Ancient History

Wouldn't that be more medieval/dark ages?

We've got the medieval history thread for that.

Heathen?

Constantine is part of ancient history but people should use Eastern Roman Empire instead of Byzantine when they are talking about ancient times.

Foreign?

Yes. Heathen refers to a different religion altogether, while heretic refers to a different branch of the same base religion, if I'm correct. In the days of Constantine, Christianity wasn't much more than an underground cult, mainly due to persecution.

I find it interesting that when Constantine made Christianity the official Roman religion, he did not convert to Christianity.

He didn't?

I believe he did on his death bed, but not until then.

Hm, strange, I thought he converted after he won that one battle where he had his men paint crosses on their shield...or was that another emperor?

He was not baptised till shortly before his death. Whether he believed it or not is another issue.

Ah, ok, I see.

Constantine didn't make Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire. Emperor Theodosius I did that and began persecuting pagans. Constantine was the emperor that made Christianity legal.

True but by endorsing Christianity Constantine made it the de facto offical religion of the empire, but like you said it wasn't official until later on.

Now the ultimate question: Were the Romans better off under Paganism or Christianity?

They were truly more stable under Pagan gods.

I hate to disagree but Christianity.

I agree. I think Christianity helped play a major part in speeding up the collapse of the Roman Empire. Since many early christians were pacifists (irony?), many Romans used that as an excuse to try to avoid being recruited into the army. This hampered the already bad manpower availability, and also hampered their ability to defend towns because many simply would not fight when the hordes were at their gates. Also, their was a lot of division in Christianity, so they were not only persecuting the Pagans, but each other. What Constantine wanted to accomplish with Christianity was unifying the empire, but instead, he caused more division.

Read above.

Evidence other than that one book you read.

Edit: Interesting thing I found on Yahoo Answers.

Through reading books written by contemporary people St. Augustine, Sidonius, or letter of St. Jerome and who lived during the agony of the ancient world, the Christian faith did undermine the state. But itself it was not the only factor. The Christian faith did help Eastern Roman Empire to survive, which had much longer involvement with Christianity and was already Christian society when the chaos started in the 5th century. The Western Roman Empire lacked behind the Eastern one in the transition from pagan to Christian world by about 100 years, and this was a critical gap in historical point when state was weak, and needed to be unified against the enemy.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081130151321AA9OIkt

Edit: Another intersting site I found.

http://socyberty.com/history/did-christianity-cause-the-fall-of-the-roman-empire/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_History_of_the_Decline_and_Fall_of_the_Roman_Empire

http://ancienthistory.about.com/cs/romefallarticles/a/fallofrome_2.htm

http://www.roman-colosseum.info/roman-empire/causes-for-the-fall-of-the-roman-empire.htm

http://www.123helpme.com/view.asp?id=22678