Why was Christianity able to take hold and flourish at it's conception?

Answer 1

A Christian would say that Christianity succeeded because that is what God intended.

One must also give credit to the message of peace and love it teaches and to the fact that it became the state religion of the Roman Empire, the religion of European development and the religion of global European Empires that emerged from Europe.

Answer 2

Christianity had already grown steadily in the three centuries before the reign of Emperor Constantine, but the considerable state patronage provided to the Christian Church by Constantine and his Christian successors in the fourth century meant that Christianity would expand and thrive.

Constantine almost bankrupted the Roman Empire with his building program, including the construction of many magnificent churches. He provided generous stipends for the clergy and exempted them from taxes and military duties, ensuring they were able to live well and gain the esteem and admiration of the ordinary people. Constantine ensured that those of ambition knew they would be rewarded by adopting the Christian religion, while the Church was given the opportunity to proselytise among the poor by being given the duty of distributing state-funded food relief. He began the long persecution of pagans, making it easier and safer to be a Christian.

Answer 3

Jesus died in public. After he arose from the dead, he not only walked among his close friends, but spoke to a crowd of 500. The Roman Empire tried to put an end to the Christian movement by executing Christians, but those who saw the risen Christ would not be silenced. They were willing to risk death. The same is true of the twelve disciples. Right after the crucifiction, the disciples were all hiding. After they saw and spoke to the risin Christ, they no longer hid, but were willing to risk death to deliver His message.

Answer 4

Christianity was relatively unsuccessful in Judea, but after the expulsion of Jews, by the Romans in 135 C.E., Christians were the first Jewish group to spread out into the Roman Empire finding favor among a group of Montheists called the God-fearers. It eventually also became popular among Romans who followed the Stoic philosophy, but disliked Judaism. Eventually, Christianity became less Jewish, and the Roman Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity and gave Christianity official acceptance. With the growth of the Roman Empire, Christianity spread throughout Europe, Northern Africa and Russia. It is interesting the largest and most successful branch of Christianity is still called the Roman Catholic Church.

Answer 5

Roman emperor Constantine was searching to add to stabilizing influences in his empire, and sought to add religious control to his civil control. Although he was an initiate of the very widespread Mithraic religion, it did not have a control mechanism; his imperial cult of Sol Invictus (Invincible Sun) was far to restricted to use; but Christianity had bishops who exercised regional control and also met for empire-wide coordination, so it was the best option. He locked the bishops up at Nicaea until they settled their internal differences and issued the Nicaean Creed, giving an aura of standardization and empire-wide religious control which he harnessed. It eventually became the official religion, slaughtered the Mithraic priests on their altars to pollute them and burying their temples; as Mithraism was a male-only religion, it was allied to the Isis cult, which looked after women, and the two temples were usually near each other. The Christians found Isis a difficult target, so moved in Mary mother of Jesus to take it over - the titles given to Mary today are largely those of the goddess Isis (eg Star of the Sea). Forcibly eliminating these and other competitors and imperial backing gave Christianity a clear field.