Christianity and the Fall of Roman Empire

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Christianity and the Fall of Roman Empire
The ancient Rome that had adopted a republican system of government transitioned into an empire in the 1st Century BCE following a series of civil wars and unrest from the citizens. It will go down in history as one of the most prominent empires of Western civilization with an elaborate social and political structure. For such an empire that had lasted a long time and was well-known, it was defined by key attributes and values. The Ancient Roman religion was unique, constituting traditions, rituals, beliefs, and ideas that did not associate man and the creator spiritually but rather in a peculiar relationship. The Roman Empire regarded religious practices with the utmost respect as its major defining attribute. The infiltration of Christianity has been cited by many as a contributing factor to the eventual decline of the Roman Empire, with Historian Edward Gibbon convinced that the religion is to be blamed for the eventual fall of the empire in 476 CE.
There are several arguments to support Gibbon's perception of the rise of Christianity as the sole cause for the fall of the Roman empire. The Christian religion that arose in the Roman Empire took several forms, and one of them was the emergence of Christian Jews who believed in Jesus Christ as the Messiah. As early as the reign of Nero, the Jews had developed a heightened enmity to the dominating Roman Empire that led to intermittent massacres and insurrections between the two opposing factions differentiated by religious beliefs (Gibbon 7). The Jews were also inspired by the notion that they were not bound by law to pay taxes to a master that worshipped idols and the belief that the Messiah will conquer the empire to establish an kingdom of the entire earth (Gibbon 5). The growing ambition of the Jews led to the revolution against the Roman Empire, famously known as the Barcochebas, that was perpetrated against Emperor Hadrian. The Jewish victory granted them their privileges while leading to the decline in the power of the Roman Empire. New synagogues were erected, Christian religious practices such as the circumcision of male children were once again practiced, and sabbath, fasting, and other religious practices were being observed in the principal cities of the Roman Empire. This asserted the influence that Christian Jews, through the Barcochebas, had on the decline of the empire.
The widespread adoption of Christianity also led to the massive abolition of the religious institution that had been established by the Roman empire and instituted the dissolution of the sacred ties between customs and education that had contributed immensely to the lasting regimes of the Roman Empire. Christianity empowered individuals, including pagans not to forfeit their inherent right of conscience and private judgment, leading to a unanimous rejection of the Roman religious practices and beliefs (Gibbon 7).
The conquering of the western and the eastern empires by Constantine, whose reign lasted from 312 CE to 317 CE, led to an immense shift in the religious beliefs and practices of the Roman Empire. Constantine had adopted the new faith that later came to be regarded as Christianity, ...