In the twenty–first century, new discoveries and new methods have produced alternative answers to the perennial question of "How?". This is referred to as the "top-down" model, and for over 200 years, it and its modern forms the conflict model and the legislative model, have provided the major narrative of the conversion of Roman society. It was thought that he forcefully caused the decline and demise of paganism, and the coerced conversion of the rest of the empire, in the fourth century. Early historiographers saw Constantine as driven by "boundless ambition" and a desire for personal glory, interpreting his conversion as a political act. Until the last decades of the twentieth century, the primary theory of "how?" revolved around Constantine the Great ( r. 306–337). From the earliest studies, scholars have sought to understand the conversion of an entire society by asking what sociologist Rodney Stark has described as the central question: "How was it done?" Ancient historian Adam Schor observes that this question has, "more than any other, shadowed the study of late Roman history".
Scholars disagree over numbers and the length of time Christianization took it is generally thought to have begun with fewer than 1000 people, reaching approximately 200,000 converts by the end of the second century, half of the empire's population by 350, and eventually encompassing the majority of its 60–70 million people in the fifth – or possibly the sixth – century. Christianization of the Roman Empire began around AD 30–40, slowly and amidst opposition, in the Roman province of Judaea in the region of Palestine.
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