Did the Roman Empire fall because of Christianity?

Great Debates
41

[QUOTE=ralph124c]
Other factors (in the fall of the Empire):
…

  • necessity of grain importation; Italy could not feed itself, imports of grain from gaul and Egypt were necessary to feed the population
    …
    -importation of religious cults (like Mithraeism, cult of isis, etc.0; lack of adherence to old Rom,an religion favored disunity
    -loss of trade: as the empire shrank, piracy emereged 9in the 4th century0; this reduced trade and tax revenue; eventually, roads became dangerous and trade reverted to barter between villages 9early feudalism)

[/QUOTE]

Again, a few small points:
Italy had been unable to feed itself since the empire’s very height; this was not a late development. Food crises occurred even in the Republic, when Rome’s ‘empire’ was comparatively small.
Piracy, similarly, had been a problem since Republican times, and periodically flared up. Thus these two things were merely constant factors in being an empire; they cannot really have ‘caused’ the fall.

Finally, religious cults had been ‘imported’ since at the very latest 186 BCE - the bacchic cults. There was a lot of rhetoric from as early as then about ‘eastern’ cults, but they were very popular at all times - the emperor Augustus himself was initiated into the Eleusinian mysteries at Athens. Mithraism’s origin is obscure, but probably arose within the empire. And finally, there is no evidence that anyone particularly ‘failed to adhere’ to the state cult - it was going strong in the countryside, in its way, and in Rome itself, even after Christianity had become the ‘state cult’. The ‘lack of adherence’ idea was one propagated by the pagans themselves to explain their loss of state power and other evils besetting the state. But this ‘elite’ perspective does not take into account the large number of lower-class pagans who had carried on their traditional practices without a blip.
Eastern religious ideas were incorporated continuously into ‘Roman religion’; paganism simply is not exclusive and did not demand, unlike Christianity or Judaism, abjuration of any cults or gods.

I really think framing the question this way is misguided; it leads to glib theses which encourage people to make false analogies with other times and places: ie ‘slavery is bad - look what happened to the Romans’. Obviously, slavery is bad. But saying it ‘caused’ the end of the Roman empire is really really oversimplifying.

Sorry to go on at such length, but let’s just say I have some ‘professional’ interest in this question.

42

[QUOTE=DaphneBlack]
I think that’s implausible. Constantine became a Christian, but there is no evidence that he ‘used’ Christianity to change anything fundamental in the structure of the empire. That happened much more gradually. …
[/QUOTE]
I defer to your knowledge of the subject.

43

Attila and his Huns didn’t warp into Europe from the other side of the galaxy. The Romans knew who they were and had been dealing with them for awhile. Attila himself had spent time in Rome as a young man at the behest of his family. Just another barbarian princeling from the fringes of the Empire, soaking up Latin and trying to get the semblence of an education. Attila would later go on to have a little rent-a-Hun business where he countered the Germans on Rome’s behalf until he got bored with that and turned on his masters. Aetius, one day to be head general of the Western Roman Empire, the man who would both defeat and be defeated by Attila, may have actually lived among the Huns for a time.

If the Huns were running around with stirrups the Romans would have seen it and adopted them - they traded with the Huns all the time. There was plenty of time for stirrup use to spread from the Huns to the Empire. It therefore seems likely that the Hunnish stirrup is a myth, and that the Avars introduced it a century after Attila was dead.

So contrary to myth and no small amount of second party sources, the stirrup probably played little or no part in the fall of the Western Roman Empire.

44

[QUOTE=DaphneBlack]
Again, a few small points:
Italy had been unable to feed itself since the empire’s very height; this was not a late development. Food crises occurred even in the Republic, when Rome’s ‘empire’ was comparatively small.
Piracy, similarly, had been a problem since Republican times, and periodically flared up. Thus these two things were merely constant factors in being an empire; they cannot really have ‘caused’ the fall.

