Cities of God: The Real Story of How Christianity Became an Urban Movement and Conquered Rome – A Quantitative Analysis of Religious Growth in the Roman Empire
Book Details
Author(s)Stark, Rodney
PublisherHarperCollins Children's Books
ISBN / ASIN0061349887
ISBN-139780061349881
CategoryReligion
MarketplaceFrance 🇫🇷
Description
- Contrary to fictions such as The Da Vinci Code and the claims of some prominent scholars, Gnosticism was not a more sophisticated, more authentic form of Christianity, but really an unsuccessful effort to paganize Christianity.
- Paul was called the apostle to the Gentiles, but mostly he converted Jews.
- Paganism was not rapidly stamped out by state repression following the vision and conversion of the Roman Emperor Constantine in 312 AD, but gradually disappeared as people abandoned the temples in response to the superior appeal of Christianity.
- The "oriental" faiths—such as those devoted to Isis, the Egyptian goddess of love and magic, and to Cybele, the fertility goddess of Asia Minor—actually prepared the way for the rapid spread of Christianity across the Roman Empire.
- Contrary to generations of historians, the Roman mystery cult of Mithraism posed no challenge to Christianity to become the new faith of the empire— it allowed no female members and attracted only soldiers.
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