Reply #16: Don't paint the Romans as too noble [View All]

[Doohickie]

Noxious superstition? How does Christianity compare with the array of Roman gods? To the belief that Caesar was a god? Even if one does not subscribe to Christianity, he has to admit that "noxious superstition" was not invented by the Church.

Rome was a powerful empire, but it was corrupt and so it crumbled. The Church was the only authority of any scope left, so it assumed much of the duties of the failed government and became a government of sorts itself. The early Christian Church was not nearly as corrupt as it later became, and I think the corruption bloomed out of the fact that the Church had unchallenged power. It isn't so much that the Church corrupted Rome and led to Rome's downfall; it is that the downfall of a corrupt Rome led to a corruption of the Church by giving it secular as well as spiritual power.