What did Constantine's conversion of Christianity do to ancient roman society?

Question

By the time of Constantine did the teachings and norms of Christianity stand in conflict, harmony, or uneasy concord with the Roman ideal of the virtuous man and woman??

Answer 1

Not much, You see while he did allowed Christianity , he didn't stopped the other cults or religions, so it was not a drastic change. They just did what they always did :)

Answer 2

Whoo! Great big question.

By the time Constantine dubbed it the state religion, Christianity was pretty well accepted; the empire had even created a special holiday called Sol Invictus (The Invincible Sun) so that followers of what they considered "sun gods" could all celebrate on the same day. These gods included Jesus, Mithras, and Ra among others, and the date, happily enough, was December 25th. So really, by the time Constantine got to it, Christianity was pretty mainstream; by this time Christians had gained a role in Roman society as teachers, just your general schoolkid teachers, so most Romans also knew the basic tenets of Christianity.

Aside from the books recommended above, B&N publishes a great little book called The Encyclopedia of Heretics and Heresies that goes into much more depth on the subject.

Answer 3

It was huge, because of his conversion and his immediate consequent quest 'East'. It changed everything. even if it was just a dying Roman Empire; he was the dawn of Christianity. There is no way to paint Constantine as anything but a huge force of change; he was the Roman Emperor/Empire and a historic soldier that changed everything (the fate of Europe and the Near East.) Historians don't like .'quests' but that is what he did, he had a 'vision' in battle and he followed it throughout the rest of his life. He was the first 'Christian' to go East. He found a village and called it the new Roman Empire. What it do to Roman Society? It was dying, and he had a vision. What would the electricity of Christianity do to Rome? And their Emperor leaving, along with his mother and other believers? One can imagine. There was some anger, surely, and we have the Vatican to represent it even today.

Answer 4

Constantine never did convert to Christianity because he never believed in it. However, he realized that he could retain power longer if he split society. Therefore, he appeared to try to convert his society to Christianity by destroying or concealing everything that pointed to Christ being only human. Constantine wanted to make everyone think that Christ was truely devine. As a final gesture, when Constantine was growing old, he also converted to Christianity, but in name only. He was still a slave to the old Roman gods.

In considering this, we should not lose sight of the fact that Constantine really did not have much time to achieve all this. In those times, the average life span was in the early 30s. Relatively few people lived to be much over 35, and those who did were regarded as old and senile the same as nowadays people over 70 are generally regarded to be about at the end of their service lives, and are ready for the Old People's Home.

Answer 5

before the time of Constantine the Christian religion was just one among many different " cults " which the Romans allowed as all Religions were respected under those in power. Constantine elevated Christianity from a " cult status " to a Religion when He allowed Christianity to become the Roman State Religion.

Answer 6

Destroyed the Roman Empire and Europe

Answer 7

Depends on what you call virtuous. If you look at all history, but especially Roman history you will find all sorts of non-virtuous stuff going on.

Right up to today non-virtuous stuff goes on, so the Church has had little impact, except in the confessionals!

Answer 8

Constantine not in any respect switched over, what he did replaced into create an ecosystem the position his personal God, Sol Invictus, and his 2 significant competitors, Mithras and Christ, might want to co-exist peacefully. between the outcomes replaced into to positioned the Christians able to ultimately undermine their competitors and effectively grab means and institute a application of genocide adversarial to anybody who did not convert paving the way for the Vatican to change into the nearest element to a international authorities that has ever existed.

Answer 9

ONE THING IT SEEMS TO HAVE DONE IS INCREASE ANTI-SEMITISM,THE JEWS UNDER THE OLD WAY HARDLY GOT A BREAK AND THEN CHRISTIANDOM STILL GAVE JEWS A BAD TIME.

Answer 10

try google