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Summary
- About a hundred and twenty followers gathered in Jerusalem after Jesus ascended (Acts 1:15). By Pew Research Center’s count there were 2.3 billion Christians in 2020, 28.8% of the world’s people.
- The Roman historian Tacitus and the Jewish historian Josephus both mention Jesus, called Christ, and Tacitus records his execution under Pontius Pilate.
- Most of the world counts its years from Jesus’ birth, following the Easter tables Dionysius Exiguus drew up in Rome in 525.
- Jesus taught his followers to pray to God as “Our Father,” to love their enemies and to forgive “Until seventy times seven.”
- Early Christians refused to abandon newborns, kept a common fund for the poor, and nursed the sick through plague in Alexandria.
- In 362 the emperor Julian complained that Christians fed pagan poor as well as their own, and around 369 Basil of Caesarea opened a great hospital outside his city.
- Christians have also defended slavery and used violence, and the Southern Baptist Convention (1995) and Pope John Paul II (2000) confessed these failures in their own words.
Bibliography (Click to show)
- Scripture quotations are from the King James Version, via BibleGateway: Isaiah 64:8; Matthew 5:43–44, 6:9, 18:21–22, 25:35–36, 25:40, 28:19; Mark 1:41, 10:13–14; Luke 8:2–3, 15:4, 15:20, 24:10–11; John 11:25, 13:34–35; Acts 1:15; 1 Corinthians 15:55; Galatians 3:28. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Acts+1%3A15&version=KJV
- Pew Research Center. “How the Global Religious Landscape Changed From 2010 to 2020.” 9 June 2025. https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2025/06/09/how-the-global-religious-landscape-changed-from-2010-to-2020/
- Tacitus. Annals 15.44. Translated by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb (1876). https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Annals_(Tacitus)/Book_15
- Flavius Josephus. Antiquities of the Jews 20.9.1 and 20.11.3. Translated by William Whiston (1737). Project Gutenberg. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2848
- “Dionysius Exiguus.” Encyclopaedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Dionysius-Exiguus
- Herbert Thurston. “Dionysius Exiguus” and “General Chronology.” Catholic Encyclopedia, vols. 5 (1909) and 3 (1908). https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05010b.htm ; https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03738a.htm
- United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. “What We Believe”: the Nicene Creed. https://www.usccb.org/beliefs-and-teachings/what-we-believe
- Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 195. https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P14.HTM
- Tertullian. Apology 39 (197). Translated by S. Thelwall, Ante-Nicene Fathers vol. 3. https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0301.htm ; date and place from John Chapman, “Tertullian,” Catholic Encyclopedia vol. 14 (1912), https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14520c.htm
- The Didache 2. Translated by M. B. Riddle, Ante-Nicene Fathers vol. 7. https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0714.htm
- Justin Martyr. First Apology 1 and 27. Translated by Marcus Dods and George Reith, Ante-Nicene Fathers vol. 1. https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0126.htm ; date from Jules Lebreton, “St. Justin Martyr,” Catholic Encyclopedia vol. 8 (1910), https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08580c.htm
- Letter to Diognetus 5. Translated by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, Ante-Nicene Fathers vol. 1. https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0101.htm
- Eusebius. Church History 7.22, quoting Dionysius of Alexandria. Translated by Arthur Cushman McGiffert, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, second series, vol. 1. https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/250107.htm ; see also John Chapman, “St. Dionysius of Alexandria,” Catholic Encyclopedia vol. 5 (1909), https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05011a.htm
- Julian. Letter 22, to Arsacius, high priest of Galatia (362). Translated by W. C. Wright, The Works of the Emperor Julian, vol. 3, Loeb Classical Library (1923). https://www.tertullian.org/fathers/julian_apostate_letters_1_trans.htm
- Gregory of Nazianzus. Oration 43, Funeral Oration on Basil the Great, section 63. Translated by Charles Gordon Browne and James Edward Swallow, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, second series, vol. 7. https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/310243.htm
- Edward A. Pace. “Hospitals” and “Universities.” Catholic Encyclopedia, vols. 7 (1910) and 15 (1912). https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07480a.htm ; https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15188a.htm
- Frederick Joseph Bacchus. “St. Basil the Great.” Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 2 (1907). https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02330b.htm
- UK Parliament. “Parliament and the British Slave Trade” and “The abolitionists.” https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/transformingsociety/tradeindustry/slavetrade/overview/the-abolitionists/
- Southern Baptist Convention. “Resolution on Racial Reconciliation on the 150th Anniversary of the Southern Baptist Convention.” Atlanta, June 1995. https://www.sbc.net/resource-library/resolutions/resolution-on-racial-reconciliation-on-the-150th-anniversary-of-the-southern-baptist-convention/
- Pope John Paul II. Homily for the Day of Pardon, 12 March 2000. https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/homilies/2000/documents/hf_jp-ii_hom_20000312_pardon.html
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