PERSECUTIONS#

Principal Phases#

From the time of the Roman emperors Domitian (d. 96) to Decius (d. 251), Christianity was understood as distinct from Judaism and, since it was not an ethnic religion, it had no right to protection. Christianity was occasionally repressed in sporadic persecutions, but there was no general effort to root it out. Christianity often had its hardest times under the strongest emperors—Marcus Aurelius and Septimius Severus.

The period from Marcus Aurelius (d. 180) to Decius saw a decline in the empire’s vitality. Religions from the eastern part of the empire continued to spread into the West. Following an outburst of persecution under Septimius Severus, who in 202 had forbidden conversion to Judaism and Christianity, there followed the first long peace of the church from 211 to 250, interrupted by a brief persecution under Maximinus in 235. Christianity grew tremendously during this period, but the attitudes of the populace were still negative.

Christianity experienced a particularly favorable situation under Alexander Severus (222–35), who was interested in various philosophers and religious teachers (including Jesus), and Philip the Arabian (244–49), under whom the situation was so favorable that Eusebius thought that he was a Christian. There is inscriptional evidence of the penetration of a confident Christianity into Phrygia by the mid-third century. During the third century Christianity grew extensively not only in Asia Minor, but also in Egypt and North Africa.

Under Decius (249–51) and Valerian (253–60), the empire declared war on the church with an effort at systematic oppression. When these persecutions were relaxed, other problems in the empire gave Christianity a second long period of peace, from 260 to 303, when Diocletian once more attempted to suppress the church.

The Decian and Valerian Persecution#

The reign of Decius marked the turning point from local, sporadic persecution to an empire-wide assault on Christianity.

• The first action of Decius was the arrest of the higher clergy.

• The second was a universal order to sacrifice to the gods of the empire (burn incense, pour a libation, and taste sacrificial meat).

After a generation of peace, the church as a whole was unprepared for the challenge. Many had grown comfortable in the acceptance of Christianity, and vast numbers lapsed from the faith by obeying the command to sacrifice. The effects on the church might have been even greater if the persecution had lasted longer. Decius was killed in 251, and the outbreak of an epidemic in 251/2 turned people’s attention to other concerns.

Valerian resumed the persecution in 257 by sending bishops into exile and forbidding Christian assemblies. In 258 the clergy were recalled and many were executed. Christians of high rank were degraded and their property seized, and Christians in the imperial service were sent in chains to work the imperial estates. The church’s corporate property and funds were also seized.

Valerian’s son, Gallienus (253–68), reversed the policy of persecution and returned property to the churches.

The Cult of the Martyrs#

More church members compromised their faith than became martyrs. Nonetheless, the number of martyrs was considerable and gave impetus to the martyr cult (activities associated with worship).

In the background of the development of the Christian cult of martyrs are ideas associated with the cult of heroes in Greek religion and with funerary practices of the Greco-Roman world. The heroes were those who were strong in this life and who remained strong to help after death. Their influence was confined to their relics and where they were buried.

Christian practice made some changes in these customs. The funerary meals were eucharistic in the church (Acts of John and Tertullian).

Cyprian is the first to call the eucharist a sacrifice offered in memory of the martyrs, commemorating their victory as well as praying for their repose. The day of the death was treated by Christians as the “birthday” (the birthday to immortality), and so the anniversary of the death—instead of the birth—was commemorated. Ordinarily burial (the depositio) was on the same day as the death.

The latter half of the third century shows the cultic veneration of martyrs had penetrated everywhere. Inscriptions began to appear in Rome, “Peter and Paul, pray for us all.” Terminology, however, lagged behind practice, for the word sancti in Christian Latin in the fourth century still designated all the faithful dead.

The principal expression of cult, or worship, was prayer addressed to the martyr, so that prayer to the deceased became more prominent than prayer for the repose of souls. The martyr was already in the presence of God and had won “freedom of speech” (parrhesia) so as to be able to serve as an intercessor. The invocation of the saints was based on this idea of intercession.

Given the exceptional place of martyrs in the church, and ideas current about the rapport of the dead with the living, the practice of invocation to the dead would not have been strange to the people of Greco-Roman culture.

The practice of prayer to the martyr was preferably in the presence of the tomb, for there the power was most evident. In Origen explicitly, but also in the fourth-century theologians, the veneration of martyrs stood in relation to Jesus Christ and not in competition with him, for the martyrs were his servants.

