Definitely Paul had a big influence on how Christianity developed, especially since he seems to have been the primary figure to view it as an universal religion for all people rather than as a sect of Judaism and primary for people who were already Jewish. Possibly because he was a Roman citizen himself.
Definitely gaining power in the latter Roman empire didn't help as it was very autocratic by that time but I would suspect the key issue is that power tends to corrupt so once it started becoming the religion of states, Armenian, Roman and then others it became a major power in the state and hence attracted those after power.
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@Almonaster
Definitely Paul had a big influence on how Christianity developed, especially since he seems to have been the primary figure to view it as an universal religion for all people rather than as a sect of Judaism and primary for people who were already Jewish. Possibly because he was a Roman citizen himself.
Definitely gaining power in the latter Roman empire didn't help as it was very autocratic by that time but I would suspect the key issue is that power tends to corrupt so once it started becoming the religion of states, Armenian, Roman and then others it became a major power in the state and hence attracted those after power.