ABSTRACT
The Roman world in which Christianity arose was one steeped in mystical religion. The traditional Greco-Roman pantheon of gods had been in decline since the midfourth century BC when the conquests of Alexander the Great (356-23 BC) reduced the significance of the Greek city-states whose public cults were based on the worship of the state gods. Previously religion in Greece had been based on the city-state and had as its purpose the welfare of the entire community. But the Hellenistic world of the eastern Mediterranean that succeeded Alexander’s empire was international and cosmopolitan, in which one’s local or national identity and its associated religion were overwhelmed by the reality of belonging to large, multi-ethnic, multi-cultural states unconnected to the old civic gods. To a great extent, individuals were isolated individuals in a great sea of humanity to the diminution of a consciousness of being members of a close and clearly-defined community. Consequently, religions appealing to individuals of every ethnic or national origin were readily adopted throughout the Hellenistic world, often blending both Greek and non-Greek elements. These tendencies were strengthened by the expansion of the Roman Empire to the East in the second and first centuries BC, tending to render meaningless the previous local or national cultures that were now dominated by a state centered far away to the West.
