Compare the Arch of Titus to the Arch of Constantine. How does the Arch of Constantine reveal a changing cultural context?…
When reviewing the histories of the religions of Christianity and Buddhism, you can not help but come across the names of Ashoka and Constantine the Great. Even though Ashoka and Constantine aided in the spread of their empires and respective religions they had different reasons for doing so. Constantine, the son of a Roman Army officer was trained as a solider early on in his life. While he was growing up the role of emperor changed hands many times. Until and Roman general name Diocletian seized the throne…
However, like most Christians, an understanding of his own Christianity would have most likely increased. It is clear that he supported Christianity because he believed the experience he had was divine and the victory his troops had won would not have been possible without the help of God. It does appear to be clear that Constantine’s conversion was convenient for his own aspirations; he did support a unity and “harmony” of the church and state and he pursued and implemented policies to end Christian persecutions and provide an inclusiveness and flexibility for Christians and extended poser to the authority of the church and his subjects.12 It may be prudent to hold judgment regarding the validity or authenticity of Constantine’s Christianity when one understands Constantine’s motives or actions. One such action which leads one to judgment is the fact that Constantine delayed his own baptism until near his death in 337 and that Constantine had his wife, Fausta, and his son Crispus murdered for political reasons. However, in Constantine’s mind, such actions may not have been contradictory but a necessity of the responsibly he may have felt for the religious welfare of his subjects and the state along with personal weakness from being simply human, despite his conversion. Individuals within scripture were at times no different. King David and Moses come to…
Constantine is viewed as one of the greatest men to ever live. According to the Orthodox Church, they consider him as great as the holy Apostles. Writer of Church and Empire, John Meyendorff states, “No single human being in history has contributed…to the conversion of so many to the Christian faith.” [1] Similar to the thoughts of Meyendorf, Hardenbrook writes in his article the fact that Constantine was able to make such a huge impact on Christianity and assisting in thousands of converts by being outside of the churches four walls rather than in them. Better yet, he did all of that without fully committed to the Christian faith until near death (HArdenbrook, 2006).…
The decline of China and Rome both shared similar economic strife in that they were both subject to barbarian and nomadic invasions, therefore having to spend large amounts of money on frontier defense; however, they differed in that the Han Empire collapsed in part due to the high taxes imposed on the peasant class resulting in a large peasant rebellion, such as the Yellow Turbans, while in Rome tax collections was in danger of abandonment as residents of the empire were few in number and in financial difficulty. In addition, the two empires were similar socially because of large epidemics, diseases, and plagues that caused a population decrease. Also, both experienced a cultural decay in intellectual creativity and innovations. Differences appear in that China shared common culture, such as the Chinese script, while Rome was more fragmented causing a less severe fall in China than Rome. Politically, the falls of both…
What Motivated Vladimir I to convert to Christianity and how did the new religion change the culture of Eastern Slavs?…
Although the Catholic Church started in Rome, Christianity was not the first religion practiced there. Like Greece, the Romans’ first religion was polytheistic; they worshipped the same gods as the Greeks but gave them Roman names and added a few gods too. Zeus became Jupiter, Hera became Juno, and Athena became Minerva. Also, some emperors were considered to be deities which influenced political power in Rome. Later on during the expansion of the empire, the popularity of religions such as Christianity and Judaism were on the rise. Certain emperors saw Jews and Christians as a threat to the empire, resulting in the Jewish Wars and the persecution of Christians. All of this would end though, following the Edict of Milan in 313 CE under the…
Roman religion and Christianity both express many similar foundational and structural ideas. Romans and Christians share the same base of strong moral as well as respect for authority. The Roman family’s shrines to the gods although not exactly the same is very similar to Jesus’s followers enamored by his teachings, and in turn was very cult-like. They were passionate about their gods, and needed to express that. Both religions believe in sacrifice. Roman’s would sacrifice themselves, food, and objects in order to please the gods, while Jesus sacrificed himself for humanities sins, others who followed in Jesus’s footsteps were considered Martyrs. Another similarity belongs in the hierarchy and social status, Rome was very structured with the patron-client system, which focused on respect. The hierarchy of Christianity was focused on doctrine and keeping internal strife at bay, as did Rome’s hierarchy.…
