NOTICE: This essay is related to the history of Christianity,
  notwithstanding, the existence of this essay is not to list
  historical events or facts as Councils, early metaphysical
  discussions or political relations: the reader can find other
  treaties more detailed about these matters; truly, it has
  been created specifically to watch over the history of the
  common Christians, as an unknown and big masse, which
  has been neglected many times in part by lack of sources.
 

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 
THIS PAGE(1)
   The Beginning 30-200
   First wave 200-300
   Second wave 300-550
THE GAULISH EVOLUTION (2)
SYNCRETISM(3)
   'EPOCH OF SYNCRETISM AND HERESIES'
    'CHRISTIANITY OUT FROM ROME'
   First set-back 400-500
   BRITANNIA
    GERMANIA
    PANNONIA - NORTH ILLYRIA - RHAETICUM - NORICUM
ASIA (450-1500) (4)
   China
   India
   Turcomongols
   Other Peoples
THE BALKANS(5)
   Second set-back 525 - 600
   MOESIA - THRACIA - MACEDONIA
    'THE SLAVS AND THE VLACHS'
    DACIA
    DALMATIA
THE MIDDLE AGES (550-1050)(6)
   Third wave in 550-750
    'ANIMISM AMONG THE MUSLIMS'
   Thirth set-back in 650-750: the Islamization
   EGYPT
    NORTH AFRICA
    AL-ANDALUS
    SYRIA
    MESOPOTAMIA
   Fourth wave 800-950
   Fifth wave 950-1050
THE REST (1050-2000)(7)
  Fourth set-back
   'THE CATHAR MENACE'
    ANATOLY
   Sixth wave 1050-1250
   Seventh wave 1250-1350
   Eighth wave 1550-1650
   Fifth set-back 1450 - 1650
   Ninth wave 1650 - 1800
   Tenth wave 1800 - 1900
   Eleventh wave 1900 - 2000
   Sixth set-back 1917 - 2000: Secularization.
SOURCES(8)

 
To download the whole report with just a click:
 

The Beginning 30-200_________________________________________________________________________

 Crucifixion of Christ near the year 30-34, after His death, the Apostles start the preaching of the Gospel.

 The early Christians had a bad fame among the pagans, they were considered as cannibals and incestuous people: The first
 one by the consume in the Catholic masses of "the Blood and Body of Christ" and the second one for the love professed
 by the christians for their brothers. But, amazingly, the Christianity rise up: the Resurrection in a just Earth when the Pagans
 had their Avernus or Hell; the social assistances among its fellows (hospitals, orphanages, help for the poor and widows...),
 when the Pagans left their relatives dying on the streets in case of pestilence, and many of them died not by pestilence but by
 famine; or their high moral values, illumined a society were immorality was widespread: for example, in the Lex Scatinia,
 where the pederasty, known as the Greek vice, was banned, and the common homosexuality punished  (but only the
 "passive" part !). Or in the former roman circus, where the masses assisted to see human sacrifices (gladiators or martyrs) to
 enjoy this wicked and malignant society. Or the normal abortion or/and infanticide among Pagans (there were 14 guys per
 each 10 girls !), massacre supported by the law: the father had the right "to receive it into the family." Curiously and newly,
 we are seeing how our modern states are regulating laws on "minor's abuse" again; or the modern version of circus: that is,
 secret meetings where people sees some men betting their lives for money in a rotary Russian roulette... until the luck of
 somebody ends. But these Pagan societies still existing, p. e. in the rural India all of the above is applicable excepting
 the Circus... but perhaps to compensate it, is normal to sell preadolescent daughters to priests, and the duty of these
 misfortunate girls is the practice of the Holy Prostitution (real); also, it is an ancient custom that widows must share out
 the cremation of their husbands by own will or by relatives' will (sati or satee, banned by the British government in 1828).

 Pliny the Old, in the end of the first century, commented about the followers of "The Egyptian", and that they claimed
 that with one word they could destroy the walls of Jerusalem. According  to Pliny, these followers had 30.000 members
 circa 75... It is very smart identify these followers as Christians, because Jesus born in Israel, but He grew up and came from
 Egypt... as well He said that with one word He could destroy the Temple of Jerusalem.

 Pliny the Young, circa 112, said that the Christians singed an hymn where Christ is their God. As governor of the province of
 Bithinia (North Turkey), he complains about "this superstition [Christianity], is spreading as an contagion, not only they are in
 the cities, also in villages too". This same governor forced the apostasy of these early Christians.

 In the first century A.D. there were 1.000.000 jews in Egypt, the majority in Alexandria: It means 1/4 or 1/5 in the whole Egypt !
 And there was another million in Judea, and 3-4 outside Judea and Egypt ! Many scholars have arrived to the conclusion with
 further indications, that the first Christians outside Judea came from this group.

 Periodical persecutions and martyrdom of Christians, beginning with Nerus and finishing with Diocletian. It is assumed
 that that chase affected above all men of Church and lays involved in preaching the Gospel. The most striking result
 was the death of some ten thousand martyrs: the Caesars and the Romans viewed with terror the reformation of their
 societies that Christians offered.

 The I - II Centuries in Alexandria - Egypt,  the Orthodox presence was scarce, the "Christianity" was represented by gnostic
 Valentinians and heretic christians using their "Egyptians' Gospel".
 
 

 First wave 200-300___________________________________________________________________________

 Andalusia, Tunis, Lazzio-Toscana, Greece, Turkey (coastal), Syria, Israel and Egypt are the most
 evangelized zones. Persecutions and martyrdom. Christianity almost exclusively urban, excepting Anatolia and Crete.

 In the Roman Empire, according to Origen (254) in Conta Celsius, or in Apologia by Tertulian (about 200) "the common
 people have now some knowledge of Christ",  at least in cities.

