In 324 CE, the Roman Empire underwent a radical religious change, with the ascension of Constantine as ruler. Constantine, a military genius, created a religious identity within the empire using his political power. This identity established a preferential status within the empire as it moved away from the ancient sun gods and toward Christianity. The basis of this status is its affirmation of ritual purity toward the Christian God, and Constantine's edict of tolerance had revolutionary implications for Christians, freeing exiled and suffering Christians. This creation of a central base for religion within the Roman Empire united the empire behind a common goal of integration. This common focus initially allowed the empire to focus on a common accepted religion, and allowed Constantine to focus on his true goals of creating a revolutionized Christian Roman Empire with Constantine as its leader and Constantinople, his city as its capital. The Roman Empire and Christianity were forever changed by the reign of Constantine. The religious implications that extend to Christianity today. Constantine's own conversion to Christianity aided him in his early military battles, but also helped establish the political genius of the Roman Empire during his reign. Constantine's journey before his vision of conversion is very controversial between the different biographical authors of history. Many authors believe that the official Roman policy which exalted Sol Invictus as dominus imperii Romani as the heavenly lord, and the Church of persecuted Christians were the religious origins from which Constantine drew inspiration. These were the two religions that existed most within the Roman Empire at that time. The Roman sun god, generally excepted, created pagan branch cults. Apart from his father's house which did not favor the Christian God, Constantine seems to have found something to bring him closer to the oppressed Christians in the hatred he felt for Diocletian and Galerius, authors of the persecutions. They had excluded him from succession to the Imperial College of Four and thus offended his boundless passion for recognition. Constantine's passion for power was scorned by a hatred towards those who opposed his rise to power. Early in his military campaigns, Constantine took priests on his expeditions, but it was not until he and his men had a direct vision of the Christian God that Constantine's attitude toward religion burned deep into his soul. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why violent video games should not be banned”?Get the original essayThe Roman Empire at that time was divided into four parts with a leader in charge of each part called Caesar, and an emperor over the whole thing is getting worse. Diocletian was emperor, and Caesar of Asia and Egypt, his co-emperor Maximian was Caesar of Italy and Africa, Galerius was Caesar of the Danube frontier, and Constantius was Caesar of Britain and Gaul. Diocletian and the other Caesars persecuted Christians and attempted to end the religion. In 305, Deoccletian resigned as emperor, and then a great struggle for power began. Constantine, son of Constantius, one of the four Caesars, suddenly saw an opportunity for power. It was with this that Constantine attacked Maximian and the war for power broke out. Constantine was convinced that he needed more powerful help than his forces could muster to defeat Maximian's wicked and magical enchantments. Constantine remembered that past emperors had lost many battles based on false oracles madeby the predictions of the sun god, and Constantine therefore sought divine help from the Christian God of his father. The direct answer is that Constantine and his soldiers claim to have seen a direct revelation from God: above the setting sun, the emperor and his army with him saw the sign of the cross outlined by rays of light and, with this, the words: in this sign you will overcome. This was directly followed by Jesus Christ visiting Constantine in a dream, with the same sign he had seen in the heavens and ordered him to make an image of what he had seen in the heavens and use it as a backup in all commitments. with his enemies. It was with these signs from God himself that Constantine converted to Christianity. Constantine's first act after conversion was to ask his soldiers to put on their shields the emblem that God had given him. It was with this vision that Constantine began to base his change on the religious aspect of the Roman Empire. In 324, Constantine defeated his last adversary and became the sole emperor of the Roman Empire. Constantine's reign followed that of Diocletian, except for his support of Christianity. One of the most important steps Constantine took in creating a new Roman Empire was to create new laws dealing with the jurisdiction of bishops, justice, and a moralization of the justice system. This system of justice took a new turn with Constantine granting public lands to the Christian Church, while condemning black magic. He also took Jewish lands and gave them to Christians, while prohibiting those who had changed their religion to Christianity from doing so without fear of punishment. Another decree restricted divorce, so that a woman only had certain grounds on which she could divorce her husband. Constantine did not introduce Christian legislation, he believed that Christianity was concerned with the life of the world to come, and that in this world the prayers of Christians to the true God would bring blessings to the empire. The overwhelming impact of his religion on legislation came not from drastic laws, causing an all-out religious revolt, but rather from making the empire safer for Christianity by increasing the number of Christians. Constantine's genius in this area helped integrate the Roman Empire, by not imposing a religion on a group of people who would not accept it, but rather allowing a religion to take over time by allowing him to flourish. Until now, in the Roman Empire, Christianity was punished, persecuted and forced to be an underground religion. Constantine's decree allowed a new, once-despised religion to emerge into the public eye, with the fervor it had before the persecution, and thus to storm an empire that encouraged it. Constantine's next achievement