Early Christianity Research Paper

Early Christina Literature

There are three main inter-related factors that contributed to the growth and expansion of the church, and ultimately its success. These factors can be summarized under three main headings. These are an combination of political, social and economic factors. The first of the reasons that the Christianity spread was a political factor. Rome was a dominant force in the world at this time and had excellent roads and shipping, which made it ‘easy’ of missionaries to travel and spread the word of the gospel. This travel and preaching was ‘easy’ because there was never a continuous policy against the Christians and no imperial edicts were ever decreed. Therefore the missionaries cold
They were also socially accepted, in some areas, because of their courage during the persecutions and the strength of their faith and the support they showed one another. This caring Christian attitude made conversion appealing to many and may have been a major cause of Christianity’s success. Christianity’s high moral standards also made it very appealing to society because it offered an alternative from the pagan religions lack of morality. Also
Christianity and its friendships formed form within the Church lead to its successful growth because those who had received the Gospel felt that their duty was to pass it onto their friends, leading to a close knit community and this was appealing in this era when it was down to you to look after yourself. In this era religious and social life was very much interlinked. People used to consider religious meeting as the principal source of recreation.

Christianity also came at the right time, when there was growing unrest with pagan practices and a general spiritual unrest. There was an increasing prosperity and there was the
Christianity offered an alternative with the much-desired possibility of salvation.

The fact that more people were financially stable or well off benefited the church because usually when a person physical self is happy people being to question the spiritual side of their life. The dissatisfaction with pagan practices and mystery religions lead to Christianity being an obvious choice. Also the church itself was well off and according to Chadwick by the year 251 that the church supported “the bishop, 46 presbyters, 7 deacons, 7 sub deacons, 42 acolytes and
52 exorcists, reader and doorkeepers, but also more than 1500 widows and needy persons”. The churches obvious financial stability leads it to be popular and it successful expansion because to those I need it offered help and often converted to Christianity as a result of the kindness and attention they received.

Christianity also flourished because of its improvement in the treatment of women, and it elevation of their social status. Christianity considered unfaithfulness in one partner as