 After missionaires, the movile population, as to say traders and soldiers, carried Christianity with them at their families
 and to their cities. Originally each parish had a bishop, so that all congregations were little: St. Gregory, who was bishop
 of Neocaesarea in Pontus around 240, headed a gongregation of 17 people; in fact by canonical law it was allowed to a
 community little as 12 adult persons to elect a bishop for themselves; such canons lead to think that there were comminities
 even more little willing to have a bishop for themselves, and that in the other side it was normal the existence of little
 bishropics of 25, 50 or 100 Christians.

 Tertulian (circa 200) said that the Christians were the majority in cities... but in the epoch only the 10 - 15% of the romans
 were urban, and the zone where Tertulian dwelt was one of the most evangelized too...

 In the capital itself in the middle of the third century, the Christian congregation was larger than any of the legally recognized
 guilds, with 155 clergy and 1500 dependent widows and orphans living by its alms. Recent experts have extrapolated this into
 a total Christian congregation of 30.000-60.000 ( = 3 - 6%).

 The contemporary witnesses Origens and Ciprianus in the half of the third century: 1/5 in Cartage and in the Oriental Part is
 Christian. Otherwise, Origens said in the beginning of the III Century "We aren't a Nation. In that or this CITY there are SOME
 whom are arrived to our faith. But since the preach started, there is any wide nation converted. We aren't as Jews or Egyptians
 whom conform a sole race: the Christians are recruited one by one in each nation."

 About the christian rise in Egypt, Roger S. Bagnall investigating the proportion of Christian names in papyri calculates these
 percentages: 2.4% in 274, 10.5% in 278, 13.5% in 280 and 18% in 313. It is to assume that names writen in papyri were of
 leading persons, living mainly in cities then, so a lesser percentage might be considered since rural population was ever the
 majority (So if applied an 80% as rural, it could be supposed that around a 4% of Egyptians were Christians in the beggining
 of the fourth century). Another point would be to clarify how it can be recoginized "Joseph" as being a Christian name or
 a Jewish name...

 In the other hand, we have from the excerpts of the Life of Gregory the Wonderworker, writen by St. Gregory of Nyssa, how
 the saint acted in some regions of Egypt (around the middle of the III Century) with success, at least around the city of
 Kumana and its countryside: "In every place, city and neighboring area to which the divine preaching extended [in Egipte],
 it changed pagan altars to the devout faith of [Gregory's] teaching. It overturned sacred places and their idols and liberated
 people from the iniquity of images and the pollution of burnt sacrifices. Once defilement from blood upon altars and the
 desecration of animal sacrifices were washed away, all such places were transformed into fervent houses of prayer in Christ's
 name. [...] Having zealously directed the church's affairs in this fashion before his death, [Gregory] wished to see everyone
 converted from idolatry to the faith which saves. He had foreseen his own death and eagerly searched all the cities and
 surrounding areas wishing to learn if there were any persons who had been deprived of the faith. Since he knew that no more
 than seventy persons persisted in the ancient error, he angrily said to God that the number of those who had been saved was
 not complete. However, this was worthy of God's kindness because those who had remained idolaters later became Christians
 when another person was appointed to succeed his governing of the church. [...] Because the entire people which had been in
 the clutch of Greek vanity [Politheism] was led to know the truth". From such excerpts it could be thought that Egypt was
 completely won for Christianity before Constantine, but this was not the case as can be seen in next cases.
 

 

 Second wave 300-550_________________________________________________________________________

 Christianization of the rest of the former Roman Empire (England, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, Austria).
 Ex-Yugoslavia, Albania, Bulgaria  but with Arianism (shared with Greece and Turkey); N. Morocco (Rif), N. Algeria, N. Libya
 too but with Donatism. Syria is Nestorian, Egypt Coptic...

 Edited the Edict of Milan in 313, the Christianity is tolerated by the Roman Empire. Catholicism becomes the official religion
 in 324 (Constantine); and after becomes the unique legitimate and licit religion, 385 (Theodose I).

 As the Egypt's prosperity depended and depends on the annual flood of the Nile, after the dismantling of the Serapeum in
 391 the flood was so great that the population turned to Christianity in large numbers.

 Calculus by R. Stark according to ancient sources and social experiences: If the Roman Empire had an stable population of
 60.000.000 inhabitants, and the Christianity had a grow rate of 40% each decade, we have that in the end of the first century
 there were 7.500 christians (0.01% - Or according to my suspicion, they were 30.000 "Egyptians" > 0.05%), in 150 with 41.000
 (0.07%), in the year 200 with 220.000 (0.4%), in 250 with 1.170.000 (1.9%), and in the year 300 with near 6.300.000 as
 Christian (10.5% - extension to the relatives by the previous 2% surely), in the Edict of Milan of 313 a 17.5% Christian; in
 the half of the IV century, with Christianity as official and legal religion, the Empire was filled with a majority of Christians:
 34.000.000 (56.5%), above all in the East, but as an important portion in zones of Hispania, Galia, Italy, Illyria, Pannonia
 and the Alps.

 The last percentages could be exaggerated, the next data can give us another outlook:

 Lactancius in 310: Christian the half of the people in the Oriental Part; but St. Chrystostom tells us that in 385, in his city
 (Antioch - actual Turkey), one in five were Christians, but immoral as the pagans. Nowadays, it is estimated that this city
 had some 150.000 inhabitants, then 30.000, or 20% as Christian.

