Andrew

In the end those communities emerged from under the hegemony of the ruling paganism as the ideology of Roman imperialism, with the divinized emperor at its pinnacle, collapsed. The oppressor of the people was overcome. How is this not historical?

As I said in my earliier comment, this comes down to a claim that it took 1500 years for the faithful suffering of Jesus and his followers to cause the collapse of the Roman Empire (in the East- only 470 years for it to happen in the West. )

Nothing I have read about the history of the Roman Empire supports the idea that it collapsed because of the faithful suffering of Jesus and his followers. In an earlier comment you said this idea is not a fanciful one and that there is evidence to support it,. I would be interested to know what the evidence is.

Paul