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[7] [8] Sociology has also generated the theory that Christianity spread as a grass roots movement that grew from the bottom up; it includes ideas and practices such as charity, egalitarianism, accessibility and a clear message, demonstrating its appeal to people over the alternatives available to most in the Roman Empire of the time. The ...
Bart D. Ehrman attributes the rapid spread of Christianity to five factors: (1) the promise of salvation and eternal life for everyone was an attractive alternative to Roman religions; (2) stories of miracles and healings purportedly showed that the one Christian God was more powerful than the many Roman gods; (3) Christianity began as a ...
In the year before the First Council of Constantinople in 381, Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire when Theodosius I, emperor of the East, Gratian, emperor of the West, and Gratian's junior co-ruler Valentinian II issued the Edict of Thessalonica in 380, [1] which recognized the catholic orthodoxy [a] of Nicene Christians as the Roman Empire's state religion.
These teachings, along with the proliferation of chastity among slaves who became Christian, [96] and the spread of asceticism through Roman society as a respected value, may have lessened their sexual use and their reproductive value and impacted slavery directly. [76] [97] Chrysostom reflects Paul's dual teaching on slavery.
Persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire occurred frequently over a period of over two centuries. For most of the first three hundred years of Christian history, Christians had to hide their faith and, practice their beliefs in secret and rise to positions of responsibility so they weren't killed. [202]
A. N. Sherwin-White records that serious discussion of the reasons for Roman persecution of Christians began in 1890 when it produced "20 years of controversy" and three main opinions: first, there was the theory held by most French and Belgian scholars that "there was a general enactment, precisely formulated and valid for the whole empire, which forbade the practice of the Christian religion.
Roman investigations into early Christianity found it an irreligious, novel, disobedient, even atheistic sub-sect of Judaism: it appeared to deny all forms of religion and was therefore superstitio. By the end of the Imperial era, Nicene Christianity was the one permitted Roman religio; all other cults were heretical or pagan superstitiones. [187]
Early Christianity, otherwise called the Early Church or Paleo-Christianity, describes the historical era of the Christian religion up to the First Council of Nicaea in 325. Christianity spread from the Levant, across the Roman Empire, and beyond.