Subject: Re: How Christianity really developed
Dan Carlin discusses how Christianity developed in his hardcore history episode "Thor's Angles." The convention wisdom is that early Christians co-opted pagan symbols and doctrine to make Christianity more palatable to pagans. Which is true, but at the same time the pagans were co-opting Christian symbols and doctrine to make paganism more palatable to Christians. The pagan motivation was support and eventual control of the Holy Roman Empire, so a thin veneer of Christianity went a lot way.