What happened to my $, please help

[Victrix]

I was attached by the Huns at the end of my turn (playing as Alimanni) and was then approached by them on the computer's turn to become a protectorate of theirs. I countered that I would do so for $14,000. They agreed. Everything settled. My turn begins and I expectantly await to spend my new $ -only problem is my account only shows ~$5,000. I had $ in the bank from the last turn and know for certain that my economy isn't losing $. Where did that $ go? I'd really like your help on this. thanks

[Lord Agelmar]

The "Protected" give part of their income to those that made them a Protectorate.

[Black Francis]

Hang your head in shame! You became a protectorate!

As Lord Agelmar said, protectorates give away their money to the dominant faction.

[Victrix]

So I feel pretty foolish now -and I thought I was being so slick. Aggghhh!
thanks

Black Francis,
I apologize if you already answered this somewhere else. In some other post you mentioned your study of Constantine and his "fascist" use of the church (or something like that). As a RC myself, a lay minister even, did his actions forever change the character & flavor of the church (obviously yes -but how? a few brief thoughts would be appreciated).

Sorry if this is too far off topic for the forums.

Victrix

[Black Francis]

WARNING, OFF TOPIC!

Victrix,

I would say he did not change anything of the message or ethos of the Church, but that he certainly encouraged its growth, and aided it to a degree.

I think that after Constantine adopted Christianity and it became the dominant religion within the Empire, Christianity was influenced by Roman and Greek culture, but this is simply in terms of appearance and forms of ritual. It holds and has always held, since the very beginning, the same "truths" at the core of its being (ministry of Christ, the Eucharist, Apostolicity).

Constantine was instrumental in convening the Council of Nicea and thus forming the Nicean creed which defines Christianity. The purpose of forming the creed was to define just what Christianity was so that heresy could also be defined (e.g the Arians) and so that the Church and Constantine, and Christians in times to come could try to set about dealing with it. It would help Christians stay true to the core beliefs of the Church.

We still use the Labarum of Constantine (CHI-RHO), but this was never really "his" as it was in common use by Christians.

The "fascist" Christianity of Constantine I refer to sometimes is tied up with his early use of Christianity as a religion with which to conquer and use in battle, much in the way pagan deities had been used. It had worked for him (312 and later against Licinius) so he assumed it would work for the entire Empire. If you read into the subject you will see that the first Crusade was not to liberate Jerusalem in 1095, it was Constantine's wars with Licinius. The propaganda and religious emphasis on the later stages of this conflict is overwhelming. You know, he even thought of himself as one of the Apostles.

Also note that by "Church" I mean what is now termed "Catholic" and "Orthodox". They were the same Church, and remain so for the most part. The Pope even confirmed last weekend that the Apostolic Succession does indeed flow through the Orthodox.

[Victrix]

Thanks for indulging my off topic questioning.

Unfortunately, I wasn't nearly specific enough when I asked it the first time.
Be advised that the gist of my question is incredibly vague and far too grand in scope for a fair answer to be given here. But, here it goes anyway.


I guess what i was wondering was how responsible was constantine for transforming the Catholic Church into the Roman Catholic Church?

Before, it was still essentially Jewish in most respects -with a greater and greater dose of hellanism (hellanistic in terms of worldview and gentile in terms of focus) thanks to the likes of St. Paul and others like him to be sure (Paul was educated in some sort of greek influenced academic setting -so I've been told).

After Constantine, we get distinctly Roman cultural (not theological) influences -heirarchy, architecture, gender roles, etc.) as a result of the edict. Right?

I've often wondered what the church would look like now if it had retained a more pauline (less Roman) approach -for example to ministerial roles within the local church community. Paul (I am referring here to the Paul in the authentically Pauline letters: Romans, Ephesians, etc. as opposed to those that weren't actually written by him yet still bare his name) describes a church that sounds very different in its cultural norms from what we have now -for ex., he referres to some of his female associates within various communities as "fellow apostles." There also appears to be very little heirarchy -but clearly there must have been some.

