Subexponential growth of early Christianity

TL;DR

This paper introduces a mathematical model describing the subexponential yet superpolynomial growth of early Christianity in the Roman Empire, fitting historical population estimates accurately.

Contribution

It presents a novel mathematical model capturing the specific growth dynamics of early Christian populations, characterized by subexponential growth rates.

Findings

Model accurately fits historical population data

Growth rate is subexponential but superpolynomial

Provides insights into early Christian demographic expansion

Abstract

This paper presents a simple mathematical model for the growth of the Christian population in the Roman Empire during the first to fourth centuries. The model has a subexponential growth rate of order $e^{o(t)}$, where $o$ denotes the "little-o" asymptotic bound, but still superpolynomial, and it fits available Christian population estimates with good accuracy.