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Archive 1Archive 2

About merging this article with the one about Persecution ...

The persecution of Polytheists by Christians is only one part of the decline of the old religion - the existence of other religions, such as Mithraism, that took a share of the pie among the populace would be another factor.

If it were up to me, I would inversely merge the Persecution article into the Decline article. Apostolos Vranas (talk) 20:17, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Mithraism was long gone when mainstream polytheists still existed in large numbers, and it ignores one of the major oversights of moderns; being a Mithraist in no way meant you were no longer a worshipper of Jupiter and Juno etc. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.131.193.72 (talk) 14:21, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Not a good article

This article says "440 to 450 All Hellenic monuments, altars and Temples of Athens, Olympia, and other Greek cities are destroyed. As German historian Gregorovius, in his "History of Athens" says, the pagan monuments of Athens and Greece were the best preserved among other monuments in the late Roman Empire." Gregorovius, states that those temples were destroyed by earthquakes.

"804 Hellenes of Laconia, Greece, resist the attempt of Tarasius, Patriarch of Constantinople, to convert them to Christianity.[105]" The Slavs of Laconia resisted, not the Hellenes. This is why Nicon was sent to Laconia, to convert the Slavs, not the Hellenes.

-Anonimous --176.58.134.61 (talk) 16:08, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Hermeticism

The previous version of the article included the following lines:

Writings pseudepigraphically attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, and discussing esoteric philosophy, magic, and alchemy, began to spread from Roman Egypt throughout the empire; while they are difficult to date with precision, these texts are likely to have been redacted between the first and third centuries. The henotheistic panentheism of much of the emergent movement responsible for the texts - Hermetism was somewhat at odds with traditional religious views, and the texts themselves exhibited clear anti-Greek and anti-Roman sentiment. Although such hermetica was generally written with the theological aim of spiritual improvement, each text had an anonymous, eclectic, and spontaneous origin, rather than being part of an organised movement.

I removed the bolded line. I feel this is justified as opposed to merely asking for a citation (which was obviously not given). The reason being is that Hermeticism is almost identical with Plato's Timeaus and Parmenides. Which in itself is generally considered to be Pythagorean. While this has elements of Pantheism (more properly, Panentheism), it is certainly not Henotheistic. It is monistic Polytheism, with the ultimate single substance being the Monad, The One. There is no anti-Greek and anti-Roman sentiment (at least until that statement is supported with citations. They are the ones making the claim, the onus is on them, not me, to support), I'm having a hard time understanding that claim when it was created by a character calling himself Hermes. The claim that it deviates from popular religion might be supported, but that is popular religion as it is known in Homer, there are many indications that the 'popular religion' was more similar to Plato than not (e.g., the Delphic Maxims, number 1 is "Follow God", number 3 is "Worship the Gods") — Preceding unsigned comment added by Somnum (talk • contribs) 21:52, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

"It is monistic Polytheism" - names, names and their limitations... Yes, even though that definition is not altogether incorrect, still the best definition of graeco-roman theology is Panentheism. It presuposes yes, Henotheism, for the worship of one or two deities prevailed in one region opposed to another. Furthemore, Zeus and Iupiter were considered to be the "Father of the gods and men", so they retained a higher rank amongst other gods. So the definition of monistic polytheism errs in the fact that it´s almost contradictory in terms, despite the fact that you mention "monism" and not monotheism. So monistic polytheism would literally mean unified polytheism. But since Monism "is a theory or doctrine that denies the existence of a distinction or duality in some sphere, such as that between matter and mind, or God and the world" (Oxford), more correctly would be "henotic-polytheism", the preference of one god above other gods. AND, since philosophically and theologically this is still lacking in precision, concerning the very nature of graeco-roman religions, the best definition i Panentheism, for it presuposes already a source or unity, an expression or plurality, and the encompassing and unchanging nature (although it´s paradoxical) of the monad in the realm of many. So both polytheism and henotheism are not only vague and unprecise, they are in essence incorrect and false. Nemoswlew 17:48, 19 January 2015 (UTC) nemoswlewa (talk

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Constantius II was an Arian

I think we should add this information to seperate persecution from Constantius from other Christianshttp://www.newadvent.org/cathen/16027c.htm Ilikerabbits! (talk) 09:56, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

I don't, not in this article where it is not the subject; would you want to separate here every instance of violence between Christians of various sects? Also, the labels "Catholic" and "Arian" are valid for Constantius II only in retrospect. Richard Keatinge (talk) 17:21, 9 July 2017 (UTC)

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I removed the picture 'Triumph of Christianty'

I've removed the picture 'Triumph of Christianty' as it is insensitive to contemporary practitioners of Roman & Greek reconstructionist religions and not entirely appropriate to the article..

--- —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.25.109.197 (talk) 11:47, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Ehm, but by the tenth century, wasn't Laconia and almost all of the Peloponnesus inhabited by pagan Slavs? I'd say it's them the Byzantines tried to subdue & convert, more than a last stronghold of Classical paganism, a religion which in itself implied no small amount of written culture and public support in order to be kept alive... which doesn't seem the case in early Middle Ages Peloponnesus.
The entire article seems to be written from the perspective of the Supreme Council of Ethnikoi Hellenes, which, a part renegading Christianity, show a very partial approach to historical facts. They quote thebrutal persecutions suffered by the alst pagans, but forget what the Christians had to endure before at the hands of the gentiles. User:Basil II
That's probably because this is a page about the persecution of Hellenistic beliefs and has nothing to do with crhristians except as victimizers. If you had bothered to check you 'd see there is a separate one about christian persecution, such as it was. And sign next time.212.205.246.214 (talk) 13:53, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
The reference to Laconia was likely to the Maniots, which do seem to have been both Greek and pagan into the 9th century, therefore, after better information, I suspend my doubts about that issue.
Basil II 02:07, 20 January 2008 (CET)
Corrections. 1. Sabianes were not "Hellenes". Their doctrine was partly based on Greek philosophicla traditions. The same can be said about many other sects (Druzes, Alavites etc). 2. The opinion that Harran "becomes center of Muslim scholarship" is misleading. The city was a very important center of scholarship alredy before Muslim conquest and continued to be such for a few centuries. 3. Sabian tradition did not emerge in 904, but much earlier. Yeti 12:42, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
The reference book listed at the end of this article is self published by a crank. This is a vanity post that has been pushed onto wikipedia without any objective sourcing. This article should be deleted unless additional sourcing is provided.
http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Ramsay_MacMullen
Quite a well qualified "crank" it seems.}

Pagan literature

The article is very one-sided but it is difficult to correct without simply starting again. It makes several references to pagan historians and intellectuals. For some balance, at least until the article is rewritten I'd suggest the following, which I wrote, on whether Christians tried to irradicate pagan literature. http://www.jameshannam.com/literature.htm James Hannam 12:18, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

What do you expect it to be? A Christian apology? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.43.227.18 (talk) 03:34, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

I honestly ask you to stop giving references here to the works you've written - publishing a book would definetly solve your problem. Asharidu (talk) 12:35, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Constantine's Conversion

Just a fine point, but Constantine's 'private/personal' Christianity as opposed to his public (and wholly political) paganism is now well established by scholarship of his personal correspondence. As emperor, he was necessarilly Pontifex Maximus of an officially and legally pagan state: had he neglected the duties of the office, the first ill omen or natural catastrophe would have served as "proof" of the anger of the gods at his neglect of them, and been sufficient provocation to depose or assassinate him. Constantine did not "convert on his deathbead": he was baptized on his deathbed which was a common practice in that time as in the 4th century many people feared there was no absolution for post-baptismal sin. It is evident fromthe sources that he had been inclined towards Christianity from and early age -- his mother was a Christian, after all --that he had been considering converting for some time, and that the crucial change of mind came at the time of his famed vision of Christus Victor. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 202.91.18.200 (talk)

[citation needed] Clinkophonist (talk) 22:47, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
However, throughout the majority of his life, Constantine still practiced various pagan rites. Reading through the contemporary historians and his own letters, one is struck by a rather superstitious bloke who for a great deal of his life didn't seem to truly grasp what Christianity was about - rather, he "thanked the Christian god" for his success, while apparently still fearing the wrath of the pagan dieties if he ignored them. What happened in his final couple of days on his deathbed we can never truly know. The only account is by Eusebius, and he was obviously partial to a Christian outlook. Constantine's acts during his life certainly didn't follow Christian tenants, if the reasons speculated about for the murders of his first son, and his second wife, are any indication - he seems as brutal and hungry for power as many another soldier-emperor. At any rate, the dynasty of Constantine seems a rather murderous one for its family members. The stark truth should be reflected in the article.50.111.14.86 (talk) 12:08, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

Restored note

Hi Florian Blaschke (talk · contribs) I noted that you restored a note that was removed for sourcing issues. It had a tag that it needed page numbers, but when I went to find and verify, I found it was impossible to do so. If you on the other hand are able to, then please add those page numbers to their respective references and all is well. If however you have no more luck than I did, your edit will need to be reverted, which of course you would do yourself once you determined the claim is not correctly sourced. If you know of another source, you could install that one as a replacement. The only other option is going back to a tag again which is kind of pointless at this stage imo. So, source with page numbers or revert please, one or the other. Jenhawk777 (talk) 22:47, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

The note's origin is ultimately this blob of original research written in 2007 by a now-banned editor. The Bowder source was added in 2011 beside the footnote, apparently with the intention of sourcing the corresponding sentence and not the contents of the footnote itself. The two were nevertheless merged into a single footnote afterwards. There's little reason to believe the Bowder citation, with its lack of pages, substantiates the content of the note in question, so the entire thing may be regarded as original research and deleted. Avilich (talk) 23:33, 25 July 2021 (UTC)
Florian Blaschke (talk · contribs) I must assume you are offline since there has been no response, so, assuming you will get this when you become available again, I am going to remove the note, again, with the explanation to refer to the talk page, here. Please if you have any further problems with this, come here and discuss them. Restoring the note again would be edit warring. Thank you! Jenhawk777 (talk) 03:31, 26 July 2021 (UTC)
@Jenhawk777: I don't understand why you think it's OR when there's a ref given, regardless of when it was added. A citation is valid whether or not it contains a page number. We have Template:Page needed for this very situation. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 17:19, 26 July 2021 (UTC)
Florian Blaschke Because I did a word search and tried with every synonym I could think of to find the content of the note - or anything similar - in the source given, and couldn't. It wasn't there. Perhaps you could try and see if you do any better than I did. Jenhawk777 (talk) 18:03, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

Lead

In the lead the modern view is contrasted with the traditional. But I can't see the difference. "Religious change" strikes me as a euphemism for "decline of polytheism". It is not clear how the qualifier "of a type that occurred throughout the known world of the time" changes things. The lead does not present the traditional view as catastrophist, which might be the problem. Srnec (talk) 13:12, 29 July 2021 (UTC)

Srnec What do you suggest? The lead is very short. It does say, "that sped up in the fourth century, leading to collapse in the fifth" which kind of includes the catastrophist view. But this article covers such a large span of time that it's really difficult to summarize. It probably should have been deleted but I hate doing that. I did think about including more on the global changes, so it was clearer that the change in Rome was consistent - normal in its way - with what was happening everywhere, but it already seems so complicated, I was at a loss about adding more. If you have some ideas, please jump in. I could use the help. :-) Jenhawk777 (talk) 03:02, 30 July 2021 (UTC)
@Jenhawk777: Thanks for the rewrite, although I think I still have the same problem. Let me put it this way: the pagan cults certainly did not remain vibrant forever. If they neither declined slowly nor were abandoned suddenly, what happened? How can we succinctly describe the "modern" view? It seems to me the modern view is that paganism declined relatively rapidly in the century following Constantine' conversion, especially towards the end of it. What is denied is that this was primarily the result of widespread destruction of temples and official suppression. To me, Cameron's view reads like the traditional view: slow decline of pagan cults in the first three centuries and rapid rise of Christianity in the 4th century. Watts, too, seems to see paganism as losing its vibrancy in the space of a generation. But I have not read very deeply in this area. Srnec (talk) 18:05, 8 August 2021 (UTC)
Srnec Well it's entirely possible I have not understood correctly, but I don't think there are just those two options. I think the idea is that paganism evolved, morphed, changed itself into something else without ever going through either a decline or an actual fall. I know that many of the mystery cults gradually adopted several views and practices of Christianity, just as Christianity became more Roman.
The last review of modern scholarship that I read was in one of the references I used here, (that I would have to relook up to find as my memory is crap these days), but I do recall that there were only two modern scholars referenced as espousing the catastrophist view; every other contemporary scholar has espoused the long-slow-change-view that started with Brown. I think the consensus is that a political model of paganism as the state's practice has a crash and burn of the Roman state in the fifth or sixth century, whereas a religious, social and anthropological model - and art - has paganism continuing far after the end of the political state on in to the 700s. The pagan cults did not remain vibrant forever, absolutely, but sociologically, did they ever completely go away? I don't know the answer to that. I will see if I can pin down Cameron and Watts, but maybe you should just add something here for yourself!  :-) Jenhawk777 (talk) 01:03, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

Problematic use of "paganism"

The lede begins with the false assumption that the world accepts the use of "pagan" by the early Christians as being the accurate usage of the term, when that is far from reflecting reality. The term "pagan" -- as most people with at least a passing knowledge of ancient Rome know -- was a Latin word used by the Romans who observed the state religion, to derisively refer to those who did not observe their approved religion. "Pagus" meant "countryside", and "pagan" was a pejorative term roughly cognate with "country bumpkin" or "hick" today. This was in distinction with "civis", which meant "city-dweller", and from which we form "civilized". And yet the lede elides this history and suggests that "pagan" accurately refers to all non-Christian (or Jewish) citizens of the Roman empire -- the very people who followed the state religion, venerated their ancestors and the 20 gods, worshiped the Imperial cult, etc.! Yes, after the conversion of Constantine to Christianity and his switching allegiance to that church led to Christians labeling everyone else as "pagans", but this turnabout needs to be explicitly spelled-out in the lede, to avoid confusion. As the historian Peter Brown wrote in his "Late Antiquity": "The adoption of paganus by the Latin Christians as an all-embracing, pejorative term for polytheists represents an unforeseen and singularly long-lasting victory, within a religious group, of a word of Latin slang originally devoid of religious meaning. The evolution occurred only in the Latin west, and in connection with the Latin church."[1] (emphasis added) To be clear: the early Christians appropriated "pagan" -- a word with a long history of meaning something very different. This should be explained in the lede.

References

  1. ^ Peter Brown, in Glen Warren Bowersock, Peter Robert Lamont Brown, Oleg Grabar, eds., Late Antiquity: a guide to the postclassical world, 1999, s.v. Pagan.

Bricology (talk) 06:06, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

Bricology Yes this is all correct and accurate and true, but this article was created 15 years ago with this title, and it assumed and used the latter definition. That's clear enough from the content imo. But if you think discussion of the term needs to be included, you could certainly do so. Add a section on definition, (not the lead) keeping in mind that WP is not really about definitions per se, [[1]] and the topic here is decline. Make the connection to how the change in usage connects to or evidences decline (or not decline) and not just change. I think maybe it does evidence decline because it was used as a derogatory term, so there's that. Perhaps you can find more. If you can, I say go for it. Jenhawk777 (talk) 18:46, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

Essence of religion

"the essence of religion lay in ritual rather than belief"

I don't see much of a difference with the modern era. I was raised in a large, nominally Christian family (with the exception of an atheist grandfather). Most of my family members habitually followed the traditional rituals of the Church of Greece, whether they actually believed in them or not. Never giving them much thought. The great-uncle who mostly raised me was politically conservative, identified as Christian, and did not believe in any kind of afterlife or resurrection (he was a war veteran, and faith tends to not survive in war fronts). My atheist grandfather loved studying the Bible, as he habitually quoted its numerous contradictions and absurdities. He was the only member of the family actually interested in the Bible. Dimadick (talk) 05:25, 19 November 2021 (UTC)

How interesting Dimadick, thank you for sharing that, it's nice to get to know you better. I, on the other hand, was raised atheist and remained one until adulthood. My father was more of an anti-theist than atheist actually, and I adored him. We were very close. He influenced my skepticism and rationalism, and my sympathies toward all atheists. Life on WP is interesting isn't it? Jenhawk777 (talk) 05:34, 19 November 2021 (UTC)
"Life on WP is interesting isn't it?" True. I always found it interesting that you get to hear opinions from people from all sorts of backgrounds. Unfortunately, we also get to read hate screeds from people who think that Wikipedia deviates from their version of the truth. Dimadick (talk) 05:44, 19 November 2021 (UTC)
Agreed! Jenhawk777 (talk) 15:53, 19 November 2021 (UTC)
"Until adulthood" - and they you saw the light ? Laurel Lodged (talk) 16:09, 19 November 2021 (UTC)
Indeed. I studied philosophy and world religions in college in an effort to use what my father had taught me, applying them to the question of is there a god? It ended up turning me and my life upside down. I have both a personal and an intellectual understanding of both views as a result. Don't hold it against me that we might disagree! I value people for who they are, even, maybe especially, those who disagree with me. They keep me on my toes! And with that, this probably isn't really WP material and should be reserved for emailing any further discussion. Jenhawk777 (talk) 17:48, 19 November 2021 (UTC)

Total restructure of this article

Richard Keatinge I would like to begin hashing out a total rework of this article using your suggested Religious change in the later Roman Empire as the new title - with dates. Do you want to limit it to Later? There is already an article of the fourth century - a really bad one - and one on paganism and Theodosius. One guy apparently created a bunch of these and they are all equally bad. If we redo this one like I think you are thinking, it can be the parent article. I think the article should begin with a short section on religion in the Republic before empire, since we want to add discussion of the impact of politics on religion. That political change alone had tremendous impact. How do you see an outline of topics going? By century? By theory? By event? Let's do this Richard, this article is pitiful. It needs us. :-) Jenhawk777 (talk) 20:02, 12 November 2021 (UTC)

As one possible suggestion for an outline, I would appreciate it if you could take the time to read this: [2] as it has one we could make use of. It's a brilliant article that we can use a lot of even though much of his personal reasoning is as completely biased atheistically as MacMullen whom he quotes often. You'll love it. :-) We can be a little more historically oriented I think, and hopefully w/o the bias, but at any rate it presents a possible basis for an outline. Jenhawk777 (talk) 21:46, 12 November 2021 (UTC)
Does this poor first draft represent some possibilities?
*1. Background

**1.1Religion in Roman Republic

***1.1.1 religion in early empire ***1.1.2 Statement of the question: define Christianization?

*1.2 Causes of Religious change

**1.1 politics **1.2 economics **1.3 nature **1.4 secularism **1.5 fusion **1.6 imperial cult

**1.7 Christianity

***1.7.1 Constantine ***1.7.2 continuous growth ***1.7.3 other possibilities Jenhawk777 (talk) 23:25, 12 November 2021 (UTC)

