Would Christianity Rise w/o Constantine?

[Shiva]

There is one religion that I think that could challenge Christianity in a world without Constantine, especially if the Roman Empire breaks apart sooner than in RL.

Manicheanism.

Even when Christianity was on the ascent, Manichaenism spread very quickly from Persia in East and Western directions, there was a Manichaean monastery in Rome at one point and of the Gnostic faiths, it was easily the largest that existed. And before people say, oh Gnosticism wasn't THAT popular, the Gnostic religions persisted for over a thousand years and a religion doesn't last that long without being popular in some form.

In RL the religion of light supposedly died out by the 17th century, though there have recently been mentions of some Manichaeans continuing to exist and practicing the faith in secret in China.

Regardless, I could see Christianity splintering into several competing sects, especially if the Roman Empire breaks down faster than it did in RL with no one sect being able to absorb/wipe out the others, and then facing pressures from new religions rising from the east.

 

[John Fredrick Parker]

There is one religion that I think that could challenge Christianity in a world without Constantine, especially if the Roman Empire breaks apart sooner than in RL - Manicheanism.

If you thought pagan Roman paranoia about Christianity was bad, they had nothing on what Roman authorities from Diocletian onward thought of the followers of Mani.

 

[Mikestone8]

If you thought pagan Roman paranoia about Christianity was bad, they had nothing on what Roman authorities from Diocletian onward thought of the followers of Mani.

Yet it still popped up from time to time in the Middle Ages (most famously as Catharism in 13C France) and AUIU the Bosniak Moslems are descended from Manichean heretics who embraced Islam after the Turkish conquest.

Sounds like it was pretty durable. If the WRE is still not Christian at the time of its collapse, then it might be in with a chance.

 

[kasumigenx]

Without Western Christianity, the Latinization of some areas conquered by Rome is weaker, we might see more survival of Celtic languages like in Northern France and Northern Iberia.

 

[John Fredrick Parker]

Without Western Christianity, the Latinization of some areas conquered by Rome is weaker, we might see more survival of Celtic languages like in Northern France and Northern Iberia.

Only because you mention this, I want to note -- even though it really goes without saying -- that with a PoD this early, the Anglo-Saxon-ization of Britain is very much avertable. Considering that in modern day OTL, Celtic based languages only include a fairly small number of native speakers in Ireland, Wales, and Brittany, this could prove an interesting aspect of the TL.

 

[kholieken]

Yet it still popped up from time to time in the Middle Ages (most famously as Catharism in 13C France) and AUIU the Bosniak Moslems are descended from Manichean heretics who embraced Islam after the Turkish conquest.

Not sure it is credible accusations. "Manichaenism" is word used to describe any faith that have dualism feature: soul/heaven - body/world. Not necessarily connected with original Mani.

 

[kasumigenx]

Only because you mention this, I want to note -- even though it really goes without saying -- that with a PoD this early, the Anglo-Saxon-ization of Britain is very much avertable. Considering that in modern day OTL, Celtic based languages only include a fairly small number of native speakers in Ireland, Wales, and Brittany, this could prove an interesting aspect of the TL.

The Latinization of Southern Iberia and Southern France was easy because of the Ligures and Lusitanians who were Italic who were already there, they only had to lose individuality with Latin and expand, turning Northern France and Northern Iberia Latin required enforcement which would be easier if aided by religion.

 

[Andristan]

Welsh and Basque are two of the three languages of Europe that survived from before the Roman Empire, I can never remember the third

 

[SlyDessertFox]

Welsh and Basque are two of the three languages of Europe that survived from before the Roman Empire, I can never remember the third

Depends on how you define "survived." Aquitanian likely survived into the middle ages.

 

[Gwyndolin]

As we all probably know, Diocletian and his band went with Option One to start. And as even more know, it did not work; in fact, it failed spectacularly. And in 311 Galerius, who had been enthusiastically persecuting the faith up to that point, came out and said it wasn’t working; he issued an Edict of Toleration, and asked the people he had been hunting down, torturing, and killing to pray for him. Then he died. One of his two successors, Licinus, started working with and subsidizing the Christian Church pretty much as soon as the window opened; and since both Christianity and citizens more generally were both more populous in his part of the empire to begin with, we can safely surmise that much of the growth in the church from 310 to 350 happened under his watch.

Now it is true that I said “one of” Galerius’ “two successors” -- because the one who took the southeast, Maximinus Darza, did continue to hold Christians at length and even persecute them, as did his ally Maxentius in Italy. However, in their case, I think it’s pretty plain that their “paganism” was done in a pretty narrow political context -- that context being, pretty much everyone knew where legalizing and trying to make amends with Christianity after the last persecutions were going to turn out, and there were plenty of very powerful people who were not happy about that. This faction was influential enough that, if rivals to the throne are quickly gaining the support of the Christian community -- as Constantine and Licinius were -- it just made sense to rally the support of people most concerned about that. I don’t think it follows from there that crushing Christianity and restoring paganism was in any way a realistic policy goal; in fact, that the rest of the wars of the tetrarchy basically just amounted to Constantine and Licinius vying for power pretty much proves that virtually nobody seriously thought neo-paganism had a chance anymore; even core pagan institutions, like the Oracles at Delphi, were pretty much fatalistic about the long term prospects of their worldview. In fact, by 325, the popular sentiment was so much on the Christian side that Constantine pushed a misleading propaganda message of Licinius being anti-Christian, which modern historians are pretty skeptical of.

