It’s been a popular theory for a long time – that replacing the traditional state religion of Rome, with its martial-heroic values, with the more pacifist and otherworldly Christianity demoralized the Romans (in military terms, at least) and made them unable to defend themselves from the Germans. OTOH, even after the Western Empire fell, the Eastern or Byzantine Empire survived another thousand years as a Christian state and never lacked enemies; so can Christianity really have been to blame for the fall of the West?
I’m not sure how popular the idea is. I have generally seen Gibbons (who did attempt to popularize it) accused of committing the “classic” Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc fallacy.
In any event, the Roman Empire was well on its way toward internal disruption before Christianity came to power–and the Christians proved to be quite as willing to use violence to attain their goals as any pagans who preceded them.
The version I have in my head - and whether it’s accurate or not I honestly don’t know - is that Rome, by importing all kinds of stuff from the East, stimulated lots of economic growth on the Eastern side of the Empire, to the extent that it surpassed the Western side, which was declining and as it did lost the ability to defend itself against the invaders from the North.
So, the capitol moves to Constantinople, because that was where the center of the Empire really was after a while, and the Western side eventually fell.
Yeah, what is in your head jibes with what is in my head. Furthermore, my head tells me that Constantine converted the state religion to Christianity as a sort of last ditch effort to halt (western) Roman decline, perceived or real I don’t know. In other words, Christianity wasn’t the cause, it was the result.
But most of my knowledge of history is of the kind that apparently just floats around in my head aimlessly. I can’t ever remember learning it, so I can’t claim to be any kind of expert, nor can I be certain that I’m right without researching it anyway. But usually my historical intuition is more or less accurate, for what it’s worth.
[nitpick]Constantine the Great didn’t make Christianity the state religion of the Roman Empire he merely legalized it. Theodosius the Great didn’t make Nicene Christianity the state religion in the 390s.
In a way, Christianity was part of the Empire’s decline, but not really. Simply put, the old Roman values and way of life proved to be deeply unattractive. It was simply unable to maintain the loyalty of each successive generation, and was far too Rome-centered for the many peoples who now made up the empire. Christianity filled this void with something new and powerful.
IANAHistorian but I would also argue a similar position:
Rome was straining under the demands of keeping so many disparate identities under domination by force and economic integration alone. It was to big to police well and without a shared sense of culture was thus falling apart at the seams under threats from “The Barabarians.” A unitary cultural identity was needed, a shared basis for values, and Roman mythology and the Deification of the Emperor were poorly matched for the task for the very same reasons that they had been such good bases for a martial society bent on conquest. Pauline Christianity, heavily influenced by Greek thought, allowing individual groups to maintain their own practices while reidentifying the why such was done, allowing group membership without having to accept the baggage of past history, fit the bill.
The problem was adopting Christianity as the State religion created a seperate pyramidal power structure in parallel with that of the Emperor and his already weakening control of his Empire, and one which had interests that were not always the same as his or of the State. Eventually the Church did not serve the State as much as the State served the Church. The stage was set for ongoing battles for primacy in identity and power between religious and State structures over many centuries to follow.
In short Rome the State with its centralization of power in the hands of an Emperor declined, but Rome the culture never had domination to lose. Christianity filled the void.
I do not think Christianity was a big factor in Rome/s decline. The main factor (as I see it) was the crushing costs of maintaining a large standing army-this is attested to by the persistent monetary inflation that Rome experienced, from AD 250 onwards. Basically, there was no efficient tax collection system-the rich evaded taxes, and the poor were ground into the dust paying them.This made )the empire increasingly difficult to defend-for example, when Rome abandoned Britain (the legions were withdrawn to participate in a power struggle, the wild Picts immediately began to invade Brittania. By the end of the 5th century, the Western Empire was hard pressed to defend the homeland of Italy.
I’ve never heard that theory, and the idea of Christianity being a pacifistic religion is ridiculous. Especially historically, it’s been one of the most aggressive, bloodthirsty, ruthless, and brutal belief systems ever to exist, religious or otherwise.
As for it being “otherworldly”, that’s just an encouragement towards greater death and destruction. You don’t need to worry about death if you are going to heaven, or worry about killing innocents if they are going to heaven; “Kill them all and let God sort them out”. You don’t need to worry about what you destroy if it’s the next world that matters, you don’t need to worry about the suffering of others if it’s the afterlife that matters ( an argument I often hear right here on the SD ), and if you are trying to save souls from the eternal, infinite suffering of Hell, anything is justified; anything at all.
Christianity in most places and times has had a philosophy of utter ruthlessness and limitless aggression. If it did bring down the Roman Empire, it certainly wasn’t by being too nice.
The east was already more urbanized and prosperous before Rome conquered it. Babylon and Egypt had been thriving civilizations for thousands of years when Rome was still a hunters’ camp on the Tiber. You’re right though about why Constantine moved the capital. The east was where all the money was.
Ultimately the west fell because, as ralph124c said, it didn’t have the tax base to maintain a strong enough army to keep the barbarians in check. This was exacerbated by the arrival of the Huns in the 4th Century. They invaded the territory that had previously been held by the relatively stable Germanic tribes, driving them into Roman territory. The Romans tried settling the various tribes within the empire but didn’t have the military strength to control the situation and everything went to pieces rather rapidly.
The more prosperous East was able to weather the storm. They had the money to hire mercenaries and to buy off the barbarians. It took another 1000 years for the Eastern Empire to fall (despite being just as Christian as the west) so I think we can safely argue that Christianity was not a major factor in the collapse.
