The Triumph of Christianity: How a Forbidden Religion Swept the World

by Bart D. Ehrman

The first Christians were a small group of illiterate peasants from the backwaters of the Roman Empire, who proclaimed that an executed enemy of the state was God’s messiah. Less than 400 years later it would be the official religion of Rome with some 30 million followers. How did this happen?


From Jesus’s death in the early first century to the conversion of Emperor Constantine and its aftermath in the fourth century, Bart Ehrman chronicles the epic historical narrative of Christianity’s rise. Through meticulous research and luminous prose, he reveals why people took heed of accounts of Jesus’s miracles amidst a plethora of such tales in the ancient world, and examines what was unique about the Christian message that converts found so compelling. The Triumph of Christianity upends the way we think about one of the most important cultural transformations our world has ever seen – that which has shaped the art, music, literature, philosophy, ethics, economics and law of modern Western civilization.

Genres: History, Religion, Nonfiction, Christianity, Theology, Christian, Audiobook

353 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 13, 2018

About the author

Bart Denton Ehrman is an American New Testament scholar focusing on textual criticism of the New Testament, the historical Jesus, and the origins and development of early Christianity. He has written and edited 30 books, including three college textbooks. He has also authored six New York Times bestsellers. He is the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Reviews

[Jenna ❤ ❀ ❤ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Growing up, I recall hearing many times that the fact that Christianity spread from a small religion to a global one is "proof" that it is the "right" religion. After all, would God have allowed it to grow and flourish if it were false? Even at a young age, this "proof" seemed tenuous at best. At that point, I didn't even know there were other religions in the world other than Christianity, Judaism, or "Satanism" (those who did not accept God at all were considered Satanists because being "against" God or even not believing in him meant that you were pro-Satan). Still, though I thought most in the world were Christians, I was also taught that most were not the "right kind" of Christians. Catholics, Lutherans, Orthodox Christians, Pentecostals, Methodists, etc. -- all were wrong and thus their adherents were going to burn in an eternal hell. Only our brand and interpretation of Christianity (fundamentalist Baptist) was the correct one, and only we would go to Heaven.

So, I wondered, if God allowed all these other versions of Christianity to spread and flourish even though they were 'wrong', then didn't that negate the so-called proof that Christianity being around at all means that it is the correct religion? It seemed incredible to me that none of the adults around me were bothered by that inconsistency.

In The Triumph of Christianity, Bart Ehrman, one of the world's foremost New Testament scholars, shows how and why Christianity became one of the main religions in the world, without it necessarily being the "correct" one. Though Ehrman himself is no longer Christian, as a historian he does not make value judgments on Christianity nor any other religion, does not claim one is better than the other, or even that any of them are "wrong" or "right". He simply presents us with what we can know from the historical record.

I found this book fascinating, as Mr. Ehrman's books always are. Though full of historical facts and written by a scholar, his books are never dull or dry. Whereas the other books of his I've read deals with the time of the New Testament writings, The Triumph of Christianity extends further in time, throughout the first few centuries after Jesus' death. What exactly did the early Christians believe? Was Constantine responsible for the spread of Christianity and if he had not converted, would Christianity still have spread? Were the early Christians actually persecuted by the Romans? How did Christians treat pagans and vice versa? How might pagans have felt and thought about Christianity, especially as it came to dominate the empire? At what rate did Christianity have to grow in order to become a dominant religion, and is the fact that it did really proof that it's somehow the one true religion, or are there other reasons for its growth? Can it have spread from a small group of illiterate believers into a world-wide religion by easily-explained, non-supernatural methods? These and more questions are answered in this book and anyone interested in religions, Christianity, or ancient times should enjoy this book. I personally find Mr. Ehrman's explanations to be much more palatable and believable than what I was told growing up. You needn't be Christian to enjoy this book, nor do you need to worry about having your religious beliefs attacked if you are Christian. There is so much information in this book and thus it's well worth reading.

"Whether the Christianization of the West was a triumph to be treasured or a defeat to be lamented, no one can deny it was the most monumental cultural transformation our world has ever seen."

[Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

The basis of this one is Ehrman's theory that Christianity would have still dominated even if Constantine hadn't converted and made it popular.



The idea is that no religion other than Judaism at the time required you to give up the worship of other gods, so pagan gods actually lost potential worshipers to Christianity, instead of just adding another god to their worshipers portfolio of gods. It grew slowly but exponentially. Centuries later, it was starting to take over.
Why not Judaism then?
According to Ehrman, it was because they weren't interested in evangelizing. You could certainly convert if you wanted to, but on the whole, they weren't out actively seeking new members.



There is obviously a lot more to his hypothesis than this, and this book dives into the history of early Christianity to try to show how it all might have worked if Constantine had never converted.
But it also went into a lot about Constantine, and I found that equally interesting.



There was a lot here, not all of it riveting. Although, it did have a bit of the What If to it and that kept me interested. Still, I think you'd have to be particularly interested in this question for the sake of the question to pick this one up.
Recommended...ish.

[Clif Hostetler · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bart Ehrman has a knack for turning facts from the academic study of Christian history into history books for popular audiences. He makes the subject personal by beginning this book by saying that he can understand how fourth century pagans must have felt when everything they understood about the gods was being taken away from them by the growing Christian religion. He explains how he started out as a conservative fundamentalist Christian and that his religious convictions were lost because of his academic studies in the history of Christianity. As a student he identified with the feelings expressed in the poem Dover Beach by Matthew Arnold which expresses melancholy for the retreat of "The Sea of Faith."

On the subject of how Christianity displaced polytheism in the Roman Empire, Ehrman gives short shrift to the partisan suggestions that God made it happen—"If God wanted the masses to convert, why are most of the masses still not converted. … And why was the job never completed?"

Starting with perhaps a hundred adherents of Christianity in 30 AD and growing to become 7 to 10 percent of the population (i.e. approximately 2.5 million) by 300 AD required only an annual growth rate of 2.5 to 3 percent. So the growth rate was not so extraordinary, but why did it grow at all? Well, of course Paul—the apostle—played a significant role during the first thirty years by getting it started with his itinerant mission to spread a version of Judaism for gentiles. But once started, why did growth continue?

The growth can't be attributed to the concept of monotheism because there were henotheistic pagans who worshiped one god while not denying the validity of others. Of course Judaism was monotheistic too.

Ehrman finally concludes that the continued growth of Christianity was because of the combination of two unique attributes of Christianity—exclusivist and evangelical. Both Judaism and Christianity were exclusive—adherents were required to end allegiances to other gods—but Judaism was not evangelical. Only Christianity at the time was both exclusive and evangelical in nature.

In order to explain the effect of exclusivity to the reader, Ehrman summarizes Ramsay MacMullen's work which imagines a crowd of 100 pagans watching a persuasive Christian debate an equally persuasive adherent of the healing god Asclepius: "What happens to the overall relationship of (inclusive) paganism and (exclusive) Christianity? … Paganism has lost 50 worshipers and gained no one, whereas Christianity has gained 50 worshipers and lost no one."

Of course there were other reasons that made Christianity inviting to new believers. One was that it was open to women—in the earlier years it may have been predominately women. It was also concerned with questions of social welfare—healing the sick, caring for the poor. But if you believe the early Christians from their own writing as to why they gained new members you have to accept that the spreading of stories about miracles and the doctrine of eternal fires of hell after death for unbelievers were also significant reasons.

Of course after Constantine came to power in 306 CE and the Edict of Milan in 313 CE, Christianity grew even faster because he provided favored status to Christianity. It wasn't made the official state religion of the Empire until the year 380 CE. However, Ehrman maintains that Christianity could have thrived without Constantine because of its exclusivist and evangelical characteristics as explained above.

The book does tell of the efforts of Julian—emperor from 361 to 363 CE—to revert back to paganism. He was emperor for only eighteen months, and it's interesting to speculate how history might have been different had be been emperor as long as Constantine (i.e. 31 years). Julian was sort of a philosopher king and notable author in Greek, and it's easy for modern secularists to sympathize with him because some of his Christian contemporaries were pretty extreme in their behavior when judged by post enlightenment standards.

[Kuszma · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Hogyan térítette meg egy apró, betiltott szekta az egész világot?" - kérdezi az alcím, én meg azt felelem neki: no, ezen már én is gondolkodtam. Ehrman kötete ezt az egészen unikális sikertörténetet világítja meg nekünk, szépen érzékeltetve a Római Birodalom akkori állapotát, a sokszínű, plurális vallási közeget, amit összefoglaló néven "pogány" névvel illettek a keresztények, és azt, ahogy ezt a sokszínűséget legyűrte a Krisztus-hívők kizárólagosságra törekvése.