I’m going to try and give my opinions in a concise manner, but before I do that I think I’ll provide a general overview as to the material realities of the age to better contrast this sort of narrative, not that it’s entirely wrong or without merit.

The Rome that Constantine inherited was a pagan world, During the 3rd century the chaos throughout the Empire had caused financial decay to set in for pagan institutions across the empire, as it really had for everything else during times of social and economic decline. This effected local communities ability to carry out large scale rituals and festivals (although this doesn’t mean they ceased everywhere).

Constantine‘s conversion, while we see it now as a monumental shift where the pagan world of Hellenism and Religio Romana was shattered by this new Christian movement, this is in fact a narrative falsely constructed by the church fathers to act as religious propaganda. It is a metaphysical narrative, in reality Constantine while he pilfered from temples and made declarations banning new temples, he still presided over an Empire where the majority of inhabitants, rural and urban, were pagan. Constantine also banned blood sacrifice, but blood sacrifice was actually becoming increasingly unpopular among the pagan population both due to the costliness of the rituals involved and also due to the popularity of new ideas developing among the Neoplatonists, who inspired by their Pythagorean forebears could often be found advocating vegetarianism (Porphyry was a vegetarian). For one the reason why no claimant to the throne had ever tried to gain traction by “restoring paganism” is that there was nothing to restore, non Christian religion was dominant and thriving, at worst the various communities had settled into lax public secularism and the majority of the empire practiced religious cohabitation without much issue. As for the oracle of Delphi, “the gods no longer have a prophet, Apollo’s springs are dry” is a decidedly later invention placed into the lips of the Pythia, it’s worth as much historical weight as Porphyry‘s oracular description of Hecate about Jesus.

Basically, despite our modern views and while it is true Constantine and Constantius II did make things worse by creating a new status quo, said status quo was very much based on a numerical minority giving political momentum to itself. That momentum was not given massive, institutional force until the reign of Theodosius which is when public institutional paganism as a dominant religion was killed , and even then it still did not fully die until Justinian closed the Platonic academy. I’ve spoken about this often but I do actually believe a successful Julian is the best contender for not just keeping the pagan status quo but actually vivifying the religion in an institutional level. But if an Alt Constantine was pagan that just essentially fulfills the same requirements albeit it has different historical implications for the future. Not that pagan Platonism wouldn’t evolve without Julian, it had already evolved into a systemized theosophy by the time of Porphyry.

TLDR; The narrative of a political Christianity triumphing over Paganism really doesn’t exist as a material reality in the early to mid 4th century outside of maybe the city of Constantinople itself (and I do say maybe because Constantinople still had pagans and pagans were very much apart of Constantine’s court), and it wasn’t until the reign of Theodosius that Paganism was dealt an actual severe blow to its institutional ability to function as a dominant religion(s) in the Mediterranean. As long as your butterfly happens before then then it’s possible for Greco Roman polytheism to be THE religion of the European Mediterranean, and even PODs after that can result in minority communities of public pagans existing for far longer than OTL. Aurelian himself is also a good POD

 

[Gloss]

Welsh and Basque are two of the three languages of Europe that survived from before the Roman Empire, I can never remember the third

Albanian and Greek

 

[DJ03]

The Latinization of Southern Iberia and Southern France was easy because of the Ligures and Lusitanians who were Italic who were already there, they only had to lose individuality with Latin and expand, turning Northern France and Northern Iberia Latin required enforcement which would be easier if aided by religion.

lusitanians were italic?

 

[kasumigenx]

lusitanians were italic?

Yes, they are said to be closely related to the Latins.

 

[tus3]

Albanian and Greek

As he had not mentioned the Sami nor Balts I had assumed he was only talking about the parts of Western Europe which had been ruled by the Roman Empire.

Of course if he really had been talking about all of Europe then we end up with quite a lot of languages of Europe that survived from before the Roman Empire.

 

[Andristan]

Yeah, I did mean West Rome

 

[Gloss]

As he had not mentioned the Sami nor Balts I had assumed he was only talking about the parts of Western Europe which had been ruled by the Roman Empire.

Of course if he really had been talking about all of Europe then we end up with quite a lot of languages of Europe that survived from before the Roman Empire.

Neither Sami or Balts where within Roman lands though, do they and other languages from non-Roman Europe really matter here?

 

[imperiusdamian]

This is a fascinating thread and I can't resist throwing my hat into the ring.

I mentioned in another thread that Christianity can be said to have a martyr complex: considering the central event of the religion, the Crucifixion, is a martyrdom, it makes sense. When faced with real or perceived persecution, Christianity digs its heels in and fights like a cornered beast (as we see nowadays with certain Evangelical sects in the US).
Assuming that was also the case in the 3rd century, can we perhaps make a case that Diocletian and others, by persecutions, galvanised Christianity even more? And after all, there's nothing like a common enemy to bring feuding factions (or in this case heresies) together. And then we had OTL Constantine endorsing one particular sect and thus inspiring them to see the other sects as "the enemy". Persecution followed by official recognition: a good recipe for this relatively new faith to go from 10% to 50% of the population almost overnight.

Might we perhaps consider that without the twin causes of a last persecution followed by official recognition, Christianity might have continued to rub along beside the various other religious minorities in the empire for another three centuries?