CYPRIAN AND SCHISM#

At the crisis occasioned by the Decian and Valerian persecutions, the North African church received capable leadership from Cyprian as bishop of Carthage.

Sources for the study of Cyprian’s life include the following:

1. his Life written by his deacon Pontius, the first Christian biography;

2. the Acts of Cyprian, one of the authentic accounts of martyrdom from the early centuries;

3. Cyprian’s own treatises and a considerable body of his correspondence, a major source of information about the times as well as of the internal working of the church;

4. secondary notices by Jerome and others.

Caecilius Cyprianus Thascius was born in the first decade of the third century, probably in Carthage, to a rich and cultured pagan family. He received a good education, but his disgust at the corruption of public life led him to seek something higher. A presbyter in Carthage, Caecilius, converted him about 246. His education, position, and abilities led him almost immediately to be made a presbyter. He was elected bishop in 248 “by the voice of the people” against the opposition of some of the elderly presbyters who remembered Paul saying something about a bishop not being a new convert (1 Timothy 3:6).

The Decian persecution of 250 caused his flight from the city. The persecution took the life of Fabian, bishop of Rome, and Cyprian had to defend his flight. He kept in touch with the church by letters.

During Cyprian’s absence, some confessors gave letters of pardon to the lapsi, those who had fallen away during the persecution, and demanded their immediate reconciliation to the church. They relied on the church’s view that those who confessed their faith under persecution received a special measure of the Holy Spirit and so were entitled to forgive and to exercise the privilege of presbyters (who had charge of the discipline of the church).

Cyprian objected, saying that such action should await a return of peace when the bishops could meet and the whole church could agree on a unified policy toward the apostates who wanted forgiveness and a return to the church. A deacon, Felicissimus, led a schism, joined by five presbyters who had opposed Cyprian’s election, in support of the actions of the confessors.

Cyprian returned to Carthage in 251 on the death of Decius, and a synod of bishops confirmed his position and ex-communicated his antagonists. At this same time there occurred a schism in Rome, this time by the rigorists, led by Novatian, who opposed any reconciliation of apostates to full communion in the church.

The remaining years of Cyprian’s life were filled with activity during a stormy time for the church. He continued to work for unity in the church at Carthage and elsewhere and to restore order and stability to a threatened and discouraged church. A devastating plague, during which Christians were active in care for the sick, did much to mitigate the opposition of pagans.

Cyprian also became involved in a controversy over rebaptism with Stephen, bishop of Rome, which was not immediately resolved because of Stephen’s death in 256 and Cyprian’s banishment in 257. Cyprian was brought back to Carthage and beheaded in 258.

Cyprian was a man of action, interested in administration and the direction of souls rather than in theological speculation. He was thoroughly converted, but he naturally brought concepts from his pagan past to his interpretation of Christianity. Although he did not create the terminology, he was among the first extensively to speak of the bishop as a priest, the eucharist as a sacrifice, and the Lord’s table as an altar.

The treatises of Cyprian dealt mostly with practical matters.

• Of greatest theological interest is On the Unity of the Church, an important contribution to the doctrine of the church.

• Of greatest historical interest is On the Lapsed, which reveals much about the persecution and church life.

• His Letters constitute the largest body of correspondence from the ante-Nicene church, sixty-five letters by Cyprian and sixteen addressed to him or to the clergy of Carthage.

Cyprian was involved in three controversies.

The Reconciliation of the lapsed#

The major one, around which the others revolved, concerned the reconciliation of the lapsed.

Cyprian confronted the extremes of both rigorism, which said apostates could not be restored to full fellowship, but must be kept in the condition of penitents for the rest of their lives, and laxism, which said that penitent apostates could be restored to full communion immediately.

• The former course of action would teach the seriousness of sin and strengthen the faithful to confess during any renewal of persecution.

• The latter course would restore the numbers of the church and strengthen the fallen in the face of further temptation.

Cyprian advocated a middle course that would make distinctions according to the gravity of the transgression.

• Those who actually sacrificed were to be placed under discipline and could be reconciled to the church at the moment of death. This would teach the gravity of their sin, but would enable them to die in the peace of the church and thus give their conscience an assurance of salvation.

• Those who had obtained certificates of sacrifice without actually sacrificing (something that could be done by bribing an official or by sending a slave or pagan friend to perform the sacrifice) were to be placed under discipline and could be reconciled after an appropriate time.

• Finally, those who had entertained the thought of denial, but had not actually done so, since their sin was private, were to make a private confession to the bishop.

