Pagans and christians in the mediterranean world from the second century A.D. to the conversion of Constantine.

What was it like to be an early Christian? Why did Christianity spread and what difference did it make? How did it compare and compete with the cults of the pagan gods in the Roman Empire? Robin Lane Fox’s study is a historian’s attempt to answer these questions. There have been many books on early Christianity and several on paganism, but this is the first detailed study to set them both side by side in the towns in which they were practised. The author gives a clear interpretation of pagans’ religious experience, their visions, oracles, cults and sense of their gods’ presence. He then explores the Christians’ experience of visions, their social position and their ideals of martyrdom. Throughout, he emphasizes the practical setting, the pagan oracular shrines, the origins and nature of the persecution of Christians, the power of the Christian bishops. This is not only a study of the vigour of the pagan gods and the distinctive impact of Christianity - it also aims to enlarge and confirm the value of the original evidence, some of which has only recently been recovered. It leads up to the conversion of the first Christian emperor, Constantine, and its consequences, giving an exact place and date to the most explicit documents ascribed to his authorship in antiquity and disputed ever since.