 The author, Stark, bases his data according to a growth subject to an open network of Christian friends... But, this network
 can succeed in the barrier between urban Romans and Celtic - Iberobasc - Bereber peasantry ? This network really reached
 the 90 - 85% of rural population in the IV Century ? The Christianity was practically an urban phenomenon until the fifth
 century (in the West). The most Christianized regions are precisely the regions with most urban concentration: Andalusia,
 Tunis, Anatolia - Turkey, and islands as Crete or Cyprus. In these regions, the Christian portion perhaps was the double than
 the imperial average. And to find a Christian countryside, we must find firstly Christian cities, and this wasn't the case:

 "In Rome, many of the oldest and most respectable families for a long time still adhered to the heathen traditions, and the city
 appears to have preserved until the latter part of the fourth century a hundred and fifty-two temples and a hundred and
 eighty-three smaller chapels and altars of patron deities." (SCHAFF).

 If Antioch, as one of the most ancient Christian cities and as Patriarchate had this portion, the percentage contributed by the
 West really would have been minor.

 About 327, Eusebius of Caesarea, wrote that it is possible to buy pictures of Christ and of the Apostles in Jerusalem, but he
 did not think the painters or shopkeepers selling these pictures to pilgrims were Christians at all.

 Saint Augustin (354 - 430), in the year 384, found the city of Rome overwhelmingly pagan (Confessions, VIII, 2). For the
 word "overwhelmingly" one can understand more than a half, as a conservative view; a realistic view would be more
 of three in four.

 With the examples of Rome and Antioch, we cannot be surprised to see the Paganism in other minor cities almost untouched
 in 400. The best example can be that of Gaza: The ancient Gaza was inhabited by the Gazeans, a nation of Canaanite substrate
 but deeply hellenized in religion and customs (by Greeks and Cretan Philistines), but Syriac / Aramean in language. From the
 Mark the Deacon's Life of Porphyry, Bishop of Gaza (translated by G. F. Hill - Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1913) we can read in
 which situation was Christianity in 395 and its evolution in the following years. When St. Porphyry gained his bishropic in 395,
 the number of Christians were some 204: "the Christians came together [to receive the new bishop], with men, women, and
 children, to the number of two hundred and four score", but the most striking fact is that the city was "of no small account,
 being a populous city and notable" and having "eight public temples of idols" and "other very many idols in the houses and
 in the villages, whereof no man could reckon the number." As the Christian basilicas were two, it gives us a 20% of Christian
 inhabitants as maximum (2 basilicas in front of 8 temples). The biography continues saying that in the next year, 127 Pagans
 were converted after a long drought ended coinciding with a Christian procession. Some time after, "there were added unto
 the fold of Christ in this same year, over and above the hundred and twenty and seven, other one hundred and five" The
 christianization was indeed slow, we must wait until around 400 to see how a entire family was christianized because Porphyry
 prayed to save a woman and her babe from a sure death in a difficult childbirth, where previously the physicians were unable
 to solve it: "they that were enlightened through the occasion of this woman were in number sixty and four". Later in the year
 402, another group of 39 Gazeans converted after they sow how a "naked" statue of Aphrodite exploded when a cross was
 placed near it, killing also two heathens that were mocking at the Christians. In the same year, it was ordered the destruction
 or the christianization of the Pagan temples, and so "There were added, therefore, unto the fold of Christ in that year about
 three hundred persons, and thenceforth in each year the numbers of the Christians received an increase."

 For the urban Greeks, in the period 380-400 there were movilizations of bishops, administrative heads, etc. against the
 cults of Venus and Isis in Constantinople, against the Eleusian Mysteries near Athens, against the Mysteries of
 Venus in Cyprus, and against whichever organizated pagan cult all over Greece.

 Paganism was yet strong in other eastern cities in the middle of the fourth century, at least in Bostra [actual Busrat,
 between Damascus and Amman]: bishop Titus estimated the number of Christians when Julian was in power (361-364),
 concluding that there were just as many pagans. Moreover, in the principal Christian seat of Syria, Antioch, according to the
 bishop of Kyrrhos, Theodoret: "the slaves of error conducted their pagan mysteries [...] Diasia [festival of Zeus], Dionysia,
 and festivals of Demeter were being celebrated once again, not in secret, as might have been expected in a Christian empire,
 but right in the middle of the agora; that is where the bacchants held their revels"; that was written around 370. This same
 Theodoret, commenting on the history of his own region, Syria, explained that Marcellus, bishop of Apamea, started to
 demolish with imperial troops the pagan temples of the city "thinking that this was the easiest way to convert" the yet large
 pagan population. Shortly after he was killed: "Marcellus, bishop of Apamea in Syria, accompanied by an armed band of
 soldiers and gladiators, proceeded with the same zeal against the monuments and vital centers of heathen worship in his
 diocese, but was burnt alive for it by the enraged heathens, who went unpunished  for the murdering."

 As seen, Christianity was not accepted by some Eastern urbanites yet in the V-VII centuries: in the Acts of the Council
 of Chalcedon (held in 449), the bishop of Harran, Daniel was listed as "bishop of a pagan city." Otherwise it seems that this
 city remained pagan late in time, as they conserved a pagan temple yet in the XI Century. Mar Jacob of Serug, who was bishop
 of Batnae, wrote the homily "The Downfall of the Idols" where he condemned the worship of Nabu (Mercury) and Bel (Jupiter)
 and other idols at Edessa in his time (beginnings of VI Century). Moreover, when the Muslims conquered the area of
 Edessa/Urfa in 639 CE, there were some polytheists in the city since the people of Harran asked their advice before surrendering.

 But in some moment of the V Century the majority of the citizens of the eastern cities became Christian (at least nominally),
 fact that can be assumed if we take the concealed clue that gives us the report that the Persian king Chosroes I exempted
 the city of Carrhae (Harran) from paying tribute in 540 because a "majority" of its population was faithful "to the ancient
 religion [paganism]"; so, one can understand that in the rest of Syrian cities that paid tribute, the pagans conformed a
 minority.