I'm not really happy with that proposed title, would prefer something along the lines of Christianization of the Roman Empire, but I'm open to other suggestions. Also, could you provide links to the articles you mentioned in your first paragraph? Thanks! Editor2020 (talk) 23:41, 15 November 2021 (UTC)
Editor2020 Christianization will just reroute to Religion in Rome. This is supposed to be a broader topic as well, but Richard isn't responding. I don't think he's interested. Are you? Jenhawk777 (talk) 05:12, 16 November 2021 (UTC)
Yes it is a redirect now, but that would be changed. My worry is that Religious change in the later Roman Empire would be too broad, so I followed the usage on the link you mentioned. If you want to do it I'll help as much as I can. Editor2020 (talk) 15:31, 16 November 2021 (UTC)
Editor2020 okay, I can adapt to that. I'm already working on correcting what's in that section in Religion in Rome, so that might be material we can start with. We will have to make some important decisions about what to include. The rise of Christianity and the decline of paganism are not necessarily connected in fact; it's a mistake to assume one automatically contributed to the other which modern scholarship indicates probably didn't happen. That is probably why two articles were created in the first place.
I have already been working my way through the article I mention above - [3] - in order to add "alternatives" as a section in the Christianization article, but it would also be useful to us here.
If we want to make one article on Christianization, then Richard Keatinge is probably right, and Decline should be merged with Christianization of the Roman Empire as caused by attractive appeal to create one humongous article on Christianization. Religious change might end up larger - but not by much I'm afraid. Whatever - let's give it a try, and see what we get.
So YIKES!! Take a look at these and tell me what you think: merge? retitle? Go to bed and call it a night? I think that's me for now. ;-) Jenhawk777 (talk) 08:47, 17 November 2021 (UTC)Jenhawk777 (talk) 08:49, 17 November 2021 (UTC)
Okay my friend Editor2020. I made the jump. Head first... :-) Christianization of the late Roman empire has now been created by merging Decline and attractive appeal. It has no lead and pretty much every section needs to be trimmed down, but all in all, it's not too bad. Tell me what you think. It's a survey of theories, but there are several more of why Christianity etc. that I will add. Tell me what you think!! Jenhawk777 (talk) 05:02, 18 November 2021 (UTC)
  • Does anybody have a problem with me requesting a move to "Christianization of the Roman Empire", without "late"? This was the original proposal, but a manual move is impossible. Avilich (talk) 23:54, 19 November 2021 (UTC)
If you think it's important, I am okay with you doing what you think needs doing. Jenhawk777 (talk) 00:27, 20 November 2021 (UTC)

Nature

I feel that the migration of peoples, which takes up the lead of this paragraph, is only peripherally related to nature. It should be excised or moved elsewhere. Laurel Lodged (talk) 16:32, 20 November 2021 (UTC)

Done. Jenhawk777 (talk) 17:17, 20 November 2021 (UTC)
Laurel Lodged I ask that you return the horrific nature of the threats. It is part of MacMullen's "evidence" including statements such as "Constantine threatened people with death by having molten gold poured down their throats". Constantine was hard up for cash and would never have wasted gold in such a manner, but the nature of these threats is relevant to their impact on society even if they didn't actually come from Constantine and even if they were never enforced. Jenhawk777 (talk) 17:22, 20 November 2021 (UTC)
So you mean that it was not "horrible death" in general but particularly horrific or gruesome ways of inflicting death? If so, that needs a re-write to get that point across. Laurel Lodged (talk) 17:26, 20 November 2021 (UTC)
Yes, but it is still in the Brown quote, right? So I guess it's fine. Jenhawk777 (talk) 17:28, 20 November 2021 (UTC)

Top-down imposition

I don't think the the quotation from Gibbon supports the title "Top-down imposition". At most, it supports a cowed pagan populace. It supports where the prudent person would worship if he wished to retain the favour of the emperor. But that's very different from imposition. Inducements are not the same as penalties. Stick is not the same as carrot. Something like "Top-down leadership" or "Top-down model" would be more accurate I think. Laurel Lodged (talk) 16:03, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

I disagree - probably because I know what all that Gibbon says on the topic - but I changed it anyway because it matters to you. Hope you're cool with it now. Jenhawk777 (talk) 20:34, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

Some notes while I was converting references

Jenhawk777 A copyedit question and some questions about sources. I've linked the section for each set of questions.

Have I told you lately that you are awesomely wonderful? :-) This totally rocks! Thank you!Jenhawk777 (talk) 22:25, 20 November 2021 (UTC)

Roman religion
The text "According to Fredrikson, "Members of the group were expected to demonstrate 'piety' by "observing acknowledged and inherited protocols... identified as 'ancestral custom'... One did not 'believe in' these customs; one 'respected' them", meaning that one kept them and was seen as keeping them"" Has an odd number of speech marks, appear after them" twice.

Well I fixed the crazy punctuation but I am gping to go back and check what is actually quoted! I will return!Jenhawk777 (talk) 22:25, 20 November 2021 (UTC)
Found the quote, fixed the punctuation, it is the correct page # Jenhawk777 (talk) 04:40, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

After the text "first made its way to Rome from Persia in the late first century AD." the source is an online encyclopedia. I've not converted the reference as surely a better source could be used for the mithriatic mysteries.

This is a leftover from the original article pre-merge. I will find one. Jenhawk777 (talk) 22:25, 20 November 2021 (UTC)
Got it! Found Hopf. End of first century is the first line of the article, page 147. Jenhawk777 (talk) 04:55, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

Christianity
After the text "advocating a separateness from Roman practices and attitudes" there is a note including "Late antiquity: a guide to the postclassical world, University Press, (1999)'"
 A page number for "for "pagan" as a mark of socio-religious inferiority in Latin Christian polemic."

Are you saying it needs a page number? Will do chief. Jenhawk777 (talk) 22:25, 20 November 2021 (UTC)
Found it, page 625, now in the citation. Jenhawk777 (talk) 05:15, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

After the text "persecuted because their exemption from public cultic participation was protected by long precedent as the obligation owed to the ancestry of their ethic group"
A reference is present for "The Jews in Roman Imperial Legislation" by Kinder Amnon without a page number.

I will come back with that. I have to get someone to get it for me from Resource request. Jenhawk777 (talk) 05:21, 21 November 2021 (UTC)
Added page # 68. Jenhawk777 (talk) 20:32, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

Nature
After the text"as evidenced in the real price levels of agricultural products, land and the debasement of silver coin."
A reference is present for "Coin hoards speak of population declines in Ancient Rome" by Turchin and Scheidel, but no page number is provided.

I have to get offline right now but I will come back and address these. Thank you thank you thank you!!! This is totally cool of you. I am very grateful! Jenhawk777 (talk) 22:25, 20 November 2021 (UTC)
Had to remove that one entirely. It turns out it was about the first century BC! Jenhawk777 (talk) 05:31, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

If any of these sources don't need page numbers just let me know. Thanks ActivelyDisinterested (talk) 22:15, 20 November 2021 (UTC)

ActivelyDisinterested (I love your username btw.) This was so very very awesome of you. Thank you! I'll be back with the last one asap! Jenhawk777 (talk) 05:31, 21 November 2021 (UTC)
Ok next one in the Paganism became secular section, in the second paragraph following the text "...they were served by professional priests, and were financially dependent upon donations from the state and private elites." a reference to "Tertullian, Apology 39" is used. Unfortunately no other details are cited, I doubt they mean the original 2nd century text and there are multiple modern texts. (I'm surprised it wasn't taken) ActivelyDisinterested (talk) 18:46, 21 November 2021 (UTC)
 Done Jenhawk777 (talk) 22:32, 21 November 2021 (UTC)
Another issue there are three references to "Kelly, Christopher (2006). The Roman Empire: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780192803917." none of which have page numbers.
The first if in the second paragraph of the Intermingling section, following the text "indicate societal divisions began to blur, along with theology. Constantine the Great embodied both Christian and Hellenic religious interests."
The next is in the same section but the third paragraph, it follows the text "This contributed to yet more blurring of the borders between pagan and Christian."
The final reference is in the second paragraph of the Post-Constantine section, following the text "But the Edict of Milan (313) had redefined the imperial ideology as one of mutual religious tolerance. Constantine could be seen to embody both Christian and Hellenic religious interests.". ActivelyDisinterested (talk) 18:58, 21 November 2021 (UTC)
I have had to make another resource request for this one. It's in chapter five I think and I can't get access on Google or the Archive. I will get on it asap.Jenhawk777 (talk) 22:32, 21 November 2021 (UTC)
  • ActivelyDisinterested I could not for the life of me find those references by Kelly, so I just removed the unsupported statements. Thank God you found them! You know of course that this article is two former articles that we merged and retitled, so there is stuff in here that I have not checked yet. Help like yours is invaluable.
    There is another Kelly quote in the section on corruption but it has no page number as it's a dictionary entry that's just one page. Clicking the title takes you straight there.
    Again, thank you, thank you, thank you. I can't say it enough. I am thinking about possibly, maybe, braving FA one more time, to see if I survive, and these are exactly the things they will look for. This is wonderfully helpful for producing a quality article whether I ever do anything else with it or not. Jenhawk777 (talk) 04:45, 22 November 2021 (UTC)
    As you say, whatever else the article the article with having better sourcing and I'm all for that. ActivelyDisinterested (talk) 22:27, 22 November 2021 (UTC)
Just tell me if my constant questions get annoying. In the Rhetoric section following the text "Such writings were commonly hostile and often contemptuous toward a paganism which Christianity saw as already defeated in heaven." The article references Hagendahl and John North. I've commented out the reference to John North -The Religious History of the Roman Empire, as he's referencing Hagendahl as well. It's seems redundant to have both. If I'm wrong please reinstate it, or delete it if I'm not. Thanks ActivelyDisinterested (talk) 20:39, 21 November 2021 (UTC)
When I use a reference (North) that uses and references another (Hagendahl) I nearly always include them both - just in case someone would like to check North's work and be sure he is quoting him accurately. North's is the reference I actually used. Jenhawk777 (talk) 22:32, 21 November 2021 (UTC)
ActivelyDisinterested Your questions are the farthest thing from annoying. If I could send you a singing telegram - a real cake - balloons!!! Definitely balloons!! None of it would be enough to fully express my gratitude and my very real admiration for you and your work and all you are contributing to this article. This is a quality peer review of the part of article writing I most dislike yet understand is all important. Thank you. I can't say it enough. You've been incredible. Jenhawk777 (talk) 22:32, 21 November 2021 (UTC)
Honestly it's nice to be working on something different, the endless stack of cite errors is waiting once I'm done here. ActivelyDisinterested (talk) 22:32, 22 November 2021 (UTC)
Final one for tonight in the second paragraph of the Rhetoric section following the text "Instead, the archaeological evidence indicates that actual violence was rare and isolated", one of the five references is to Markus The End of Ancient Christianity. The book is already in the bibliography, but no page number was ever supplied for this reference. Thanks 21:45, 21 November 2021 (UTC)
Since there were multiple other refs there, and it is a common claim nowadays, I took the lazy way out here and just removed him as unnecessary.Jenhawk777 (talk) 22:32, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

Reference questions 22 Nov

This was getting unmanageable, so I'll do each day separately from now on. I have been able to find some others myself, the internet is a amazing thing.

Constantine Following the text "Constantine's anti-pagan policies are debated because the sources do not agree, and laws are difficult to date accurately, but most think Constantine introduced legislation against public sacrifice." four separate references are used. The last three are without pages or sections. One Augustine and Liberal Education by Hughes is also used elsewhere, but the other use has a page number. ActivelyDisinterested (talk) 22:22, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

ActivelyDisinterested OMG!! You're amazingly amazing!! Constantine is fixed now! I removed Hughes as unnecessary so I didn't have to go look! :-) but the others are all accurate page #s now. Thank you!Jenhawk777 (talk) 05:44, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

The other issue today is a reference used in in both Slavery, following the text "There are no ancient sources written from the point of view of the slave, but it is likely that a metaphor that says all humans are slaves, and the god who came from heaven to earth became a slave for the sake of human redemption, was highly appealing to slaves", and in A new doctrine, following the text "... love is in some sense being re-defined as this other-regarding sacrificial act, [choosing] to put oneself on the line for the sake of the good of the other, and this is grounded in the claim about the way the ultimate power and structure of the universe manifests itself in human society. I think this must have had a very powerful, emotional appeal to people".
The first use appears to be a major issue, as I do not believe the source supports the claim. The second is supported and I could make the reference point to the "Christians On Love" section, but I wonder whether the overly long quote is needed (as every please tell me if I'm wrong, I'm no subject matter expert). ActivelyDisinterested (talk) 22:22, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

ActivelyDisinterested I will find that reference on "no sources from the point of view of the slave", I know it's somewhere!! Maybe I'll just find a better source for all of it. I have at least one or two in mind where I know I can find it.
I need to keep the overly long quote because it's what specifically says that doctrine, the message, contributed to the growth of Christianity by making it "highly appealing". I have actually already cut the quote some, but the connection between this claim and growth has to be made somewhere for this to be a section at all, and it is a really important idea.
I have company coming in beginning tomorrow for Thanksgiving, and they won't be leaving until Sunday, so I will probably be offline for the next several days. I will address everything you find when I get back, and in the meantime, I will add to my list of things I am thankful for, you, and wonderful WP friends. Thank you. Jenhawk777 (talk) 05:44, 23 November 2021 (UTC)
Hope you enjoy your thanksgiving, by the time you back I should have completed everything that's without issue. ActivelyDisinterested (talk) 20:58, 23 November 2021 (UTC)
ActivelyDisinterested I have returned!! I am actively working on these now and will until I drop tonight! All of this is wonderful and amazing and greatly appreciated. I have temporarily (I hope) resolved the issue on the sentence on slavery by simply removing it until I find its correct reference. I hope to be able to replace it, but that will wait until I have done these others. The refs look amazing! I am so tickled I keep giggling! WOW! Thank you again! Jenhawk777 (talk) 19:17, 28 November 2021 (UTC)

Reference questions 23 Nov

Nothing to big today, just some sources without page numbers.
For women
Following the text "Exposure of unwanted female infants (and imperfect males) was an accepted fact of Roman life."" the reference (Fox 1987; Gorman 1982; Pomeroy 1975; Russell 1958) is used, I'm guessing that has meaning if you know who they are? ActivelyDisinterested (talk) 21:29, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

 Done Jenhawk777 (talk) 19:51, 28 November 2021 (UTC)

For women
Following the text "The women named as leaders contributed directly to that endeavor with roles like those of men." one of the two references is for This Female Man of God by Gillian Cloke is made, but no page number is provided. ActivelyDisinterested (talk) 21:29, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

 Done Jenhawk777 (talk) 20:18, 28 November 2021 (UTC)

Care for the poor
Following the text "Christians showed the poor great generosity, and "there is no disputing that Christian charity was an ideology put into practice".'"" on of the two references is for "Alms: Charity, Reward, and Atonement in Early Christianity" by David Downs is used, but no page number is provided. ActivelyDisinterested (talk) 21:29, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

 Done Jenhawk777 (talk) 20:33, 28 November 2021 (UTC)

Care for the poor
Following the text ""That the later church in Rome was actively involved in charity and renowned for its work with the needy is attested"" there is a note, and at the end of that note following the text "To approach the poor with mercy was to receive mercy from Christ"." a reference to Poverty and Leadership in the Later Roman Empire by Peter Brown is used, but no page number is provided. ActivelyDisinterested (talk) 21:29, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

 Done Jenhawk777 (talk) 20:37, 28 November 2021 (UTC)

Retitle

Laurel Lodged, Editor2020 and Richard Keatinge. Do you have an opinion on the retitling of this article? Avilich requested removing "late" from the title as an undisputed move and it has been done accordingly, but it doesn't seem to be as undisputed as he thought. I want consensus. I do not want a repeat of persecution of pagans. Therefore I need to hear from you if you care. Please. Jenhawk777 (talk) 06:47, 1 December 2021 (UTC)

Fine. I'll go along with it. Laurel Lodged (talk) 08:53, 1 December 2021 (UTC)
I'm happy too. Richard Keatinge (talk) 09:14, 1 December 2021 (UTC)
Thanks for starting this, Jenhawk777. I waited overnight (my time) to see if some consensus developed, and it looks as if it has. If opposition develops please let me know – it is only a moment's work to reverse the move if it is disputed, and anyone is still free to start a WP:RM discussion in that case. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 10:47, 1 December 2021 (UTC)
I'm OK with it. Editor2020 (talk) 16:58, 1 December 2021 (UTC)
Laurel Lodged, Editor2020, Richard Keatinge and Justlettersandnumbers Thank you all so much. I agree we can leave it as is in good conscience now. Jenhawk777 (talk) 17:42, 1 December 2021 (UTC)

Reference questions 24 Nov

A new doctrine Following the text "Alan Kreider believes patience was central." a reference to The Patient Ferment of the Early Church: The Improbable Rise of Christianity in the Roman by Alan Kreider is made without a page number. ActivelyDisinterested (talk) 17:21, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

 Done Jenhawk777 (talk) 21:19, 28 November 2021 (UTC)

I've also been through the bibliography section and the further reading section to make sure they are alphabetised, while also moving anything not used in referencing out of bibliography and into further reading. Otherwise that's it. Hope it helps, and feel free to ping me again if you have another article byou can't face the referencing on ;). ActivelyDisinterested (talk) 17:21, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

Hi Jenhawk777. I've been away a couple of days. Looks like all the issues are now closed. I've moved a couple of notes into the proper section. I'm really happy with how the referencing looks. If you ever need anything else just ping me. ActivelyDisinterested (talk) 13:46, 1 December 2021 (UTC)
ActivelyDisinterested I can't say thank you enough. I'm really happy with it as well. If you are ever in need of anything, let me know. I am in your debt. Jenhawk777 (talk) 17:45, 1 December 2021 (UTC)

Judicial penalties and clemency

Is that really a subset of "Social forces"? Is it not a section in its own right? Laurel Lodged (talk) 11:37, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

It is a subset because it is one of MacMullen’s five “proofs”. All of these are separate categories really.
Hmm. Can they be so labelled then? For example "Proof 1 - xxx" / "Proof 2 - yyy" Laurel Lodged (talk) 17:09, 9 December 2021 (UTC)
Laurel Lodged I hadn't thought of doing that. They are listed at the end of the "Moral attractiveness" section under social forces, but they aren't numbered or high lighted or anything even though they do provide the outline for the first section. What do you suggest that might make it clearer? I'm intrigued. :-) Jenhawk777 (talk) 19:07, 9 December 2021 (UTC)
what about numbering them in the sentence in moral a. and then numbering each section accordingly? Is that done on WP? Jenhawk777 (talk) 19:33, 9 December 2021 (UTC)
Nope. That's a no-go. Wp says section headings must "Not be numbered or lettered as an outline."Jenhawk777 (talk) 19:41, 9 December 2021 (UTC)
I have moved stuff around a bit and put the five proofs in bold text. Does that help do you think? Jenhawk777 (talk) 20:31, 9 December 2021 (UTC)
That's probably as good as it gets. Thanks. Laurel Lodged (talk) 11:39, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

Comments

I'll be reviewing this over the course of some days, as my time permits. A few initial comments:

