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Men from leading Roman families who declined to convert to Christianity were denied positions of power yet still received appointments; even up to the end of his life, two-thirds of his top government were non-Christian. [citation needed] Constantine's laws enforced and reflected his Christian attitudes.
Without what Peter Brown has called "the conversion of Christianity" to the culture and ideals of the Roman world", Brown says Constantine would never have converted, [61] but this "momentous transformation" also threatened the survival of the marginal religious movement as it naturally led to divisions, schisms and defections.
Constantine I [g] (Latin: Flavius Valerius Constantinus; 27 February c. 272 – 22 May 337), also known as Constantine the Great, was a Roman emperor from AD 306 to 337 and the first Roman emperor to convert to Christianity.
While it may or may not have been a major cause of conversion, writings from the Christians Justin and Tatian, the pagan Celsus, and the Passio of Ptolemaeus and Lucius are just some of the sources that confirm Christians did use the doctrine of eternal punishment, and that it did persuade some non-believers to convert. [282] The Christian ...
Christianity in the 4th century was dominated in its early stage by Constantine the Great and the First Council of Nicaea of 325, which was the beginning of the period of the First seven Ecumenical Councils (325–787), and in its late stage by the Edict of Thessalonica of 380, which made Nicene Christianity the state church of the Roman Empire.
Constantine the Great (reigned 306–337) adopted Christianity as his system of belief after his victory at the Battle of Milvian Bridge in 312. [4] [5] [6] The following year, 313, he issued the Edict of Milan with his eastern colleague, Licinius. The edict legalised Christianity alongside other religions in the Roman Empire.
The Christian church believed that the dominance over other philosophies had begun with Jesus; they marked the conversion of Constantine as the end — the final fulfillment — of this heavenly victory, even though Christians were only about 15–18% of the empire's population at the time of Constantine's conversion.
Constantine entered the city the next day but declined to take part in the traditional ascent up the Capitoline Hill to the Temple of Jupiter. [243] Constantine's army had advanced on Rome under a Christian sign. It had become, officially at least, a Christian army. [244] Constantine's apparent conversion was visible elsewhere, too.