Relativism, part II: the Patristic Ethos

We begin back in the waning days of the Roman Empire, a period I've called "Patristic." At its height, Rome stretched from the cost of Europe and Africa on the Atlantic all the way into modern-day Turkey, and from as far north as England to its southernmost settlements in Ethiopia. What is most important about this period is the pluralism and the multiculturalism of the Roman machine; vast armies were summoned from three continents; traders moved from Tarsus to Rome to Jerusalem to Cairo and back again; cities arose from the desert, the countryside, and everywhere in between. Rome was the known world, and treatises from this period often reflect the sentiment that anything beyond its borders were of little consequence.

The state religion, known to historians as the "cult of the emperor," permeated this culture from East to West, North to South. It demanded the worship of the Roman Emperor by every citizen - with severe penalties, including witholding of marketplace privileges - but also allowed them the freedom to worship additional deities as they saw fit. Religion was as such almost buffet-style, a pick-and-choose-my-favorites culture (so long as one favorite was the Emperor). Popular culture was filled with religious icons, imagery, and rituals of every imaginable variety; temples of every imaginable shape, size, and flavor dotted the cityscapes. Many of the so-called "mystery religions" served as a sort of supplemental insurance, the rider attached to one's normal religion or local deity, that insured a positive outcome in the next life. It was a colorful, multifaceted culture of indulgence in the upper classes and of earnest passion in the lower.

But corruption in politics led to many attempts - some successful - to usurp power. Emperors came and went, and eventually the once proud empire was split in two, East and West. Both were at war, with one another and with various cultures and tribes on their borders looking to take advantage of the political turmoil (namely the tribes of Germania in the north and the Turks in the East). Into the fray came a young general, Constantine.

Legend holds that Constantine received a vision of the symbol of the Chi-Rho, a Christian symbol, and was told by a divine voice, "with this symbol, victory." He immediately had the symbol affixed to the banners, the shields, and any other available surfaces of his army, and later that week, his armies defeated those of Maxentius in a fierce battle at Milvian Bridge. The civil war was over, the East and West reunited under a single banner. Thereafter, the Roman Empire began sweeping changes to its legal system, legalizing the growing Christian movement as a valid religion, eventually making it the official religion of the Empire (though not under Constantine, who himself was only ever baptized on his deathbed, preferring instead to keep his options open and even allowing the maintenance of the cult of the Emperor). Never before had Christianity, an offshoot of Judaism that had endured and even grown in the face of harsh persecution, enjoyed such wide acceptance. A clergy class sprang up, and gradually life became ... shall we say, "soft" for them.

This was the birth of Christendom, and I believe an event that marked the highpoint of the transition between the Patristic period and what I'll call the Medieval period. As the clergy became more powerful, tolerance for the many religions and cults of the Roman Empire began to fade; social and legal pressures became responsible for as many conversions as legitimate conversions. Gradually, European culture in particular began to shift away from the anything-goes religious diversity of the Roman Empire and toward a state-centered Christendom, the (re)melding of politics with religion, towards an Empire with Christianity at its center.

And then Rome fell.