  • The lead section reads very thickly. I would suggest trying to make the first paragraph more accessible. Suggest starting along the lines of "The Christianization of the Roman Empire took place over a period of centuries. Adhered to by about 1,000 people in AD 40, by AD 350, it was the religion of half the empire." Then going on from there in the first paragraph in big-picture, top-level summary terms. Again, I'm simply discussing the first paragraph here. Remember that the first paragraph is your opportunity to sell your work to the reader.
  • If you are going to use citations in the lead section, reviewers will probably expect that everything be cited.
  • Should there be some sort of chronological section in the article, a history of how the empire came to be Christianized? I realize this may be extensive and you may consider it beyond the scope of what you've written, in that case would a different title to the article be appropriate?
More soon.--Wehwalt (talk) 23:35, 5 December 2021 (UTC)
  • Hi! Hello!! Welcome! Perhaps you can tell I am glad to see you. So, to begin.
    • What you refer to here: "The Christianization of the Roman Empire took place over a period of centuries. Adhered to by about 1,000 people in AD 40, by AD 350, it was the religion of half the empire." is the second paragraph not the first. This is a merge that includes Decline of Graeco-Roman polytheism, so paganism is the first paragraph in the lead, and the entire first section of the article. Are you suggesting eliminating all of that altogether? I think I must have misunderstood what you're trying to say. Forgive my thickheadedness and please try again.Jenhawk777 (talk) 00:16, 6 December 2021 (UTC)
      • Okay, I tried to figure out what you might mean and did something. If it is completely bad, and not at all what you meant, just say so, and we will do whatever you think it needs to fix it. But at least I tried. :-) Jenhawk777 (talk) 05:00, 6 December 2021 (UTC)
    • Is this a hard and fast rule? I was told not to include any citations in the lead as it's a summary, then I was told to include citations for what is considered controversial but to only do so for those claims, now this is something else entirely. I am unsure now which approach to take. The lead is a true summary of what you will read in more detail in the body, and it was very difficult to write coherently. Since it does summarize multiple points, there will be multiple citations for every sentence; citing them all will turn the lead a nice bright blue overall. Is that a good thing? I am in doubt.Jenhawk777 (talk) 00:16, 6 December 2021 (UTC)
      • So, since that says it can be determined by consensus, should we wait and see? There are only citations right now for what might be controversial, as WP:LEADCITE says, but if there is a later consensus that it should be all or nothing, I can certainly change it.Jenhawk777 (talk) 04:40, 7 December 2021 (UTC)
  • Is "paganism" at the start of the second paragraph equivalent to the polytheism mentioned in the first?
  • While it is not a firm rule, you should expect to defend having a lead longer than four paragraphs. See MOS:LEADLENGTH. Perhaps the third and forth paragraphs could be merged?
  • Do not be too surprised if there are concerns about the article's length. It would be among the longest featured articles. My feeling about the matter is not to negotiate against yourself too much and see what reviewers say.
  • "While Christianity had arrived in Rome sometime in the first half of the first century represented by a small minority group of Jews.[18]" This is a sentence fragment.
  • You don't seem to tie in the "nature" subsection of "pagan decline" to the decline in such religion, rather to the Roman Empire generally.
  • You are not consistent in the capitalization of "paganism"
  • Don't use contractions such as "didn't".
That's all I have time for right this minute. I'll return but this is going to be very much piecemeal.--Wehwalt (talk) 20:44, 6 December 2021 (UTC)
Wehwalt I am very grateful for this. Please do what you can, when you can, it's coming up to Christmas, and RL really does need to take priority, I have a family and will be traveling, so please don't fret over what you can't do. I am glad for what you can. Your input has already improved things. Thank you again and Happy Holidays. Jenhawk777 (talk) 04:40, 7 December 2021 (UTC)
  • Ellipses take a non-breaking space before them, please see my edits for an example.
  • Blockquotes do not need quotation marks.
  •  Done
  • Anticipate suggestions that the legal discussions are far enough afield that you haven't adhered to the requirements that articles be written in summary style.
  • I have no doubt your observation is fair and true. This is a modern reversal of previous scholarship on this topic, and I have no doubt overdone in anticipation of extreme controversy over the laws from other Wiki editors. I made arguments in response to their imagined arguments - before anyone made them - but perhaps all I have done is obscure the point. I am squirming here because I know you're right, but I am having a hard time letting go. I will though. I will work on it till I can. I will Refocus. I've got to refocus on the reader. I will. Give me a day to swallow this. It isn't going down easy, but I am not disagreeing - just trying to cope. Jenhawk777 (talk) 06:54, 8 December 2021 (UTC)
  • Sorry for the whining. I actually agree it's clearer, shorter. I hope you like it as well. If you want something else entirely, just let me know. I can do this. I can. :-) Jenhawk777 (talk) 21:41, 8 December 2021 (UTC)
  • " Theodosius' praetorian prefect Cynegius[152] commissioned the destruction of temples, using the army under his control, and nearby monks from the territory around Constantinople in the Diocese of the East.[153" Would "ordered" be equivalent to "commissioned"? Also, nearby to what?
  • Sure, I can say ordered, and nearby "from the territory around Constantinople in the Diocese of the East". Monasteries were out in the countryside generally. I just removed "nearby". Is that better? Jenhawk777 (talk) 06:54, 8 December 2021 (UTC)
  • " Political complications contributed to turning it into a riot," This is rather unclear.
  • "Earthquakes caused much of the destruction of this era.[163] " Present-day Europe doesn't seem to have that many major earthquakes. Were things different then?
  • "traditional polytheism was expensive. Its temples were large, required regular maintenance and lavish festivals; they were served by professional priests, and were financially dependent upon donations from the state and private elites" The reader may think that things haven't changed much for large religious facilities.
  • "Southern says" you haven't introduced this individual yet.
More soon.--Wehwalt (talk) 21:59, 7 December 2021 (UTC)
Wehwalt you rock! Also, you read very fast! Pretty awesome! Jenhawk777 (talk) 06:54, 8 December 2021 (UTC)
  • When you speak of sacrifice, if you mean human sacrifice, I would say so. Including where you speak of blood sacrifice.
  • No! No human sacrifice! Romans did not do that! Yikes! It did not occur to me to explain the sacrificial system. I will remedy that as succinctly as possible. Holy criminitly batman! Jenhawk777 (talk) 04:19, 9 December 2021 (UTC)
  • It's unclear why the final paragraph of "Violence" is indented.
  • "Third century" don't capitalize per MOS:CENTURY. Make sure the way you invoke centuries is consistent (note the hyphens).
  • "Garni Armenien msu-2018-3149" This caption will not make sense to most.
  • You are inconsistent between "top down" and "top-down"
  • Cannot some of the one-paragraph sub-sections be combined?
  • It's unclear what is meant by correct dogma/belief.
  • That is exactly what the paragraph says and discusses. It is unclear. I could just start with the assertion by J.N.D. Kelly but that would make it seem this is clear, cut and dried, and it isn't. Jenhawk777 (talk) 05:37, 9 December 2021 (UTC) There is no fix for this. It's the current state of the scholarship. Jenhawk777 (talk) 04:17, 10 December 2021 (UTC)
  • Why is the "pagan versions" subsection a necessary part of the article?
  • "The orthodox Christian version of an actual incarnated god-man was scandalous to Graeco-Roman thinking." How is this distinguished from the emperor-gods?
  • "Greco-Roman" vs. "Graeco-Roman"? You use both.
  • "Roman Empire" or "Roman empire"?
  •  Done There is really no good reason for empire to be capitalized, but some well-meaning citizen came along and did that for me in the title, so now I am stuck with it. They are all "E" now. Jenhawk777 (talk) 05:45, 11 December 2021 (UTC)
  • Why is McMullen worth not only citing his views on the factors that made Christianity more attractive than paganism, but following through his factors with several lengthy sections?
  • MacMullen's view was the hegemony of this field for over 200 years. It is now the minority view. This shift has confused and disturbed a lot of people who don't know what has happened or why. MacMullen is still a major scholar, even though his view is now the minority one, and he has an old article titled "What difference did Christianity make?" that provided a convenient list. I used it to chart the change in scholarship of the last fifty years and explain it by detailing out each. Presenting it as a back and forth may give MacMullen a little more weight than is due, but it also conveys the level of controversy involved. I suppose there are things in politics and science that are as controversial as this, but nothing that I know of that is more so. This simply seemed the best way to go about organizing vast mountains of material on a complex and multifaceted topic and still hitting all those bases, without getting lost in the weeds. If you would like to suggest an alternative approach to organizing this material, I am open.
  • There are still many WP editors who do not want to make the shift into modern views, and they get upset enough they email me and yell a lot. They have personal reasons for that I suspect, and I don't generally take it personally. Still, it's hard not to take that into consideration as underlying a need for explanation for why the world has completely shifted in Late Antiquity. Jenhawk777 (talk) 05:45, 11 December 2021 (UTC)
  • "exposed/exposing children" Is this explained anywhere?
  • "Says" may be somewhat overused. Consider writes, states, asserts, etc.
  • What are marginal women?
I'll try to finish my run-through tomorrow.--Wehwalt (talk) 22:44, 10 December 2021 (UTC)
  • "Christian community was not just one thing. Experience and expression were diverse. Yet early Christian communities did have commonalities." This sounds very nice but it's uncertain what it means.
  • The last section, on miracles, sounds to me like you are attesting to the authenticity of miracles in Wikipedia's voice. We're not in a position to say there were actual miracles one way or another.
  • That's it, I don't have time for another read-through. There's an extent to which I'm just dealing with appearances because I'm really not familiar with this subject. I've told you where I think you're likely to meet resistance in trying to reach FA. Good luck.--22:10, 11 December 2021 (UTC)
  • Wehwalt I will fix these immediately, but first I want to thank you, though it seems entirely inadequate. You have been incredibly helpful and valuable, clarified too much to list here, and I know it wasn't easy, but you stuck it out to the end. Thank you more than I can say. If you ever need anything, please give me the opportunity to help in any way I can. I am still unsure about FA, and it doesn't sound like you are recommending it, but you have improved the article, and that's what matters in the end. Thank you again. Jenhawk777 (talk) 04:36, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

Cynegius

@Jenhawk777: care to explain why you undid this edit of mine? I did leave a double citation there for good measure. Avilich (talk) 14:41, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

Hello darlin' Avilich I am stil on vacation! I think I questioned the wording. Is there a question as to whether or not it was actually Cynegius that did that? Or is there a question about whether or not it actually happened at all? I think it implies this is not known and I thought it was, so I thought that it needed more explanation. As it was, it just raised questions without providing any answers. Put it back as you see fit. I should have said something to you when I did that. Sorry, and thank you for coming here and asking me! Jenhawk777 (talk) 22:32, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
@Jenhawk777: I more or less rewrote that paragraph. Even some of the sources from the early 2000s were a bit aged. hope you're enjoying your vacation! Avilich (talk) 13:24, 30 December 2021 (UTC)
Avilich and you did a great job, and it inspired me, and so I did too! Don't be upset with me! I couldn't make up my mind what was most on topic, and what was support material, so I moved everything all over the place and eventually ended up with half of yours and a third of mine in the text and the rest in two separate notes. Aye yi yai! It required a reference to Christianization though, or it all just seemed to wander around with no applicability. See if you hate it. I have enjoyed vacating!! I am more tired than I was when I started though! Jenhawk777 (talk) 20:41, 30 December 2021 (UTC)
@Jenhawk777: I was in something of a hurry when I wrote it, so your edits are definitely an improvement. I think some more thought could be put into which specific violent incidents deserve mention. The notorious case of Hypatia should almost certainly be included (though I'm perplexed by the claim that it happened in 391 during the Serapeum incident), but the destructions of the temples at Apameia and Gaza should probably at best be relegated to footnotes. The latter incident, as Cameron explains, is known only from the biography of Porphyry of Gaza which is probably a forgery. Cameron also takes the trouble to list and dissect most of the known cases of violence on pages 798–800, something which could perhaps be incorporated into or made evident in the text. Avilich (talk) 00:18, 31 December 2021 (UTC)
Avilich This is brilliant, thank you, and I agree. Gibbon placed the death of Hypatia during the riot which destroyed the Serapium, and scholars since - as usual with him - simply accepted that. It is only recent scholarship that has moved it to 415. So that in itself should be mentioned since so many people believe that's what happened. I love the idea of including the reference to the forgery. Definitely! I will go do some of that reading. Thank you! I love that even your quick work is quality. :-) Jenhawk777 (talk) 19:55, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

GA Review

GA toolbox
Reviewing
This review is transcluded from Talk:Christianization of the Roman Empire/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Vaticidalprophet (talk · contribs) 10:25, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

GA review
(see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)
  1. It is reasonably well written.
    a (prose, spelling, and grammar):
    b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):
  2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.
    a (references):
    b (citations to reliable sources):
    c (OR):
    d (copyvio and plagiarism):
  3. It is broad in its coverage.
    a (major aspects):
    b (focused):
  4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.
    Fair representation without bias:
  5. It is stable.
    No edit wars, etc.:
  6. It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.
    a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales):
    b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

Overall:
Pass/Fail:

· · ·


Picking this up. This is quite a long article, so a full review might take a while, but I'll do my best to be prompt. Vaticidalprophet 10:25, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

Vaticidal No worries, take your time, I will not object, and so far my experience has been that as long as we are actively working on it - don't take a week break or some such thing - no one else will object either. A week is a guideline for average articles and you are absolutely right that this is a long article. It's actually a merge of two, but they were about the same central question and were incomplete by themselves, so merging them was suggested by three different editors. I did so and attempted to clean and combine them as well as I could. The structure is based on the merge while also attempting to keep the central question - in the first paragraph of the lead - as the focus. It has been peer reviewed twice - once on the talk page and once through email. The sources have also had a separate check as you can see on the talk page. I am hoping there are not too many problems, so that even though it is a long article, it won't take too long or be complicated to review. I hope. :-) We'll see! I will appreciate any and all comments. I will also do my best to respond promptly. And thank you again. Jenhawk777 (talk) 17:36, 7 January 2022 (UTC)
Vaticidalprophet How is it going? Jenhawk777 (talk) 20:58, 8 January 2022 (UTC)
Vaticidalprophet I have a friend going through a citation review checking the accuracy of all the page numbers, so if you need to press pause on this for a bit, that is fine with me. Jenhawk777 (talk) 18:41, 10 January 2022 (UTC)
Sorry for leaving you hanging -- I didn't realize! I don't receive pings, and this fell off my watchlist...I'm just wrapping up a FAC review, so will have time for this. How's the citation review going? I can review the prose while it's going on and get updates on the cite accuracy. Vaticidalprophet 19:01, 10 January 2022 (UTC)
I wondered! The citation review is going. It is something I really hate doing - I am not naturally detail oriented - but my reviewer found a page# error, and I found two more, so clearly it's very necessary. I am through the first part on causes of decline now, so that's something - right? I am checking every one - all 400... Groan. I love research but when writing, will start moving things around and sometimes lose which citation was connected to it! Aaarrggh! Now it has created more work for me! Sources are good, and citations are to the correct source, but those danged page #s! I can only do so much of this at a time however until I overload, so it may be a little slow. If you need to take a pause since a few days have already gone by and it's impossible to know how long this citation review will take, it would be perfectly reasonable. Jenhawk777 (talk) 20:06, 10 January 2022 (UTC)
Completely understandable -- I'll have to do similar if I ever take prehistoric religion to FAC, because one of my sources has page numbers very different between editions, and I'm looking forward to it as much as you are...I'm happy to give you a few days if you need it, leave a message on my talk when you're good with that. I might leave some prose comments on the first couple sections in the meanwhile, but I'm still reading/rereading/getting a feel for the article in general. Vaticidalprophet 20:14, 10 January 2022 (UTC)
Cool. Awesome. YES! A few days would be great! It is 400 citations. Review prose all you like. If you decide to make changes, which is perfectly okay with me, please check the source if you don't mind, otherwise, my friend will eat me alive for even the slightest variation from what the source says. Otherwise...moan...I will do it. Hope you find the article interesting and informative at any rate. Happy editing! Hey I love your user page! All of this does get a little unreal! Jenhawk777 (talk) 20:31, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Alright, first couple notes...

General

  • Watch for consistent use of BCE/CE or BC/AD. You can use either per MOS:ERA, although Christianity-related articles usually use the latter in my experience -- but it's really personal preference. Right now you're mostly using CE, but there's a stray use of AD in an image caption (under #Negotiation, accommodation, adaptation, and transformation), and it should be standardized one way or another. (I realize that sometimes asking someone about MOS:ERA is like asking them about their choice of infobox, so bit of a delicate point :) )
    • Using a control-F search, the image caption (and titles in the bibliography) are the only places AD is used. I tried changing the image caption, and then the image wouldn't print. What should I do? Jenhawk777 (talk) 04:57, 18 January 2022 (UTC)
  • There's a few cases throughout the article where a fairly short statement is followed by a long line of references. Some people are much more annoyed by this than I am -- I've been in enough content disputes to know sometimes you have to do that -- but it can imply a statement is being underexplained/undercontextualized, or that not all of the references are actually needed to back it up. For instance, does Rhetoric often espoused violence, but actual (i.e. physical) violence was rare and usually isolated.[95][96][97][98][99] (#Violence or persuasion) need that many references (it might, but it might not), and if it does, is there information in any of those references that could add additional worthwhile context, like real-world examples of the attitude towards religious violence?
    • Statements that I know will be disagreed with by some readers do have multiple references. Also, there are two separate claims in that sentence, so they both have refs. This is a fairly controversial topic, as the entire field of late antiquity is going through a change right now. There are some who just don't want to let go. I will go take a look at what each reference says. Maybe I can narrow it down some. Jenhawk777 (talk) 04:57, 18 January 2022 (UTC)
    • I did have a somewhat long section giving specific examples about violence, and it was recommended that I remove it. I really liked it, it was quite convincing! So I moved it to a note. Then it was recommended that I remove that as well - it was long and they said no one would read it. I took the part about Martin of Tours out of the note, put it back in the body, and just dumped the rest. If you like, I can put it back as a note, and if you decide you don't like it after all, I can always remove it again.Jenhawk777 (talk) 04:57, 18 January 2022 (UTC)
  • You have some apparent quotes in footnotes that, because of the way they're quoted, are a bit hard to tell where they're from or if they're even quotes at all. This is a fairly important issue, as it's a copyright/NFCC concern. Note 7 stands out to me in this respect, and I'm not sure that specific footnote is needed at all.
    • Ah yes, attribution. I was told by the guy that is in charge of FA that I have too many inline attributions, and that the citation is sufficient. I told him I did not think anyone who writes on religion would agree, but I tried to cooperate. Of course, he also said I should just remove the quotes, which I have done as well. I will check all the notes and clean that up one way or the other. Jenhawk777 (talk) 04:57, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Lead

  • I know this is a tricky matter for a broad-scope, abstract article -- been there, done that -- but we could really use a lead image here. What data we have of reader experiences with articles implies people get a lot more use, appreciation, and necessary support out of images than us as writers (or the image policies we have to follow...) often account for, so it's an important thing to have. When I faced similar concerns at Prehistoric religion with trying to find what image could encapsulate such a broad and abstract idea, I ended up with an image quite characteristic of the time (a Venus figurine) but a lesser-known example to avoid being overplayed. You could try something similar here, such as a depiction of a saint or martyr of the Christianization era.
  • The second mention of the title, the one in the last paragraph, shouldn't be bolded.
  • Greco-Roman polytheism, (commonly called paganism), -- I don't think we need that first comma?

More to come. Vaticidalprophet 19:44, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Couple more comments...and no need to be anxious! I work somewhat on 'my own schedule', but I'm here.

Background

Roman religion

  • Would it be worth explicitly mentioning the orthodoxy-orthopraxy distinction here? That's often the thing that trips up modern-day readers learning about polytheistic religions the most, in my experience. You allude to it by saying ritual was the most important aspect, but given the misconceptions lay readers often have about what "ritual being more important" means, it might be worthwhile to explicitly explain what's different about religions that focus on orthopraxy vs those that focus on orthodoxy. (The Religion as it is understood in the modern world did not exist in the Graeco-Roman world drew my eye for similar reasons -- it's correct for the religions most people reading this article would be familiar with, but there are still many orthoprax faiths practiced today, so some readers might not know how to read that statement without additional context.)
    • Ritualism is actually different from both orthodoxy and orthopraxy. They are more about how one practices Christianity and aren't really applicable to Graeco-Roman polytheism. Jenhawk777 (talk) 04:20, 21 January 2022 (UTC)
  • The links in the second paragraph could use some tweaking. Mithraism seems like it could reasonably link to that article, rather than just a subsection of that article as it does now. "Worship of Isis" could be restructed as a link to Mysteries of Isis, rather than "Isis" alone linking to a subsection of her article.

