Did Christianity Cause the Fall of the Roman Empire?
In Edward Gibbon’s classic tome “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” after 11,000 pages the author comes to a startling conclusion: Christianity was one of the main reasons the Empire fell.
When I first read this, I was taken by surprise, because I grew up in mid-20th century America when conservative religious voices were claiming just the opposite, that the decline and fall of the Roman Empire was due to an erosion of personal morality that led to gluttony, debauchery, and sin. In this telling the notorious Roman orgies were always front and center, suggesting that the Romans were too busy getting drunk and fornicating to notice when the barbarians were at the gates. While titillating, this version of what happened was simply not true.
Edward Gibbon was more reliable. He spent 17 years researching and writing “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”, and, after exhaustive research, reached a dismaying conclusion. Christianity was largely to blame. But was he right?
Triumphant Victimhood
The proposition that Christianity caused the Fall of the Roman Empire begins with Christ’s message of tolerance, forgiveness, and compassion, the famous appeal to “turn the other cheek”. This was a message so at odds with what it meant to be Roman that it’s no surprise it went down sideways.
The Roman virtues of “firmitas,” tenacity and steadfastness of purpose, and “dignitas” personal worth and pride, naturally rebelled at the idea of being struck and humiliated only to turn away. The proper Roman response would have been to beat the hell out of the attacker.
But as the Christian religion spread rapidly across the Empire in the late fourth century AD what it meant to be Roman had already begun to change. Rome was in retreat. Exhausted from fighting the barbarians, Rome withdrew from the province of Dacia (modern day Romania) in 271 AD. A hundred years later it withdrew from Britain. After a thousand years of expansion, the Empire was pulling back and on the defensive. It was no longer the aggressor. While not exactly submissive, it was primed and ready to receive the idea of triumphant victimhood that lies at the heart of Christianity, an idea that would have been anathema to Romans of an earlier era.
Behind the idea of victimhood lies the idea of submission, a purpose-made tool for any would-be autocrat hungering for power, and no group of people were more hungry for power in fifth century Rome than the Church Fathers.
Here’s the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss
The Church Fathers were a group of influential theologians and scholars who gave shape and meaning to Christian theology, men like Origen, Tertullian, and Augustine. What strikes the modern reader most forcibly about the rhetoric of the Church Fathers is its harsh chauvinism and bitter intolerance. Their words drip with misogyny and disdain. They were not turning the other cheek but raising a hand to others and demanding submission.
This was a way of looking at the world the Romans were familiar with. In many ways the Christianity of fifth century Rome was the same old Roman patriarchy in a new guise, a clerical guise, and the head of this gang of intimidators were the bishops, most notably the archbishop of Milan, a man named Ambrose.
The Emperor Who Bowed Down
Ambrose, who was posthumously canonized as a saint, was anything but. He advocated aggressively for his version of Christianity and went after pagans, heretics, and jews with a hostility that often spilled over into violence.
But Ambrose’s most notable achievement occurred in 390 AD when he forced the pious emperor Theodosius I to bow to his superior authority out of fear of angering a wrathful God. In so doing he shifted the power dynamic between Church and state in a profound way. Thereafter, a succession of uncompromising church leaders claimed more and more power while the influence of the emperors waned.
The flaw in this way of doing things was that the emperor, who had long been the protector of the state through his use of the army, had subordinated himself to an institution that didn’t have an army. The Church considered its remit to be the saving of men’s souls, not the defense of the realm, and in exchange for this holy service the Church expected to be paid.
The Cost of Greed
Throughout the late fourth and early fifth century the Church demanded increasing amounts of money from the Roman polity in the form of contributions and tithes, money that had once gone to pay taxes to support the army. In due course the army was weakened, and the barbarians exploited that weakness.
In 410 AD the Church’s greed and corruption cost it. The Goths attacked the city of Rome and sacked it. The Roman people, who had prayed diligently at the Church’s urging, were disillusioned. If their prayers could not deter the barbarian invaders as the Church had promised, then perhaps they had been wrong about the Church, perhaps they had put too much faith (and money) into an institution that could not protect them. This led to a crisis of confidence in the Church. Enter Augustine.
The City of God
Saint Augustine is a towering historical figure because he rescued the Church and set it back on the path to ascendancy. His book The City of God was a sensation upon its publication in 426 AD. In it he argued that Rome’s downfall was due to its internal moral decay, and that a true Christian should place his hope in the heavenly city of God, not in the temporal City of Man. In other words, this was your fault, not God’s fault, and if you want to make it right, you had better do what we say. Otherwise, you risk losing your rewards in heaven. The people surrendered in fear.
From that day forward a strand of bleak apocalyptic fatalism has run through the Christian Church. It’s worth noting that the Book of Revelation was added to the Bible just twenty-five years before this period.
A Newer, Sadder World
In the end, the optimism and confidence that had once characterized the Roman Empire during its prime was gone, replaced by a gloomy resignation allayed only by the hope of God’s grace and the promise of glory in heaven. By downplaying Christian virtues of tolerance and compassion, as exemplified by Christ, and seizing on the tools of intimidation and control, the Church won a central role for itself in the late Roman world without ever assuming responsibility for the welfare of the state.
Within 50 years of the publication of The City of God the Roman government collapsed and the Empire fell, but the Christian Church carried on, growing in power and influence until it became the predominant voice of authority in the medieval world, a world riddled with poverty and disease, and filled with violence.
While Christianity was not solely responsible for the Fall of the Roman Empire, Edward Gibbon was not wrong in identifying it as a major factor in the Empire’s collapse. In my novels The Shadows of Nemesis, The Desecration of Fortune and The Season of Darkness I explore the Church’s role in the Empire’s demise and show how it impacted real people at the time. I do hope you will take the time to look them over.
