CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES OF THE CHRISTIANIZATION OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE

ABSTRACT

In this article, the author attempts to investigate the causes and consequences of the process of Christianization for the Roman Empire at the turn of the III-IV centuries and the impact of this process on the subsequent historical development.

Keywords: crisis, Roman Empire, Christianity, Christianization.

The Christian religion, which emerged in the first century, managed to spread throughout the entire territory of the Roman Empire. Until the beginning of the fourth century, the process of Christianization of the Roman world was mostly spontaneous and hidden. In the beginning, the Christian religion in the Roman state had an illegal or semi-legal status. Since the number of adherents of the Christian religion among the citizens of the Empire was small, the significant influence of Christianity on various aspects and spheres of life of Roman society before the IV century is not noted.

In the fourth century. The Roman Empire became Christian, becoming the prototype of the European states of the following centuries. However, before Christianity began to have a significant impact on almost all spheres of Roman society, becoming a world religion and an important factor in historical development, the Christianization of the Empire experienced a number of ups and downs.

Before proceeding to the main questions raised by us in this section of the study, it is necessary to give a general definition of Christianization, which we use in our study. We rely on the definition of Christianization given in the dissertation research of M. M. Kazakov. The author gives the following definition: «Christianization is a process of interaction and mutual influence of all structures of late-antique civilization (economy, social sphere, state, ideology and culture) and the Christian religion with all its institutions (the church as a political and economic organism, Christian ideology and culture). In fact, Christianization, as a process of interaction between Christianity and various secular structures in different historical epochs, is the main content of the entire history of Christianity» [3].

The eighteenth century was marked by the attention of historians to the study of the last centuries of the Roman Empire. Already in this period, there are works by authors who, among the many reasons for the fall of the Western Roman Empire (the barbarian invasion, the demographic problem, and other objectively established factors), distinguish the adoption of Christianity as the official religion. One of the most prominent exponents of this idea is the English historian Edward Gibbon (1737-1794), who expressed his point of view in a work consisting of six volumes, «The History of the Decline and Destruction of the Roman Empire», the work on which he completed in 1789.

As a follower of Protestantism, E. Gibbon idealized the early Christian Church and considered it a pure source of faith. According to E. Gibbon, the Emperor Constantine had a deep respect for Christian morality, he was even convinced that the spread of Christianity in the Empire would make people virtuous both in private and in public life. «Virtue could no longer rely on the philosophical teachings of antiquity. Christianity, in the end, was the only way to resist moral corruption» [4].

The reason why Christianity contributed to the acceleration of the fall of the Western Roman Empire, Gibbon considers the symbiosis of Christianity with paganism, as well as the distortion by Christians themselves of the pure model of the primitive church, which resulted in the penetration of the Christian faith of abuses and superstitions, which in a certain way predetermined the acceleration of the fall of the Western Roman Empire. «The religious tyranny of the Christian Church, manifested in its impatience for paganism and any religious dissent, became the cause of schisms and heresies, which consumed the vital forces of the empire» [4].

As a true Protestant, E. Gibbon assigns an important role in the decline and collapse of the Western Roman Empire to the introduction of the institution of monasticism. Among the negative factors of the influence of monasticism on the social life of the Empire, E. Gibbon calls the following: monasticism became a way of acquiring wealth and honors, avoiding military service, in the monastic environment there was denunciation and contempt for physical labor, it contributed to the destruction of families.

So, from the point of view of the English historian, on the one hand, Christianity contributed to the maintenance of virtue in the Roman Empire, which was supposed to counteract the decline of morals. Similarly, Christianity as an organization and as a teaching objectively supported the civil administration of the empire. On the other hand, the abuse of power among the ecclesiastical clergy led not only to the distortion of the orthodox faith, to the violation of the activities of the institution of the church, but also to the civil administration of the empire.

Thus, the British researcher points out the ambiguous nature of the influence of Christianity on the process of decline and collapse of the Western Roman Empire. In his work, E. Gibbon does not resort to determining the degree of influence of certain factors on this process. The acceleration of the fall of the Roman Empire (as a result of the introduction of Christianity) is organically combined with the weakening of its impetuosity (as a result of the triumph of Christianity) and the softening of the customs of the barbarians (as a result of their Christianization).

