Actually thats kinda a myth, mostly brought on by the good book it self. The christian origin; Catholicism Was actually adopted by the roman empire and used to eliminate the conflict between greek and roman pagan religions and by out-phasing those; unified the entire region under roman empire rule. They hunted down christ and his followers as told by the bible (and literally [b][i][u]NO WHERE ELSE IN ALL OF HISTORY[/u][/i][/b]) due to the new testament and christ's version of god (christianity vs Catholicism) was essentially pagan idol worship at the time. Which ironically is why it is supposed to have caught on so well (replacing old roman and greek idolatry with idolization of christ). In actual historical account (historic literature from era's) christianity didn't actually start becoming wide spread until a few hundred years after christ's death.