The Reformation began in the 16th century. A lot happened before then. For example, the massacre of the Cathars in 1209 in Beziers, where the papal legate when asked how to distinguish Cathars from others famously replied (to the glory of God, of course) "Kill them all. God will know his own."

Well as long as the "real reason" heretics are burned or massacred is political, there's no reason for complaint.

It took about 300 years for an orthodoxy to even start developing. Even after the Council of Nicea, after Constantine, after Arianism had been condemned as heresy, some Emperors accepted Arian Chrustianity.

The Nag Hammadi scrolls are evidence that there were several versions of Jesus from almost the beginning.

Heresies abounded through the centuries. Many developed in the first and second centuries CE. The Docetists believed Jesus hasd no physical body; what people saw was an illusion. The Adoptionists thought Jesus was adopted by God sometime during his life. The Marcionists believed the God of the Old Testament wasn't the God of the New Testament. The list goes on and on.

These and other heresies were eventually quashed, sometimes violently, but perhaps the fact that Chrisianity was so malleable to suit tastes contributed
to its spread.

I think I've been honest in describing what I think contributed to its success. I think there's significant evidence in support of my position. It's clear many found the new religion attractive, but I don't think that in itself accounts for its spread and dominion.

I must confess I'm unimpressed by explanations of Christianity's success which are variations of DEUS VULT!, or which are based on claims regarding the workings of the Holy Spirit, or Christianity's preaching regarding love, justice etc. which is, I think it must be acknowledged given our history, more honored in the breach than in the observance.

I don't think it's possible to interpret Tertullian's statement that Christians "invite" the infliction of persecution
except by giving that word its normal meaning. To "invite" is to ask for, request or induce.

I don't think you can ignore the Biblical references to the fire and torment of hell or claim that they're not intended literally but rather metaphorically. Jesus himself makes reference to them. In Matthew 13:41-42 he says he'll send his angels to throw sinners and lawbreakers "into the fiery furnace." In Matthew 25:41 it's said he'll yell "those on his left" to depart from him into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.

The Church may claim it has the authority to maintain that Jesus didn't really say such things or didn't mean them, but that leaves the door open to wholesale questioning of scripture, doesn't it? Unless you believe the Church has such authority. I wouldn't.

If you prefer to say that God is the standard of goodness, and there is no good outside of God, I don't think there's much difference between saying that and saying God determines what's good.

When I was in Catholic grade school, we'd be shown films displaying sinners writhing in flames. The Church has grown soft, it seems.

It's odd that two people can interpret this selection of Tertullian so differently.

Tertullian was a lawyer. He's making an argument. That argument seems to be that Rome achieves nothing by persecuting Christians, because Christians thrive on persecution. Thus, "your cruelty is our glory." He says that in fact, Christians invite the inflicting of Roman cruelty

He says the entire Christian population of the province appeared before Arrius Antoninus "in one body" (not a particularly believable claim to begin with). He doesn't say any action was taken before that crowd arrived, but that upon their arrival a few were executed, and the others told that if they wanted to die, they should kill themselves. Why would Antoninus make the comment he made unless the Christians were, as Tertullian said, inviting persecution?

He also asks, rhetorically, what the Roman authorities will do if thousands of Christians similarly appear before them, also inviting persecution (I think that's the clear implication). I don't think any other interpretation is reasonable.

What is right to a Christian is what God demands, because what God demands is right, essentially by definition. I don't think what is right is dependent on the will or command of any god.

Your claim that hell is the absence of God is contrary to Scripture and tradition. For example, Revelation 21:8 says that as to the cowardly. the faithless, the detestable, murderers, the sexually immoral,, sorcerers and liars "their portion shall be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death."

I think the assimilation served to support the spread of Christianity, because due to it, what was found attractive about pagan gods and worship became part of Christianity.

Christian saints took on characteristics of pagan gods (sometimes, they were given the same or very similar names). The titles given the Virgin Mary were the same given to Isis in the Greco-Roman version of that goddess' worship. Depictions of Mary with infant Jesus are comparable to depictions of Isis with the infant Horus.

The cult of Mithras caused the early Church Fathers such concern that Tertullian and Justin Martyr claimed that devils had learned Jesus was coming and parodied Christian sacraments in the Mithraic rituals.

There was a lot of mixing of religious beliefs going on.

