Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

Christianization has been a pivotal concept for understanding the transformations of the Roman world in Late Antiquity (Peter Brown 1993 ). Judged either positively or negatively in respect to its implications, few deny that the rise and later triumph of Christianity had a significant role to play in reshaping Greco-Roman culture and society. Scholars are nevertheless aware that its notional triumph never became complete, and therefore speak more in terms of a christianizing Roman Empire than a christianized Rome, a cautious approach that distantly echoes certain late antique Christians' lament that their own society failed to become more fully transformed by Christian values ( MacMullen 1984 ). What was principally at issue was not whether Christianity could prevail against the worship of the traditional gods, for the defeat of so-called paganism was narrated in triumphalist Christian texts that documented instances of bans on public sacrifice and of the destruction of temples to the gods ( Gregory 1986 ; Trombley 1993–4 ; Hahn 2004 ; see McLynn, ch. 38 ). Rather, scholars have focused on the late antique debate among Christians regarding what was pagan (a category that came to be understood as those beliefs and practices that could no longer be tolerated in a christianizing society), what was Christian, and what belonged to a “third” category that was neither fully pagan nor ... log in or subscribe to read full text