Christianity

Pagan decline

Context

  • I'm not sure about the current splitting-out of "Imperial cult" as yet another sub-heading here -- it produces very short subsections, which clutter the table of contents and make the article appear even longer.
  • experiences, insights, and stories.[29][17] -- good practice to keep an eye on references that they're in the right numerical order.
    • I know, this is a quirk of mine that I defend as fitting since the order of the references reflects the order of the claims in the sentence. But since according to the comment beneath this one, I am going to be splitting the sentence, it is now moot.
  • On that note, Roman historians, such as J. A. North, observe that Roman imperial culture began in the first century with religion embedded in the city-state, then throughout the imperial period, it gradually shifted to religion as a choice with different groups offering different characteristics, experiences, insights, and stories. is a rather long and choppy sentence that could probably be split in two around "throughout the imperial period" and restructured slightly.
  • Another 'general' note -- "Graeco-Roman" vs "Greco-Roman" isn't consistent throughout the article (it's "Graeco-" under #Roman religion and "Greco-" here; I haven't gone looking for all uses). While it doesn't particularly matter which is standardized on, it should be standard.
  • Scholarship of the twenty-first century has shifted toward seeing it more as a genuine religious phenomenon than a political one is an important point -- the general reader will usually come in with the point of view that it was a political move, rather than a religious one. If the sources permit, it would be worth expanding on this to make it somewhat more prominent and explain why the point of view has shifted, to counteract those misconceptions.

The top-down model

  • The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, as a book title, should be in italics.
  • Constantine was "a sincere if a somewhat simple believer." -- logical quotation
    • I read it and don't see what I did wrong. Could you explain? Jenhawk777 (talk) 06:07, 21 January 2022 (UTC)
      • This is one of the more 'technical' MOS points, so I don't mind it too much, it's just one of those things that gets at the grammarian in me :) Manual of Style would prefer a quote structured like this one be rendered as "a sincere if a somewhat simple believer"., with the full stop outside rather than inside the quotation marks. Vaticidalprophet 06:14, 21 January 2022 (UTC)
        • Bless you! Thank you! It is now fixed. I don't know why I didn't see that, but it's perfectly reasonable to point that out. (I have a thing about commas!) But good punctuation is just a minimal requirement in my view, so thank you. I checked other quotes, and they all seem to have the quotation marks inside the period. I cannot explain this one! But it is now  Done. I will be back tomorrow. It's after midnight here. Thanx again, Jenhawk777 (talk) 06:27, 21 January 2022 (UTC)
  • sudden empire wide conversion should be rendered "empire-wide".
  • "He did not punish pagans for being pagans, or Jews for being Jews, and did not adopt a policy of forced conversion"; he was not in favor of suppression of paganism by force.[55][56][53] As well as reference order, this incorporates a quote alongside several sources, where it's not clear which of the sources is being quoted. The quote-ee should be mentioned in the text at least.

Violence or persuasion

  • Not a criticism but the opposite -- I really like what you've done with the footnote on MacMullen. I've struggled before with how to contextualize in-article when an important writer nonetheless holds some odd positions, and that's an excellent way to do it.
    • OMG! I am so relieved to have you say that! I was worried about that one, but felt compelled to explain why he is now considered the minority opinion when forty years ago, when he started out, his was the majority view. It's been a total 180 in this field, and that's got to be disorienting for a lot of people including him. So anyway, thank you so much for that! It helps me. Jenhawk777 (talk) 17:06, 21 January 2022 (UTC)
  • anti–pagan violence Hyphens and dashes are complicated, I don't behoove anyone for mixing them up, but this should probably be a hyphen (-) rather than an en dash (–). The same is true for Roman–style and on–going in footnote 4.
    • I confess I don't know the difference. I try to remember to use the – at the bottom of the edit window, but I have no idea which one of those it is. Have I been in the wrong to use it, or do these fail to use it and I should go put that in? I put in those – on these examples w/o knowing if it's right!! Hope it is! Jenhawk777 (talk) 17:06, 21 January 2022 (UTC)
  • Martin Zimmermann, German ancient historian Aside from the prose note that this should probably be rendered "the German ancient historian Martin Zimmermann", the more concerning part is that the source here is unreliable -- it's itself a wiki project, which shouldn't be used as references. What you could do here is, instead of cite them, add a link to his article on the German Wikipedia (given he doesn't have an article on the English one). There's a specific code to do cross-project links of that sort, which is a bit fiddly, so I've done it for you here so it can be added to the article: Martin Zimmermann [de]
  • Christianity sought to legitimize its new power through rhetoric.[98][92] -- reference order
  • Actual (i.e. physical) violence is a somewhat unfortunate wording, given verbal and psychological violence can be quite severe; just "physical violence" would work.
    •  Done used 'actual violence' as in violence that was acted out and was not all talk. This is sort of an allusion to MacMullen's standard of morality which says morality must be more than just talk in order to be considered real. If you think it needs more explanation, I can do that.Jenhawk777 (talk) 17:06, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

Temple destruction

  • Greater Lavant misspells "Levant". (In the Greater Lavant such destruction was substantial though most of it occurred after the mid-fifth century also strikes me as missing a comma for "substantial, though".)
  • Most recorded incidents of temple destruction are known from ecclesiastical and hagiographical accounts which are eager to portray their subjects as engaging in violent acts in order to emphasize their piety and power is a long run-on sentence.

That should be all for now. Very thorough work! Vaticidalprophet 22:25, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

    • Thank you! Jenhawk777 (talk) 17:24, 21 January 2022 (UTC)
      • Vaticidal In the process of checking every - single - citation - I have ended up making some changes to content in two places that I hope is clearer. Would you mind giving a second look at 'Violence or persuasion' and 'temple destruction'? References have been completely checked up to 'Paganism evolved', and in the 'new ideas' sections, and partially checked through the rest of the article, but I don't anticipate doing this to you again. I'm sorry. I couldn't help it. Jenhawk777 (talk) 21:04, 23 January 2022 (UTC)
        • I'll take another look! My laptop is currently having issues so I can't guarantee a timeframe, but I'll get there. Vaticidalprophet 22:13, 23 January 2022 (UTC)
          • Reading from a library computer, I don't see any new issues. That said, some of footnote 5 seems like it could be incorporated into the text -- "Economics was also a factor" by itself is quite short, and most footnotes don't seem to be read very often, so the information here seems relevant enough to be worth putting in the text directly. The first half of the footnote, at least, seems worth placing directly in. Vaticidalprophet 01:44, 24 January 2022 (UTC)
              • Vaticidal Sorry to hear about your computer. Mine has been having problems and I suspect I need to take it in to a shop but there is no Mac store close by, so I keep putting it off. You have my sympathy. Thank you for taking a look and for the suggestion. I will follow up immediately. Jenhawk777 (talk) 04:17, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

Legislation

I should be back to having a computer now!

    • YAY! Whhoo hoo! Halelujah! I'm so happy to see you here I could weep! :-)
  • As a record of history, modern historians had to assume these laws and their harsh consequences were implemented, yet contemporary scholarship has shown this to be incorrect.[130][74][131][132] Ref order, but this is also just a lot of refs for a single sentence. Contextually I think that's okay, but it's worth noting just to get it brought up.
    • Okay I removed two of them just because you brought it up. Alan Cameron is probably all that's needed as his discussion is thorough but I'm leaving Salzman just because she also asks the question plainly. :-) Jenhawk777 (talk) 06:10, 28 January 2022 (UTC)
  • For various reasons, scholars agree they went unenforced -- various reasons such as?
  • Caroline Humfress appears to have an article, so can be linked.
  • They could appeal to other systems of law, such as Jewish law, or local traditions I don't think we need the link to Tradition here.
  • According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, it was Constantine's son Constantius who first issued bans on sacrifice.[153][145] Ref order, but this is also a source from 1912! The other source on it is more recent, so I suppose it's worth explicitly saying somewhere that this is still considered true, given how much attention is given elsewhere to significant changes in the historical interpretation of Roman Christianization over similar or shorter timescales than this one.

More to come. Vaticidalprophet 01:09, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

    • Vaticidal Thank you! Bless you! Jenhawk777 (talk) 06:10, 28 January 2022 (UTC)
      • Vaticidal More computer problems? Would you prefer to put this back on the list of candidates, and let someone else review it? I assure you there will be no hard feelings if you would. If real life or anything else is interfering, believe me, I do understand. It's okay. Jenhawk777 (talk) 21:05, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
        • Don't worry, I'm just naturally slow :P I did notice one of the sections was substantially edited by someone else lately -- is that going okay? Just checking in on the article's stability. Vaticidalprophet 00:27, 31 January 2022 (UTC)
          • Vaticidal Sigh, that was a friend (Avilich) who periodically parachutes in where I happen to be working, throws a few grenades, then retreats into the mists once again. No worries. He means well. I just leave him be. The article is stable - at least as much as anything can be with me and my friends around. Jenhawk777 (talk) 07:46, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

Paganism didn't decline, it evolved

Well, if you can speak to the article's stability :)

  • Strictly speaking, apostrophes are usually verboten by the Manual of Style, although in a context like this section header there's a good argument to make it's the best possible phrasing. I actually like the phrasing, apostrophe and all, and can't much think of a better one within the constraints of a short section header -- I'm just noting this because it's the sort of thing that gets brought up, and at the very least the reason for not removing it should be addressed.
  • Attribution with regards to large block quotes, again -- the "author" parameter of the {{blockquote}} template should be able to handle that.

Vaticidalprophet 08:02, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

Balance of the article from the peanut gallery

The article is very long (over 10,000 words), and well over half of the body text is taken up by the section "Possible causes of Christian growth". Seems to me that this section should be split off into a new article titled "Causes of the Christianization of the Roman Empire" and summarized here per WP:SUMMARYSTYLE. (t · c) buidhe 03:48, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

Hey buidhe hope you are doing well in these weird days. This article is actually a merger of two that were originally split just as you suggest. Several editors who worked on them determined that combining them was necessary as the discussions between the decline and the growth are so intertwined that one kept having to explain how and why and what it meant, over and over, in each separate article. I was actually able to cut out a lot of that once they were merged as I just had to do that explaining once. Yes, it's long, though not longer than many other complex topics, and it's a much improved approach to what is also a controversial topic – imho. I won't support splitting them back apart again. That would be a change that sacrificed quality and content for some arbitrary number of words. It would not be an improvement. The merge was. Jenhawk777 (talk) 06:33, 1 February 2022 (UTC)
Regardless of what gets split or merged, I think the article goes into too much detail on causes. Since the article is about Christianization, the main focus should be on the expansion of Christianity rather than various theories on why it expanded. Per the GA criteria, it should stay focused on the primary topic. (t · c) buidhe 06:45, 1 February 2022 (UTC)
But darling, dear buidhe - that is the topic. As it says in the first paragraph of the lead: How and why this dramatic growth occurred are the central questions of Christianization. This article presents the relatively new sociological model which sees the Christianization of the Roman Empire as the result of new ideas coupled with the social force created by the church's charitable practices, moral behaviors, and its written and verbal discourse. What you call the "main focus" is simply the fact that it grew, which is covered in one small section. That would leave all the actual questions - that are truly what constitute Christianization - unmentioned! That would be like trying to explain physics without mentioning gravity! Jenhawk777 (talk) 20:50, 1 February 2022 (UTC)
The causes of the growth should be certainly discussed, but not constitute the bulk of the article. I've removed that sentence from the lead, since it is an opinion-based statement and would need attribution, besides I cannot find it anywhere in the body. (t · c) buidhe 21:02, 1 February 2022 (UTC)
I don't think the article should be organized around the possible reasons why people might have chosen Christianity over other belief systems, as it is at present. I guess I'm expecting to find sections on: 1) the establishment and growth of Christian institutions, such as churches, monasteries, etc. in the Roman empire and 2) the effect of Christianity on Roman society, law, politics, etc. You already have a bunch of information on 2) but categorize it under "Possible causes of Christian growth" which seems backwards to me. (t · c) buidhe 21:47, 1 February 2022 (UTC)
  • We're also missing information on aftermath/legacy. Surely the foundation of what is now the Catholic Church and the fact that millions of people converted to Christianity had a major effect on later history after the fall of the Roman empire, but this is never even touched upon. (t · c) buidhe 01:41, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

A note that I'm following this conversation, just in case Jenhawk worries I've disappeared again; the aftermath section note I agree with, the organization stuff is worth considering. Vaticidalprophet 03:04, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

    • buidhe First you say the article is too long, then you say it needs to contain more. The article you are describing already exists as Christianization. That is not this article. Everything you have asked for is already there. This article has a much narrower topic. This article is only about the Roman empire in the first five centuries of the common era. And if Robert Markus is as brilliant as Peter Brown claims, then ancient Christianity came to an end after the fifth century when it shifted into its medieval form, and the middle ages has no business being anywhere in this article.
    • The sentence you removed is not an opinion. It is in fact a summary statement of all the multiple articles and books that address Christianization. There is Peter Brown, the scholar that virtually created the field of Late Antiquity, and one of his plethora of articles and books: [1] where he discusses how we have come to commonly understand the "labyrinthine problem of Christianization", how Christians changed the thinking of the time about "the heavens", and how that impacted Christianization, and how and why Christians invented the narrative that is the favorite of moderns, and what's its real impact on conversion - otherwise known as Christianization - might have been. There's this one [2] where Kate Cooper discusses whether one of the causes of Christianization was women influencing their husbands to convert or not. Here is just one by Jan N. Bremmer:[3] He begins by asking "why did ancient religion disappear" in the second paragraph. And in the third paragraph, again, "if the transition into a dominant Christian society was relatively peaceful, the question arises why this was the case". Pick any of the over 200 references, and find any one of them that describe the process of Christianization in any other way that does not include the how and why of it. You won't be able to, because your assessment of Christianization as not being about 'how and why' is mistaken. I don't know what else you think Christianization is: it is by definition about the process of how and why people converted.
    • The question of how is directly addressed by sociology. This article is about the new sociological model. It makes the claim of social forces causing Christianization, and that requires discussing what is meant by "social forces". Since that is actually the focus of the page, it is appropriate that half to two–thirds of the article directly address it.
    • 1) the establishment and growth of Christian institutions, such as churches, monasteries, etc. in the Roman empire are all in fact already in the article in multiple places. Look under 'Constantine', look under 'Community', look under 'health care'. I think something pertinent to each of these is in every section of the part of the article you dislike so much. And as you say, #2 is even in section titles where it's easy to find.
    • I'm sorry you don't think the article should be organized around the possible reasons why people might have chosen Christianity over other belief systems but that is the question of Christianization and the Roman empire. Why did people convert? Why did so many people convert? That is this article. It has just as legitimate a place in an encyclopedia as Christianization itself does. You prefer the other article, and that's perfectly fine, but that doesn't undermine the notability of this one. This article basically summarizes all the current research on religious change in the field of Late Roman Antiquity. That's notable all by itself.

References

  1. ^ Brown, Peter (1993). "The Problem of Christianization" (PDF). Proceedings of the British Academy. 84. Oxford University Press: 89–106.
  2. ^ Cooper, Kate. “Insinuations of Womanly Influence: An Aspect of the Christianization of the Roman Aristocracy.” The Journal of Roman Studies, vol. 82, [Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies, Cambridge University Press], 1992, pp. 150–64, https://doi.org/10.2307/301289.
  3. ^ Bremmer, J. N. (2021). How Do We Explain the Quiet Demise of Graeco-Roman Religion? An Essay, Numen, 68(2-3), 230-271. doi: https://doi.org/10.1163/15685276-12341622

Jenhawk777 (talk) 06:33, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

It can be true simultaneously that, considering its stated topic, an article spends too much space on certain issues, that it does not spend enough space on other topics, that it is too long overall, and that it is poorly organized.
Everything needs to be verifiable so if you want to make the claim that "How and why this dramatic growth occurred are the central questions of Christianization", it needs to be cited somewhere, and as more than just the opinion of one writer or a handful of people.
I think unless there are substantial changes in the article's structure, it should be moved to Causes of the Christianization of the Roman Empire because that seems to be what you're trying to cover in the article. (t · c) buidhe 07:18, 2 February 2022 (UTC)
That it can be true doesn't prove it is true.
How about "All questions concerning the rise of Christianity are one: How was it done?" [1] Since when are the majority of the leading scholars in the field a "handful of people"?
I think that title is redundant. See above.

References

  1. ^ Stark, Rodney (1996). The Rise of Christianity: A Sociologist Reconsiders History. Princeton University Press. p. 3. ISBN 9780691027494.