One I found interesting is The Final Pagan Generation: Rome's Unexpected Path to Christianity by Edward Watts. One I'm beginning to read that looks promising is Christendom: The Triumph of a Religion, AD 300-1300 by Peter Heather.

Regarding the exaggerated accounts of persecution of Christians by the Roman Empire, you might consider reading The Myth of Persecution by Candida Moss, Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at the University of Notre Dame.

The saint supposedly thrown into boiling oil also supposedly lept out of the cauldron unharmed, miraculously. I don't think such stories very credible. Just who wrote the Book of Revelation is a matter of some dispute.

Tertullian in Ad Scapulam, Chapter 5, wrote of all the Christians in the province of Asia presenting themselves to Gaius Arrius Antoninus at his judgment seat, and his comment to them: "O miserable men, if you wish to die, you have precipices or halters." Tertullian seemed to be arguing that Roman cruelties to Christians was their glory, and that Christians "even invite their infliction."

I think knowing that your sins will be forgiven if, sometime in the future, you really, really repent and seek forgiveness renders wrongdoing of less significance now. It's not that you intentionally do wrong because that option exists, it's that doing wrong becomes something there is less need to avoid if the fear of divine punishment is what keeps you from sinning. Ideally, one should be virtuous for the sake of being virtuous.

I find the period during which the Roman Empire transitioned from a largely tolerant polytheistic society to an intolerant monotheistic society fascinating. For the most part, Rome didn't much care what gods were worshipped provided no threat was made, perceived or otherwise, against it or public order. Similarly, the devotees of pagan religions didn't insist that others worship only a particular god, nor did they much care what gods they worshipped.

For example, initiates in one pagan mystery cult were often initiates in another cult.

Jews and Christians were different, however. Their religious beliefs were exclusive and intolerant. The Romans had an odd regard for the Jews and their ancient, tribal god for a time. The Herods were clients of Rome. But when the Jews tried to throw off Roman rule (twice) the response was terrible.

Also, there was sometimes religious violence between Jews and Greeks in cities like Alexandria. The belief that one's own personal god is the only God and all others false seems to encourage repression and violence.

The Christian desire that everyone should worship Jesus and insistence that they do so and should be compelled to worship no other gods far exceeded that of the Jews, however. It eventually lead to the destruction of pagan world, though that world survived in certain ways through the Christian assimilation of certain pagan religious traditions, and sometimes even pagan gods via the cult of the saints.

I wonder how and why this enormous alteration in the ancient world took place.

I would go so far as to say that the remarkable Paul of Tarsus was more responsible for the founding of Christianity than anyone, including Jesus.

My OP was intended to be a summary of the factors I think most contributed to Christianity's success. I don't contend no other factors were involved.

Ok. I don't quarrel with the qualifier "some."

I'm not sure what your point may be, sorry.

We're talking about Christianity, though. Are you really asking for an account of wrongful conduct by professed Christians?

Quite true.

Certainly some were wise. I don't know if we can call them effective, given the conduct of most professed Christians.

Could be. It was a regular practice in the monasteries founded by the descendants of those barbarian tribes.

Nor do I, in fact. But you might wonder why Europe came to be in the condition you describe, and why the "larger Greek presence" (pagan) was so welcome in Europe, after centuries of ignorance.

Well, I hardly said that people lust after being forgiven on request. What a peculiar thing to say! I don't envision them achieving orgasm on actually being forgiven, either. But perhaps, for reasons unclear to me, you interpreted my suggestion people would find forgiveness of sin attractive to refer to physical attraction.

Here's how confession worked, in the old days. You entered the confessional, asked the priest to bless you, for you had sinned. You advised the priest how long it had been since your last confession. You described your sins. You were told your sins would be forgiven provided you sincerely repented and said certain prayers. Ego te absolvo peccatis tuis in nomine Patris, et Filii et Spiritus Sancti/i] are the priestly words of absolution on behalf of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, rendered in Latin. That was the way of it.

In the Catholic tradition, one could obtain remission of temporal punishment for sins through prayer or good conduct. They're called indulgences.

Do you imagine that those who ask for their sins to be forgiven do so but then don't believe they've been forgiven until they've received some divine communication confirming absolution?

History is full of examples of Christians being assured their sins will be forgiven ( for example, for going on a Crusade or pilgrimage).

By the way, I'm no fellow traveler of yours. Neither an atheist nor a theist.

