Who Is Most Responsible for the SUCCESS of the Christian Religion?

Only if they were enlightened and became Christians and Evangelized others. You can't convert with the sword. An example of this are the native Mexicans. The Spaniards were so cruel and hated, that the Franciscans who came later said it was impossible to convert them. Then a miracle happened with a saintly native, and within 10 years 8 million native Mexicans were baptized.

https://cathfamily.org/the-story-of...Yucatan Peninsular to the colony of New Spain.

 

I'd vote CHEE-SUSS ... but he's captain of a sinking ship...

https://www.pewforum.org/2019/10/17/in-u-s-decline-of-christianity-continues-at-rapid-pace/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2021/03/29/church-membership-fallen-below-majority/


GREAT to see, by the way...

 

Elaine Pagels, professor of religion at Princeton University and author of Beyond Belief:The Secret Gospel of Thomas, dates Thomas's composition to AD 80 or 90, which would be before many scholars date the Bible's Gospel of John. "The scholars that I know see John and Thomas sharing a common tradition", she said. Yet the gospels of John and Thomas come to opposing conclusions concerning pivotal theological issues. "John says that we can experience God only through the divine light embodied in Jesus," Pagels said. "But certain passages in Thomas's gospel draw a quite different conclusion: that the divine light Jesus embodied is shared by humanity, since we are all made in the image of God."

The Thomas gospel describes Jesus not as the biblical redeemer, but as a wisdom figure who imparts secret teachings to the disciples who are mature enough to receive them. That's consistent with the Gnostic belief that salvation comes through knowledge, not through Christ's atonement for sin. "The salvation offered in the Gospel of Thomas is clearly at odds with the salvation (by grace through faith) offered in the New Testament," said Ben Witherington the third of Asbury Theological Seminary. In the Gnostic view, he said, "a person has to be worthy to receive Jesus' secret wisdom."

 

I picked Paul. Paul was influenced by Mithraism which is similar to Christianity. Paul's version of Christianity was not threatening to the Roman Empire and compatible with it. Paul was more responsible than anyone
else for the early spread of Christianity and he was most important in making it a it a religion that gentiles could easily adopt.

I doubt if Jesus was interested in starting a new religion and I consider him to be a legendary figure.

http://www.vexen.co.uk/religion/mithraism.html

Mithraism is an ancient roman religion from the 1st century BCE1,2. It flourished in the first few centuries CE by which time it had many features in common with Christianity3 (as did multiple religions and cults of the era3,4,5) including the motif of a crucified-and-resurrected god-man who comes to bring salvation from sin, and the primacy of 12 followers6.

St Paul is often called the first Christian and 13 books of the New Testament bear his name: he was born as Saul of Tarsus in Tarsus, a major centre of Mithraism and he bears much of the responsibility for moulding Mithraism into Christianity9. Later Roman Emperors, Mithraist then Christian, mixed the rituals and laws of both religions into one. Emperor Constantine established 25th of Dec, the birthdate of Mithras, to be the birthdate of Jesus too. The principal day of worship of the Jews, The Sabbath, was replaced by the Mithraistic Sun Day as the Christian holy day. The Catholic Church, based in Rome and founded on top of the most venerated Mithraist temple, wiped out all competing son-of-god religions within the Roman Empire, giving us modern literalist Christianity.

“It was in Tarsus that the Mysteries of Mithras had originated, so it would have been unthinkable that Paul would have been unaware of the remarkable similarities we have already explored between Christian doctrines and the teachings of Mithraism. [Footnote:] Tarsus was the capital of Cilicia, where, according to Plutarch [46-125CE], the Mithraic Mysteries were being practiced as early as 67BCE”

"The Jesus Mysteries" by Timothy Freke & Peter Gandy (1999

 

Paul was without doubt the founder of christianity, without him there is not a single eyewitness account of a risen Jesus!

But the question is about the success of the religion which really only became successful when adopted by the Romans.

 

The role of Jesus is symbolic rather than active when it comes to responsibility for the success of the Christian religion itself.

Without Paul there wouldn't be an Christian religion. His motivation was to destroy Judaism with what was essentially a blasphemous "son of god" concept that would divide the Jews thus rendering them less influential when it came to opposing Rome.

While it is true that Constantine did play a significant role in what has become the Christian bible in essence what he did was to solidify Paulism as the central doctrine of Christianity.

It was Paul who preached about the need to spread Christianity and therefore in the limited OP poll choices he takes the award as being MOST responsible.

 

Of course, Eastern Europe was somewhat similar to what happened to Spain, Sicily and parts of Italy - they were conquered by Muslims and it took the indigenous Christians centuries to reclaim their lands. Many nobles in the Balkans - Gjergj Kastrioti (Skanderbeg), János Hunyadi, Vlad III Drăculea, Matthias Corvinus and others - valiantly resisted the Ottoman onslaught. Then there is the figure of King Jan III Sobieski of Poland, considered ny many another savior of Western Christendom alongside Charles Martel, whose famed winged hussars routed the Turks besieging Vienna in 1683. After that, one of the greatest military leaders in European history, the Austrian general Prince Eugene of Savoy, put the Ottomans on the defensive for the first time and annihilated their army at the Battle of Zenta (September 11, 1697), which led to the Treaty of Karlowitz that marked the beginning of the decline and fall of the Ottoman Empire.

