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[00:00:00] A lot of people are saying the more the [00:00:02] government removes God from everything, [00:00:05] from our culture, from our schools, [00:00:07] seems like they're trying to get him to [00:00:08] disappear. Did the Roman Empire do that, [00:00:10] too? [00:00:12] >> Well, I got a I got a hot question here [00:00:14] for you. The Roman The Roman Empire [00:00:17] existed during the time of Jesus and [00:00:19] early Christianity. How did Rome's power [00:00:21] and policies shape and shape the spread [00:00:24] of Christianity? And did the Romans [00:00:27] realize how significant that movement [00:00:29] would become? [00:00:30] >> So I don't think initially because you [00:00:32] have to look during the time of Jesus [00:00:33] they couldn't tell the difference [00:00:35] between [00:00:37] Christianity and Judaism. There wasn't a [00:00:39] big ability to tell a difference between [00:00:40] that. They they thought it was kind of a [00:00:41] sect of Judaism and it's a small [00:00:44] percentage of the actual empire. You're [00:00:46] looking like 1% or less during the time [00:00:48] of Christ. And um and there's really [00:00:52] only one Roman historian that actually [00:00:53] even writes about Christ. He's uh his [00:00:55] name is Titus Fabius Josephus. He was a [00:00:58] Jewish historian that when [00:01:01] Palestine is conquered and that area is [00:01:02] conquered. He comes and lives in Rome [00:01:04] and he works for the emperor. And if you [00:01:06] read letters of the emperors, I'm trying [00:01:09] to remember which one it is. It might be [00:01:10] Vespasian and he's writing to one of the [00:01:13] governors and he's trying to explain [00:01:15] Christianity to him and he just doesn't [00:01:17] understand it cuz he's like, "Wait, they [00:01:18] they're they eat the the body of someone [00:01:21] and like he just didn't understand it." [00:01:23] He's like, "Well, what?" I think it was [00:01:24] Plenty the the younger that's writing to [00:01:26] Vespasian and he's like well what do we [00:01:29] do with these guys? He's like just leave [00:01:30] them alone because for the most part [00:01:32] unless you're causing upheaval Rome was [00:01:34] very permissive and that's because they [00:01:36] brought in gods from all the other [00:01:38] empires and territories and things that [00:01:40] they conquered. [00:01:41] >> They brought in gods from all the other [00:01:42] empires. [00:01:43] >> Correct. So you would have you could [00:01:45] live in Rome but you might worship Isis [00:01:47] which is an Egyptian god or you might [00:01:49] worship Apollo because they had their [00:01:51] traditional pantheon of 12 gods but they [00:01:54] also borrowed gods from other societies [00:01:57] they conquered or or basically annexed. [00:01:59] So it became very popular to do that. [00:02:01] Now [00:02:02] >> when you say borrowed do you mean [00:02:04] accepted accepted the gods [00:02:06] >> you could have indiv [00:02:07] >> basically it was freedom of religion? It [00:02:08] was yes and no. Because the thing you [00:02:10] have to look at is the Romans believed [00:02:12] in this thing called the peace of the [00:02:14] gods. And when things were going well, [00:02:16] it meant they'd achieved the peace of [00:02:17] the gods. So when things aren't going [00:02:20] well, that's when you're going to have [00:02:22] persecutions of Christians and other [00:02:24] groups. So like you see this during the [00:02:26] time of Nero. There's the great fire of [00:02:28] Rome in 64 AD. And Nero gets blamed very [00:02:32] heavily for it. So the thing he's going [00:02:34] to do is persecute Christians because he [00:02:35] has to blame it on someone. And you move [00:02:38] further down the road and in around 250 [00:02:41] or 251 there's an emperor named Dishius [00:02:44] and they're experiencing climate change. [00:02:47] So they don't kind of know what to do [00:02:48] about it. [00:02:50] >> One of the things that allowed the Roman [00:02:52] Empire to rise is something called the [00:02:54] Roman climate optimum. It means from 200 [00:02:56] BC to about 200 AD they had perfect [00:02:58] weather. So they could grow food in [00:03:00] areas that now you couldn't. And as [00:03:03] climate starts changing, as they start [00:03:05] having difficulty with their borders, [00:03:06] with money and things in the mid-rish [00:03:10] makes a law that everyone has to [00:03:13] sacrifice to the Roman gods because [00:03:15] it'll restore the peace of the gods. [00:03:17] >> And when Christians don't do that, [00:03:19] there's a huge persecution of Christians [00:03:20] that happens. [00:03:21] >> That's what triggered it. [00:03:22] >> Yeah. [00:03:23] >> So they were open to it [00:03:24] >> unless things weren't going well. Then [00:03:26] they kind of needed somebody to blame. [00:03:28] So then [00:03:29] >> Dialesian is going to do that again in [00:03:30] the the 280. Well, around 300, he's [00:03:33] going to be persecuting Christians [00:03:34] because he's trying to restore the peace [00:03:36] of the gods. But anytime things aren't [00:03:38] going well, an emperor thought he needed [00:03:39] to restore the peace of the gods, which [00:03:41] meant people needed to be on the same [00:03:43] page with Roman religion. [00:03:45] >> Wow. [00:03:45] >> Because