frontier. If information about the fourth-century Gothic bishop
Ulfilas can be trusted, then Christianity came to the Goths from
Christian prisoners captured in raids by Gothic pirates on the
northern coast of Asia Minor in the mid-third century (Heather
and Matthews 1991: 143–4). For many places in the Roman world,
however, the presence of Christianity cannot be explained with full
clarity: Christian churches simply appear. In the absence of direct
and unambiguous evidence, therefore, we should be cautious of
accepting notions that Christianity spread primarily through an
organized missionary strategy emanating from the faith’s eastern
point of origin. ‘Secondary’ missions are possible too, such as that
postulated for the churches of southern Gaul, which suggests that
they were evangelized from Rome, not from the eastern provinces
(Lane Fox 1986: 273). But the idea that Christianity spread only
through organized missions is probably much too neat; the reality
was very likely more haphazard.Conversion
Why did people convert to Christianity in apparently increasing
numbers? Again, this is a difficult question to answer in terms
that are satisfactory for modern historians. In the gospels Jesus
displays his power through miracles; in turn, Paul performs
miracles that persuade people to convert (Klauck 2000a). The
miraculous element is not limited to the New Testament, but is
found in later authors too. Eusebius famously describes in his
Martyrs of Palestine how, during the persecution under the
emperor Maximinus Daia (305–13), a Christian from Caesarea in
Palestine was executed by drowning (4.14–15). As soon as he was
thrown into the sea, however, there was an earthquake and the
sea threw up his body in front of the city’s gates, prompting the
whole of the astonished population (so Eusebius tells us) to
convert on the spot. Such miraculous stories have been taken
seriously by some historians (MacMullen 1984: 25–9). The world
into which Christianity expanded, after all, was one where thereCONTEXTS FOR THE ORIGIN OF CHRISTIANITY
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