Paganism and Christianity 100-425 C.E.: A Sourcebook

This book is a collection of nearly 175 documentsfrom saints emperors philosophers satirists inscriptions graffiti and other interesting typesthat sheds light on the complex fabric of religious belief as it changed from a variety of non-Judeo-Christian movements to Christian in late antiquity. These texts illuminate and bring to life the bizarre and the banal of the social world of the Roman Empire the world in which Christianity ultimately gained preeminence.This treasury of texts leads the reader through the matrix of beliefs among which Christianity grew. It includes both Christian and non-Christian sources avoiding a common but obscuring division between the two. The material is presented as one single flow that satisfies natural curiosity and whets the readers appetite for more. Brief explanatory introductions to the documents are included.