Did the transition to Christianity weaken the Roman Empire?
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Clarification at minute mark 2:16: Actually this is not entirely correct, the Roman mythology was not a direct copy of the Greek one. The Romans in the early days had their own deities, probably similar to the Etruscan gods, and gradually became influenced by the Greeks, so that they later started identifying their own gods with the Greek ones. This sentence is thus a bit over-simplified and will need a bit more exploration in a separate video.
Furthermore, even the gods which corresponed with the Greek counterparts were different in some aspects. Let's take for example Mars and Ares. While Ares was an unpopular god of battle frenzy and bloodlust, Mars was a highly popular god of prudent warfare and also a patron of farmers.
Also @3:44 t
Christianity did not have any rules about abortion in the early religion. It was a restriction that came in the 18th centry from the catholic church. That was not taken to siriously until the mid 19th century.
Also less than a minute later he tLks about christianity treating every human life as precious. But somehow neglected to talk about how murderous the religion is.
Thid fucking guy...
just a tip here on how not to offend. Say you are against these particular christians not christianity itself.
You saying you were against early christianity is like people saying they are against modern islam because of terrorist attacks. Its much better to say you are against those muslims that preach violence, or those christians who did bad things and used their faith to justify it.
@@mike-mz6yz It's perfectly fine, and he has every right, to disagree with Christianity and/or the Mohammedan religion. It was a brilliant video in my opinion.
@@robertmacdonald6527 no you can disagree with any religion you want, thats completely fine. My point is dont tie the evil actions of followers to the religion. Jesus for example treats none believers as friends and teaches to be kind to them yet christians killed people that didnt follow their version of christianity.
The faith (any faith) isn't the problem its the men and women in power that twist it to get people to do horrible things.
Very interesting video, I would like to hear more about the persistence of “paganism” in the western part of the empire
4:45 The episode of Constantine from the BBC show "Ancient Rome: The Rise and Fall of an Empire" did a great job portraying Constantine's attempts to legalize christianity despite the massive opposition of the Senate. The final scene in which the hypocrate Constantine recites the christian creed while ordering the murder of his sister's family always give me chills!
What he did was justified. Sacrifices have to be made for the greater good.
@@kateofone But he previously "spared" Licinius in public in order to show the people of Rome the benevolence and mercy of christianity. Only a massive d*uche would have done that. Also, killing his own nephew was completely unnecesary
@@TetsuShima I’m a huge fan of him doing that. His manipulation tactics are admired.
@@kateofone woman moment.
Didn't he also murdered his wife and son after the two tried to shoot the first step-mom/step-son video?
Would like to see a video on Ptolemies
Alexandria was known and documented for several large clashes between pagans and Christians in the 4th and 5th centuries CE
Oh well, now Paganism is making a comeback again.
I am not sure that Christianity had anything to do with declining birthrates. In the Late Republic and Early Empire plenty of Latin authors were already complaining about declining birthrates. Augustus created laws that punished people who were not married or married without children. The Lex Papia Poppaea in 9AD punished people who were celibate after a certain age. It is more likely that Christianity was blamed for a much older problem. It is also important to mention low birthrates was primarily an issue in the upper classes and nobility, and therefore did likely not affect the overall strength of the Roman Empire.
Low birth rates were due to Romans having ovulation totally wrong, and the fact that elites rarely had sex except to have children (as often the men were decades older than their wives)
Naturally this is a very tricky subject, because we don't know what would have happened had Christianity not become official. However, at least 2 points leap straight to mind:
Firstly, the staunchly Christian eastern Roman Empire lasted for 1000 years after its Christianisation, which is far longer than most empires last.
Secondly, Rome had been on the decline since the Crisis of the Third Century. Christianity was perhaps a symptom of this decline (which perhaps created a cultural void for it to fill, and weakened the effectiveness of state opposition) rather than its cause.
This is why I believe Christianity strengthened the Empire (at least during Constantine’s day) until Theodosius where different Christian factions (some heretical) fought each other politically and physically.
Agreed with your points, however I would take issue with the fact that the empire was in decline since the 3rd century crisis. Many now believe the 4th century Roman empire the strongest it had ever been (economic, political and military reforms), which all makes its 5th century collapse so preplexing.
@@LordWyatt Christianity was certainly what made Rome's legacy so powerful. The main connection of the Western world to ancient Rome is largely through its creation of Christian civilisation.
@@alfredosauce1 I've never heard that before. Thanks for the insight - I'll look into it.On observing the power of Rome under Justinian, right through to the 7th century when Heraclius inflicted heavy defeats on the Persians, it's certainly possible that the empire in the 4th century was stronger than we've been led to believe.
it’s almost like they had to adopt Christianity the more legitimacy Senate and empire lost. From my understanding how powered was bestowed used to be you know through the Senate and then it was through the church. Add its core room was expansionist when it couldn’t expand there was no Roam. From slavery to some what slavery a.k.a. feudalism
The answer to the question in the title is more complicated than most people think. By the time of Constantine, the Roman Empire was already having problems. Just as all empires eventually do Rome would have fallen at some point no matter what. Some scholars believe that by Constantine legalizing Christianity he actually saved the empire which for a century before was already pulling itself apart. A little over 100 years after the time of Constantine the empire in West did fall, but the Eastern part of the empire would actually survive and at times even thrive for the next 1000 years as a Christian Empire (don't forget the name Byzantine is a modern concept, the people of Constantinople and in the Eastern parts of the empire thought of themselves as Roman until the very end in 1453).
Japan after 2600 years of existence : sure dude
But for a good whack of time (12th to 19th centuries) the Japanese emperor was a powerless figurehead and the country was either under the control of military dictators or feuding samurai warlords. And only from the 1890s to the 1940s did the Japanese actually succeed in expanding overseas. Remember how that turned out for them in the end.
@@NapoleonAquilaJapan has fractured and reunited several times over history, lasting hundreds of years on occasion.
The Roman Empire ended on 340 A.D upon Constantine's proclamation of a "New Rome" on the soil of Byzantium; birthing The Byzantine Empire as a successor state. This was all but codified following the Edict of Nicaea & the designation of Jesus as the state & martial patron. What the denizens of Byzantium refer to themselves as means little, historical LARP holds no weight; the HRE also attempted to assume a Roman identity.
Also, whilst The Byzantine Empire did experience periods of thriving, these were only judged as such in comparison to the slow bureaucratic rot & decay which was the rule for the majority of Byzantine history; they would never experience anything close to the magnitudes of heights seen during the Pax Romana.
@@KevinJohnson-cv2no But they WERE romans.
"What the denizens of Byzantium refer to themselves as means little, historical LARP holds no weight"
But they were part of the empire before the fall of the west, why would they no longer be romans because the west fell?
If you were French, for example, and half of your country got conquered, would you no longer be French?
I‘m sure you are aware of it, but just simplified it:
The roman gods were NOT copys of the greek gods. The original roman gods were very different. The cultural contact with the etruscians and the greeks caused of course a mixture of different properties attributed to the same gods. The roman custom of taking non roman gods, and just saying: „yeah, your god x is badically just our god y“ to made romanisation easier, is one of the reasons many today believe exatly that:D
A sry, didnt read your clarification before writing the comment
The rise of Christianity is associated with the breakdown of Roman social cohesion as economic, military, climatic, and epidemiological (plagues) setbacks accelerated from the late second century onward. People gave up on the old verities as their lives worsened in real terms, so looked elsewhere for answers. A symptom far more than a cause. Note that once adopted as the state religion, it changed entirely, becoming an effective bulwark of imperial rule in the East.
I think there is more to it then that. We cant think of religion with our modern sensibilities. There was no division between state and faith. The whole roman world was built around their gods. Christianity was not just a different religion it was a different way of living and looking at the world around you.
Its for sure not the main cause of the collapse, but you cant be both a christian and a good roman citizen.
@@mike-mz6yz Really? 1,000 years of the Christian Roman East proves the opposite. All organized religions are expressions of the social and historic developments of their time and place.
Bit like today with the Modern day Climate cult..
The real Bulwark was the succession law that connects with Christianity perfectly, as Rule of the King is holy as gods chosen.
True because Christianity and to be specific all Abrahamic faiths were very orthodox in nature they didn't respect other people's faith and thought only their god is true and other are not real and all and tried forcing their ideals on people which broke down social order.
Also Rome before Christianity was surprisingly religiously tolerant of different faiths so was the mongol Empire before it fell for another one of the Abrahamic faiths that's islam
The Roman Empire was on the ropes well before Christianity became a real factor. Credit Sol Invictus (and Aurelian) for cobbling it back together for a time. By the time of Constantine, you can see how the art, architecture, etc., were already slipping. Gone were the days of "I found Rome a city of brick and left it a city of marble," replaced by the days of "barbarians tore the marble off some of the buildings, but I got it back and we have five years to rebuild before I get killed in the next civil war."
