either, if a germanic was christian, he was "based". All this did was to further dissolve what roman culture remained into practically nothingness. This is important because once roman becomes a meaningless term, people accepted the overlordship of barbarians far easier

It's just silly to completely trust christian sources on the era and to think for some reason in this period christianity was some exception, even it itself. Roman paganism was the one with a history of religious tolerance. With christianity, even "heretical" beliefs were punished with force. And it's not like it was peaceful in later conversions like Charlamagne's, the teutons in the baltics, etc.

pretty sure that was Alaric

I agree one should not trust sources on an instant, I will try to dig into it more.

Heretical beliefs are also interesting in that note. I'm sure bishops and monks did punished them but what was the reaction of public with regards to heretics? Emperor Anastasius, a miaphysite emperor, did manage to hold onto power. iirc there were protests about it when he died and crowds shouted "give us a christian emperor" but he managed to calm down the crowds with his mere presence (something justinian tried to pull off during nika riots, but he only further provoked them)

I think though, persecutions and toleration should be done on a case to case basis. Constantius himself enacted quite harsh measures against pagans and removed the altar of peace from Rome (again iirc don't have a book on me) we know this law was not "just on the paper" as symmachus complained about it vehemently. I think some emperors (Constantius, Justinian) were more fervent than others who had a more pragmatic approach to conversion and paganism (Constantine for example)

This.
Imo its a huge, huge tragedy that european traditional faiths were replaced by dogmatic monotheism from the east.

But I guess natural selection means dogmatic monotheist fanatic shit always wins out. That doesn't mean its better. Like an ugly invasive species replacing a beautiful ecosystem

In Ancient Greece homosexuality was a common issue and vikings sell european women to the arabs.

Kill yourself.

>Homosexuality
>issue

t. sodomite

this is some next level stupidity

Ouch, why do you hurt me so?

...

>Trajan blob temporary borders

oh is this where we jerk off to Gibbons and talk about how hard we came?

>economy based on conquest fails to conquer
>internal cohesion and administrative ability undermined by massive population displacement
>central imperial government becomes meaningless in deference to local potestas

no but you're right, it's definitely Christianity's fault.

Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that the Roman Empire transferred its implied power and influence INTO Christianity/Roman Catholicism?

It's probably more accurate to say that authority (imperium) was bifurcated between the clergy and monarchy and over time they diverged