Cities of God: The Real Story of How Christianity Became an Urban Movement and Conquered Rome [Paperback]

Rodney Stark (Author)

Book Description

Release date: October 30, 2007

How did the preaching of a peasant carpenter from Galilee spark a movement that would grow to include over two billion followers? Who listened to this "good news," and who ignored it? Where did Christianity spread, and how? Based on quantitative data and the latest scholarship, preeminent scholar and journalist Rodney Stark presents new and startling information about the rise of the early church, overturning many prevailing views of how Christianity grew through time to become the largest religion in the world.

Drawing on both archaeological and historical evidence, Stark is able to provide hard statistical evidence on the religious life of the Roman Empire to discover the following facts that set conventional history on its head:

• Contrary to fictions such as The Da Vinci Code and the claims of some prominent scholars, Gnosticism was not a more sophisticated, more authentic form of Christianity, but really an unsuccessful effort to paganize Christianity.
• Paul was called the apostle to the Gentiles, but mostly he converted Jews.
• Paganism was not rapidly stamped out by state repression following the vision and conversion of the Roman Emperor Constantine in 312 AD, but gradually disappeared as people abandoned the temples in response to the superior appeal of Christianity.
• The "oriental" faiths—such as those devoted to Isis, the Egyptian goddess of love and magic, and to Cybele, the fertility goddess of Asia Minor—actually prepared the way for the rapid spread of Christianity across the Roman Empire.
• Contrary to generations of historians, the Roman mystery cult of Mithraism posed no challenge to Christianity to become the new faith of the empire— it allowed no female members and attracted only soldiers.

By analyzing concrete data, Stark is able to challenge the conventional wisdom about early Christianity offering the clearest picture ever of how this religion grew from its humble beginnings into the faith of more than one-third of the earth's population.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Contemplating the rapid spread of early Christianity, Lucian the Martyr marveled in the fourth century that "almost the greater part of the world is now committed to this truth, even whole cities." To explain Christianity's remarkable success in capturing the cities of the Roman Empire, Stark deploys an empirical social science that exposes the flaws in previous historical theorizing. By parsing records of church construction, inscriptions on tombs, and names on imperial contract permits, Stark converts plausible conjectures into testable hypotheses about the growth of Christianity in the 31 largest Roman cities. And while some of the statistically validated hypotheses fit within conventional wisdom, others compel fresh thinking. The traditional belief that Christianity spread through mass conversion, for instance, gives way to a numerically substantiated dynamics of person-to-person conversion. And despite recent acclaim for the Gnostics as the true early Christians, the evidence links the Gnostic impulse to dying pockets of stubborn paganism, not the rising new faith. Like Stark's Victory of Reason (2005), this book will spark controversy--the kind that attracts curious readers. Bryce Christensen
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

Pairing data with a fresh reading of scripture, this approach provides several surprises. . . . An intriguing read. (Kirkus Reviews )

Stark converts plausible conjectures into testable hypotheses about the growth of Christianity . . . this book will spark controversy. (ALA Booklist )

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: HarperOne; Reprint edition (October 30, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0061349887
• ISBN-13: 978-0061349881
• Product Dimensions: 0.7 x 5.3 x 7.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #389,660 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

37 of 38 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A Thorough Statistical Analysis of the Rise of Christianity June 12, 2007

By George R Dekle VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

A lot of historical scholarship consists of perceiving historical phenomena and then working out plausible explanations for the phenomena. Such explanations are largely untested, but they often become accepted as "historical truth" when they are little more than "just so stories." The example from the final chapter of Schlesinger's "huge upswell" of popular democracy during the era of Andrew Jackson is a case in point. Going back and counting the votes from previous elections shows that the voter turnout in the Jackson era was actually lower than many previous elections.

It is all well and good to devise hypotheses to explain historical events, but they should not be accepted as truth unless they can be tested. Stark undertakes to test a number of historical hypotheses relating to the rise of early Christianity, and does so through statistical analysis. This entails a lot of spadework, but the results are worthwhile.

