The religions of the Roman Empire and its entire culture were drastically transformed during the fourth century, in such a way that it was modified from the relationship between power and religion to the status of family members. This article will talk specifically about the relationship between Christianity and paganism and its imprint on Roman culture, and is the continuation of a previous one that placed us before a supposed dichotomy between religions during the third century in the Roman Empire. Although each one is self-conclusive in its own way, if historical science is concerned with something, it is to string together in the best possible way the causes and consequences of the evidence that we can verify, then reading both would suppose a more clairvoyant vision of the situation.
We will begin with several statements to illustrate the basic concepts which we will present later:
- political decisions and imperial preferences they had an unparalleled importance in mediating between religions, mainly with some sections of Christianity.
- The Christianity No was made up of a unitary Ideological Theory, and this fact constituted a heavy burden when it came to consolidating power.
- The Christian Churchwhich was consolidated as an institution especially during the third century, was strengthened as an autonomous entity to end up being introduced into the Roman institutional apparatus, thus combining political objectives with its devout purposes of the religious institution.
- Religious change was erected like other analogous culture shocks: as a two-way transfer of thoughts and ideology. (In my personal opinion, we must distance ourselves from the discourses of “winners-losers”, no historical process is so simple).
The structure of the following article will be verified in various points (very synthesized): the nature of imperial power and the most relevant actions of some emperors regarding religions; the state of “Christianities” during this century as an entity outside the government, although interceded by it; the causes, convergences and social and artistic implications of these ideological changes. At each point there is visual material that contribute to symbolically capture the contents, as well as some final conclusions.
NEW SYSTEM, OLD CUSTOMS
Diocletian sat on the throne in the year 284 to 305. Despite beginning his government a few years before the fourth century (after all, an artificial temporal division), he interests us because he was a pioneer in the creation of a new political system: the Tetrarchy. supposed the return of the collegiality to power, that is, that power was redistributed, between four main figures: two characters with the title of Cease and two of Augustus. Even within itself there were hierarchies, since the main holder of the guarantee of the system was the Senior Augustus (Bravo, 1998: 101). They had gone through a long period of internal wars and found in this measure orchestrated by Diocletian a solution that would provide stability.
Well, what do we mean by this information?
We want to show that this unprecedented political and institutional system, which would leave a deep mark on the conception of imperial power, was organized around a pagan and increasingly theogonic conception. This organization was based on filial ties between people and divinities: the eldest of the Augustos was similar, titularly and symbolically, to Iovius (Jupiter, from whose name «Thursday» comes to us, but also to take into account that the genitive in Greek of this divinity is, literally, «God», a term originally related to light); in the same way, the most influential Caesar was Hercules, Hercules (Lomás, 1989: 310), which according to Greco-Latin mythology fulfilled, with more force than ever, the orders of the god of gods.
Although there were some previous attempts, for example with Domitian (1st century), now the emperors begin to make themselves look like dominus et deus, that is, Lord and God, more than loved by the divinity, as they were previously called in their propaganda. This supposes, due to its effectiveness, an unprecedented situation in which the imperial power will be linked to the objectives, blessings and recommendations of pagan divinities (Bravo, 1989: 248). Personal victories would be conceived as victories of the most powerful divinities, who defended their most beloved emperors. The historical vicissitudes began to be interpreted directly in relation to the imperial wills, which were, in essence, those of the divinities that sustained their power.
The distinction in Rome of politics and religion they can never be completely separated, but this close bond was not typical of imperial institutions until now. Thus, the common interests between the government and religious institutions such as the Christian Church maintained a close relationship feeding back and influencing each other, as later Christian models would demonstrate and, however, were already seen in the pagan emperors of the late III and early of IV.
The first steps of the fourth century were taken in pagan terms.
NEW POWERS, NEW DIRECTIONS
The creation of this vision that we usually call theocracy (Teos, God and Kratos, power), must be seen as the product of a development of ideas not so typical of a specific religion as of the two most powerful (and of the context that accompanies them). The Christian emperors will use this same link between earthly and divine goals, but the pagans, as we see, have been doing it too. Religion, which has always been a pillar in the maintenance of the established order (rooted in the concept of people), now it is positioned in the first line.
