Why Did Christianity Spread So Quickly

Roman society didn’t care for the Christians very much. They would blame them for communal catastrophes, such as earthquakes and outbreaks of diseases. They would claim that these misfortunes were caused by the Christians angering the gods. Being Christian by itself was illegal. “The crime of being Christians; that is, to belonging to an illegal sect or association. The penalty for such unlicensed association was death.” (pg. 174) There was freedom given to anyone who renounced their faith and was willing to worship a Roman god. The martyrs went through vicious punishments for staying in their faith. This tells us that living in Roman society could be fatal if you don’t follow what the Roman Empire expected you to be.

In the Roman Civilization where the prevalent worship of Roman gods were impersonal and did not provide a moral base or a message of hope, in the fourth century Christianity was formed, born as a movement within Judaism. Christianity emphasized the personal relationship between God and people, slowly spread through the Roman Empire until ultimately dominating the western culture. Three of the several factors that aided to the growth of Christianity in the Roman Empire were: the central beliefs and value of Christianity, prominent figures, and Christianity appeal to women. Christianity offered hope to many, for it was the time of grace and freedom, the time to rebuild the future and

Christianity, the world's largest religion, with over 2 billion followers, about a third of the world's population, was at one point almost completely wiped out, but managed to come back to dominate the ancient world. What began as Judaism in the 1st century AD, Jesus of Bethlehem, the Messiah who performed miracles including walking on water, healing, resurrection, fishing and creating thousands of fish and bread for the people from only a couple and dying for our sins. Christianity took hold of the ancient world because of eternal life, compassion and equality for people.

The population of Rome was mainly made up of peasants and farmers so when they learned that Jesus was like them it gave them hope of achieving eternal life. Christianity accepts people of all social classes so it spread quickly throughout Rome due to the lower class’s large population. When Constantine embraced Christianity and stopped the persecution of Christians the religion spread like wild fire because Christians could spread God’s word, like Paul, without being

What were the key social and cultural factors that enabled the Gospel to spread so quickly through the Roman Empire? Using primary and secondary sources, discuss with particular reference to Paul’s writings and the Book of Acts.

The ministry of Jesus brought about a new religion: Christianity. Jesus’ teachings were apocalyptic in that he preached the nearness of the Kingdom of God. He also taught, “To love your neighbor as yourself” Mark 12:31[NIV]. “Since Jesus was a Jew and preached to Jews, Christianity was closely linked to Judaism.” “Early Christian missionaries, being Jews, interacted at first with the Jewish communities in the empire’s cities.” “This was only natural and gave them common ground with other groups in the provinces in which Jews were a minority.” “Among the Jews, however, resistance to Jesus being the Messiah was often encountered, and early on, the Christians or the church gained converts from non-Jews.” “Christianity in its early stages used the Jewish synagogues, allowing it access

The new faith that brought a message and established the resurrection of Jesus Christ was the faith that Constantine adopted as a child from his mother. Christianity during Constantine’s reign established much dominance over other religions and was the main reason for influence of the Christian. Christianity in the Roman world had many perils from gladiatorial battles, to forms of charity which affected the Roman world for good (McGiffert, 34). Charity became with

Throughout history many universal religions have spread throughout the world. From cities to cities, countries to countries and so on. Christianity and Buddhism are two of the top universal religions that were practiced and spread throughout the early world. A series of events lead to the early and quick spread of Christianity and Buddhism throughout the early world. As turmoil engulfed the Jews in Judea, Christianity arose. The teaching of Christianity began with a Jew named Jesus. At the age of 30, Jesus began preaching the word of God to villagers near the Sea of Galilee. As Jesus preached, significant amounts of groups crowded around him to learn about his teachings, especially when word spread that he had performed acts of healing. Soon Jesus later formed a group of disciples or close followers to help spread his teachings.

One reason that Christianity took hold in the ancient world was because they spread the message of Jesus through kindness. Evidence of this is, In document F, it talks about how paul spread the word of Jesus during the years of 50 C.E. This evidence helps explain why Christianity took hold because other people saw how kind the where and how much people loved Christianity to spread the message.

• Refers to rapid spread of Christianity among all classes of people, as well as Roman citizens that are sent to Rome for trial. “They have high ethical standards and if they repeatedly admit they honor Christ as God they are executed”.

Christianity had to evolve and adapt over the centuries in order to survive. Christianity had to merge with the cultures and traditions of other religions. It took four centuries for Christianity to become legal.

Constantine, a Roman Emperor, converted to Christianity which was very advantageous to the religion (312 A.D.)

How did Christianity become a major world religion? Saint Paul had a huge impact on the development of Christianity. He spread the word of Christianity throughout the Roman Empire by visiting synagogues, preaching, and writing letters. Without Saint Paul, Christianity would not have been a major religion of the world, instead, another would have likely taken its place.

With its insistence on exclusive monotheistic worship of the Christian God it won where paganism could only fail, in demanding solitary allegiance to its movement (pp. 201-204). In demanding such commitment, those won to Christianity were far more allied to its goals and purposes than adherents to pagan movements that were non-exclusive. Further, the possibility of publicly suffering for their faith offered Christians the hope of enormous communal esteem. For those already firmly committed, the benefits of esteem and other-worldly reward far out-weighed whatever cost in suffering martyrdom might bring. Paganism had nothing analogous to win such enthusiastic commitment. Whereas, Christianity promised life after death in heaven while in the Roman religion, only gods went to heaven; emperors were considered gods, everyone else went to the underworld.

In 313 AD the Emperor Constantine formally recognized the Christian religion. Christianity spread throughout the Roman Empire, this event affected the way people thought and lived their lives. Had a great impact on how rulers viewed their power and used their powers. Such influence was portrayed in Christian art as we know today.