Pagans: The End of Traditional Religion and the Rise of Christianity

The early Christian movement began amid numerous other religions in the Hellenistic world, but the now-familiar story of the rise of Christianity very often leaves out the complex relationships between early Christians and these other religions. O’Donnell (Augustine) shines a light on that omission, in meticulous detail and through lively storytelling, animating the world of ancient religions, early Christianity’s place in that milieu, and the ways that the first Christians created a category of paganism to describe other religions. In the first and second centuries, Christians were the odd ones out: “if there are many gods, people who claim to believe in exactly one god, a god few had heard of... are, functionally speaking, atheists,” he writes. O’Donnell brilliantly chronicles the growing toleration of Christianity by the Roman Empire up through the fourth century, when it became the accepted religion of the empire. He convincingly demonstrates what many have known all along: paganism is a category that modern Christians invented to define themselves against other religions and to use, often, to justify persecution of those different from Christians. This is a must-read book. (Mar.)