 In the Egyptian cities the same processes of eradication of the official paganism took place at the same time: the Serapeion
 at Alexandria fell in 391. But even under the imperial coercive laws against paganism, a clandestine temple dedicated to Isis
 still stood near Alexandria until 486, when a riot between Pagans and Christians began (Egyptians vs Greeks plus Hellenized
 Egyptians ?). Because of these riots, a great quantity of statues were found in the baths and in private homes: dogs (Anubis),
 monkeys (Thoth), cats (Bastet), and a crocodile filled with blood (Sobek-Kronos). But the pagan cults didn't end yet, so in
 537, the duke of the Thebaid, Narses, closed another temple of Isis in Philae, jailing also its priests.

 Moreover, the christianization of Egypt was neither very fast: Marrou, H.I., in his "Synesius of Cyrene and Alexandrian
 Neoplationism" writes: "[Alexandria] was not the monopoly of Christians; it was to be found equally in the other camp. ....
 Zacharias Scholasticus ... records for us ... a significant episode which occurred about 485-7.... He describes how pagan
 students in Alexandria lynched ONE of their fellows, Paralios, who was about to BECOME A CONVERT to Christianity,
 for having dared to defame publicly their great goddess Isis." Then, we have pagans lynching a Christian in an Egyptian
 city, so "strong" the pagan community was yet ?

 Other proof is that in Gaza (Palestine), we haven't any witness on Christian presence but since 285 !

 In the Roman Maghreb, paganism was yet strong on the eve of the V century: the counts Jovius and Gaudentius demolished
 pagan temples and broke their statues, and some years after the same Saint Augustin exclaimed: "How great was the power
 of the goddess Caelestis [Tanit] in Carthage !". But it was the beginning of a serie of religious riots... that perhaps concealed
 patriotic feelings...(to be exact, Latin Romans against Berbers and Semitic Punics): in 401 the Christians shaved off the beard
 of Hercules shouting "Rome and Cartage are the same !"; around the same year in Suffectum  [actual Sbiba / Sufes, in Tunisia],
 sixty Christians were killed after a Christian riot broke another Hercules' statue; in the letter that Saint Augustin sent at
 "The Magistrates and Leading Men, or Elders" of such city, it is possible to discern how nationalism and paganism was loud
 among them: "You have buried the laws of Rome in a dishonored grave, and trampled in scorn the reverence due to equitable
 enactments. The authority of emperors you neither respect nor fear. In your city there has been shed the innocent blood of 60
 of our brethren; and whoever approved himself most active in the massacre, was rewarded with your applause, and with a high
 place in your Council. [...] If you say that Hercules belonged to you [...] We will give in addition some red ochre, to make him
 blush in such a way as may well harmonize with your devotions." Another case, occurred in 408, was that of a pagan riot that
 roughed up Christians and the basilicas were set on fire at Calama [actual Guelma or Qalmah, in the Kabylia]; here we can infer
 that pagans were majority according to the reports written in the epistolary communications that Saint Augustin and the local
 bishop Nectarius had: "this town has fallen disastrously by a grievous misdemeanor on the part of her citizens"says Nectarius
 to Augustin, and Augustin, instructing which actions adopt: "Accordingly you cannot in that community draw a distinction
 between innocent and guilty persons, for all are guilty; but perhaps you may distinguish degrees of guilt. Those are in a
 comparatively small fault, who, being kept back by fear, especially by fear of offending those whom they knew to have leading
 influence in the community and to be hostile to the Church, didn't dare to render assistance to the Christians; but all are guilty
 who consented to these outrages, though they neither perpetrated them nor instigated others to the crime: more guilty are
 those who perpetrated the wrong, and most guilty are those who instigated them to it. [...] What concerns us is the gaining
 of souls, which even at the risk of life we are impatient to secure; and our desire is, that in your district we may have larger
 success, and that in other districts we may not be hindered by the influence of your example." This same St. Augustin
 (c. 400) advised to the Berbers to follow the right way of Christianity; and he tells us that in North Africa there were
 innumerable Berber tribes where the Gospel hasn't been preached. The conclusion that we can assume, is that Christianity
 in the fifth century in the Maghreb was present in large cities, but outside, in medium and small cities, and in the countryside,
 a process of conversion started among a mostly stubborn population. For more accounts on the Roman Africa, see the
 next chapter.

 The Canon LVIII of the Synod of Carthage held in 401, is very clear to state that paganism was yet public and flourishing:
 "Wherefore the most religious Emperors should be asked1 that they order the remaining idols to be taken entirely away
 throughout all Africa; for in many maritime places and in divers possessions the iniquity of this error still flourishes: that
 they command them to be taken away and their temples, (such as are no ornament, being set up in fields or out of the way
 places) be ordered to be altogether destroyed."

 With these facts, we should agree that Christianity in 400 was essentially urban and minoritary also in the East, and it's not
 needed to mention the presence that it would have had in the countryside among the peasants then. So, the Paganism of the
 countryside can be understood better:

