The Triumph of Christianity

by Bart D. Ehrman

  EXPLAINING THE TRIUMPH OF CHRISTIANITY

  But there was no reason this cultural shift had to happen, no historical necessity that Christianity would, in effect, destroy the pagan religions of the Roman Empire and establish itself as the supreme religion and ascendant political and cultural power of its world. That is why the question I address in this book is so important. Why did this new faith take over the Roman world, leading to the Christianization of the West? It is obviously not a matter of purely antiquarian interest, relevant only to academic historians. What question could be more important for anyone interested in history, culture, or society?

  To be more specific: How did a small handful of the followers of Jesus come to convert an unwilling empire? According to the New Testament, some days after Jesus’s crucifixion, eleven of his male followers and several women came to believe he had been raised from the dead. Before four centuries had passed, these twenty or so lower-class, illiterate Jews from rural Galilee had become a church of some thirty million. How does a religion gain thirty million adherents in three hundred years?

  As I give lectures around the country on a variety of topics related to early Christianity, this is the question I hear more than any other. The answers people suggest are wide-ranging. Many committed Christians appeal directly to divine providence. God did it. God guided history so the world would become Christian. I respect those who have this opinion, but I have one very big problem with it. If God wanted the world to become Christian, why hasn’t the world become Christian? If God wanted the masses to convert, why are most of the masses still not converted? Moreover, just in historical terms, if God made the Roman Empire Christian, why did it take so long? And why was the job never completed? Why did non-Christian religions continue to exist at all? Why are they still in the majority today?

  By far the most common secular answer I hear is that the Roman Empire became Christian because the emperor Constantine converted to the faith. Constantine was the sole ruler of the empire in the first part of the fourth century. Early in his reign he turned from traditional “pagan” religions to become a follower of Christ. After that, masses of people began to convert as Christianity went from being a persecuted minority to being the religion of most-favored status, and eventually the religion of Rome. So it was all about Constantine, right?

  Until recently, that is what I myself thought. But I no longer think so. On the contrary: I think Christianity may well have succeeded even if Constantine had not converted. That will be one of the theses of this book.

  Still, it cannot be disputed that, after Constantine’s conversion, masses of people came to embrace the Christian faith. Not absolutely everyone. And not immediately after Constantine did so. Indeed, not even a century after Constantine’s death. But eventually Christianity became the religion of the multitudes, and the Roman pagan religions they had formerly practiced more or less disappeared or, in a few instances, went underground. For those supporting the Christian cause, this has always been considered a real triumph.

  I will not, however, be writing this book in a triumphalist vein. That is to say, I will not be celebrating the rise and eventual domination of Christianity, claiming it was inherently superior or even necessarily a very good thing. On the other hand, I do not want to claim it was bad either. Ultimately good or ultimately bad: as a historian I will remain neutral on these kinds of value judgments—in part, this is because the triumph of Christianity also entailed losses, especially for the devoted followers of other religious practices. Whenever one group wins a struggle, others lose. Those of us with historical interests need to consider both winners and losers.

  WINNERS AND LOSERS

  And so, before detailing the remarkable events that led to the triumph of Christianity, I want to pause to reflect on loss.

  Nowhere in modern times have the losses occasioned by clashes of religions and cultures crystallized more dramatically than in the city of Palmyra, Syria, where, in 2015, representatives of ISIS captured the city, executed a number of its inhabitants, destroyed archaeological remains, and ravaged its antiquities, torturing and beheading their chief conservator. Nothing of equal savagery has ever affected the site. But this is not the first time Palmyra endured an assault by religious fanatics who found its sacred temples and the holy objects they contained objectionable. For that we need to turn the clock back seventeen hundred years.

  The ancient city of Palmyra lay to the northeast of Damascus, almost exactly midway between the Mediterranean in the west and the Euphrates in the east. Originally a caravan oasis, it became a center of transport and commerce, an obvious stopping point at the crossroads between Rome and Persia.

  As it grew in size and economic importance, Palmyra attracted the attention of Mediterranean powers from the Greeks in the fourth century BCE to the Romans later on. Assaulted by Mark Antony in 41 BCE, it was eventually incorporated into the empire under Tiberius (emperor 14–37 CE). Two and half centuries later it established its independence as a breakaway state, ruled most famously by Queen Zenobia until its reconquest by the Roman emperor Aurelian in 272 CE. Taking Zenobia captive for his triumph back in Rome, Aurelian eventually ordered the city’s destruction. Although partially rebuilt, it was never again to return to its former glory. Its magnificent private and public structures stood for centuries, isolated in the Syrian desert.

