Ancient Rome and the Catholics

[LausDeoSemper]

Picture this: It's 2000 years ago, the Roman Empire is at the height of it's power. Catholics and christians found on Roman terriroty are crucified as only worship of Roman Gods is allowed.
Now picture this: It's present day. Rome's beautiful corpse is the most important catholic city in the world.
- Was said by a mate of mine.

 

[Bobzer77]

Well technically you could argue Jerusalem or the Vatican, neither are Rome.

You also have to remember that Rome adopted Christianity before it's fall, which is the reason it spread so far.

 

[GundamSentinel]

If you think that's weird, take a look at the history of Jerusalem. Now there's a city that's had a lot of changing of guards and religions.

 

[TheIronRuler]

Picture this: It's 2000 years ago, the Roman Empire is at the height of it's power. Catholics and christians found on Roman terriroty are crucified as only worship of Roman Gods is allowed.
Now picture this: It's present day. Rome's beautiful corpse is the most important catholic city in the world.
- Was said by a mate of mine.

It's all thanks to Constantine. He 'converted' at his death bed, made the church legal and the official church of Rome. Some say that he inserted his image as the image of christ and combined the worship of Apollo with the worship of christ, thus explaining the halo above his head to symbolize the sun - the way Apollo was shown in the arts(sculptures and the like).
If he succeeded, the megalomaniac bastard perpetuated his figure for over two thousand years.

 

[Blunderboy]

Well technically you could argue Jerusalem or the Vatican, neither are Rome.

You also have to remember that Rome adopted Christianity before it's fall, which is the reason it spread so far.

You took the words from my mouth.
Your friend might want to brush up on his history a little bit too.

 

[Deonysus]

Well, after emperor "whats his name" converted the largest and most powerful nation in the world to Christianity, it kind of makes sense that Rome would be some what important.

 

[J. MB]

Well technically you could argue Jerusalem or the Vatican, neither are Rome.

You also have to remember that Rome adopted Christianity before it's fall, which is the reason it spread so far.

Point taken. With the Vatican such close proximity one could still count it apart of Rome in a broad sense. It's just a tad upsetting to see it how it is now as to what it used to be.

 

[TheIronRuler]

Well, after emperor "whats his name" converted the largest and most powerful nation in the world to Christianity, it kind of makes sense that Rome would be some what important.

Actually, after Emperor Constantine did what he did he MOVED the capitol of the roman empire to Constantinople, modern day Istanbul.

 

[Griffolion]

It's not strictly true that worship of only Roman Gods were allowed, because the Roman God's were mainly taken and adapted by Greek philosophy. People were forced to worship the current Caesar as the Son of God, and to show submission to Rome in general were made to take on the mark of Rome in order to trade at markets (essentially keep a living). This was called, in Revelations, the Mark of the Beast (John who wrote Revelations used heavily symbolic apocalyptic language and often compared the Roman Empire, the oppressors of the early church, with Satan and what went on in Hell etc).

Also Catholicism was nowhere to be seen in the early church, it was only after it was adopted and hugely ritualised for the sake of control by the Roman Empire towards its fall that Catholicism sprang up. The early church and first real Christians actually lived incredibly communally, free from any of the denominations we see today, simply because they were united in raw faith in Jesus.

But anyway yes, I see your friends irony. At the end of the day, it's only bricks and mortar. You can tear down every Christian church building in the world, people with a faith in Jesus will simply worship in their houses or in a field or something. The church is the people, not the buildings.

 

[Ghengis John]

To paraphrase Morpheus:
History seems to have a sense of irony.

 

[Deonysus]

Yea, now that you mentions it I do remember him having a small hand in the creation of "Eastern Roman Empire" which would later on break apart from the main Roman Empire.
Still thou, he was a pretty important guy and his decision certainly had an effect on the Eastern Roman Empires religious opinions.

 

[TheIronRuler]

It's all thanks to Constantine. He 'converted' at his death bed, made the church legal and the official church of Rome. Some say that he inserted his image as the image of christ and combined the worship of Apollo with the worship of christ, thus explaining the halo above his head to symbolize the sun - the way Apollo was shown in the arts(sculptures and the like).

Wasn't that because of the Sol Invictus religion? Or is that also asociated with Apollo?

It was to ease the transition.
They didn't know it was Christ, they just saw another dude with a halo - a sun over his head and therefore they thought it was a god.
Yes, they treated Christ at the time (in some places of the Empire) as a god among other gods like Ares.

 

[siahsargus]

It was Emperor Constantine, when he first issued the Edict of Milan. He didn't convert to Christianity before he died - he just held off baptism so that he could be forgiven of all his prior sins before dying.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Catholics and christians found on Roman terriroty are crucified as only worship of Roman Gods is allowed.

Not true.

All sorts of gods could be worshipped in the Roman Empire (before Christianity became the state religion). Sometimes, before fighting someone with different gods, the Romans would pray to them, promising them bigger and better temples if they'd swap sides and let the Romans win...which is a great idea.

However, this only worked on the understanding that there was room for everyone and everyone's gods in the empire. Monotheists, however, believe that everyone else's gods are flat out wrong...the Christians could not reconcile tolerance of other religions with their own faith, and caused all sorts of trouble, leading to terrible persecution in response (I don't think crucifiction of Christians was the popular method of killing them, though).