Huon

How many Christians could exist during the first and second century ?

Here is a simple table, which has been computed with three hypotheses :

1- The sect began around 40 CE.
2 - The initial number of members was 40 or 100 persons.
3 - The increase rate was 40 % or 50 % every ten years.

Of course, each of these hypotheses can be disputed. We have no data, except what can be grasped in the gospels, and these data are certainly not reliable.


Date * 1.5 * 1.4 * 1.5
40 40 100 100
50 60 140 150
60 90 196 225
70 135 274 338
80 203 384 506
90 304 538 759
100 456 753 1139
110 683 1054 1709
120 1025 1476 2563
130 1538 2066 3844
140 2307 2893 5767
150 3460 4050 8650
160 5190 5669 12975
170 7785 7937 19462

This list shows that the number of Christians was very small during the first century, and began to be somewhat important around 150 CE.

Another remark : these Christians lived in the most important towns of the Roman Empire, Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, Ephesus, and perhaps Carthage. Their number in each of these towns could be 100 to 300 during the first century.

The famous letter of Pliny the Younger to Trajan, concerning some Christians of Bithynia-Pontus around 110 CE, could be appreciated more quietly. We are told that one of Pliny's main concerns was the vast number of Christians involved. Hem, hem.

Does a group of 100 to 300 persons need necessary a book describing their beliefs ? This idea is more acceptable with 1000 persons in a great town.

sotto voce

Christians, eh. Well, that word means 'Messiah-ans', doesn't it. Now how many people who believed in a Messiah does that almost contemporary geographer Strabo say existed? He doesn't count them, but that is probably because he found the task beyond him, because he wrote that Jews existed in every city in the known world. Now if it is true that Luke was correct in stating that, just in Jerusalem, the 120 disciples increased by 3000 in one day, and this number increased daily; and if many of those disciples returned to every city in the known world, and similar increase in numbers occurred, there is no reason to suppose that the number of followers did not reach, say, 3000 x 500 = 1.5 million within a year, by 34 CE, say, maybe doubling by 40 CE. There was of course persecution, from Jews, silversmiths and eventually Roman patricians, but Tertullian's view was that persecution made matters worse for Romans and Jews by increasing numbers. But the fact is that this thread exists, like a thousand others. Here we are talking about a confounded ME artisan, ferchrissakes.

Now it may be pure happenstance that believers in a Messiah, who were primed through their scripture to know who to expect, were dispersed all over the known world. It may be pure happenstance that Jerusalem lay at the 'pivot' of communication routes to three continents. It may be pure happenstance that Alexander had given those continents a common language. So the spread of a religion with enough impetus to force the mighty Roman Empire to alter its decor (certainly not its brutish nature) may be just happenstance. Maybe not.

tanya

Lots to discuss here.

a. coins, statues, and temples, are superior to books/written documents, in my opinion, as indicators of relative significance of ideologies present two-several thousand years ago. If we possess today, such evidence, then we are on safer ground assuming a large group of supporters. Books, by definition, need not have more than one person following the ideology.

b. think of the millions of folks who participated in the ancient worship associated with astronomical observatories, such as one sees at Stonehenge, and many other loci throughout Europe. Did they possess even one book between them?

c. if easily acquired, i.e. if the technology supports written records, then it is simple enough to create a book, even if only one person supports the ideology. (fact of publication, does not imply quantity of followers of the ideology espoused in the book.)

d. what little we know of the ancient Mayan civilization comes not from written attestations, but primarily from stone carvings, thanks to the Christian invaders, who destroyed the majority of Mayan codices. Four only, remain today, all that is left from a culture employing written language for two millennia--an empire stretching a thousand miles, embracing hundreds of thousands of followers, yet, we have next to nothing today, to show for it. Ditto for the religion of Mani, thought, in the third century CE to represent the world's largest religion. We have, today, almost nothing in writing from his quill.

e. We have LOTS of books from ancient Christianity, but, it is unclear that we possess even 1% of the texts from that era, which had contradicted the prevailing tendency-->the group that had prevailed militarily, suppressing the opposition, and destroying their texts, even if those in opposition had been numerically vastly superior to those who had prevailed simply because of superior military force, not superior written analysis.