I noticed from around Constantine and towards the beginning of the 6th century, Roman sculpture and art began to look more unrealistic and sloppy. Christianity was not the main factor in Rome's decline, but one of the more bigger factors (among other things).
@@sufficientmagister9061 Yeah, if you go to Rome today, even some of the art on the Arch of Constantine next to the colosseum is stolen from previous times, and Constantine's own artwork in some of the museums is... cartoonish? It's hard for me to listen to an argument about Christianity causing the downfall when things were clearly already sloppy when Christianity was legalized.
@@kilroy1976
Although Roman sculpture and art were degenerating, Christianity definitely contributed to the art and sculpture degenerating faster. Around the time of Constantine to the time of Heraclius, Christianity had a strong influence. Christianity was not the main cause of Rome's decline, but it was one of many greater factors that quickened Rome's decline, especially regarding culture, art, philosophy and science. Richard Carrier has a few books about the Roman Empire; he examines the role Christianity played in the Imperium Romanum.
The Roman empire, didnt fall in 476AD. Only the city of Rome. It was the most influencial and longest running empire, in world history. Glittering Constantinople, was the wealthiest city on the planet, often refered as the jewel of Europe. It was the capital of the superpower of its day.
The Roman Empire was the longest running empire, and for over a thousand years, of the empire was Greek, and Christian. There was NO western Roman Empire. There was no seperate, ‘Eastern’ Roman Empire. There was only ONE Roman Empire. Eastern was also used as another word for Greek, in this case, saying Eastern , meaning Greek, Roman Empire, is accurate. Perhapw, it was western when Latin Rome was the capital, but it later moved to Greek Constantinople. You could also say, within the single Empire, there was an eastern and western part, as you could say there was a southern and northern part. What we have all been falsely taught of, that the Eastern Roman Empire was one of two,..is in fact, THE one and ONLY Roman Empire. The Roman empire was overwhelmingly Greek and Christian. Early on, for a short time, it was pagan, with its capital in Rome, in the west, when it still had lots of Latin influence, and later, for the overwhelming majority of time the empire, was Greek, and Christian with its capital moved to the east, …Constantinople. The capital had already moved, way BEFORE, the city, (not the empire) of Rome fell, in the west, in 476AD, which was later retaken anyway. It was aways a single empire…The Roman Empire.
Majorianus saying that Christianity made societal divide which is true but then it's a normal thing in the Roman Empire because civil war and Roman on Roman action is a national past time for us Romans
While I always appreciate those who have an interest in Rome, and I appreciate the author’s attempt to be unbiased, I have to say, you’re still, unfortunately, extremely biased because you’re relying on foundational historical frameworks/lenses of analysis written by enlightenment era liberal historians who had a gripe to pick with Christianity and Protestants from the same era who wanted to criticize the Roman Catholic Church and Pope.
The Western Roman Empire fell because:
1. A system that relied too heavily on the power of the Emperors (a product of the Crisis of the Third Century and Diocletian’s reforms)
2. Weak Emperors (after Theodosius the Great) who couldn’t effectively wield that power because they were either children or struggled to establish legitimacy. Aetius and Majorian both proved how the Western Roman Empire still was capable of social/military resistance until the end so long as the military was concentrated in the hands of effective rulers. Both were assassinated due to legitimacy issues, Majorian an emperor himself and Aetius killed because he was perceived to threaten the Emperor.
3. Demographically, by the 2nd century the Empire had become the prey of foreign powers who now had the agricultural and civic advancements, brought to them by Rome, to sustainably grow large populations. The Empire’s birth rates, which originally allowed them to conquer so much of Western Europe, had already maximized themselves. The old meat grinder tactics which the legions relied on simply couldn’t work against enemies who could wield the same or more numbers of disciplined troops.
4. Byzantium proves Christianity acted as a bulwark, not an internally destructive force, because it lasted for another thousand years. The Byzantine Empire showed multiple times that given enough time, the Romans' superior organization, discipline, and ability to “bounce back” would allow them to defeat almost any foe. However, Byzantine history was racked with the same legitimacy issues, civil wars, and multifront foes which caused the fall of the West. Nevertheless, they never wavered in their dedication to Christ. On the contrary, their Christian identity acted almost as a quasi-renewed nationalism reminiscent of the early Roman period when individuals dedicated their civic contributions to the nation out of a deep devotion to the Church, which of course at the time was intricately linked to the state.
What I’m trying to say is it appears you’re leaning very heavily on the classical period of Roman history and adopting Gibbon’s framework for viewing Roman history (which of course is negative to the Christian “Byzantine” period). However, a deeper investigation of the Roman state throughout the Middle Ages will demonstrate that Christianity, far from acting as a destructive force within the Empire, is actually a huge reason why it continued to survive.
Additionally, I would note, Rome almost fell during the Crisis of the Third Century. It was, without exaggeration, "a miracle" that Aurelian and his predecessors were able to achieve what they did. History didn’t necessarily *need* to turn out that way. This was a time when Christianity existed but was a minor cult mainly constrained to the Eastern Mediterranean. This suggests there was other, political and socio-economic factors that plagued the Empire in a more concrete way then those “started” by Christianity.
Agreed, I had this discussion in another video. This guy has subliminally showed he has some biased agenda against Christianity. It appears to basically be a repackaging of the same attempts the Enlightenment/Secularist historians had against Catholicism. Modern historians really don't put much credence to the whole "Christianity weakened Rome" idea because there is just no hard evidence for it. Besides the political and economic factors you mentioned that weakened Rome, there is also the fact that there is no evidence of any major conflicts between Christianity and Pagan communities. Thousands of pagan temples have been found with only a handful showing any signs of burning or violent destruction. Yet secularists keep proposing this lie that later Roman times had Christian death squads getting into violent clashes with pagans, this never happened (maybe except for Alexandria).
Well said
Beautifully put
He also ignores the civil wars of 388 and 394 which significantly weakened the Western Roman Empires ability to defend itself.
I wonder, why Western Rome never invented the succession law? Like in monarchies, Like in Eastern Rome. That would solve most problems with legitimacy. Also why late emprors didnt invade Rome to prove themself like Caesar? Majorian didnot do that. Why Emperors kept Senate alive? It was the source of constant danger for them and Empire. For example Peter the great (Russian 1 Emperor) closed the Boyar Duma by force.
in short Pauline Christianity was a trojan horse to the gentiles: by way of deception thou shalt do war .
The anwser its obvious. And is YES.
Nope
Defending yourself by saying your criticisms are only of early Christianity is not a very good defense. Most Christians believe that the closer to the time of Jesus the faith was, the truer it was.
Meanwhile, you gloss over the fact that the Western Empire fell to Christian Germanic tribes and that the Eastern Empire lasted for another millennium as Christian.
Christianity required the Empire to adapt its institutions. Geopolitically, it was, at worst, a net zero loss/gain.
@@JohnDoe-ov5ysChristian-ness and Roman-ness became very intertwined quite quickly, to the point where in certain regions ‘Roman’ came to mean ‘Christian.’
@@JohnDoe-ov5ys But you can make the same argument about the rise of the empire. Rome was a republic among monarchies and with asscention of Augustus it's lost it. In the 2nd century BC it was scandalous for a roman politician to speek greek and the conservatists wanted to combat greek influances in Rome. Culture is not a stelar thing it changes and evolve constantly.
@@JohnDoe-ov5ys A residual entity? Eastern roman empire was one of the longest lasting political enitites in human history, also being very roman, very imperial and very christian throughout its existence. In the west Roman Catholic Church preserved a lot roman traditions and texts through the middle ages. They were such roman fanboys, that they still wear roman style dress and speak and write latin. If it werent for them our knowledge of roman antiquity would be reduced to reading from stone fragments in the ruins of Roman forum.
@@JohnDoe-ov5ys Not sure who specifically you’re responding to with that comment, but an ad hominem attack on someone else’s faith is not the most convincing argument.
@@JohnDoe-ov5ys "His" people? LOL. The Romans ABANDONED their native paganism in favor of a foreign religion all the way back before Rome was even relevant. A ton of Romans adopted zany Persian and Anatolian gods long before they adopted the Semitic god of Yahweh. And trying to lump all IE faiths into being the same "religion" is laughable cope.
I think that the decline had more to do with economic inequities and shortsighted economic policies. Roman rule was always based on brutality. But in the early empire it also managed to provide a general and unifying prosperity. By the time of Diocletian that was no longer the case. The "Empire" was a conceptual abstraction for an "international" class of ultra rich who had long lost the habit of civic magnanimity. Their internecine "culture wars" were largely irrelevant to everyone else. Egypt was virtually a slave society. Elsewhere , for peasants and even the provincial bourgeoisie, the Empire was simply an engine of corrupt or rapacious taxation. Of course, plagues had an impact; but among the survivors there was no "Rome" worth fighting for. IMO. (P.S. And no, I don't mind that you restate Gibbon's theory about Xtianity being the cause. He was far less charitable than you... :) )
Yeah, exactly. It is ridicioulous that people would ignore real material and system issues to blame an idea. Like really, did Christianity implement the devaluing of coins that was rampant in like the 3rd Century, did Christianity implement them not moving agricultural base to northern Europe its like we're ignoring real on the ground realities for abstract issues.