A lot of Stark's findings validate many of the hypotheses of previous scholarship, and this should lead to no controversy. A lot of his findings invalidate the hypotheses of "cutting edge" Biblical scholarship, and this should mean that Stark's book won't be profiled on prime time television.

Some of Stark's more interesting findings are: (1) Orthodox Christianity, not "Gnosticism" or some other "Lost Christianity" was the original form of the religion. (2) "Gnosticism" was a loopy, lunatic fringe blend of paganism and Christianity. (3) Orthodox Christians did not persecute paganism into oblivion. (4) Pentecost most likely did not result in 3,000 newly baptized Christians, but simply 3,000 wet Jews and pagans. (5) Paul did not invent Christianity and actually had very little to do with the spread of Christianity throughout the Empire. (6) Paul was much more successful in converting Jews to Christianity than in converting Gentiles. (7) Hellenized Jews provided large numbers of Christian converts during the first four centuries of Christianity.

Stark's writing, as always, is entertaining, educational, and thought provoking.

27 of 29 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Is Rodney Stark the most enjoyable writer of early Christianity? February 13, 2007

By Jeri Nevermind VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

There are a great many famous biblical scholars, but most of them write narrow, even crabbed, books on narrow, crabbed subjects.

Which is why Rodney Stark is such a breath of fresh air. He ask the big questions, then hunts down the answers using sociology and statistics, not the usual tools of the biblical scholar. In book after book, he wrote en about early Christianity in ways that challenge old stereotypes, and did it in his typically brisk, clear style.

Within the first few pages in "Cities of God" he argues that, "Only monotheism can generate the level of commitment to mobilize the rank and file in missionizing activities" (p 13). And he cites the studies showing how conversion takes place.

Against the usual argument that the power of Christianity came from its promises of eternal life, Start says that the faith spread because of the way it could "provide an antidote to life's miseries here and now. The truly revolutionary aspect of Christianity lay in moral imperatives" (p 30). A breathtaking statement.

Stark also overturns all the usual liberal dogmas about how Gnosticism represents a more authentic Christianity. As Stark tartly notes, Gnostic manuscripts to not denote social movements. On the contrary. "Gnostic writers are known to have gathered only small schools of devotees" (p 143). They were not an alternative Christianity. They were paganism's attempt to paganize Christianity.

This is a well written and well argued book that deserves a wide audience.

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Good on Paganism but Weak on Judaism and Paul March 2, 2009

By Daniel C. Harlow

Format:Paperback

Rodney Stark, a sociologist who in the 1990s began applying the tools of his craft to the study of early Christianity, is always worth reading. Cities of God is an interesting, provocative, and often illuminating study of the spread of Christianity in the Roman Empire. It applies the methods of quantitative analysis to the geography, urbanism, and other aspects of the Christian movement and its major forerunners and competitors. Most of Stark's conclusions are neither new nor radical, but they are significant because they are supported by modes of analysis not typically employed by biblical scholars or historians of antiquity.

Among Stark's CONVINCING CONCLUSIONS:

(1) Christianity spread not through mass conversions but through the example and witness of rank-and-file believers who traveled for commercial and other reasons. (2) Sea travel was more important than Roman roads in facilitating the spread of Christianity and other eastern religions. (3) Christianity found especially fertile soil in large cities--especially port cities and Hellenized cities. (5) Cybele and Isis worship were important stepping stones--ritual, emotional, and intellectual--for many pagans who came to embrace Christianity. (5) Gnosticism (a dubious category) and Demiurgical religions were neither offshoots of Judaism nor early and widespread forms of Christianity but amalgams of paganism and Greek philosophy (especially Platonism) that had little appeal to most Greco-Romans, whether Christian or pagan. (6) Mithraism was never a serious competitor to Christianity but a male-dominated army cult with little appeal to the masses. (7) Constantine was not responsible for the triumph of Christianity. (8) It was the emperor Julian (the "Apostate") who exacerbated tensions between pagans and Christians. (9) Paganism did not end quickly but persisted into the fifth and sixth centuries.