Finally, religious cults had been ‘imported’ since at the very latest 186 BCE - the bacchic cults. There was a lot of rhetoric from as early as then about ‘eastern’ cults, but they were very popular at all times - the emperor Augustus himself was initiated into the Eleusinian mysteries at Athens. Mithraism’s origin is obscure, but probably arose within the empire. And finally, there is no evidence that anyone particularly ‘failed to adhere’ to the state cult - it was going strong in the countryside, in its way, and in Rome itself, even after Christianity had become the ‘state cult’. The ‘lack of adherence’ idea was one propagated by the pagans themselves to explain their loss of state power and other evils besetting the state. But this ‘elite’ perspective does not take into account the large number of lower-class pagans who had carried on their traditional practices without a blip.
Eastern religious ideas were incorporated continuously into ‘Roman religion’; paganism simply is not exclusive and did not demand, unlike Christianity or Judaism, abjuration of any cults or gods.

I really think framing the question this way is misguided; it leads to glib theses which encourage people to make false analogies with other times and places: ie ‘slavery is bad - look what happened to the Romans’. Obviously, slavery is bad. But saying it ‘caused’ the end of the Roman empire is really really oversimplifying.

Sorry to go on at such length, but let’s just say I have some ‘professional’ interest in this question.
[/QUOTE]

Thanks for the info: is there any evidence that Rome contemplated the invasion of Ireland? Claudius probably could have pulled it off-do any Roman historians mention Ireland? Of course, Hadrian drew the line at Scotland-but Ireland was pretty peaceful back then-why didn’t the Romans add it to the empire?

45

[QUOTE=Grossbottom]
Attila himself had spent time in Rome as a young man at the behest of his family. Just another barbarian princeling from the fringes of the Empire, soaking up Latin and trying to get the semblence of an education. Attila would later go on to have a little rent-a-Hun business where he countered the Germans on Rome’s behalf until he got bored with that and turned on his masters.
[/QUOTE]
Cite, please? I don’t think that there’s any evidence that Attila spent time in Rome as a young man or spoke Latin. I also don’t think that there’s any evidence that he worked for the Romans to suppress the Germans. He certainly exacted tribute from the Romans at the same time he was conquering German lands but one was not contingent upon the other.

46

[QUOTE=ralph124c]
Thanks for the info: is there any evidence that Rome contemplated the invasion of Ireland? Claudius probably could have pulled it off-do any Roman historians mention Ireland? Of course, Hadrian drew the line at Scotland-but Ireland was pretty peaceful back then-why didn’t the Romans add it to the empire?
[/QUOTE]

Wikipedia sez:

Footnote 3 refers to this article.

47

[QUOTE=ralph124c]
lack of stirrups meant that a cavalryman could not carry heavy lances, or shoot arrows while mounted
[/QUOTE]

The Parthians specialized in mounted archery, and they had no stirrups.

48

[QUOTE=smiling bandit]
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.
[/QUOTE]

“Deeply unattractive”? I think the problem was that the Roman religion and value-system was deeply unattractive to slaves, or so it appeared by comparison when Christianity came along. That was probably the secret of Christianity’s success – everyone was admitted to worship equally. The cult of Mithraism was also very popular in its day – much more masculine than Christianity, more martial, more Roman – but it admitted only men; and since you had to sacrifice a bull to be initiated, at your own expense, it was in practice limited to upper-class men, as no one else could afford a bull. So if you’re a Mithraist nobleman’s son, your father might want you to follow in his faith – but your mother, and the slaves who raised you, might well be Christians, and you would be likely to pick it up from them.

Nietzsche was probably right about Christianity being based on a “slave morality.” Not that that automatically makes a “master morality” any better.

49

[QUOTE=jimmmy]
Really all I can say for sure:

~25% -& maybe more of the population of the Empire was Slaves
Christianity changed the way Romans viewed Slaves
Slaves leagal status was a constant and ongoing legistaed at empire’s end --suggesting instability
By the late Empire the price of slaves was increasing and cheap “free” labor became more attractive
Slavery as the Romans knew it disappeared roughly along with the Western Empire
[/QUOTE]

Three GQ threads on slavery, and numbers of slaves, in the later Empire and the Eastern Empire.

50

[QUOTE=BrainGlutton]
“Deeply unattractive”? I think the problem was that the Roman religion and value-system was deeply unattractive to slaves, or so it appeared by comparison when Christianity came along. That was probably the secret of Christianity’s success – everyone was admitted to worship equally. The cult of Mithraism was also very popular in its day – much more masculine than Christianity, more martial, more Roman – but it admitted only men; and since you had to sacrifice a bull to be initiated, at your own expense, it was in practice limited to upper-class men, as no one else could afford a bull. So if you’re a Mithraist nobleman’s son, your father might want you to follow in his faith – but your mother, and the slaves who raised you, might well be Christians, and you would be likely to pick it up from them.

