Pagans And Christians: Religion And The Religious Life From The Second To The Fourth Century A.D. When The Gods Of Olympus Lost Their Dominion And Christianity
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Edition: repr.,
Condition remarks:
Book: Very good
Jacket: Very good
Pages: Good
In the tumultuous centuries between the reign of Marcus Aurelius and the conversion of Constantine, two worlds collided — the ancient polytheistic traditions of the Roman Empire and the rising tide of a new, fervent Christianity — and Robin Lane Fox's monumental Pagans and Christians chronicles this seismic transformation with breathtaking erudition. Set against the sweeping backdrop of the Mediterranean world from the second to the fourth century A.D., the work reconstructs the lived religious experience of both communities: their temples and house churches, their oracles and martyrs, their visions, festivals, and the deeply personal faith that animated millions of ordinary lives. Fox presents an immersive, ground-level portrait of a civilization in the throes of spiritual revolution, tracking how the gods of Olympus gradually ceded their dominion to a faith that would reshape Western history. A work of towering scholarship, Pagans and Christians is distinguished by Fox's remarkable ability to synthesise vast archaeological, literary, and epigraphic evidence into a narrative that is at once rigorous and compulsively readable. He argues persuasively that the triumph of Christianity was neither inevitable nor swift, but the product of complex social, political, and spiritual forces playing out across generations. His prose carries the authority of a classicist and the narrative drive of a storyteller, making abstract theological contests feel urgently human. For anyone who has ever wondered how the ancient world truly ended and a new one began, this landmark study offers answers that are as provocative as they are profound.
Author: Robin Lane Fox
Format: Hardback
Published: 1987, Knopf
Genre: Religion
Edition: repr.,
Condition remarks:
Book: Very good
Jacket: Very good
Pages: Good
In the tumultuous centuries between the reign of Marcus Aurelius and the conversion of Constantine, two worlds collided — the ancient polytheistic traditions of the Roman Empire and the rising tide of a new, fervent Christianity — and Robin Lane Fox's monumental Pagans and Christians chronicles this seismic transformation with breathtaking erudition. Set against the sweeping backdrop of the Mediterranean world from the second to the fourth century A.D., the work reconstructs the lived religious experience of both communities: their temples and house churches, their oracles and martyrs, their visions, festivals, and the deeply personal faith that animated millions of ordinary lives. Fox presents an immersive, ground-level portrait of a civilization in the throes of spiritual revolution, tracking how the gods of Olympus gradually ceded their dominion to a faith that would reshape Western history. A work of towering scholarship, Pagans and Christians is distinguished by Fox's remarkable ability to synthesise vast archaeological, literary, and epigraphic evidence into a narrative that is at once rigorous and compulsively readable. He argues persuasively that the triumph of Christianity was neither inevitable nor swift, but the product of complex social, political, and spiritual forces playing out across generations. His prose carries the authority of a classicist and the narrative drive of a storyteller, making abstract theological contests feel urgently human. For anyone who has ever wondered how the ancient world truly ended and a new one began, this landmark study offers answers that are as provocative as they are profound.