for Christianity was the erection of a new Roman capital of Constantinople. Constantinople was not only a brilliant military strategic site, as it was bordered by water on three sides, but it was also an ideal launching point for Christianity to the east and north. Another positive that Constantinople created was that it gave the empire a new center on which to base the empire and its new ideals. Rome is an old city filled with pagan traditions and cults. Constantinople was free from these ideals of past traditions and established common practices. This meant that once Constantine had deeply entrenched the Church in his structure of the empire, there was no longer room for Christianity in Rome which was allowed to fully attend to its pagan worship. To finance his new city, Constantine had agents, collecting treasures of gold and silver from all sidesancient gods and the theft of famous statues to finance the reconstruction of the new capital. In 325, Constantine went so far as to give Rome a Christian. governor. This caused a great argument between Constantine and the pagans. Part of Constantine's decision to remove this Christian governor only a year later was due to the feelings of his soldiers who were pagans. Thus, Constantinople became almost a rival city on the religious and majestic level of Rome. Another of Constantine's achievements for Christianity and the Roman Empire was the convening of the Council of Nicaea, whose stated purpose was to settle the theological disputes that had arisen over the past 300 years concerning the essence and nature of Christ and the Holy Spirit. It was at this point in Constantine's reign that he sided with Christianity, claiming that other religions blasphemed against Jesus Christ as the Redeemer. Constantine even went so far as to banish the bishops from the council and considered them heretics sent here because the flames of discord had been fanned by their efforts. But these fine bishops, whom the truth of the synod had formerly preserved for repentance, not only received them and kept them safe in their houses, but also shared in their wickedness. Constantine exiled those he considered heretics or corrupters of the council and of Constantine's Christian cause. Constantine's concept of a bishop and how their beliefs should correspond to his own, which created a high decree of Constantine for the exile of those he considered directly opposed or not believing in his belief or ideals of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit of God. The exiles fought for their beliefs and created a political power play in which Constantine was forced to listen to those he believed to believe in heresy and sought to convert these bishops to Constantine's ideal Christianity. The final decision of the council was that a creed of belief in one God, the Father Almighty, creator of all things, visible and invisible, and in the Lord, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, only begotten of the Father , that is to say, of the substance of the Father, God of God and Light of Light, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made, both in heaven and on earth , who came for us men and for our salvation. fell and became flesh, was made man, suffered and rose again on the third day, ascended into heaven and is to return to judge both the living and the dead in the Holy Spirit. The emperor's personal beliefs regarding Christ may be I saw a letter he wrote to Bishop Arius, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, begotten of the Father before all ages, God the Word, by whom all things were made in heaven and on earth, who descended and took on flesh and suffered and was resurrected and ascended into heaven and is returning to judge the living and the dead, and in the Holy -Spirit, and the resurrection of the body and the life of the world to come and in the kingdom of heaven. It was with these ideas of Christ that Constantine sought to change the policies involved in a newly resurrected Christian church. Bishops who opposed the now acceptable beliefs of the council were now considered heretics and brought before Constantine and his bishops and were exiled. The use of a common mission statement within the Church allowed Constantine and the empire to impose these beliefs within all churches and unify the churches behind the common beliefs of God and Jesus Christ. This unification of the Church helped create a unifying group of Christians. The downfall, however, lies in Constantine's own involvementwithin this council, and the worshipers of the sun god in Rome and other cities saw that their emperor was directly opposing their religious beliefs and attempting to impose his beliefs on the churches. There came a time when the Christian Church grew and spread within the empire and, instead of tolerating other religions, Christians began to suppress paganism. Constantine effectively proclaimed Christianity in the new cities, urged the population of the cities to abandon their old cults, and rewarded them for doing so. The imperial cult, which was the cult of the emperor and the empire, was suppressed, but allowed within the empire in its sanitized Christian form. The fall of pagan cults can be shown to have begun during the reign of Constantine and continued in the years that followed. The work of devastation of pagan cults began slowly with its oppression by Christianity, and they fell from predominance. The predominant factor in the fall of pagan cults came from Constantine's destruction of these temples for material use in his own temples of Christianity. With the loss of a place of worship, these pagan cults began to disappear like the Jews during the great dispersion. The Roman Empire also began to encourage Christianity as a whole by greatly supporting it and making it the center of the entire empire during the time of Constantine. It is thanks to Constantine's favor towards Christianity that the Christian Church today is alive. Diocletian and his persecutions nearly ended Christian existence within the empire with his tortures and persecutions. Constantine's early use of tolerance toward religions that directly opposed his own created a mesh of the two and allowed pagan worshipers to convert to an alternative religion of Christianity rather