How did the Romans go from persecuting Christians to becoming them?

The story goes that Constantine prayed to a god during a battle because it wasnt going good for him and he swore that he'd convert if he won the battle. He did end up winning the battle so he converted and changed the state religion.
However, thats just the story, there were probably alot more actual factors than a prayer from an emperor.

This.

>one day Constantine saw christians being ordered to enter the pits and be eaten by lions
>they werent even fighting back, perfectly at peace with their horrible fate
>he thought to himself
>"what if I had an entire empire full of people as easy to control as this?"

And the rest is history.

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>he thought he will be controlling them not the church
ayy lmoa, nothin personel

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Theologically speaking, in Greece, an altar dedicated to the unknown god was used to make a connection to the christian god, in time, after teaching the extensive religion to the Greeks of Rome, they ditched the pagan gods.

satan buys what he can't destroy

women fault, and slaves

A long period of subversion and later violence once the church attained influence over the roman government.

It was a poor attempt to "unify" a scattered empire that should have never been whole to begin with.

These

Because it was more appealing than worshipping a pantheon of petty manchildren (Helios), dykes (Diana), cuckolds (Vulcan), bitches (Minerva and Juno) and traitors (Mars) whose favour changes like the wind and acts like assholes to their followers for no particular reason.

Christianity's biggest "innovation" was to create the concept of dogma.

In the tumultuous times of the 3rd and 4th centuries, a lot of people found comfort in the relative straight-forwardness of the Christian message. It was less confusing than having a different god for each city.

Constantine saw this and took the opportunity to unite secular power with dogmatic power. Control what people believe and you control them for life.

cont.

The problem with this is, of course, that dogma is fucking bullshit and once it's served it's purpose of acting as a unifying force in turbulent times develops into a tool for corruption, coercion and psychological insanity.

I don't think it's a stretch to say the world underwent a seismic shift through Constantine's actions.

Constantine basically considered himself some sort of Jesus-sun god, the accepting of Christianity wasn't so revolutionary in that moment.
He thought of it as of just another cult that he could use to his political ends.

>>It was less confusing than having a different god for each city.
Except for the problem that a different god for each city was replaced with a different saint for each city instead, so the underlying confusion was still there, especially early on.

Well, not really. The genius (or insidiousness, depending of your pov) of Christianity was that it subsumed all other divinities under not a single Divinity, but also a single Divinity that had rules.

So sure, Lexicinium probably had a different patron saint to Romomulia, but both worshiped the same High Divinity. You could go to a church in four different provinces and expect a similar liturgy each time. The same couldn't be said for the polytheist rituals.

Christianity is what killed Rome.

>Christianity is what killed Rome

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The faiths were morphing anyway(less sacrifices, more monotheism, more oriental cults spreading)

Christianity had enough Grace and/or PR to come out on top.

Here is what Julian found when he went to Delphi for epic prophecy advice.

“But when I entered the shrine I found there no incense, not so much as a cake, not a single beast for sacrifice. For that moment I was amazed and thought that I was still outside the shrine and that you were waiting the signal from me, doing me that honour because I am supreme pontiff. But when I began to inquire what sacrifice the city intended to offer to celebrate the annual festival in honour of the god, the priest answered, ‘I have brought with me from my own house a goose as an offering to the god, but the city this time has made no preparations.'”

Christianity saved Rome, they lasted another thousand years because of it. The Romans were actually Christian longer than they were pagan.

>>saved rome
Please, the byzantines were a sad joke that only stagnated once they encountered serious opposition.

The ceased to be what they were.

They become a different culture which fragmented into shitty feudalism.

Ah Yahweh, you wonderful petty tyrant!

the byzantines are a disgrace to europe that made a bridge on what had to be a fortress against non-europeans

>christians worship old testament god

Stay mad frankcucks

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They became cucks and fell for the jew.

Gnostics pls leave

They didn't. They became Catholics, and continued murdering Christians. And Jews.

>literal whig meme history 1000 years before the enlightenment

Not your god?

Christianity wasn't popular with the masses though

its half of the bible every christian is told to read, smartass

This. None of the stuff the early churches did to subvert polytheist deities would have been necessary if the religion were actually popular. There would have been no need to pass laws against polytheists in the first place if the religion had become as popular as christcucks on here would have you think.

if you can't beat them. Join them

They do. You must be a Platonic Gnostic.

What was so wrong with Christianity in Rome that every other European country afterwards had no problem sustaining themselves as Christians?

>cont.
M8 you could've fit that into one post. Or did you just want to take up as much space as possible like with your obnoxiously pointless line skipping?

none of them ever got nearly as big as rome without taking other continental posessions

>catholics
>read the bible
Bro...

this

Paganism offered nothing to the common folk but misery and suffering.

Christianity offered mercy, salvation, and empowerment to the meek and downtrodden.

but the common folk didn't play a big role in the christianization of the roman empire

If Romans had started following Hermeticism we would be colonizing the Galaxy by now

Those "Christians" were heretics.

>>Paganism offered nothing to the common folk but misery and suffering.
Wrong. The christians would not have needed to convert popular deities into saints if this were true.

>>Christianity offered false hope.
Fixed.

>The christians would not have needed to convert popular deities into saints if this were true.
THIS. Christians always had a bunch of saints and/or Virgin Mary's. They did the same thing with the Irish, native Mexicans, African slaves in Spanish and French colonies, etc.

The same way Europe will soon be Muslim.

Rome lost faith in itself and their own superiority. Relativism took hold.

>The genius (or insidiousness, depending of your pov) of Christianity was that it subsumed all other divinities under not a single Divinity, but also a single Divinity that had rules.
implying that is not also what the Pagans believed.

Read Plato.

>Islam will die in europe

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Most muslims will call this out though
The lady is no covering up her aurat,they probably dont know the proper steps of praying and havent cleansed themselves through wudhu
t.ex moslem

A terrible series of tragic mistakes.

...

this

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Why did you leave?

Wasn't it that he saw a cross in the sky or something? That seems to be a common story mind you.