| Chapter 1: | The Spread of Christianity |
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Graeco-Roman world and along the main trade routes,2 and they were especially numerous in the trade city of Alexandria, with strong communities in Rome and Antioch.3
Until the catastrophic events of the last third of the first century CE, Jerusalem remained the pivotal point from which Jews spread into the Diaspora, and the gathering place during the great pilgrimage feasts.4 When Jerusalem fell to the Romans in 70 CE, with Masada, the last stronghold, falling three years later, the beleaguered city became the base of the X Legion Fretensis. Judaea was appointed as a praetorian province and administered by a praetorian legate.5
By the third century, an estimated three million Jews had settled west of Mesopotamia.6 The greatest concentration of the Jewish population was in Egypt, Asia Minor, Syria, and Rome.7 Their numbers were particularly high in Syria, with a large Jewish community in Antioch.8 Jews lived in most of the Roman provinces adjoining the Mediterranean, as well as in Babylonia and the areas around the Black Sea and in Mesopotamia.
The Book of Acts
The evidence from Acts shows the movement of evangelisation passing from Jewish centres out into the Graeco-Roman populations, first from Jerusalem where the Christian message was reported to have been announced by Peter and the apostles on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2). Acts mentions Jews who had assembled in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost as having come from Judaea, Galilee, Parthia, Mede, Edam, Mesopotamia, Cappadocia, Pontus, Asia, Phrygia, Pamphylia, Egypt, and parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene. There were also visitors from Rome, Crete, and Arabia.9
Information gleaned from Acts can be variously interpreted. Authorship is problematic. Since early times Luke has traditionally been accredited as the author, as attested in the Muratorian Canon and in Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria; Eusebius; and Jerome. Dating the text of Acts is also difficult, and has generated a wide range of opinion.10 Talbert sets