In Cyprian’s day, the public penitential discipline included the same elements as fifty years earlier, but was more structured. After a person confessed to the bishop and sought reconciliation to the church, it comprised three stages:

1. The performance of works of penance—praying, fasting, lamenting and weeping, wearing sackcloth, observing vigils, and giving alms—while being excluded from the eucharist.

2. Confession (exomologesis), which may not have required a detailed statement of the sin, in the presence of the church, for the people had to agree to the reconciliation.

3. The reconciliation by a laying on of the hands of the bishop and clergy and by prayer.

Cyprian’s policy established discipline as a prerogative of the bishop and clergy (acting in concert with the congregation) and brought the martyrs under the authority of the bishops (a step that may have inspired the idea that a true bishop has the worth of a martyr).

The Novatian schism#

The second controversy in which Cyprian participated, this one at second-hand, was the Novatian schism at Rome.

Whereas the schism at Carthage was prompted by the “laxists,” who wanted immediate reconciliation of the lapsed, the schism at Rome involved the “rigorists” led by Novatian, who viewed the church as the church of the pure and so would not restore to full communion those guilty of apostasy.

Novatian had been a leading presbyter in the church at Rome and authored the first major surviving theological treatise in Latin from the Roman church, On the Trinity. He had himself ordained bishop by three neighboring bishops after the Roman church elected Cornelius, a representative of the moderate position favoring restoration of the “fallen” who were penitent.

Cyprian supported Cornelius as the rightful bishop of Rome. It may be that his treatise On the Unity of the Church was prompted by this schism at Rome, but it may have been intended for the Carthaginian church as a consequence of the schism of Felicissimus.

The validity of baptism#

Cyprian became involved in a third controversy with Stephen, second bishop of Rome after Cornelius, over the validity of baptism administered by those outside the catholic church.

Stephen, relying on the tradition of the Roman church, said that a person in a schismatic or heretical group who had received water baptism in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit did not have to be baptized again on seeking fellowship with his church. Instead, only the laying on the hand of the bishop was necessary to receive the person into communion (perhaps a bestowing of the Holy Spirit in fulfillment of the person’s baptism, or more likely an act of reconciliation of one regarded as a penitent being restored to the fellowship of the church). Stephen regarded himself as a successor of Peter and so as maintaining an apostolic tradition in taking his position against rebaptism.

In contrast, Cyprian argued in his letters that baptism administered outside the church is invalid, for “a person cannot have God as his Father who does not have the church as his mother” (Epistle 74.7). One who “does not possess the Holy Spirit cannot impart the Holy Spirit,” that is, one outside the church does not have the Spirit and so in performing baptism cannot give the Spirit (Epistle 70.2–3). Against Stephen’s argument from tradition, Cyprian replied that because something is old does not make it right: “Custom is the antiquity of error” (Epistle 74.9).

An anonymous North African opponent in the treatise On Rebaptism turned the flank of Cyprian’s position. Granting that heretical baptism of itself did not confer the gift of the Spirit, the author argued that it created the possibility of spiritual receptiveness that made repetition superfluous. The imposition of hands supplied all defects. Thus one might receive baptism in water as a heretic and baptism in the Spirit (which ordinarily ought to be associated with the former) at entrance into the church through the laying on of hands. He added that sound faith or good character was not necessary in the administrator and that the invocation of the name of Jesus possessed peculiar powers.

The subject of heretical and schismatic baptism was discussed by other church leaders. Cyprian’s view made the validity of baptism dependent on the administrator of baptism, and that always introduced an element of uncertainty into one’s salvation. The affirmation of the objective validity of a baptism properly performed had a greater appeal. The position of Stephen, therefore, came to prevail, although Cyprian’s view lived on in North Africa, being powerfully revived by the Donatists in the next century.

These three controversies impinged on Cyprian’s attitude toward the church at Rome. In his treatise On the Unity of the Church, Cyprian presents the church as originating in unity from the Lord’s promise to Peter (Matthew 16:18–19), and he affirms that the episcopate is one and must preserve this unity.

Cyprian saw the bishops as having a parallel position in the church to that of the apostles. As the apostolate was jointly shared by all the apostles, who had their source of unity in Peter, so the episcopate is a universal property, jointly shared by all the bishops.

THE BEGINNINGS OF CHRISTIAN ART AND ARCHITECTURE#

Most accounts of Christian history have been based almost exclusively on literary sources, and the study of Christian art has been pursued separately as part of art history, and that minimally as virtually a footnote to late antique art. There is now a growing recognition of the value of treating the literary and artistic sources as complementary, since both emerged from the same community.