Sheshbazzar

One would think, if what Justin writes concerning the figure of the 'crucifix' ( 'First Apology' Chapters LV & LX.) was as important to early Christian beliefs as what he implies, archaeologists would be turning up tens of thousands of these sacred icons dateable to early in the 2nd century CE.
I guess that Christians throughout the 1st and 2nd centuries simply didn't know of what Justin wrote and taught.:constern02:




.

sotto voce

Oh, they knew of it. They knew of all sorts of garbage.

Sheshbazzar

Now that you mention it, yes they would have, The theological writings of the Philosopher Plato were already well known.
They simply had not yet been retroactively declared as being 'Christian' doctrine.

Duvduv

In fact there is no actual evidence of any "Christian" "communities" around in either the first or second centuries........

andrewcriddle

The figure of at most 100 Christians in 40 CE seems far too low. (At least it needs justification.)

With 1000 Christians in 40 CE (still too low IMO) one gets a very different figure for the number of Christians in say 110 CE.

Andrew Criddle

sotto voce

Then why mention Justin?

Who was Philosopher Plato? Odd name to give a child.

There was a philosopher called Plato, but he was born over four centuries before Jesus, so it's unlikely that Christians suddenly revived his work, especially as they did not acknowledge him in any way. He was rather an elitist taste, anyway. Not that they could have. Plato's work was no more in sympathy with Jesus' teachings than hundreds of others, though of course those who approved of theft, violence and sexual abuse have liked it to be thought that it was. Any similarity was probably due to Plato's familiarity with the Scripture of Israel, that had not only been completed by his day, it was widely known and probably influenced all philosophy and religions throughout the known world. In fact, Christians acknowledged a gulf between Greek thought and their own belief, acknowledged on both sides, moreover. But people do seem to like to fantasise that Christian faith, that by its very name discounts humanism, is derived from humanism! A bit crazy.

Just as, strangely, they like to dream that Christianity lends itself to supposedly sacred icons. The only things in Christian life that can be called sacred are thought and actions, of course. To a Christian, to call sacred anything else on earth, particularly a mere inanimate object, must be idolatry.

Now Greeks, some of them were quite superstitious that way. They still are, of course.

tanya

Hi Andrew,

I have no quarrel with your figures, because I have no idea how many Christians there were in 100, 200, or 400 CE.

Do we know how many followers of Herakles there were, in Syria, two thousand years ago? We know they began constructing a huge temple, dedicated to worship of Herakles, stopped by edict from the Christians, around the time of Nicea, but that decision represents a change in government directive, not necessarily a change in popular opinion.

Do we have any method available to assess the quantity of believers in zoroastrianism, two thousand years ago?

I cannot explain how Islam spread, or Christianity, or for that matter, Judaism. But, then, neither can I understand contemporary zeal for Apple computers. I prefer the old fashioned PC line. I would have been a follower of Herakles, had I been alive a couple thousand years ago. That new fangled Christianity had just too many rules and regulations for my taste, though I understand that the Jews felt uncomfortable back then, and still today, because of the paucity of such restrictions in the nascent religion.

Still, when one considers how much simpler, and appealing, is the ancient Greek religion centered on Herakles, it does seem awkward to hypothesize a radical shift in population supporting the newest ideology. Are we certain, absolutely confident, that the real shift in popular support for Christianity, did not occur until after the Roman Government decreed an end to worship of Herakles, and replacement with worship of JC?

I guess I am unimpressed with our documentary evidence prior to Nicea. I simply cannot find a document, stone, or coin, persuasive of a large body of believers, until after Nicea.