The Role of Christianity in the Restoration and Remaking of State Power

The last centuries of the roman print pudding stone was marked with chaos and bloodshed. Rival claimants to the imperial throne incessantly waged war with one a nonher, disrupting on the whole aspects of roman letters life in the process. Barbaric tribes from neighboring regions took gain of this incident by invading the countryside, stealing crops and livestock, burning entire t declares to the ground and killing or enslaving Roman peasants. In the cities, ambitious praetorians and senators often led rebellions, paralyzing economic activity as a result.The tragic end of the Roman empire eroded confidence in human reason and shattered the hope of attaining happiness in this world. Desperate, impoverished and fearful for their lives, nation during this period were searching for an escape from the oppression that they were experiencing. This need, in turn, prompted the evolution and magnification of Christianity. Christianitys otherworldliness and promise of personal immortali ty gave a spiritually disillusioned Greco-Roman world a reason to continue living.Furthermore, the triumph of Christianity in the Greco-Roman world marked the end of classical ancientness and the beginning of the medieval period (Perry, Chase, Jacob, Jacob, Von Laue 171). A Palestinian Jew named Jesus Christ (4 BC-29 AD) was the founder of Christianity. Prior to his ministry, closely Palestinian Jews were followers of Judaism, a religion that was based on Mosaic Law (Torah). Apart from spiritual rituals, Judaism was in like manner composed of many laws that governed daily life. Christ himself was taught Jewish apparitional-ethical thought in his formative years (Perry, Chase, Jacob, Jacob, Von Laue 174).Christ, however, was distressed over the manner in which Jewish leading implemented the teachings of Judaism. He felt that their centralize shifted from prophetic values to obedience to rules and prohibitions regulating the smallest details of daily life (Perry, Chase, Jacob, Jacob, Von Laue 174). For Christ, detailed regulations governing occasional activities dealt only with a persons visible behavior but not with his or her knowledgeable being. Such a superficial manner of enforcing Jewish law produced individuals who mechanically followed rules and prohibitions but whose hearts remained adulterated (Perry, Chase, Jacob, Jacob, Von Laue 174).He believed that true morality meant doing away with vices such as fornication, adultery, murder and avarice. The Jewish scribes and priests, as a result, viewed Christ as a threat to ancient traditions and to their authority over the Jews. The Romans, meanwhile, regarded him as a political agitator who would incite a rebellion against Rome (Perry, Chase, Jacob, Jacob, Von Laue 175). Jewish leaders therefore had him arrested for high perfidiousness and turned him over to Pontius Pilate, who sentenced him to death by crucifixion. precisely Christ underwent resurrection three days after his expiry and later as cended into heaven.His followers then traveled to various parts of the world in arrangement to shell out his teachings. The early years of Christianity were not easy for its followers. Christians during the Roman Empire, for instance, were brutally persecuted because they were seen as subversives (who) preached allegiance to God and not to Rome (Perry, Chase, Jacob, Jacob, Von Laue 180). They were imprisoned, beaten, starved, burned alive, crucified and torn apart by wild animals in the arena for the amusement of the Roman public (Perry, Chase, Jacob, Jacob, Von Laue 181).In coiffe to escape harassment, Christians clandestinely met and held worship services in venues such as catacombs. But Christianitys aforementioned situation was reversed with the fall of the Roman Empire. The appeal of Christianity was based mainly on the common knowledge that religion is more capable of stirring human hearts than reason. The Roman Empires staunch belief in science and philosophy did not save it from total destruction. neither was it able to provide comforting solutions to the existential problems of life and death (Perry, Chase, Jacob, Jacob, Von Laue 178).Christianity, in sharp contrast, gave the assurance that all earthly torments were the will of God God make human beings undergo suffering in order to test their faithfulness to him. As Christianity became increasingly popular among the Romans, emperors realized that crushing the religion through persecution was already futile. They instead decided to obtain the support of the empires Christian population. Constantine, for instance, issued in 313 AD the revision of Milan a law that granted toleration to Christians.This directive was followed by other legislations which was favorable to the church Theodosius I had made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire and outlawed the worship of pagan gods by 392 AD (Perry, Chase, Jacob, Jacob, Von Laue 181). It would be fair to say that these laws transformed Christianity into an apparatus for the restoration and remaking of state power. Fanatic clergy took advantage of their newly-empowered status by persuading Roman emperors to issue decrees that persecuted pagans, Jews and Christians with unorthodox