adren@line

This is something I have always wondered and has perplexed me, but I never bothered to research it.

Why convert to Christianity when they already had their own grand philosophical and metaphysical traditions and works that were (and are) arguably superior in their rationality and logic than the Abrahamic theologies?

Did they stop thinking, stop using their uncanny rational abilities? What happened to their philosophical tradition?

GakuseiDon

Do you mean the Greeks or the Romans?

By the Second Century CE, Christianity had absorbed Greek philosophy, and to a large extent was indistinguishable. Both had the notion of a perfect unchanging God. Both had the notion that in order for the perfect God to interact with matter, there had to be an intermediary. In Christianity's case, though, the intermediary actually took on flesh and incarnated at a point in time. I don't think this in itself would have been a problem for the Greeks, though the idea that God became man and suffered and died would have. But if you read the Second Century Christian apologists, they all stressed Christianity's philosophical credentials.

For the Romans, Christians tended to look after the poor and the widows. I imagine that it would have been a more attractive religion for the dispossessed and disenfranchised. This link says:
http://www.cbn.com/special/DaVinciCo...PaganRome.aspx

"Julian also tried to reform paganism along the lines of Christian charity. Christians had earned a good reputation for taking care of orphans, widows, and the poor, as well as tending the sick in times of plague. Julian tried to convince pagans to do the same and offered money to groups who would engage in pagan charity."

Jedi Mind Trick

Because it appealed to the less educated masses according to Celsus.

Berthold

Greek philosophy was a rather elitarian affair. See e. g. how Plato viewed the ideal society.

DrZoidberg

According to Catherine Armstrong in the history of God, it was several factors.

1) The Jewish laws. They were pretty handy and promoted business if followed universally. And faith always follows money.
2)The exclusiveness of Judaism. Since Judaism excluded gentiles from being able to convert it created an upper and lower class in Israel. This annoyed the gentiles, but secretly made them want to be Jewish. And this idea spread quite wide.
3) Marcion. Marcion of Sinope was a rich Christian guy who spent loads of money early on to promote and build Christian churches in Anatolia. He believed in two gods and other funky stuff, but he spread Christianity.
4) It's intolerance meant that it spread fast and created a large inner market where traders who both were Christian had increased levels of trust, which smoothed up trading and promoted Christianity itself by this function.

There was other stuff I've probably forgotten, but that was pretty much it.

Nietzsche explains it as a factor of education of money. Rulers had less and less actual power around the time and embraced "slave morality" for their own mental well being.

There's loads of reasons why Christianity is superior to Paganism for social and economic reasons.

EmpiricalGod

I recently finished listening to a set of lectures from the teaching company, titled, Early Middle Ages.They explain the issue very well.

The Romans, converted to Christianity greatly after Constantine became Emperor, who became a Christian. Once Christianity became the accepted and even preferred religion of the state, it really started to grow. If the emperor is a Christian it must be significant, which helps Christianity a lot.

As i understood, paganism, wasn't a rigid set of beliefs in Italy in the early centuries, and it didn't matter what Gods you believed as long as you made sacrifices to please them. The down side was that this lack of organization and unity was what never helps paganism become revived again. Julian the apostate one of the emperors after Constantine, was a pagan and he attempted to revive paganism, but as i mentioned before that had a lot of challenges, as well as bad military luck played a great role in making Julian the last pagan emperor. He attempted to win big in a battle in hopes of raising his popularity and hence influence of the revival, but he was killed and the waged war was a failure. It so happened that he was the last Roman emperor.

Ljoilae

I think the temple razing maniacs had a little to do with it

Malachi151

They didn't convert easily at all. The move to Christianity destroyed the empire and the civilizations of the Greeks and Romans. There were huge wars fought over the issue. The emperors converted and a lot had to do with politics.

A significant part of the Christian movement was like a Communist revolution. It was part of throwing out the older leadership and ruling classes and bringing in a new generation of rulers.

Read about the Battle of Frigidus.

One other issue though was also the issue of slavery. The Roman Empire including the area of Greece, had a large slave population. The Christian churches started protecting slaves that fled to them as long as they converted and as long as they were fleeing from pagan masters.

Sets of laws were eventually passed by the emperors in their bid for power that made it possible for slaves to gain their freedom by converting to Christianity if they were held by pagan masters. If you were held by a Christina master then there was nothing you could do. This helped to foment a type of slave rebellion against pagans, and of course those people became loyal to the emperor and to Christianity.

In addition, again in their efforts to wrest power away from the ruling families,Christian emperors made it illegal for non-Christians to inherit wealth from their family or to pass on wealth. If you were a pagan and you died, the state came and seized your assets and they were divided up amongst the Catholic Church and the state.

If you were a Christian but your children were pagans, the same thing would happen.

By doing this of course it forced many people to convert, and if you didn't then basically your family died out, at least in terms of power and influence.

This was a messy process that took place over a period of about 400 years.

premjan

The loweiring of class barriers probably had something to do with the success of Christianity. In a sense Christianity was an anarchist idea of the time.

fatpie42

Michel Onfray, in his book 'In Defence of Atheism', explains the various methods used by Constantine and his wife to ensure the dominance of Christianity. In particular he notes how Constantine's wife managed to *ahem!* locate several sites from the gospel accounts as well as some important religious relics. (What a mixture of luck and skillful detectve work it must have been for the wife of a recently converted pagan emperor to find that of which Christian community had no prior knowledge! *sarcasm*)