A new way of explaining why it was so successful that is very insightful of how humans behave in social groups. on charges of heresy. Rather, the New Testament recounts human efforts to spread the faith. Within the “Cite this article” tool, pick a style to see how all available information looks when formatted according to that style. The imperial cult did not die a sudden death. Finally, all questions concerning the rise of Christianity are one: How was it done? . Since its foundation, Ancient Rome was a deeply religious society and religious and political office often went hand in hand. This was an example of a Christian tactic against paganism which had dramatic effect—demonstrating that the old gods could be flouted without fear of divine punishment. Having achieved such a rate and used it to project the number of Christians in various years, we can then test these projections against a variety of historical conclusions and estimates. Refer to each style’s convention regarding the best way to format page numbers and retrieval dates. In chapter 1 he suggests that the Christian church grew 40% per decade and then makes the parallel that it was: “A very encouraging finding since it is exceedingly close to the average growth rate of 43% per decade that the Mormon Church has maintained over the past century”. introduction: "The Acts of the Scillitan Martyrs" is a transcript of the trial of a group of Christians from the city of Scillium in the province of Africa Proconsularis, the capital of which was Carthage. For example, in order for Christianity to have achieved success in the time allowed, must it have grown at rates that seem incredible in the light of modern experience? Christianity was considered dangerous for several reasons. Enter your mobile number or email address below and we'll send you a link to download the free Kindle App. Arts and Humanities Through the Eras. The Pharisees were not just another sect, therefore; they were the people. on charges of heresy. I have committed no theft. The chapters that follow will attempt to reconstruct the rise of Christianity in order to explain why it happened. Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 15, 2020, Extremely useful background for any teacher/preacher. Rather I serve the God whom no one has seen nor can see. Legitimized Christianity. They also represented normative Judaism. (December 21, 2020). An exercise such as this could lead one to conclude that Stark is using sociology to disregard or dismiss the role of the divine nature of Christianity. ), the Roman authorities began to recognize the Christians as a sect separate from the Jews, and an unpopular one at that. He also helped himself to the wealth of the pagan temples. says Yale University's Wayne A. Meeks, for The Rise of Christianity makes a compelling case for startling conclusions. The Rise of Christianity shares some great insight into the rapid growth of Christians. There aren't many books that I've done that with (I can think of two others). "Compelling reading" (Library Journal) that is sure to "generate spirited argument" (Publishers Weekly), this account of Christianity's remarkable growth within the Roman Empire is the subject of much fanfare. At the beginning of the fourth century c.e. This is not the case. These people are not to be hunted out; if they are brought before you and the charge against them is proved, they must be punished, but in the case of anyone who denies that he is a Christian, and makes it clear that he is not by offering prayers to our gods, he is to be pardoned as a result of his repentance however suspect his past conduct may be. Although this book is about 20 years old, it still has new and arresting things to say. Retrieved December 21, 2020 from Encyclopedia.com: https://www.encyclopedia.com/humanities/culture-magazines/rise-christianity. . The pagans were disheartened at the impotence of their god. Please try again. introduction: Pliny the Younger was a Roman litterateur and a gentleman of the governing class who was sent by the emperor Trajan to the province of Bithynia (in northwest Asia Minor) which had been misruled by its senatorial governors and needed someone to remedy the situation. There was no public prosecutor, and thus when a law appears in the law code, it should not be assumed that it was universally obeyed. That is what you also ought to do. The rise of Christianity and its overall importance characterized the Middle Ages. If the law is repeated a number of times over a period of years, it can be assumed that there was widespread evasion. I finished the book and then ordered seven copies to give to people who might find it interesting. Before I proceed, however, it seems appropriate to discuss whether an attempt to explain the rise of Christianity is not somewhat sacrilegious. the rise of the Papacy. Nevertheless, we