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Gilbert also held that in CE 300 there were probably at least three million Jews living in the Roman empire of whom a million resided west of Macedonia (Gilbert 1992:17). If Gilbert was accurate, then a plausible hypothesis for explaining this change, from 6 million to 3 million over the course of 250 years, would include the conversions of significant numbers of Jews to Judeo-Christianity.
Stark, who opts for this phenomenon, argues that Jews as a population were the primary source of Christian converts well into the second century and they remained a viable source of converts well into the late fourth or early fifth centuries (Stark 1996:138). He stressed that Jewish Christianity: "...played a central role until much later in the rise of Christianity�that not only was it the Jews of the Diaspora who provided the initial basis for church growth during the first and early second centuries, but that Jews continued as a significant source of Christian converts until at least as late as the fourth century and that Jewish Christianity was still significant in the fifth century" (Stark 1996:49).
The implication is that by CE 300 about 3 million ethnic Jews were at that time Judeo-Christians rather than observant Jews. The Judeo-Christian message was alluring to Diasporan Jews because they could retain their Jewish culture while remaining free to live in a Gentile world free of the restrictions of the Mosaic Code and the rules of rising rabbinic Judaism.
Stark held that 10% of the population of the Roman world, roughly 5�7.5 million, became Christians by CE 300 and probably over 50% by CE 350 (Stark 1996:6-7, 10). David Edwards also placed the early fourth century population of the Church at about a tenth of a Roman world population of 60 million (Edwards 1997:70).
Stark developed projections for the Christian population of the Roman empire for the period CE 40�350 by assuming an initial Christian population as 1,000 in CE 40, downplaying the conversion figures provided in Acts, and projecting a uniform 40% growth rate per decade for 250 years. These figures, however, were for the Roman empire not for other regions such as India, Mesopotamia, North Africa, and Ethiopia.
Table 3
Growth Projection 1
|
|||||
|
Year |
Decade |
Number of Christians at a 40% per decade growth rate |
Number of Christians of Jewish Stock at a 36% per decade growth rate |
Derived Number of Christians of gentile Stock |
Gentile Percentage Total Christians in the Roman Empire |
|
Column 1 |
Column 2 |
Column 3 |
Column 4 |
Column 5 |
Column 6 |
|
40 |
0 |
P0=1,000 |
1,000 |
0 |
0 |
|
50 |
1 |
1,400 |
1,360 |
40 |
2.8 |
|
70 |
3 |
2,744 |
2,515 |
229 |
8.3 |
|
100 |
6 |
7,530 |
6,328 |
1,202 |
16.0 |
|
130 |
9 |
20,661 |
15,917 |
4,744 |
23.0 |
|
150 |
11 |
40,496 |
28,439 |
11,057 |
|
|
200 |
16 |
217,795 |
136,969 |
80,826 |
37.1 |
|
250 |
21 |
1,171,356 |
637,261 |
534,095 |
45.6 |
|
300 |
26 |
6,299,832 |
2,964,911 |
3,334,921 |
52.9 |
|
350 |
31 |
33,882,008 |
3,000,000+ |
30,882,008 |
91.2 |
Column 3 in Table 3, Growth Projection 1, provides population projections for the number of Christians in the Roman empire at a 40% per decade growth rate, based upon Stark�s methodology.F1 The nature of this Christian population is problematic yet there is sufficient information to explore issues pertaining to the growth of the Church of the Circumcision (the Judeo-Christians) and the Church of the Gentiles (the Greco-Roman Gentile Christians).
For the population of Judeo-Christians, continually drawing upon a declining population pool of Jewish stock, to increase from 1,000 in CE 40 to 3 million by CE 350, required a growth rate of 36% per decade. These data appear at Column 4 in Table 4. Imputation of the corresponding Gentile Christian population projections result from the differences between the figures in Column 3 and Column 4. The comparison of these population projections suggests that Gentile Christians overtook Judeo-Christians late in the third century and swamped them in the fourth. The data show that if one downplays the number of Judeo-Christians then the Gentiles predominated Christendom from the third century by an even greater margin.
__________
F1The mathematical formula for the computations of the projections provided in Tables 3,4, and 5 is Pn = P0(1 + r/100)n with Pn = population projection for decade P0 = initial population n = decade r = percent growth per decade.
Page last edited: 11/28/04 08:44 AM
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