Now just to be clear, I am not one of those Catholics that after reading the Divinci Code suddenly sees conspiracy and evil in everything the church is and stands for -far from it. Nor do I see anything wrong or evil in Constantine's influences -what I know of them anyway. I appreciate the complexities and subtlities of history. I don't see how the church over time could not have been influenced in its thinking, structure and approach by the Empire. Such developmenmt doesn't occur in a vacuum ofcourse. For example, the purely benign needs of the populace to have church officials (educated men) assume more and more civil administrative responsibilities later on during the dark ages also forces this along.

1. What I want to know is how different might the church be now if it had never become the official religion?
2. Constantine needed an empire that had an unified religious vision for obvious reasons (just play bar invas to realize that)-would it have gone after heretics with the goal of unity in orthodoxy if it had always remained just one of many religions?

I hope I made my questioning a little clearer. I do realize that it is still very open ended. I should say that such questions are certainly best put forward and discussed in a cozy pub over a pint. But, oh well. I am very keen to be enlighted.

Victrix

[Black Francis]

The "character" of the Church was already in place before Constantine "interfered".

After the adoption of Christianity the Church was rationalised to a degree by expanding to fill the framework of the Empire, but the hierarchy of bishoprics and parishes already existed to a large extent. Ministers, Deacons, Priests, Bishops, Patriarchs (which includes the Pope). The Church was already the Church.

The problem we have is that we, as Roman Catholics, see the Church as a single body with the Pope at the top. In fact, before the coming of Islam there were five Patriarchates (the Pentarchy), of which what we now would term the Roman Catholic Church was just one. The "Pope" (Roman Patriarch) is simply the head of the Western Patriarchy. However, as the successor of Peter he is also the supreme Patriarch (first among equals) and therefore head of the Church. The "Roman" in "Roman Catholic" simply means that we are of the "Roman Patriarchy" and come under the direct authority of the Pope. My point is that we see the Church as a single hierarchy, when there were originally five.

See here for more info on the Pentarchy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentarchy

The Church absorbs and adapts local culture and reacts to its environment. The Church was never intended to remain "Jewish". It is a living thing. We, the people and the priests are the Church. The most radical aspect of Christ's ministry from a Jewish perspective was that he preached that salvation was not something that the Jews alone had monopoly over. He opened the way for us "gentiles".

Constantine is overrated, generally by anti-Christian academics who portray Constantine as a Machiavellian despot who exploited and corrupted the Church. If they were to read some of his edicts they would realise he was not intellegent enough for anything of the sort. He was a great soldier-emperor, but had very little education (he was on campaign or in court for much of his youth) and was a muddled self contradictory amateur theologian prey to the influence of whoever had his ear.

All he did was allow toleration and showed it (the Church) favour, which increased as he got older. As I said, his greatest influence was the convening of the Nicean council and his attempts to stamp out heresy, which he failed to do.

The significant thing to bear in mind is that Constantine failed to do what he wanted to do with the Church. It was not a unifying force. It could never really have been a unifying force because it only held much sway in the East and not the West. He did not set out with a plan to unify Christianity, he became involved with resolving heresy and controversy because the bishops wrote to him as their benefactor and it is only then that he sought unity and harmony within the Church.

As to what may have happened if Christianity had not been adopted by Constantine, I will leave you with a passage from AHM Jones' "Constantine and the Conversion of Europe", a book I would strongly recommend you get (it is thin and a good read).

“For the whole future of Christianity Constantine's conversion was ... momentous. It may be argued indeed that the Roman Empire must eventually have become Christian, and that an emperor must at last have been converted. But there are no sold grounds for this belief. In the contemporary Empire of Persia, Christian churches were numerous, and despite or because of, periodical persecutions, increased and flourished.; but no Persian king was converted, and the Christians remained a small minority in the Persian dominions. Later, when the Christian lands of Syria, Egypt and North Africa fell under Muslim rule, within three or four centuries Christians had merely by social pressure – for persecution was rare – become an insignificant minority once more.”

Basically, I would day the adoption of Christianity by Constantine was vital to its survival, but his actual impact on the Church itself was minimal. The impact of the people who make up the Church and their deeds are what make the Church.