must quantify--at least in terms of exploring the arithmetic of the possible--if we are to grasp the magnitude of the phenomenon that is to be explained. First, I shall explore the arithmetic of growth to see more clearly the task that had to be accomplished. Then, too, there was misunderstanding at fault. We work hard to protect your security and privacy. Did Christianity grow so rapidly that mass conversions must have taken place--as Acts attests and every historian from Eusebius to Ramsay MacMullen has believed? The majority of the population followed the Pharisees, Josephus writes (Antiquities13:10). Speratus: If you would only listen to me quietly, I would explain to you the mystery of simple belief. Doctrine receives its due--an essential factor in the religion's success was what Christians believed. Now for an ending number. And, according to Acts 21:20, by the sixth decade of the first century there were "many thousands of Jews" in Jerusalem who now believed. source: "The Acts of the Scillitan Martyrs," in The Fathers of the Primitive Church. The ban on pagan sacrifice is a case in point. Christianity seemed merely to be a "degenerate sort of cult carried to extravagant lengths." Stark is upfront by stating, “No sacrilege is entailed in the search to understand human actions in human terms” (p. 4). Sold by Bookworm_CT and ships from Amazon Fulfillment. Jesus' teachings regarding the Jewish law and his claim to be the "messiah" (the savior of the people) long-awaited by the Jews threatened the Jewish religious leaders, who managed to have him crucified by the Roman authorities in 33 c.e. In order to navigate out of this carousel please use your heading shortcut key to navigate to the next or previous heading. regarded the empire as evil. Secunda: I want to be none other than what I am. Encyclopedia.com. We have never libeled anyone. 4. the failure of secular leadership and the rise of ecclesiastical leadership . Combining his expertise in social science with historical evidence, and his insight into contemporary religion's appeal, Stark finds that early Christianity attracted the privileged rather than the poor, that most early converts were women or marginalized Jews--and ultimately that Christianity was a success because it proved those who joined it with a more appealing, more assuring, happier, and perhaps longer life (Andrew M. Greeley, University of Chicago). What is the minimum rate of growth that would permit the Christian movement to become as large as it must have been in the time that history allows? ), but how many would that have been? he persuaded his co-ruler Licinius, who ruled the eastern portion of the empire, that freedom of religion should be extended to all. John Ferguson, Jesus in the Tide of History: An Historical Survey (London, England: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1980). Nartzalus: Today we shall be martyrs in heaven—thank God! Barnes, however, concentrated on the New Testament area and only extended his detailed research as far as the time of Justin Martyr (c. 100–165). Rome took control of the Judaic Kingdom in A.D. 6 and made it portion of the Roman Empire. His efforts to elicit information about the Christian sect, however, revealed nothing that might endanger the state. It seems wise to be conservative here, and thus I shall assume that there were 1,000 Christians in the year 40. Stark's provocative report challenges conventional wisdom and finds that Christianity's astounding dominance of the Western world arose from its offer of a better, more secure way of life. faced a Gothic invasion, the first of many that the empire would suffer. Please try again. The Rise of Christianity is a book by Rodney Stark wherein he looks at Christianity’s rise to prominence from a sociological perspective. Christianity was a crime perse. For one thing, the Roman authorities saw Christianity as a secret society, and secret societies made them nervous. . The emperor Decius (249–252 c.e.) Christianity had spread rapidly, partly because Christian preachers were welcome in the synagogues of the Diaspora. That welcome began to grow thin, however, and by the reign of Nero (54–68 c.e. Although W.H.C. Encyclopedia.com. Christian populations also grew faster because they did not believe in birth control, abortion and killing off babies at a young age. (And all the rest agreed with him.). "Anyone who has puzzled over Christianity's rise to dominance...must read it." Rome's machinery for enforcing its laws was always weak. Then, copy and paste the text into your bibliography or works cited list. A perfect insight into how Christianity grew, how the good word was spread and won over the minds of the people back then. Jesus' teachings regarding the Jewish law and his claim to be the "messiah" (the savior of the people) long-awaited by the Jews threatened the