Ehrman válasza a "hogyan?" kérdésre (zanzásítva) két nagy formátumú személy és néhány (Niall Ferguson kifejezését kölcsönvéve) "gyilkos alkalmazás". A személyek közül az első Pál*, aki először döbbent rá, hogy ha csak a zsidók között térít, akkor a kereszténység megmarad marginális szektának a számos izraelita irányzat között - racionalizált tehát pár törvényt (pl. az, hogy a körülmetélést nem tette kötelezővé, egészen biztosan férfitársaim ezreinek tette egyből szimpatikusabbá a tanokat), és nekiindult a nagyvilágnak közösségeket alkotni. Az ő elképesztő logisztikai-szervezői képességei nélkül a kereszténység nagy valószínűséggel ma nem az lenne, aminek ismerjük, már ha lenne egyáltalán. A másik központi figura Constantinus, aki római császárként először tett nyíltan hitet az új vallás mellett. Addig ugyanis a keresztények, ha nem is álltak folyton üldöztetés alatt, de gyakorta estek áldozatul mindenféle pogromoknak**. Ha valami puruttya faluban lábon rohadt meg a búza, rájuk sütötték, hogy ők haragították meg az isteneket, mert nem hajlandóak áldozni nekik - és máris egy kellemes lincselés kellős közepében találták magukat. Hogy a császári megtérés mennyire volt őszinte és milyen okai voltak***, az nem deríthető ki pontosan, de tény: ez lehetővé tette a birodalom lakóinak, hogy nyíltan vállalják hitüket, sőt, a hitvallással olyan jól szervezett, hierarchikus szervezet tagjaivá váltak, ami tudta őket segíteni ügyes-bajos dolgaik elvégzésében.

Igen ám, de a két személy között volt csaknem háromszáz év - hogy tudott Pál és Constantinus között a kereszténység annyira megerősödni, hogy számításba kellett venni? És itt jönnek be a képbe az ún. "gyilkos alkalmazások". Addig ugyanis a pogányok teljesen máshogy élték meg a vallásosság fogalmát. Ők egyfajta isteni multikultiban éltek, és meglehetősen funkcionálisan szemlélték a dolgot: ha meg akartak átkozni valakit, az egyik istenhez fordultak, ha meg akartak gyógyulni, egy másikhoz, és ha átköltöztek egy másik városba, minden fennakadás nélkül tértek át a helyi istenekre. Nem különösebben érdekelte őket, hogy más miben hisz (amíg nem ütközött a másik vallási gyakorlata a komfortzónájukkal), és az etikát sem kezelték együtt a vallással - azt sokkal inkább a filozófia tárgykörébe tartozónak tartották. És akkor jöttek a keresztények.

Először is: ők térítettek. Súlyt fektettek arra, hogy meggyőzzék a többieket az igazukról. Ez meglepő volt. Másfelől ők kizárólagosságot követeltek: ha valaki áttért, az elveszett a többi vallás számára. Harmadrészt olyan vallást kínáltak, egyfajta 2-in-1 csomagban, ami etikai elveket is tartalmazott, tehát életvezetési tanácsokat is mellékeltek hozzájuk. Negyedszer: csodákat is bemutattak, ha hihetünk a Bibliának. És ha egy csávó feltámaszt az orrod előtt egy füstölt halat, akkor elég nehéz vitatkozni vele. Ötödször: kitalálták a pokollal való cidriztetés hagyományát. Mert az, hogy a keresztények a mennybe jutnak, csak egy dolog, kell egy hely azoknak is, akik nem térnek át, elrettentésül. És mindehhez tegyük hozzá: a politeizmus és a monoteizmus között volt átmenet, ami megkönnyítette a váltást. Mégpedig a henoteizmus, amit számos római polgár (valószínűleg Constantinus is) gyakorolt: ők ugyanis elfogadták ugyan, hogy számos isten van, de hitték, hogy van egy közöttük, aki mindegyiknél hatalmasabb - őt elég volt behelyettesíteni a keresztények Istenére, és máris nagy lépést tettek a keresztény vallás felé.

Nagyszerű könyv az európai történelem egyik legfontosabb változásáról, mindenkinek ajánlom, aki nem elégszik meg annyival, hogy "azért van így minden, mert így lett elrendelve". Végig érezni rajta, hogy Ehrman objektíven akarja szemlélni a diadalt, mert tudja, ami az egyiknek diadal, az a másiknak vereség, amit illik tiszteletben tartani. Sajnos ez a kereszténységnek nem igazán sikerült - amíg kisebbségben voltak, hiába szólították fel toleranciára a pogányokat, amikor pedig többségbe kerültek, tőlük kértek hiába kegyelmet. Nem voltak mindig a legjobb győztesek, na. Vajon Jézus mit szólt volna ehhez? Ki tudja.

* Jó, jó, tudom, felhorgadnak egyesek, mert az első nyilván Jézus. Egyezzünk ki abban, hogy ebben a versenyben Jézus nem indul, mert sportszerű: tudja, úgyis ő nyerne.
** Érdekes, hogy a korai keresztényeket gyanúsan hasonló vádakkal illették, mint amilyenekkel később az európai keresztények a zsidókat: többek között újszülött gyerekek vérének elfogyasztásával.
*** Tény, hogy a keresztények monoteizmusa csábító analógia lehetett egy császárnak: hisz ahogyan az égben is csak egyetlen Isten uralkodik, úgy a földön is egy császár kell legyen az úr.

[Brian Griffith · Rating 4 out of 5]

As usual, Ehrman’s research is fascinating and challenging. Maybe the parts I found most helpful concerned the classical pagan religions, and how they differed in function, diversity, and common sense from early Christianity. Concerning the factors accounting for the slow but exponential expansion of churches, one argument Ehrman makes is that the Christians’ religious exclusivity (with acceptance of Christianity requiring rejection of all other religions) worked in favor of gradual Christian dominance. The evidence he gives seems to demonstrate that the least tolerant tend to inherit the earth. Maybe that was true in the past.

Another important theme Ehrman explores is how the Christians shifted their arguments about religious freedom. While they were still a small minority in the Roman empire, their leaders argued for freedom and tolerance. As Tertullian appealed to the governor of Carthage in the early 200s CE, “It is a fundamental human right, a privilege of nature, that everyone should worship according to his own convictions: one person’s religion neither harms nor helps another. It is assuredly no part of religion to compel religion. … You will render no real service to your gods by compelling us to sacrifice.”

But after the Christian church gained state-backing, its leaders increasingly endorsed suppression of other religions. According to the law code of Christian emperor Theodosius II (late 300s), people who still followed other religions (or unauthorized churches) were “demented and insane.” If found to be gathering for their heretical rites, they should be “expelled from the cities and driven forth from the villages.” They would “be smitten first by divine vengeance and secondly by the retribution of Our Own initiative, which we shall assume in accordance with the divine judgment” (Theodosian Code, articles 16. 5.6; 16.5.20; 16.1.2).

[Tim O'Neill · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's a mark of a good work of history when it changes the views of someone who knows the subject well, but this one has done that on several points for me. This is far from the first book which has tackled how Christianity went from a tiny Messianic Jewish sect to a marginalised and often persecuted saviour cult and then to the religion that conquered the Roman Empire and the western world. This is a subject that can stir up both triumphant apologism and vehement condemnation - with smug Christian retrospective congratulation one hand or biased anti-religious idealisation of paganism on the other. The recent work of Rodney Stark or, to an extent, that of David Bentley Hart represents the former position. That of Charles Freeman or, more recently (and stupidly), Catherine Nixey represents the latter stance. As a judicious and objective leading academic and one of the best and most accessible public educators currently working on religion in the ancient world, Ehrman maps a careful and scholarly path between these distorted ideological extremes.

He does this by bracketing his story with careful analysis of the most critical figure in it - the Roman emperor Constantine the Great. Constantine's conversion to Christianity in 312 AD marks the turning point in the early history of Christianity - when it went from persecuted superstitio to the faith of the emperor himself and, within 70 years, the state religion of the Roman Empire. Why (or even whether) Constantine adopted Christianity has been a vexed historical question for centuries, and one complicated by theological and other ideological biases. Ehrman deftly maps out the most likely path that this tough soldier and brutally pragmatic politician took, rejecting both the cartoon Christian image of Constantine as some kind of saint (the man murdered both his wife and his son and killed his way to the throne) and the silly modern fantasy that he was a cynical opportunist who converted for political reasons. Ehrman looks at Constantine in the context of ancient religion and the way a soldier and pragmatist would have seen his relationship with a god who, in his eyes, had given him a victory in battle against the odds and handed him the Empire.

