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1 results

  • Chapter 6 - Missionaries, Pious Merchants, Freelance Religious Experts, and the Spread of Christianity

  • from Part II - Religion
  • Edited by Harriet I. Flower, Princeton University, New Jersey
  • Book:
    Empire and Religion in the Roman World
    Published online:
    26 August 2021
    Print publication:
    19 August 2021, pp 139-160

  • Summary

    This chapter reviews the networks that made possible the diffusion of the beliefs and practices associated with the figure of Christ during the first and second centuries and concludes that the missionary, the pious merchant, and the occasional Christian traveler should definitively be discarded as likely agents of religious change. Complex contagions such as the diffusion of religious beliefs and practices require as agents individuals who have strong ties, and therefore social capital, in the different networks among which they circulate. In turn, the local networks of diffusion must be both strong-tie and sufficiently open. These findings invite a reopening of the question of the role of the Jewish Diaspora in the spread of Christianity beyond the first century.