A video on Julian would be great. I’m sure many past, especially medieval, historians have ignored or diminished his achievements because he was “The Apostate”.
Thanks a lot again for your thoughtful comments Kimberly :) A video on Julian will be prepared!
@@Maiorianus_Sebastian i Will glad a video about Alexander severus, the most underrated emperor.. if he had a more loyal army,or a co emperor,or alemannic tribes didn't attack in that time,he could had vassalized sassanid empire..hatra Armenians and parthians nobles joined his side
@@Maiorianus_Sebastian he was also good as military command..
Even Byzantine Emperors or Medieval Roman Emperors have a negative opinion about Julian the Apostate
@@justinianthegreat1444
A huge portion of it due to him being a "pagan"; however, Renaissance, Enlightenment (both comprising the early modern period) had more positive views of Julian. It is not suprising that many Medieval (and Byzantine) historians had negative views of Julian; the Jewish memeplex of Christianity was dominant during that time period, unfortunately.
And don't forget Augustine on the subject:
"Augustine's response in writing to the charge that Christianity was to blame for the fall of Rome appeared in 413 in a work titled The City of God. In this work he argued that although Rome had suffered a great demise, God was actively at work in human history, that Rome was not eternal as some people had thought but had been destined to decay. Augustine claimed that Rome had been influenced both by God and by demons, that worldliness, a lust for material goods and violence were rooted in impulse and had made Rome wicked. Rome, he wrote, was based on self-love, robbery, violence and fraud. The Romans, he claimed, were the most successful brigands in history. Viewing Roman culture, Augustine described slavery and private property not as the creations of God but of sin. Christianity could not save Rome, he wrote, because those with power, including Christian emperors, could not erase the taint of humanity's sin. Rome, he wrote, had to perish as had the wicked cities of the Old Testament. Augustine described history as changing the world visually, like a kaleidoscope, and that history was linked with the wisdom of God as the prophets had claimed - links that humanity could not understand because it could not see the whole, as could God. God, he claimed, ordered all events. Augustine claimed that without the coming of Jesus Christ history would have been meaningless. He described pagans such as Platonist philosophers as having failed to understand the sequence of history or its appointed end: Armageddon." excerpt from www.fsmitha.com/h1/ch25.htm
Pretty words, but the Vandals (who were Arians and not even good Orthodox Christians) were about to conquer his city as Augustine lay dying a few years later. And the Vandals did almost nothing of merit until Justinian retook the city, which was finally lost to the Muslims. Nice job helping to usher in the Dark Ages though, Auggie.
@@julianhermanubis6800 What is a life without heart and spirit? Who has these has life. Those same territorial gains you speak of changed into more hands than you list.
@@julianhermanubis6800 i mean he was right, nothing last forever not even the west europe which was far greater than rome. Its just the state of civilization to decay and die at one point
@@yonathanrakau1783 it basically took a thousand years until most of Western Europe was back on the same level of material culture as the Roman Empire had been at its height, and, yes, obviously, modern Europe is far beyond anything the Empire accomplished. But the fall of the WRE stalled Europe for centuries.
@@julianhermanubis6800 Not really the eastern Empire still held onto the accomplishments and innovated beyond the western empire when it fell. Europe was not stalled for centuries because of Rome's fall.
The whole thousand years stagnation is a myth.
Patently not: Constantinople, the imperial capital of the Roman world was, specifically, founded upon Constantine's view of Christianity .. chiefly as a useful cement with which to build his own renewed (Diocletian/ Pre-Diocletian) Romanitas, itself based on the wreckage left from the collapse of the Aurelian restoration of Roman political unity (in religion, civil service, and central imperial domain). Not all (nor even many) Christians were in the least bit 'passivist' (in the later Non-Conformist Protestant sense), indeed they were not in any way hostile to Roman, imperial, or dominial rule .. only being opposed to State control of how the Church worked, as a global and local assembly (even the natural limits of this separation of State from Church were long recognised, under Aurelius for instance appeals were made to the emperor - no Christian btw - to restore church property to its legitimate Christian owners, in a dispute between two Christian leaders). Very few Christian civil servants, city fathers, or wealthy stakeholders did, in fact, withdraw from the distinctly Roman way of doing things .. what collapsed in upon itself was, for the most part, a willingness of the land-owning gentry to continue to pay (through the teeth) for the privilege of keeping up failing central authority (repairing roads, feeding armies, building monuments, giving games, running for political offices et al) - all with virtually no financial or civic comeback (in being able to gouge money out the imperial purse or from the local farmers).
As for Julian, his efforts to invent a Pagan 'church' type structure to rival the Christians, rather than merely permit the older State-funded priesthoods and ad hoc private cults to revive or fail as popularity waxed or waned, with vast hecatombs to gods that were not especially revered (or even wanted), was considered fanciful or even a folly by the many non-Christians of his day; the philosophical mood and its mindset was not impressed by its grosser materialism. The polytheism of Aurelian and Galerius was a great deal more ethereal and customary than that of Julian, he was rather more akin to the disjointed pious antiquarianism of Claudius than the vigorous self-adulation of Nero; none of his ideas fitted in especially well with the Neo-Platonism popular among Christian and non-Christian thinkers alike.
As for monks being universally against fighting, violence, or even aggression .. that sits very uneasily with the reality found in the ancient texts, cf Alexandria, Cyril, and Hypatia; the Maccabees - as tough a lot of soldiers as you'd not like meet up a dark alley on a battlefield as you can imagine - were very well thought of; monks, by law, were not usually armed (for very good reasons); Christians could and did fight for Rome, and against her.
;o)
And also the Praetorian guard. Many of them betrayed the emperor but the later Varangian Guard were very loyal to the emperor till the end when Rome fell under Constantine XI.
It means that Constatine should went further, destroy Senate and subdue Western Rome.
Christians did refuse to integrate into the Roman army and administrative services since they did not see the emperor as a god. Later, they would remove whatever meritocracy there was by banning ”pagans” from the army and public office. I’m sure the abrahamic polarization led to the weakening of the traditional social cohesion. After all, why would a ”pagan” want to serve a christian state that oppresses his rights?
@@Reddy26 Not quite; Sergius and Bacchus, for instance, were senior officers and Christians in the Roman army - true they did not pinch incense to the emperors but their actual downfall was via the effect that their faith had on the work of the imperial priesthood (Diocletian knew he was no god, but he would not tolerate defiant interference with his servants .. especially in the army - his main claim to power). Pagans, heretics, atheists etc all continued to serve in the Roman armies until the time of Theodosius, and even after his religious decrees elevating Christianity to the State Religion (pagan Franks served faithfully alongside Arian heretics and philosophical atheists and Rome's Catholics against the Huns, Aetius' armies of the 450s were decidedly diverse in their make up, and rather successful .. temporarily).
Rome's moral, social and imperial cohesion 'collapsed' swiftly, or rather it evaporated over a long period - in much the same way as the British empire disappeared almost overnight - but gradually, because most of those in power did not really 'believe' in its continued (commercial) viability, and so, eventually, it faded, crumbled, broke apart, clung on, re-imagined itself, and became something quite different to what it had been (or was imagined to have been).
History is odd that way.
;o)
No, this is a meme from the time of Gibbon. If anything Christianity helped homogenize the culture from localized pagan cults loosely tied together via syncretism.
As you correctly point out in your excellent videos on the decline of the WRE, the Romans as usual were always fighting each other, depleting their own manpower, as wave of barbarian migrants entered the country.
Essential brought down by the same factors that were never resolved after the 3rd century crisis (regarding succession and legitimacy) party why I admire Diocletian's tetrarchy as an attempt to resolve that issue. It failed, but that was the issue for the WRE in the 5th century, it was the issue for the ERE at Manzikert and in 1204. Internal squabbling in the face of greater outside threats. Tragic as the world would be much better off with the Roman empire
I came here to say the exact same thing. We really need to stop taking Gibbon as seriously as we do. He was writing in a time when it was vogue to have an unreasonable bias against Christianity and the Medieval era
@@tiberiuscodius5828 believe it or not, some people come to this conclusion independently of Gibbon. It's difficult to see a cult with mostly opposite values to the Roman Empire's sweep through said Empire, and the Empire falling afterwards, and not see some sort of link between the two.
@@joemerino3243 Doesn't matter if they came to it independent of Gibbon, because they still use the same fallacious reasoning. The idea of "opposite values" being a detriment to the Empire is again itself just another example of overrated importance to old beliefs, and this was nothing new. Even since the last republican times, Roman authors were already complaining that the end was near b/c Romans had lost their "virtues".
Modern Christianity is peaceful?? Meet any north american evangelical fundamentalist sometime. Oh, wait; you already have in the comments.
I dont think at all that the christianity has something to do with the fall of the roman empire.