At the time and throughout his life, Constantine was not a Christian convert until immediately prior to his death. But he had been known prior to the battle and subsequently, as one who did not favor persecution of the Christians. He was not the first to advocate this tolerance of Christians, as part of a political tactic. It is also difficult to understand why Constantine would pursue the political course of declaring Christianity the religion of the Roman Empire. The path to political power in the Roman Empire since Caesar had been to court the support of the Roman soldiers first.…
Charlemagne was way ahead of his time in many aspects. Though granting the church complete independence he watched over their actions like a vulture flying over fresh death . Promoting social stability and implementing hierarchical order in addition with being seen through spectacles of reverence, this was a huge advantage to himself using the church as a backbone to lay his own foundation. Charlemagne holds a unique position in the history of the Christian church. If he had not stood on his bloodthirsty ways of brutal conversion would the Christian church be what it is today? It brings rise to the possibility of a entire religion being executed just how his many victims who denied conversion to Christianity were. In a different aspect Charlemagne reformation of education…
This is where he was met with a tough decision. Many of the emperors who had severed before him followed numerous gods and were deceived by promises of prosperity. On the other hand, honoring the one Supreme God throughout his whole life, he found him to be the Protector of his empire. During the Battle of the Milvian Bridge (312) Constantine’s faith took a strange twist. He said that about mid-day, when the sun was beginning to decline, he saw with his own eyes the trophy of a cross of light in the heavens, above the sun, and bearing the inscription, CONQUER BY THIS (Eusebius 27). Later Constantine had a dream where, “Christ appeared to Constantine and instructed him to place the heavenly sign on the battle standards of his army” (Pohlsander). The heavenly sign was known as the Labarum and it had become the new battle standard. When he woke from his dream he placed the sign of Christ on every soldier’s shields. Under the emblem of Christ Constantine was extremely successful in battle. Constantine and Licinius met at Milan and issued the so called Edict of Milan, confirming Galerius' edict of 309, which stated that Christianity would be tolerated throughout the empire. The edict in effect made Christianity a lawful religion, although it did not, as is sometimes believed, make Christianity the official state religion (Pohlsander). Constantine…
Humans are social animals and they tend to act in manner of the majority just because they want to fit in. Having lived as a community for over thousands of years, Humans have gradually but constantly developed themselves toward collective behaviors. All the acts were derived from beliefs that had risen in specific periods or passed along the generations. However, because of the improvement of philosophy, logical mindset had been applied. Not only faiths were used to make decisions but so were reasons. In the age of early Christianity, the religion of Jesus was forbidden and illegal for many years. Then, Emperor Constantine just simply turned to Christian and made it official. He claimed that he saw a vision that turned his life around. In contrast, his conversion gained him absolute political power. Until these days, it is still debatable whether Constantine's conversion to Christianity was due to political reason or religious one.…
A worshipper of the Greek Orthodox religion believes in the old Christian ways. ‘Orthodox’ means, “correct belief” in Greek, which emphasizes that the religion is devoted to the original faith. After Jesus died, Paul of Tarsus took the Christian message to Asia, Minor (Turkey), and to Greece and Rome. The Greek Emperor Constantine was the first ruler to accept the Christian faith. Constantine gave the Christian Greeks the freedom to worship openly, gave them special privileges, and built the first great Christian churches. The role of the Greek Orthodox Church is maintaining Greek ethic and cultural identity, as they did during the 500 years of Ottoman rule, which has only strengthened the bond between religion and government. The religion became orthodox in the eighth century when the Pope of the Roman Catholic Church and the Patriarch of Constantinople came into conflict, a time known as Schism. Among the Christians and Roman Catholics, the two figures were known to be equal in power, but, because the Pope believed he held power over the entire church, and the Patriarch believed a council should make matters of faith, the two churches separated. Since then, the Greek Christians, now known as…
Constantine I was an iconic Roman emperor whose impact on Christianity will never be forgotten. Constantine has been given several names including Constantine the Great and “the first Christian emperor”. Many don’t know that Constantine was originally named Flavius Valerius Constantinus. He was the first Christian emperor and made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire.…
The crosses were means of torture and painful deaths. The crosses were kept up not to represent Jesus, but what Jesus did once. Through visions, Constantine sees Jesus, and he decided to put the cross on shields. The cross represents that your lord and savior died for my sins, and I wear it as his sacrifice. If Constantine would have never had this vision, would Christianity still have spread, and Jesus would play an important figure as he does today?…