Jenhawk777 (talk) 08:06, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

I have now put a version of the original sentence back with citations. This article has a narrow focus, a limited time frame, and is organized around the main ideas of 'Christianization in the RE' with particular focus on the arguments for and against the new sociological model. Accordingly, it is well-organized. Content that would duplicate Christianization and what you are calling "aftermath" doesn't belong here. (There is no such thing as an "aftermath" to Christianization. There is an aftermath to the fall of the empire, but that's about politics not religion.) This title was the subject of much backing and forthing when the article was being created, and this was the one agreed upon, so there is an established consensus for it. That's what we should stick with. Thank you for your input buidhe, I am always grateful for your ideas, but this time, I do not believe the article would benefit from taking them. Jenhawk777 (talk) 18:26, 2 February 2022 (UTC)
Looking through the GA criteria, I'd just like to record how immensely impressed I am with the amount of work that Jenhawk777 in particular has done. Moving on with buidhe's valuable comments, I still have problems with the result so far. In particular, I can't see that Stark's model of constant exponential growth of Christianity has achieved any consensus, except of course in his own multiple publications and a (very) few followers. There is a consensus for the reality of organic, un-coerced and officially-unsupported growth, but also for its inconstancy, mass mortality from infectious disease being a particular contributor to the spread of a religion that enjoined practical care for the sick.(for instance Heather, Harper) Stark's constant-growth hypothesis is unproved, it's unprovable, and its assertion as fact is used to set up a false dichotomy between violent official imposition after the Edict of Milan, and ongoing growth entirely unrelated to large-scale official support and threatening messages. This article does need to report that dichotomy - violence has most of the primary literary sources behind it, and ongoing growth irrelevant to violence is at least implicitly supported by a lot of recent work. But we need to recognize the combination after Constantine's conversion of internal growth, very occasional violence and recurrent high-level threats, and the stimulus to growth by an official atmosphere of threats and lack of protection, which discouraged overt non-Christian celebration and made non-Christian sacred property conveniently available for private appropriation.
I also feel with buidhe that Christianization of the Roman Empire had an aftermath. I'd count the establishment of an intolerant and internally quarrelsome state religion as part of the identity of a major world civilization as a pretty important part of that aftermath, also its further development (especially in the form of Islam) and resulting religious wars down the centuries. I wouldn't say that we need to go into any details as part of this article, but a couple of sentences with relevant wikilinks would strike me as appropriate.
I'd also take out quite a few items that I can't see as relevant to the central theme, such as Augustine's view of how to punish heretics (really not at all relevant to this article) and Meijer's speculation on gladiators (has anybody seriously suggested that anti-gladiator preaching contributed to the spread of Christianity? Or is the disappearance of gladiators being argued to be part of the aftermath of Christianity?)
A more practical discussion of the factors that may have induced people to convert would be good. Community support, and even tiny improvements in personal agency, life control, and status, are all important and could be discussed better, as practical personal factors rather than impersonal higher-order abstractions.
I have other comments, but it may be tactful to stop at this point and let others respond... Richard Keatinge (talk) 17:10, 3 February 2022 (UTC)


Richard Keatinge!! Hi! Didn't expect to see you, and I am terrifically pleased. Your comments are, of course, genuinely appreciated. They fully demonstrate the complexity of this issue. I love this! Discussions like this are right up my alley. Let me take your very intelligent points one at a time, so please be patient and try to actually read my wall of text.
  • First, you are absolutely right that no one supports a constant growth model - not even Stark. You say its assertion as fact is used to set up a false dichotomy ... and you refer to Stark's constant-growth hypothesis is unproved, but that's a misunderstanding of what is said. First, no one has asserted these #s as fact, not even Stark. Stark says his purpose is "not to establish these numbers as fact, but to demonstrate that the growth of Christianity did not require miraculous rates of conversion" (as other models do require).(page 12) On page 11, he says "keep in mind that these numbers are estimates"... Second, he points out that "reality may have been a good bit lumpier". Growth might have been more rapid at times and there may have been periodic losses. (After the destruction of Jerusalem, the Christian community there seems to have died out for awhile.)
  • I don't mention any of this. In fact, there's basically one sentence on Stark. That seems now like that might have been a mistake on my part. It should have been made clear that these are estimates, and that no one thinks growth would have been a steady constant rate. I do say this would not have been steady but would have varied but perhaps that's insufficient. What Stark offers is an average rate, not a constant one. Those are arithmetically different.
  • Stark's numbers are not his, they are taken from what we think we know: which is how many people Christianity started with, how many Christians we have indications of at the end of the second century and by the time of the Council of Nicea, how many were in Egypt and when they were there, how many there were by the fifth century, and finally, what we estimate the overall population of the empire was. These numbers all stand independently of Stark, having been established through other means, by other historians, which Stark references. They form the foundation of the estimate, and more importantly probably, they limit what is possible arithmetically. This is fully demonstrated by Keith Hopkins who is as skeptical as should even satisfy you. In his interesting article [1], he takes more than one approach to the problem. He spends a good bit of time discussing variable rates - which I also did not include, thinking it a side-trip - but given what there is to work with, he arrives at almost the identical average rate of growth as Stark. Stark may or may not have consensus, I don't know, I didn't look for that, but it is fair to say there is no evidence of anyone contradicting him. As the article also says: "more sophisticated mathematical models (for the shape of the expansion curve) could affect certain assumptions, but not the general tendency of the numerical hypotheses".[2]: 11, fn. 61  The math is what the math is.
  • The comparison with Bagnall's work in Egypt is unarguable. That undergirds late third century growth, which pretty much all historians agree with, as fact. I am happy to add any of this and explain in more detail the numbers we know, the time frame for them, that this is an estimated average, and that reality would not have been constant. But numbers working as they do, growth in numbers would absolutely have looked something like this.
  • Second, you say this sets up a false dichotomy between violent official imposition after the Edict of Milan, and ongoing growth, but, no, it doesn't. It neither discusses nor mentions violence which is discussed elsewhere. It contributes to the ongoing undermining of the argument that Christianity only really grew after Constantine, but this has been done in multiple ways through multiple scholars, none of which are Stark. One example in the article: "E. A. Judge provides a detailed study demonstrating that a fully organized church system existed before Constantine, leading to the conclusion that "the argument Christianity owed its triumph to its adoption by Constantine cannot be sustained". [3]: 3–4 
  • You add that violence has most of the primary literary sources behind it, and ongoing growth irrelevant to violence is at least implicitly supported by a lot of recent work. What recent work would that be? I would like to see a reference anywhere that says violence is currently anything but a minority opinion.
  • I will add here that other models of conversion, even those including violence, require large scale mass conversions in the fourth century for which there is no evidence. As one example, Sivan [4] says fifth century Goths were aware of only one mass conversion. (There is also tons of evidence against Constantine or his subsequent emperors ever practicing forced conversion. Historians agree he did not. Evidence of 'coercion' is all about law, so let's set that aside for now. I will come back to it.)
In fact, I will have to come back and address the rest because RL is interfering right now. I will be back asap. I want to answer these. I predicted they would appear. Jenhawk777 (talk) 20:54, 3 February 2022 (UTC)
  • Splitting off 'causes' doesn't seem necessary here, for now at least. For example, the 'Socio–economics' section, which relies on few sources, can very much be trimmed without any significant loss of meaning. Maybe a reduction of the number of direct quotes can help bring down the excess of words. But even in the current form I don't see much point in splitting: the causes are integral to the subject, after all. Avilich (talk) 22:18, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Hopkins, Keith. "Christian Number and its Implications." Journal of Early Christian Studies, vol. 6 no. 2, 1998, p. 185-226. Project MUSE, doi:10.1353/earl.1998.0035.
  2. ^ Couzin, Robert (2014). "The Christian sarcophagus population of Rome". Journal of Roman Archaeology. 27: 275–303. doi:10.1017/S104775941400124X. S2CID 162418721.
  3. ^ Harris, William Vernon (2005). The Spread of Christianity in the First Four Centuries: Essays in Explanation. Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-14717-1
  4. ^ [Sivan, Hagith. “Ulfila's Own Conversion.” Harvard Theological Review, vol. 89, no. 4, 1996, pp. 373–386., doi:10.1017/S0017816000006106.]
*Okay Richard Keatinge, I am back and am anxious to address all your concerns. So let's go back to this one: violence has most of the primary literary sources behind it. First, the concept of primary sources has to be expanded in our modern day. Second, we both know that "most of those primary literary sources" are Christian texts. The trouble there is that so many have been flat out contradicted.
*The Christians constructed a reality in rhetoric that is not supported by other evidence: they lied. Maybe they really believed what they claimed, metaphorically, I don't know, but while it suited them to claim a violent victory over paganism, it's mostly not true. The Battle of the Frigidus has been shown to be a myth.[1] Porphyry of Gaza is considered a forgery.[2] Malalas claimed Constantine destroyed all the temples, then he said Theodosius did, then he said Constantine converted them all to churches.[3][4] The textual evidence is not dependable by itself. We can't lean on it alone. Not anymore.
*Peter Brown spends a conference paper on "why would they do that?" Why would they make claims of violent victory? To demonstrate piety and power. They wanted to seem stronger than they really were.[5]
*James Rives is one of the top men in his field, and I recommend reading his entire article, [6] however, reality being what it is, at least take a look at page 251 where he writes: "Over the last thirty years or so, ... scholars have considerably expanded the evidentiary basis for the study of religion in the Hellenistic and Roman periods in order to take into account inscriptions, coins, sculpture and architecture. The result has been a radically altered picture of religious life, one that is the polar opposite of the grim account of collapse sketched by people like Cumont. Much of the work on which this new picture is based is not in itself particularly recent... But it was only in the 1980s that syntheses appeared that pulled together the results of this more detailed work. It is important to note that this new picture of the continued vitality of traditional religion does not mean that earlier scholarship has lost all its utility; all the works that I have cited here continue to provide valuable insights. The narratives of decline that informed them were wrong not because the phenomena that these scholars discussed did not exist, but because they were only a part of the story, and a much smaller part than those scholars assumed. That includes the concepts of Graeco-Roman religious decline due, in any major way, to violence by early Christians.
*There is a whole section in this article on violence, and I am sure I still didn't say enough, but one WP article can't be expected to say everything. Rive's article on the current state of scholarship in this field is 59 pages long, and he says he didn't cover everything. Try J.H.D. Scourfield's [7] on page 4 where he suggests a "cogent reason for marginalizing the conflict model".
*Third: I also feel with buidhe that Christianization of the Roman Empire had an aftermath. I'd count the establishment of an intolerant and internally quarrelsome state religion as part of the identity of a major world civilization as a pretty important part of that aftermath, also its further development (especially in the form of Islam) and resulting religious wars down the centuries. It is perfectly reasonable to limit the time frame of any article on WP, and it is certainly justified - no required - on anything historical. What you are referring to is the Middle Ages. It is post Roman empire. It is post fifth century. This article is limited to the period of Ancient Christianity and to Roman Empire. If we were to agree to include Aftermath where would you stop? Because in fact, I can quote multiple sources who say we are still in the aftermath of Empire in our modern world today. Stopping at the fifth century is the natural stopping place as Ancient Christianity came to an end there as did the empire itself.
*I can acquiesce to removing Augustine and gladiators. No, of course they are not arguments that provide evidence for growth. They are arguments against. They are presented as "proofs" that Christianity had no moral impact, therefore no sociological impact: that the sociological model is wrong for these reasons. Imho, I thought it was important to address all the standing objections to the sociological model. Isn't it important to include both sides? That's why those sections are there. The reader can then decide for themselves what to think. But if there is consensus that presenting the opposing arguments isn't needed, then okay.
*Socio-economics can possibly be trimmed. I'll work on that.
*A more practical discussion of the factors that may have induced people to convert would be good. Community support, and even tiny improvements in personal agency, life control, and status, are all important and could be discussed better, as practical personal factors rather than impersonal higher-order abstractions. All of this is already in the article Richard. Most of it is under 'support of the sociological model', but it's also in various objections such as 'slavery'. If you have something you feel needs adding, bring it and its reference here, and I am sure we can come to a reasonable consensus. I'm sure whatever you have to add would be of value to the article.

References

  1. ^ Kahlos, Maijastina (2019). Religious Dissent in Late Antiquity, 350–450. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-006725-0.
  2. ^ MacMullen, Ramsay (1984). Christianizing the Roman Empire : (A.D. 100-400). New Haven. ISBN 978-0-300-03216-1.
  3. ^ Trombley, Frank R. Hellenic Religion and Christianization, C.370-529. Netherlands, Brill Academic Publishers, 2001. pages 246–282
  4. ^ Bayliss, Richard (2004). Provincial Cilicia and the Archaeology of Temple Conversion. Oxford: Archaeopress. ISBN 1-84171-634-0. page 110
  5. ^ Brown, Peter (1993). "The Problem of Christianization" (PDF). Proceedings of the British Academy. Oxford University Press. 84: 89–106.
  6. ^ Rives, James B. (2010). "Graeco-Roman Religion in the Roman Empire: Old Assumptions and New Approaches". Currents in Biblical Research. 8 (2): 240–299. doi:10.1177/1476993X09347454. S2CID 161124650.
  7. ^ Scourfield, J. H. D. (2007). Texts and Culture in Late Antiquity: Inheritance, Authority, and Change. ISD LLC. ISBN 978-1-910589-45-8.

Jenhawk777 (talk) 05:16, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for this considered reply. I apologize for my inadequacies in communication and I suggest that we may best make progress with this article by making limited, possibly bold, edits, with subsequent discussion. Richard Keatinge (talk) 11:52, 4 February 2022 (UTC)
Richard Keatinge I have never known you to have any difficulty communicating. I don't agree that this article needs bold edits, but you must do what you think is best - with good sources of course. Jenhawk777 (talk) 17:46, 4 February 2022 (UTC)
Richard Keatinge I have now made some changes that hopefully reflect your concerns. I have also edited down socio-economics in response to Avilich. I will hold off on Augustine and gladiators until there is a consensus concerning including arguments against the sociological model.
Richard, it is terrifically interesting, and ironic to me, that you include an internally quarrelsome state religion as part of the aftermath of Christianization. You are absolutely right, of course. It is actually very briefly referred to in this article under Support of the sociological model in the phrase concerning theological debates in the synod. On page 115 of E. A. Judge's book, Jerusalem and Athens, Judge discusses how this method of debating out beliefs and practices was a practice of Roman Republic that the Senate pretty much surrendered to the autocratic emperors throughout the empirical period. It was revived by those Christian bishops under the Christian emperors, and this is important because this quarrelsomeness was practiced throughout the Middle Ages and became a cornerstone of modern democracy. I guess that's why you and I are here, where we are now, huh? Jenhawk777 (talk) 18:56, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

Exegetical works are suitable as sources on themselves of course, but not on history... Best leave this point now, but one question, what is the peanut gallery? Richard Keatinge (talk) 20:13, 5 February 2022 (UTC)

Richard Keatinge It was originally a reference to cheering or booing from the cheap seats in a Vaudeville theatre. The peanut gallery is also a reference to an old children's radio and TV show from the forties and fifties - Howdy Doody - which used the phrase to silence its audience - always producing the opposite effect of course. This Exegetical works are suitable as sources on themselves of course, but not on history. seems like an odd statement from one who likes to reference Gibbon as much as you do. But actually, I agree generally speaking. History is done by historians, but they come in all flavors now. Jenhawk777 (talk) 05:54, 6 February 2022 (UTC)

Possible causes of Christian growth

...and, back. This is a tricky one, I'm sorry. The solution might well be "leave it as it is", but it at least has to come up. This is one where it's a good thing that we have a few people watching this, because it's a hell of a lot easier to solve such an issue if you can get multiple viewpoints :)

This is a very long section, which is problematic on mobile. If you have a phone, you can take one out, look at the layout it has here, and try to navigate that section on mobile. Otherwise I can provide screenshots to show what it looks like -- it's a lot trickier to navigate than it is on desktop. (Most importantly, links to sub-subsections don't work properly on mobile, so such a reader can't currently go to #The sociological model alone or another sub-subsection of it alone.) About two-fifths of this page's readers are using mobile browsers according to the pageview statistics, so it's important to keep in mind how they see the article.

The question is, what's the best way to make mobile readers more able to access this information? This is a tricky sort of one to split up, as it doesn't lend itself naturally to multiple smaller subsections to my eye (I've faced the same issue in other articles). I'm raising the issue to see what comes up, and because it's important to reviewing the rest of this section -- if the structure changes, then a section-by-section review here gets messed up a bit. Vaticidalprophet 03:35, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

Vaticidal I am unsure exactly what you are asking here - other ways to divide this section? Sure, I don't really like the section title, but couldn't think of a better one. I was told that too many little sections was bad, that it "distracted" the reader, so things are combined that could very well be separated if that's what you mean. The section above this one is Challenges to the sociological model. Perhaps we could do some combining of challenge and support instead of having them separated, and group them two at a time or some such thing. I have no idea what the requirements for viewing this on a phone would be. What would we need to comply with? I need a clearer description of the problem I think. Jenhawk777 (talk) 06:42, 10 February 2022 (UTC)
Article on a phone, by default (all section headers closed)
Article on a phone, final section open (with scrollbar visible so you can see how high up the page it is)
I've uploaded a couple screenshots of the article as shown on my phone (and any other smartphone). The first image is the default view -- all section headers are closed unless someone specifically opens them. The second image is if someone opens this individual section header, with the scrollbar visible; you can see how long it is from the scrollbar. The big issue is that individual subsections aren't easily accessed on mobile -- on desktop I could make a link to, say Christianization of the Roman Empire#The sociological model and read that specifically, but on mobile that's impossible. I'd just be redirected to the article with all the closed section headers, and after specifically opening the one it's in (which I wouldn't necessarily even know which that was) I'd have to scroll through a larger amount of text to find it. Vaticidalprophet 07:02, 10 February 2022 (UTC)
Well Vaticidal, before I saw this, I went and made some radical changes. Take a look and see if you think there is any improvement in accessibility. Jenhawk777 (talk) 07:20, 10 February 2022 (UTC)
Vaticidal I checked it on my phone this morning and I think it did fix the problem. All categories are visible and easily accessible now. I arranged them so there is now one pro then one con and so on. Jenhawk777 (talk) 17:06, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

"Decline of classical polytheism" listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect Decline of classical polytheism and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 January 12#Decline of classical polytheism until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Veverve (talk) 20:29, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

It was relisted, but it looks to me here [6] as though consensus was reached to keep the redirect. It was one of the articles merged to create this one, so the redirect seems appropriate to me. I would have supported keeping it as well. Jenhawk777 (talk) 19:00, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

Gladiators!

At this diff Jenhawk 777 has made a bold edit that raises useful questions about the scope of this article:

Should the article include the results (or aftermath) of mass Christianity? If so, reliable sources who mention the possibility that mass Christianity may (or may not) have had some significant effect, over and above political, military, and social collapse, on the ending of gladiatorial combat, may be mentioned - as they now are. If the results or aftermath of Christianization are not to be included, possibly the entire section should go.

Or, is the article only intended to include the stimuli that caused people to become Christian? (This is what I had in mind, but subject of course to consensus.) In that case, we would need a reliable source to tell us that Christian opposition to gladiatorial shows might plausibly have caused significant numbers of people to convert to Christianity. I'm not aware of any such RS and if there aren't any, again it would become arguable that the entire section should go.

Do we need to illustrate here the limits to the effectiveness of Imperial edicts unrelated to Christianization? It's possible, since the limited effectiveness of, in particular, Constantine's edicts on the subject of traditional religion is an important topic in this article. But if the answer is no, then again we should remove any comment from this rather long article.

