The early Christians were experts at playing into other groups’ oral traditions and prophecies. They recruited by shapeshifting, assimilating, and aggregating. It’s like grafting new branches onto your tree. The issue is that they had to write in code because the Romans did not want the church to grow too powerful.
Compared to today, this long conspiracy and aggregation of alternate cur conspiracies, while at the same time hiding from and despising the power of the state, has interesting effects.
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Early Christians adeptly merged their beliefs with existing oral traditions, recruiting followers through a shapeshifting assimilation. This approach resembled grafting new branches onto an established tree.
Writing in coded language was crucial as they grew, as overt expansion threatened Roman authority. This blend of espionage, aggregation, and subterfuge under state scrutiny parallels the modern interactions between populist beliefs and established powers.
From this point of view, it is understandable that a religion distrustful of state authority is primed for conspiracy theories and will morph to adopt survival tactics, even if they are counter to their core tenants.