Was the rise of Christianity inevitable?

[Kryten]

The early history of Christianity is inextricably linked with that of Rome, so my question is this; was the rise of the Christian religion inevitable?

For example, what would have happened if Alexander the Great had not died at the age of 33 in Babylon in 323 BC but had continued his campaign westward and turned Italy into an Hellenistic state? Or if Hannibal had won the 2nd Punic War and the Roman Republic has ceased to exist in 215 BC? And what if Constantine the Great had lost the battle of the Milvian Bridge in 312 AD and did not become the first Christian Emperor (thus there would have been no Council of Nicaea in 325 AD?).

Would Christianity have prevailed, or would one of the other ancient religions (such as Zoroaster/Zarathustra, the cult of Mithras, the Arian Controversy, Judahism or Islam for example) have risen instead to dominate Medieval Europe?

Any thoughts?

 

[Stefan Haertel]

Well, since in later antiquity and the early middle ages, the more powerful religions were closely linked together (although the followers wouldn't admit it) -I'm talking about Zoroastrianism, Christianity and Islam, as well as their individual sects, most importantly Manichaeism and Mithraism, which are based on Zoroastrianism- this question can't be answered to full satisfaction.
I believe the imperial religion of Rome didn't have enough strength to convince/convert the general population.
I personally think that the mediterranean area could have become a religious mess -if you understand what I mean. Elements of certain religions, such as the Roman, the Zoroastrian, the Jewish and later perhaps the Christian and Islamic religions, but not their entire truths, could have all been "thrown into one pot", thus creating a vast and irritating number of individual cults.
Christianity -although in my opinion, linked with a lot of trouble, terror and horror, but that isn't to be argued here- at least provided some unity, though the individual views on the religion differed dramatically.

 

[CrazyScientist]

If it wasn't for persecution of the christians by the Romans, then maybe that cohesion that helped christianity become so strong would never have developed.
However, like most relgions, christianity started off a small cult, and its rise to predominance in the west, was IMHO by no means a sure thing. Combinations of circumstances can produce bizarre results.

 

[elfstorm]

I'm not sure Alexanders death (or not) would have affected Christianity much, as Christianity emerged in the 'hellenic' east. It's no coincidence that the oldest known copies of the bible are in Greek!

Zoroastrianism existed before Alexander stormed through and had never expanded much into the mediterranean area. The existance of Ptolmaic Eygpt, Selclid (excuse spelling) Persia and other Hellenistic monarchies didn't encourage it's spread much in reality. So I wouldn't consider it a rival.

The lack of a unified Roman empire may have impeaded it's spread, but then it was quite successful in expanding into Ireland and other non-roman areas.

It's hard to tell really. But certainly Christianity did begin as no more than one of many eastern mystical cults and it's success was in no way assured.

A very simplistic arguement I know, but boards like this aren't the best place for in depth debate.

 

[Rain]

Christianity definitely benefited from its adoption by Rome but in some sense this was due to lack of persecution as opposed to growth induced by Roman adoption. So the question devolves to whether persecution would been pursued by those empires had they been successful and lasting. On another tack Jews have been actively persecuted for long periods and have managed to develop in any case. There is little doubt that the growth of organized Christianity had a lot to due with its political acuity which allowed it develop considerable power and wealth throughout the centuries facilitating its spread to areas like Latin America, Africa and Asia for example.

 

[Kryten]

Looking at my own question a little bit more, I think that there are two main issues:-
1) was the imperial empire a help or hindrence
2) why was Christianity so successful

I agree with Rain and Elfstorm that being part of an imperial culture did help in the spread of any new religion (after all, trying to induce a new religion across a national border has frequently been a cause for war). And it dosen't really matter whether the empire is Hellenistic, Carthaginian, Roman or something else, providing that it is long lasting, fairly stable, and tolerant.

As to why Christianity was so successful.....thats harder to answer! Several ancient reglions believed in a life after death, Christianity and the cult of Mithras are just two examples. But the early Christians also preached that the world would end soon and that redemption was imminent. Could this have been the reason for their success?

 

[Stefan Haertel]

1) was the imperial empire

LOL! I've got to remember that one

 

[Kryten]

Yes, I see your point! ("That will teach you for trying to be clever Kryten!")

It's my own fault really because I always think of an empire as being made up of many different nations all controlled by one ruler, but that ruler is not always called an emperor or empress. The British Empire for example was not contolled by an emperor, and the Persian Empire was ruled by a king (or 'King-of-Kings' if you like). But the word 'imperial' does imply an emperor, and emperors always rule empires....("you are babbling now Kryten. Just admit that you used the wrong word!").

 

[Archbob]

No, it didn't have to be christianity, if was just luck that favored it.

Some day aethism to overtake christianity in numbers, just watch.

 

[Kryten]

Originally posted by Fallen Angel Lord
No, it didn't have to be christianity, if was just luck that favored it.

Hmmm....I'm not so sure.

The cult of Mithras was well established in first century Roman culture, and had a lot of similarity with early Christianity. For example, the ideals of humility and brotherly love, baptism, the rite of communion, the use of holy water, the adoration of the shepherds at Mithra's birth, the adoption of Sundays and December 25th (Mithra's birthday) as holy days, and the belief in the immortality of the soul, the last judement, and the resurrection.

So the new Christian religion had an uphill strugle in that not only did it have to establish itself, it also had to push other more ancient religions such as Mithraism and the worship of Isis to one side. None the less, it did eventually win over all the others. Was it just luck, or was Christianity somehow more 'superior' to the ancient people of the time?