Much less convincing--because they are not supported with much argument or evidence--are Stark's hypothesis cum theses concerning Judaism and the mission of Paul.

Among Stark's MOST DUBIOUS AND LEAST SUPPORTED CLAIMS:

(1) JUDAISM WAS A MISSIONARY RELIGION (pp. 6-7; etc). This claim is weakly supported by appeals to a few Old Testament verses and a statement of the Medieval Jewish philosopher Maimonides. It is not backed up by any evidence from Jewish sources of the Greco-Roman period and fails to consider the best scholarship on the subject (e.g., Martin Goodman 1994, Mission and Conversion; Shaye Cohen 1999, The Beginnings of Jewishness; Scott McKnight 1991, Light among the Gentiles: Jewish Missionary Activity in the Second Temple Period).

(2) PAUL DIRECTED MOST OF HIS MISSIONARY EFFORTS AT DIASPORA JEWS AND NOT GENTILES (pp. 120-139). This claim is belied by the testimony of Paul's own letters. It relies on an uncritical reading of the book of Acts. Paul certainly attended synagogues (see 2 Cor. 11:24) and no doubt evangelized Jews when he did (see 1 Cor. 9:19-21), but Gentiles were his first and primary target audience (e.g., Gal. 1:15-17; 2:7-9; Rom. 11:13). His letters simply to not reflect that he had spent the prior decade or two evangelizing Jews.

(3) PAUL DEMANDED THAT JEWISH CHRISTIANS CEASE OBSERVING THE LAW (pp. 130, 169). This claim is asserted without argument or appeal to evidence. It has no basis in either Paul's letters or even the book of Acts. Indeed, Acts suggests that did not make such demands of Jewish believers in Jesus (see Acts 21:20-26). Paul opposed forcing Gentile believers in Jesus to practice Torah, but no source tells us that he told Jewish believers to stop observing it. Paul regarded Torah observance as such as a matter of indifference (Gal. 5:5; 6:15; 1 Cor. 7:19). His view was that ritual Torah observance ("the works of the Law") does not make anyone, Jew or Gentile, members of God's covenant people or secure their final salvation (Galatians 3; Romans 3-4).

(4) JUDAIZING ACTIVITY IN THE 4TH AND 5TH CENTURY PROVES THAT SIGNIFICANT NUMBERS OF JEWS CONTINUTED TO CONVERT TO CHRISTIANITY INTO LATE ANTIQUITY (pp. 136-139). What Judaizing activity (following Jewish customs) more likely suggests is the reverse: Judaism (or at least aspects of Jewish observance) continued to attract Christians into late antiquity. Further, in patristic literature the label "Judaizing" often has nothing to do with following Jewish customs; in the writings of some church fathers, it is a polemical label for Christians whose Christology is too "low" or who interpret the Old Testament literally instead of figuratively (see, e.g., Shaye Cohen 1999, The Beginnings of Jewishness; Michelle Murray 2004, Playing a Jewish Game: Gentile Christian Judaizing in the First and Second Centuries C.E.).

(5) ANTI-JUDAISM SUGGESTS CLOSE PROXIMITY TO JUDAISM AND OPPOSITION TO IT (e.g., p. 169). This is not necessarily the case. Like the phenomenon of Judaizing, anti-Judaism need not imply direct contact with or influence from Jews or Judaism. As often as not, it looks like a matter of intra-Christian theological disputes and seems not have been encouraged by non-Christian Jews.

In sum, as a scholar of early Judaism and early Christianity, I find Stark mostly persuasive when he writes about early Christianity's relations to Greco-Roman paganism. But I find him wrongheaded in much of what he says about Judaism and Paul.