Sin In The Roman Empire

The Roman Empire was one of the greatest empires in world history conquering significant amounts of territory ranging from Northern Africa to Asia. Rome’s success as empire was for various reasons including their exceptional military, ability to integrate other cultures, and their ability to keep a stable system. Not all these ideas were one’s that the Romans developed on their own rather some borrowed heavily from the Greek city-states including: a strong military, democracy, and cultural adaptation.
The Roman empire experienced a shift from paganism to Christianity starting with the Edict of Milan. Christianity’s rise gave ways to new lines of though such as sin. When Rome inevitably fell, sin was one of the reasons cited by Romans, and specifically by St. Jerome (ca. 347-420), Paulaus Orosius (ca. 375-418), and Gildas (ca. 500-570). Through the writings of these three authors there is a common theme of sin and god, but they differ the role of sin, however their opinions are ones based on religious agendas rather than …show more content…
Christians belief in sin is that one should follow gods will, and if he or she fails to then they sinned. The first of these writings is the letters of St. Jerome to Gaudentius. In the fourth part of St. Jerome’s letter 128 he specifically mentions the fall of room. In the beginning he starts out with “the world sinks into ruin: yes! But shameful to say our sins still live and flourish.” He immediately begins to talk about sin in relation to the Roman empire demonstrating that he believed sin was one of the causes of the fall. From that sole sentence one can see it as a way of saying that the romans should have changed after sin caused the downfall of the empire, but sin is still apparent in them. A second line St. Jerome mentioned that Romans only desire gains which represents sin. St. Jerome places a strong emphasis on sin and how it caused the fire that swallowed Rome (Letter 128, St.