Языческая оппозиция христианизации Римской империи (IV–VI вв.)

One of the reasons for the decomposition of the pagan opposition in the West was the weakening of the contradictions between the aristocracy and the Church. In the middle of the V century A. D. the interests of church organization and senatorial nobility are converging: both the Church and the aristocracy strived to preserve their possessions and political status amid the collapse of Roman rule in the West. From this period the representatives of the senatorial nobility started to occupy the highest positions in the church hierarchy, thereby giving their wealth under the control of the Church, the church organization, in turn, ideologically supported the exceptional political status and ideological domination of the senatorial nobility.

In the eastern provinces the local aristocracy, while understanding the unity of its economic, political and social interests, lacked a single political center capable, like the Roman Senate, of defending the interests of the entire curial class. Political fragmentation of the eastern municipal nobility, facilitated the implementation of centralization policy, the construction of an unitarian state system, one of the most important part of which became the Christian Church. On the other hand, this fragmentation did not allow the state to break the Curial nobility, due to it's territorial and, as a result, political decentralization.

Due to the political fragmentation of the municipal aristocracy, the dissatisfaction of this social stratum with the activities of the government did not develop into a single political opposition, but manifested itself in the strengthening of the ideological struggle, primarily in criticizing the regime by the part of the curial intelligentsia, and also in aggravating political conflict in specific municipies. One of the main manifestations of oppositional sentiments among the municipal nobility was a protest against the strengthening of the influence of the Church and the antipagan religious policy of the state.

The adherence to the paganism of a part of the Eastern Roman aristocracy contributed to the preservation of the influence of pagans in the political and cultural spheres. In the IV — beginning of the VI centuries the representatives of the pagan nobility were occupying the highest state positions. A significant role in the life of the East Roman society was played also by the pagan intelligentsia, which dominated in education, philosophy, science and slowered down the spread of Christianity among the educated classes until the sixth century. The activity of the pagan opposition of the eastern provinces ended only after the final decline of the municipal aristocracy in the sixth century and the beginning of an aggressive antipagan campaign of Justinian and his closest succesors.

Therefore, the activities of the pagan opposition both in the Roman Senate and among the Curial aristocraty of the eastern provinces represented a process of political struggle among groups of landholding patrimonial nobility, linked to the the socio-economic institutions of classical antiquity, against the centralizing state and the church organization. Each of the participants in the confrontation relied on a certain religious ideology, which turned into a concentrated expression of their political and economic interests. The result of this was the representation of the political and economic conflict in the form of religious confrontation.

The process of Christianization of the Roman Empire, initiated by the imperial power in the beginning of the IV century A. D. ended in the VI century with the final eradication of paganism in the upper strata of Roman society. However, the ideological, political and administrative centralization, and unification of the Roman state, that is, the goals for which this process was initiated, were only partially achieved.

In the west, the senatorial aristocracy, having concluded an alliance with the strengthened Christian Church, and thus achieving not only political and economic, but also ideological domination, was in fact disinterested in maintaining a strong central authority, which predetermined its weakness and the inevitability of its fall. In 476 the Western Roman Empire ceased to exist.