Языческая оппозиция христианизации Римской империи (IV–VI вв.)

Summary

During the period of the Late Antiquity, different groups and stratas of the upper class of the Roman society, motivated by different social, political and economic interests, acted under the banner of paganism. The heterogeneity of the social composition of the pagan opposition was caused by the heterogeneity of the economic and social structure of the Roman empire itself.

In the West, the senatorial aristocracy of Rome, consolidated by economic, political, social factors, most vividly manifested in adherence to paganism as a certain way of life, the system of socio-economic and political preferences of the Roman nobility, sought to maintain its traditional dominant position. The landholdings of the pagan colleges of Rome controlled by senatorial aristocracy were one of the pillars of its economic prosperity; the priestly magistracies were the source of fiscal immunities. In general, the exclusive status of the pagan cults of the capital was for this part of the ruling class a concentrated expression of its privileges, and, ultimately, the exclusive role of the senate and the senatorial aristocracy in the empire.

In the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire, the social base of the pagan opposition was the municipal aristocracy, which through the city councils — curiae — controlled most of the lands assigned to the cities and thus dominated the socio-political and economic life of the poleis. Municipal cults, which preserved its ideological, political and economic domination over poleis, were one of the foundations of the power of the local nobility over the civic collective.

Thus, both in the West and in the East traditional religious institutions acted as instruments of conservation of the structures of antique society and contributed to the economic and political dominance of elites based on the socio-political institutions of classical antiquity (the Roman Senate in the West, the Polis in the East). In other words, the opposition to Christianization in both parts of the empire was led by social groups of patrimonial landowning aristocracy, which grew out of the city-state model.

The state centralization of the Roman Empire, conducted from the end of the III century, manifested itself in creation of a powerful bureaucracy, unification of the socio-economic structures and imposition of a single ideology. All this factors contributed to the weakening of traditional socio-political institutions and to the growth of discontent of the groups of aristocracy, which power base was dependant of these institutions. After the establishment of Christianity as the official religion of the empire and the instrument of state policy of the spiritual and ideological centralization of the society, this discontent appeared in the form of religious opposition. It manifested itself as a direct resistance to the new religion and ecclesiastical organization that threatened the status of pagan cults as well as the discontent with the activity of the central government and the new Christianized nobility, which competed with the Curial and Senatorial aristocracy. In fact, the emergence of pagan opposition was the reaction of two different layers of the late Roman nobility to the process of centralizing the empire. The differences in the socioeconomic and political status of the senatorial aristocracy of Rome and the Curial nobility of the East predetermined that the processes of confrontation of these layers of the ruling class to Christianization of the Roman Empire were held in dissimilar conditions, took different forms and had unequal chronological frames. In other words, the process of confrontation between the nobility and the centralized state was manifested in different forms in the East and in the West.

The economic and political dominance of the senatorial aristocracy over the most developed provinces of the western part of the empire, the political and ideological consolidation of this estate did not allow the imperial power and the Church to follow a policy of active Christianisation of Rome for the most part of the IV century. In fact, during the period from 326 to 380 A. D. the imperial power fully supported the Roman cults, retained all the privileges and immunities of the priestly colleges. The comparatively narrow chronological framework of the acute phase of religious confrontation (380–410 A. D.) was primarily determined by the political cohesion of the opposition, the presence of a single center — the Roman senate and the relatively small quantity of the capital's nobility, which allowed the aristocracy to consolidate in the face of a common danger for the whole class. The close ideological and political connection of the members of the pagan opposition enabled it to act on a general imperial scale, but did not allow to resist the state policy of Christianization for a long time.

One of the reasons for the decomposition of the pagan opposition in the West was the weakening of the contradictions between the aristocracy and the Church. In the middle of the V century A. D. the interests of church organization and senatorial nobility are converging: both the Church and the aristocracy strived to preserve their possessions and political status amid the collapse of Roman rule in the West. From this period the representatives of the senatorial nobility started to occupy the highest positions in the church hierarchy, thereby giving their wealth under the control of the Church, the church organization, in turn, ideologically supported the exceptional political status and ideological domination of the senatorial nobility.

In the eastern provinces the local aristocracy, while understanding the unity of its economic, political and social interests, lacked a single political center capable, like the Roman Senate, of defending the interests of the entire curial class. Political fragmentation of the eastern municipal nobility, facilitated the implementation of centralization policy, the construction of an unitarian state system, one of the most important part of which became the Christian Church. On the other hand, this fragmentation did not allow the state to break the Curial nobility, due to it's territorial and, as a result, political decentralization.

Due to the political fragmentation of the municipal aristocracy, the dissatisfaction of this social stratum with the activities of the government did not develop into a single political opposition, but manifested itself in the strengthening of the ideological struggle, primarily in criticizing the regime by the part of the curial intelligentsia, and also in aggravating political conflict in specific municipies. One of the main manifestations of oppositional sentiments among the municipal nobility was a protest against the strengthening of the influence of the Church and the antipagan religious policy of the state.

The adherence to the paganism of a part of the Eastern Roman aristocracy contributed to the preservation of the influence of pagans in the political and cultural spheres. In the IV — beginning of the VI centuries the representatives of the pagan nobility were occupying the highest state positions. A significant role in the life of the East Roman society was played also by the pagan intelligentsia, which dominated in education, philosophy, science and slowered down the spread of Christianity among the educated classes until the sixth century. The activity of the pagan opposition of the eastern provinces ended only after the final decline of the municipal aristocracy in the sixth century and the beginning of an aggressive antipagan campaign of Justinian and his closest succesors.

Therefore, the activities of the pagan opposition both in the Roman Senate and among the Curial aristocraty of the eastern provinces represented a process of political struggle among groups of landholding patrimonial nobility, linked to the the socio-economic institutions of classical antiquity, against the centralizing state and the church organization. Each of the participants in the confrontation relied on a certain religious ideology, which turned into a concentrated expression of their political and economic interests. The result of this was the representation of the political and economic conflict in the form of religious confrontation.

The process of Christianization of the Roman Empire, initiated by the imperial power in the beginning of the IV century A. D. ended in the VI century with the final eradication of paganism in the upper strata of Roman society. However, the ideological, political and administrative centralization, and unification of the Roman state, that is, the goals for which this process was initiated, were only partially achieved.

In the west, the senatorial aristocracy, having concluded an alliance with the strengthened Christian Church, and thus achieving not only political and economic, but also ideological domination, was in fact disinterested in maintaining a strong central authority, which predetermined its weakness and the inevitability of its fall. In 476 the Western Roman Empire ceased to exist.

In the eastern provinces, the local curial aristocracy also managed to integrate into the new system of religious relations, to find ways of mutually beneficial coexistence with the church organization, which, however, did not save it from the purposeful state policy of weakening the local municipal government. In the VI century the curial organization died out under the burden of fiscal obligations. The centralization of the Eastern Roman Empire, achieved by Justinian, allowed him to carry out large-scale campaigns and implement ambitious construction projects. However, these actions required excessive strain of the forces of the eastern provinces, absorbed huge resources and, therefore, could not continue for a long time. By the end of the VI century the Eastern empire was forced to return to defensive politics, and in the VII century passed through a long political and economic crisis, during which it completely changed its structure and largely lost its connection with the socio-economic institutions of antiquity.