[/QUOTE]

Again, Mithraism was not ‘exclusive’. There are a number of tombstones of those admitted into the Mithraist cult, and indeed high level ‘elders’, and this is listed right along with the ‘standard’ Roman priestly cults and other cults as well. It was not a matter of ‘following in [one’s father’s] faith’.
Mithraism was popular with the upper class, but also in the army (a noticeably all-male organisation).
Christian slaves in a non-Christian household could be in serious trouble if they tried to convert their master’s children. Even in the time after Constantine, Christianity was not something ‘picked up’ from a surrounding cultural milieu. For example, people, even Christians ‘from birth’ were frequently not baptised until close to death. The prevailing idea of the time was ‘Christians are made, not born’. There were Christian communities, of course, but - especially in a ‘mixed marriage’ - there was not a ‘guarantee’ that children would be the religion of either of their parents.

I offer Augustine, later bishop of Carthage, as the most famous example. He came from mostly-Christianised North Africa and was born in 354, after Christianity was the favoured state religion, to a very devout Christian mother and a pagan father. He did not become a Christian until 386, when he was in Milan.

The scholarly work of Peter Brown is probably the best on this particular aspect of the topic. His work is quite accessible, though he does not always translate Latin quotations, and widely available. I recommend ‘The World of Late Antiquity’ (the best introduction - also has the virtue of being brief) and ‘Augustine of Hippo’, as well as ‘The Rise of Western Christendom’.

51

[QUOTE=ralph124c]
Thanks for the info: is there any evidence that Rome contemplated the invasion of Ireland? Claudius probably could have pulled it off-do any Roman historians mention Ireland? Of course, Hadrian drew the line at Scotland-but Ireland was pretty peaceful back then-why didn’t the Romans add it to the empire?
[/QUOTE]

Rome added Britain to the empire because of the trade wealth exported. One of Carthage’s advantages was its knowledge of how to reach Britain, as an important source of tin and lead. Britain also had gold – the mines at Dolaucothi were supposed to have been one of the most productive in the ancient world.

Scotland and Ireland weren’t very attractive because there wasn’t much up there other than the tribes of Picts and such. Had either been exporting wealth, Rome would have swooped in.

52

[QUOTE=Pochacco]
Cite, please? I don’t think that there’s any evidence that Attila spent time in Rome as a young man or spoke Latin. I also don’t think that there’s any evidence that he worked for the Romans to suppress the Germans.
[/quote]

I was tempted and actually began the process until I remembered that a) Wikipedia is accepted here, and b) I’d really be hijacking. If you can’t hold your nose, I’ll direct you to Gibbon chapters 34-36, which will edify anyone into a veritable coma as to the relationship between Aetius, Attila, the Huns, the WRE, and the Goths. A bit off the flank:

[QUOTE= le Gibbonator]
From a principle of interest, as well as gratitude, Aetius assiduously cultivated the alliance of the Huns. While he resided in their tents as a hostage, or an exile, he had familiarly conversed with Attila himself, the nephew of his benefactor; and the two famous antagonists appeared to have been connected by a personal and military friendship, which they afterwards confirmed by mutual gifts, frequent embassies, and the education of Carpilio, the son of Aetius, in the camp of Attila…[chopped some stuff out - GB] Yet his dexterous policy prolonged the advantages of a salutary peace; and a numerous army of Huns and Alani, whom he had attached to his person, was employed in the defence of Gaul.
[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=Pochacco]
He certainly exacted tribute from the Romans at the same time he was conquering German lands but one was not contingent upon the other.
[/quote]

Ok I’m not in possession of Attila’s diary so this isn’t going to go anywhere. I give a guy money or land, and that guy then does something he otherwise would not have done, I call it a payment. Especially if they are attached to my person at the time they do the job. Cite that Attila thought otherwise?