In Russian historical science, for the first time, a steady interest in the problem of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire arose in the first half of the XIX century. Among the first Russian historians-antiquarians and medievalists should be named A. I. Herzen (1812-1870). It is known that in A. I. Herzen did not leave in his literary heritage a special work on the fall of the Roman Empire, but nevertheless he devoted in his works to this turning point in ancient history a lot of thoughts and statements.

Despite the fact that A. I. Herzen, like other representatives of Russian pre-revolutionary social thought, was not an academic historian-antiquarian from the point of view of the basic requirements of historical science, one should not underestimate the historiographical significance of Herzen's views on the decline and collapse of the Roman Empire. From a scientific point of view, A. I. Herzen formulated his thoughts about the fall of Rome on the basis of intuition, which was so widely and skillfully used by romantic historians of the XIX century. An important point when referring to the ideas of A. I. Herzen's view of the fall of the Roman Empire is his rejection of the concept of Eurocentrism, which was widespread at that time not only in European social thought, but also in historical science.

A. I. Herzen repeatedly returned to the idea that the «rotting from within» for Rome began with the formation of the empire in his works created in exile. Unlike his famous contemporary, the French historian Francois Guizot (1787-1874), who considered the transition to empire as a «positive attempt» to overcome the shortcomings of the «municipal character of the Roman world», A. I. Herzen saw in this event the germ of future disasters of Ancient Rome. For the first time in the Russian historiography of ancient history, Herzen drew attention to the negative moral and psychological processes that led to the collapse of the Roman Empire. As A. I. Herzen rightly believed, a deep crisis affected not only the state structure and society in the Roman Empire, but also its culture. At the same time, the Russian thinker quite objectively pointed out the futility of all attempts to «modernize» paganism, which had become dilapidated in the era of the Empire, with the help of philosophy.

A. I. Herzen considered the emergence and spread of Christian teaching in the Roman Empire as a kind of («Christian») «radical revolution», which, through the mouths of its «leaders» (Christian apostles), challenged Rome. Giving a positive assessment of many aspects of early Christianity, he at the same time believed that it was not able to stop the process of increasing despotism of power in the Roman Empire and thereby prevent its collapse. Thus, A. I. Herzen proposed his original concept of the inevitability of the decline and death of the Roman Empire due to a number of «innate» vices of the ancient world and various internal «mortal diseases» that developed in it over several centuries.

The Russian researcher M. M. Kazakov also notes that «The crisis and general decline that engulfed all spheres of life of the Roman Empire in the third century had a strong impact on the public consciousness, morality and psychology of the people of that time. The crisis has created a sense of uncertainty about the future, caused a loss of mental comfort and peace of mind, violated the usual and well-established patterns of behavior characteristic of certain groups of the population. Moral decline as a sign of approaching general collapse is recognized almost everywhere. ... The general mood of the era was a sense of impending global catastrophe, the need for some action to prevent it, a sense of despair and injustice of the entire world order» [2].

Thus, the third century was a time of intense spiritual and religious search, which was caused by profound changes in the social and individual consciousness of the people of that time, caused by the economic, social, political and cultural manifestations of the crisis. There is no doubt that the changes in people's consciousness that took place under the influence of these crisis phenomena should have given rise to a new perception of the surrounding reality and became one of the most important prerequisites for the Christianization of the Roman Empire in the fourth century.

References:

1. Gibbon E. History of the decline and collapse of the Roman Empire. - Moscow: OLMA-PRESS, 2001. - 704 p.
2. Kazakov M. M. Christianization of the Roman Empire in the IV century. - Smolensk: «Universum», 2002. – - 464 p.
3. Kazakov M. M. Christianization of the Roman Empire in the IV century. Abstract of the dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Historical Sciences in the specialty 07.00.03-universal history. Moscow: 2003. 38 p.
4. Kamenev S. N. Eduard Gibbon on the role of Christianity in the Decline and collapse of the Western Roman Empire // Omsk Scientific Bulletin. № 2(86). 2010. – Pp. 54-56.