o Already in the 4th century, then, the lines of what would be
called “caesaropapism”—the merging of imperial and religious
power—were established.Internal Stresses
• The challenge of being a state religion put severe internal stress on
Christianity. Despite the impressive institutional and intellectual
developments it had accomplished in the 2nd and 3rd centuries, it
remained ill-prepared for the task of providing the glue for a society.
o Starting as a sect with a distinct countercultural disposition,
it was eschatologically oriented: This world is not permanent
or even necessarily valuable. There is much in this religion
that argues against stability and good order: Celibacy is better
than marriage, poverty than wealth, humility than arrogance,
obedience to God over obedience to humans.
o The canonical writings of Christianity are far from providing
a consistent code of behavior even for religious matters, much
less directions for a civilization to organize itself.o In the 2nd and 3rd centuries, radical impulses continued to
flourish under the name of Christianity, despite the efforts to
shape a centrist orthodoxy.• Especially in the East, where imperial rule remained more stable,
the precedents of pagan culture provided much of the form for the
Christian empire.
o The basic forms of Greek paideia—though suffused with
biblical content—remained consistent: logic, philosophy,
rhetoric, and the plastic arts.o As the imperial religion, Christianity was a Greco-Roman
religion, with only vestigial connections to Judaism. Even
Scripture was in Greek and interpreted through Greek rhetoric.• The increased instability of the empire in the West, in turn, would
force Christianity both to engage new cultural realities and to forge