 John of Ephesus, a Monophysitist bishop protected by the Byzantine court, evangelized the surrounding mountainous area
 of Tralles (in the Aegean coast of Turkey) in 545: "[...] John the Superintendant's mission to them [the heathens] in Asia, and
 especially the building of the great monastery in the mountains near Tralles, which was both the commencement and the
 crowning proof of his success. He was appointed teacher of the heathen in Justinian's time in the four provinces of Asia,
 Caria, Phrygia, and Lydia; and began his labours in the mountains which overhang Tralles, in the territory of which city
 alone he converted many thousands from the error of idol worship, and built for their use twenty-four churches, and four
 monasteries, all of which were entirely new. [...] And other trials too there were and difficulties, which Satan raised up
 against this monastery, and the twenty-four new churches which John had erected in its vicinity for the service of the
 heathen whom he had baptized and made Christians in the mountainous districts of the city of Tralles." If it was needed
 to convert heathens in the countryside of Tralles, it means that heathenism prevailed by then in actual Turkey in its rural
 areas where cities seem that were already Christianized (we can think it if we don't see in the text any effort to try to convert
 urbanites, surely because they were already mainly Christian by then). That account serves for West Turkey, one of the
 most Christianized regions in such epoch according scholars !. In the same text ("Ecclesiastical History", of John of Ephesus)
 more examples of prevailing paganism occur: "In the second year of Tiberius' reign [ 579 AD ], the news reached the capital
 that the wicked heathens at Baalbec [city in Lebanon], otherwise called Heliopolis, who were professed worshippers of Satan,
 were plotting whenever they could find an opportunity to destroy and wipe out the very remembrance of the Christians in
 that town, who were few and poor, while they all were in the constant enjoyment of wealth and dignity. They indulged
 moreover in scoffs at Christ, and all who believed in him, and had already ventured upon many acts of open violence [...]".
 That drove to John near the year 580 to expurgate pagans there, and these trials drove to more trials, some of these against
 supposedly Christian high posts: it was the case of the governor of the same province, Anatolius, or the trial against the
 patriarch of Antioch and the bishop of Alexandria, involved in a case of human sacrifice in Daphne. Also in the text appears
 an account about paganism in the same city of Antioch: "...and while there were known to be in the city many followers of
 heathenism...".

 In the Cyrenaica province (East of Lybia), and in Siwa Oasis (Egypt), trials against pagans who worshipped the god Ammon
 were held yet in 550: it confirms that in rural areas of the East the old religion was yet keept.

 For the rural Aramaic areas, we have the accounts again of the bishop of Cyrrhus, Theodoret, about the live of St. Maron:
 he stated that Abraham of Cyrrhus (350-422), who lately was known as "the Apostle of Lebanon", realized that paganism
 was thriving among the countrymen of Lebanon: "where, he had heard, a large village was engulfed in the darkness of impiety".
 It seems that by that time there where many peasants attached yet to the paganism: "they themselves were both cultivators
 and masters". Even Saint Simon the Stylite (died in 459) also converted many pagans from Lebanon. But Christianity finally
 prevailed in the rural areas before the Muslim invasion; it is possible to believe it if we take into account the presence of
 the village placed in the Anti-Lebanon of Maaloula, where its population after retain their old Aramaic language for centuries,
 they have also retained their Christianity.

 In the West (Gaul, Hispania, Britannia, Italia, Noricum, Rhetia, Pannonia and Dalmatia), the Christianity takes place in the
 rural areas in the late of the IV Century, but it must be specified that in the most cases the presence of this new Christendom
 is in the "villae", it is, the secondary residences of the urban elite... According to the data provided by former sources and
 actual investigations, the growth of the christianity outside the cities really began in the half of the V Century, and mainly
 the process of Christianization went together with the effective Romanization - Latinization from these "villae" by its owner,
 his relatives and his servants. Then, I can theorize on the percentage of Christians in these westerner regions until that
 century: a 8 - 12%, the percentage of urban dwellers. Knowing it, it would be possible to discern major pagan or heretical
 populations where we find no-Latinized (or Hellenized) populations. Some cases:

 Irenaeus preached in Celtic as Well as in Greek in Gallic cities about 170... nothing about Latin ! The importance to know
 the ethnic compositions is important due to the parallel ways that Latin (or Greek in Asia Minor) and Christianity took from
 the V Century. The same Irenaeus (about 170) speaks of the preaching of the gospel among the Germans and other
 barbarians (surely in Germania Cisrhenana). An ethnic Carthaginian, the Caesar Severus, is another good example of the
 poor latinization: from the Libyan town of Leptis Magna [actual Lybia], he spoke Latin with a Punic accent, and his sister
 never mastered the Latin language, so they often discussed family affairs in Punic on Rome; it's a good thing Cato never
 lived to see this !. If the Punic elites were not usual with Latin, what we can say about the masses of peasants ? Moreover,
 after four centuries of Roman power over Africa, so little effect had the Latin ? What is more, this same Caesar Severus
 [around 193-211] had firmly his sympathies with the provinces; Punic and Celtic words were allowed on legal documents
 during his reign, most of the top officials came from Africa or Asia, and he granted Roman citizenship to more provincial
 towns. Saint Jerome states around 400 that the Galatians speak two languages: Greek and their own Celtic dialect, which
 ressembled that of the Celtic tribe of the Treveri (in Trier, actual west Germany)... Sidonius, bishop of the French region
 of Auvergne, in his letter "To his dear Ecdicius" (c.474) stated that "Now [year 474], if ever, you [Ecdicius, Roman general
 in Auvergne] are wanted by my Arvernians [citizens of Clermont-Ferrand], [...] and that at one time it was due to you
 personally that the leading families, in their efforts to throw off the scurf of Celtic speech, were initiated into oratorical style
 and now again into the measures of the Muses. What chiefly kindles the devotion of the whole community to you is that
 after first requiring them to become Latins, you next [in 471] prevented them from becoming barbarians." The Sidonius'
 account shows that Celtic rather than Latin was still spoken by the leading families in Gaul in the mid 5th century. Therefore
 it would probably have been even more entrenched in regions abandoned by the Romans in such century or before: Britain,
 Retia, Pannonia, Noricum, or Germania Cisrenana. So it is logic that Procopius, in his book "On Buildings" (VI Century)
 describes how: "The River Ister [Danube] flows down from the mountains in the country of the Celts, who are now called
 Gauls [Norics of South Germany]; and it passes through a great extent of country which for the most part is altogether
 barren [actual Hungary], though in some places it is inhabited by barbarians who live a kind of brutish life and have no
 dealings with other men. When it gets close to Dacia [...]."Moreover, the diferentiation among Latin and French succeed
 around the VIII Century according to the historical grammatic and the written testimonies: a clerical law to speak in the
 masses in rustic language, and writen oaths in "romance". More examples on survival of ancient peoples in next chapitols.

