Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2018 Dec 26;13(12):e0208744.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0208744. eCollection 2018.

Spatial constraints on the diffusion of religious innovations: The case of early Christianity in the Roman Empire

Jan Fousek  1   2 , Vojtěch Kaše  3   4 , Adam Mertel  5 , Eva Výtvarová  2 , Aleš Chalupa  3
Affiliations

Spatial constraints on the diffusion of religious innovations: The case of early Christianity in the Roman Empire

Jan Fousek et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

Christianity emerged as a small and marginal movement in the first century Palestine and throughout the following three centuries it became highly visible in the whole Mediterranean. Little is known about the mechanisms of spreading innovative ideas in past societies. Here we investigate how well the spread of Christianity can be explained as a diffusive process constrained by physical travel in the Roman Empire. First, we combine a previously established model of the transportation network with city population estimates and evaluate to which extent the spatio-temporal pattern of the spread of Christianity can be explained by static factors. Second, we apply a network-theoretical approach to analyze the spreading process utilizing effective distance. We show that the spread of Christianity in the first two centuries closely follows a gravity-guided diffusion, and is substantially accelerated in the third century. Using the effective distance measure, we are able to suggest the probable path of the spread. Our work demonstrates how the spatio-temporal patterns we observe in the data can be explained using only spatial constraints and urbanization structure of the empire. Our findings also provide a methodological framework to be reused for studying other cultural spreading phenomena.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. The spatio-temporal distribution of the documented presence of Christian congregations.
The congregations from the three periods of interest [20] are shown on the outline of Roman provinces [21]. The map includes also congregations outside the empire.
Fig 2
Fig 2. Factors of the time of Christianization.
(A) Travel expense to Jerusalem, (B) population size, (C) gravity model with ρ = 1, and (D) gravity model with ρ = 2. The boxes show the median and the quartiles, the whiskers extend past the quartiles by 1.5 interquartile range.
Fig 3
Fig 3. A geographical view of the shortest effective distance tree from Jerusalem.
Fig 4
Fig 4. Effective distance from Jerusalem and the time of Christianization.
(A) the radial distance is equal to the effective distance, colors correspond to the time of Christianization. (B) the distribution of the effective distance against the time of Christianization. The box shows the median and the quartiles, the whiskers extend past the quartiles by 1.5 interquartile range.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. MacMullen R. Christianizing the Roman Empire: (AD 100–400). Yale University Press; 1984.
    1. Harris WV. The Spread of Christianity in the First Four Centuries: Essays in Explanation. vol. 176 of Columbia Studies in the Classical Tradition. Brill; 2005.
    1. Snyder GF. Ante Pacem: Archaelogical Evidence of Church Life Before Constantine. Mercer; 1985.
    1. von Harnack A, Moffatt J. The Mission and Expansion of Christianity in the First Three Centuries. vol. 2 Williams and Norgate; 1908.
    1. Mullen RL. The Expansion of Christianity: A Gazetteer of Its First Three Centuries Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae. Brill; 2004.

Publication types