Rome's Conversion to Christianity and its Lasting Legacy

Since its humble beginnings and legendary foundation in 753 BCE by Romulus and Remus, Rome had always been a pagan kingdom, republic, and eventually expansive empire. Massive temples dedicated to pagan gods like Jupiter and eventually deified emperors could be found in any Roman town. However, today’s most popular world religion, Christianity spread like wildfire among the lower classes and eventually even found its way to the Roman emperor’s throne, in part due to the nature of the empire and its vast trade network. Symbols played an important part in this communication network between the earliest Christians while practice of the religion was forbidden.  Similarly, Roman emperors were very intentional in the symbolisms that they used on their coins since it was the most accessible way for them to communicate with the entire population. Like many other aspects of the Roman world we can glean from closely examining coins, we can also trace the history of Christianity within the Roman Empire, including the coins held by the Auben Gray Burkhart Coin Collection, from the pre-Christian emperors to Constantine’s vision and Justinian who made Christianity the official religion of the Roman empire.

Jesus Christ of Nazareth was born during the reign of the first official Roman emperor, Augustus, and was crucified under the reign of the second emperor, Tiberius. Although not as popular while he was living, Chrisitianity steadily gained a following after his crucifixion throughout the empire due to the work of his Apostles, most notably Paul, who were assigned with the task of spreading the Christian message to Jewish, and most importantly, non-Jewish groups. While the glory and benefits of the Roman empire are often highlighted, especially through surviving art forms, there was poverty and intense levels of inequality due to the strict hierarchical system set by Augustus. Christianity was appealing to many members of the lower classes in the Roman empire not only because of its promised liberation from any afflictions encountered in this world but also because of the established community that was totally equal, regardless of social class or gender, through baptismal promise, as highlighted in the letters of the Apostle Paul (Koester 1998).

For the first decades and even centuries following the death and resurrection of Jesus, Christians were massively persecuted on the basis of their beliefs. Since Christianity was a monothesitic faith, demanding exclusive membership, where worshiping any other false, pagan gods was a sin against the Christian God, many Christians perished for failing to pay tribute and sacrifice to pagan gods on festival days or when tested by Roman officials. Because the Christian cult’s practices also appeared to be cannibalistic to outsiders and their doctrinal beliefs in equality were threatening to pre existing Roman hierarchical social orders, the Christians also made an easy target or even scapegoat for emperors. After a massive fire burned down the majority of Rome in 64 CE during the reign of Nero, the emperor blamed the event on the Christians and made a public showcase of torturing and executing the cult’s practioners, which possibly included the Apostles Peter and Paul.

The major turning point for Christianity in the Roman Empire came in the form of a vision to the future unifier, Constantine, nearly three hundred years after the death of Jesus. According to Constantine’s chosen biographer, who was a bishop, an image of a holy sign was presented to him by Jesus Christ that was guaranteed to protect him from his enemies, including his adversaries that he would soon conquer, allowing him to reunify the Roman Empire. After this vision, Constantine legalized Christianity and promoted religious tolerance in 313 CE through the Edict of Milan.

Following Constantine’s vision and the legalization of Christianity, the emperors to follow, like Magnentius, seen on the coin above, started including Christograms on their coins. Magnentius, who was actually very tolerant of and sympathized with pagans, best exemplifies this as seen on the reverse of this coin from around 352 CE. The Christogram takes up the majority of the composition on the reverse, almost as large as his bust on the obverse, making it the “greatest numismatic affirmation of Christianity in antiquity” (Rubin 1998). The Greek letters A and Ω are also seen in the horizontal cross field, a direct reference to Revelation 1:8 from the Christian Bible: “‘I am the Alpha and Omega–the beginning and the end,’ says the Lord God.” 

Justinian II set the precedent of moving the image of the emperor to the reverse and placing the image of Christ on the obverse, as seen in this coin from 692-695 CE (Kazhdan 1991). On the obverse, Jesus Christ is depicted raising his right hand in benediction and holding the Gospel, while the edges of the cross project from behind his head. The inscription reads, “Jesus Christ, King of Kings.” On the reverse, “Justinian, servant of Christ” is inscribed while he stands wearing a crown with a cross and holding a cross potent. This important stylistic shift represents the full evolution of Christianity within the Roman world, from the subject of persecution to gradual acceptance and representation to eventually becoming the forefront of subject matter and dethroning designated spots for the rulers that were first standardized even prior to the birth of Jesus Christ.

Page Completed by Woo Wade, Rhodes College '23