Paul spread Christianity throughout the Greco-Roman world, introducing the nascent faith to a wider audience than ever before. While Jesus and his contemporaries limited themselves to preaching, unsuccessfully, to the Jewish communities, Paul brought hundreds of thousands of converted people to faith. Recorded in the New Testament as the Epistles, it introduced new ideas such as the nature of human sin, the de-emphasis of law and ritual, and the promise of eternal life, which appealed to the flocks of Hellenics who had previously been part of the polytheistic pantheon of ancient Greece and later Rome. Paul institutionalized the spread of Christianity, completing the break with Judaism and making the new faith mass-appealing. Paul's life and teaching were the most significant factor leading to the spread and influence of Christianity. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Paul took the epicenter of Christianity out of the narrow Roman-controlled region of Judea and into the cultural centers of the Mediterranean. For this reason he has been defined as the co-founder of Christianity. It was Paul who began writing the Holy Scripture in Greek, and it was Paul who changed the Messiah's name from the Hebrew Yehoshua to the Greek Jesus. This process of Hellenization, and later Westernization, shows more similarities to modern Christianity than to Judaism rabbinic, as practiced today, or with Judaism practiced in ancient Israel. For this Christians have only Paul to thank. His singular contribution to the formation of Christianity as a religion, and to making it more than just a movement in the fertile lands of Judea, the breeding ground of the Messiah, has had an unrivaled influence in the spread of the faith, with the possible exception of life , of the death and message of Jesus. Although Christianity is a one-man religion, if historians examined the differences between its practice today and that of more than 2,000 years ago, they would note significant juxtapositions, and anyone who studies the spread of Christianity would soon notice a fundamental change in its movement around the time of Paul. In his Epistles he wrote to various cultural centers of the Hellenic world and brought the faith into their homes. But he transformed the nascent movement into a world religion that would spread like wildfire across the Mediterranean due to its mass appeal. Paul completed the break of Christianity from Judaism in his teachings, and this gave the faith a newfound influence among the Hellenic peoples. Throughout history, Judaism has always attracted only a small minority of people, and this was also the case when Christianity spread. Before Paul, the first devotees were simply Jewish followers of Jesus. They still adhered to Jewish law, but believed that the Messiah had come in the form of Jesus. But with the advent of Paul's teachings they became Christians, forever separating themselves from their foundation and Jewish origin. In addition to changing the language from Hebrew to Greek, Paul criticized the importance of law and ritual in the celebration of faith. Although rituals peculiar to Christianity would come, namely Holy Communion, Paul maintained that faith is sufficient. He argued that all are justified by faith in God, that faith transcends law and ritual, and placed emphasis on individual worship. Perhaps most importantly, he argued that there was no favoritism toward God, no chosen people who had a special covenant relationship. Paul said that all it took was faith in Jesus to obtain the..