Authority and the sacred : aspects of the Christianisation of the Roman world
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Authority and the sacred : aspects of the Christianisation of the Roman world
Cambridge University Press, 1995
- : hc
- : pbk
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Includes bibliographical references and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
The Christianisation of the Roman world lies at the root of modern Europe, yet at the time it was a tentative and piecemeal process. Peter Brown's study examines the factors which proved decisive and the compromises which made the emergence of the Christian 'thought world' possible. He shows how contemporary narratives wavered between declarations of definitive victory and a sombre sense of the strength of the pre-Christian past, reflecting the hopes and fears of different generations faced with different social and political situations. He examines the social factors which muted the sharp intolerance which pervades the contemporary literary evidence, and he shows how Christian holy men were less representatives of a triumphant and intransigent faith than negotiators, at ground level, of a working compromise between the new faith and traditional ways of dealing with the supernatural world.
Table of Contents
- 1. Christianisation: narratives and processes
- 2. The limits of intolerance
- 3. Arbiters of the holy: the Christian holy man in late antiquity.
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