The first identifiable Christian art appears about the year 200. Its absence for nearly two centuries after the beginning of the church is usually attributed

1. to a continuation of the Jewish aversion to images based on the Decalogue (Exodus 20:4–5a)

2. to Christianity being a spiritual religion antithetical to material manifestations

3. to Christian opposition to a pagan culture closely associated with visual imagery.

4. to the economic and social circumstances of most Christians, not to any inherent opposition to pictures or other expressions of art.

Theory of the origins of Christian art#

One theory of the origins of Christian art is that it began in small objects of everyday use which everyone had to have, such as seal rings and household lamps. Clement of Alexandria spoke of images appropriate for Christians to employ on their seal rings: dove, fish, ship, lyre, anchor, fisherman. Not to be used were images of idols, implements of war like sword or bow, and drinking cups (since Christians were temperate).

Another theory derives Christian art from the larger pagan environment. Certainly in style and technique, Christian art borrowed from both classical and non-classical influences on late antique art. Our earliest identifiable examples of Christian art come from the catacombs, the underground burial chambers, around Rome.

The catacombs were not hiding places in times of persecution (the authorities knew of their existence), nor were they normally places of assembly, although funerary meals in memory of the deceased were held there. The rooms (cubicula) and their entrances were sometimes decorated with small paintings, and the stone slabs covering the burial niches (loculi) in the galleries were sometimes chiseled with inscriptions or simple pictures.

The paintings were often decorative scenes of plants and birds, but many depicted events from the Old or New Testaments. Most popular from the Old Testament was the story of Jonah; from the New Testament, the raising of Lazarus. Symbolic representations were even more common, and the symbolic nature of early Christian art is often noted.

Architecture#

Particularly frequent in Christian art as a whole, as well as in the catacombs, were the pictures of the Good Shepherd (besides its biblical precedents, it was an image associated with philanthropy) and a figure in the posture of prayer with arms extended and hands uplifted (orans—a symbol of piety).

Occasionally Christian ceremonies are depicted, such as baptism and meal scenes, of which the feeding miracles of the Gospels, the Last Supper, the eucharist, the agape, and funerary meals are now indistinguishable.

Because of the difficulty of working underground with limited light from small lamps or torches, the pictures for the most part employ a limited range of colors and a minimum of detail, more alluding to the scene than describing it.

From the latter half of the third century there began to appear among Christians evidence of a more expensive form of burial, sarcophagi (stone coffins for depositing the bodies of the deceased) with sculptured scenes. The same repertoire of biblical and symbolic subjects continued to be employed, the selection and form of which was often governed by the existence of an image available from Greco-Roman art. Free standing, three-dimensional sculpture is rather rare in Christian art for many centuries, but from the third century there do survive small images of Jesus Christ as the Good Shepherd and as a teacher, as well as images from the Jonah cycle.

Some Christian art derived from internal everyday religious considerations, either as an expression of the doctrinal content of Christianity or as a result of Christian worship and piety. A generation after the earliest catacomb paintings, biblical scenes appeared on the walls of the room used as a baptistery in the house church at Dura Europus in Syria (240s). These included a Good Shepherd and Adam and Eve (added later) immediately behind the font, and on side walls, the woman at the well of Samaria, Jesus healing the paralytic, Jesus and Peter walking on the water, and a procession of women to the tomb of Jesus. Notable is the absence of paintings from the assembly room.

The earliest Christian meeting places were commonly in the houses of more well-to-do members (“house churches”). As numbers grew and resources increased, local congregations purchased houses as church property (domus ecclesiae, “house of the church”), often remodeling the interior according to the needs of the community (as at Dura Europus).

Sometimes warehouses or other buildings were acquired by local churches for their meeting places (as in Rome), and by the end of the third and beginning of the fourth century new structures in the shape of halls (as in Aquileia and Ostia) appeared (aula ecclesiae, “hall of the church”).

Only under Constantine did the characteristic form of Christian architecture, the basilica, appear, and it developed from earlier secular buildings.

A NEW CHALLENGE: MANICHAEISM#

Receiving a heavenly call in 240 to become the “apostle of light,” Mani (216–76) founded a new religious movement in Mesopotamia and Persia along the lines of the Gnostic sects of the preceding century.