Roman empire at that time was in a point of never return the system needed heavily reforms plus the fall already begun after the Pax Romana ended so no arguments can lead to say that chirstianity influenced the falling of the roman empire .
The end of pax romana it's because of Christianity
Gibbons "Decline and fall" gets it wrong... Christianity had nothing to do with the fall of Rome...
Rome fell because the average Roman no longer wanted to serve in the Legions. This decline in patriotism led to relyance to mercenary soldiers who no longer had real dicipline and felt loyality only to their paymasters...
Italian historian Indro Montanelli in his "History of Rome" defended the same argument.
But he is a problematic figure with links to fascism (he changed his mind in 1943 and fought against them ) and married a child bride during Italian invasion of Ethiopia.
Sorry if I fall in some redundancies because I did not watch the entire video yet; At some time in my life, while reading Escohotado's magna opera, The enemies of commerce (you better lose your ass running to read it, I think it's already translated to English) I ended up figuring that in fact, Christianity was not The or A cause of Roman collapse, it was pretty much of a symptom. See, Christianity preached the poor's way of life, that life of accepting the suffering in hope of an eternal life after this one, a word of submission and dispossession. It is somewhat curious, that until the start of III century Christianity was a marginal cult, it did not attract the masses, because in the first two centuries AD Rome had an economic and social status only surpassed by some nations during the early modern ages. All that changed quickly as the economic disasters struck for the rest of the late antiquity. It is fairly similar to communism, which exploded in a spectacular way in the late Tsarist Russia, post war China, etc. What those have in common is a period of extreme poverty and a total lack of civil rights and freedoms. What usually happens with that kind of poor's religions, is that the oligarchies evolve and; either fight the rising movement and are subsequently killed and it's wealth absorbed by other oligarchies, or those other oligarchies which soon identify the movement subscribe to it. The resulting scheme is one of an absurdly giant inequality and the extreme poverty of the masses, with the wealth concentrated in a few hands that use their power to establish themselves as the new state over the ruins of the former, as long as the marketing and aesthetics of the cultural trend allow them to maintain. Pretty much like feudalism. I know I just generalized a lot, just sharing a humble point of view that maybe worth of discussing.
Belisarios was an amazing “strategos”, Greek for general. The poor man; Constantine kept firing and banishing him, then bringing him back to achieve another great victory. A video on him would be great, he’s considered the best, or one of the very best, generals of all time and is still studied in military colleges today.
You mean Justinian? Constantine was 200 years earlier.
You have very good video series on Belisarius on Epic history TV on youtube.
Have you seen the Epic History TV series on belisarius? It's my favorite series on TH-cam. What incredible accomplishments he had for such an ungrateful emperor!
Reminds Hannibal alot, also great general betrayed by politicians.
You do know that Constantine and Belesarios lived centuries apart right, the former lived during 272-337 AD and the latter 500-565 AD just so you know.
People act in extremely unhealthy and dysfunctional ways when they think they have god on their side.
This! Preach!
then they are not truly Christian.
Christianity helped to trigger the creation of Islam.
Islam destroyed antic Rome, leaving east Roman emlur reduced to a third of its former size, eventually canceled Mediterranean trade.
Islam destroyers also antique Iran
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There is not one element leading to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, but environmental effects must of played a part. In particular, the silting of harbours across the Mediterranean and the desertification of North Africa, which was the breadbasket of classical Rome. Early Christianity had another affect with the many Germans who joined the Roman army in the late Empire period. German tribesmen who became legionaries had divided loyalties between their imperial Roman master and their tribal affinities. Furthermore, Christianity may have gained acceptance among Mediterranean peoples, and peoples who had been colonised for a while, such as the Gauls and Britons, but Christianity was resisted by many Germanic tribes, up to and including the age of Charlemagne.
On the contrary, conversion to Christianity was Romans' last attempt to deal with degeneracy, which was tearing their empire apart, but the actual conversion did occur only in the Eastern/Greek part of the Roman Empire, which lasted all the way until the early renaissance, while the Western/Latin part of the Roman Empire have failed to convert and was inhabited mainly by the pagans, who continued their degenerate ways, until they were conquered by less degenerate barbarians.
Everything you said is false
The western roman empire became Catholic and the germanics who conquered it converted to Catholicism and destroyed constantinople in 1204
The East resisted thanks to its geographical location, not because of the barbaric religion of the Jew nailed to a stick.
@@felipeurrea3638 Not true, the Eastern-Romans had a much tougher location than the Western-Romans, since they had to defend against both the Persian Empire from the south, the Slavic pagans from the north, and the Turkic hordes from the east, while the Western-Romans were not only focused on a peninsula and protected by the sea, but also were mostly protected by the Eastern-Romans, and had to defend only against the Germanic pagans from the north.
Of course, after the disgusting emperor Theodosius destroyed the legions of the West and destroyed what little remained of the Greco-Roman past. @@ivanos_95
@@ivanos_95 Don't forget the Vandals attacking the southern Roman coastline from North Africa.
You make valid points, and I don't think anyone's gonna win this argument, both geographical locations had their advantages and disadvantages.
catholicism is the new roman empire
I prefer the Pagon Gods and Goddesses.
@@DarthDread-oh2ne Their statues and temples were rightfully destroyed
hahaha your church in Frankish non-Roman worshiper of a nailed Jew
No-the Eastern, which was Orthodox, lasted ‘til 1453.
and it has fallen because of religious wars and the crusades. still christianity fault.
I've seen a few of your videos. As a Christian myself, I might be biased, but I think you can do better. For just one example: you say on the one hand that Christianity led to there being fewer soldiers, but on the other hand you say a large portion of soldiers were Christian. These two statements are at odds. If Christianity led to fewer soldiers, you'd expect Christians to be disproportionately smaller percentage of soldiers.
because the Galileans preferred to be monks or turn their daughters into nuns, than to fight for the empire and the glory of Rome
Christianity was one of the big 3 reasons the Empire fell. It was good for the East but unequivocally bad tor the West.
The western Roman Empire did not fall. it just morphed into the Roman Catholic Church
" You Have won galilean¨- Julian / ¨You bout right bitch- The Galilean"
Except Julian most likely never said that according to Ammianus Marcellinus, who was actually there.
"Stop talking like a black guy, Jew."
The video touches on some of the points against this ancient idea. The Eastern Roman Empire, which was much more Christian, survived for another thousand years. This is an extraordinary period for an empire to survive.
Constantine took power in 306. He seems to have been friendly to Christianity at that time because he had his soldier paint a Christian symbol on their shields. He declared tolerance for Christianity in 213 with the edict of Milan. The last Western Roman Emperor was deposed in 476, a hundred and sixty-three years later.
Since Christians were not practicing infanticide, Christianity may have increased the number of people growing to adulthood, even if it technically reduced the birth rate.
Many of the barbarians who conquered the Western Roman Empire were Christian.
Western Europe suffered through 500 years of military defeat and chaos, the dark ages, then recovered during the high middle ages, the third quarter of the Medieval period, and finally became the center of technical and scientific progress for the whole world in the final quarter of the Medieval period, the Renaissance. In this last quarter of the Medieval period, Western Europe admired Rome but was far more advanced and creative than Rome ever was.
Finally, Christian Western Europe was the center of the modern period which has for five hundred years enjoyed continually accelerating technical and scientific progress.
Exactly. What I find intresting is despite the fact that Greeco-Roman philosophy and science is praised (partically the Platonist school of thought), they acompised very little. This was because Platonists beleive in the theory of forms that states that the real world is not as real or true as timeless, absolute, unchangeable ideas. According to this theory, ideas in this sense are the non-physical essences of all things, of which objects and matter in the physical world are merely imitations. This essentially means that they viewed emperical evidence as unemportant and would often completely disregard it. For example, for over a thousand years it was believed that the velocity that an object fell at was relative to it's mass, despite the obisoe fact that a simple 30 second experiment disproves this.
The video also completely leaves out -- almost seems deliberate -- the fact that Judaism also grew in popularity within the Roman Empire. Not a single mention of the Jews who certainly believed God was superior to any emperor or government. But since the Jews were already a centuries-old fact before the Land of Israel was conquered by Pompey, the Romans considered the Jews acceptable even if the Jews tried to kick the Romans out of Judea three times in three incredibly bloody wars of independence (the third defeat under Hadrian leading to the mass ethnic cleansing of Judea by Hadrian, Judea renamed as Syria-Palestina and Jerusalem renamed Aelia Capitolina with a temple to Jupiter built on top of the ruins of the Second Temple (the Dome of the Rock and Al Aqsa to be built on top of the Jupiter temple's ruins at the hands of the Sassanids six hundred years later after the Muslim conquest). So even though the upstart Christians also believed like the Jews that God is superior to any emperor or state, because the Christians had no established history, they were looked upon by Rome at first as a dangerous and peculiar "cult of the dead rabbi." It is estimated that at one point one out of every ten inhabitants of the Roman Empire were either Jews or were practicing at least some elements of Judaism. In fact, the video forgets to mention in this context that earliest Christianity WAS a Jewish sect and that it required a person who wanted to practice the earliest forms of Christianity to either be a Jew by birth first or formally convert before practicing Christianity. However, after Yeshua's (Jesus) death, a power struggle developed between Paul of Tarsus (St Paul originally Saul) -- who never actually knew Jesus and wanted to transform Christianity into a universalist faith by proselytizing to the Greco-Roman pagans, and Jesus's brother Chaim (James) who wanted to maintain the original intent of Christianity to remain a Jewish movement which began the belief Jesus was the Messiah as prophesized in the first place, though the idea was rejected by the majority of Jews at that time (and the Jewish People would pay dearly over the centuries for that, courtesy of Maiorianus's "peaceful" Christianity). James' faction is known as the Ebionites.
