vious paragraph. MacMullen points out that, after the end of the New Tes-
tament period, there are very few references to missionary activity. Further,
the few references that can be invoked by supporters of the traditional
view either are vague and indefinite, demonstrating nothing more than
the belief that the earliest generations of Christianity had engaged in mis-
sion, or refer to itinerant teachers whose activity is directed toward the
already converted (see Did.11–13; Origen, Cels.3.9). The two relevant pas-
sages in Eusebius (Hist. eccl.3.37.1–4; 5.10.2) are strongly retrospective in
tone. The first states that, in the time of Pantaenus, “there were still many
evangelists of the word,” suggesting that by Eusebius’s day this had long
since ceased to be the case; the second declares that there were many itin-
erant evangelists “in the age immediately succeeding the apostles,” but
names only those whose names were attached to writings (e.g., the decid-
edly non-itinerant Clement of Rome). MacMullen’s conclusion is: “after
Saint Paul, the church had no mission, it made no organized or official
approach to unbelievers; rather, it left everything to the individual” (1984,
34). Accordingly, MacMullen argues for the informal spread of the faith
through various social networks, laying particular stress on testimonies of
healing and the like (see, further, Stark 1997; also, below, chapters 9 to 12).
The plausibility of this conclusion receives inadvertent support from the fact
that proponents of the traditional position, including Goodman himself,
invariably recognize both the paucity of the evidence and the significance
of informal or unorganized means of propagation.
This latter point should caution us not to exaggerate the difference
between MacMullen and his predecessors. Nowhere was the idea of an
organized, official, worldwide mission ever thought to be the sole, or even
the most important, factor in the spread of Christianity. In contrast to the
paucity of references to missionary activity, it is important to note that
there is a wealth of references in early Christian literature to the geograph-
ical spread of the movement (see Harnack 1904, 147–82). Still, the belief
that, in its earliest centuries, Christianity was characterized by such a mis-
sion is deeply and widely held, and it is striking to read MacMullen and to
realize how little evidence there is to support it.
More precisely, MacMullen’s position is that there is little evidence
“after Saint Paul” (1984, 34). But what about “Saint Paul”? The traditional
view that Paul “invented the whole idea of a systematic conversion of the
world, area by geographical area” (Goodman 1994, 106), and bequeathed
it to the church, has been called into question, at least on the latter point:
if the church in the second and third century CEhad no systematically
organized mission, we cannot credit Paul with its origin. But what about
“The Field God Has Assigned” 111