Jewish religious leaders, who managed to have him crucified by the Roman authorities in 33 c.e. The future of Judaism lay with the synagogues and their rabbis, and a rabbinical school that was established at Yavna—later moved to Tiberias—in Judaea was actually encouraged by the Roman authorities. . The book is well structured and easy to follow and answers many of the questions on how an obscure Palestinian sect became the main religion of the Roman Empire. It was a small part of the Judaism at the beginning, and it grew up very quickly in the later hundreds of years. He wrote to the emperor Trajan to report how he had handled the case, and his letter has survived. Learn vocabulary, terms, and more with flashcards, games, and other study tools. Elsewhere, Stark writes, “Thus, until recently, the social scientific (his emphasis) study of religion was nothing of the sort. There was a problem loading your book clubs. The first Christians, Jesus’ followers, were Jews. How did a tiny and obscure messianic movement from the edge of the Roman Empire dislodge classical paganism and become the dominant faith of Western civilization? He approved of Pliny's actions. For a starting number, Acts 1:14-15 suggests that several months after the Crucifixion there were 120 Christians. As for Pliny's question, the reply was simple. Saturninus, the proconsul, then said to the others: "Cease to adhere to this belief.". Stark received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. From the book it seems as if one of his purposes in writing the Rise of Christianity is to debunk this myth. The future of Christianity lay with the followers of Paul's teachings. It was repeated again and again. "The Rise of Christianity Along with the Pharisees existed three groups that warred wit… As late as the middle of the third century, Origen admitted that Christians made up "just a few" of the population. Please try again. According to the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles of St. Paul, there soon arose a division of opinion among the followers of Jesus. The gods seemed to be angry with Rome, and Decius insisted that everyone sacrifice to them and present certificates to that effect. Trajan's answer was brief. Judaism developed into a religion of the Talmud, which was the collection of writings that constituted Jewish civil and religious law. This ascendency of Christianity was accelerated by Roman philosophy, institutions and, above all, by the Roman emperors, particularly Constantine. Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 19, 2017. If so, then we may need to formulate new social scientific propositions about conversion. Speratus: The sacred writings, and the epistles of a saint named Paul. The Rise of Christianity Book Review: The idea that Christianity started as a clandestine movement among the poor is a widely accepted notion. Finally, unlike the ancient religion of Judaism, Christianity was a new sect, and it was founded by a man who had been crucified by the Romans on a charge of high treason. The changeover from a pagan to a Christian empire took up most of the fourth century c.e. If they were Roman citizens, they had a right to a trial at Rome, and Pliny entered them on the list of persons to be sent to Rome to have their cases judged there. As Constantine began to favor the Christian church, however, new converts flocked to it. The Rise of Christianity Christianity is today the world’s largest religion, representing at least a quarter of the world’s population. Christianity originated with the ministry of Jesus, a Jewish teacher and healer who proclaimed the imminent kingdom of God and was crucified c. AD 30–33 in the 1st century Roman province of Judea. The date was the year when Calusian and Praesens held the consulship, 180 c.e. . The title, The Rise of Christianity, that I eventually chose is, of course, that of Bishop E. W. Barnes's work, published in 1947. Speratus: I do not recognize the kingdom of this world. The Roman rule caused some conflicts and unrest in Judaea. © 2019 Encyclopedia.com | All rights reserved. The origin of the term, a He…, Christianity, derived from Judaism to become the dominant religion of western Europe and the driving force behind its civilization, has underpinned m…, Constantine I (ca. No sacrilege is entailed in the search to understand human actions in human terms. While recognizing various powers in the universe, Jews nevertheless differed from their neighbors by only offering worship (sacrifices) to their one god, Yahweh. Speratus: I am a Christian. They create the worst sort of precedent and are quite out of keeping with the spirit of our age. . An urban religion, Christianity initially spread to the Gentiles through the preachings of St. Paul, and it subsequently attracted convert… Shipped with USPS Media Mail. Gager 1975). The laws recorded