In my earlier posts I tried to show that the two key factors in the success of Christianity in taking over the Roman world were that Christians (well some/lots of them), unlike everyone else in their world, were eagerly trying to make converts and insisted that anyone who accepted their religious beliefs and following their religious practices had to abandon the views/practices they had always had.

That’s not the view that scholars long held; and it’s striking to me that — unlike some other areas of historical study — the older view still seems to be widely accepted for those who think it is just “common sense.”  Here is how I talk about it in my book The Triumph of Christianity (Simon & Schuster, 2018).

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Older scholarship was virtually unified on the question of why Christianity succeeded.  It filled the spiritual vacuum created by the collapse of paganism, which fell under its own weight.  At this point in antiquity, the view held, no one could any longer believe the ridiculous myths of the pagans or accept the bizarre cultic practices established by age-old tradition.  The door was wide open for the superior Christian faith to enter in and take over.

Thus, for example,

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