Emperor Constantine

Emperor Constantine

Introduction

For many modern historians, some of the decisions taken by the Emperor Constantine marked the transition from ancient to the medieval world. Constantine ruled the Roman Empire for thirty years until his death at Nicomedia (modern Izmir, Turkey) on May 22, 337. Founder of Constantinople in what was the ancient Greek city of Byzantium, the Orthodox Church he is venerated as a saint, and the Roman Church considers him a great benefactor of the Christian religion that legalized enacting an edict of toleration in the year 313 (Edict of Milan).

Another decision that determined the history of the West in the coming centuries was the reestablishment of Christianity as a state religion adapted to the needs of the Empire, under the guise of a new institutionalized Church, Roman Catholic. Christians, in the future, should not only obedience to God, but the emperor. Paradoxically, with the passing of centuries, ended up being the Christian monarchs who had to render obedience to the popes, heirs of the ancient Caesars, and submit to his will.

Thesis Statement

Constantine's conversion to Christianity in 312 caused Paganistic rituals to decline in the Roman Empire. I will show the status of Christianity before Constantine's act of legalization, the effects it had on Rome and it Paganistic worship as well as the negative consequences of the legalization.

Discussion

The crisis of culture and religion that spanned the Roman Empire in the fourth century, is one of the most important in world history. The ancient pagan civilization came into conflict with Christianity that recognized by Constantine in the early fourth century, was declared by Theodosius the Great, at the end of the century, dominant religion and state religion. Presumably those two elements adversaries, representing two radically opposed concepts, they could, once initiated the struggle, never find occasion to agree and exclude each other. But the reality was quite the opposite. Christianity and pagan Hellenism gradually merged into one unit and gave birth to a Greco-Christian civilization Eastern was named Byzantium. The center of it was the new capital of the Roman Empire: Constantinople.

The main role in the creation of a new state of affairs fell to Constantine. Under his reign, Christianity was recognized, decisively, as the official religion. From the excitement of that the emperor, the old pagan empire began to become Christian. Having got rid of all his political rivals, Constantine summoned the first ecumenical council in the Asian city of Nicaea (Bithynia, now in Turkey) in 325, which legalized the practice of Christianity in the Roman Empire and ended the persecutions. It is considered that this was essential to the expansion of this religion throughout the Mediterranean basin, and historians from Lactantius and Eusebius of Caesarea, to this day, present Constantine as the first Christian emperor, though he lived as a pagan and was baptized to be found on his deathbed. It is said that his colleagues and friends feared him so much that no one dared to touch the corpse until seven days had passed from ...