 

The assumption that Christianity succeeded is totally unfounded. The teachings of Jesus have yet to be generally adopted. The success of Christians would have resulted in their beliefs being universally embraced, general welfare assured, peace reigning and other religions mere historical artifacts.
Probably the biggest disaster to befall the faith of true Christians was the takeover Constantine began.

 

Actually, you're confusing two different things there.

The first has to do with the Muslim prophet Muhammad. According to John of Damascus (c. 675-749 AD) in The Fount of Knowledge:

“There is also the superstition of the Ishmaelites which to this day prevails and keeps people in error, being a forerunner of the Antichrist. They are descended from Ishmael, [who] was born to Abraham of Agar, and for this reason they are called both Agarenes and Ishmaelites… From that time to the present a false prophet named Mohammed has appeared in their midst. This man, after having chanced upon the Old and New Testaments and likewise, it seems, having conversed with an Arian monk, devised his own heresy. Then, having insinuated himself into the good graces of the people by a show of seeming piety, he gave out that a certain book had been sent down to him from heaven. He had set down some ridiculous compositions in this book of his and he gave it to them as an object of veneration.”

Later scholars also noted that what later became known as Islam was originally an off-shoot of Arianism and Judaism.

As for 'Spain belonging to Muslims', Islamist ideologues such as Yusuf al-Qaradawi of the Muslim Brotherhood, have called for the reconquest of the lands that had once been under Muslim occupation - Spain, southern Italy, Sicily, Greece, the Balkans, Israel, etc. - in accordance with the old Islamic doctrine that once a land is conquered by Muslims it becomes an inalienable Islamic waqf that Muslims are obligated to possess and control for perpetuity.

Of course, the Arab Muslim armies that overran North Africa and Spain in the 7th and 8th Centuries did come into contact with the Arians in those regions, but this was well after Muhammad died and Islam was born.

 

Ack!

Do you know who Werner Sombart was?

 

Mohamed was given the Quran by an Angel, but was it an angel of light or of darkness? That is what his wife asked him.

Islam was considered a Christian heresy at one time.

 

How can you say that the beliefs of Christianity haven't been adopted when almost every humane law in the world is derived either directly or indirectly from Christianity.

 

What takeover of Constantine? He called for a Ecumenical Council to establish Christian beliefs and eliminate the heresies that were running rampant at the time. He also founded the city of New Rome on the Bosporus and prolonged the Roman Empire and civilization for a thousand years. Without it there would have been no Italian Renaissance, and Europe would have remained in the Dark Ages.

 

While I like the idea you are preaching, it sits upon a somewhat unsteady base: i.e., this 80 - 90 AD/CE date. I certainly don't know better, that it, for sure, wasn't at that time, but I had thought I'd remembered, from back when this gospel was found
& translated (as part of the Nag Hammadi Library), that it was dated to around 130 AD. So I just checked the internet, & got a range of between 60 and 140 AD; apparently, the scholarly community cannot say, for sure, either. Not that it is ultimately of the greatest importance-- depending on one's presumptions.

Either way, neither John nor Thomas, in all likelihood, ever even caught sight of the historical Jesus (assuming there to have been one, and only one, living figure). It seems less than likely that either even personally knew any of the apostles, though John certainly writes as if he were acquainted with the other John (perhaps a son?), & it is certainly feasible that either would cross paths, in one of the early Christian communities, with one of these older, original ones.

But I think these writings are more a testament to the fecundity of religio-philosophical thought, in the Near East & vicinity, at that point in history, and the ravenous appetites of the people, for it. You are probably familiar with Mithraism, which competed with Christianity for popularity, and the cult of Serapis, which was reaching a broader audience at the same time as Christianity was rising into the spotlight. This was probably the last really open frontier, of religious speculation, lasting up until the founding of Islam. Since then-- excepting the relatively mild changes in thought which brought on the great Schism-- it has been more a matter, for most, of simply following one of the established paths; coincidentally, Islam translates as, "submission."

This last sentence of yours caught my attention because of my own reinterpretation of something from the Catholic masses of my younger days. Just before communion (receiving the body & blood of Christ through the transformed wine & bread wafer), the priest would lead us in saying, "Lord, I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the word, and I shall be healed."
But, in thinking about what Jesus preached, it seems not so much about pleading our own unworthiness, and simply begging forgiveness, as instead it was when he encouraged Simon Peter to walk on the Sea of Galilee to meet him, or in his parable of the servants & the Talents, or in his words to the adulteress, at whom no one cast the first stone: after saying-- does no one condemn you for your sin? Nor do I condemn you-- Jesus adds, avoid this sin in the future. So I actually agree that his message, rather than just focused on the awareness of one's unworthiness, would be better represented by the exhortation, to strive to, "BECOME more WORTHY."