 Even tribes Romananized after eight centuries keept their tribal name (and even they could keep their language, as did
 the Oscans of Pompey before the eruption of the Vesubius). Jordanes, in his "Origins and Deeds of the Goths", written
 around the mid of the sixth century exposed that: "Thence they [the Visigoths] departed to bring like ruin upon Campania
 and Lucania, and then came to Bruttii. Here they remained a long time and planned to go to Sicily and thence to the countries
 of Africa. Now the land of the Bruttii is at the extreme southern bound of Italy, and a corner of it marks the beginning of the
 Apennine mountains." [Calabria region]. And even more suppositions with "Then growing bolder and still thirsting for
 Roman blood, the Huns raged madly through the remaining cities of the Veneti."

 How Romanization or Hellenization was in the middle of the fourth century a fact far to be accomplished can be seen in an
 account of the different nations that Saint Basil (329?-379) has left us: "The fair thing would be to judge of me, not from one
 or two who do not walk uprightly in the truth, but from the multitude of bishops throughout the world, connected with me
 by the grace of the Lord. Make inquiries of Pisidians, Lycaonians, Isaurians, Phrygians of both provinces, Armenians your
 neighbors, Macedonians, Achaeans [Greeks]. Illyrians [related to the Albanian], Gauls [Celtics]. Hispanics, the whole of Italy,
 Sicilians, Africans, the healthy part of Egypt, whatever is left of Syria; all of whom send letters to me, and in turn receive them
 from me." (Letter CCIV, to the Neocaesareans). Yet in the middle of the fifth century, in the Pilgrimage of Etheria it is accounted
 how: "Now, forasmuch as in that province [Palestine] some of the people know both Greek and Syriac, while some know Greek
 alone and others only Syriac [native Assyrians]; and because the bishop, although he knows Syriac, yet always speaks Greek,
 and never Syriac, there is always a priest standing by who, when the bishop speaks Greek, interprets into Syriac, that all may
 understand what is being taught."

 For a better understanding of the origin and placement of the old nations there is this page: Human Cultures and Languages.

 In Asia Minor Hellenization seems was far to be accomplished in the half of the VI Century; if we read "The Secret History"
 of Procopius of Caesarea, it can be seen mentions as that "war broke out with the Isaurians when that nation rebelled";
 "Priscus, an utter villain and Paphlagonian"; "Polybotus in Phrygia, called Polymede by the Pisidians"; "one Rhodon,
 a Phoenician, was Governor"; "There was a Cilician named Malthanes [...] Justinian sent this Malthanes to restore order
 among the Cilicians." For more examples see the part "Islamization" (by the Turks).

 It is possible to doubt of a complete romanization of North Africa; the fact that the Greek neither replaced Assyrian - Aramean
 in a millennia, nor Egyptian - Coptic in such period of influence, would have let to Rome to replace effectively Punic or
 Neopunic in six centuries ? The Latin was imposed ever over civilizations less developed or with a development almost similar
 (Celts, Iberians, Etruscans...); perhaps the Donatist revolts were the religious disconformity against Rome, meaning different
 political and national allegiances: the Circumcellions, a Donatist militar brach, were mostly rustic enthusiasts, who knew no
 Latin, but spoke Punic. More examples will follow in the next chapter, that treats how nationalism was linked with heresy there.

 "After there is the country of the Venets which reachs till the town of Ravenna: the Venets have stablished their places over
 the sea. Above it [the Alps], the Sisci and the Suabes (not those that are under Frankish rule, but others apart) are placed in
 the middle of the area; more above there are the Carni and the Norici [...] Below the town of Ravenna, at the left of the Po river,
 are placed the Ligurii; near them, in the side of the boreal wind, dwell the Alban, in a region extraordinally good named
 Languvilla." [Procopius of Cesarea, in his "Histoires", written in the mid of the VI Century].
 
 
 

1. The "Fossa Regia", region comprised between the Mediterranean and the line Tabarka - Sfax //  2. The Vandals expelled
the Roman landowners due to their resistance to give 1/3 of their lands to the new comers, then only cities with Latin speakers
3. Roughly the Cabylia //4. Mauretanias: Northern Morocco and the coasts of Western Algeria.

.	Urbanization	Roman	Until	Total	Romanized
Majorca	yes, Phoenicians	123 BC	455, Vandals	578	yes (toponymy)
Galia	no	51 BC	486, Franks: pro-Roman	537	yes, around 675
Hispania	yes, Iberians	133 BC	409, Visigoths: pro-Roman	542	yes, around 575
Britannia	no	43 AD	390 - 410, abandoned	360	no, Celtic
Africa (N Tunisia) 1	yes, Phoenicians	146 BC	429, Vandals: vs Romans 2	575	incomplete
Numidia 3	yes, Phoenicians	46 BC	429, Vandals, after Berber	475	no, Berber
Mauretanias 4	no, only in coasts	42 AD	429, Vandals, after Berber	387	no, Berber
Pannonia	no	16 BC	385, Goths: expulsions	401	no
Noricum	no	16 BC	488, abandoned	472	no, Celtic
Rethia	no	15 BC	400, abandoned	415	no, Celtic
Thrace	no, only in coasts	46 AD	495 - 517, Antes - Slavs	460	no, Thracian

 

 Inscription found in France (III c.): "For the god of the cities" referred at the Christian god; after that century, the first rural
 churches appear, but it isn't until the V century that Christianity penetrate effectively in the rural areas ("pagan" = dweller
 of the pagus, the field).

