The Gospel, spreading throughout the Roman Empire
by Lex Loizides
A number of factors helped the somewhat surprising spread of the Christian Faith across the Roman world which began in the first century.
To cite one illustration of the impact of the many miracles that Jesus and the early Christians performed, Quadratus, writing very early in the second century, says:
“Our Saviour’s works were always there to see, for they were true – the people who had been cured and those raised from the dead, who had not merely been seen at the moment when they were cured or raised, but were always there to see...” ii
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The whole article has been published in Lex Loizides' blog, here.
© 2008/2015 Lex Loizides – Church History Review
Check out the articles with the tag: revival
A number of factors helped the somewhat surprising spread of the Christian Faith across the Roman world which began in the first century.
1. The political unity of the Roman Empire did produce a certain economic and political stability, notwithstanding its many faults. This encouraged trade between large cities and regions.
2. The military and trade routes meant relatively easy access to large numbers of people (both by land and sea). Joel Kotkin writes, ‘Rome allowed considerable self-government to individual cities; the empire itself, notes the historian Robert Lopez, functioned as a ‘confederation of urban cells.’ Europe would not again see such a proliferation of secure, and well-peopled cities until well into the nineteenth century. People, products, and ideas traveled quickly through the vast archipelago of ‘urban cells’ over secure sea-lanes and fifty-one thousand miles of paved roads stretching from Jerusalem to Boulogne… Christianity’s rapid growth could not have taken plave without the empire’s expansive urban infrastructure.’ [i]
3. The universal use of Greek as a result of former conquests aided communication.
4. The cosmopolitan atmosphere of the Empire – mixed cultures – enabled easier cross-cultural evangelism e.g., Jews who were culturally Greek (Barnabus from Cyprus, Paul the Roman citizen) were able to bridge cultures..
5. The very real and lasting impact of the ministry of Christ and the earliest apostles.
2. The military and trade routes meant relatively easy access to large numbers of people (both by land and sea). Joel Kotkin writes, ‘Rome allowed considerable self-government to individual cities; the empire itself, notes the historian Robert Lopez, functioned as a ‘confederation of urban cells.’ Europe would not again see such a proliferation of secure, and well-peopled cities until well into the nineteenth century. People, products, and ideas traveled quickly through the vast archipelago of ‘urban cells’ over secure sea-lanes and fifty-one thousand miles of paved roads stretching from Jerusalem to Boulogne… Christianity’s rapid growth could not have taken plave without the empire’s expansive urban infrastructure.’ [i]
3. The universal use of Greek as a result of former conquests aided communication.
4. The cosmopolitan atmosphere of the Empire – mixed cultures – enabled easier cross-cultural evangelism e.g., Jews who were culturally Greek (Barnabus from Cyprus, Paul the Roman citizen) were able to bridge cultures..
5. The very real and lasting impact of the ministry of Christ and the earliest apostles.
To cite one illustration of the impact of the many miracles that Jesus and the early Christians performed, Quadratus, writing very early in the second century, says:
...
The whole article has been published in Lex Loizides' blog, here.
© 2008/2015 Lex Loizides – Church History Review
i. Joel Kotkin, The City, A Global History (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2005) p.33 & p.36
ii. Quoted in Eusebius, The History of the Church (Leicester: Penguin Classics, 1981) p.155
ii. Quoted in Eusebius, The History of the Church (Leicester: Penguin Classics, 1981) p.155
Check out the articles with the tag: revival