But Ehrman argues against the idea that Constantine's battlefield conversion was the key factor that turned Christianity from a marginal sect to the dominant religious and political force in the later Roman world. He argues that while the championing of Christianity by Constantine and his successors clearly made a significant impact and obviously turned the religion's fortunes around in dramatic style, Christianity was already on the path to dominating the Empire. This was because of a critical demographic and sociological dynamic - Christianity was an exclusive and rather intolerant creed, whereas paganism was not. The relatively plastic and generally (though not totally) tolerant nature of traditional Roman religion meant, as time went by, the totally exclusive and (largely) intolerant credal nature of Christianity meant it was always gaining traction while paganism was always losing ground. Ehrman argues - persuasively, in my opinion - that this dynamic means that even if Constantine had not converted, the law of increasing demographic returns means Christianity would have destroyed Roman paganism eventually anyway. For better or for worse, it was an ideological and demographic tide that had been building for centuries and could not be turned back.

Christian apologists have long attributed this to divine providence and argued it is evidence of their faith's truth. Ehrman shows it to be simply a matter of historical dynamics and coolly dismisses the idea that Christianity was somehow uniquely virtuous and inherently persuasive. Anti-Christian polemicists have exaggerated the level of political coercion imposed by Constantine and his successors and attributed the success of Christianity to imposition of a obnoxious new creed by increasingly oppressive despots and religious fanatics. Ehrman doesn't shy from the obvious evidence of the intolerance of late Roman Christianity, but notes that the fourth and fifth century emperors were not motivated or even powerful enough to impose the new faith by force. Christianity won out on its own merits, not because of the sporadic and highly periodic episodes of violence or destruction that anti-Christian polemicists since Gibbon have been keen to over-emphasise.

As a judicious historian of early Christianity with a clear-eyed understanding of the ancient world, Ehrman maps out a path between the ideological thickets that surround the question of the triumph of Christianity in Late Antiquity. He uses the sociological and demographic work of scholars like Rodney Stark while correcting the latter's apologetic biases. And he makes use of the studies of rather obviously anti-Christian analysts like Ramsey MacMullen while also avoiding his warping prejudices. This is not a groundbreaking work, but - like all good popular histories by leading scholars - it synthesises and clarifies what historians have detailed over recent decades. Like many of Ehrman's books, this will be a clear and accessible guide on this subject that will be useful for many years to come. Highly recommended.

[Michael Finocchiaro · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was a little disappointed with Ehrman's The Triumph of Christianity: How a Small Band of Outcasts Conquered an Empire to be honest. It was less interesting than How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee perhaps because of the conjectural nature of the subject, or because of the somewhat redundant points repeated ad nauseum throughout the book. Admittedly, I may not be the best audience for this book, having already read quite a bit about late antiquity and being more interested in artistic expression than persecution per se. Perhaps another issue is that there is no conclusion here: the book title seems to indicate that there is a definitive answer, but in fact, as I mentioned before, it is all highly conjectural. What I did find interesting was the idea that pagan religions were not centralized as opposed to early Christianity and so when Christians had the upper hand, they confiscated pagan temples and land making them filthy rich and obscenely powerful. This was probably one of the main causes for the victory; there was nowhere for the non-Christians to hide and no way to escape some form of dependency on the militant church.

[Raymond · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book fascinating. It tells the early story of how Christianity became one of the major world religions. Ehrman challenges the notion that the cause was Emperor Constantine's conversion to Christianity and that the real reason is that the religion spread by word of mouth in small social networks. He presents his findings by using ancient source material and data. A very readable book.

[Socraticgadfly · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nice try in theory, falls well short in reality

This was a book tough to rate.

I generally like(d) — past tense with new edit — Ehrman. I generally think that mythicists unfairly belittie him, though I disagree with some specifics of his own supporting material offered for a historic Jesus.

The idea of the book isn’t new, but presented in popularizing form from a knowledgable New Testament scholar, promised to be good, possibly very good.

But, it fell short. Short enough in some ways that I took fairly detailed notes at chapter breaks.

Without explicitly saying so, Ehrman seems to indicate that Christian evangelism and Christian miracle-working both had modest-to-moderate boosts for the early decades of Christianity, but no more than that, and then it was primarily word-of-mouth, just like you and I buy a car or toothpaste today.

However …

First, the evangelism issue is nowhere near as simple as Ehrman paints.

First of all, we know that Christianity was NOT the only evangelistic religion of antiquity, contra what Ehrman implies, and even semi-directly says.

Ashoka’s Buddhist missionaries to the West went as far as Macedonia and Cyrenaica circa 200 BCE. Four hundred years later, Clement of Alexandria and other Christian fathers knew about ongoing Buddhist proselytizing. And, Will Durant even speculated it may have been an element in Christian missions. See more here.

Either Ehrman is surprisingly uninformed here, or else, Ehrman’s definition of antiquity is narrow. Neither speaks well for this book.

Also, per reading between the lines in Acts, and in some of Paul’s letters, and my take on J. Massyngberde Ford’s Anchor Bible volume on who wrote the original core of Revelation, we know that at least a few followers of John the Baptist evangelized.

Paul himself mentions Apollos and Peter, even talking about Peter getting paid to take his wife with him.

So, Ehrman has a foul ball here.

On the miracle working, whether real or not, Ehrman doesn’t mention that this was common outside Christianity. Indeed, Jewish charismatics such as Honi the Circle Drawer come to mind. Or Morton Smith’s “Jesus the Magician.” Or the name Simon Magus. Ehrman doesn’t go into a lot of depth here. He even mentions Apollonius of Tyana, the contemporary of Jesus, but never goes into detail about his own reported miracle-working.

(Update. This thread isn't new. Ehrman started this thread a dozen years earlier, in "Peter, Paul and Mary Magdalene." Thie idea there is: Christians did miracles. They reflect pagan stories of the gods (like Zeus and Hermes visiting Baucis and Philemon. {A deconstructionist critic would aay, hey, Ovid put this in Tyana, where Appolonius was from, and Paul wrote a letter to a Philemon, and would go from there.] Pagan miracles of the present, like the aforesaid Apollonius, don’t get mentioned. Nor do Jewish miracles.)

So, if Christian miracles were more powerful than Jewish, Greek philosophical, or pagan religious ones, why? They were all common. Ehrman doesn't discuss why Xn magic was considered more powerful, whether it had a big effect on recruiting or not.

It’s true that no ancient author writes an unbiased account of this in detail. But Ehrman, while noting that no actual such miracles likely happened, doesn’t explain why Christians were perceived to be (as he would seemingly have us believe) better miracle-workers or magicians.

And, if evangelism were as low as Ehrman thinks it was after Paul, and pagans and philosophers did magic, too, then why was word-of-mouth as successful as Ehrman thinks it was? Word of mouth 2,000 yrs ago presumably was based on testimonials just as much as today.

(Update: This wasn't the Rome of Marcus Aurelius or later, where plagues gave an example for Christians to demonstrate charity, either. Ehrman's story starts earlier.)

Reality is that, with people like Polycarp, or Clement of Rome, their letters to other churches were surely part of an ongoing program not just of church maintenance but church planting and spreading. Look at the pseudo-Pauline letter to “Ephesians.” Originally a circular letter, it probably was written in similar spirit.

And, the third failing, a partial one.

I agree with Ehrman that many of the details of Rodney Stark’s projected growth rates of Christianity don’t withstand scrutiny.

However, even though Decius’ persecution wasn’t specifically against Christianity, Diocletian’s was. In a sort of analogy, American whites will start to flee suburban neighborhoods and even whole communities when an influx of minority population, and above all, African-American population, hits a certain percentage, usually around 10 percent.

Ehrman doesn’t ask if a similar phenomenon were in play here. If it was, his believed population percentage of Christians, empire-wide, was too low at the time of Diocletian to be such a trigger. Now, the persecutions were carried out most commonly in the eastern half of the empire, and we have some fairly good indications Christianity was stronger there.

Nonetheless, Ehrman doesn’t follow up.

A fourth partial failing, in my opinion?

Ehrman seems to believe Christianity was not just majority-gentile, but strongly so, by circa 100 CE.

Yet, he fails to mention the “desynagoging” that happened circa 100 CE, per John. If this really did happen, it undercuts Ehrman’s thesis. If it didn’t, he should have offered a bit of exegesis on John here to explain this.

(Update: That's part of a larger failure of Ehrman's, to not engage with modern studies of early Christian origins — NOT exegesis, but what we know today behind exegesis of 2nd century Christianity. There's also the issue of why did eventual non-"orthodox" Christianities fall by the wayside? And when did "orthodoxy" really start getting the upper hand?)

Despite John speaking bluntly of “the Jews,” I think something did happen.

Finally, Ehrman makes a partial version of the same error Stark does on population growth, and it’s connected to his overlooking or ignoring Buddhist evangelism.

He focuses on growth within the Roman Empire.

Armenia became officially Christian in 301 CE, nearly a century before Theodosius so proclaimed Rome. Various kingdoms that today make up Georgia became officially Christian before that time. Ulfilias proselityzed Goths, presumably with some Goths previously Christian, before Theodosius. Legends of Thomas Christians aside, there were Christians in India before this time. Ditto for ancient Nubia, beyond Rome’s Nile frontier.