I look forward to comments. Richard Keatinge (talk) 16:18, 5 February 2022 (UTC)

is the article only intended to include the stimuli that caused people to become Christian? No. It is not. The article is a discussion of the new sociological model of Christianization, pro and con. It explains what previous models this one replaces and why. It contains some of the arguments against the sociological model as well as some of the arguments for it. Anything pertinent to that sociological model should be here.
To limit this article simply to those things that might plausibly have caused significant numbers of people to convert to Christianity would effectively split the article into its bottom third without providing any explanation or context. It would be very confusing – and a little pointless – I can't see that it would even be notable. It wouldn't actually be about Christianization which requires a discussion of paganism as well. No. That is not what the article is about.
"Results" of Christianization are included – all over the place – they are just limited to the designated timeframe.
Results are not linear Richard. They are not something to think of as happening "after" as if the empire was Roman, then it was Christianized, and then there were results. That's wrong thinking. "Results" were ongoing, circular, or like a spinning cone: society impacted Christianity, and Christianity impacted society, and society impacted Christianity, and so on, in a synergistic manner that energized both. Christianity grew within empire. It was not foreign to it. It was a part of it, an aspect of it, not separate from it any more than any other Roman religion was. "Results" occurred the entire time Christianity and empire interacted - from the masses, from the elite, from the law and the monks and the bishops and the martyrs and the emperors – and all those groups were themselves impacted and changed in turn. Social change was a tornado of activity in this era.
Then empire fell, ancient Christianity died, and the Middle ages were born. That is indeed a kind of aftermath - a genuine paradigm shift – but I would very much like to avoid adding that here. It isn't pertinent to the sociological model. And as you say, the article is already long. Jenhawk777 (talk) 06:36, 6 February 2022 (UTC)
"to include the stimuli that caused people to become Christian" That would be a stub article at best. The stimuli were the typical peddling of false hope that religious cults tend to perform, and convincing people that their religious mumbo jumbo makes sense. I would be more interested to see what changes the Christianization caused, and what were the effects in the arts. Dimadick (talk) 09:02, 6 February 2022 (UTC)
OK, this is progress. We seem to agree so far that this article isn't just about what caused the spread of Christianity. The results of Christianization - which possibly included some effect on the ending of gladiatorial combat - should be included. At least when they're within the agreed timeframe, and c. 440 when gladiators ended would be well within any version of that. For use with other issues, do we have a definition of that timeframe?
I don't think we need to include examples of Imperial ranting that didn't in fact have much effect on anything, so I'll just leave that point unless it comes up again.
We need a NPOV approach to this article. We don't need a verbose mixture of exegesis and apologia, nor equally do we need dismissal of deep and widespread human needs as "peddling false hope". We need an interpretation, well-sourced if possible from sources that are themselves neutral, of the complex and contested phenomenon of Christianization. I look forward to your help in approximating to this. Richard Keatinge (talk) 10:30, 6 February 2022 (UTC)
Richard Keatinge Apologia!! You cut me to the quick! For a charge like that you will have to give specifics. Dealing with historical people – not war and politics – requires looking at things from their POV, not ours - seeing what they saw as they saw it and then evaluating – and that applies to everyone equally. That's what Peter Brown advocates. I do try to treat all with the same respect. I challenge you to demonstrate otherwise.
Where the heck is there anything that says or implies anyone was "peddling false hope"? Who does that even apply to? Pagans or Christians?
Arguably, all religions, but Christianity did it, with the offer of salvation and of universality, much more effectively. Richard Keatinge (talk) 13:12, 11 February 2022 (UTC)
For use with other issues, do we have a definition of that timeframe? try the first line of the article.
So "into the sixth and seventh centuries and into the tenth century in Greece" isn't the time-span that you mean and probably shouldn't be in the lede. OK. I'd just like to have a firm - inevitably to some extent arbitrary - definition for the purposes of this article. Richard Keatinge (talk) 13:12, 11 February 2022 (UTC)
I don't think we need to include examples of Imperial ranting... What the heck is that about? And where?
Constantine's outbursts of threatening language may have been law albeit unenforced, but I'd think it entirely fair to describe them as rants. Also the fatal outburst of Valentinian I, to say nothing of his bear-feeding habits. I'd also call them temper tantrums from people who didn't normally meet contradiction and didn't cope well with it when it did come their way. Richard Keatinge (talk) 13:12, 11 February 2022 (UTC)
We need an interpretation, well-sourced if possible from sources that are themselves neutral, of the complex and contested phenomenon of Christianization. That's what this is Richard. Good night nurse! That's what this already is! Have you actually read this entire article? I present the arguments as they are presented. You'll have a Hell of a time challenging these sources. Go for it. Jenhawk777 (talk) 21:37, 6 February 2022 (UTC)
Richard Keatinge I need an explanation for these statements that have nothing to do with anything I have ever said or written, ever, anywhere. They make me think you have conflated this article and another one. I would like to know where they come from, and why they are here. Jenhawk777 (talk) 04:17, 7 February 2022 (UTC)
Sorry, but to me, large elements of this article increasingly resemble a beautifully-referenced work of devotional literature, based on modern authors writing from a profoundly Christian (and very modern Christian or even Mormon) worldview, to an extent that significantly impedes the typical encyclopedic reader. I'd like to reorganize and to a limited extent rewrite it under more chronologically-oriented headings:

Background

Historiography

Growth under threat to the Antonine Plague

Growth under threat from the Antonine Plague to the Edict of Milan

Social results to Constantine

Growth under mostly-Christian emperors (with illuminating comments from the brief interlude under Julian) to the Edict of Thessalonica

Social results under mostly-Christian emperors

Consolidation after the Edict of Thessalonica to ?476

Social results after the Edict of Thessalonica

Aftermath

Richard Keatinge (talk) 13:12, 11 February 2022 (UTC)


Richard Keatinge That would change the article into something else, that's for sure, but I cannot see how it would address the central question of "How was it done?" stated in the first paragraph of the lead. Calling it devotional literature reflects a bias on your part. This is sociology. It isn't your normal negativity, that's true, but that's how it's written in the sources. I will not voluntarily completely change the entire article simply to satisfy the biases of one editor. Jenhawk777 (talk) 20:35, 11 February 2022 (UTC)
I suspect that your "normal negativity" is what I'd call a clear and NPOV analysis. And that your "sociology" is, at times, my idea of incoherent pro-Christian verbiage. Fortunately I'm not suggesting that you change the article to suit my thoughts. I hope that we can make changes by small but bold edits, with the help of other contributors, to get the article into approximate chronological order with themes subject to scientific analysis from the best sources. Richard Keatinge (talk) 22:10, 11 February 2022 (UTC)
Richard Keatinge Are you suggesting I have misrepresented what sociologists have actually said in the sources? I haven't. It is in fact sociology, and there are several of them cited, and they are all accurately paraphrased. Best actually read them for yourself before jumping to conclusions. It will be as embarrassing as the faux pax above.
Yes, I understand it is your idea "of incoherent pro-Christian verbiage" - as if that isn't a revealing statement right there that your point of view is anything but neutral - but that's just your pov. It doesn't prove anything by itself. What sources do you have that demonstrate this is "pro-Christian" instead of straightforward sociology?
Your suggested listing is blatantly not sociological. You have tagged your chronology to political and economic events, plagues and political edicts, not sociological activity - activity of society that impacts society. Sociology is the study of social life, social change, and the social causes and consequences of human behavior.
Historiography is a separate model all by itself. It doesn't belong in an article about the sociological model.
This article discusses the imperial period. Your "chronological" divisions are arbitrary, not based in any modern scholarly views for chronological division, and they are not based in sociology either. Your divisions are based on the old school views of the fourth and fifth centuries as the critical period for Christianization - Constantine to the Edict of Thessalonica - good night nurse! Do some modern research.
"Social results" are what this entire article covers. The fact you have your "social" categories - as if there are only three - listed separately indicates you are well aware your other topics are not sociological and are off topic for this article.
This article is about one approach to one question: the sociological model for "How was it done?" Anything you add or change needs to stay on that topic, or there will be legitimate reason to revert.
And by the way, last time I checked, sociology is a science. Jenhawk777 (talk) 06:30, 12 February 2022 (UTC)

Before I go any further, I'd like to explicitly invite other editors to comment on the above, perhaps in particular on the issue, central to our disagreement, on whether the causes and results of ongoing Christianization changed significantly after the Edict of Milan. The issue is presented as a dichotomy between violence or persuasion, without allowance for a middle way in which official support, imperial menace, and legal opportunities for plunder might have been, to a debatable extent, enabling factors in conversion. Is that question even worth discussing in this article? Richard Keatinge (talk) 08:38, 12 February 2022 (UTC)

Richard Keatinge This: The issue is presented as a dichotomy between violence or persuasion, without allowance for a middle way in which official support, imperial menace, and legal opportunities for plunder might have been, to a debatable extent, enabling factors in conversion. is a completely inaccurate statement.
The section on "Legislation" - which I was told in my peer review is too long and spends too much time on what is a side-topic - discusses what "imperial menace" was and its actual impact. Both sections on "Laws that favored Christianity" and "Constantine" discuss official support. Plunder? Read the section on "Temple destruction and recent archaeology".
Jeez Richard, this makes it look like you have still not read the entire article. Jenhawk777 (talk) 20:52, 12 February 2022 (UTC)
Richard Keatinge So. Let's take a look at what you have put forth so far. First, there are the false claims of Imperial ranting and "peddling false hope". I still don't know where those came from. You have criticized sociology as if it is incoherent pro-Christian verbiage and advocated for themes subject to scientific analysis as if sociology is not a science. You ask for the best sources as if the over 200 cited don't qualify, yet without offering any current sources of any kind yourself, you suggest topics and chronology based on old scholarship that is outmoded, no longer supported, and has been undermined for fifty years now. I included – in multiple places (including Gibbon and MacMullen) - the old views. You haven't demonstrated you even acknowledge new ones. And worst of all, it looks like you have done all of this without actually reading the entire article, since lastly, you have now made errors about content not being there that is actually there. This is not good faith. This is not good quality editing. This is not good in any way. This is a waste of my time Richard in order to pander to your personal views, and in my world, time–wasting is inexcusable. Jenhawk777 (talk) 00:33, 13 February 2022 (UTC)
I can only agree that this conversation is getting us nowhere desirable. Richard Keatinge (talk) 12:53, 13 February 2022 (UTC)
Richard Keatinge Well your approach worked I guess. My GA reviewer quit. Jenhawk777 (talk) 04:49, 18 February 2022 (UTC)
The above proposal is a complete change of scope. There are a few articles out there that might usefully be merged. However, what @Richard Keatinge: is proposing is too radical a change. I don't see a lot that is broken that needs to be fixed. And I think that your interactions with @Jenhawk777: have been borderline abusive. Laurel Lodged (talk) 17:21, 18 February 2022 (UTC)
I'd like to apologize for anything that may have come across as abusive, and I'd like to repeat my praise for Jenhawk777's remarkable diligence and hard work on referencing. I would still like to make progress on what I see as an ill-presented and conceptually-unclear article but it's hard to see a way forward in view of the above rejections. I wonder about trying a rewrite in a sandbox, but for the moment I'll just take a break. Richard Keatinge (talk) 14:03, 19 February 2022 (UTC)

Richard Keatinge. I see above where you slipped in responses out of order, without pinging me, resulting in my not seeing them till now. Let's discuss these.

Where the heck is there anything that says or implies anyone was "peddling false hope"? Who does that even apply to? Pagans or Christians?

Arguably, all religions, but Christianity did it, with the offer of salvation and of universality, much more effectively. Richard Keatinge (talk) 13:12, 11 February 2022 (UTC)
I don't think we need to include examples of Imperial ranting... What the heck is that about? And where?
Constantine's outbursts of threatening language may have been law albeit unenforced, but I'd think it entirely fair to describe them as rants. Also the fatal outburst of Valentinian I, to say nothing of his bear-feeding habits. I'd also call them temper tantrums from people who didn't normally meet contradiction and didn't cope well with it when it did come their way.

As if all autocrats were known for their even tempers?! An evaluation of Constantine's personality would make for an interesting article, especially his long term development of humility, a quality not previously valued in Roman society, but including one lone aspect out of context of Christianization, the actual topic, would be evidence of bias. It isn't proper scholarship for modernists to evaluate the validity of ancient beliefs as "false hope". I could get into a whole long discussion, with sources, explaining that historians don't, but it's enough to say it is an obvious example of bringing personal POV into play.

None of your comments are source based. If you were willing to genuinely set your own POV aside and be neutral, you would come with current sources and an acknowledgement of majority views. You would check what the sources say, and you haven't, or you wouldn't say things like this: ...your "sociology" is, at times, my idea of incoherent pro-Christian verbiage.

These reflect a POV that you brought with you as the basis of your assessment of this article. They do not reflect a POV you found here.

It seems almost as though you have taken personal offense that scholars have said what amounts to positive things about ancient Christianity, where as I couldn't care less one way or the other. It has nothing to do with me personally, you see, as it was 2000 years ago. It's long dead history. Besides, I am often critical of the modern church, so why shouldn't I be critical of a past I had nothing to do with? As my long-held field of study, I am well aware of all the many negatives and positives of church history. As a result, I am much, much more neutral than someone who can only see the negative. This article presents what modern scholarship currently says - not what you think is my POV. I don't share your bias - but I don't have the opposite one either.

You are welcome to try and prove otherwise. The sections that you see as "incoherent pro-Christian verbiage" - go get some sources that say other than what is there – (that are not MacMullen or Gibbon since I have already included and discussed them repeatedly). Add any challenges or contrary views that you find. I have no problem with genuine scholarship. I have a problem with you rewriting the article to completely change its topic and scope in order to fit your obviously biased POV. Jenhawk777 (talk) 18:37, 19 February 2022 (UTC)

I am clearly failing to communicate and will take a break from this article. Its present state may be incoherent but definitely won't bring the world to an end. Richard Keatinge (talk) 22:11, 19 February 2022 (UTC)

Grouping for sections 5 - 18

I think that sections 5 - 18 need a parent. They stand oddly in relation to the top category. What about "Christian positions on various topics" or "Christian positions that differed from pagan positions"? Laurel Lodged (talk) 15:34, 19 February 2022 (UTC)

Laurel Lodged You are absolutely right of course. They were originally 'for and against' sub-sections of the sociological model. My GA reviewer said he could not see them on his phone as subheadings. He said that two out of five people accessing this article were doing so on their phone, so I needed to move them out from under their parent for easier access. It looks a little weird, and the logic isn't quite there, but at least a reader can actually see and access that there are arguments for and against the model being discussed. Since it's an issue with phone access, I don't know how else to deal with it. If you have another idea, I would be thrilled. :-) Jenhawk777 (talk) 17:15, 19 February 2022 (UTC)
Laurel Lodged. I moved some things around. See if that makes sense to you, will you? Thanx. Jenhawk777 (talk) 19:36, 19 February 2022 (UTC)
I looked, only the main sections are shown on a phone, but I'm okay with that. It just isn't possible to make everything a main section. C'est la vie! Jenhawk777 (talk) 19:45, 19 February 2022 (UTC)
@Jenhawk777: I see what you mean. I mainly edit on desktop where all the submenus are visible. On Android, it looks very different. I agree - what you have now done is probably as good as it gets. Laurel Lodged (talk) 11:39, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

Draft:Christianization of the Roman Empire as diffusion of innovation

Mike Christie Display name 99 Richard Keatinge As you can see, I have now completed the complete rewrite of the article you all hated so much, and I want you to read it and comment, but first I want to say a few things.

The number one thing I ask is that you all set aside belief bias. Everyone - everyone - has belief bias, and it is necessary for the sake of the encyclopedia to set that aside and without a set of expectations, read with an open mind. Display name 99 I would say it is impossible to learn anything new without doing this.

Next, I recognize that you may still hate my style of writing, and I am willing to change anything accordingly so long as it does not contradict facts and sources.

I believe I have included changes according to every suggestion made by all of you. I followed both Richard's and Mike's suggestions for organization, and it is improved and easier to follow imo, so thank you both for that. Display99's complaints about not explaining who I was quoting, problems with the women and sexuality sections, and all other complaints have all been adjusted accordingly. I don't believe I missed any, but if I did, just tell me and we will work it out.

I have not finished rechecking and formatting all the sources to Harvard style yet, but I thought I would wait until after I got your input in case more sources are required. Please feel free to check them yourself - less work for me.

If this version passes your tests, whatever they might be, I am willing to delete the other article and put a redirect there to this one if that is agreeable to you.

Gentlemen, I have done my very best to cooperate in every way possible, taking all of your concerns into consideration to the very best of my ability. I hope you will meet me on the same plain. Since this is a draft, I ask that you not make direct changes to it, but tell me what you would like changed and I will cooperate. I think I have fully demonstrated that and have earned that consideration. Thank you for your participation in this. Please let me know what you think. Jenhawk777 (talk) 19:03, 17 May 2022 (UTC)

P.S. - there is no lead yet. I will wait until this is completed. Jenhawk777 (talk) 19:05, 17 May 2022 (UTC)
I don't know if I'll have time to give you the feedback this re-write deserves, but from the time I've been able to spend on it it seems like a real improvement. There are digressions into theory, but where I've read closely they seem tied into the historical moment that is relevant to them. The sequence of the table of contents seems much more natural. I look forward to seeing others' comments, and I will return if I can. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 01:17, 18 May 2022 (UTC)
Thank you Mike Christie. Telling two stories - three really - in an understandable order was not easy, but thanx to yours and Richard's suggestions, I think it is finally actually followable. I am so grateful for your participation. Come back if and when you can. Jenhawk777 (talk) 03:18, 18 May 2022 (UTC)
Display name 99 Richard Keatinge I have to say I'm disappointed. To quick-fail without giving me any opportunity to change anything, and then to ignore me completely once the changes you requested are made, does not seem like evidence of good faith. Calling it a sermon and then ignoring me once the primary focus is on the sociological studies also does not seem like good faith. If you can't be open minded, then I guess I am better off without your input, but I have assumed you must be able to be impartial. Otherwise you would not feel able to effectively critique articles like this one and would not have shown up in the first place, right? I have done everything all three of you asked, and now you give me nothing. Well, whatever I guess. Moving on without you. Don't decide to show up after I put this up for GAN again. I will complain at that point that this has become personal. Jenhawk777 (talk) 20:50, 20 May 2022 (UTC)
Jenhawk777, let me make something clear to you. Wikipedia consists of volunteers. Neither me nor Richard Keatinge is obliged to show up to the talk page of an article to discuss something with you simply because you pinged us. We were not obliged to do so before, and we are not now. The fact is that you didn't follow all of my suggestions. The article still reads primarily like a historiography. Two of the section titles actually have the word historiography in them! How is that implementing what I asked? When I got your ping from a few days ago, I skimmed through the article, found that it still mainly read like a historiography, and decided that, especially with me being extremely busy in real life at the moment and my recent contributions to Wikipedia being limited as a result, it wasn't worth my time to comment on the talk page anymore and to just let you and whoever else wanted to get involved here sort things out. I am able to do that if I want. Just now, taking a closer look at the article, I noticed that you didn't even fix the example that I specifically pointed out to you about where you talk about the debate between academics surrounding Constantine's conversion to Christianity without ever explaining who Constantine was or the fact that he converted, both of which are necessary when writing for the general reader. You also still have long lists of academic terms, many of them incomprehensible to the general reader, in complete defiance of my recommendation to remove them. So no, you most certainly did not implement everything that I asked. You're either lying or extremely blind.
The article is still shit and you're still choosing to lash out and complain about other editors rather than accept this fact and work seriously to write a better article, just like you did to me on the GA review page and to other editors on your user talk page. It's immature and embarrassing. I'm sure I'll check back here from time to time to amuse myself and see where things are with the article, but I have no intention of leaving any further comments myself. Please do not bother me again. Display name 99 (talk) 03:03, 21 May 2022 (UTC)
OMG!! Display name 99 you read the wrong article! Talk about embarrassing! The new one is referenced in the title of this section: Draft:Christianization of the Roman Empire as diffusion of innovation
It is a total rewrite. It does still contain some historiography, but since that is all there is in this field of study, it is necessary and unavoidable. The people who wrote histories about any of this died between 1500 and 2000 years ago. It's been historiography ever since. Now it's also sociology.
You know what? Nevermind. I'm a volunteer too, a volunteer that attempted to cooperate with you. That's what carries weight in WP. What we have here now someone who seems to have lost their temper and made a personal attack. I will save this for any future dispute resolution. In the mean time, I agree to go our separate ways and stay away from each other. Just remember that works both ways.Jenhawk777 (talk) 03:42, 21 May 2022 (UTC)
With my best attempts at sammā-vāyāma, I'll have a look when I've got time. This may be a while - real life is busy for all of us. I can manage brief comments in the week, but more substantive effort requires a free weekend. Don't wait for me! Richard Keatinge (talk) 10:07, 21 May 2022 (UTC)
Richard Keatinge Thank you! I admire and appreciate and respect any who embrace walking the eight fold path. It would benefit all of us to do more of it. I won't wait, but I will look forward to any input you have whenever you can get to it. Oh, and Richard, do be sure to read the actual rewrite. Jenhawk777 (talk) 16:13, 21 May 2022 (UTC)
Richard Keatinge you might as well wait. It is beginning to look as though I will end up with both articles. This one will have to be seriously edited to be a more general overview, while the other one can remain as a sub-topic. This article started out trying to be both things and failed miserably. So it can and should be two separate articles - with extensive editing. This one will include other approaches and have much less on sociology and no sermons. I'm sorry if I've been irritable and difficult Richard. My mother died in March, we had to close up her estate and my sister took money behind my back, and all in all, when I think I'm maintaining my balance, I find I am not. Please forgive me and be patient. This is proving to be a difficult year. Jenhawk777 (talk) 21:07, 22 May 2022 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Christianization of the Roman Empire as diffusion of innovation which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 06:07, 22 May 2022 (UTC)

declined and closed Jenhawk777 (talk) 16:39, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

Sub-page and main page

The new article has been designated a subpage and this one will be the main page - when it is done being edited itself. Originally, I tried to cram both things into one page creating all kinds of havoc, so now they are split and each can be improved by removing what isn't necessary and adding what is. I am working on it! Any and all help will be appreciated! Changes that were asked for and not made while I was working on the subpage will now be made. Thank you for you forbearance! Jenhawk777 (talk) 16:44, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

Richard Keatinge If and when you have the time, I value your point of view as a check on my own, and your input as generally raising the quality of anything you work on, so do a reread when you can, if you will and if you can still put up with me. Thanx Richard. Jenhawk777 (talk) 16:43, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

Recent re-additions

Anywikiuser. OMG!! OMG!! I don't know what to do with this! I love your heading changes. I am totally blown away that you added back all of that material under grassroots reasons! It's brilliant and scares me half to death! You will note this article has been quick-failed for GA twice because people hated all of that so much! I had just decided to renominate, because I really do think the changes in scholarship are noteworthy and important, and asked a friend to check sources - then found this! Now I don't know what to do! I am using too many exclamation points!! Thank you and OMG! Jenhawk777 (talk) 19:01, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

Thanks. I have been thinking about what to do about this article. At the moment, we are in an odd situation of having an article on the historiography of the topic but not on the topic itself. I could create a new article on the topic itself, but it may be better to focus on remodelling this one, while turning more content over to at least one spin-off article like "Causes of the Christianization of the Roman Empire".

