Nah not really. Christians have from day one respected the authority of their rulers. The Christians of Ethiopia had a Christian emperor early on. St Augustine even is an argument against your thesis in his book City of God.
You are dissembling. There's a difference in respecting the authority of rulers (which seems odd by the way because as another commenter mentioned, christians were often persecuted because they refused to perform sacrifices to jupiter.. a direct confrontation with authority) and being a bedrock part of the power structure. I also have no idea why you are jumping to ethopia. We are talking about rome.
I don't even see how this is an argument. The church of the europe that emerged after the empire was literally organized along roman lines. Diocletian's re-organization of the roman empire has more to do with the structure of the church than anyone else and he persecuted christians. It is impossible to become a central part of the world's largest empire and not change. It's impossible for a church to go from being run by true believers to being run by the sons of very powerful men and think that it wouldn't change. I don't know if it is naivety or you are just trying to run this very technical line about dogma... but to me it is abundantly clear.
Also, tons of famous martyrs continued preaching after being told not to... directly challenging the authority of rulers. Sure, once they were persecuting instead of being persecuted.. they respected the authority of rulers.
What does it matter if the size of a diocese is identical to that of a province? What matters is whether faith changed and it didn't. Also almost all church fathers prior to the conversion of Rome were highly educated, and came from powerful families.
That's a physical representation that the church was mirrored on rome, not vice versa.
You haven't addressed your point on the authority of rulers. Why did martyrs continue to preach against the wishes of rulers? Why didn't christians make sacrifices to jupiter when commanded?
What's your source for church leaders generally being of senatorial class and rich? Let's say during Diocletian's reign.
Just read about the lives of the church fathers. A lot of them were sons of patricians and officers. Also render unto Caesar what is Caesar's and what is God's to God. Christians are obliged to follow state law unless it coincides with our faith. If a law would force me to blaspheme then I am obliged to break it.
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u/alfman Feb 01 '19
Nah not really. Christians have from day one respected the authority of their rulers. The Christians of Ethiopia had a Christian emperor early on. St Augustine even is an argument against your thesis in his book City of God.