74–75), this type of analysis hasbeen done in scholarship on early Chris-
tianity (see, e.g., Harnack 1908, 1:171–73; Phillips 1930, 113; Dodds 1965,
136–37; G.W.H. Lampe 1966, 48, 52; Lane Fox 1987, 323–24, 590–91). Stark
asserts that not only did those plagues wipe out large segments of the pop-
ulation, but they also taxed and permanently shattered the conventional
social and religious coping mechanisms of the Greco-Roman world, and in
fact were leading contributors to the Empire’s decline. In sharp contrast to
mainstream society, Christian groups during this period had a clearly artic-
ulated ethic of charity and an equally well-developed practical system to
deliver nursing care and other good deeds to both members and outsiders.
It is Stark’s thesis, in chapter 4, that cataclysmic plagues provided a criti-
cal growth (or “market”) opportunity for early Christian groups. Here Stark
(1996, 75, 78–79) uses ideas from sociology about revitalization move-
ments. In this view, new religious movements arise in response to social
crises that have not been successfully met by current religions (see also
Stark and Bainbridge 1985, 177, 360–62; 1987, 188–89).
Stark proposes three points to support his thesis. He asserts that Chris-
tian beliefs provided more satisfactory explanations of the meaning of the
disasters than did paganism (thus producing a more attractive religious
“product”); that Christian practices of charitable health care were more
effective than anything offered by non-Christian groups (resulting in lower
mortality rates among Christians and an influx of pagans into the group);
and that constraints against a pagan’s converting to Christianity were less-
ened as that person’s non-Christian friends and relatives died and attach-
ments and obligations to charitable Christians increased. As Stark (1996,
75) notes, the first two points are taken from McNeill (1976, 108–109),
who makes an interesting comparison between the spread of Christianity,
on the one hand, and, on the other, the contemporary spread of Buddhism
during plague years in China during the Han Empire in the first century CE
(1976, 121). Although this point provides a parallel situation in support of
Stark’s position, he does not comment on it. In what follows, I will exam-
ine Stark’s thesis and each of his three points.
Severity of the Plagues
How serious were the aforementioned plagues, and how widespread? Opin-
ion varies on these issues. Stark views the plagues as being exceptionally
severe and widespread. He says that the plague was “devastating...
lethal...from a quarter to a third of the empire’s population died from it”
(Stark 1996, 73; also pp. 76–77). Stark assumes that the plagues were small-
pox and measles, diseases that canhave very high mortality rates in virgin
populations. However, the diagnosis of which diseases occurred in the