I learned something interesting about the history of Christianity?

Question

Constatine organized the church and banned everything Pagan, including bath because the Greeks did it. Then people wiped out cats and books which lead to the dark ages. (The cats got taken out because it was considered paganistic a throw back from the Egptians, books because they were written by the pagan Greeks.) With no cats, the rats took over the cities. This brought on the black plague. So does that mean that Christians were responsible for the Black Plague?

Hey I learned this at school! I'm just going by what my professor told me. Well he didn't say it like that he was just telling us about it in general.

The Black Plague came from the fleas of rats who jumped ship everywhere spreading the disease. It started in Europe because of the over population of rats. the rats got out of control because there was nothing to regulate them (See the no cats)

Oh and the reason no one bathed was because the Pagans did it so it must be bad which didn't help the whole disease thing.

Oh good point anoldick!

Also good point elisiblah

Answer 1

Ah, you've discovered the law of unintended consequences! Actually, there is strong evidence that the presence or absence of cats would have had little effect on the advance of Plague - since the fleas the rats carried are not known to be terribly discriminating. They'll infest any warm-blooded critter they encounter, including cats, dogs and humans.

Answer 2

You need to do some more research, Constantine (272 ce - 337 ce) published the Eddict of Milan in 313, and it in no way banned Paganism, all it did was legalize Christian worship and end the persecution that his predecessor had started 11 years earlier. This only ment that the popular Pagan festivals and symbols were retro-actively turned Christian. Early Christians tried to abolish the use of the Pagan nature symbol, the cross, for centuries, then, after total failure, put an image of Jesus on it and called it Christian. The star in the heavens, the shepherds in the fields and the mid-winter setting are all derived from the birth legend of the Pagan god Mithra. That is why the Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock abolished Christmas as a holiday. Easter is based on the Pagan holiday of Oestara, what, after all, do chocolate rabbits and decorated eggs have to do with the resurrection of Christ? They make perfect sense, however, as Pagan fertility symbols used before the spring planting. The Pagan holiday of Imbolc is now the Catholic Candle mass, it's celebrated the same day, in almost the same way, and dedicated to Saint Brigit, as opposed to the Pagan Goddess Brigit. You are also wrong about the opposition to cats and baths, neither of which occurred in Rome, have you never heard of the Romans Baths? The persecution of cats didn't start until the second millennium, long after the fall of Rome. The Black Plague pandemic didn't occur until the 14th century. Kind of hard to blame a guy who had been dead for over 900 years.

Answer 3

Yes, except the bathing part.

The pagans bathed, but so did the Romans. The "not bathing" had more to do with fighting the Romans than with Christianity. When the Europeans and their invaders started fighting out against the Romans, they stopped living like Romans too. It was sort of a backlash against all things Roman, including bathing. Many of the Europeans were pagans and not Christians, so the not bathing had more to do with tribal and regional pride and opposition to Roman culture than with religion. Oddly enough, this helped the cause of Christian conversions since being Christian was also seen as "anti-Roman".

Answer 4

Sorry, history just doesn't bear out that Christians caused the Black Death.

"Although the devastation the Plague brought to Europe in terms of lives lost was immense, the Islamic world arguably suffered more, because plague epidemics kept returning to the Islamic world up to the 19th century. Muslim populations thus never recovered from the losses suffered because of the Plague, a demographic shift that arguably helped Europe to surpass the Islamic world's previous superiority in scholarship.

Regardless of its theological interpretations, the Black Death wreaked havoc on communities of many different religions, causing widespread death wherever it went. In the Islamic world, it had a particularly devastating effect militarily and economically. The rapid spread of the Plague through armies affected the outcome of several minor wars throughout the Islamic world. Even the strong Mamluk army in Egypt was sufficiently devastated by the Plague that the decline in its military capabilities was a significant factor in its demise and eventual defeat to the Ottoman Empire in the early 16th century."

Answer 5

Ironic, isn't it?

The "Christians" burned the library at Alexandria, and all the collected knowledge of antiquity went up in smoke - because it represented the competition. When you're founding a religion on ignorance and falsehood, you want to make sure that nobody has access to alternative ideas. And since the "Christian" religion was basically constructed from scraps of the pagan cults it took over, they made rather an exaggerated effort to stamp out all trace of conventional "paganism" - again, the competition. I've never read that they destroyed all the cats and that led to the plague, but that's certainly typical of the sort of radical actions the "Christians" would take and the disastrous consequences that would follow.

Answer 6

33 A.D.
Roman Catholic Church (moved to Rome 45 AD by Peter after he fled Jerusalem) was founded by God-made-man, Jesus Christ. He said: "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it... Feed my lambs; feed My sheep" (Matt. 16:18,19; John 21:15,17). He also said: "He who is not with Me is against Me, and he who gathers not with me scatters" (Matt.12:30).


Constantine simply changed the law so that is was no longer illegal to be Christian.


Therefore whatever you have said in the dark will be heard in the light, and what you have whispered behind closed doors will be proclaimed from the housetops. I tell you my friends, do not fear those who kill the body and after that can do nothing more. (Lk 12:3-4)

This Scripture passage was not only a command, it was a prophesy of things to come, and it did not come to pass until Constantine made Christianity "legal." It's pretty hard to proclaim the Good News from a housetop if someone comes along and arrests you and kills you when you preach! It is clear that the persecution of Christians in the Roman empire was not what Jesus wanted and that it had to change. Constantine was the fulfillment of prophecy (Lk 12:3-4).

Constantine's wife convinced him to preserve many historical sites that have, over the ages, enriched the lives of millions of Christians including Evangelicals who have journeyed to the Holy Land. Despite any personal defects we might attribute to Constantine, he performed one of the greatest feats of any man in history. He brought the Church out from under the yoke of oppression and allowed people to preach the gospel from the housetops which is what Christ commanded and prophesied. This action by Constantine saved millions of lives and more importantly, it saved millions of souls. If you are "saved" today you may want to be thankful for what Constantine did.
Constantine did not invent Catholicism, he simply recognized it and let people legally be Christian. Christians were having "Catholic" Masses long before this "legalization" of Christianity. Three hundred years before Constantine, Christians believed in the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, honoured Mary, had elaborate ceremonies, believed in Purgatory, respected the Church hierarchy, baptized babies, recognized Peter as the Rock, built the Church upon him with successors and followed a rich tradition of Christianity. That was the Christianity of the early days of Christianity and that is the Catholic Church of today.

Answer 7

Yeah, when Christianity took over civilization went backwards opening the way for disease and warfare to take over for 100s of years. They had to work their way back up to where the Greeks and Egyptians were technologically.

Funny how he banned everything pagan and then took their hoidays ...

Answer 8

I heard Constantine banned cat, too, but there are too much time gap up to black plague. Not so reasonable guess!
Dogs can catch mice, too.

Answer 9

I was once gonna reply, then I noticed the entire intelligent and Intelligent solutions given, so I idea, nope, they're so intelligent and recognise what I suppose and the way I consider, I wont waste the power..... move in peace... God bless

Answer 10

The stupid things that have been done in the name of religion would make an unabridged dictionary look like a soliloquy.