Soon after the foundation of the Roman Empire a new movement developed in Alexandria, and also in many other parts of the empire. which was to accelerate the demise of Greek learning. This was the development of Christianity. The new religion began as a sect within Palestinian Judaism, spread throughout the Roman world in spite of sporadic but repeated imperial repression, and finally won official recognition as the religion of the empire. This reversal in condition, from enemy of the government to subsidized state religion subordinate to the emperor, was to transform the future of Europe and the Mediterranean world.
It seems that initially the Christians were merely an annoyance to the Roman state in their stiff necked refusal to acknowledge the divinity of the emperor, and the movement was allowed to develop with little interference, In the second and third centuries, as the Roman Empire was racked with internal crises and frequent invasions from without, the Church became a scapegoat on which to blame these catastrophes.As one Church father of the time, Tertulian, observed