I will withdraw my statement that Attila spoke Latin. I was being glib and forgot I was in GD, and I was trying to give a picture of the period: princes exchanged as hostages was normal. Priscus reports encountering Huns that did speak Latin, and tells of Attila being spoken to by one of his men in a Hun-Latin mishmash, but there’s nothing that I know of either way that conclusively proves that he spoke it himself.

Huns: Pushy neighbors, yes. Strike Force Stirrup, no. I think my point, or at least my position, has been made and supported. Hijack ended, apologies to the OP.

53

I’ve heard a theory (don’t remember where) that the climate in Europe and Asia was becoming colder during the later Roman Empire, and that’s what triggered the migration of nomadic peoples like the Huns.

Not necessarily. History is full of examples of cultures failing to adopt useful technologies for various reasons.

For example, there may be a discussion on a message board (or whatever they have then) in the year 3500 about whether the American empire fell because they failed to adopt the metric system. The Americans circa 2000 certainly have seen the metric system in use, have had problems that adopting the metric system universally would have solved, yet, for various cultural reasons, haven’t adopted it and aren’t likely to do so any time soon. There could have been some similar cultural impediment to adopting stirrups in the late Roman Empire.

[QUOTE=JRDelirious]
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.
[/QUOTE]

That argument does, however, have a political justification. If you argue that Rome fell because it had the wrong values, you can imply that the same thing might happen to a modern nation, and that the government should therefore be passing laws to support the “right” values so the nation doesn’t fall.

This is another one that gets mentioned by some people who don’t like having a country where not everyone practices the same religion, and for the same reason as the “values” argument. If lack of religious cohesion made Rome fall, then lack of the same could presumably cause the downfall of a modern country, so the government should be helping the dominant religion along.

Historical arguments (like “what caused the fall of Rome”) aren’t just about the period in history that’s being discussed. Gibbon’s theories about Christianity causing the fall of the Roman empire may have had something to do with his personal experiences with Christianity and general Enlightenment views about traditional Christianity at the time his work was written.

If our message board participants in the year 3500 have much more liberal views on homosexuality than most Americans do now, they may well be arguing whether the Americans’ unenlightened attitudes toward gays in the early 21st century had something to do with the fall of their empire.

54

[QUOTE=Anne Neville]
This is another one that gets mentioned by some people who don’t like having a country where not everyone practices the same religion, and for the same reason as the “values” argument. If lack of religious cohesion made Rome fall, then lack of the same could presumably cause the downfall of a modern country, so the government should be helping the dominant religion along.
[/QUOTE]

This is the point I have been trying to make. Thank you for stating it so clearly.

55

Of course, I mean, the point that I have been trying to argue against! Anne has made some very good points here.

Making modern analogies/analysis based on Rome = bad idea.

56

[QUOTE=DaphneBlack]
Making modern analogies/analysis based on Rome = bad idea.
[/QUOTE]

Oh, I don’t think it’s a historically valid approach, either. Drawing parallels between two very different societies at two very different times in history is always questionable. What’s more, you can usually find some example in history that lets you say whatever you want to about modern society.

If you can draw historical parallels convincingly (not the same thing as correctly), though, you can persuade some people of your point, particularly if they haven’t studied or thought about history very much (which is true of most people). It’s a good rhetorical tactic, even if it’s very shaky history. It’s an especially good rhetorical tactic because, if you cherry-pick your history right, you can use it to say pretty much anything you want, but most people don’t realize that and think that it lends some validity to your argument.

57

[QUOTE=Anne Neville]
Oh, I don’t think it’s a historically valid approach, either. Drawing parallels between two very different societies at two very different times in history is always questionable. What’s more, you can usually find some example in history that lets you say whatever you want to about modern society.

If you can draw historical parallels convincingly (not the same thing as correctly), though, you can persuade some people of your point, particularly if they haven’t studied or thought about history very much (which is true of most people). It’s a good rhetorical tactic, even if it’s very shaky history. It’s an especially good rhetorical tactic because, if you cherry-pick your history right, you can use it to say pretty much anything you want, but most people don’t realize that and think that it lends some validity to your argument.
[/QUOTE]

Exactly, which is why everything from slavery to lead pipes to Christianity is ‘blamed’ for the Decline and Fall. Whatever ideological point the person is trying to make will inform the ‘cause’ they choose to focus on.