Paul and his followers won the power struggle, and the Ebionites faded into history, ignored by the subsequent Christian world including video makers like Maiorianus, with many present-day Christians totally unaware that Jesus even had a brother. It was probably inevitable. Try convincing a 30-year-old Roman Centurion that if he really wants to become a Jew either to practice traditional Pharisee Judaism or especially the Christian variation, he first had to convert to Judaism and be circumcised for starters. That's a likely deal-killer right there. But then Paul comes along and says "No worries. You CAN be a Christian, and you don't even have to be circumcised first, either. You don't have to give up eating pork. You don't have to worry anymore about reading the daily Torah portions -- a pain in the butt when you're in the middle of warring with Germanic tribes. Grieving over the Holy Temple in Jerusalem destroyed by your own great hero Emperor Titus is such a bummer with a lot of cognitive dissonances. You don't have to support the Jews fighting and dying by the hundreds of thousands trying to kick Rome out of Judea once and for all. And the holy day is Sunday -- not Saturday -- which by amaaaaaazing coincidence, is the exact same holy day in Mithraism -- the Persian cult popular with Roman soldiers as mentioned in this video, which believed their holy figure Mithraites was born under the sign of a shooting star. Sound familiar? And wouldn't you know it??!!! Jesus was born of a virgin which, also by amaaaazing coincidence, is exactly like the virgin birth of ISIS of the immensely popular Egyptian ISIS cult whose followers at the time believed ISIS was born from a virgin goddess, too. Will these incredible coincidences never cease? Of course, you will have to give up worshipping idols and statues of the old gods and goddesses. Nothing is free, and the Ten Commandments prohibit this -- some parts of Judaism have to be kept going if you want to say you superseded and replaced the older faith with the new and improved version. But worshipping with the help of icons, holy relics, parading with statues of virgin Madonna with child (just like the ISIS followers would parade in their festivals with ISIS and the virgin mother goddess, too), and medallions and statues of various saints for good luck which centuries later will be small and light-weight enough to fit on the top of your car dashboard is acceptable.
@@Zeerich-yx9po ok the sources wich were produced by pegans would disagree with you in the Greco-Roman world was quite common
@@leaderofthebunch-deadbeat7716 "What I find intresting is despite the fact that Greeco-Roman philosophy and science is praised (partically the Platonist school of thought), they acompised very little"
Greco Roman philosophy: idealists (Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, Neo-pythagoreans, Neo-Platonists) materialists-empiricists (Democritus, Epicurus, Aristippus and the Cyrenaics, Aristotle and the Peripatetics) You try to depict greco-roman philosophy as one, but they were many and different. A Syrian scholar of early christianity, authour of "Ad Grecos" (=Against the Greeks) wrote christianity is superior because all christians believe in the same god and have ONE opinion, while polytheist philosophers regurarly disagreed with each other.
Accomplished very little? Only 1% of the ancient Greek writing survived and it mentions dozens of philosophers, scientists, poets, artists etc. How many intellectuals did the "Byzantine" Empire have?
@@pyrix9569 read a book kid. "byzantine" authors regularly studied the classics and wrote commentaries on them.
One such example is John Philoponus who refuted Aristotle and was even later quoted in Galileo's work on physics.
Imagine if there was an ancient Greek version of Maiorianus. This channel would do the same premise but go into detail bout what happened in the Hellenic world before roman times?
There was 2, Pyrrus who fought against Rome and tried to gather Greeks, but failed. And Mithridates king of Pont.
Antiochos VII Sidetes was like a Seleucid Majorian - the last one to hold pretense of being a King of Kings and to try and reconquer the lost Persian lands.
Not really, the Western Roman Empire was a rotted corpse of a state, it was quite literally the closest thing you can get to the Imperium Of Man. It was so beset by enemies that it had no chance of surviving in my opinion. I’ve heard people say it got better after they fell.
Moreover the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantines as we know them, were a staunchly Christian or more specifically Orthodox state, and they persisted for 1,000 years after the Western Roman Empire fell
Nice Judeo-Christian revisionism you got there. Eastern Roman Kingdom was inherited from what 'pagan' Romans had built, and it was just a more slow-motion collapse and retreat, never expanding, not remotely comparable to how 'pagan' Rome expanded from a city in 753 BC to conquering the known world.
@@InqvisitorMagnvs You can’t compare early Romans to late Romans, they’re two different beasts, one is a youthful, vigorous republic with a populace of glory-hungry young men, the other is an established monarchy having to deal with the issues that being a long, long established power does, such as established corruption, plus superior enemies then what the Republic had to face. It’s not a matter of one is Christian, the other is Pagan, considering that arguably no-one did more in their attempts to destroy the Republic before the Empire than the Pagan Romans, having civil wars every half-second and becoming rife with corruption and political infighting. Plus, you can’t not factor in the fickle mistress that is simply luck, the Eastern Romans most promising emperors simply perished from bad luck.
@@pyrrhusofepirus8491 Republics and monarchies are not living breathing creatures, they are made up of the men within them. Early Romans had young men and late Romans also had young men. And history is not predetermined. Jove blessed the Roman Republic which grew into a massive empire. Yahweh cursed the Roman Empire and it degenerated into a crude mockery of itself. Judeo-Xtian values are inversions of all Græco-Roman virtues, so it's no surprise the men would become weak. And even when they won the the Christian Roman was literally just a shabbos, gollum, spilling their blood to spread the gods of a foreign tribe that had already conquered Rome from within.
@@InqvisitorMagnvs I simply *adore* how you claim that history is not predetermined but then claim Jove blessed the Roman Republic which then allowed it to grow into an empire but then the evil demiurge Yahweh caused it to fall. I was wondering whether you were some dumb pagan but it turned out I was absolutely correct, if you believe that Christianity made men weaker and that was the cause of its downfall then you are simply deluded through and through, European Christian history is positively littered with mighty warriors like Richard the Lionheart, Gotz of the Iron Hand, Charles Martel, El Cid, Knightly Orders like the Knights Templar, and who were so feared that it was policy that captured Templars be put to death due to how dangerous they were, Landsknechts, Norman Knights, Tercios, Knights in general, Conquistadors, Swiss Pikemen, Gallowglass, Varangian Guards, Byzantine Cataphracts, Black Army of Hungary, English Longbowmen etc.
The idea that Christianity made men weaker or more effeminate is objectively false, as doubtless these warriors would’ve been a stark match for their ancestors if objectively superior.
@@pyrrhusofepirus8491Of course, hand over power to pathetic priests who reject the cult of the body for the cult of the soul, and people who put God above Rome, clearly affectionate for the empire, when your scholars are more concerned with arguing about whether angels are men or women while a horde of Arab barbarians attacks, or the multiple religious wars that eliminated promising emperors like Constantine V, your Galilean religion affected the empire, only the pride of being Roman kept it standing.
I feel like Christianity was an opportunistic religion that capitalized on the weakness of the Empire. The 3rd century crisis severely weakened and demoralized the the Roman people. The plebeian class seeing their living standards decline during the 3rd century crisis would have turned to Christianity as a bit of hope. So the more the Roman empire weakened and poverty increased so did the appeal of Christianity. Under paganism Romans would pray for earthly things. They would pray for wealth, pray for a good harvest, or pray for victory in battle. But when the pagan gods failed to answer their prayers the people lost faith and turned to Christianity. Christianity made a lot of promises to the people but the promises were intangible. It could not be proven one way or another whether the deceased went to heaven. So even as the world collapsed around them the people did not lose faith. The endless disasters of the late Roman era and early middle ages drove paganism into extinction. In short Christianity was the right religion for the right time. Paganism represented a more plentiful era when people could praise the gods for their good fortune. When that good fortune evaporated so did the praise for the pagan gods. It it became all to easy for Christianity to capitalism on the moment.
When your country was build on some cultural foundations.. changing those will lead to collapse of your country and civilization. Same will happen with modern Europe.
Thanks to women.
So we could guess that the Mongols becoming the slaves of Buddhism and Islam also contributed to the decline and downfall of their empire.