In critiquing and criticizing Stark, I have noted all of this and said that at least 10 percent of Christians at the time of Constantine were outside imperial borders.

And, of course, by the period that closes Ehrman’s book, Christianity had not swept “the world.” Not even the "Roman world."

Finishing up this last section of the notes as I got ready to post this led me to take Ehrman down from three to two stars. Several three-star readers seemed too kind in their detailed reviews.

Ehrman – and his agent who suggested this – should either have committed to an additional 20-30 pages and more rigor, or else suggested this as a series of magazine essays only, or similar.

[Danilo Scardamaglio · Rating 2 out of 5]

Non riesco davvero a comprendere come un'opera simile possa essere un manuale universitario (fortunatamente non ho dovuto studiarlo per l'università ma l'ho letto per personale interesse). Oltre a un pressappochismo certe volte sconvolgente (Catone il Censore definito famoso agronomo del proprio tempo mi ha fatto sanguinare gli occhi) e uno stile blando, sgraziato, quel che mi ha maggiormente infastidito durante la lettura è stata la faziosità della trattazione. Comprendo quanto sia impossibile scrivere di storia senza essere almeno implicitamente schierati, però qui credo si raggiunga un eccesso abbastanza grave. Il tentativo di screditare l'espansione cristiana e il suo consolidamento appare in alcune pagine simile alla più becera propaganda anticlericale (tengo a precisare di non essere cristiano praticante, anzi), così come il giudizio sulle fonti cristiane, giudicate spesso inattendibili, stride fortemente con un'acritica accettazione, al contrario, delle fonti pagane.
Non do una stella solo perché, a dispetto di tutto, è una parte della storia umana che mi affascina immensamente.
(Considerazioni a margine: possibile che la sudditanza italiana agli Stati Uniti, anche in ambito universitario, sia tale da importare e fare studiare opere di questo calibro? Mah.)

[Gabrielė Bužinskaitė · Rating 5 out of 5]

I never understood how a small cult over a crucified man grew into the world’s largest religion. A religion that shaped our western societies, and ultimately, each of us living in them.

The author does an excellent, unbiased, and evidence-based job explaining how Christianity spread in the first four centuries. It wasn’t just the Roman Emperor’s conversion that did it — Christianity would likely have spread just as much even without him.

For anyone interested in the history of Christianity as well as Judaism and Paganism of the first centuries AD, it’s a wonderful book to start with.

[Tanja Berg · Rating 4 out of 5]

The title pretty much says it all - how a small band of poor outcasts launched a new religion that took over the world. Given that the first Christians were uneducated and illiterate, it is a quite amazing feat. However, it was not a "triumph" as such, nor a given. The importance of Paul cannot be understated, without his early conversion few years after the death of Jesus, it is unlikely that Christianity could have risen as a world religion.

[Derek · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’d been wrestling with this author’s works for a while now. I knew I loved his subject matter, but I couldn’t quite decide if I appreciated his popularizing style which sometimes borders on condescension. This book has tipped the balance for me. After a rocky start, I learned a lot from the prolific author’s broad knowledge of Judaism, early Christianity, and, more broadly, the late antique world. His explanation of paganism was particularly enlightening. I’m on to How Jesus Became God and liking that too, though he perhaps necessarily repeats himself at some points.

[Michael Austin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fun, insightful, and somewhat frustrating book to read. The frustration comes from its length, which was not longer than most of Bart Ehrman's other books, but was, by my estimation, at least twice as long as it needed to be in order to make his case. This is not a reflection on the case he was making, just on the amount of repetition and filler that went into the making of it.

The actual case is pretty simple (and owes a lot to Rodney Stark's calculations in _The Rise of Christianity_): Christianity in the Roman Empire grew at a steady, exponential rate from the death of Jesus (around 30 CE) through to the conversion of Constantine (312 CE). During this time, Christianity grew from a small group of less than 100 people to a non-trivial religion of around 4-6 million people (a maximum of 10% of the population of the Empire).

The reasons for this growth aren't surprising, but they also aren't what they are often portrayed to be. Specifically, they were not the result of organized evangelism like we see in the New Testament. Paul was really the only large-scale Christian missionary in the first 300 years of the Church. The Church grew, instead, by what we would call word of mouth. People became Christians and told their friends and family about it, and those friends and family became Christians too. They became Christians because they heard about (and possibly experienced) miracles, because they were attracted to the Christian idea of God and the Afterlife, because the Christian community appealed to them, or just because other powerful people that they were attached to became Christians.

The growth of Christianity actually created a thing called "paganism"--something that Christianity wasn't. This is a good point that Ehrman makes, but he makes it a bunch of times and it starts to feel thin. But it is true that, before Christianity, nobody actually thought of herself as a "pagan." People just did what people did, which involved worshipping a bunch of gods, mainly by offering sacrifices and participating in other cultic rituals. Rome was actually very tolerant of different kinds of worship, people could worship just about anything they wanted any way they wanted to.

Christianity was transgressive, not because of the nature of its god, or even because it worshipped a former mortal being as a god (lots of Roman cults did this, including the cults of most of the recent emperors). But Christianity was exclusive. It didn't just worship a god; it proscribed the worship of other gods. This caused some conflict between Christians and other Romans, because it meant that Christians did not participate in the state-sponsored rituals that, most people in Rome felt, kept the gods happy and the empire safe.

But until the middle of the 3rd century, the persecution was not as dire as it is often portrayed. Nero did execute Christians in particularly grizzley ways after the fire that he probably started himself in 64 CE. But this was an exception. For the most part, most Christians lived and died for 250 years without encountering the power of the state. Even though they were growing exponentially, they were still too small to worry much about. But by 250 or so, when Christians numbered in the low millions, emperors started to pay attention--especially Valerian and Diocletian, who formalized the persecution of Christians.

But then Constantine became emperor and, in 312, converted to Christianity. This was a game changer, but it was not, in Ehrman's view, decisive. 90% of the empire was still pagan, but Constantine ended the persecution and instituted broad religious tolerance. More importantly, perhaps, he changed the dynamic of the imperial court. From Constantine until the fall of Rome, every emperor but one (Julian) was a Christian, and this conveyed a special status on Christianity and eventually led to the persecution of pagans (now that they were a thing).

Imperial favor accelerated, but did not ultimately cause, the triumph of Christianity. By the time that Constantine converted, the Jesus movement had already passed a key tipping point, and it was experiencing a growth rate that placed it on track to dominate the empire even without official sanction. Of course, without Constantine's conversion, and the subsequent Christianization of the Imperial gene pool, the growth might not have continued because of imperial disfavor of the sort that Christians experienced in the late 3rd century.

The most fascinating question that Ehrman raises is also the one that neither he nor anybody else can answer: what would have happened if Christianity had not become the official, and overwhelmingly largest religion of the Rome Empire. What would have emerged in its place? This is intriguing because people often claim that Christianity ruined everything with the Crusades, the Inquisition, the Dark Ages, and all of the other nasty things that happened between the Fall of Rome and the Enlightenment.

The thing is, though, that, if it hadn't been Christianity, it would have been something else--some other organizing principle (or principles) would have organized society for a thousand years. Would this have been a moral order based on the work of Plato and Aristotle, or a continuation of the brutality of the Roman Empire. No way to know, of course. But it is a really interesting thing to think about.

[MG · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of Bart's best books in a while since he is not simply talking about his favorite topic (the Bible) from just a slightly different angle. This one is an exploration of what happened after the Bible was written, namely, how a handful of Christians became two to three million Christians by the time of Constantine's conversion early in the fourth century. I found his explanation of the cultural context the most fascinating--what it meant to be a pagan, how religion was defined by ritual practice and not by beliefs, what was new, unique, and attractive about Christianity, and so on. He points out that defining faith by beliefs was a new idea as was the idea that a religion should be evangelistic and exclusive. (The Jewish people were exclusive but not evangelistic.) His main argument (spoiler alert) is that by demanding exclusivity and promising power, care, miracles, and escape from hell, but without organized missionary activity after Paul, the church grew among the lower classes and laborers exponentially. Since each conversion meant one could no longer be a pagan (which did not work the other way), paganism inevitably declined. I found his conclusion less than fully convincing since it does not really explain why the church grew by 20 to 25 percent over three centuries. That is an amazing rate at any point in history for any religion. He says at the beginning that Christianity ushered in a completely different value system from the Roman one, which was built around dominance and authority. In Christianity there is a new idea that everyone is equal before God and one has the duty to help the weak, suffering, and marginalized. But he does not find this a compelling explanation (versus Rodney Stark) for the faith's "triumph." I would think this change had something to do with what made Christianity so revolutionary and attractive, even if only at the level of the evolution of ideas and values. Still there is much to enjoy and chew on since Bart is so gifted at remembering what lay people don't know and revealing new angles and questions that allows us to see the topic in a fresh and exciting way.

