g. The divine right of kings.
The Land of Palestine had for many generations after the death of Christ been part of the Roman Empire. The ruin of Jerusalem and the oppression of the Jews under the Roman Emperor Hadrian, led the Christians to break with their Jewish customs, rites, and habits (Mosaic law), they were at this time known as the Ebionites. (Of all the systems of Christianity that of Ethiopia is the only one that still adheres to the mosaic rites.) It was by breaking with the traditions of their Jewish countrymen that the first Christians spread their gospels throughout the Roman Empire. While the Jews were mostly an exclusive community and did not easily gain converts. The Christians on the other hand by being actively inclusive and by breaking with the burdensome mosaic rites, planted the seeds for the growth of Christianity within the stability of the Roman Empire. .
The Christians gradually spread throughout much of Europe, and by their zeal and growing numbers, were felt as a threat and they were persecuted by emperors such as Hadrian, Domitian, and Maximin. However Christianity left its mark on the world for all time, when the Emperor Constantine adopted the Christian faith as his own, and renounced the gods of Rome. It is with the coronation of Emperor Constantine that the origin of the divine right of kings lie, an idea intrinsically linked to the medieval world order. Because of Constantine's conversion to Christianity, the presence of this faith is still felt strongly today. .
The adoption of Christianity by Constantine eventually led to intolerance and the persecution of pagan religions, this is a marked difference to the old roman policy of religious tolerance. This same religious intolerance would dominate the policies of the medieval world. In time Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire and paganism was gradually suppressed, by military force in some cases.