than an opposing religion . This was one of Constantine's strong political measures of originally accepting all religions, rather than creating direct opposition to anything his subjects had known and therefore creating unfaithful subjects, and preventing a possible overthrow of the emperor. Constantine's overall political efforts in favor of Christianity allowed Christianity to begin as something that the empire did not tolerate and in fact tried to condemn; to an entity that was at the center of the empire and prospered with the approval and aid of the empire. This capitalization allowed a struggling religion to take root among a people who followed and worshiped the emperor. Constantine definitely used his power to promote Christianity by using material from pagan worship centers for his own Christian churches. This view showed the people where Constantine stood religiously and removed from his cornerstone which was a place of worship. Many people may have been angry with Constantine, but moving the capital to Constantinople ensured that it would not suffer a direct uprising from angry religious leaders and followers. This political genius aided Constantine in his use of political power within the Council of Nicaea to create a central, unified Christian point of view and ideal. By establishing common statutes of thought, Constantine united Christians within the empire under a common identity and belief system, and did not lose his followers to rivals against each other. Constantine's views on the battlefield have been debated by historians and scholars, but it is evident that through his actions and use of power that directly opposed certain individuals within the empire, Constantine forever transformed into a belief inChrist by a vision he saw in heaven. Constantine's use of his political power to gain control of such a vast empire is a great achievement that is further illuminated by his use of religious influence. For Christians, Constantine is seen as someone who helped their religion in its darkest hours, while pagan cultures of the time viewed Constantine as an oppressor of their culture forever. Constantine's conversion had an impact on the Roman Empire that has implications for religions today. Bibliography Constantine v Christ Alistair Kee SCM Press Ltd. 58 Bloomsbury Street London 19822. Constantine, a military genius, created a religious identity within the empire using his political power. This identity established a preferential status within the empire as it moved away from the ancient sun gods and toward Christianity. The basis of this status is its affirmation of ritual purity toward the Christian God, and Constantine's edict of tolerance had revolutionary implications for Christians, freeing exiled and suffering Christians. This creation of a central base for religion within the Roman Empire united the empire behind a common goal of integration. This common focus initially allowed the empire to focus on a common accepted religion, and allowed Constantine to focus on his true goals: creating a revolutionized Christian Roman Empire with Constantine as its leader and Constantinople, his city as its capital. The Roman Empire and Christianity were forever changed by the reign of Constantine. The religious implications that extend to Christianity today. Constantine's own conversion to Christianity aided him in his early military battles, but also helped establish the political genius of the Roman Empire during his reign. Constantine's background before his vision of conversion is highly controversial among different biographical authors of history. Many authors believe that the official Roman policy which exalted Sol Invictus as dominus imperii Romani to be the heavenly lord, and that the Church of persecuted Christians was the religious circles from which Constantine drew inspiration. These were the two religions that existed most within the Roman Empire at that time. The Roman sun god, generally excepted, created pagan branch cults. Apart from his father's house which did not favor the Christian God, Constantine seems to have found something to bring him closer to the oppressed Christians in the hatred he felt for Diocletian and Galerius, authors of the persecutions. They had excluded him from succession to the Imperial College of Four and thus offended his boundless passion for recognition. Constantine's passion for power was scorned by a hatred towards those who opposed his rise to power. Early in his military campaigns, Constantine took priests on his expeditions, but it was not until he and his men had a direct vision of the Christian God that Constantine's attitude toward religion burned deep into his soul. The Roman Empire at this time was divided into four parts, with a leader responsible for each part called Caesar, and an emperor over the entire empire. Diocletian was emperor, and Caesar of Asia and Egypt, his co-emperor Maximian was Caesar of Italy and Africa, Galerius was Caesar of the Danube frontier, and Constantius was Caesar of Britain and Gaul. Diocletian and the other Caesars persecuted Christians and attempted to end the religion. In 305, Deoccletian resigned as emperor, and then a great struggle for power began. Constantine, son of Constantius, one of the four Caesars, suddenly saw an opportunity topower. It was with this that Constantine attacked Maximian and the war for power broke out. Constantine was convinced that he needed more powerful help than his forces could muster to defeat Maximian's wicked and magical enchantments. Constantine remembered that past emperors had lost many battles based on false oracles made by the sun god's predictions, and so Constantine sought divine help from the Christian God of his father. The straightforward answer is that Constantine and his soldiers claim to have seen a direct revelation. of God: above the setting sun, the Emperor and his army with him saw the sign of the cross drawn in rays of light, and with it the words: in this sign you will conquer. This was directly followed by Jesus Christ visiting Constantine in a dream, with the same sign he had seen in the heavens and ordered him to make an image of what he had seen in the heavens and use it as a backup in all commitments. with his enemies. It was with these signs from