A possible outline:

  • Background
  • Spread
  • Possible causes
    • Top-down models
    • Grassroots models
  • Effects
  • Historiography
    • Top-down models
    • Grassroots models

Anywikiuser (talk) 19:21, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

I am so grateful for your participation. What would you suggest putting in each of those new headings? They are not all immediately obvious to me, and I would honestly hate to interfere with your thinking as it seems so clear and focused.
You are right about there not being an article on the history itself. This one started out that way, but morphed. The problem was that there is no longer any universal agreement on any of it. The best I could do was identify majority and minority views. And discuss them. That led to a quick fail for being historiography. I tried to explain it's all historiography - even Gibbon - but that didn't get me anything good at all.
I have repeatedly asked others for help with this and gotten nowhere. One amazingly wonderful person is doing a source review for me - just because I asked. Is that awesome or what? Now another amazingly wonderful person has shown up! Have I said thank you? Between us, maybe we can make this one into something great.
There is one spin-off - a sub-article on diffusion of innovation - but I know there needs to be more. The trouble I see with "Causes of the Christianization of the Roman Empire" is that is kind of what this one already is. The only cause not mentioned is the decline of paganism - it's only alluded to - because it has been pretty thoroughly discounted as a theory. Paganism didn't decline until the empire did. All other possible causes are mentioned. I think. I'm pretty sure!
I will be back in a couple hours. Thank you again. OMG! Thank you! Jenhawk777 (talk) 22:28, 21 September 2022 (UTC)
Anywikiuser I love everything you have done, all your changes are improvements, though I have done a little tweaking of some of the finer points. This is much more historically oriented than the previous version. It's also w-a-y long, and needs its references taken out of the red. I will fix the ones that are mine, but some I don't recognize and assume must be yours. Thank you again for all. your work on this article. Jenhawk777 (talk) 05:19, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

title change

UtherSRG You made a title change without discussing that with anyone. There is no reason given in the edit summary. I do not agree with it. Please see the talk page for a little light reading on all the grief this article received for being historiography - which it is - which should therefore be reflected in the title imo. I tried to undo your change and it has created a loop and won't go back now. I will find an administrator to try and fix this, but please do not undo it without discussion of why here. Jenhawk777 (talk) 16:45, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

This move was requested by User:Anywikiuser. - UtherSRG (talk) 17:38, 23 September 2022 (UTC)
So that leaves me wondering why didn't he do it himself, after discussion, leaving an explanation in the edit summary accordingly? No worries. He has now responded himself. Jenhawk777 (talk) 18:42, 23 September 2022 (UTC)
Hi. Sorry, I wasn't expecting that to draw controversy.
As discussed above, I'm helping rework the article at the moment. We have lately been in the odd position of having an article on historiography of the Christianization, but not one on the base topic. As users working on this have geared the article towards historiography, some valuable content disappeared, particularly regarding the causes. I did seriously consider starting a new article on the base topic, but felt that bringing this article back to the base topic was a better place to start.
What I was planning to do was to organise the information on historiography into a section of its own, which can possibly be separated into a spin-off article, while gearing the rest of this existing article towards the base topic. How does that sound? Anywikiuser (talk) 18:19, 23 September 2022 (UTC)
Anywikiuser It sounds difficult and perilous! How in the name of all the wikipedia gods can you separate out the historiographical aspects? As I tried to explain before to another on this talk page - it's all historiography! It's all commentary on history - differing opinions on interpretation - no one has written actual history, not even Gibbon, since, well hell, since even most of what was written in ancient times was polemic and rhetoric, one could say, since EVER! It received "interpretation" according to one's pov back then, and that all requires interpretation today, and that is what historiography is. Because of past errors, all scholars now know that none of the sources can simply be accepted at face value. I say again, it's all historiography. How can you separate that out if that's all there is? Jenhawk777 (talk) 18:38, 23 September 2022 (UTC)
I'm not proposing to separate it, but to organise it. If there is enough material for a separate article, we can move the content over there and keep a shorter summary here, as we have done for Christianization of the Roman Empire as diffusion of innovation. Anywikiuser (talk) 18:55, 23 September 2022 (UTC)
Anywikiuser I don't mean to nitpick, but if you make a separate article, that will require separating out content. At any rate, I will have some faith. You are clearly editing in good faith, no question, and except for nit-picky little details which I obsess over, I have no disagreement with anything beyond the title change, and maybe by the time you are done, I will even agree with that! I appreciate that you haven't minded my obsessing. I am attempting my deep breathing exercises... Thank you for being patient with me. It's been a difficult year for me in RL, and this article has given me nothing but grief on top of grief. Until now of course! I find your organizing abilities brilliant and fair and neutral. I am thankful for it. This article has clearly been waiting for you. I will also attempt to wait patiently. Jenhawk777 (talk) 19:50, 23 September 2022 (UTC)
Anywikiuser Rosguill has reverted the title change which I asked them for before I got your response here. They are now expecting us to work this out. This has created a series of redirects in a loop. It's kind of a mess. I will wait to see what you do, but I want you to know I will be happy to support your recommendation of a title change if the reorganization supports it. How about we leave the title until the content solidifies? Then we can come to an agreement I'm sure. Jenhawk777 (talk) 05:56, 24 September 2022 (UTC)
That's fine. Anywikiuser (talk) 09:50, 24 September 2022 (UTC)

I say leave as is. @Anywikiuser: your proposal is impractical and will end in tears. IMHO Laurel Lodged (talk) 20:51, 24 September 2022 (UTC)

Anywikiuser I note that you have not edited for a bit. Is RL interfering? Or have you finished your work here? Or perhaps you have walked away in the face of disagreement? Laurel has the right to her views just as you have the right to yours. Please don't allow a little disagreement to prevent you from completing your vision of this article. As conflict on religious articles goes, this has been very slight, and I for one have repeatedly expressed my gratitude. On the other hand, imo it looks really good as it is. If you have finished and moved on, I have every intention of moving this GAN again, so I would like very much to know. If you don't think it's ready for that, please do come back and help get it there.Jenhawk777 (talk) 18:39, 27 September 2022 (UTC)
I've been busy in RL. I will probably edit it when I have time for it. Anywikiuser (talk) 19:54, 27 September 2022 (UTC)
Thanx for letting me know. Jenhawk777 (talk) 22:44, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

Third party comments

Jenhawk777 asked me to take a look at this article, as an uninvolved (and non-expert) third party, to see if I had any suggestions for improving it. I have not read the entire article thoroughly yet, and haven't done more than glance through the talk page conversations, so this is just an initial reaction to reading the lead and some of the sections of the article in detail, plus skimming the rest. I have two main comments to make: I think the article needs to be split, and I think the focus on historiography is at odds with the current title.

Taking the second point first, I would expect an article with this title to focus on the events, not the historiography. It's true that where scholarship has changed an article has to let the reader know that, and if there are still debates over the facts the reader has to know that too, but a reader interested in the topic is primarily looking for answers to questions about the events, and would expect a more-or-less chronological presentation for the majority of the article. This article is organized around an academic understanding of the the topic -- current theories, past theories, and pros and cons. This is good material (though I'm not qualified to judge it), but it isn't what I was expecting when I came to read the article.

I see from the talk page discussions that the article is the result of a merge discussion. I don't know what the original articles were that were merged, but it seems to me that the article needs to be split again, per summary style. I would guess that "Historiography of ..." might be a subarticle, or perhaps each significant model, such as the sociological model, should have its own article. As it stands, my skimming of the article gave me a sense of the debates about the topic, but not as clear a picture of the current understanding of the events themselves. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 10:08, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

Mike Christie Thank you so much for doing this. I value your input and want very much to co-operate. I wish I understood exactly how. Can you help me figure this out?
This is historiography, of course it is, but that's actually what's in the whole field of study, and honestly, it always has been. You know, of course, that historiography is two things: the study of the writings of actual histories, and the composing of a narrative. Gibbon studied the ancient historical texts and composed a narrative. Every one since then has done the same with a lot of it based on his amazing work. The histories are what Gibbon used - or dismissed - what he wrote was historiography. Historiography is what there is, and what there has been for over 200 years. I tried to recognize that in the section titles and the lead, but perhaps that's inadequate. What would be adequate?
Change the title? Sure, that's easy enough. To what?
I do know this is different from previous approaches that focused on particular events as causative. The problem here, imo, is that current scholarship has completely undermined all of those events that people expect to find - like Constantine's conversion, the Edict of Thessalonica and other laws, temple destruction, Theodosius I, and so on - as not actually having been determinative after all. So what events are there to focus on?
The sociological view doesn't focus on events, it focuses on relationships and social actions. It is an alternative to the historiography that is no longer supported.
As to splitting, since it was deemed right to merge these articles because the concepts are so intertwined and dependent on each other, I can't see how to make sense of one without the other. I know that people kept showing up on "Decline of paganism" asking, "well if it didn't actually decline, what did happen?" It was confusing as a stand alone. Sociology will have the same kind of problems if the expectation that paganism declined isn't included. People do have expectations from previous historiography, so I can't see how to not include both the previous and the current.
I want to cooperate, truly I do, and I don't mean to be argumentative when I am the one who asked you to do this. I just am not sure how to go about delivering what is expected when what is expected isn't there anymore.
Practical suggestions? Jenhawk777 (talk) 15:40, 28 April 2022 (UTC)
I understand that the sociological view focuses on relationships and social actions, but that's explanatory, not descriptive. We do know some things that happened -- growth of the Christian population, Constantine's conversion, expansion of the Christian hierachy, and so on. I believe that's what most readers are looking for. We don't have to say, when providing the events, that X definitely caused Y, but we should do our best to convey a narrative. The problem with leading with the historiographical theory is that it essentially assumes knowledge of the events in question, because that debate is taking place among academic experts. Our audience needs the information the other way round -- first, what we know, and only secondarily what we think about the causation. If I were a reader coming to this article to learn from it, I'd have no problem in learning that there are academic debates around many of the aspects of these events, but I would still expect to get something like a timeline as the main presentation. I would have imagined something like this:
  • Background/early Christianity, giving the situation in around 100, perhaps including a discussion of what sources exist and what their limitations.
  • Early spread of Christianity in the Roman world -- I don't know the data enough to know where this could be subdivided, but there's some sort of narrative arc leading to Constantine's conversion in 312
  • Constantine's conversion and policies, and their effects
  • Christianity and paganism in the empire post-Constantine
  • Concluding section which could summarize the areas of academic debate.
Our article on Constantine the Great, which again I'm not qualified to judge, is structured in the way I'm describing. There's a section on sources, and one on historiography, but fundamentally the reader is led through the known events, and given pointers to where the debates are so they can follow up if interested. I think this is what most readers would want. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 16:24, 28 April 2022 (UTC)
Mike Christie I can do this! I can put a timeline up front!! This is awesome and helpful. I actually think all of this is already in the article somewhere, it's just spread around. The first two are in Numbers, with additional short comments in a couple other places. 'Constantine's conversion and his policies' is in three places. Post Constantine is in two places. No three. The academic debate is pretty much everywhere. I think I can gather it and put it into a timeline. Which version should I use? This reorganizes the entire article around a traditional understanding though. Where does the rest go? In another article you'll say I guess. I'll figure it out somehow. I'll work on it for awhile and get back to you somewhere down the road. Thank you Mike! I will try I promise. Jenhawk777 (talk) 18:05, 28 April 2022 (UTC)
I'm glad that's helpful! The other thing I suspect will need to happen is that the historiographic details should go into summary-style subarticles. I just don't think it's going to be possible to have the event/timeline oriented material up front, and all of the academic discussion, in a single article. Of course the main points of debate will need to be in the main article, but you're going to be at 15,000 words without splitting, and I think that's too much. Best of luck! Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 18:53, 28 April 2022 (UTC)
Jen, one more comment -- I know there are other editors interested in this page, from a glance above; I would suggest that any restructuring you do be done as a collaboration. That would help gain consensus for a structure before you put in a lot of work and discover that other editors disagree with the idea. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 19:55, 28 April 2022 (UTC)
Thanx Mike Christie I know you can't really know this with the skim you said you did, but in fact, every comment every editor has made has been incorporated even when I didn't agree. The main points of debate are what's here. Trust me, these are not the minuscule details! If I can't do the timeline without splitting and omitting the important change in scholarship, then there is no real point in pursuing this. And I had already started working on it in my sandbox! I will remove the nomination. Jenhawk777 (talk) 01:57, 29 April 2022 (UTC)
Thanks to both Mike Christie and Jenhawk777 for the above. I agree strongly with Mike that this article at present over-emphasizes meta-commenting on historiography, rather than an account of what is known. I admire Jenhawk777's diligence but I would support Mike Christie's thoughts about historiographical sub-articles. Richard Keatinge (talk) 08:06, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

I am pleased to see that other editors have reached more or less the same conclusions that I did in my recent GA review. I wish everyone working on this article well. Display name 99 (talk) 18:43, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

