Under the Christian world view, the earth was the centre of the universe, specially created by God to house man, his most beloved creation. But man’s role was not to enjoy life as much as he could (as the ancients had) in this garden turned, by human’s sin, to a barren plain. Humans were here to praise God and gratefully accept all God sent their way, all joy and all suffering. Getting ready for the next life after death was what mattered. Humility and prayer. “Memento Mori” (Remember Death) was carved into the plaster base holding up the human skull on every scholar’s desk. This sounds like a backward step, and in many ways, it was.

                                      

                                      The Good Samaritan (credit: Aimé Morot, via Wikimedia Commons)

But Christianity added some useful ideas of its own. Christians were taught to act humanely toward all other people, not just other Romans; to behave honestly and compassionately in their dealings with others; and to commit in a personal way to Christ’s kind of faith and his simple, honest, compassionate way of life. Christians were programmed to live as if being kind to all was a desirable, moral way to be, even if kind actions might not get any material rewards for their doer in this lifetime.

This was a big change from the ways of the slave-owning, gladiator-loving, sensual late-Empire Romans. Why the Church later became so cynical as to own property and then engage in wars while individual serfs were not to even contemplate such things (unless the pope told them to make war on the heathens) became vague. But the emotional grip and the social utility of Christianity’s ideas was so strong that hypocritical Church authorities found ways to steer ordinary followers’ thoughts past these inconsistencies.

For ten centuries, the Church’s explanations of the the universe and human experience in it were enough to attract, build, and retain a large following for the Church and the values and morés it endorsed. The values, in turn, fostered more honest and diligent communities, ones that began to get observable results. In evolutionary terms, that was all that mattered. 

Christian communities began to enjoy periods of increasing prosperity as their values created more and more internal stability again. Even though by modern standards, they were not very progressive, and by the standards of the glory days of Rome, not very affluent, the later Middle Ages were a big improvement on the violence and chaos that had come for several centuries right after the fall of Rome.

The synthesis of Roman patriotism and Christian compassion got more and more viable as the contradictions were worked out in the minds and daily lives of the citizens. Gradually, Europe began to climb its way back to order and prosperity once more. But it did so under a moral operating system very different from that of most people for most years of the Roman Empire. 

The behaviors Christian values recommended had seemed effete to the citizens of the middle Roman Empire. Compassion for the indigent? That was just stupid. A good horse was worth a thousand of them. Who was this Chrestus? What system had he offered that was luring Roman youth into its cult? The cross as its symbol yet! The cross was a symbol for losers.

But that system, which gave moral status to all humans (even serfs had rights), mutual support through all tribulations (war, famine, and plague), and honesty in all dealings (God watches us all) proved superior to the Roman one in the final test. Dissatisfied with what had become the Roman way of life, a life filled with material comforts and pleasures but devoid of ideals, more and more people became converts. When Constantine made the Christian faith Rome's official one, he was only acknowledging the social reality of his times. Christians had impressed a lot of people. They lived decent lives. Christianity was becoming popular.

   

                      gladiators in ancient Rome (credit: J. L. Gerome, via Wikimedia Commons) 

Christianity offered something new—a worldview that felt personal, a way of life that made sense as over the long term, it created more efficient, inclusive communities. As contemptible as Christianity seemed to mid-Empire Romans, who cheered themselves hoarse as men killed each other, it gradually assimilated the old Roman system under which it had risen. Its beliefs didn’t just sound nice; over millions of people and hundreds of years, they worked.