How did Christianity really first spread? Historically, was it the disciples or was it threw violence?

Question

I want to know the actual truth on how Christianity was first spread. Some people I ask say it was through word of mouth and the disciples and then others say it was violence and crusades. Whats the really truth man.

Answer 1

Christianity was illegal during the first 3 centuries C. E. (AD). It spread by word of mouth through the Byzantine to the point where it was an underground phenomenon.

Constantine the Great was dealing with a prospective civil war from the unrest within his own holdings, and found that the best way to consolidate his kingdom and continue his ambitions to advance territory was to consolidate this new post-hebrew cult following of Joshua Ben Joseph and the existing pagan beleifs systems into one unified religion that everyone could agree on.

Hence, it was advertised to the world as Constantine's dream...He saw a cross, the crucifix that Jesus (Zeus aka Mithras, Aka Joshua Ben Joseph) was impaled upon, and heard (or saw) the words "With this Sign, Conquer".

Although he was not the first ruler to issue tolerance of Christianity, he was the first to consolidate the Churches, and set the standards to what afterward became Roman Catholicism, and established the power grid of Emperors and Bishops known as the Holy Roman Empire.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Council_of_Nicaea

Arian Christianity existed as a separate clan of belief systems by the Teutonic peoples (The early Germanics, Anglos and Germans), and they warred with Roman Catholicism until they were finally conquered within 150 years prior to the existence of Islam. (Islam held a similar beleif to Arian Christianity regarding the idea that Jesus was a prophet, and not God).

I think that the Greek Bible (NT) has a lot of accurate history regarding how the gospels of Jesus were taught to the individual splinter congregations in the first Century C. E., but after that, it needs to be addressed that the Scythians and Teutons (Celts of Northern Europe and Asia Minor) maintained one view after the Apostals died, while the mediterrainian region maintained another interpretation of the teachings of Christ.

It's quite possible (but only speculative at this point) That Islam was a splinter from facets of Arian Christianity with facets ancient Hebrew and Hindi inspirations as well.

The Crusades were simply the Catholic territories trying to spead and reclaim previously lost lands. They were 700+ years after the legitimisation of Christianity, and a direct result of the Islamic annexation of Persia, Eastern Europe, North Africa and Spain.

The Spanish Inquisition could be called "The Last Crusade" in Europe, but while Spanish Catholicism settled in the America's, it converted millions of Indians (and killed millions as well). Hence, Latin America is unquestionably dominated by Spanish Catholicism.

Just as well, When the French and English annexed territories from the 17th to the 19th Centuries, such as the Phillipines, North America, Australia, Africa, India, and Southern parts of Eastern Asia, they left their mark with many entire communities of the indigenous populations speaking English, French, or Spanish, and being Catholic, and in some cases, Protestant.

Answer 2

their supposed god is a hypocrite. he made it so that most people would go to hell and there's now around it. tell the story of noah's ark to an 8 year old retarded boy. and he's gonna ask questions. "this is a bad story." even if you're really good at telling stories. you sit him down, "once opon a time god was mad at all the people in the world, so instead of telling them what they were doing wrong about their diets, he decided to go ahead and drown everyone. he only told one regular man, he wasn't a special guy infact, he was 600 years old. anyway, god told noah to build a boat, and his family were the only ones to survive the flood. because appearently, all the other people that had boats, well they just didn't work. anyway, god took 2 of each animal to come to noah on foot from all over the world. and they sailed for 40 days and 40 nights, and civiliziation began." 8 year old retarded boy will go "uh there's a lot of holes in that story. uh wait a minute. first of all, how big is this boat we're talking about here? millions of animals on the boat,and one guy that made it, how long does that take? where did he get all of the wood? 600 years old seems a little old to be taking on a project of this magnitude. all the animals come on foot, and the earth is 24,000 miles long? and what did the animals eat? cause i think the animals wanna eat all the other animals! i'm not that retarded! noah was a white guy, so where did all the black people come from? what exactly did they eat when they got off the boat?" if you believe that, you're so crazy it's beyond description. if god always was and always will be, did he always have emotions? well why did he 'always' have emotions naturally? that points to that there was something before him. that means there was no beginning which doesn't add up. if god just made up emotion or feeling, what was he before that? nothing. you can't make something out of nothing. that doesn't add up either. so what this means is there is no god. people that claim god claim ignorance.

Answer 3

Through persuasion and example by missionary journeys for the first three centuries. Then in 313 or thereabouts the Emperor Constantine became Christian and Christianity became a good thing to have on your cv. About 390 paganism was forbidden but nobody was prepared to risk their lives for that stuff. Crusades and stuff came way, way later.

Answer 4

Since you asked how it FIRST spread -- in the early centuries, Christians had no power. So they could not have spread by force even if they had wanted to! (And since early Christianity seems to have been fairly pacifist, this seems unlikely. Note that the New Testament references to "the sword" connect it to the power of the [at that time non-Christian] rulers of the state, but warn about Christians using that power ''he who lives by the sword will die by the sword")

But to say that it was simply "by word of mouth" at the time doesn't quite paint the full picture. At least as often it was by "word of LIvES" -- many ACTIONS of Christians that won interest and converts.

For example, in plague times in the Roman Empire hen many were trying to flee to safety there were many Christians who were staying and nursing the sick, at the risk of their own lives. Those who watched, and those who survived, were often attracted to this belief.

Along the same lines -- the Romans accepted infanticide [think of it as 'very late abortion' by abandoning unwanted children, while Christians forbade it, and were willing to take in the unwanted. This added to their numbers both by example, and of course by the raising and teaching these children their own faith.

Also, the view and honoring of women in Christianity was (contra rumor) quite high. This seems to have interested many women, esp. those of more noble families.

At the same time, Christians accepted people of various social classes as equals... an attraction to the many slaves of the Roman Empire.

It has also been said that "the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church". When Christians began to be persecuted by Roman emperors (as a handy scapegoat for their own failings), many faced public execution boldly. This too impressed non-Christian observers.

Some of this story (with many other pieces), is nicely told in Rodney Stark's book *The Rise of Christianity: How the Obscure, Marginal, Jesus Movement Became the Dominant Religious Force*.

Answer 5

The person who changed Christianity from a Jewish based belief is Paul of Damascus. On his way to persecute the Christians, he saw a vision of God and was so changed that he spread Christianity throughout the Roman Empire. Read the Bible, especially the "Acts of the Apostles" for the beginnings of Christianity.

Answer 6

Actually through a little of both. It spread through Europe in the middle with the conquests of the Roman Empire as well as through the exploits of barbarian tribes like the Saxons. Barbarians weren't too choosy about what gods they prayed to and saw the Christian God as another God to pray to for victory in their battles.

Also various missionaries would come to their villages and set up rather rigged demonstrations to show the superiority of their god over the Pagan one.

One such demo was they would set two fires and challenge a berzerker to run through. If he stopped before the first fire then they claimed the pagan gods were mightier. If he ran through that fire but stopped at the second as they hoped he would then it was claimed that the Christian God was mightier.

As the power of various kingdoms grew state relgions were enacted by Christian rulers and this lead to atrocities like The Crusades and The Spanish Inquisition. If someone refused to convert they were executed on the spot.

Answer 7

Well, Paul went on missionary journeys all over the Mediterranean and preached around there. He had people help, like Timothy, etc. But afterwards in history it was just through violence.

Answer 8

first it was disciples but later it was all violent; different kingdoms used it as an instrument for power. I've also heard that due to this Christianity lost it's real essence and it's teachings were distorted by manipulative minds.

Answer 9

nice that really help me