in the Roman law codes mark paganism's retreat. Indeed, as Robert M. Grant pointed out, "one must always remember that figures in antiquity . The Rise Of Christianity : Christianity 733 Words | 3 Pages. Had Decius lived longer, he would have done Christianity serious damage, but he was killed in battle, and the persecution slowed. The earliest Christians, because they refused to honor the Roman pagan gods, were subject to civil penalties, sporadic persecutions, the contempt of the Roman social establishment. As far as Pliny could ascertain, all the Christians did was to meet before dawn on a fixed day to chant verses antiphonally in honor of Christ "as if to a god" and to bind themselves by an oath, in Latin, a sacramentum. A sociologists review of how early Christianity possibly 'converted' the Mediterranean basin. -- "Publishers Weekly""Compelling reading . Others fled, particularly to Alexandria. The significant question is how it became the official religion of the Roman empire and an agency of the Roman imperial government. Pick a style below, and copy the text for your bibliography. The author uses modern Social Scientific Theory and relatively recent studies into religious conversion to explain the successful rise of Christianity in the Greco-Roman world after the death of Christ. The rise of Christianity up to the victory of Constantine has often been studied and remains a puzzling phenomenon. The rise of Christianity was a powerful beginning. It was dispersed, and many of its leaders were probably killed. The suppression of the revolt was delayed by Nero's dethronement and a year of civil war before Vespasian took over as emperor in 69 c.e. The exceptions were astrologers, magicians, and Manichaeans—the last a sect on the fringes of Christianity which actually had its roots in Zoroastrianism, the national religion of Persia before the rise of Islam, The powerful act of ministering to the sick during times of crises had a huge impact on those receiving the help. What we need is at least two plausible numbers to provide the basis for extrapolating the probable rate of early Christian growth. Christianity was firmly anchored in the heritage of Second Temple sectarianism. The Rise of Christianity: How the Obscure, Marginal Jesus Movement Became the Dominant Religious…. Very interesting indeed. Donata: Respect Caesar as Caesar, but fear God. Wayne A. Meeks, The First Urban Christians; The Social World of the Apostle Paul (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1983). source: Pliny, The Letters of the Younger Pliny. allowed it to flourish in the eastern Mediterranean. 274-337) was a Roman emperor. In addition to the MLA, Chicago, and APA styles, your school, university, publication, or institution may have its own requirements for citations. . In chapter 2 we see that Stark suggests in the book that: “Abraham J. Malherbe analyzed the language and style of the early church writers and concluded that they were dressing a literate, educated audience” and “In short people must have a degree of privilege to have the sophistication needed to understand new religions and to recognize a need for them.” In chapters 4 and 5 Stark addresses the advantages Christianity had over paganism and the role of women that led to Christian growth. He gave those persons admitting Christianity three chances to deny it, and if they persisted in their avowal, he ordered them executed. They believed in Torah and were even prepared to exchange Jewish national independence for the survival of the Jewish people and the Torah, if need be. If, for example, I argue that the rise of Christianity benefited from superior fertility or from an excess of females who made possible high rates of exogamous marriage, am I not, thereby, attributing sacred achievements to profane causes? This fresh, blunt, and highly persuasive account of how the West was won--for Jesus (Newsweek) is now available in paperback. This may explain why, of the few numbers that have been offered in the literature, most are for membership in about the year 300. Encyclopedia.com gives you the ability to cite reference entries and articles according to common styles from the Modern Language Association (MLA), The Chicago Manual of Style, and the American Psychological Association (APA). Saturninus, the proconsul: If you come to your senses, you will gain the pardon of our Lord the emperor. Christians were given the opportunity to renounce their faith in court; those who did not do so were put to death. The Roman rule … Stark's provocative report challenges conventional wisdom and finds that Christianity's astounding dominance of the Western world arose from its offer of a better, more secure way of life. The author plots the most plausible curve of Christian growth from the year 40 to 300. 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