[Grace · Rating 2 out of 5]

My giving this 2 stars doesn’t necessarily mean it was a bad book, but it was definitely not what I was hoping for and not exactly what it purported to be. I’m a nonbeliever but I love history and really enjoy reading about how Christianity was practiced in the ancient world— I’ve enjoyed reading Marcus Borg and How Jesus Became God by Ehrman was a really fascinating and compelling read. This, unfortunately, was not.

What I did find fascinating was the exploration of what it meant to be a pagan in antiquity, and how paganism was practiced— with scores of different gods, varying by locality, and an emphasis on sacrifice and pleasing the gods, but without a strong emphasis on morality and belief (as opposed to Christianity). Ehrman does do a great job of explaining how religion was structured and practiced in the pre-Christian world.

What I found unsatisfying was the emphasis on the Roman Empire and emperors, and not on what was happening among the people living in the empire. I do understand that the reason for this is that there are far less resources to consult for what everyday people were up to, and much has been lost. But what happened beyond the reign of Theodosius I? I thought the book was going to go a little further beyond, and as it was, what we got was somewhat vague with regard to the emperors.

All in all, this was not a terrible book, but not one I would recommend others start with if interested in the how and why of the rise of Christianity.

[Dan Graser · Rating 5 out of 5]

In his latest book, Bart Ehrman turns his attention to the unique success of the christian religion at a time when there were several competing worldviews and examines why it was christianity that ended up with the lion's share of adherents. While believers point to the ultimate truth of their message as the main catalyst, non-believers frequently cite imperial pressures from the likes of Constantine (even though they usually mean Theodosius). After profiling the two most important important historical conversions, those of Paul and Constantine, Ehrman instead focuses on the unique attributes of the belief system itself, how it developed following Paul's conversion, the means whereby pagans and other believers could come to drop their former preachments in favor of this new religion, it's exclusive and evangelical/missionary nature, the math behind its rise in the Roman empire, and how this played out at the highest levels of power. Very informative and erudite writing from an excellent scholar, highly recommended.

[Todd Stockslager · Rating 4 out of 5]

Atheism, compounded daily

In "pagan" (more on that in a moment) Rome, the early Christians were considered atheists because they refused to worship the pantheon of Roman gods. This 180-degree twist in passages from contemporary documents quoted by Ehrman gives an ironic impetus to his historical examination of how Christianity grew from tiny Jewish cult to world-changing religion of empire over its first 350 years of existence. The answer lies in the messenger , the message, the method, the mileau--and the power of compound growth.

Ehrman takes an explicitly historical and nonreligious approach to the topic. He discounts the attributed authorship and dating of many of the New Testament texts, and while claiming no opinion on the possibility of supernatural influence via miracles and other workings of the Holy Spirit recorded in the book of the Acts of the Apostles, he clearly does not believe any miraculous events. As a historian, he writes, he has no way to evaluate claims of miracles; what is important to him is that some said that they saw or performed miracles, and that others believed that the miracles occurred when they were told about them.

This agnostic approach actually makes his history more powerful than if written by a theologian or a Christian intent on showing the power of God in establishing the church as described in the Acts and the following 350 years. Ehrman uses Biblical texts discounted by higher criticism, contemporary extra-Biblical sources including apocryphal writings, and archeological data, without any attribution of the survival and growth of the church to its supernatural founder. In doing so he has effectively documented the powerful hand of God in real time revealed in the most mundane arguments of human historical reasoning:

The messenger. Ehrman calls Paul without exaggeration the most important convert in the history of Christianity. Through his background as a persecutor of the first Christians, a Jew familiar with the Hebrew scriptures, and a rigorously logical thinker, once converted Paul became a powerful and persuasive advocate for the religion he first hated. He was able to craft arguments in written and spoken forms that proved persuasive and lasting; his letters to the churches he founded or visited remain the root source of the core of Christian doctrine two thousand years later. Fragments of the collected letters of Paul dating from about AD 100 in the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin left a lasting impression on me.

The message. Jesus during his brief years documented in the gospels preached a message of love, redemption, and humility that declared his purpose of fulfilling the law and saving the world; it is a message he powerfully summed up in John 3:16. He established his divinity through big miracles and bold statements. He gathered a small group of men and women who believed and supported his ministry. But it was Paul the Messenger who shaped the words of Jesus into a coherent Message that called the multitudes:

Paul's message, in a nutshell, was a Jewish apocalyptic proclamation with a seriously Christian twist God was saving this world. He had destroyed the power of sin by the death of Jesus; he had destroyed the power of death by the resurrection of Jesus; and he would destroy the power of evil by the return of Jesus. It was all going according to plan. Paul knew for a fact that it was because with his own eyes he had seen that Jesus had been raised from the dead. He also knew that Jesus was soon to return. This time he would not come meekly. (p. 70)

The method. After the missionary journeys described in Acts, Ehrman writes that surviving contemporary accounts in both Christian and non-Christian sources document almost no other organized Christian missionary efforts through 400 AD. The gospel spread through the Roman empire via word of mouth by believers who not only spoke but lived an attractive faith. And Ehrman finds that accounts of miracles were widely recorded and widely reported by the converted as the reason for their faith. Ehrman never says it but I will: if these miracles did not occur, then the Christians of the time were duplicitous marketers of fraudulent hope and their converts were easily duped fools buying false promises.

Ehrman believes Paul primarily worked by renting a workshop in a crowded urban area where he performed his trade of tent making (and probably other small leatherwork) while talking to his customers, neighbors, and passersby about his life and his experiences with this new faith he had found. Contrary to the assumption that Paul would have gone to the synagogues and preached, Ehrman points out that in Paul's own words he was considered an outcast and beaten by Jews now that he was preaching this new faith to the gentiles, so the synagogue seems an unlikely starting point for Paul.

The mileau. The message of Jesus delivered through the messenger Paul by word of mouth arrived at a propitious moment that enabled its success. Roman roads supported an ease of travel that would not be bettered until the industrial revolution. While a majority still lived in the countryside, population density in urban areas was higher than even modern cities, so that word of mouth could and did travel fast. The pace of business gave a craftsman like Paul time to tell stories to their neighbors and customers that quickly filtered to homes, gathering places, and extended family.

The religious background of the Roman empire also proved fertile. Gods were everywhere in a profusion of forms and sources, worshipped by everyone nonexclusively: New gods would be introduced to the pantheon and worshipped in case their service proved helpful to health, crops, financial success or military victory. These religions were loosely organized, had little moral, ethical, or doctrinal content, and primarily consisted of temples where the occasional sacrifice, ceremony, and sharing of consecrated meals served as community gathering spots. Ehrman uses the term "pagan" to describe this broad range of belief in a single collective noun, even though there was not one single collective religion at the time that grouped them. Christianity, as did Judaism, differed and stood apart in its exclusivity and doctrine (Jesus was the only path to the only God), plus Christians, unlike either the Jews or the pagans, were evangelistic ; they tried to "convert"--a new term and new idea--their neighbors. So to the Roman emporers before Constantine, Christians were atheists because they did not worship the other gods, dangerous to the empire because they risked bringing the wrath of the gods with their lack of worship, and a threat to domestic tranquility because of their preaching and evangelism.

The power of compound growth. Before Constantine, the first Christian emporer, took office in AD 313, Christianity was an outlawed cult, but for most of those years so tiny that it barely registered as a real risk to be repressed. Was there violence against Christians before Constantine and against pagans after? In some places, at some times, but not all, reports Ehrman; violent punishment and forced conversion were generally recognized as ineffective and even counterproductive. The transition from official persecution of Christianity before Constantine to religious tolerance under Constantine beginning in 313 to official establishment of Christianity in the latter half of the century was not accompanied by comprehensive violence or accomplished with sweeping completeness. Christianity, while theologically exclusive ("there is only one God and one path to salvation") is not by doctrine intolerant ("believe or I'll kill you"), even when some Christians may speak and act intolerantly; time and God will sort that out, not any man or woman.

So to the numbers then: how did Christianity grow from 20 men and women huddled in abject fear after the crucifixion, to thousands added in missionary sermons for the next few years, to an estimated 30 million, or approximately half of the population of the Roman empire, by AD 400? By steady incremental growth, messengers like Paul bringing the message of Jesus in the mileau of the everyday using the only method that ever works: telling their personal stories about how the message changed their life and could change the life of the listener. Word spread. One man or woman was converted and brought the message to their house, their extended family, their neighbor. And over 350 years an exponential growth curve of Christianity was built that changed the culture, language, religion, and history of the world.

