The poor Christian wretches have convinced themselves, first and foremost,
that that they are going to be immortal and live for all time, in consequence
of which they despise death and even willingly give themselves into cus-
tody, most of them. Furthermore, their first lawgiver [ Jesus] persuaded them
that they are all brothers of one another...by worshipping that crucified
sophist himself and living under his laws. (Lucian of Samosata [c. 170 CE]
2001:15)And so it appears that ancient pagans viewed Christians much as Stark
believes. Yet Lucian does not admire their brotherhood and selflessness; on
the contrary:
Therefore they despise all things indiscriminately and consider all things
common property, receiving their doctrines of faith without any evidence.
So if any charlatan and trickster, able to profit by occasions, comes among
them, he quickly acquires sudden wealth by imposing upon these simple
folk. (Lucian of Samosata [c. 170 CE] 2001:15)Rational-choice theory argues that the bane of all collective action is the free-
riders, those who participate minimally but seek to accrue maximum benefit.
Lucian observes that free-riders easily impose themselves on the Christians
and even “acquire sudden wealth” whereas Stark, without references, argues
that in the case of Christianity, “sacrifice and stigma mitigate the free-rider
problems faced by religious groups” (Stark 1997:177) because they raise the
costs of association. That is, a person must accept the stigma of being identified
as a member, and also sacrifice of themselves. This raises the value of mem-
bership. Yet in addition to Lucian’s testimony, and contrary to popular belief,
the Romans persecuted Christians very irregularly, having killed only hun-
dreds of people over roughly three hundred years of time, not thousands of
people (Frend 1965:413). Moreover, patricians like Constantine the Great expe-
rienced neither stigma nor sacrifice upon his conversion shortly after October
28, 312 CE (battle of the Milvian bridge). If anything, his move towards
Christianity only solidified his political power. It would seem that unscrupu-
lous free-riders could readily exploit early Christians.
Even beyond the free-rider problem, Stark argues that the pagan world
was crowded with far too many religious commodities, that the market was
saturated with a dizzying array of choices as the result of “excessive plural-
ism” (Stark 1997:197). Christianity thus appeared as a superior product,
because its monotheistic belief system clearly distinguished itself in com-
parison to pagan plurality. This only increased the value of Christian rewards,
The Concept of Choice in the Rise of Christianity • 233