 

Someone sounds kinda bitter....

 

There could be no more profound perversion of Jesus' intentions than to turn what was purported to be a church based upon Jesus and turn it into the most intensely materialistic institution, fused with the state, one could create.

 

That would be really horrible if True

 

While I would agree that the Greek scholars fleeing the crumbling remains of the Byzantine Empire provided valuable contributions to the Italian Renaissance, I disagree that there would have been no Renaissance and Europe wouldn't have emerged from the so-called "Dark Ages" without them. The fact is, Western Europe was already emerging from the chaos that followed the disintegration and fall of Rome by the beginning of the High Middle Ages, circa 1000 AD. Around this time the Medieval Agricultural Revolution began, producing an explosion in population growth that revitalized urban and commercial life in the West. This combined with the Norman conquest of Sicily and southern Italy and the destruction of the Umayyad frontier state at Fraxinet cleared the travel and trade routes between Northern and Southern Europe fueling the Medieval Commercial Revolution that lasted until the Industrial Revolution. Amongst the wealthiest of Europe's burgeoning cities were the maritime republics of northern Italy - Venice, Genoa, Pisa, etc. - and their inland neighbors in Florence, Sienna, etc.. It was this profusion of wealth and the profound impact of the Black Death that struck Northern Italy particularly hard and produced a renewed interest in humanism that were the two main contributors to the Renaissance. You also have to consider that scholars were recovering vast body of Classical, primarily Roman, knowledge beginning around 1000 AD with the recovery of the entire corpus of Roman civil law (Justinian's Code) and the writings of Cicero and others by Italian Classicists and humanists, most notably Petrarch. What the Byzantine scholars did was add the Classical Greek dimension of knowledge, science, art and culture to the Classical Roman dimension.

In my estimation, the Eastern Roman/Byzantine Empire's greatest contribution to the rest of Europe was its military and economic might. Certainly, it was the flower of Western Civilization for a considerable amount of time, but it was its strength that helped give Western Europe the opportunity to recover from the collapse of the Western Empire and rebuild its own military and economic strength while the Arab and Ottoman caliphates were in their ascendancy. As I presume you're aware, trade with Constantinople played a large role in the economic and military strength of the Italian maritime republics, most notably Venice and to a somewhat lesser degree Genoa. It was thanks in no small part to the Byzantines and their neighbors in the Balkans who resisted the Ottoman onslaught for centuries that the kingdoms of Central Europe were able to repel the Turks at Vienna in 1529 and 1683. Had Constantinople fallen in the 7th or 8th Centuries there's no telling how the West would have fared, but it's easy to assume that it wouldn't have been nearly as well.

 

How are facts bitter?

 

Fact is Rome was on the downswing but Christianity thrived in spite of their decline. It's also a fact that the Vikings...though they were the fearsome conquerors, dropped their gods cold and converted to Christianity bringing it back to their home country.

 

The dates that the other gospels are written are later than that of the canonical gospels. https://www.gotquestions.org/when-Gospels-written.html

https://reasonsforjesus.com/is-the-gospel-of-thomas-authentic/

 

Of course, and perhaps not surprisingly, that perversion proved to be the downfall of the Catholic Church's institutional monopoly.

 

@The Amazing Sam's Ego

I apparently misread your previous post, to which I responded, thinking you were an advocate for the gospel of Thomas's parity with the canonical gospels. I would have thought you realized this, from the way my answer began, talking about the problem with your case, and stating that it had been my impression that the gospel of Thomas was from a little bit later than even the last of the canonicals, John. This being the case, while I thank you for trying to enlighten me, you were not providing me any information that I did not already possess. Oral traditions-- yeah, I understand all that. And my overall theme, that Thomas was a different interpretation of the Christian message, is consistent with the case you seem to be presenting to me, as if there was some need to convince me of anything. So, if you have no interest in varying interpretations of, even canonical texts, I guess that covers everything. (Peace be with you).

 

There is so much evidence that Christ existed, so people will say that he was a good man, an angel, a sage, a prophet, a messiah but not divine. https://reasonsforjesus.com/did-a-pre-christ-celestial-angel-named-jesus-exist/

 

Do I take it correctly, from your reply, that you are trying to offer proof that Jesus was a, "divine," being? There is no such, "proof," of a spiritual realm, though I do believe there something to the idea, only that any details about it must be highly speculative. That would, naturally, include whether or not a given person had incarnated, from the heart of that realm.

I think you are misstating the case, as far as the Jesus evidence, though of course there are very strong opinions on the matter. My understanding is that no mainstream scholarship can validate Jesus having been an historical personage; this is, however, in no way, disproof of the fact. I believe, like any mythical figure, Jesus was very likely a real person. The value of his message, though, I judge by nothing other than that message, itself, as it has survived, not by any particular claims of his, "authority."