views.Consequently, many followers of pagan cults were fined, imprisoned, tortured and executed. In addition, Christian mobs burned non-Christian writings, destroyed pagan altars and sacred images and squelched pagan rites and festivals (Perry, Chase, Jacob, Jacob, Von Laue 181). In the process, the Roman Empire was slowly being re perpetrated with a theocracy Roman emperors were reduced to puppets that the Christian clergy controlled at the strings. Christianity further gained political salt lick when it started amassing material wealth. Many wealthy Christians died leaving almost all of their fortune to the church.Some Christian leaders in the 4th light speed were therefore able to build monasteries or communities of people committed to requester and asceticism (Hastings 43). Monasteries played a crucial role in the spread of Christianity they served as training rationality for missionaries. Monasteries were likewise vital to social and economic development, as they established schools and libraries and served as landlords and organizers of economic wealth (McManners 119). The Christian church, through the monasteries, amassed so much wealth in donated lands, money and priceless church furnishings.Thus, the Christian Church eventually became richer and more powerful than most lay monarchies. The pope, previously a spiritual leader alone, also became a temporal power in the process (Bausch, Cannon and Obach 120). By the 9th century, the Christian Church was already powerful enough to establish its own empire pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne as emperor of the Holy Roman Empire in 800 (MSN Encarta n. pag. ). The Middle Ages was characterized with constant power struggles between the pope and the monarchs.In 1 075, for instance, Pope Gregory VII and Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV fought over the respectable of the sovereign to appoint bishops in his realm (lay investiture). Henry refused to acknowledge Gregorys papacy, while the pope excommunicated the emperor. recumb investiture is said to be the most persistent source of clashes between the Christian Church and the splendour bishops and abbots refused to have the king exercise control over their lands and other wealth. But it was necessary for the king to do it in order to assert his authority over his secular nobility (MSN Encarta n. pag. ).The Crusades was one of the rare instances wherein the monarchy and the Christian Church joined forces. The Moslem conquest of Jerusalem spawned meant that the sacred places associated with the life of Christ would fall into the work force of a non-Christian power. West European Christians therefore launched the Crusades, a series of wars from 1095 to 1204 that were intended to recapture Jerusale m from Muslim rule. But the Crusades proved to be a failure Jerusalem returned to Islamic rule a century after the Fourth Crusade of 1202-1204 (MSN Encarta n. pag. ). After the Crusades, the Christian Church was plagued with even more problems.Moral lethargy and financial profaneion were genuinely rampant (MSN Encarta n. pag. ). The clergy lived luxuriously, while ordinary people starved. Another anomaly that took place within the Christian Church was the selling of indulgences. Priests would sell people relics (hair or bones of saints) at very expensive prices. They would convince people into buying by claiming that possessing relics would immediately take them to Heaven upon their death. Some priests and religious leaders openly criticized the aforementioned irregularities in the Christian Church, a phenomenon which was later known as the Reformation.On October 31, 1517, German theologian Martin Luther published the Ninety-five Theses, a criticism on the selling of indulgences in order to raise funds for the construction of St. Peters Basilica in Rome. His excommunication by Pope Leo X led to the formation of Protestantism. Others, such as Huldreich Zwingli and John Calvin, soon came up with their own Protestant sects (MSN Encarta n. pag. ). The emergence of Protestantism prompted the Catholic Church to stage the Counterreformation in the 16th and 17th centuries.The Council of Trent (1545-1563), for one, clarified arguable doctrines and established guidelines on liturgy, church administration and education. The Catholic Church likewise came up with the Index of proscribe Books and a new Inquisition. Missionaries were then sent to the Far East and North and South America in order to draw more converts to Roman Catholicism (MSN Encarta n. pag. ). Christianitys otherworldliness and promise of personal immortality made it appear as a suitable alternative to the chaotic Roman Empire.As a result, people wholeheartedly supported the Christian Church. Apart fr om being faithful followers, they invested time and resources on the religion. The Christian Church, in the process, became even more powerful than secular nobility. But if power corrupts, then absolute power corrupts absolutely. later(prenominal) Catholic leaders became morally decadent and corrupt. Consequently, c one timerned parties from the clergy established Protestantism. It is indeed very ironic that Christianity, once regarded as an alternative to a corrupt status quo, ended up being a corrupt institution itself.