7:04 source that the Temple of Vesta would ensure Rome would never fall according to Pagan lore? I find the suggestion that destroying a pagan temple caused the fall of Rome a hilarious suggestion. I would love for this to be true. I will note that the temple's Wikipedia page never outright states the temple prevented the fall of Rome.
Gaius: Hey Flavius, how are you?
Flavius: The son and the father are co-eternal! The scriptures say so!
Gaius: woah. Chill out, man
Doesn't archaeological evidence currently place the founding of Rome in the 9th century BC, or roughly a hundred years before the legendary foundation myth by Romulus & Remus?
Long before Romulus the LIGURIANS were the dominant lords of the region. They founded Alba nova about 1150 BC,that is 750 years before the mythic foundation of Rome as an open city to the criminals and vuajous of the surroundings. ALBA nova was destroyed by the third Etruscan King of Rome. The roman nobility ( the Iulii...) pretended to have been citizens of Alba nova.
The Ligurians who had repopulated west Europe after the last glaciation (15.000 years BC) were dominant from the British Isles they called ALBION to Sicily ( the Siculi) and from the shores of the Baltic ( the Ligurians had the monopol of the commerce of amber they exchanged with the Minoans, Egyptians,) to France and Spain .After the immigrations of the indoeuropeans they were progressively chased from some of their settlements, but remained dominant in North Italy ,South France until the Romans decided to conquer the Transpadania ~ 200 a.D, where they had to affront the Insubres of the region of Como and all the south alpine valleys of Piemont and Lombardia. Aeschylos in his Prometheus liberated, describes the αταρβητον στρατον : the redoutable army, of the Ligurians. They did not oppose the padan Etruscans, since there are examples of collaboration, especially against the gallic hordes of pillagers and destroyers that visited northern Italy each summer since 399 AD with the only purpose of robbing gold and cattle," the only goods that are easily transportable", as a roman historian noted.
The Ligurians were engaged as auxiliarii by Marius, to combat the Cimbers and Teutons. The Ligurians were rapudly romanised and were soon members of the class of the equites, among whose the Roman Senate recruited his members.
Perhaps Rome the city, not the empire.
The Roman Empire was the longest running empire, and for over a thousand years, of the empire was Greek, and Christian. There was NO western Roman Empire. There was no seperate, ‘Eastern’ Roman Empire. There was only ONE Roman Empire. Eastern was also used as another word for Greek, in this case, saying Eastern , meaning Greek, Roman Empire, is accurate. Perhapw, it was western when Latin Rome was the capital, but it later moved to Greek Constantinople. You could also say, within the single Empire, there was an eastern and western part, as you could say there was a southern and northern part. What we have all been falsely taught of, that the Eastern Roman Empire was one of two,..is in fact, THE one and ONLY Roman Empire. The Roman empire was overwhelmingly Greek and Christian. Early on, for a short time, it was pagan, with its capital in Rome, in the west, when it still had lots of Latin influence, and later, for the overwhelming majority of time the empire, was Greek, and Christian with its capital moved to the east, …Constantinople. The capital had already moved, way BEFORE, the city, (not the empire) of Rome fell, in the west, in 476AD, which was later retaken anyway. It was aways a single empire…The Roman Empire.
True Christianity is no different today than it was at any time since its inception.
Even if Christianity directly factored towards the fall of the West, it ironically preserved Rome via its last remaining institutions. The Pope is the direct successor to the pontifex maximus and has influenced Europe until the present day. Eastern Rome also survives through Christianity in the form of the Patriarch of Constantinople. Catholic and Orthodox Christianity carry the flame of Rome long after it’s fall.
That what you stated is strongly biased.
Bingo!
No
Preserved East but killed West.
@@dalimilmatousek4074 It's true though, the Catholic Churches are the last living entities of the roman times.
I think the dowry issue would have only applied to wealthy Romans
When will people finally understand that correlation doesn't mean causation
Well, Christianity was originally a plan of Rome to reunite and strengthen the empire, but it completely backfired with the involvement of Yeshua.
A semi inaccurate statement in the video is that the Foederati were at least majority Christian which is false as the Frank's were the only nominally Christian Germanic tribe to be part of the Foederati that I know of at that time. But the Visigoths and other's didn't really convert til the late 4th century CE and anyone who actually knows how religions work knows a large change from Germanic paganism to only Christianity doesn't happen overnight or even over a few decades.
no but theodosius edicts against all religions besides nicene Christianity did weaken the empire
Christianity gave Rome a thousand more years of existence.
We're talking about the Western Roman Empire.
@@c.norbertneumann4986 There is no "Western" or "Eastern" Roman Empire. There is only Rome!
Based Jesus. No more abortions!
The argument that Christianity was not a weakening force for Rome because of the survival of the Eastern half for another 1000 years is a bad one. I could just as easily say that the Theodosian Walls, Greek Fire, and Constantinople’s naturally defensible location are responsible for its survival against the caliphate and the Turks.
Consider this: the Greco-Roman world had three things in abundance. These classical staples are humanist artwork, city habitation/civic life, and natural philosophy. The Christian/Islamic world traded these staples for iconoclasm against “graven images”, monasticism, and theology, respectively.
I’m not sure if it killed Rome, however I am positive that Christianity is to blame for killing the classical world. To say that it killed Rome is a very surface level view, when in fact it likely killed something far more important to the story of humanity: the classical world.
Christianity Helped Preserve Roman Culture,So Much That Romana Churches And Administratives Centers Were Spared in The Looting of Rome,In itself At Least in Italy The Roman Empire Do Not End But The Power Centered in Rome By The Barbarians The Return The Monarchy Until Justinian’s Reconquest And Belísarius.
I believe Michael Grant's analysis that Christianity rose as paganism fell. Paganism fell due to strife in the empire. Paganism was a religion of ritual that required priests, money, time, and temples to participate in. Early Christianity was a religion of narratives contained in books that could be read in a small church or even someone's house. The invention of bound books helped as bibles were bound, some of the first bound books. So religion went from expensive and lavish rituals with shows and feasts to reading from humble bound books as the wealth of the empire declined. It rose among Rome's poor. Most of the drama you read was probably added later to give followers a sense of destiny.
Yes
Cringe Larpagans still couldn’t beat the Christus enjoyers 🗿
Europe is already Leaving Christianity
@@zitka123 wdym already, it’s been 1700 years of Christian domination 😭🙏
Plus no, Europe will never abandon Christ
@@zitka123 Religion is required to counteract moral relativism and social decay, and it has been the backbone of many civilisations.
Christianity transformed Rome from an empire of the world to an empire of the soul. There’s a reason the seal of the ecumenical Patriarch steal bears the flag of Palalogian dynasty
So it wasn’t necessarily Christianity that caused the fall of Rome, it was diversity. Hmmm 🤔 sounds familiar.
Comment No. 4
Christianity from its beginnings had people of very high culture as adherents and always opposed by decadent society.Itr was the monasteries of Western Europe and Byzantium that achieved that managed preserve the Greco-Roman culture in their LIBRARIES!!!
like serapion or plato's academy?
I would say it was more a symptom of Rome's decline more than anything else really.
The Roman empire still exists ,just changed its image, cant u see ?
The old roman culture is dead whoever is claiming to be roman today is only wearing a mask made out of it's bones.
No it didn't
Comment N°. 2
Who did Atilla confront when his army arrived in Rome? Pope Leo I. When the Emperor and his sect fled Rome.
Well because they need read long books which is why the army couldn’t defend
Maioranus, I am a devout Catholic however if we then need to see things objectively through the lens of history... it is then appropriate that we should criticize early Christianity and the temporal laws of the Roman Catholic Church and how can they relate to the inevitable fall of the western side of the once united Roman Empire. Keep up the good work.
But surely the birth rate was already an issue even by the late Republican/early Principate period, otherwise why did Augustus work himself up into such a tizzy about it? I'm really doubtful that declining birth rates can be pinned on Christianity.
The Church (I need to make a dramatic distinction between Christianity and Church, the latter meaning the clerical institution and not the religion itself) weakened the power of the emperors, and not only in late antiquity, also during the Middle Ages. Just think about the fact that byzantine emperors couldn't get more than 3 consecutives wives after the death/divorce of one of them without being seen as blasphemous heathens in the eyes of the patriarch and the people. In the West, the Catholic Church even tried (and almost suceeded) to substitute the HRE and other kingdoms in ruling over Europe. The march of power of the Christian Church basically began to slow down from XVI century onwards.
I am glad the French dealt with the Church when they finally realized it was a primitive and corrupt institution.
love your videeos dear...deeeply appriciated...the westrn emipre should still live todayyyyy....
Hello Serdar, thank you so much for your extremely kind words and for joining the channel :) You really motivate us a lot to continue making even better videos, and your support means the world to us!
What a shame it is when any art is destroyed “in the name of religion”, any religion. We have lost so many ancient treasures that would tell us so much about our past and human creativity. This is still happening in the world, sadly.
