Christianizing the urban empire: An anaiysis based on 22 Greco-Roman cities

Seven ordinal variables were created for the 22 largest Greco-Roman cities around the year 100 C.E. These were used to test a series of hypotheses about the rise of Christianity and the origins of Gnosticism. The effects of city size on the rise of Christianity and the spread of Gnosticism conform to Fischer’s subcultural theory of urbanism. Very strong findings reflect the importance of Jewish diasporan communities for the rise of Christianity. Finally, a regression model gives unequivocal support to the thesis that while Christianity arose as a Jewish “heresy,” Gnosticism arose as a Christian "heresy,” rather than constituting a Jewish movement with origins parallel to those of Christianity.