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20 answers

No Constantine no Christianity, at least nothing we would recognize today.

2007-06-26 06:24:26 · answer #1 · answered by Quantrill 7 · 1 1

For the first 280 years of Christian history, Christianity was banned by the Roman empire, and Christians were terribly persecuted. This changed after the “conversion” of the Roman Emperor Constantine. Constantine “legalized” Christianity at the Edict of Milan in A.D. 313. Later, in A.D. 325, Constantine called together the Council of Nicea, in an attempt to unify Christianity. Constantine envisioned Christianity as a religion that could unite the Roman Empire, which at that time was beginning to fragment and divide. While this may have seemed to be a positive development for the Christian church, the results were anything but positive. Just as Constantine refused to fully embrace the Christian faith, but continued many of his pagan beliefs and practices, so the Christian church that Constantine promoted was a mixture of true Christianity and Roman paganism.

Constantine found that with the Roman Empire being so vast, expansive, and diverse – not everyone would agree to forsake their religious beliefs and instead embrace Christianity. So, Constantine allowed, and even promoted, the “Christianization” of pagan beliefs. Completely pagan and utterly unbiblical beliefs were given new “Christian” identities.

2007-06-26 15:40:45 · answer #2 · answered by Freedom 7 · 0 0

Constantine's impact was not as significant as some believe in my personal opinion. Paganism in Rome was already dying. While still popular among the poor, other religions such as mysticism were already becoming popular. Worship of the emperor was a significant at the time of Constantine.

Before a critical battle, Constantine had a vision that he would conquer under the sign of the cross. He in fact did win a major battle that day.

However, Constantine was most concerned with maintaining peace in an empire that had struggled under recent leaders. He saw Christianity as having the potential to stabilize the empire and bring peace to it.

However, his vision was not realized. Divisions already developing in the church between Rome and Constantinople for the control of the church and its theology were already developing.

Constantine helped organize the Council of Nicea, but played no significant part in it. Despite the council "resolving" certain issues, they were to remain and eventually lead to the split between the Orthodox faith and the Roman faith.

Constantine did end the persecution of Christians. This did allow the church to be more open and to spread its failth more openly.

He did apparently have a serious deathbed conversion. His impact was largely in my opinion opening the door for the church to exist publicly.

In my opinion the present government of the Roman Catholic Church has less to do with Constantine and more to do with the church filling the void left by the destruction of Rome by the pagan goths and visigoths.

Pastor John

2007-06-26 14:53:29 · answer #3 · answered by pastorjohn59 6 · 1 0

He traded power. Constantine got Control of the Roman Empire in return for making the Christians the state religion. He made the same basic deal as the Republicans did under Ronny Raygun.

2007-06-26 13:26:39 · answer #4 · answered by ? 5 · 0 0

Constantine legalized the pagan Roman religion with all of its practices, and "Christianized" it. This had an impact on the world and its view of what Christianity is, but the truth has survived.

2007-06-26 13:24:55 · answer #5 · answered by hisgloryisgreat 6 · 0 0

His impact was great, for he got it all together. But he did some terrible things too. Apparently, if you were an opponent of his, your life was in jeopoardy. he seemed rather ruthless on that account. And then there is the tendency of those days to christianize pagan ritual.

I think that they did a good job on gathering the scripture. They say that "Necessity is the mother of invention" and the Marcian cult along with many others had to be countered. And what does that tell you. There was a meaningful difference between what is found in the scriptures and what those cults said. The inclusion of the Epistles of John showed that it had been going on for all those years!

2007-06-26 13:29:30 · answer #6 · answered by Christian Sinner 7 · 0 0

Gosh where to start.
Constantine converted to Christianity. Why he did so is up to debate. Some say it was purely political, some say he was really did convert. Point being in 330 ADE he made it legal and got everyone to convert. In doing so, it allowed Christians to come together openly and organize the Church into something more universal and united.
Some fundamentalist will tell you that he twisted it all up. That he warped Christianity. But truth be told, most modern day Christianity is based on what Constantine put into motion. I personally think most of the Christ original teachings were put on the back burner of man's ambitions. I doubt anyone has really heard his teachings since he died.

2007-06-26 13:23:36 · answer #7 · answered by ~Heathen Princess~ 7 · 0 1

Basically Constantine made Christianity the state Religion of Rome, and spelled the demise of paganism in Europe. By becoming a Christian, albeit on his death bed, he also caused the power of Christians to grow. It opened the door for there to be religious church leaders in charge of government. This in turn helped to usher in the dark ages when the Catholic Church decided to limit who could learn to read, and what books where available.

2007-06-26 13:27:27 · answer #8 · answered by Future Citizen of Forvik 7 · 0 0

He ordered the Christians to organize their writings into an official book which they did by rejecting some writings and including others. After agreeing on a creed (Nicene), the Christians decided that all heretics were to be exterminated. Thus they started with the Jews since they were obviously "different" and later extended their search to witches, etc.

Without Christianity, we might have had a more tolerant world similar to pre-Christianity when foreign gods were tolerated in their own lands, and a little less so in Israel.
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2007-06-26 15:14:15 · answer #9 · answered by Hatikvah 7 · 0 0

Constantine ended the persecution of the Christians. It was his sucessor, that made Christianity the religion of the State.

2007-06-26 13:24:47 · answer #10 · answered by Sldgman 7 · 3 0

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