Ehrman spends some time documenting the few numbers available , and applying statistical analysis to them, but the power of compounding shows that small differences in the starting points on the curve ("how many Christians were there at point A on the line? ") really don't make much difference, nor are mass conversions in missionary crusades necessary to build up the curve. It is the steady year to year conversion of one person converting two others, who convert two others in the next years and so on until half the empire is converted. And while it is impossible to say, Ehrman believes it quite likely that Christianity would have grown at the same pace without the benefit of Constantine's tolerance and then subsequent elevation to the state religion of Rome, just as he points out that the suppression and persecution of Christianity earlier did not prevent its growth.

This is a short but weighty look at an amazing watershed in world history, as Ehrman concludes, the most monumental transition in world history. If you are looking for an an explicitly Christian apologetic worldview that tries to force the data to prove an argument, you won't find it here. You will find historical skepticism and an argument that relies only on the known and the knowable. And you may find it inspires you more than your next visit to church.

[Bennett Marcum · Rating 4 out of 5]

In Brief, the book covers the early Christian church from the apostles to the last pagan emperor of Rome. The cultural/social aspects that differentiated Christianity from the choices of Roman gods at the time.

I enjoy Bart Ehrman’s lectures and public speaking events and this book did not disappoint.

[Nelson Zagalo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Não é um tema que me tenha atraído nos últimos anos, contudo a leitura de "Heaven and Hell" (2020) de Bart Ehrman despertou-me o interesse, diga-se também que combinado com o meu crescente interesse pelos clássicos. Neste livro, "O Triunfo do Cristianismo" (2017), Ehrman situa a análise da afirmação do cristianismo entre o século I e o século V, levando-nos pela mão, permitindo que aprendamos imenso, fazendo da leitura uma experiência imensamente compensadora. Apesar da complexidade das questões, Ehrman partindo do trabalho de muitos outros académicos e seu, apresenta uma teorização credível sobre o modo como o cristianismo suplantou não só o judaísmo, mas em particular o paganismo, e como se afirmou e tornou na religião de facto de todo um império.

Na Roma Antiga existiam deuses para tudo, e cada um rezava aos que mais lhe convinham. A sociedade era politeísta e vivia bem na tolerância dos deuses de cada um. A assunção do cristianismo a religião de uma nação, império, que ocupava mais de metade da Europa e do Médio-Oriente, iria conferir poder, como nunca antes, a um conjunto muito concreto e delimitado de ideias. O cristianismo passaria de 30 pessoas no ano 30, para 30 milhões em pouco mais de 300 anos. Por volta do ano 500 a grande maioria de todo o império, 60 milhões, seria cristã. Por isso Ehrman diz, e temos de concordar, que foi "a maior transformação cultural que o nosso mundo alguma vez viu", porque:

"O cristianismo não só tomou conta do Império, como alterou radicalmente a vida dos que nele viviam. Abriu a porta a políticas e instituições públicas para cuidar dos pobres, dos fracos, dos doentes, e dos proscritos como membros merecedores da sociedade. Foi uma revolução que afectou práticas governamentais, legislação, arte, literatura, música, filosofia, e - a um nível ainda mais fundamental - a própria compreensão de milhares de milhões de pessoas sobre o que significa ser humano".

Ehrman diz que o cristianismo surgiu como solução apetecida pelos pagãos que se sentiam rechaçados pelo judaísmo e suas regras identitárias e práticas restritas. Porque, tal como o judaísmo, o cristianismo oferecia um deus único, mas mais importante, oferecia uma chave para explicar a vida, indo mesmo além do judaísmo, oferecendo uma chave para explicar o além-vida (ver o livro "Heaven and Hell" do mesmo autor).

Ehrman inicia a explicação do processo de afirmação com Constantino, o criador de Constantinopla e responsável por descriminalizar o cristianismo no século IV, mas acaba por ir atrás e colocar a ênfase em Paulo, século I. Porque Paulo daria início a um processo que até então nenhum outro movimento de ideias tinha pensado seguir, o missionarismo, o pregar da palavra, a persuasão e conversão dos outros. E isto fazia ainda mais sentido porque ao contrário do paganismo o cristianismo era exclusivo, não se podia ser cristão e adorar outros deuses. Por outro lado, como explica Ehrman, o cristianismo por se ter baseado na mitologia judia, trazia consigo um longo lastro teológico de suporte que lhe permitiria apresentar todo um cenário muito mais persuasivo do que o paganismo que era meramente sustentado em práticas.

Não deixa de ser impressionante pensar como uma religião, nascida de um punhado de pessoas, perseguidas por todos, viria, passados 300 anos, a conseguir infiltrar-se na governação de estados completos, e reinar sobre quase toda a Europa por mais 1000 anos. Foi preciso esperar pelo Renascimento, século XV, para ver a criatividade finalmente emancipar-se do imaginário religioso. Mas seria preciso chegar ainda o Iluminismo, século XVIII, para que se pudesse voltar a pensar o estado como separado da Igreja.

Publicado no VI:
https://virtual-illusion.blogspot.com...

[Susan O · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ehrman's latest book, The Triumph of Christianity, is not a literary form of a victory dance. He makes this clear from the introduction, explaining what we all know, that in any conflict where some person, organization, or nation, triumphs, there are always losers. In his book, he doesn't try to assess whether or not the triumph was a "good" or a "bad" thing in the context of history, just that it was.

Ehrman covers roughly the first 4 centuries of the common era, from the death of Jesus and the rise of the apostle Paul, through to the Emperor Constantine, the first Roman emperor to accept Christianity, then on to the succeeding rulers including Theodosius I, who made Christianity the official state religion. Drawing from diverse sources both Christian and Pagan, he covers not only the status of the Christian religion, but also that of the traditional Roman religions.

I find Ehrman's writing to be clear and concise, and well-documented. Highly recommended for those interested in the history of religion.

[Daniel Chaikin · Rating 4 out of 5]

53. The Triumph of Christianity : How a Forbidden Religion Swept the World by Bart D. Ehrman
reader: George Newbern
published: 2018
format: 10:22 Libby audiobook (~288 pages equivalent, 353 pages in hardcover)
acquired: library
listened: Sep 25 - Oct 4
rating: 4

From Litsy, Oct 5: I really enjoyed this book on audio. Nothing crazy or controversial, but a nice summary of the history of Christianity from a tiny sect to an empire-wide religion of the underclasses, to the empire's official religion. Eventually more than half the empire was Christian

Among the things I learned: 1. Christians weren't really persecuted all that badly 2. Rejection of other gods may have been the most important thing in its spread, because it meant it eliminated other religions 3. Before Constantine, Christians argued elegantly for freedom of religion. Under Constantine they won this! But then they persecuted... 4. Maybe Christianity originally spread as an eastern mystery cult. 5. It was really small a long time.

------------

This was a really nice supplement to my NT reading, as he goes into Paul and Acts, and into the contextual Roman history. He doesn't make any arguments on the question of Pauline Christianity or the possible James/Peter/Paul tensions, but only acknowledges some of the thinking and possibilities. He also spends some time talking about the various religious conventions of Rome and how Christianity mixed in. And he spends a lot of time on emperor Constantine (who first openly permitted Christianity in 321, summoned the First Council of Nicaea in 325, and converted to Christianity upon his death in 337. He was the first Roman emperor to convert.).

It was interesting to get a sense of how the religious acceptance evolved overtime. First on, religious grounds, Christianity was unique in that it (apparently slowly) made converts, but those converts than stopped practicing all other religious rites, so as it spread, what we call paganism lost followers. This hadn't happened previously because Judaism didn't really spread, and in general, if you honored one rite, there was no need to forgo any other rites or beliefs. That played some role in anti-Christian tensions.

And, Rome official acceptance evolved in interesting ways in the 4th century. Diocletian persecuted Christians. Constantine first persecuted them, then as a ruler supported Christianity. Julian grew up Christian, and then persecuted them as an emperor. Theodosius persecuted pagans.

[Edward · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ehrrman’s book covers the first four centuries of Christianity that followed upon the death of Christ and convincingly argues that its remarkable spread was due to natural historical conditions, that favored its development. If conditions were different, as they might well have been, it could have died out, as many other religions and cults did. Some other movement might well have taken its place. Ehrman, then, is not interested in making a case for any kind of miraculous guidance; he doesn’t deny the enormous cultural and spiritual influence that Christianity has had on the history of the work, but that is not his concern.

The earliest Christians were of course Jews and their beliefs were anchored in seeing Christ as a savior and messiah, but of course, not the type that Jews were expecting. Paul was the first great evangelizer, not restricting his message to Jews but opening it up to pagan converts. His preaching became effective, not by mass conversions such as we might think of as in big tent revival meetings, but rather by speaking to small groups, often in synagogues, and to individuals. Details of his message of love and salvation are found in his epistolary writings, but Ehrman thinks his message basically spread by word of mouth. By the second half of the first century after Christ, most believers had been pagans.

Ehrman emphasizes that what attracted people to Christianity was not so much a matter of belief (such as the formulations of the 4th century Nicene Creed, still recited in churches today) as practices of the Christians. Initially, he thinks this new belief and older pagan beliefs, of which there were hundreds, if not thousands of variations, had some things in common. They both looked to a god, or gods, that would help them to survive in their daily lives, and that entailed making requests and sacrifices to appease and access the power of the god (s).