Persecution of Christians in the Empire before Constantine was sporadic and local. Nero's efforts were limited to the city of Rome, for example. Persecution was seldom organized or pursued throughout the Empire. I'm afraid the persecution was vastly exaggerated by Hollywood.

In fact, Christians were notorious for their eagerness for martyrdom. Tertullian actually boasted of this death wish. He wrote of an incident when a crowd of Christians accosted a Roman magistrate and demanded he kill them. The annoyed magistrate told them that if they wanted to die so badly they could find rope to hang themselves or throw themselves off a handy cliff, but he wouldn't accommodate them.

The doctrine of forgiveness of sin provides a method to avoid responsibility. Why be virtuous when you can always be absolved on request?

I would say that even to the extent there is agreement, he wasn't a philosopher, at least not in the sense his near contemporary Philo was, or others considered philosophers at the time.

Well, I think it's been established that the pagan mystery cults included the equivalent of baptism, a communal meal, promises of rebirth, salvation and eternal life. The pagan origins of Christmas traditions is well attested. think it's clear Christian thinkers relied a great deal on pagan philosophy. I think the destruction of pagan temples by Christians and the persecution of pagans by Christian Emperors is well documented. Missionary zeal and it's impact on indigenous peoples and religious beliefs is fairly well known. The doctrine of forgiveness of sins is something I'm familiar with as an old Catholic.

I make inferences from such things, certainly.

Just what Jesus actually taught isn't all that clear, I think, and may depend on what one reads, bearing in mind that the evidence indicates that what we have to read was written long after he lived and so couldn't have been written by someone who actually knew him and heard what he said.

The gospels make an interesting study, particularly if you take into account the gnostic gospels, which depict Jesus in an entirely different light. The Infancy Gospel of Thomas, for example, depicts a young Jesus using his powers to kill and curse those who offend him, blinding neighbors of Joseph and Mary when they complain about his behavior, and magically doing other things while learning to control his powers. Being gnostic, they involve the teaching of secret knowledge you don't find in the canonical gospels. There are admirable teaching in those gospels, but it seems clear that the Jesus they describe is a persona developed over many years, and he was depicted as very different from the Jesus of the Canon by those who considered themselves Christian.

Mine is Marcus Tullius Cicero, of course. Ciceronianus sum, non Christianus

I can't think of anything signifcantly redemptive that wasn't borrowed from pagan philosophy, especially that of Plato, the neo-platonists, the Stoics and Aristotle.

Not enough, no. I think there's no getting around the fact that Christianty benefited primarily from its acquisition of imperial authority, which ignored the destruction of the pagan past and then actively participated in it. Justinian closed the last of the philosophical schools of Athens, and after that there wasn't much left.

A favorite of mine.

Julian the Apostate credited Christians with their care of the poor, and thought it part of their appeal. During his brief time as Emperor he thought of trying to organize similar relief on behalf of pagan divinities.

I may be making myself misunderstood. The error I mean is to treat the "observer" as in a separate world from the "observed." They're not one and the same, though.

I think the point he's making, if I understand it, is an error because he treats the "observer" as separate from the "observed." Certainly we matter, because we're part of the same world. So, there are no laws of nature or physics separate from us but that's because we're not separate from nature--but that doesn't mean we make the laws. Make any sense?

For me, all we are, all we do, all we know, is derived from our interactivity with the rest of the world. I suspect there's a lot we don't know about the universe, though, and that interaction may include aspects of which we're not yet aware.

How comforting it must be to think the world is only a mental construct, and how blithe you must feel when you hear of those who claim to suffer in it!

I've been away for a time.

By way of explaining how we differ, I wonder if you can elaborate on how you think the capacities of our mind you've referred to in our past exchanges came to be if not through our interaction with the rest 9f the world?

I think ambiguity and misconceptions arise when ordinary language is misused in philosophy, myself.

In fact, I think we agree on several things discussed here. But I'm uncomfortable with your terminology in some cases, and concerned about what I think are inferences which I believe are unsubstantiated.

OK. But I think when we claim each of us create or construct the world, and cats and bunnies do so as well, the world tends to multiply.

For the record, I don't assume there's a world "external" to me. I'm part of the world, like everything else. I'm not sure what you mean by an "internal world." It wouldn't be surprising if you assume there's one though. It seems you think worlds abound. You have a rococo conception of reality, or realities.

But regardless, I think you define and use "intend" and other words in ways I think are so beyond ordinary use I don't think further discussion would benefit either of us.