What Difference Did Christianity Make? Why the Ancient Greeks, Romans, and Irish Converted – Fr. Terence Crotty, O.P.

The Thomistic Institute

Catholic Intellectual Tradition, Catholic, Thomism, Society & Culture, Religion & Spirituality, Catholicism, Philosophy, Christianity

4.8 • 873 Ratings

🗓️ 23 December 2025

⏱️ 56 minutes

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Summary

Fr. Terence Crotty argues that Christianity spread so rapidly because it uniquely answered the human search for truth and happiness while transforming social life through charity, dignity for slaves and women, and a compelling vision of a good and loving God that pagan religion and philosophy could not provide.

This lecture was given on September 6th, 2025, at Dominican House of Studies.

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About the Speakers:

Fr. Terence Crotty is the Regent of Studies in the Irish Province of the Dominican Order. Since graduating with his doctorate from the University of Fribourg in Switzerland in 2011 he has been mainly involved in formation and in teaching Scripture Studies to the Dominican students in the Studium of the Irish Province in his community in Dublin and to the lay faithful in the Priory Institute, Tallaght. His first monograph is about to appear, The Irish Dominicans: 800 Years and he has also published various articles in reviews and journals, including a chapter in The Glenstal Companion to the Easter Vigil.

Keywords: Caritas and Christian Charity, Conversion of the Roman Empire, Dignity of Slaves and Women, Greek and Roman Pagan Religion, Irish Conversion and St. Patrick, Letter to Diognetus and Early Apologetics, Pagan Philosophy and Stoicism, Roman Empire and Early Christianity, St. Brigid and Irish Monasticism, Truth, Happiness, and Human Desire

Transcript

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0:00.0	College students are struggling to find Christ in a culture that rejects God.
0:04.5	They need the Christmas message of hope and truth now more than ever.
0:08.2	Thanks to a generous matching gift, every dollar you give to the Thomistic Institute before December 31st will be doubled,
0:14.9	so your gift will touch twice as many souls.
0:17.7	You can give the greatest of all gifts by sending the light of Christ to students
0:21.7	aching for truth. Please use the link below or go to to mystic institute.org slash donate to give today.
0:31.8	Welcome to the Tomistic Institute podcast. Our mission is to promote the Catholic intellectual
0:37.1	tradition in the university,
0:38.7	the church, and the wider public square. The lectures on this podcast are organized by university
0:43.9	students at Temistic Institute chapters around the world. To learn more and to attend these events,
0:49.7	visit us at to mystic institute.org. So what we're going to speak about tonight is a little bit of history
0:56.0	and a little bit of philosophy. Okay, it's going to take us more or less. The plan at least is
1:01.6	45 minutes and then there'll be about 15 minutes for questions and answers after that. That's all right.
1:08.5	So what difference did Christianity make? make why the ancient greeks romans and irish
1:15.3	converted so what i'm going to speak tonight is is nothing original in that sense it's it's more
1:23.3	less known already but hopefully we'll put things together to make them presentable to you
1:29.1	as well. And if you're not familiar with the subject, then hopefully digestible as well.
1:36.4	So the first century, what we call the first century of the common era, or as Christians we might
1:41.6	call it, the first century of the AD, the year of our Lord, was in many ways the greatest century of the Roman Empire.
1:48.9	So the Roman Empire had begun to come to full fruition in the first century BC.
1:55.8	You get in particular the great figure of Virgil, for example, in literature.
2:00.2	You get the Emperor Augustus in particular,
	...

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