What began to set Christians apart, though, was their emphasis upon love leading to an ethic of service, of helping the poor, homeless, hungry, and oppressed. The ritual of communion, of gathering and sharing a common meal, underscored these practices which were generally lacking in the Roman world. It’s true that Christians were much influenced by this Roman culture and often acted in ways contrary to their ideals, but the ideals were still in place.

Christian practices grew steadily, if not spectacularly, until Constantine, a Roman emperor declared at the beginning of the 4th century that Christianity was allowed full freedom of worship throughout the empire. At that time Christians probably made up seven to ten per cent of the population of the Roman Empire. By the end of the century, probably half of the empire’s 60 million inhabitants claimed Christian allegiance. Christians were not persecuted during the first three centuries, but after Constantine’s decree, it simply became easier to adhere to Christian practices and beliefs, especially in one god. And what set Christians apart was its growing sense of being exclusive. If you were a Christian you could no longer be a pagan practitioner. This, Ehrman thinks, is why it spread – it thrived by figuratively killing off its opposition, a new religious phenomenon.

From here, this exclusivity became enshrined in the Nicene Creed. Still, Christianity faced challenges, one that if successful might have wiped it out. Emperor Julian, for example, in the middle of the 4th century launched a campaign to restore the empire to greatness and that meant reviving pagan practices with Christianity as an obstacle to that goal. He died prematurely and had only several years to try to instill his vision and his efforts failed, but had he stayed in power for 30 or 40 years, it’s problematic whether Christianity would have survived.

Overall, Ehrman does a good job of demystifying the rise of Christianity. He shows that it grew naturally for understandable reasons and was not any kind of God-protected, triumphalist movement.

[Alan Tomkins · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 Stars. Well organized and researched, and clearly explained, this is a scholarly study in history; it is not theology. In fact, the author is frequently quite sympathetic to the ancient pagans. It is very informative, but it was for me a bit dry and repetitive at times, so I'm giving it three point five stars. That being said, it is a very good examination of how Christianity went from twenty or so followers immediately after Jesus's crucifixion and resurrection to thirty million (half the population of the Roman Empire) in only three hundred years; and how not long after that, it took over Western civilization, not just displacing the paganism that had existed throughout all prior history, but essentially eradicating it. It is indeed remarkable history, and was by no means inevitable...at least from an objective historian's perspective.

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is Bart Ehrman's historical analysis of Christianity's rise - which he professes to be the greatest cultural transformation the world has ever seen.

Primarily he focuses on Christian growth in the Roman Empire from 30CE to 500CE. Contrary to popular opinion, Ehrman argues that the single greatest moment leading to the triumph of christianity is not the conversion of Constantine in 312CE, but the conversion of the apostle Paul. This is primarily due to Paul's commitment to spreading the gospel to pagan gentiles. We know that nearly all early christian converts were not Jewish, but Pagan. Not only were Paul's missionary journeys on a scale unlike any other documented in early Church history, but he set the stage for large scale pagan conversion.

Furthermore, Ehrman discussed how, prior to christianity, the concept of "conversion" was unheard of. Paganism wasn't even really a religion because there were so many Gods which people believed in and worshipped in many different capacities; pagan simply was what everyone "was" in antiquity. People could come to believe in new Gods without denouncing their old ones. They could even practice Henotheism by worshipping one God as superior to all others. Christianity was the first time people's choice to believe in one God meant the complete abandonment of all their former beliefs. Thus, for every new Christian converted there was one less Pagan - slowly leading to it's demise.

So how did Christianity go from 20 devout followers during the time of Christ to 30 million followers (~50% of the roman empire) at the end of the fourth century? It would initially appear that a miraculous event or mass conversion would have to happen. To many, this was the result of Constantine's conversion and an immediate Christianization of the Roman Empire. In reality, Christian growth actually slowed slightly during the fourth century. More than likely, Christians simply grew their numbers steadily by 3-4% each year. This exponential growth, similar to compounding interest on investments, slowly skyrocketed Christianity into the spotlight.

Certainly there were many factors that played a roll in this steady growth. Firstly, Christian zeal. Rarely before in human history had people been so dedicated to their faith. Though not in the high numbers we have often been taught, many christians were more than willing to be martyred for their faith. Such commitment certainly caused intrigue. Furthermore, for people who were previously interested in Judaism but found it's requirements, for lack of a better word, weird, Christianity was very appealing. It is a little easier to make the conversion if you don't have to chop off your foreskin and keep kosher. The patriarchal nuclear family structure also aided conversion numbers. If a man was converted, that meant his entire family became christian.

So, not through mass missionary journeys or political coercion or even miracles did Christianity take over an empire. It was steady growth through evangelism in normal life - discussions at home and work.

While I appreciate Ehrman's work for it's historical focus and detailed academic framework, there is an additional point I took from this book as a Christian reader. You don't necessarily need to become a pastor or plant a church or go on a mission trip. The greatest testament to Christ is your faith in daily action. "Good" Christians aren't ones who do more religious work. Christians are truly great when they live out the teachings of Jesus every day by loving their neighbor, fighting for justice, and walking humbly in all facets of life big and small.

[George · Rating 2 out of 5]

MOSTLY UNINTERESTING.

“The ancient triumph of Christianity proved to be the single greatest cultural transformation our world has ever seen.” (p. 4)

As a longtime enthusiast of ‘extraordinary popular delusions and the madness of crowds,’ I had hopes that I might enjoy Bart D. Ehrman’s book, The Triumph of Christianity: How a Forbidden Religion Swept the World. I was wrong. Although it was marginally informative, it was too overwhelmingly boring for that to matter much.

Recommendation: Don’t waste you time.

“Paganism did not have to be destroyed by violent acts of Christian intolerance. It could, and did, die a natural death, cut off from resources and abandoned by popular opinion.” (p. 278)

Simon & Schuster, Kindle Edition, 336 pages.

[Mary Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well-presented history of the beginnings of Christianity. Refreshingly, there is no polemic and no apology. As the author states: if it were not Christianity, then there would be something else.
The book provides a view of the church that helps us understand that it does not hold the absolute monopoly on spirituality. Christianity is more a church of Paul than it is a church of Christ.

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

A historical look at how a small Jewish sect of less than 30 people grew into the large scale Christianity we see today. Factual and objective. It isn’t preachy but details the events in history that allowed the followers of Jesus Christ to go from hiding in houses to large scale churches through the Middle Ages, renaissance to the modern day mega church

[Eric Wojciechowski · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beginning with the conversion of Constantine (the same subject where the book returns in the end), Ehrman takes us then backwards to the oldest Christian writings we have, the letters of Paul. Although the Bible has many, there are only seven that appear authentic (the rest being later forgeries using Paul’s name). The authentic letters of Paul were directed at his budding church, authored somewhere around 50AD. Although Ehrman notes that this is relatively shortly after Jesus’ death, what he doesn’t discuss here is that a historical Jesus isn’t necessary to explain Paul or the rise of Christianity. No one believes Zeus or Osiris or Hercules or Zalmoxis or the many other gods or saviors were historical and yet, they had centuries of believers. Ehrman takes a historical Jesus as a given and we’re off. Which is just fine because the rise of Christianity is still chartable regardless of where you fall in the debate of Jesus historicity.

Paul’s letters tell of a man who came to accept the religion of Christianity and, working as perhaps a leather worker, he moved from town to town, talking to customers and anyone who would listen. His final goal was that of Spain where, once the message reached “the ends of the earth”, Jesus could return.

Ehrman discusses how this method of word of mouth was what got it started. As Paul persuaded new followers, they continued the mission. Unlike the pagan beliefs of the time, Christianity had such a mission: to spread this word. Paganism had no such mission. Why was the Christian mission of spreading the word so important? Because failure to accept it meant a terrible torment in the afterlife; where as, acceptance meant an afterlife of favors and pleasures. The many flavors of paganism had no afterlife message.

The likely community this created, of a new kind of family where Christians were all brothers and sisters, all joining in communal prayers and meals, was clearly winning over as by the time of Constantine, there were about thirty-million converts. What made Christianity so different than the pagan gods and rituals? Why was it that unlike paganism (which was everything other than Judaism or Christianity back then) which worked by assimilation, Christianity left everything else in it’s wake? It’s because conversion to Christianity meant having to give up all the other gods. Where as the pagan ways could incorporate everything anyone had to offer, any ritual, any god, anything at all without cognitive dissonance, Christianity required everything be abandoned in its favor.

This seems to be the key: If you wanna be a Christian, you can’t entertain any of the other religious practices.

