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The Christians were very hostile to pagan customs and worships. Instead preached the teachings of their new King, Lord Jesus Christ. This seemed like a revolution as they opposed the Jews traditions ultimately leading to the breach of peace between the two factions. Amid this time St. Paul’s success at Ephesus provoked a riot to defend the cult of the goddess Artemis. In 64 CE a fire broke out in Rome creating massive disaster in the empire. To escape the blame emperor Nero massacred multitude of Christians as scapegoat. For the first time, Rome was conscious that Christians were distinct from Jews. Soon thereafter, however, the profession of Christianity was defined as a capital crime. Christianity was outlawed the Roman Empire and criticized by some as a religion for fools.
During the 2nd or 3rd centuries, Christians would become object of unpleasant attention for any random reason. Violence against them could be precipitated by a bad harvest, a barbarian attack, or a public festival of the emperor cult because they denied the gods who were thought to protect Rome, thereby bringing down their wrath.
A famous piece of early-third century Roman wall art, the “Alexamenos graffito,” depicts two human figures, with the head of a donkey, arms stretched out in a T-shaped cross, with the caption “Alexamenos worships his god.”
Alexamenos Graffito
The scenarios completely altered when Constantine the Great, after being converted to Christianity, strengthen the relationship between the church and the imperial government. Many new converts were won, including those who converted only with the hope of advancing their careers. The church was also faced with a new form of governmental interference when Constantine presided at the Council of Nicaea, which addressed the Arian controversy (a debate between Arius and Athanasius and their followers over the nature of the Son of God); the council provided the definition of the relationship between God the Father and God the Son that is still accepted by most Christians today. Despite the outright hostility toward Christianity of the emperor Julian the Apostate (reigned 361–363), the church survived, and the adherents of the traditional Roman religion relapsed into passive resistance. The quietly mounting pressure against paganism in the 4th century culminated in the decrees of Emperor Theodosius I (reigned 379–395), who made Christianity the official religion of the empire and who closed many pagan temples. By the end of the 4th century, therefore, Christianity had been transformed from a persecuted sect to the dominant faith of the empire, in the process becoming intertwined with the imperial government.
Brief on Constantine, the Great
Constantine was born during the crisis of the 3rd century of the Roman Empire. Emperor Diocletian tried to bring order by distributing power to a four-ruler tetrarchy that would govern the four quarters of the empire, (which was a failure). Constantine’s father, Constantius I, was one of the rulers.
In A.D. 306, Constantine was declared emperor by his father’s soldiers after his father's death. For the next 18 years, he fought his rival Roman emperors tp become the sole empower. During the Battle of Milvian Bridge (A.D. 312) outside Rome, he gained victory over Maxentius, his brother-in-law, which served us the turning point for the Christian community.
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