Believers in Christ had already conquered the Roman Empire before Constantine offered the church official status: they were the most numerous homogeneous group in all the Empire. In one moment, when the church leaders accepted the offer to become the religion of the state, the church ceased its heavenly mandate (to represent the Christ in the earth) and took up a mandate to represent the Roman throne.
But this was nothing new. The Enemy offered our Lord the same exchange:
Matthew 4:8-9 "Again, the devil took Him to a very high mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. “All this I will give You,” he said, “if You will fall down and worship me.”)
The glory of the kingdoms of the world did not come from the Son but from the Enemy. The Enemy is, after all,
the god of this world.
The Enemy does not create anything, he just re-spins the same traps. For the church, he re-spun a trap by offering them greater influence if they would only represent the earthly kingdom of Rome. They took it. And out of that amalgamation came
grotesque church offices found nowhere in scripture. But the focus was not to be true to God's word, only to mirror the government and culture of Rome.
Wars (local and regional), killing of the saints, pedophilia, theft, and all kinds of perversion came out of that amalgamation. The worship of people, statues, golden cathedrals to gods... all polytheistic Roman culture.