Even though the image of Diocletian and his companion, the emperor Gallery, It comes to us from Christian authors (lactating Y Eusebius), then his image is not in itself positive (the first says of Galerius that his fierceness is “alien to Roman blood” (9. 1-2), there were various edicts from the 303 who advocated for destruction christian buildings, the prohibition of assembly, the legal invalidity of Christians (Lactantius, Against the Persecutors, 13. 1-2) and the forced need for public sacrificeessence, as we said in the previous article, of respect for the system according to the customs of the Romans (Bravo, 1989: 119).
Actually, these measures were more systematic and violent (not like most of the third century), as evidence shows that at this time there are beginning to be martyrs everywhere. They occurred mainly in the East, but remained until a new religious freedom edict in 311 signed by Galerius himself.
The reasons? Personal illness and an evident Christian strength, which had deeply rooted in different parts of the Empire, mainly in the East, are usually advocated. Christians were found in the military, in the wealthy population… even, perhaps, in the imperial family (Diocletian’s daughter and wife). The named edict of tolerance (Lact. Against the persecutors, XXXIII) allowed rebuild buildings that had been destroyed and return, in a way, to the neutral state that characterized most of the third century.
With this we want to demonstrate that not only paganism was still very present in the institutions, but also that the struggles with Christianity had been of greater dimension than until now. In addition to this, it is important to highlight that it is an important moment since many principles of Christian imperial power would be based on these terms of theocracy, which have their greatest extension with the Tetrarchy and subsequent governments.
A STEP THAT OPENED THE WAY
Everything changed with the next emperor, Constantine, and his colleague Licinius, who signed another an edict of religious freedom that, however, turned Christianity into religion tender: yesin being official (outside the government), it is a cult allowed because it is considered “non-atheist”. This is the famous Edict of Milan (Lactantius, De Mort. Pers. 48), although it was not technically an edict, nor was it signed in that city:
“Considering for a long time that freedom of religion should not be denied, but that reason and the will of each one should be accorded the power to deal with divine things, each according to his preference, we had invited the Christians to that they keep the faith of their sect and their religion.” (“Edict of Milan” in Lomas: 413)
Constantine was enshrined in power according to all pagan traditions. He accepted the honors and procedures that had guided the roman symbology for centuries, and in fact his thinking was quite Neoplatonic (the one who, we remember, believed in the henotheism, that is to say, that a divinity was superior to all the others; the similarities are obvious). However, during his reign his ideas were transformed (the development of his historical context and personal transformation can be seen more extensively in the Article of my partner Natalie: https:///el-emperador-constantino-al-discubierto/).
He did not confront Christianity as gallery did, but their policies They went to one mediation between the christian religious blocks most influential of the moment (Council of Nicaea), which we will talk about later. This well illustrates the change of tone in imperial politics: from the almost absolute indifference of the emperors of the second century to the personal (and preferential) mediation of the beginning of the fourth. Imperial decisions regarding unofficial religions never carried as much weight as now, which were involved due to the obvious extension of Christian influence (Mitchell, 2015: 193).
This attitude of mediator It was changing until it collapsed in one of the best-known episodes of the Low Empire, and just as controversial (the interpretations of these events are long and move away from each other like non-polarized magnets). It is the battle of milvian bridge against an opponent to power, in which, according to the tradition told by the bishop Eusebius and by lactation a posteriorispotted one deity which ensured his victory (Lactantius, On the Death of the Persecutors, 44. 3–6).
We should stop for a second on the importance of the solar gods, especially the Undefeated Sun (as explained in the great thread by Paco González @Paco_Gomgal_Dmc), in Roman beliefs, and how much this symbology interpreted by Christians resembles God). The most surprising representations are found in the inscription of his own triumphal arch (“Under this sign you will succeed”), and which nonetheless shares an iconography common to previous emperors, and the reinterpretation of the episode in a Renaissance painting by
Piero della Francesca:
However, as he would demonstrate in his act of moving the capital from Rome to Constantinopleto an eastern region, there are many modern interpretations that advocate that its Christianization was more a political decision than a personal one, as the no modification of traditional symbols of…