Aiming at a universal religion, Mani drew on elements from the Jewish Christian Elkesaites, among whom he had been brought up, from other Christian heretical groups (such as the Marcionites), from Zoroastrianism and Buddhism, and from orthodox Christianity itself.

Mani’s teaching is based on an extreme dualism of light and darkness, good and evil, spirit and matter. Particles of light are trapped in the material world, and redemption is the liberation of these particles of light so that they can return to the pure heavenly realm. The “elect” or perfect members of the sect were vegetarians, abstained from sex, and avoided most forms of work. They were supported by the “hearers,” who lived in the world until they approached death.

Aggressive evangelism spread Mani’s new religion into the Roman Empire in the West (where the pagan emperor Diocletian attempted to proscribe it in 295) and in the East to central Asia and as far as India and China. The Manichees produced beautiful manuscripts containing their teachings and liturgies.

Warnings against Manichaeism from within the church appeared early, but surviving written refutations begin mainly with the fourth century.

THE CHURCH IN THE LATER THIRD CENTURY#

The Christians’ care for their sick during the epidemic of the 250s, which was mentioned above, gave them a higher survival rate than pagans, who often fled their communities or abandoned the sick for fear of contagion. This survival factor gradually left Christians with a higher percentage of the population even without making converts. More converts soon followed, however, in part because Christians had cared for non-Christians as well as their own.

The church experienced tremendous growth during the third century, a growth that precipitated a climactic conflict with the Roman state. The latter half of the third century was a period of rest, growth, and moral relaxation for the church. The external history was more important than writings and the internal development of the church, so there is relatively little information until the resumption of warfare against the church under Diocletian.

Nevertheless, there are glimpses into the development of the church provided by additional documents and writers that should be noted.

Church Order: Didascalia#

The Didascalia Apostolorum (“Teaching of the Apostles”) comes from the third century in Syria and, although originally written in Greek, survives complete only in Syriac.

The Christian community reflected in this document was in close contact with its Jewish roots. The author insists that Christians keep only the Ten Commandments of the Old Testament. The other requirements were a “Second Legislation,” from which Jesus Christ set his followers free.

The document shows the bishop as the necessary head of the local church—its teacher and preacher, moral watchman, judge in cases of discipline, pastor who seeks the lost sheep, and spiritual physician healing sick souls who repent. The bishop also was steward of the church’s possessions from which he, the clergy, and the poor were supported. In addition, he was the administrator of baptism, anointing, and eucharist and the church’s priest (offering spiritual sacrifices).

The bishop was assisted by presbyters as counselors, but especially by deacons, about whom more is said than about presbyters. There was also an order of widows, whose responsibility was primarily to pray, but not to teach or baptize, and an order of deaconesses, who ministered in the women’s quarters of houses and gave the anointing and teaching to women at their baptism.

In addition to warnings about accepting Jewish customs, being involved with idolatry, and avoiding of heresies and schisms, the Didascalia apostolorum also gives instructions about marital fidelity, bringing up children, care for orphans, treatment of those imprisoned for the faith, the resurrection of the dead, and the events of Jesus’ passion week.

Theology: The Two Dionysii#

The Logos theology had triumphed to the extent that even Paul of Samosata (condemned 268) spoke of God’s preexistent Logos (chapter 7). The situation in regard to speculation on the Godhead in the latter half of the third century is illustrated by the brief literary controversy between Dionysius, bishop of Alexandria (c. 247–c. 265), and a second Dionysius, bishop of Rome (c. 260–c. 268).

Dionysius of Alexandria cut a large figure in the controversies of the third century.

• He sided with Cornelius of Rome in opposing Novatian’s denial of forgiveness to those who lapsed in the Decian persecution

• He favored rebaptism of heretics but tried to mediate between Carthage and Rome on the issue

• He opposed the millennialism of the Egyptian bishop Nepos by arguing that differences in style indicated that the apostle John to whom the Fourth Gospel was attributed could not have been the prophet John who wrote the book of Revelation

• In refuting the Sabellians, Dionysius of Alexandria emphasized the differences between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit to such an extent that he came close to tritheism.

For these statements he was rebuked by Dionysius of Rome. His clarification vindicated his orthodoxy. This discussion concerning the likeness of nature between the Son and the Father, and the question of whether and how the Son came into existence, anticipated key issues in the Arian controversy of the fourth century.

The exchange between the bishops of the two most powerful churches in the Christian world illustrates the way Western theologians typically emphasized the oneness of the Godhead, whereas eastern theologians often stressed the threeness.