  The first recorded instance of specifically religious intolerance leading to the destruction of Palmyra’s antiquities occurred at the end of the fourth century. The Roman imperial throne was occupied at the time by Theodosius I (ruled 379–95 CE), a passionately committed Christian determined to establish Christianity as the official religion of the empire. Theodosius was not the first Christian emperor. That, as I have indicated, was Constantine (ruled 306–37 CE). And Theodosius was not the first Christian emperor to order the destruction of pagan temples. That was Constantine’s son Constantius II (ruled 337–61 CE). But Theodosius was the first to legislate Christianity as the one legitimate religion and to order a general cessation of pagan practices. The enforcement of Theodosius’s policies was spotty at best, but it did affect Palmyra and at least one of its most glorious sacred shrines, the temple of Allat, the Syrian pagan goddess.1

  Allat was worshiped by nomads throughout the region and eventually came to be identified as the Greek goddess Athena. An archaeological team from Poland excavated the ruins of her temple in the spring seasons of 1975 and 1976. Inscriptions discovered at the site, along with coins, pottery, and a severely mutilated statue of the divinity, allowed these experts to write the history of the sanctuary. Built in the middle of the second century CE, the sanctuary stood for over two hundred years, until being destroyed sometime in the 380s. It did not perish from natural causes, such as an earthquake or storm. That much is clear from the remains of the cult statue, whose facial figures had been intentionally mutilated. As the archaeological report notes, this kind of mutilation “suggests that it was done by a man of set purpose rather than by brute forces of nature.”2

  We know of numerous other statue mutilations around the empire from about the same time. They were not perpetrated by thoughtless, godless hordes but by committed Christians with clear intentions. Statues of pagan deities often had their eyes, noses, ears, mouths, hands, and genitals removed. This was a religious statement. The gods of the pagans were nothing but stone or wood. They could not see, smell, hear, speak, or act. They were useless, lifeless, and dead. The Christians were out to prove it.3

  The date established for the destruction of the temple of Allat is particularly telling. It coincides with some of the most virulent antireligious legislation the ancient world had ever seen. From 381 to 392 CE Theodosius issued laws forbidding pagan sacrifice and ordering the closing of pagan temples. This legislation—like most legislation throughout the history of the Roman Empire—was inefficiently administered. The Roman state simply had no apparatus for empire-wide enforcement of the imperial will. But the legislation that did issue forth was t
aken seriously in some places, leading to regional destructions of temples and pagan cult objects, including some of the great gold, bronze, and stone statuary of the empire.

  The best-known acts of enforcement involved one of the highest-ranking officials in Theodosius’s administration, the praetorian prefect Maternus Cynegius. Like Theodosius, Cynegius was a deeply committed and zealous Christian. In 385 CE he undertook a tour of the eastern provinces to carry out Theodosius’s anti-pagan policies. In the words of one modern archaeologist, this tour led to an “unprecedented devastation of the most admired objects of pagan sacred architecture and art.”4 Cynegius spent considerable time in Syria, and with the backing of local Christian leaders, destroyed the important Temple of Zeus in the city of Apamea.

  There is nothing to suggest that Cynegius was personally active in Palmyra. But his presence in the region motivated local Christians to send in wrecking crews of their own. That is what happened with the temple of Allat. It was a local job, inspired, rather than carried out, by imperial authorization. It is impossible to say whether the destruction was sponsored by the leaders of the Christian communities in the city or was instead the work of a marauding mob of fervent Christians. We do know that, several decades later, Christian leaders converted other pagan temples into Christian churches, including the oldest and finest pagan sanctuary of the city, the famous temple of Bel whose remains were destroyed by ISIS in 2015.

  We grieve over such senseless—or, rather, highly intentional—destruction of antiquities in part because we see in remnants of ancient culture the treasured history of our own past. And so we are dismayed, or even incensed, to hear a recent archaeologist declare: “There can be no doubt on the basis of the written and archaeological evidence that the Christianization of the Roman Empire and early medieval Europe involved the destruction of works of art on a scale never before seen in human history.”5

  The ancient world did not share our modern passion for the material remains of earlier millennia. The agony of that era’s destruction was even more profound, since these temples and statues were still then part of a living, vibrant culture. The very core of people’s personal and spiritual lives was under assault, mocked, mutilated, and destroyed before their very eyes.

  I do not want to undervalue the enormous benefits derived from the triumph of Christianity. Christians and non-Christians can surely agree that the cultural glories we have inherited from the Christian tradition—the art, music, literature, and philosophy—justify our gratitude and awe. But I begin with the temple of Allat in Palmyra to emphasize my point: every triumph is also a defeat, and the ecstasies of those who prevail are matched by the agonies of those who lose.6

  Chapter 1

  The Beginning of the End: The Conversion of Constantine

  Few events in the history of civilization have proved more transformative than the conversion of the emperor Constantine to Christianity in the year 312 CE. Later historians would sometimes question whether the conversion was genuine. But to Constantine himself and to spiritual advisors close to him, there appears to have been no doubt. He had shifted from one set of religious beliefs and practices to another. At one point in his life he was a polytheist who worshiped a variety of pagan gods—gods of his hometown Naissus in the Balkans, gods of his family, gods connected with the armies he served, and the gods of Rome itself. At another point he was a monotheist, worshiping the Christian god alone. His change may not have been sudden and immediate. It may have involved a longer set of transitions than he later remembered, or at least said. There may have been numerous conversations, debates with others, and reflections within himself. But he dated the event to October 28, 312. At that point he began to consider himself a Christian.1