 Under the reign of Valentinian I. (died 375), the heathenism was for the first time officially designated as paganismus, that is,
 peasant-religion... What means it ? I believe that when a place-name is taken as similar to something, then this something is
 majority ( more that 65% ), some examples: The Hinduism by an 87% Hinduists in India; the Djerbanism by almost all the
 Djerbanites in the Djerba Island, the Spanish language by an 82% Castilian Speakers in Spain; the Judaism by the Jewish
 (no comment); the "Black Continent" by about 80% of Negroids in Africa, etc. Then, "Paganism" by 66-99% heathen
 peasants or "pagani".

 The term "paganus" as heathen is first found in inscriptions of the early IV century. The hispanic priest Orosius, explaining
 about this usage, wrote in 417 that the term comes by the fact that the countryside still heathen after the towns had
 become Christian.

 In an edict by Theodosius II in 423 appeared "Paganos, qui supersunt, quamquam jam nullos esse credamus, promulgatarum
 legum jamdudum praescripta compescant." Theodosius II believed the paganism almost extinct... but in the other hand, we
 have that this Emperor dwelt in the most Christian city in his era: New Rome - Constantinople... And remember, paganism
 was banned and concealed with many Saints' cults.

 Macrobius, a pagan author, referred to pagan cults of the late fourth century, when he speaks in his Saturnalia about the
 "Accitani, a people of Hispania, who worship with the greatest devotion an image of Mars adorned with rays, to which they
 give the name Neton." The Accitani lived, as far as is known, in the southeast part of Baetica [Acci was the actual Guadix,
 only at fifthy kilometers from Granada] one of the most romanized, christianized and urbanized regions of the whole Roman
 Empire.

 The assertion appointed to Pacianus (around 375) where he told about rural dwellers in Hispania that they didn't speak Latin
 and continued in the Paganism. The doubt is the exact identification of these Pagans, because the Basques remained for
 much time as Pagans: they kept their language and religion until the IX Century in the Southern Pyrenees, from Bilbao
 until as far as Andorra, when the christianization and an incomplete latinization were diffused. About such Basques we
 have that around 640 bishop Saint Amandus made an attempt to convert the Basques, but his mission met nothing but
 opposition. Even Christian presence is exempt in a cementery dated of 883 in Bizkaia/Vizkaya province, where there are only
 discoidal tombstones (suns ?); and yet Arab writers of the epoch refer Basques as "magus", that is: wizards, pagans.

 In a letter of Pope Siricius, sent to Bishop Himerius of Tarragona in 385, we can read about his joy at the "innumerable people
 who are seeking baptism.", hence we can see also how in the late fourth century there were "innumerable people" yet Pagan.
 But the letter also shows us a dark side of the picture: many of these new Christians had fallen into apostasy and returned to
 the worship of idols... the first Syncretism appeared.

 During much of the VI Century, there was no noteworthy activity by the Spanish clergy against paganism, as far as the extant
 source-material permits us to judge. But otherwise it is recorded that the bishop Montanus of Toledo, in a letter written
 probably in the year 530, praises a religious named Thuribius as the promoter of divine worship in his province because he had
 driven out the error of idolatry. Another Spanish bishop, Masona, who governed the diocese of Merida about the years 570 to
 605, explained that he had succeeded by means of his charitable deeds in converting many pagans to Catholicism. From these
 statements one can think easily that pure paganism was in vogue in much of Hispania yet.

 The University of Arizona carried out archeological prospections in Lugnano in Teverina, [near the city of Viterbo, at 60 Km.
 north of Rome]. Next to this village, the team found an infant cemetery of around the middle of the fifth century A.D. where it
 was unearthed the skeletons of 47 infants buried in 41 single or multiple graves. Painfully, forty of them were fetal or neonatal.
 It seems according to inquiries that the babies were miscarried and the others died by acute sickness: by the found symptoms,
 it has been supposed that their community was affected of a malaria epidemic (disease transferred by certain species of
 mosquitoes). Apart from that, by the performances of these burials we can conclude that their parents weren't Christians since
 no Christian artifacts have been found with the infants. Otherwise, the data points out that the community was clearly (yet)
 Pagan and used witchcraft: along with the babies' bodies were buried two coins, twelve ritually slaughtered puppies, a
 sacrificed toad, a raven's talon, and other rare offerings (bone pins, knives, handles, cooking pots, etc.). The coins were
 traditionally placed over the dead's eyes to pay to Charont the travel at the Avernus. The puppies were sacrificed in Roman
 times to certain malevolent infernal deities (Pliny, XXX. 42 and 64) to ward off these demons who caused diseases in an effort
 to bring health to those still living. Another supposition, is that the blood of the puppies was dedicated to Hekate, goddess
 of darkness, and worshipped as who watched over the souls of infants in the afterworld (Johnston, 1990) and whose
 consorts were puppies and dogs (the hounds of hell). About the toad, Pliny (XXII.49) commented that they were considered
 by magi the most useful remedy for relieving tertian or quartian fevers (commonly associated with malaria). On the raven's
 talon, it was a traditional witch's symbol associated with the underworld and the dead which could act as a talisman to ward
 off evil also. In one burial a child's feet was secured by stones and a brick, possibly in an effort to keep his soul from rising
 and preying on the living.  So, we can see how at only 60 kilometers from Rome, rural communities persisted in Heathenism
 despite the laws that enforced Christianity; laws more symbolic than with a real application.

