Rise of Christanity during the Fall of Rome

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Christianity was enabled to propagate throughout the Roman Empire for several reasons, many of which helped the eventual integration and succession of the Roman "multi theistic" society, to the last major final transition of Rome, asserting itself as monotheistic Christian/Catholic society.

For the inhabitants of the Roman Empire, it was fairly easy to move about. The Romans built excellent roads called, viae and not only did these well engineered roads connect major cities, but they were generally centrally placed in the countryside for army travel and used for civilian alike.

Though Latin was the official language of the Roman Empire, Greek was the primary language used near the fall of Rome. There were common languages in the Empire throughout the years, Latin and Greek were the two most prevalent. The other languages in addition to Greek and Latin, made the spread of information fairly easy, as roads to all major establishments were already in place and various common languages existed, or at least were known, among all the people.

The Roman army and emperors often made displays of Christians in order to exert their imperialistic rule. This persecution of Christians in turn had the impact of negative "press", but "press" none the less. This brought attention to the faith that would undoubtedly lead to its general acceptance during the turnabout of the persecutors in use of the Christian religion to win a battle to save Roman imperialism.

What could be called the final impact of the Christian faith leading to Roman acceptance occurred just before The Battle of the Milvian Bridge in A.D. 312. Constantine said that he had a vision, which lead him to fight under the protection of the Christian God. He did this and won the battle in A.D 337.

Lactantius states that, in the night before the battle, Constantine was commanded in a dream to "delineate the heavenly sign on the shields of his soldiers" (de mort. pers. 44,5). He obeyed and marked the shields with a sign denoting "Christ". Lactantius describes that sign as a "staurogram", or a Latin cross with its upper end rounded in a P-like fashion.

The god Sol Invictus, the Unconquered Sun, was featured prominently on Constantinian coins and monuments in the years before and after the battle. Though the vision has been interpreted in a solar context, the origin of his belief rests in the history preceding the victory in which the Christian believers, once persecuted viciously, had shown much faith to their God, regardless. Thus, the future of Christianity was assured when Constantine converted to Christianity, and the Temples of the old Roman Gods were left to decline. Thus beginning the conversion and the Rise of Christianity.