Many of the same people who say this and cry over things like the supposed destruction of the Library of Alexandria have no problem destroying monuments and censoring and deplatforming in their own time then lie in bed and wonder unironically why people 1000 years ago did the exact same thing.
@@Matt67012 Nah Christian destruction of the world treasures is topped by none. Christians destroy records and artifacts in every continent while Muslims saved accident Greek works
Not any religion just chrisitanity and islam
@@vedicpride Caesar was responsible for part of the Library of Alexandria's supposed destruction. Atheists destroyed tons of religious artifacts in the French and communist revolutions. SJWs are toppling monuments and rewriting histomoment ry at this very and I don't see anybody bellyaching about that.
@@archieames1968 I agree on that point about the communist they are what is america today
How is this even a question? Rome lasted for Centuries more than your Average Imperial Government and suffered from so many more factors, factors it had suffered from before that caused the fall of the Kingdom and then the Republic but trust be bros it totally inconceivable to be anything else but Christianity that caused it this time around.
The fact that this question is still phrased like this "why did Rome fall" and instead of looking at more clear, systemic and materialist reasons for why we're looking to a change in ideology that didn't even say anything about fundamental government structure is very funny. The combo of more competent barbarians on all sides, a more corrupt military class, a de-legitimized political structure somehow matter far less than again, a change in ideology that didn't even say anything about fundamental government structure.
And some of these points are ridiculous when looked in greater context. Like for example, women going to monastries affecting population, do we have any data that actually shows the number of women actually going into monastries was so high as to affect birth rates? And Roman birth rates has been low enough to encourage Emperors to try to impliment pro-natal laws since at least Augustine and probably earlier and probably had far more with birth rates dropping during eras of chaos and eras of decadence.
And I really don't have time to write how other actual material and systemic effects clearly mattered more.
Couldn't agree more. People need to realize that Ed Gibbon was wrong about Rome. Rehashing his argument just pulls us further from the truth
Yoyr video does not support Catherine nixies the darkening age. In that book she depicted clearly how Christianity destroyed rome and what christian persecution actually was.
Self immolation is not really a persecution per se. Self made martyrdom is not really a persecution per se.
Voluntary Refusal to co-operate with public justice system and subsequent punishment is not really a persecution per se
Your video lack a huge treasure trove there.
Nobody cares
I suppose there are reasons to support this idea as well as disagree with the idea Christianity helped along the fall of the Roman Empire -- at least in the West. The next question is if historians many centuries from now will debate how much of a factor Wokeism/Transgenderist Neo-Paganism had in the fall of the American Empire -- or at least the Northern half of the Empire whose capital had been moved to Boston, Mass after the name and capital Washington was abandoned due to its forebear having owned slaves, while the Southern half of the Empire had its own capital in Talahasee, Florida -- after the Southern half of the empire held on for another four centuries having decisively defeated the Chinese Army at the famous Battle of Abilene in 2096 CE, much of the Northern half's martial spirit dissipated by men choosing a safer lifestyle as drag queens while being indoctrinated from pre-K onward in school that the American Empire was evil by nature and not worth defending, rather than risk the dangers of the military, while the birthrate in the Northern half of the Empire plummeted due to a disregard for the lives of newborns with the right of abortion on demand up to and often even after birth (a cruel and brutal practice evoking the old Roman pre-Christian pagan days) instituted after the old Republic's vestigial supreme court ruled it shouldn't have a say in the matter, and the popularity of taking transgender puberty blockers after being convinced to do so by most elementary school teachers in the Northern Empire's educational system, with the military ranks having to be filled by illegal aliens who had sneaked across the border and were granted citizenship with the right to vote as long as they voted Democrat (the political party at the time that controlled most of the government, large corporations, culture, and media) in all elections, had little loyalty to the values of the old Republic before the Empire, while being smuggled in along with tons of deadly fentanyl that killed tens of thousands of able-bodied men each year as well as created a massive source of revenue into the billions of dollars for Mexican drug cartels as protection money enabling them to take control of the Mexican government (just like the ancient Roman Empire paid the Cilician Pirates to maintain safe trade routes in the Mediterranean), with the Southern American Empire having to fight several wars against this Mexican government to prevent any further deterioration on its southern border similar to the wars the Eastern Roman Empire had to fight against the Sassanid Persians, the Arabs, and the Turks.
Yes.
I have another question
Did anybody who’s not from European descent cared about the roman heritage?
Like did the moors or Vikings cared about rome ?
There were turks who wanted to be seen as roman. For example; the sultanate of Rum(Rome).
I wish people didn’t state that the eastern empire lasted another thousand years. It was effectively over well before the western conquest of 1204. It did nothing but shrink to a dry husk well before this, and was utterly defunct well before the Ottoman conquest. 1453 is a completely mythological year as the eastern empire was already dead.
This is a ridiculous assertion. It is like saying the Ottoman Empire didn't exist in 1910 despite being a former husk of itself. Revisionist history at beat, factually wrong
@@TonyFontaine1988 . The Ottoman Empire was a functioning polity until the end of the First World War, it had an army and a navy, neither of which was true of the eastern Roman Empire. The Turks had the ability to create a new country, unlike the Byzantines.
@@richardsmith579 The Byzantines also had an army, hence why it was able to defend itself for two hundred years after getting back Constantinople. The Ottomans were losing territory every decade starting from 1830 to its inevitible collapse in 1920. Western Rome was also considered an Empire up until 476 despite losing territory since the death of Majorian.
The only reason the Turks were able to survive is due to the allies having just fought an entire world war, and the Russians in the middle of a civil war.
@@TonyFontaine1988 the Byzantine empire in 1453 consisted of a few islands, the tip of the Morea, and the depopulated and ruined city of Constantinople. There was no navy, a minuscule army, and governors had to hitch a ride on Venetian ships.
@@richardsmith579 and if they took over more territory and became big again, then suddenly they would exist again? Herein lies the flaw in your argument.
I think it gave an “out” to those who didn’t want to fight, and it definitely caused problems in maintaining population.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts again Hal :) And of course also thanks for always watching the videos as the first!
Yes.
I’m a Christian, but can’t be offended, I’m also a lifelong history student and there’s no denying that religion was and still is a huge force in human history. Besides, no religion is perfect, after all, they are created by humans. Wasn’t this thesis, Christianity caused the Downfall of the Empire, Gibbon’s? I’ve only just started his enormous work, but I think that’s where he’s heading. Your videos are wonderful, people who criticize on emotional grounds should watch only those without politics or religion, which means no history!
Thanks for your comment. Im glad to read that. :)
Christianity abhors competition
Christianity ruins everything
Evidence?
@@misterauctor7353 Rome.
@Jordan Steele "GREED and SELF INTEREST are good."
Ok, commie.
"Jesus and Christianity all about self sacrifice, as a result immoral."
What a claim.
"Capitalist Business Men have done more to improve the world than Jesus ever has. "
It's the other way around actually.
"The Capitalist Business Men are superior to Jesus in everyday."
Ok, commie.
"I do not need Jesus; Jesus needs me."
You really do need Jesus, their darling.
Actually it improves things
@Jordan Steele Correlation, darling.
What books would you recommend on Roman/Greek religion.
Walter Burkert "Greek Religion " and "Ancient Mystery Cults".
Only the empire in the west fell. The Roman empire in the east lasted for another 1,000 years and thrived under Christianity
*Yes ... Yes it did*
Another good informative video.
@@lettuceman9439 I only have passing interest on Roman Empire history, however I had a work colleague who studied a lot more on the Roman Empire than I did, we were walking past the statute of Emperor Constantine outside York Cathedral and he thought Christianity serious weakening the Roman Empire.
It's a tricky, complex question. There's something I personally find really sad about the loss of diverse belief systems in favor of some thick, monolithic layer of conformity that smothers all of that. The ancient world before Christianity seemed like such a colorful, vibrant place with all of these different gods and goddesses that people worshipped and looked up to before Christianity showed up and insisted everyone has to think the same way and no one is allowed to deviate from it at all. It reminds me of when Palpatine executes Order 66 in Revenge of the Sith, putting an end to the Jedi Order and laying the foundation for the Galactic Empire to be built on top of it. It's that mindset of conformity that even pitted other Christians like Arians against each other and that level of intolerance really polarized the population in a way that they weren't before Christianity wormed its way to the top of the imperial hierarchy. Not that there wasn't intolerance before Christianity but with previous emperors they didn't really care what you believed as long as you paid your respects to the traditional gods. While you shouldn't be forced to sacrifice to gods you don't believe in if you don't want to, there was still more wiggle room for other beliefs under the pagan emperors than there was under emperors like Constantine and Theodosius.