 

[Wild Weasel]

There is evidence of Christianity having a technological advantage in its propogation over contemporary religions or cults.

Muslim tradition refers to both Jews and Christians as 'people of the Book', illustrating the common heritage of all three faiths. The Book in this context, however, was in fact a scroll - or indeed a series of scrolls. Each scroll required significant investment in storage and maintenance, but had deep significance to the traditions of both the Jewish and Roman pagans. The Christians, with no such traditional baggage, adopted (or possibly even invented) the codex, what we today call a book.

Books were (relative to scrolls) easy to produce, transport and maintain. Individuals, in theory at least, could have their own copies without requiring space for 30+ storage jars of significant volume. Thus the word was spread more easily, especially across water.

 

[Knight-Dragon]

Paper manufacturing only spread to Baghdad after the Arabs captured some Chinese papermakers during the Battle of the Talas River in 751 CE. Implication was paper only available in the Mid-east and Europe in the following centuries.

What was this Christian 'book' made of then since Christianity began spreading way earlier? I'd think they're also using much the same writing materials as those available to the other competing faiths.

 

[Wild Weasel]

To be honest, I don't know what the material was that actually used to produce a codex over and above a scroll - presumably one and the same. The point was that sewing separate leaves into a spine and covering it resulted in an end product with a significantly smaller logistical overhead than an equivalent scroll. This enabled the texts - in other words a consistent message - to distributed over a much wider in a shorter period of time than was previously possible.

 

[Knight-Dragon]

Perhaps, but how many of the common people are literate enough to read them?

I'd think the Jews too have their Book. Had this method been so successful in propogating the faith, why didn't the other faiths copy the idea? I think this explanation is too simplistic.

 

[allhailIndia]

It has more to do with the teachings and the aggressive proselytization policies of the Christian Church than books etc.

Oh and an empire with roads and aqueducts merely hastened the process and even if it were the Greeks, it would have been the pretty much the same.

The common people and slaves were tired of their ill-treatment at the hands of the Patricians and wanted a way to be rid of this injustice

 

[Wild Weasel]

Originally posted by Knight-Dragon
Perhaps, but how many of the common people are literate enough to read them?

Probably not many - I'm making no assumption about the populace, congregations or the abilities of priests of one sect over another. What I am saying is that the ability to distribute a single consistent view of the Gospels over a wider area more simply in codices, as opposed to scrolls, would have provided an advantage.

Originally posted by Knight-Dragon
I'd think the Jews too have their Book. Had this method been so successful in propogating the faith, why didn't the other faiths copy the idea?

Religious conservatism provides significant inertia and most were slow on the uptake. The Jewish faith did indeed convert the Tanakh to codex form, but this act in itself provided its own problems. A collection of scrolls could be construed as a 'random access' media. The stories held within each would have a loose chronological association, but the sequence was essentially a mutable anthology. In codex form, the author (or collator) is required to set out the sequence in which the collection is to be read. This gives rise to differences between the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament. The Tanakh sequence is 'Teachings', 'Prophecies' and 'Writings', where as in the Old Testament the sequences is 'Teachings', 'Writings' and 'Prophecies' - the reason being that to Christians the birth of Christ is a fulfillment of the prophecies and the early Christian collators wanted to emphasise this fact.

Originally posted by Knight-Dragon
I think this explanation is too simplistic.

Fair enough. I offered this merely a possible advantage the early Christians may have had over their rivals, not an all-encompassing explanation.

 

[Genghis Chan]

Hm, really interesting reading so far.

But I think we have to distinguish between Christianity during Jesus' time and Christianity as it developed, say, after c. 100-150CE. Christianity as we think of it today (Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant, etc.) simply did not exist during Jesus' time. Jesus, as we all know, was a Jew and practiced Judaism. In fact, all of his disciples were Jews (with the possible exception of Luke who, if not Jewish by birth, was certainly a proselyte). In other words, the first "Christians" were Jews.

However, after this "first generation" of Jewish "Christians" began to pass away, and even during their own lifetimes, we see a lot of Greek, Persian, and other beliefs completely foreign to Judaism enter into Judaism itself (well, Judaism itself in the first century was already split into various "opinions" or "factions" but that's another story). And things really began to change after the Romans put down the Jewish rebellions in 70CE and 135CE because (1) the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed and (2) the Jews were either killed, forced into slavery, or exiled. The Romans pillaged and wiped out any remnants of the Jews in Jerusalem (as best as they could anyhow), established a pagan colony (again, not pagan as we think of pagan but pagan in the Roman tradition) in what used to be Jerusalem, and had Jerusalem renamed "Aelia Capitolina." In fact, it was the Romans who first called Israel "Palestine," from what I understand, Palestine is the [now English transliterated] Latin equivalent of Philistine, the ancient enemies of Israel (e.g. David versus Goliath, Goliath was a Philistine). Thus, the Romans wanted to completely wipe out any vestiges of the Jews and their religion.

But what does all this have to do with the rise of Christianity? Well, my point is that Judaism in the first century CE faced both external as well as internal pressures: external with their rebellions against Rome and internal with the the Greek and Neareastern religions being introduced into their own religion. And that these external and internal pressures thus provided fertile ground for the rise of so many diverse and varied beliefs into Judaism, i.e. the heterodox mixture of the Greek and Neareastern ideas into Judaism (more accurately, into the then new Jewish "Christianity"). Thus, Christianity as we know it today was born.