Richard Keatinge and Display name 99 thank you for all your input, and please forgive my frustration with all of this. All your comments and advice were incorporated to the best of my ability, and they did improve the article, but the problem remains that events did not cause Christianization. That is beyond doubt. "An account of what is known" based on a 200 year old theory - historiographical theory - that has been demonstrated as wrong through more evidence than ever existed in favor of it is not a valid demand.
Does no one else see or care that WP is 50 years behind in this area of study? Constantine's conversion did not cause Christianization. The Thessalonian code did not, the Edict of Thessalonica did not, etc. etc. This is all accepted as historical fact now and is not disputed by anyone but a small minority - like flat earthers. None of you have come here with sources that challenge any of this. This is my field, these are my degrees, and I read in this area every day. I know what I am talking about. I also have over 300 references. What do you have?
It is historiography, true, but it is also history. Scholarly understanding of Roman history has been revised. Why not yours? Why not allow WP to be up to date? Help me. Don't just be a roadblock. If you really care about this, do some research for yourself. See if I am not right. Jenhawk777 (talk) 19:44, 29 April 2022 (UTC)
I'm not suggesting that this article list the events that cause the Christianization; I'm suggesting that it list the events of the Christianization. That is, this article should say that Constantine began to look more favourably on Christianity early in the 4th century, and eventually converted -- the reasons why can be left to the historiography article, though a summary of the debate can be here. Or for another example, we know some facts about the expansion of Christian dioceses in Rome; those facts should be in this article. I agree that the causes of the Christianization have to be treated as an academic debate, and we do want Wikipedia to be up to date on that debate -- but those are mostly debates are why things happened. I think this article should focus on what happened, not why. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 21:09, 29 April 2022 (UTC)
I am going to respond to each of these comments, out of order, in an effort to address them singly.
Mike Christie First, Christianization is and always has been about causality. The history of scholarship in this field, beginning with Gibbon, has always, always focussed on the single question: "How was it done?" Surely no one who knows Roman history will argue that point.
Second, Constantine did convert, and there is a section on the impact of that in the article. As far as I know "why" he converted is not a debate that anyone is having. I agree that the causes of the Christianization have to be treated as an academic debate, and we do want Wikipedia to be up to date on that debate -- but those are mostly debates are why things happened. This is simply incorrect Mike. Debates are not about why, debates are about what actually happened, and many of those debates have been settled within the last 30 years. We've come a long way since Brown started this in the 1960s and 70s.
Third, I think this article should focus on what happened, not why. I agree completely! 100%! No argument! That's what I tried to do, along with what did not happen. But Mike, what needs to be acknowledged here by all is that "what happened" is not connected to the conversion of Constantine. It is no longer valid to claim that Constantine was a major factor in Christianization. It is not a question. It is not a debate. What we know now is that Christianization didn't happen from the top down. It happened from the bottom up. It was a grass roots societal movement that worked its way upward and outward. Constantine jumped on board, yes, true, but the train was already moving. It didn't even speed up for him.
I agree that "what happened" is what should be told - according to what we know now about what actually did happen! If what you got out of this is a discussion of "why" then I have not communicated well, and that's on me. I want to make the "what" clearer. So help me figure out how to construct this to demonstrate that there was no decline of paganism, Constantine did not begin - or particularly enhance - the Christianization of the empire, which did not occur from the top down, and that Christianization was a grass roots societal movement that moved upward and outward and was actually somewhat impervious to governmental power. That's the true "what" Mike. It isn't debate or opinion. Help me figure out how to say that. I am happy to cut out any and all discussions of why that you can find. Jenhawk777 (talk) 05:09, 30 April 2022 (UTC)
I composed this comment at the same time that Mike Christie was composing his. To expand on what he's saying, I think we have to keep in mind Wikipedia's intended audience. Except in certain specialized articles, such as a prospective article about the historiography of this subject, we can't assume any specialized knowledge in our readers. (Long ago, User:Giano said, "you are writing for the intelligent fourteen-year-old".) Many people may come to this article without knowing much more than "The Roman Empire turned Christian." That means this article must describe what happened when. The possible causes absolutely should be discussed as well, but the hard facts must be laid out clearly, in order to render any discussion of causes comprehensible. And the scholarly debate about causes has to be summarized in a digestible way, so that it does not obtrude into the flow of the text.
I'll give a specific example: Isis#Spread. There's an enormous amount of scholarly discussion about what the spread of Isis's cult signifies about Greek and Roman cultural identity, Greek and Roman attitudes toward Egyptian religion, and the increased mobility of cults during Hellenistic and Roman times. The most significant aspects of those discussions are mentioned in that section, but the main topic is what happened when. When did Isis arrive in this or that place? Were any Greeks or Romans hostile to the importation of this novel cult? Et cetera. Note that points that are fairly uncontroversial among scholars are simply stated, without attributing them to a specific scholar in the body text; that's what the citations are for, for those readers who want to look up the details. Specific scholars only need to be named in the body text when they're being quoted, when they write things that could be interpreted as value judgments (though I think it generally advisable to avoid making statements that could be interpreted as value judgments), or when there's a particular subject where there's a major divergence in scholarly opinion and the differing opinions need to be pointed out (e.g., Isis#Possible influence on Christianity).
In this article, where the topic is vast and contentious, there will definitely be parts where divergences of scholarly opinion need to be discussed. But we have to always keep in mind that we're providing an overview, and writing it in such a way that a reader with very little prior knowledge can come away with an understanding of the key points. A. Parrot (talk) 21:40, 29 April 2022 (UTC)
A. Parrot I don't disagree with anything you have said. I do want to ask, however, because you say the hard facts must be laid out clearly, in order to render any discussion of causes comprehensible. and I would like to know what you think those hard facts are? I would also be interested in knowing if you have read the entire article. And lastly, how would you go about constructing an article that covers what I said to Mike Christie? there was no decline of paganism, Constantine did not begin - or particularly enhance - the Christianization of the empire, which did not occur from the top down, and that Christianization was a grass roots societal movement that moved upward and outward and was actually somewhat impervious to governmental power. That's the true "what" Jenhawk777 (talk) 05:09, 30 April 2022 (UTC)
Jenhawk777, there isn't much more that I can say that I didn't already say in my GA review or that hasn't been said by other editors here. The process by which the Roman Empire became Christian was because of a series of historical events and trends. The average reader has come here to gain some understanding of what these events and trends were, not for a dense analysis of the debate surrounding how or why they occurred. Many readers don't know about the major events and cultural tendencies that caused the Roman Empire to become Christianized. If you don't bother to lay out a timeline explaining what these things were, how do you expect the reader to understand a dense historiographical analysis of how or why they occurred? The article must guide the reader through the events that made the empire more heavily Christian and explain how and why they happened. This means all of the historical events, tendencies, and movements, not simply the ones that you choose to talk about. Furthermore, the primary focus must be on the historical events, not historiography. As others have said, when scholars disagree on fundamental issues, that must be mentioned, but the main focus of the article should be on history, not historiography; chronology, not debate.
I am not as knowledgeable about this subject as you are. But I do not need to be in order to judge this article. When I came to review this article as a good article candidate, I was hoping to learn more information about how the Christian religion spread under the Roman Empire. I learned very little, and my understanding of how Christianity grew during the earliest centuries of its existence was not appreciably enhanced. That is enough to demonstrate that the article has failed.
Between what I have said about this article both here and in my review as well as what Mike Christie and A. Parrot have said, I think that you have about as good an explanation as anyone can give you about what is wrong with this article. It is up to you to decide what to do with it. Display name 99 (talk) 03:08, 30 April 2022 (UTC)
Display name 99 I will take these one at a time.
First, The process by which the Roman Empire became Christian was because of a series of historical events and trends. What events would those be? Please list them for me. And keep in mind that debate in this area began in the 60s, but much has been resolved since then. There are no current scholars that say Constantine began - or even particularly affected - the Christianization of the empire. Christianization did not take place primarily in the fourth century. Paganism did not die until the Senate did in the 600s. There was no special violence - outside normal Roman violence - involved in the process of Christianization. Theodosius did not declare Christianity the official religion of the Empire. That didn't happen until Justinian. These are basics that are no longer debated. They are established. So what events are you referring to that I left out?
Secondly, The average reader has come here to gain some understanding of what these events and trends were, not for a dense analysis of the debate surrounding how or why they occurred. I agree. No argument. But I did no dense analysis of 'why' about anything. I attempted to present what actually happened by also presenting what did not happen. It seemed necessary, since so many, as is clearly represented here, do know some general ideas and continue to hold on to them dearly.
Third, I learned very little, and my understanding of how Christianity grew during the earliest centuries of its existence was not appreciably enhanced. That is enough to demonstrate that the article has failed. Well that cuts me to the quick. If that is so, then of course you had to fail it. I thought you came with expectations of finding those "established" events, and when you found something completely different, that you didn't bother any further. If you really learned nothing, then I apologize for misjudging you. The fault is mine. I am not communicating what needs communicating well.
I think that you have about as good an explanation as anyone can give you about what is wrong with this article No, I don't have that at all. All I have gotten from any of this is that the events you all expected to find aren't there, which sent everyone off grid, but they aren't there because they are no seen as valid historical markers. No one here has addressed that point. You all seem to be missing the main point completely in my view. Yes, the article needs to cover the historical events that actually produced Christianization. That is actually what I set out to do. What if those events are not political but are sociological? How would you personally go about explaining that to your average reader? Help me figure this out. It needs saying. Jenhawk777 (talk) 05:09, 30 April 2022 (UTC)
Jenhawk777, this section demonstrates a developing consensus. I, and I'm confident others, appreciate your hard work and expertise and recognize that the article has many merits. But to me it reads like a dense sermon or a slightly off-beat presentation to a faith study group, rather than a good encyclopedic article. Much of it seems to be an argument against, not quite a straw man, but a feebly-supported idea that directed, organized, official violence was largely and directly responsible for Christianization. Too many words are spent in identifying which modern christian has made some comment that disagrees with the triumphalist exaggerations of (mostly) Eusebius. Too little, and that ill-organized, allows the reader to identify what phenomena are the subject of the article, or to give them some idea (insofar as it's possible to do so) of what the mass of people felt about religious changes at the time. I'm not quite sure how to proceed, because you have worked very hard and made this article your own. I do ask you to consider letting some other volunteer make some really bold edits. Richard Keatinge (talk) 09:48, 30 April 2022 (UTC)
Richard Keatinge Too many words are spent in identifying which modern christian has made some comment ... I don't think I have quoted a single Christian anywhere - at least not that I am aware of. All sources were found on Googlescholar. There are 30 from Cambridge UP, 79 from various universities, 18 from OUP, 25 academic journals, and a variety of other academic publishers, some from other countries. There is nothing specifically Christian anywhere. I understand your view. I just don't see how it can possibly be considered valid.Jenhawk777 (talk) 21:41, 30 April 2022 (UTC)
If you really don't see the apologetic trend in your text, I must accept that you don't see how my view can possibly be considered valid. I also accept that you won't and that you probably can't. WP:RNPOV applies here, with the usual caution that on almost any religious topic, the great majority of its commentators are followers of that religion. Richard Keatinge (talk) 09:14, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
Richard Keatinge By assuming it is impossible for those not religious to be biased, and impossible for the religious to be unbiased, do you not see bias? The truth is that everyone, including you, has belief bias.[7][8] With my background in psychology, I have been watching this research for a long time. It has produced in me a concerted effort to be very careful. I always consciously choose to check my preconceptions at the door. I do not, like you, make the blind and biased claim that I have no biases. I only claim that I am aware and that I set them aside intentionally, knowingly, before researching anything, as the majority of good scholars try to do, and that's a fact.
I do no not cherry pick, I do not go looking for anything but identifying the majority view. I take what the research says. I only use the best sources and the best scholars. I have never quoted a non-academic text, or a biased pro-religion text, and in that effort I skip the religious publishers that are not specifically academic. Those are facts Richard. I make every effort to deal with any biases I have. It seems apparent from these comments that you cannot say the same. I listed my sources, but facts are not affecting your opinions. That's a give-away.
Everything in this article is factually correct according to the sources. I keep asking you for any source that says I am wrong, and no one - not you certainly - no one has come back with any current sources demonstrating factual error or that I have represented anything other than the majority view in any of this. That's a just complaint.
You are being unfair to me Richard. Perhaps I am the exception to your biased rule, but if so, then I am that exception. I have no - zero, zippo, none, nada, kine - emotional investment in what Ancient Christianity did. It has nothing to do with me or the modern day. Take me at my word - at least stop making baseless accusations. Jenhawk777 (talk) 19:28, 1 May 2022 (UTC)

I read a previous version of this article in its entirety when nominating it for GA review. I have read much of it again just now in an attempt to answer Jenhawk777’s questions. I will do so as best I can.

Display name 99 This is beyond the call my friend, it is so much, and so practical and specific and genuinely helpful that I hardly know how to say thank you enough to convey my deep gratitude. You are clearly right in most all of what you have said here. I can do what you suggest. I can see that it would make everything clearer to organize it chronologically. That was Mike's suggestion as well, and I had begun in my sandbox, but now I will go back and begin again in an effort to make this all clearer. I invite you to participate. Jenhawk777 (talk) 21:41, 30 April 2022 (UTC)

I said in my review that the article focuses too heavily on historiography and speaks mainly in abstract terms about the subject matter, using impressive-sounding language but conveying little specific information. The article seems to have improved at least a little bit since then, but the underlying problems are still present. I will describe some smaller problems first before getting to the main idea.

There are several problems with links. Martin of Tours, Justinian the Great, and are not linked on first mention, as they should be. The Justinian link is in the Legislative model section. The Tertullian link is in the “Historiography of endings” section. The article “Religious pluralism” also has two links, the second one being in the Conflict model section. That one should be removed. There are probably a couple of other problems here that I missed. Things like these don’t destroy the article, but they should be pointed out when seen.

Display name 99 Accepted. You're right. Also, all links can and should be fixed, but I will probably wait to worry about that until the rewrite is done.Jenhawk777 (talk) 21:41, 30 April 2022 (UTC)

I do not know very much about this subject, but the claim stated in the article and repeated by you here on the talk page that the Edict of Thessalonica did not make Christianity as proclaimed by the First Council of Nicaea to be the official religion of the Roman Empire to be in conflict with the text of the document. It also does not agree with what is on the Wikipedia page for either the Edict of Thessalonica or that of the Emperor Theodosius, both of which contain examples of him suppressing dissenting religions. I believe that the impression that the article attempts to create-that the Edict of Thessalonica did not make Christianity as proclaimed in Nicaea the official religion of the empire, and that an atmosphere of religious tolerance persisted after it-is false.

Display name 99 It is unwise to make such statements without proof. What you are referencing on Theodosius I is stuff I wrote. I wrote about half of that article. If you are going to assert something based on a WP article, that creates that circular problem WP is so famous for, it probably shouldn't be my work that you use.
The full text of the Edict of Thessalonica is in this article at note 7. It would be helpful if you read it. It's addressed to Constantinople, not the whole empire, do you see that? It asserts Nicene Christianity, absolutely no question. Where does it mention paganism or Judaism or anything other than heresy - which is by definition Christian? It refers only to "heretical dogmas". From what can it be construed that this establishes Christianity as the official religion of the entire empire?
The Edict was aimed at Arianism in Constantinople, which was rampant with it; it was an effort to establish unity in Christianity, so it was aimed solely at Christians; and it absolutely was about "suppressing dissenting religions" - suppressing dissenting Christian groups defined as heretics by fourth century Nicenes. Find anywhere in the Edict itself, or better yet, find an actual current secondary source that has evidence in support of what you say. This article section contains 3 contemporary sources. You are mistaken - in this one point anyway.Jenhawk777 (talk) 21:41, 30 April 2022 (UTC)
Jenhawk777 is correct here. The Edict of Thessalonica was law, because the emperor's words were law when he wanted them to be. It has been taken as the official establishment of Nicene Christianity as the only legitimate form of Christianity, the formal reversal of the toleration enjoined by the Edict of Milan, for which it may be mildly useful despite lack of evidence for its effectiveness. And, by extension and in the context of other tantrums by emperors, it has been taken to mark the end of any tolerance of non-Christian religion - which is a purely modern interpretation and not one that is found in sources that I'd think useful for our purposes. I hope this helps. Richard Keatinge (talk) 09:14, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
Richard Keatinge Display name 99 So, what I said is right - leaving out all of Richard's personal interpretation.Jenhawk777 (talk) 19:28, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
Jenhawk777, everything that is on Wikipedia belongs to the community, not to individual editors. I don't care who wrote it. The evidence that is included there contradicts the idea being promoted here that the edict was not an attack on religious toleration in the empire. No, I am not persuaded here. Display name 99 (talk) 03:26, 2 May 2022 (UTC)
Display name 99 Yes of course everything that is on Wikipedia belongs to the community, not to individual editors. I wasn't implying otherwise. I just thought it might be unwise to quote me as an authority there in order to criticize me here. The evidence that is included there contradicts the idea being promoted here that the edict was not an attack on religious toleration in the empire. Um, no, I don't think so, and that isn't what was said. Of course it can be seen as an attack on tolerance - but only toward heretics. If Theodosius says otherwise, I will go rewrite it to reflect what the sources actually do say. Someone like Richard probably changed it. I will check, and if you're right, I will fix it. Never fear. No, I am not persuaded here. Did you read it? Nevermind. It doesn't matter. But do remember: Content from a Wikipedia article is not considered reliable unless it is backed up by citing reliable sources. Confirm that these sources support the content, then use them directly. Otherwise you get this: [9] If you checked the source, we wouldn't be having this conversation, because you are too reasonable not to be influenced by facts, right? Jenhawk777 (talk) 04:00, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

This sentence seems rather strange: “Over the course of the fourth through the seventh centuries, the Western Roman empire experienced profound cultural and religious change while surviving five significant political and military crises, including the Sack of Rome (410), the Vandal occupation, and the decline and eventual demise of the Senate.” I gather that there are supposed to be five crises. You’ve just listed three of them. Why not the other two?

Display name 99 The other two are discussed in more detail in the remaining text rather than just listed. Jenhawk777 (talk) 21:41, 30 April 2022 (UTC)
Indeed. I suppose there are better ways of confusing the reader, but I can't think of them offhand. Richard Keatinge (talk) 09:14, 1 May 2022 (UTC)

What is the ”new baptized form of the Catholic church of the Middle Ages?” I don’t understand what that means. Again, we have fancy-sounding language with no clear meaning. Under “The Conflict model:” “Even if one doubts the exact veracity of these incidents, the assertion that Martin preferred non-violent conversion techniques says much about the norms for conversion in Gaul" at the time Martin's biography was written.” This sentence does not conform to NPOV. It is a value of judgment of something which, if it is included in the article, should be attributed. “Martin’s biography” sounds like we are only speaking about one book. What book was that?

Display name 99 It is attributed. The entire sentence says Salzman concludes that "None of Martin's interventions led to the deaths of any Gauls, pagan or Christian. Even if one doubts the exact veracity of these incidents, the assertion that Martin preferred non-violent conversion techniques says much about the norms for conversion in Gaul" at the time Martin's biography was written.[ It is a judgment, but not mine. It's from one of the premier historians in this field. I assume she is qualified to make it, since she has won multiple awards for her work. But the rest of this is valid. Too much fancy sounding language. I tend to love quotes for veracity's sake, but that is how they all talk. So more paraphrasing and explaining. I am apparently not very good at making complex concepts more simply available. I will try harder. And I should have included that the book is Sulpicius' most famous work, the Vita S. Martini.Jenhawk777 (talk) 21:41, 30 April 2022 (UTC)

Now on to the bigger problems.

Here is a sentence that encapsulates much of what I find wrong with the article: “The products and processes of fusion and intermingling known as hybridity, syncretism, interculturation, and transculturation indicate societal divisions began to blur.” I have a vague idea of what these terms mean, but I don’t know what separates one from the other. I don’t know the difference between hybridity and syncretism, or between interculturation and transculturation. An audience of sociological academics would, I presume, understand the difference between these terms. A lay audience probably will not. Cut out academic jargon and give us specific examples from historical records.

“Many scholars have claimed that Christianity of this period identified itself with so many Roman values that it ensured the "dignity" of Rome would survive its collapse in its new baptized form of the Catholic church of the Middle Ages in what Kimberly Bowles calls "the swap sale model of change", as if one Roman practice or social role was simply exchanged for its Christian equivalent. However, Brown says this assumes intent and fails "to do justice to the elements of novelty that accompanied the rise of Christianity in the later empire”.

The first sentence is massively long-winded, meandering around quite heavily to convey a fairly simple point. But in the end, very little information is conveyed because there are no specific examples that follow. Instead of providing examples of Roman customs that were incorporated into Christianity, the article instead leaps into a debate between scholars of varying perspectives, which the reader cannot appreciate because he has been given so little information. What Roman customs were incorporated into Christianity? That is the sort of information that the reader would need to come away with a decent understanding of the subject matter, and which you aren’t providing. That, not the name that some scholar uses for the trend and whether or not some other scholar agrees with it, is what the reader will most likely care about, as well as what the article should focus on in accordance with its title. Stick to what is known about the history and, to whatever extent possible, leave the debates between academics for a separate section or article.

Display name 99 I actually had examples in the article and cut it as too much detail. There's a little irony for you. Jenhawk777 (talk) 21:41, 30 April 2022 (UTC)
Jenhawk777, then I think you have to reorient your idea of what kinds of details are important here. The name that a scholar gives to a historical development or fluctuation and a huge list of highly technical classifications which most people won't understand is unnecessary detail. Important examples explaining how a development or fluctuation came about are not. That is what we need to convey the idea of the article. Display name 99 (talk) 03:33, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

This paragraph in the section “The top-down model:” “Twentieth and twenty–first century developments in numismatics,[75] epigraphy,[76] archaeology,[77] and art history, (as well as whole new fields of scholarship such as functional sociology, legal anthropology and social anthropology), have produced "an abundance of evidence unavailable to Gibbon".[78] This has led to the assertion that paganism did not end in the late fourth century[79][80][81] and that the pace of Christianization did not change dramatically under Constantine.[82][24] In Schor's view, "The conversion of Constantine would ...represent merely the largest peak of a chain of network incorporations."[83]”

The first sentence suffers from the same problem as one of the ones in the last paragraph. Rather than a simple and easy explanation of something, there is instead a massive list of terms that are mostly not familiar to the typical person. The paragraph then goes on to talk about the effect of Constantine’s conversion even though nowhere in the article up until this point was it ever said that Constantine converted. This is where it’s important to understand the difference between writing historiography and writing history. Historiography often assumes prior knowledge of the subject. History does not. This article should assume the mode of the latter, not the former. A reader to this article might not know that Constantine converted to Christianity. How is that person supposed to understand the effects (or lack thereof) of Constantine’s conversion if the article does not first explain the event itself? As it stands, such a reader will likely feel disoriented and confused. The problem stems from the fact that you’re trying to write a historiography even though the title would have one believe that this article was actually a history.

After having read this article thoroughly once, and then once more partially just now, I feel that it has to be largely rewritten. As a history article, and not a historiographical article, it should be organized based on historical events, timelines, and tendencies, not models of what different scholars think. The text itself has to be amended, because at present, when historical matters are discussed, they are made subordinate to historiological ones, when it should, in fact, be the opposite. This would require a rewrite. It’s not great news, but I believe it to be the truth. Display name 99 (talk) 19:03, 30 April 2022 (UTC)

Display name 99 Your corrections are valid and valuable and I will begin immediately - begin again - and I invite you to post in my sandbox and participate in that rewrite and make any and all contributions you deem appropriate - so long as you bring good sources in support. Between us perhaps we can produce something that meets all the best standards. Thank you again. Jenhawk777 (talk) 21:41, 30 April 2022 (UTC)
Jenhawk777, thank you for the invitation. I'm afraid that I can't accept. I've studied most periods and civilizations in Western history at least a little bit, but the ones that I have focused on, both in my formal education and in my private studies, are Medieval history and early United States history. (Two very different subjects, I know, but whatever.) That's where most of my Wikipedia edits are and that's where I'm most comfortable. I simply don't have sufficient knowledge about this time period to help rewrite most of an article about it, and I don't have the time or resources to learn it all right now. The only thing that I'm good for here is explaining what I think makes sense and what doesn't. If you'd like me to read some of the article and offer my perspective again at some time in the future after further revisions have been made, I'd be happy to do so. As a non-expert, I can look at your writing and try to tell you whether I'm confused by it and whether it's flown over my head or whether I've gained something valuable. But I'm afraid I can't be of any further help. Thank you. Display name 99 (talk) 03:26, 2 May 2022 (UTC)
Display name 99 okay, no problem. I wanted to give you the opportunity to have a positive input and not just a negative one. I want you to know there are no hard feelings, and I will work to incorporate your observations about my writing while sticking to facts and dependable sources. Jenhawk777 (talk) 04:00, 2 May 2022 (UTC)
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