From a historical perspective as well, I would say that one of the reasons for the great appeal and rapid spread of Christianity may have been the feeling of a divine void, of a hidden face of God, in that age, not only by the early Jewish followers of Christianity, but by the pagans as well. As pagan religion was, for a variety of reasons, no longer satisfying, here was a religion saying that God was close, immanent. He had walked among humans, and He would be back.
— Richard Elliott Friedman, The Hidden Face of God