Missions: Gregory Thaumaturgus#

Gregory Thaumaturgus (“Wonderworker”) (c. 210–c. 265) was born a pagan in Neocaesarea in Pontus. Intending to study law at Berytus (Beirut), he spent time at Caesarea, where attending several of Origen’s lectures proved to be the turning point of his life.

After five years with Origen, Gregory became a missionary to Pontus and Cappadocia and the bishop of Neocaesarea. Accounts of his life report numerous miracles, which gave him his nickname and attest his prominence in evangelizing his homeland.

Gregory’s work heralds the importance of this region for Christian theology in the fourth century and provides the connecting link between Origen and the great Cappadocian church fathers. One of them, Gregory of Nyssa, whose grandmother was taught by Gregory Thaumaturgus, wrote the most reliable account of his life.

Literature: Methodius, Lactantius#

Methodius (d. 311) and Lactantius (c. 250–c. 325) illustrate some of the concerns of Greek and Latin authors respectively at the turn to the fourth century.

Methodius#

Methodius was bishop of Olympus in Lycia and died a martyr. Many of his works are lost, but some survive in an Old Church Slavonic translation.

From one of these, On the Resurrection, we know his argument that the glorious body of the resurrection will be identical with the mortal body—in opposition to Origen’s view of a spiritual resurrection body.

Methodius’s treatise On Free Will continues the insistence of early church thinkers on human freedom as the basis of morality and of rewards and punishments at the judgment—in opposition to Gnostic views on the origin of evil.

One work by Methodius survives in its original Greek, the Banquet, a long dialogue that takes up many theological topics but centers on the ascetic life and praises virginity.

Lactantius#

Lactantius was the master stylist of Christian Latin, borrowing heavily from Cicero, Virgil, and other classical Latin authors. A native of North Africa, he was invited to Diocletian’s new capital at Nicomedia in 303 to set up a school of rhetoric there. He soon lost that position after being converted to Christianity, but a few years later he was chosen by Constantine to teach his eldest son, Crispus, at Trier in Gaul.

Lactantius’s principal work is the Divine Institutes, in which he not only refutes paganism, but also undertakes an apologetic Christian philosophy of religion. That philosophy involves a history of religion, a moral system built on a Christian understanding of the classical virtue of justice, and a worldview centered on providence.

Like his model, Cicero, Lactantius used oratorical form and style for philosophical thought. Although his exposition of Christian doctrine was found deficient by later thinkers, he is important for the Christian appropriation of Latin literature and culture in order to appeal to the cultivated class of the Roman world.

Lactantius wrote On the Deaths of the Persecutors to show the just vengeance of God against those who persecuted the church. He constitutes one of the principal sources of information for the persecution under Diocletian.

WHY DID CHRISTIANITY SUCCEED?#

By the end of the third century Christians made up a sizeable minority of the population of the Roman Empire. Historians have pointed to various factors to account for this success.

External conditions at the beginning of Christianity were favorable:

1. the spread of Judaism provided a base of operations for Christian preaching throughout the Roman world

2. the Hellenizing of the eastern Mediterranean provided a common language and ideas

3. the political unity under Rome provided peace, stability, and possibilities for travel

These external conditions were available to all, however, so why did Christianity outdistance its potential rivals?

Internal conditions suggested by various historians as part of the appeal of Christianity include the following:

1. the firm belief in the truth of the Christian religion (although Christian insistence that it was the one and only way was a scandal to many, then as now)

2. the universal outlook of the Christian faith that was open to all

3. the effective practice of brotherly love and charity that produced a society meeting all needs of its members

4. the disciplined self-government of individual Christian communities that were united with one another

5. the practice of fellowship that gave a strong sense of community

6. the combination of the strengths of religious practice and philosophical thought.

Christian ideas were for the most part acceptable to pagans: high moral standards, monotheism, and a claim to prophetic revelation. On the other hand, the idea of the incarnation of deity was strange (especially in the distinctively Christian version of incarnation) but not unintelligible. The resurrection of the body, though, was the most repellent aspect of Christian teaching. Yet Christian miracles seemed more powerful than what magicians could accomplish.

Sociological factors involving the positive attitudes toward women, family, and children, as well as the care for the sick in times of illness and epidemic, also favored Christian numerical growth.

The success of Christianity on the political level in the fourth century turned on the conversion of one man—Constantine the Great. After him, political support was an important factor in the further growth of the church.