  The results were tremendous, but not for the reasons often claimed. It is not that Constantine eventually made Christianity the state religion. Christianity would not become the official religion of Rome until nearly eight decades later, under the reign of Emperor Theodosius I. And it is not that Constantine’s conversion was the single decisive turning point in the spread and success of the Christian religion, the one moment that changed all history and made the Christian conquest a success. At the rate it was growing at the time, Christianity may well have succeeded otherwise. If Constantine had not converted, possibly a later emperor would have done so—say, one of his sons. Instead, what made Constantine’s conversion revolutionary was that the imperial apparatus that before then had been officially opposed to Christianity and worked hard, in some regions of the empire, to extirpate it completely suddenly came to support it, promoting Christianity instead of persecuting it. Constantine did not make Christianity the one official and viable religion. He made it a licit religion, and one that enjoyed particular, even unique imperial privileges and funding. This support did indeed advance the Christian cause. The recognition that this faith was now favored from on high appears to have contributed to the already impressive numbers adding to the growth of Christianity, including the conversion of increasing numbers of imperial and local elites whose resources had until then funded (and thus made possible) the religious practices of their pagan world.

  As important as Constantine’s conversion was to the welfare of the Christian movement, it is surprisingly difficult to describe what he converted from. Modern historians of religion who speak of conversion can mean a variety of things by it.2 Possibly it is simplest to keep the meaning broad and use the term to refer to a decided shift away from one set of religious practices and beliefs to another. That certainly happened with Constantine. At a moment that seemed, at least later in hindsight, to be clear and well-defined, he stopped being a pagan and became a Christian.

  Conversion was not a widely known phenomenon in antiquity. Pagan religions had almost nothing like it.3 They were polytheistic, and anyone who decided, as a pagan, to worship a new or different god was never required to relinquish any former gods or their previous patterns of worship. Pagan religions were additive, not restrictive.

  Christians, on the other hand, did require a choice. Converts were expected to forgo the worship of all the other gods and revere the Christian god alone. Only Judaism had similar expectations and demands. Among pagans—that is, among the 93 percent or so of the world that by custom, habit, and inclination worshiped multiple gods—worshiping a range of divine beings was not a religion that anyone chose. It was simply what people did. Being a pagan meant participating in the various religious activities associated with the official state gods, local municipal gods, personal family gods, and any other gods that were known to be involved with human experience. For everyone except Jews, and then Christians, this was more a way of life than a conscious decision. It was a matter of doing what everyone had always done, very much like participating in the life of the local community, with the exception that most people were involved with only one community but could be engaged in the worship of a virtually incalculable number of gods.

  For that reason paganism should not be thought of as a solitary “thing” but as hundreds—thousands—of things.4 Those who practiced traditional religions—in other words, just about everyone—would never have recognized themselves as participating in something called “paganism” or, indeed, any kind of “ism.” There was not a thing there, nothing that could be named so as to sum up the totality of all the non-Jewish religious observances or beliefs or cultic practices of prayer and sacrifice ubiquitous in the culture. No pagan would have understood what it would mean to call themselves pagan. They were simply acting in time-honored ways of worshiping the gods.

  Constantine, like everyone else who was not raised Jewish or Christian, participated in this worship. But he gave it up to follow the one god of the Christians. The narrative of how Constantine became a Christian is both intriguing and complex. It involves issues that we today would consider strictly social and political and other issues that we would consider strictly religious. But in the early fourth century—as in all the centuries of human history before that time�
��these two realms, the sociopolitical and the religious, were not seen as distinct. They were tightly and inextricably interwoven. On just the linguistic level, there were no Greek or Latin terms that neatly differentiated between what we today mean by “politics” and “religion.” On the practical level, the gods were understood to be closely connected with every aspect of the social and political life of a community, from the election of officials, to the setting of the annual calendar, to the laws and practices that governed social relations, such as marriage and divorce, to the administration of civil justice, to the decisions and actions of war, to all the other major decisions of state. The gods were active in every part of social and political life, and the decisions made and actions taken were done in relation to them.

  On the imperial level this meant that it was widely known—and genuinely believed by most—that it was the gods who had made the empire great. The empire responded by sponsoring and encouraging the worship of the gods. Doing so would promote the commonweal. There was no sense that there was, should be, or could be a separation of church and state.

  Starting in the mid-third century, the emperors themselves sensed this full well and acted accordingly. That is why, some years before Constantine converted, the Christian religion had been persecuted by order of the state. The Christians refused to worship or even acknowledge the gods of the empire, claiming in fact that these were evil, demonic beings, not beneficent deities that promoted the just cause of the greatest empire the world had ever known. The refusal to worship was seen by others to be dangerous to the well-being of the empire and thus to the security of the state. And so the decision to persecute—which seems to us, perhaps, to be a strictly religious affair—was at the time inherently sociopolitical as well. The Christians were to be removed like a cancer from the body politic. No emperor came to believe this more firmly—in no small part because of the alarming growth of this cancer—than Constantine’s predecessor on the throne, Diocletian, who instigated the most vicious empire-wide persecution ever seen. Constantine himself was later to rescind the demands of this persecution. But while it was still in process, he converted.