Relations Between The Catholic Church and The State - Catholicism and The Roman Emperors

Catholicism and The Roman Emperors

Christianity emerged in the 1st century as one of many new religions in the Roman Empire. Early Christians were persecuted as early as 64 A.D. when Nero ordered large numbers of Christians executed in retaliation for the Great Fire of Rome. Christianity remained a growing, albeit, minority religion in the empire for several centuries. Roman persecutions of Christians climaxed with the Diocletianic Persecution at the turn of the 4th century. Following Constantine the Great's victory on Milvian Bridge, which he attributed to a Christian omen he saw in the sky, the Edict of Milan declared that the empire would no longer sanction persecution of Christians. Following Constantine's deathbed conversion in 337 all emperors adopted Christianity, except for Julian the Apostate who, during his brief reign, attempted unsuccessfully to re-instate paganism.

In the Christian era (more properly the era of the First seven Ecumenical Councils) the Church came to accept it was the Emperor's duty to use secular power to enforce religious unity, anyone within the Church who did not subscribe to Catholic Christianity was seen as a threat to the dominance and purity of "the one true faith" and they saw it as their right to defend this by all means at their disposal.

Beginning with Edward Gibbon in The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire some historians have taken the view that Christianity weakened the Roman Empire through its failure to preserve the pluralistic structure of the state. Pagans and Jews lost interest and the Church drew the most able men into its organisation to the detriment of the state.

Some historians have argued that the institution of Christianity as the state religion of the Roman Empire mixed secular and temporal power in a way which would lead to problems for both Church and state and which can ultimately only be resolved through the separation of church and state. The question of the proper delineation of church and state remains an open question to this day.