Originally Posted by More&Faster
in my opinion, it just happened that jesus' character was more compatible with the people and the times than were any of his predecessors. thats part of the reason that christianity survives today as a thriving religion and Dionysus is taught in my mythology class. christianity just happened to come into fashion around 300 AD and the romans picked it up as their official religion.
Just a couple of questions.
1.Mithraism was extant in the Near East at the same time, and gained ground as a majority religion in Egypt and Asia Minor at the same time that Christianity was spreading.
Do you have an opinion about why Christianity replaced Mithraism and other religions as the religion of the majority?
2.Most people believe, and it's even taught in schools, that Constantine I (Ever August) was the one who established Christianity as the state religion.
However, all he did was stop the persecutions, and visibly adopt Christianity as his personal religion.
It was actually Theodosius I (Ever August) who adopted it as the state, imperial religion in place of all the others that were available, and it was with his reign that the title
Pontifex Maximus referred to the Emperor as the chief Christian bishop and priest.
Do you have an opinion about why Theodosius the Great established Christianity so firmly in Roman Imperial consciousness? What made it attractive as an imperial faith?