God himself that Constantine converted to Christianity. Constantine's first act after conversion was to ask his soldiers to put on their shields the emblem that God had given him. It was with this vision that Constantine began to base his change on the religious aspect of the Roman Empire. In 324, Constantine defeated his last adversary and became the sole emperor of the Roman Empire. Constantine's reign followed that of Diocletian, except for his support of Christianity. One of the most important steps taken by Constantine in creating a new Roman Empire was to create new laws, dealing with the jurisdiction of bishops, justice and a moralization of the legal system. This system of justice took a new turn with Constantine granting public lands to the Christian Church, while condemning black magic. He also took Jewish lands and gave them to Christians, while prohibiting those who had changed their religion to Christianity from doing so without fear of punishment. Another decree restricted divorce, so that a woman only had certain grounds on which she could divorce her husband. Constantine did not put in place Christian legislation, he believed that Christianity was concerned with the life of the world to come and that in this world, the prayers of Christians to the true God would bring his blessings to the empire. his religion on legislation, did not result from drastic laws, causing total religious revolt, but rather were intended to make the empire safe for Christianity by increasing the number of Christians. Constantine's genius in this area helped integrate the Roman Empire, by not imposing a religion on a group of people who would not accept it, but rather allowing a religion to take over time by allowing him to flourish. Until now, in the Roman Empire, Christianity was punished, persecuted and forced to be an underground religion. Constantine's decree allowed a new, once-despised religion to emerge into the public eye, with the fervor it had before the persecution, and thus to storm an empire that encouraged it. Constantine's next achievement for Christianity was the erection of a new Roman capital, Constantinople. Constantinople was not only a brilliant military strategic site, as it was bordered by water on three sides, but it was also an ideal launching point for Christianity to the east and north. Another positive that Constantinople created was that it gave the empire a new center on which to base the empire and its new ideals. Rome is an old city filled with pagan traditions and cults. Constantinople was free from these ideals of traditionspast and established common practices. This meant that once Constantine had deeply entrenched the Church in his structure of the empire, there was no longer room for Christianity in Rome which was allowed to fully attend to its pagan worship. To finance his new city, Constantine had agents, collecting from all directions the gold and silver treasures of the ancient gods and the theft of famous statues to finance the reconstruction of the new capital. In 325, Constantine went so far as to give Rome a Christian. governor. This caused a great argument between Constantine and the pagans. Part of Constantine's decision to remove this Christian governor only a year later was due to the feelings of his soldiers who were pagans. Thus, Constantinople became almost a rival city on the religious and majestic level of Rome. Another of Constantine's achievements for Christianity and the Roman Empire was the convening of the Council of Nicaea, the stated purpose of which was to settle the theological disputes that had arisen over the past 300 years concerning the essence and nature of Christ and the Holy One. -Spirit. It was at this point in Constantine's reign that he sided with Christianity, claiming that other religions blasphemed against Jesus Christ as the Redeemer. Constantine even went so far as to banish the bishops from the council and considered them heretics sent here because the flames of discord had been fanned by their efforts. But these fine bishops, whom the truth of the synod had formerly preserved for repentance, not only received them and kept them safe in their houses, but also shared in their wickedness. Constantine exiled those he considered heretics or corrupters of the council and of Constantine's Christian cause. Constantine's concept of a bishop and how their beliefs should correspond to his own, which created a high decree from Constantine for the exile of those he considered to directly oppose or disbelieve in his belief or his ideals of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit of God. The exiles fought for their beliefs and created a political power play in which Constantine was forced to listen to those he believed to believe in heresy and sought to convert these bishops to Constantine's ideal Christianity. The final decision of the council was that a creed of belief in one God, the Father Almighty, creator of all things, visible and invisible, and in the Lord, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, only begotten of the Father , that is to say, of the substance of the Father, God of God and Light of Light, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made, both in heaven and on earth , who came for us men and for our salvation. fell and became flesh, was made man, suffered and rose again on the third day, ascended into heaven and is to return to judge both the living and the dead in the Holy Spirit. The emperor's personal beliefs regarding Christ may be I saw a letter he wrote to Bishop Arius, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, begotten of the Father before all ages, God the Word, by whom all things were made in heaven and on earth, who descended and took on flesh and suffered and was resurrected and ascended into heaven and is returning to judge the living and the dead, and in the Holy -Spirit, and the resurrection of the body and the life of the world to come and in the kingdom of heaven. It was with these ideas of Christ that Constantine sought to change the policies involved in a newly resurrected Christian church. Bishops who opposed the now acceptable beliefs of the council were now considered heretics and brought before Constantine and his bishops and were exiled. The use of a