Beginning with the son of a Jewish carpenter, the religion was spread around the world first by Jesus's disciples, then by emperors, kings, and missionaries. Through crusades, conquests, and simple word of mouth, Christianity has had a profound influence on the last 2,000 years of world history.
It took 4 centuries for Christianity to take hold in Rome, and about 10 to fully take hold throughout the European/Western world.
Christianity was the religion of the dispossessed before Constantine. It was popular among the slaves, former slaves, immigrants, and refugees in the Roman empire; the people legally or effectively barred from being full citizens. It validated their existence and struggles in a way that Roman paganism did not.
The Roman pagan religion operated very differently than we today understand the reason for religions to be. Keeping the pagan religion was kind of like paying insurance premiums. You gave tribute to the various gods, usually you favored one or two of them. In return they would see to it that you'd be protected from bad fortune, which was usually brought about by the vissitudes of other gods. You didn't โworshipโ those gods in the way we conceive of worshipping in Christianity or Islam today. You paid dues.
The pagan religion glorified wealth. The wealthier you were, the more ostentatious your displays for the gods were supposed to be. Giving to the gods meant doing things like putting on circuses or gladiator games if you were rich. Putting on an annual feast for your neighborhood if you were less rich, etc..
The pagan religion did not focus on personal behavior or comportment; it hardly addressed that at all.
Rather, it concerned itself with process. Did you pray to the right god for the right thing at the right time with the right words? If a storm ruined your crop, it was because you must have not prayed quite right a couple weeks ago. The insurance company won't pay out if you didn't fill out the right claim form or buy the right policy.
Putting on a feast or building a bathhouse meant you pleased the gods, and your wealth was a sign you were doing everything right in life. You were supposed to display that. If you were not wealthy or at least affluent, you were not of much value.
Christianity turned that on its head and said that the rich are actually in spiritual danger because of their misplaced priorities. It said that liars, hypocrites, cheaters & debauchers would have to answer in the next world to a higher authority, one that knew what was truly in their heart.
For Christianity, small, not publicly seen values were what mattered, like humility, diligence, steadfastness, faithfulness, forgiveness. What was in your heart mattered. Regardless of who you were or what you could do in this world, it all paled in comparison to the faith in your heart, proof to the authority in the next world that you were the one who was right all along. That would be rewarded with something beyond the ken of worldly goods and concerns.
It shouldn't be a surprise that the dispossessed people in the Empire would be attracted to a religion that valued them.
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