Romans couldn't see a difference [00:03:47] between political life and religious [00:03:49] life. To them, it was the same thing. [00:03:52] >> Interesting. Do you think the Roman [00:03:54] Empire unintentionally [00:03:57] spread wildly spread Christianity by [00:04:00] suppressing it? [00:04:02] >> I don't think that's really the case. [00:04:04] Um, there's a battle in [00:04:08] 311 called Milvian Bridge. And what ends [00:04:11] up happening in that time period is [00:04:14] you're kind of getting out of the time [00:04:15] period where people are declaring [00:04:16] themselves emperors. They have an army [00:04:18] behind them. They're fighting each [00:04:19] other. But you have the end of this. You [00:04:21] have Constantine who wants to be the [00:04:24] emperor, emperor of the full empire in [00:04:26] the east and then you have this guy [00:04:27] named Maxentius in the west. But [00:04:30] Constantine wants to rule the whole [00:04:31] thing. So he has this vision and he sees [00:04:35] a giant cross in the sky. Um well [00:04:38] actually it's the the kai and the row [00:04:39] which is the the Greek symbols for [00:04:41] Christ. And he hears the words under [00:04:45] this sign you will conquer. And he wins [00:04:47] that battle. So then he has this idea, [00:04:49] well the Christian God is now supporting [00:04:51] me. So then in 313 AD, he's going to [00:04:54] take Christianity and though Romans [00:04:56] hadn't [00:04:58] went after Christians unless times were [00:05:00] bad, Christianity was technically [00:05:01] illegal. In 313, the edict of Milan [00:05:04] makes Christianity legal and he will [00:05:07] start to [00:05:09] move it from being more of a pagan [00:05:12] empire to a Christian empire. and it's [00:05:14] going to be fully a Christian empire in [00:05:16] 380 under Theodocious when he names it [00:05:19] the official religion of Rome and they [00:05:20] get rid of their pagan gods. [00:05:23] A lot of people are saying and I I I [00:05:25] tend to believe it that the more the [00:05:27] government removes [00:05:29] God from from our from our c from [00:05:33] everything from our culture from our [00:05:35] schools from discussions from from [00:05:38] government from everything. Yeah. you [00:05:39] know, he's he's he's [00:05:42] it seems like they're trying to get him [00:05:44] to disappear. Did the Roman Empire do [00:05:45] that, too? [00:05:47] >> Um [00:05:48] >> now you have all this other all [00:05:50] these perversions, perverted that's [00:05:52] happening. [00:05:52] >> So that that was actually the second and [00:05:54] third century for Romans, like things [00:05:56] are not go when things aren't going [00:05:57] well. [00:05:58] >> Um you have a lot of the perversion and [00:06:00] things like that. There's a emperor in [00:06:03] the early 220s. Um he's a teenager and [00:06:06] his name's Elgabalus and he [00:06:11] has he's the priest of a cult called [00:06:13] Elgabel which is from Syria and they [00:06:16] worship a conicle black rock. So he has [00:06:18] a wedding for his black rock where it's [00:06:20] carried through Rome in a chariot. He [00:06:22] was personally pulled by a chariot of [00:06:24] prostitutes. He married a vestal virgin [00:06:27] and he put his hairdresser in charge of [00:06:29] the grain supply. So he's a he was also [00:06:32] having parties where um he was pushing [00:06:35] the Senate to basically have orgies [00:06:36] which they were not super happy about. [00:06:38] So things are really bad in the third [00:06:40] century. He's assassinated and his body [00:06:42] is actually drugged through the streets. [00:06:44] >> But if you look at things actually [00:06:48] improve [00:06:49] um spirituality wise and it starts to [00:06:51] become more of a Christian nation. But [00:06:53] the problem is the west sins had been so [00:06:55] deep it was hard to fix. And if you look [00:06:57] at Constantine, though he brings [00:06:59] Christianity to to a higher standing, [00:07:02] the thing that's really important about [00:07:04] him, which doesn't get talked about a [00:07:05] ton, is he actually fixes the currency. [00:07:08] He takes and he'll repossess a lot of [00:07:11] the pagan temples and he starts minting [00:07:13] gold coins from them. And in the the [00:07:15] year 314 in Triair, Germany, he mints [00:07:19] less than 100 gold coins. And he's going [00:07:21] to actually follow that process until he [00:07:22] dies in 336. [00:07:24] And by the time he dies, Rome is now on [00:07:27] a gold standard. He's done it gradually [00:07:29] every year until he dies. That currency [00:07:31] is going to go without inflation till [00:07:33] about the year 1000. So that's actually [00:07:36] the thing that helps the east to [00:07:37] survive. But a lot of Rome's sins had [00:07:40] been created when it was a pagan empire. [00:07:43] So just spirituality couldn't really fix [00:07:46] that. The kind of levers of power were [00:07:48] broken. No matter where you're watching [00:07:49] the Shawn Ryan Show from, if you get [00:07:52] anything out of this at all, anything, [00:07:55] please like, comment, and subscribe. And [00:07:59] most importantly, share this everywhere [00:08:03] you possibly can. And if you're feeling [00:08:06] extra generous, head to Apple Podcast [00:08:09] and Spotify and leave us a