The Religious History of the Roman Empire

It is an important book, not just because of the status and quality of the contributors which are outstanding, but perhaps even more so because this is a successful attempt at bringing together scholars working in related, yet all too often regarded or treated as different fields.

• Introduction ; I. CHANGES IN RELIGIOUS LIFE: ROMAN AND CIVIC CULTS ; 1. Roman Religion and the Religion of Empire: Some Reflections on Method ; 2. The Roman Imperial Cult and the Question of Power ; 3. Magic in Roman Law: The Reconstruction of a Crime ; 4. New Combinations and New Statuses: The Indigenous Gods in the Pantheons of the Cities of Roman Gaul ; 5. Hypsistos: A Way of Exalting the Gods in Graeco-Roman Polytheism ; 6. On the Uses and Disadvantages of Divination: Oracles and their Literary Representations in the Time of the Second Sophistic ; II. ELECTIVE CULTS ; 7. Homogeneity and Diversity in the Religions of Rome ; 8. Oriental Mysteries and Cults: A Problem in the History of Religions ; 9. Ritual and Hierarchy in the Mysteries of Mithras ; 10. Community and Community: Reflections on Some Ambiguities Based on the Thiasoi of Roman Egypt ; III. COEXISTENCE OF RELIGIONS, OLD AND NEW ; 11. Acculturation and Identity in the Diaspora: A Jewish Family and 'Pagan' Guilds at Hierapolis ; 12. Josephus and Variety in First-Century Judaism ; 13. The Forging of Christian Identity and the Letter To Diognetus ; 14. Purification and its Discontents: Mani's Rejection of Baptism ; 15. Pagans, Polytheists and the Pendulum ; IV. LATE ANTIQUITY ; 16. Early Christianity and the Discourse of Female Desire ; 17. Enjoying the Saints in Late Antiquity