 In the Life and Miracles of St. Benedict of Nursia, we find how paganism was present only to 100 km. from the center of the
 earthly Christendom: St. Benedict went to the city of Cassino, where at five kilometers "there was an ancient chapel in which
 the foolish and simple country people, according to the custom of the old gentiles, worshipped the god Apollo. Round about
 it likewise upon all sides, there were woods for the service of the devils, in which even to that very time [around 529], the mad
 multitude of infidels did offer most wicked sacrifice." Thereafter, the saint instructed the people, and so "by his continual
 preaching, he brought the people dwelling in those parts to embrace the faith of Christ." The city of Cassino was a normal
 mid-size city in such epoch, but we can see how paganism was yet strong in its vicinity.

 The Pope Gregory the Great wrote in the year 598 to the bishop of Terracina [a little coastal town only a hundred of km. from
 Rome !] about his dismay over the report he had heard that people of the region were worshipping sacred trees: "It has come
 to our ears - a thing shocking to be told - that some in your parts worship trees, and perpetrate many other unlawful things
 contrary to the Christian faith. And we wonder why your Fraternity has delayed correcting this by strict punishment".
 (Epistle XVIII to Bishop Agnellus). Such power to punish idolatry could be understood only if idolatrers were nominal
 Christians, as the Church had no power over no Christians.

 In Sardinia and Corsica in the year 600 paganism was strong yet... In some letters written by Gregory the Great, it is refered:
 "Since no one of thy race [the Barbaricini, the native Sardinians] is a Christian, I hereby know that thou art better than all thy
 race, in that thou in it art found to be a Christian. For, while all the Barbaricini live as senseless animals, know not the true
 God, but adore sticks and stones" (Letter XXIII to Hospito). In the letter XLI directed to Constanta Augusta he says "Having
 ascertained that there are many of the natives in the island of  Sardinia who still, after the evil custom of their race, practise
 sacrifices to idols, and that the priests of the same island are sluggish [...]". For Corsica, he thanked the bishop of the
 island, Peter, because "you had been so good as to refresh us with the news of the gathering in of many souls in preaching
 our Redeemer", and he recomended to Peter that "those who have not yet been baptized, let thy Fraternity make haste, by
 admonishing, by beseeching, by alarming them about the coming judgment, and also by giving reasons why they should
 not worship stocks and stones, to gather them in to Almighty God". In fact Gregory could easily find unusual such situations,
 where in fact syncretism and pagan survivals prevailed, matter is that Gregory I before to be Pope was monk so that he dwelt
 isolated much of his life.

 The Britons, when arrived on the Armorican Penninsula in the half of the V Century, found an still Celtic and Pagan region,
 nominally under Roman direction. Progressively the conquers christianized them.

 In the year 453 St. Severius starts to preach the Christianity in the region of Passau (Noricum); and it can be viewed as normal
 the report of practices of "nefandi sacrifici" by a great proportion of peasants South of the actual Salzbourg, in 460.

 It could be easy to think that in the least romanized areas, the Christianity delayed some centuries more than the rest of the
 Empire; these areas could be the Cantabric coast and Pyrenees (basques), the Alps, Albania and some others.

 Anyhow, the paganism secretly survived until the Middle Ages with the sorcery and the witchcraft. I remember to have read
 in a book or a web the case of a witch interrogated by an inquisitor in the XV Century, she related in what fashion the Devil
 appeared: in the form of a young Dionysius seated in his chariot carted by wild tigers... Six years ago or so, I was delighted
 because I saw the same scene in North Africa... but depicted in a Roman mosaic of the III Century.

 Cyril Mango calculated the ethnic composition for the Oriental Empire around 550. It has been stated how much important
 is to know ethnic compositions in order to clarify the religious amounts. Well, in his book he gives in very approximate terms
 the distribution, that would have been the following: 8 million in Egypt (27%), 9 million in Syria, Palestine and Mesopotamia
 combined (30%), 10 million in Asia Minor (33%), and 3 or 4 million in the Balkans (10%). If these figures are anywhere near
 the truth, it would follow that the native Greek speakers represented less than a third of the total population, say 8 million,
 making allowance for the unassimilated peoples of Asia Minor and for the Latin and Thracian speakers of the Balkans.
 Knowing the fact that Egiptians, Assyrians / Arameans and Armenians were mostly Monophisites (Egipt is derived from
 "Copt"), and knowing that latinization and hellenization were far to be complete in Anatolia and Balkans (excepting Greece,
 of course !) and consequently Paganism was yet in vogue... Then, counting the nominal Christians and the Syncretics as
 Christians, a religious statistic would be: 57-63% Christian Monophisite, 13-19% as Orthodox - Catholic, and a 25% Heathen.

 Now, I can theorize about the Christianity in the Roman Empire in 380: a 11%. This percentage is from a 14% in the East and
 South ( Greece, Anatolia, Syria, Israel, Egypt, E Maghreb) and about a 8% from the West and North ( urbanites of Hispania,
 Gaul, ItaIy, Britannia, and Danubian Basin). Thirty years after, the percentage of the East surely grew more, when the
 West retained the same percent according to the explanation of Orosius. I know, it is as to use juggling and mathematics...
 but another idea ?

 With the weak clues of Caesarius, Hordain, St. Benedict, and St. Martin of Braga, it's possible to say that the real
 christianization of the peasantry stated in the West around 525. Knowing the fact that missionaries hadn't cars, TV, radio,
 etc. ( only they had their feet ), and without better ideas and sources, one can think that the rural Christianization of Gaul -
 Italy - Hispania could have took a century, so christianization can be divided in equal portions as follows: In 400 a 2%, in 450
 a 4%, in 500 a 8%, in 550 a 60% and in 600 a 80% ( the remaining heathenism with a 20% ). Summing up the rural dwellers with
 those of the cities, we could have the next evolution: a 6% in 400; 16% in 450; 25% in 500; 65% in 550; and 85% in 600.