DSeid and Pocchaco seem to have it, insofar as individual causes can really be distilled for this complex situation.
Rome was too big to defend its frontiers effectively, its army had evolved into a social class loyal mostly to itself (this was a very pre-Christian development) and ‘Rome’ was not a concept that the diverse cultures paying taxes and tribute to it had any particular connection to. Christianity came on the scene in a big way after the basic division of the Empire into East and West had already happened.
Christianity certainly did not cause fewer wars to be fought by Rome - for one thing, the ‘barbarians’ against whom the Roman soldiers were fighting were mostly Christians too (though Arian rather than Catholic). And Rome continued to fight the Parthian/Persians in the East all through the existence of the Empire.
Gibbon was a great writer, but his historical take on the Decline and Fall is not given much credence these days.
The prevailing notion in the Christian world I’d always heard here in the Bible Belt was that Rome fell because of the wickedness and degeneracy of the Roman emperors. This is completely ahistorical, of course, but supports that whole “Christians good” “pagans bad” meme so well that it’s very persistent. A seductive narrative, indeed.
Even though all emperors after Julian were Christian?
But that only happened in the West, and only after the Western Empire fell (leaving the Church as the only international organization of any kind). In the East, the Church always remained under the emperor’s control, a system known as “caesaropapism.”
Indeed; though hardly taken seriously by anyone with some education about history so I would not be too sure it’s “the prevailing notion in the Christian World” anymore, outside the referenced “Bible Belt”. But I can very well see it being assumed so by many whose sole source of historical information (or the sole one they’re willing to believe, since “of course” secular scholars are eeeevil) IS their Sunday School lessons…
The beliefs that Rome “Fell” because of “Wickedness” or of Christianity, rather than by politicoeconomic trends, are reflections of an incomplete worldview – I can understand that; but what I have never been too keen on is that among hoders of those theories sometimes there seems to be the implication that had Rome held on to the “right” set of “values” it would have continued to prosper and rule. That has no reasonable justification.
Yes, I am referring to that which is generally referenced to as “The Fall of the Roman Empire”, which was the Western half’s collapse of a single state’s control. The historic unity of religious and national/cultural identity and control persisted within the smaller Byzantine Empire in the East with Orthodox Christianity becoming the binding force for many subsequent years. As Pochacco notes, its relative wealth allowed it to weather the storms better. Again the point is that other factors led to the collapse of Western Rome such that only the Church stood as an trans-national binding identity and power. My add-on was just that once that occurred the battle for primacy of power between theologic and secular/kingly control was on.
Personally I believe the three main causes of Romes downfall were more aggressive warrior nomads assaulting and taking over the territory of the nomadic tribes to their West,and “domino theory like” they in turn were forced to attack the tribes to THEIR West and so on until it impinged on the Roman empires borders.(I have no cite but it may have been because of an out break of the “Black Death” on the Mongolian plains.)
They had I believe a technological superiority over the Romans in that they had stirrups and composite bows ,but I might be wrong on that one.
Secondly the succession system for the emperors was basically based on luck and violence .
So there was as such ,no loyalty to Rome itself but merely an allegiance to your personal “Mafia Boss”,so internicine struggles would carry on right up to (and sometimes beyond ) a barbarian invasion.
I think the last ,and possibly the most important reason for Romes decline was,after centuries of relying on slave labour the Romans ,even without slaves had lost the knack of innovation in agriculture,industry and trade.
The first known steam engine was invented by Hero of Alexandria but was used only as a toy because there wasn’t any need for it in an abundant "free"manpower economy.
My own belief is that Romes legacy of slavery dragged them down in the end ,the sins of the fathers …
Personally I believe the three main causes of Romes downfall were more aggressive warrior nomads assaulting and taking over the territory of the nomadic tribes to their West,and “domino theory like” they in turn were forced to attack the tribes to THEIR West and so on until it impinged on the Roman empires borders.(I have no cite but it may have been because of an out break of the “Black Death” on the Mongolian plains.)
They had I believe a technological superiority over the Romans in that they had stirrups and composite bows ,but I might be wrong on that one.
Secondly the succession system for the emperors was basically based on luck and violence .
So there was as such ,no loyalty to Rome itself but merely an allegiance to your personal “Mafia Boss”,so internicine struggles would carry on right up to (and sometimes beyond ) a barbarian invasion.
I think the last ,and possibly the most important reason for Romes decline was,after centuries of relying on slave labour the Romans ,even without slaves had lost the knack of innovation in agriculture,industry and trade.
The first known steam engine was invented by Hero of Alexandria but was used only as a toy because there wasn’t any need for it in an abundant "free"manpower economy.
My own belief is that Romes legacy of slavery dragged them down in the end ,the sins of the fathers …
Yes. They were nominatively Christian, but quite degenerate. (So were some of the Popes, but we don’t hear a lot about that, heh.)
I’ve read something similar. The Roman legion was an extremely effective fighting force but it wasn’t well-suited to countering the mounted nomads from the east. And (unlike with infantry) it was apparently fairly difficult at the time to field a large mounted force from peasant conscripts. The cost and amount of training was too great.
One historian I read said that it’s possible to view the rise of feudalism in Western Europe as a struggle to invent an economic structure capable of supporting a cavalry force on an agricultural base. The fact that the knightly virtues were called “horsemanship”, i.e. “chivalry”, is an indication of just how central to feudalism the **mounted ** warrior was.