Why Did The Spread Of Christianity In Rome

In the first century, Christianity had an inherent sense of urgency built into its foundational belief the end of the age. Therefore, Jesus’ disciples were commissioned to “… Go into the entire world and preach the gospel to all creation” (The Hebrew-Greek Key Word Study Bible, Mark 16.15). Thus, Christianity was rapidly spread throughout the Roman world in a period of about 40 years.

Christianity can be trace from the times Jesus of Nazareth preached and inspired a following in the province of Judea where the Roman Emperor Tiberius ruled during 14-37 CE. Jesus expanded on his Jewish faith and created his own view that many people believed in. "Large numbers of people followed and gathered around Jesus wherever he went, the Roman government

"Many individuals met in small groups and performed rituals like the Eucharist. They believed this commemorated Jesus since they understood him to be returning from death soon" (McKay, p169). Paul of Tarsus was the largest reason for the foothold of Christianity in Rome. He had good relations with both the Jewish and Roman communities which no doubt made him more relatable to both sides. He wrote letters about Jesus' teachings that applied them to more specific aspects of life at the time and made an impact that later separated them as a whole new religion versus a sect of Judaism. Another large factor in the Spread of Christianity was the layout of Rome. "The road all lead into Rome so it was also easy to get word out into the outlying communities" (McKay,

The pagans believed that their Greek Gods would retaliate for them choosing this other religion. Some believed Christians were trying to ruin the Roman Empire. "Christians were often tortured and executed for their beliefs" (McKay, p170). As the belief that Jesus would be coming again dissipated and more people entered the constitution of Christianity things began to change. Churches and related institutions began to pop up and a hierarchy of the Christian church was created. The hierarchy of priests or Bishops and so on was modeled off of the Roman Empire. Many more educated individuals began to get involved and compared his teachings to the already established rules in Rome to make more sense of it. Initially there was much prosperity but eventually gave way to foreign invasion in the third century. "Diocletian and Constantine put in a large amount of work to repair it to prosperity. Through rising in military ranks they helped reform and transform the empire" (McKay, p170). Because of this this Rome was no longer the great persecutor of Christians and their religion. In the study of eschatology, students arguably compare history with the words of YAHWEH’s prophets and perceive these inevitable events as progression towards a final