Like the Greeks, the Romans were
pagans, which means 
they
believed in many gods. The Roman gods included Jupiter, Neptune,
Saturn, and Mars. Later, the Romans deified Caesar Augustus. This
means the worshipped him as a god.
Most of the people who lived near
Jerusalem were Jewish. The Romans allowed the Jews to practice their
faith and did not make them worship Roman gods. About AD30, a holy
man named Jesus began to attract a following in Jerusalem. Jerusalem
is part of the modern nation of Israel. His followers believed that
Jesus was the son of the god of the Jews and that he created miracles.
The followers of Jesus angered local authorities because they refused
to follow either Jewish or Roman laws. The authorities arrested
Jesus and executed him by nailing him to a cross. Three days later,
his followers said they saw Jesus rise from the dead.
Many
fervent believers carried the message of Jesus throughout the Roman
Empire. One of the most successful was Paul of Tarsus, known to
Christians as Saint Paul. Paul was a Roman citizen, but he was born
a Jew. As a young man, he helped to persecute Christians, but one
day he had a vision where he believed Jesus spoke to him from heaven.
Paul then spent the rest of his life thinking and writing about
Christianity, and winning new converts to the faith.
The followers of Jesus called him
Christ. Christ is a Greek word that means "chosen one" because they
believed he was chosen by God. In time they became known as Christians.
The Christians taught that people's sins would be forgiven if they
became Christian. This message was not successful with many Jews,
but many pagans responded to the idea of Christian salvation.
About fifty years after Jesus died,
Christians combined the stories of the life and wisdom of Jesus
into four books known as Gospels. Gospel means "good news." The
holy book of Christianity is known as the Bible and has two parts.
The Old Testament consists of the sacred writings of the Jewish
people, and was written mostly in Hebrew long before Jesus. The
New Testament of the Bible includes the
Gospels, along with essays by Paul and other Christian writers.
The Bible has been translated into more than 1,500 languages and
has been read by more people than any other book.
At first the Romans did not mind
that Christians did not worship their gods. The Empire was prosperous
and there were not many Christians. Within the next two hundred
years, barbarian warriors attacked the empire, taxes rose, and small
landowners were forced to give up their farms. Many Romans suggested
that bad times were coming to the empire because a growing group
of Christians did not worship the Roman gods.
The emperor Decius decided to stamp
out Christianity in AD249, but he was killed the following year.
Seven years later, another emperor named Valerian renewed the persecution.
When he was captured by the Persians in AD259, his son, Gallienus,
permitted Christians to practice their faith. The persecutions were
renewed in AD303, but when Constantine seized power in AD306, he
ended the persecution of Christians for good. In AD312, an emperor
named Constantine made Christianity legal. He seized the treasures
of the pagan temples and melted them to make currency, but he gave
a great deal of wealth to the Christians.
A legend says that on the eve of
a battle, Constantine saw a burning cross in the sky with words
that translate to "By this sign you shall conquer." Constantine
never established Christianity as the official religion of the empire,
but he did encourage its growth. He ordered that Christianity be
a legal and tolerated religion. He also established Sunday as a
day of worship.
Christianity was more popular in
the eastern part of the Roman Empire than it was the in the west.
Constantine supported the church, but relied on the Christians to
help him keep order. This made the church more powerful. Fifty years
after Constantine's death, Christianity became the official religion
of the Roman Empire.
Christianity grew from a little known,
persecuted group to the principal religious faith of the Roman Empire.
These factors contributed to the spread of Christianity.
