"the people were astonished at his doctrine" - Early Christians and Judaists in the Roman Empire

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Early Christians and Judaists in the Roman Empire

It is a big mystery how Christianity spread in the Roman Empire.

This map from ‘A History of Christianity’ (Lion Handbook) shows the growth of the Church over the first 300 years. This is stark evidence that the early Church had indeed captured Christ's vision of a 'movement,' which Luke had so powerfully articulated in his writings!

http://simplymobilizing.blogspot.jp/2011/06/amazing-growth-of-early-church-in-first.html


We have to also refer to a map showing where Judaists lived in the Roman Empire.

The Jewish Diaspora
By the end of the first century BCE, Rome had taken over the eastern Mediterranean and the Jewish population was spread through many cities of the east. In the third and fourth centuries CE there were substantial Jewish settlements in most major eastern cities and many western provinces as well.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/maps/jewish.html

So, comparing the two maps with each other, we can find that where Judaists were Christians also emerged in the Roman Empire till the Third Century.

But what was the Jewish population at the time?

Jews in Roman Empire:
25% of Roman population in Eastern Mediterranean
10% of entire Roman Empire  

48 C.E. Roman census: 7 million Jews (mostly in Judea, Egypt, Syria, Asia Minor, Babylon, Iran, Yemen and Ethiopia) for an estimated total of 8 million world wide.
http://www.sephardicgen.com/popul.htm

So then, what was the Christian population in the Roman Empire?

The Growth of Christianity in the Roman Empire 

The Christian population grew by 40 percent a decade, from about 1,000 Christians in the year 40 to 7,530 in 100 to a little over six million in 300 and 33 million in 350
— growing, in the hundred years between 250 and 350, from about two percent of the population to slightly over half. 

By the time Constantine legalized the practice of Christianity in 313, the empire was already heavily Christianized. By the year 300 perhaps 10 percent of the people were Christians, and by the middle of the century, Christians may well have been a majority of the citizens, 33 million Christians in an empire of 60 millionpeople. So Constantine did not so much ensure Christianity’s success as acknowledge it.
http://huron2.aaps.k12.mi.us/smitha/HUM/PDF/Growth-of-Chr.pdf

In summary, it seems that presence of Judaists around helped many Roman citizens and dwellers in the Empire accept the teaching of Christianity, even though only a small number of Judaists converted to Christianity.

Probably, in a typical case, a Roman citizen saw Judaists in his community to be interested in the world depicted in the Gospels.  Then he found that the teaching of Jesus transcended time and space or history and environment.  Christianity appealed to the Roman citizen regardless of a difference in the race, tradition, and other backgrounds, since Jesus' teaching was universal.

So long as Judaists played such an important role in the early stage of acceptance of Christianity by Roman citizens, those Roman-citizens-turned Christians would not hate, attack, or try to kill those Judaists.  But as time went by, when the Vatican consolidated its authority and people came to believe in Christianity without communications with Judaists, Judaists must have been isolated from Christians.  It must have become a cause of later friction and clashes between Christians and Judaists.  




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Mat 7:28 And it came to pass, when Jesus had ended these sayings, the people were astonished at his doctrine:
Mat 7:29 For he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.