Ehrman works through numerous other factors such as communal health care, and the like but I wasn’t entirely convinced this was as important in the matter (neither was Ehrman). Rome and Greece had long before created a system of charity, good works and even health care. Ehrman acknowledges this and doesn’t think it had a very big affect on winning hearts and minds anyhow. It could have simply been different enough, however, to be appealing to some who felt left out of the older system.

The final part of the book discusses persecutions and how the claims are highly exaggerated. But such stories of miracle workers who die in great pains without giving up on Christianity assisted winning over believers. Ehrman notes that like today, no one witnesses miracles. So it didn’t take the direct witnessing of miracles back then to convert people. All you had to do was tell people there were miracles, like today. This was something paganism also didn't offer: a god who worked through and for them. The pagan gods were simply meant to be appeased.

Ehrman ends with an in-depth discussion of Constantine and his sons and then those who came after until even the emperor was a Christian. From that point on, there was no stopping Christianity. As Ehrman says, Paganism died a natural death.

[Forensic Psych Student · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ehrman has written an interesting, balanced and nuanced analysis of the rise of Christianity. By distilling the latest scholarly insights, he creates an account which is highly credible and accessible to those interested in the subject.

A key and interesting theme throughout the book is the religious world of late antiquity, and how this affected the development and growth of Christianity. Immediately, Ehrman debunks the idea of ‘paganism’, for the religious landscape was much for diverse than the term ostensibly permits. Further, even the concept of religion would have been unfamiliar in the pre-Christian Roman Empire. Instead, worship consisted mainly of cultic acts such as sacrifice and prayer. It was insular, meaning there was a great variance between towns and cities. And the key aim of these cultic acts was to attract the benefices of the gods and spirits.

With the birth of Christianity, a different way of relating to the divine entered the empire, and yet in some ways its aim of attracting the benefices of God would not have been novel. Christianity was exclusivistic, totalising and evangelistic. This meant that a Christian would only acknowledge one God. Further, unlike traditional roman religions, for Christians proper belief mattered and their religion informed every aspect of their lives. The concerns of Christians extended into the life thereafter, and what happened in this life had an affect upon what happed after death. Due to apocalyptic thought, Christians were also duty-bound to convert as many people as possible.

In the narrative of how Christianity became a world-wide religion, Paul and Constantine play an almost pivotal role. Paul can be considered the first missionary, and also the last for several hundred years. He is the one who opened the religion to gentiles and felt he had been called to prepare the world for the Kingdom of God. Without Paul, it is perfectly conceivable that Christianity would have remained a small, obscure Jewish sect. Then we have emperor Constantine, whose vision in 312 CE was to have a profound effect on Western Civilisation. The imperial sponsorship that Constantine provided to Christianity, and the tolerance of all religions that he and Licinius promoted through the “Edict of Milan”, paved the way for Christianity to become a legitimate religious movement without the fear of persecution.

Constantine is sometimes seen as a controversial figure and it is sometimes doubted if his interest in Christianity and subsequent conversion was genuine. Ehrman is decisive on this point; Constantine’s actions were wholly congruous with genuine conversion. It should be noted that henotheism, the recognition of one god as superior to all the others, was gaining ground during this time. Indeed, Constantine’s father, Constantius, was a henotheist himself. Therefore, the idea of monotheism was not as alien as one might think. Further, although he did not force conversion – on the basis that when previous emperors tried to deconvert christians it had proved damaging to the empire’s stability – he clearly gave imperial support to the cause. Finally, and in line with ancient thinking, Constantine genuinely believed that it was the Christian God who could provide the most benefices to him and the empire.

There is an important point here which is stressed throughout the book; there was no distinction in this time period, and throughout the course of pre-modern history, between the socio-political and religious sphere. The gods or God provided benefices and helped empire and civilisation to thrive. Improper worship was believed to cause the gods to withdraw their benefices; therefore, it was a matter of concern for the state if ‘religious’ practices were not performed correctly. This is why early Christians faced sporadic – if at times brutal – persecution by local mobs and sometimes by emperors. It is also why, later, Christian – again sporadically – persecuted those who continued traditional practices.

Ehrman is very even-handed in his analysis, and this is especially evident when the book deals with violence and intolerance. The Roman state, both pagan and then Christian, exhibited violent intolerance. Their motivation was strikingly smiler: to stomp out improper worship. It is stressed that for the majority of time, pagans and Christians lived together harmoniously, especially towards the upper-classes, but the violence and intolerance did leave its mark. This is not to say that persecution was very effective, because it wasn’t, and this was realised both sides as evidenced by numerous pleas for tolerance. Tertullian advocated religious and human freedom in response to persecution, and Themistius in the midst of Christian intolerance argued strongly for an individualistic approach to religious practice and belief. It is suggested that the rise of Christian intolerance and violence towards the end of the 4th century was precipitated by the actions of Julian the Apostate, who sought to push back the tide of Christianity. It is important to note that his motivation was the potential benefices of the gods.

Towards the end of the book, Ehrman discusses Christian conversion and coercion, and it is in this context that the killing of Hypatia is broached. It is at this point that the narrative gets a bit murky, which matters because there is much misunderstanding in the public sphere surrounding Hypatia. The way the event is discussed in the context of Christian coercion, makes it possible for a less astute reader to conclude that because Hypatia was killed at the hands of Christians, it was therefore an example of Christian-motivated violence. Ehrman does not say this explicitly, and he does explain the political situation and how Hypatia simply got caught up in an argument between two political leaders, yet his lack of explicit clarity combined with the location chosen in the book, makes it too easy to misconstrue both the historical incident and Ehrman’s stance on it.

The central question the book seeks to answer is how a small sect became one of the main religions of the world. While it is true that Constantine sponsored Christianity, significantly reduced persecution and therefore made it attractive to the Roman administration, the success of Christianity was not contingent upon him. Far more important was word of mouth and the networks of people. The success is described in terms of an exponential curve, and once the number of converts reached a certain threshold the numbers increased exponentially. Through word of mouth, stories of miracles were spread and this was true from the very earliest times. Miracles were understood to be God manifest in the physical world, and to a pagan audience this was very attractive. While the fear of external damnation was a factor, it was the miracles which persuaded people to convert. It was believed that what happened in this life merely foreshadowed what would happen in the afterlife.

The type of miracles are described in depth and begin with the very earliest accounts. It is important to realise that Ehrman writes as a non-theistic historian, and whether or not these events happened is irrelevant; what matters is that people believed they had, even if they had not witnessed them themselves. The miracles begin with the Book of Acts, and it is demonstrated how these accounts set the scene for later miraculous accounts; a miracle occurs and people convert. Ostensibly historical accounts including that of Martin of Tours demonstrate how later tales draw inspiration from these very early accounts; St Martin miraculously avoids a falling tree and subsequently onlookers convert because “salvation had come to the region.”

The relationship between pre-Christian thought and the success of the Christian message is explained well, but without falling into the tired ‘pagan origins’ narrative. As already mentioned, pre-Christian cultic acts were performed with the hope of bringing the benefices of the gods or spirits. Christian thought had very similar notions, and we see this throughout the subsequent periods. Although it is not within this book, the conversion of King Clovis of France occurred because he believed the Christian God had given him a military victory over the Alemanni. Pagans worshipped the gods in order to receive benefices and over time, it came to be believed that the Christian God had the most power, based on the miracles done by Him or His believers. Therefore, there is a similarity of thought to be considered. There are also some interesting parallels with mystery cults; their eastern origin, their initiation rite (baptism), intimacy with deity, grades of authority and a shared meal. However, there are also big differences between Christianity the mystery cults, such as it being open to all genders, exclusivistic and its centrality of doctrine and ethics. Therefore, I came away from the book viewing Christianity as a Roman religion; it reflects the society in which it developed and yet it also brought something very new and original. While being very different in some areas, it ultimately tapped into the psyche of the time. I think some people are eager to see the similarities which support the view that Christianity was unoriginal, and yet are much less keen to acknowledge the similarities which show the pre-Christian world to be actively interacting with the divine in order to receive benefices, much like Christians do today.

This is the first book I’ve read by Bart Ehrman. His writing style is relaxed and accessible, while his analysis is unbiased and sufficiently detailed. On a fairly regular basis he explains the limitations of being a historian, and says he is unable to comment on matters of religious faith or belief. I think if a reader were new to academic analysis of religious movements, then hearing this regularly would only be good thing. However, for me it was a bit repetitive and I felt skeptical of his professed neutrality. I think every author has biases and an agenda; however, there is no doubt that this book is pretty damn solid.

Overall, this is a very insightful book and its central objective is met exceedingly well. It places early Christianity within the context of late antiquity, and provides a coherent explanation as to how it grew into a worldwide religious movement. By explaining how people interacted and thought about the divine, it allows the reader to understand why Christianity became both attractive to pagans and influential in the Roman Empire. It also provides clear overviews of important individuals such as Paul and Constantine, and explains why common myths are wrong and dated