How Did Constantine Contribute To The Spread Of Paganism

By 325 Constantine had united the Roman Empire under one ruler. At the same time he was spreading Christianity throughout the Empire while slowly attempting to phase out the Pagan religions which were attributed by many at the time as originally making Rome the great power that it was in the first place. This raises some very interesting arguments on why Constantine would eventually drop Paganism in favor of a religion that had been wholly persecuted by the emperors before him and what would the effects of this transformation be? This brings two reasons to the forefront of this question. First that he actually held a belief in Christianity to at least some degree and secondly he thought that he could use the organized and influential structure …show more content…
In fact there were many Christians who were quite happy to become martyrs in order to further their cause. While Constantine had no early appeal towards Christianity, he did have an inclination towards monotheism and during his early years leaned towards the worship of Apollo the Sun God. It should be noted that this was not an unusual practice at the time but can be an indication of why it was then easier for Constantine to accept Christianity as his religion just a little while later as there have been many who have made a connection between the Sun and Christianity though at the same time many Christian religious leaders would have also dismissed any such connection. In either case it would first be Apollo who would come to Constantine in a vision and promise him thirty years rule.3 Visions would become very common to Constantine throughout his rule and were a fairly common occurrence in general during the period. It was thought that visions would often come from the gods, often to the rulers or other such powerful people who would do their will on