All that being said, it's not like Christianity prevented capable leaders from acting capably. Stilicho, Aetius, Majorian, Justinian, Belisarius, Maurice, Heraclius, Leo III, Constantine V, Basil I, Leo VI, Romanos I Lekapenos, John Kourkouas, Constantine VII, Nicephorus II Phokas, John I Tzimiskes, Basil II, and the first three rulers of the Komnenid dynasty (Alexios I, John II and Manuel I) all were very effective emperors and/or generals who accomplished great things or at least made the effort to do so despite all being Christian themselves. It's not like Christianity sucked out people's talent when they turned away from paganism. And there is something to be said about the organizational structure of the Christian church that probably made it easier for leaders to rule kingdoms than a bunch of disunited cults could provide. There was also the focus on providing for the sick and poor which really won over people who felt like the old religions lacked that altruism and the teachings of a peaceful, egalitarian afterlife in Heaven that welcomed everyone provided hope at a time when poor people felt like their lives were going nowhere and the traditional Greco-Roman afterlife they'd end up in was far more morose, with Elysium reserved only for the top 1% of souls who made a name for themselves in the history books. So in some ways there was increased polarization that turned people against each other but the church was also very effective at marketing and providing real aid to people who needed help.
TL;DR
1. Christians were less likely to join the army - Rome gets fewer soldiers out of its men
2. The Christian Dowry resulted in more women not getting married, and not having kids - Rome gets fewer men to start with
Please expand on the dowries. I've never heard about this.
If polarization was the issue you can blame paganism for the west's fall as well and say that it fell because it didn't Christianize fast enough and thus had two camps to be polarized. while the east was MORE Christian and did not fall. Also I read somewhere that Christianity contributed to a population boom in the east because of Christianity's pro-natalist teachings. I'd say that Rome had severe problems way before it Christianized and that the east benefited from Christianity.
Weather or not you agree with the thesis of the video, your objection isn’t logical.
Christianity is blamed in this video for polarization becuase (as is explicitly mentioned) of it’s refusal and negation of all other gods and religion. Thus christianity could not (at the time, eventually following the 30 years war reforms were made) co-exist with other religions.
On the other hand pagan hellenicism did not have this problem, on the contrary, it had co-existed peacefully (and often even accepted and adopted elements of) other religions. For nearly a thousand years hellenicism co-existed peacefully with other religions without clashes, this because it recognized that other gods could also be valid and exist since they themselves had many gods (this is different from freedom of religion btw. Today we agree to disagree, Roman pagans simply didn’t disagree).
Thus the problem didn’t stem out of pagans. Their existence wasn’t the cause of tensions, it was christianity that caused religious tensions.
You could argue that the western empire didn’t convert quickly enough. Afterall, had all pagans disappeared the conflict with christians would have ended. However the problem remains that a conflict existed, so the argument is “the advent of christianity created religious tension, and paganism didn’t fade off quickly enough”.
Weather this is true (that paganism fading away would have resolved much) and weather it was at all possible for it to fade any faster, is arguable.
@@leonardodavid2842 I disagree. My objection is perfectly logical the Polarization would in fact be resolved if paganism faded quickly enough as we see in the east. Where Christianity did dominate more quickly and thus the polarization diminished. and that was the central point of my argument. whether or not Christianity or paganism caused the tension was not relevant to my point. even then I don't think your argument is entirely true. The tensions with Christianity were political in nature and the pagans were the ones who initiated the violent persecution against Christians precisely for political reasons. The Christian refusal to submit to certain policies of the empire caused the pagans to persecute them. Yeah the political differences stemmed from religious differences, but the cause for concern in Rome was politics. Which is why Rome coexisted with the Jews for centuries despite similar religious divide until the Jews rose up politically against the Romans. Again the religion may have inspired the political acts but it didn't become a problem fro Rome until it started affecting politics. Also the romans were disgusted by some religious practices of other pagans around them and I do believe that certain practices would be out lawed in the empire like human sacrifices. The romans didn't count their own ritual killings as human sacrifices but the ritual killings made by those barbarians in their religious customs over there is barbaric and should be banned. So the idea that the different pagan religions lived in harmony with each other until the Christians arrived isn't true. The Romans would SUBJUGATE the other religions and induct the foreign gods into their pantheon but it was a means of dominance not really religious tolerance. the other religions did indeed have to change a bit to adapt to the empire. The Christians just refused to be theologically dominated and they then dominated the pagan romans. Roman society itself was full of political and social tensions which lead to violence and religion became a problem because it contributed to these political divisions.
I had a similar reaction. Paganism was happy to be tolerant with other pagans. Its interaction with monotheistic religions shows it considered them mutually incompatible in society. While perhaps there was excess in how they went about it, you can hardly fault Christians for taking the conclusions that pagans made to their logical end.
I once uttered this opinion in the commentary section of a youtube video that was seemingly warched by many English people. Soon they started to verbally attack me and accused me that I would warm up the opinion of an English historian named Edward Gibbons ("The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire") who had lived in the 18th century. I didn't even know his name until then. Nevertheless I keep believing that Christianization was an important factor for the demise of the Western Roman Empire.
By that logic, a lot more christian Eastern Roman Empire would fall first and then more pagan West would follow. If any of those arguments apply state wide, we would see social unrest and institutional demise starting in the east, emperors in Constantinopole would be mocked nad atacked by mobs for trying to assert authority which can only belong to God. Eastern armies would disintegrate by mass desertions and Constantinopole would be easy prey to Parthian/Seleucid empire, most powerful political rival of Rome for past centuries.
The argument can be flipped on its head. The ERE survived because it was more Christian. The WRE died because it was more pagan.
During the creation of the Roman Empire victorious armies brought many POW who there sold as slaves, creating large income to the Roman state. The record was Julius Caesar who brought one million slaves from victories in France. Of course Christianity who preached equality made the believers more reluctant to purchase slaves thus reducing the incomes and weakening the Roman state. And after the fall of the Roman Empire slavery disappeared in Europe and replacing slaves with paid workers during the middle ages created a technological development resulting in the industrial revolution and the Golden ages of the Western civilization during the 19th/20th century.
Those images from the movie Agora are heartbreaking. How much knowledge was lost because of some intollerant christian zealots?
Not trying to defend the christian zealots, but that movie was greatly critized for the exaggerating way christians were portrayed there. Alejandro Amenábar, the director of the film, has definitely something against christianity, as he critizes that religion in every film he makes. I think he probably despises christianity for the way christians opressed homos*xuals (he is gay and was married to a man) in Spain
@@TetsuShima Well the destruction of the Serapeum actually happened. When people are indoctrinated with absolute ideologies and are sure to be right they are capable of the worst atrocities and they don't even realize it, especially in the past when the world was overall much more violent. Imo it's a pretty accurate depiction.
@@Randaches I am not saying the zealots didn't destroy those valuable documents . However, I think the movie portrays the christians in an exaggerated evil and kinda ridiculous way. They seem to me there more like one-dimensional villains from WW2 propaganda movies
Very little
Surprisingly little as if we were to take a gander into the serapeum we would find a library long since past its glory days and many of the tomes that the library did possess were not unique to it as you may believe as many ended up in the imperial libraries of Constantinople.
Comment No. 1: BIZANZANTIUM lasted from 1.000 years from its founding to 1453 as a CHRISTIAN EMPIRE. CHRISTIANITY had no influence on the Fall of WESTEN ROMAN EMPRIE. The causes were. The causes of its decline were other causes!!!!!
Another reason not mentioned is that sectarianism in Christianity definitely contributed to its decline. The Germanic tribes followed the Arianism branch of Christianity, which contributed to their hostility to the Catholic-Orthodox of the Roman empire.
Of coarse religion played a roll in the collapse. The 'turn the other cheek philosophy" was the culprit. Prior to Christianity Romans were extremely vengeful and would stop at nothing to extract revenge. Think of Carthage.
Tell me I don't know shit about late Roman History without telling me.
but he said Christianity was a much more violent religion 2000 years ago? but of course he contradicts himself about every five minutes anyway. True Christianity has been non-violent since its inception.
No--the Orthodox Christian Eastern Roman Empire lasted until May of 1453. The Catholic Holy Roman Empire of Charlemagne didn't last nearly as long, because it wasn't founded by God.
The Roman Empire was the longest running empire, and for over a thousand yesrs, of the empire was Greek, and Christian. There was NO western Roman Empire. There was no seperate, ‘Eastern’ Roman Empire. There was only ONE Roman Empire. Eastern was also used as another word for Greek, in this case, saying Eastern , meaning Greek, Roman Empire, is accurate. Perhapw, it was western when Latin Rome was the capital, but it later moved to Greek Constantinople. You could also say, within the single Empire, there was an eastern and western part, as you could say there was a southern and northern part. What we have all been falsely taught of, that the Eastern Roman Empire was one of two,..is in fact, THE one and ONLY Roman Empire. The Roman empire was overwhelmingly Greek and Christian. Early on, for a short time, it was pagan, with its capital in Rome, in the west, when it still had lots of Latin influence, and later, for the overwhelming majority of time the empire, was Greek, and Christian with its capital moved to the east, …Constantinople. The capital had already moved, way BEFORE, the city, (not the empire) of Rome fell, in the west, in 476AD, which was later retaken anyway. It was aways a single empire…The Roman Empire.