The Three Things That Built The Christian Church

[Big Steamers]

1. The merging of Jewish folktales and Greek philosophy

2. Conversion to Christianity by Rome (perhaps due to large numbers of Christians in the military)

3. Professing itself to be the rightful heir to Greek philosophy

I'd also like to throw in the works of St. Augustine, St. Jerome and St. Ambrose.

Without these contributions the Christian religion would be nothing more thanit was in the begining: a radical Jewish belief taught by radical Jews to radical Jews.

[KikoSanchez]

Constantine for the political stuff, Aquinas for the philosophical stuff. Aquinas, more-or-less, was the person who made the horrid thing called Scholasticism what it was.

[ArmsMerchant]

Let's not forget Bishop Irenaeus. He did a dandy job of suppressing Gnosticism.

see

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irenaeus

[Obbe]

Lets not forget astrotheology and ritual entheogen use.

Although, I suppose that applies to all religions.