Mattias P. Gassman – författare
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Worshippers of the Gods tells how the Latin writers who witnessed the political and social rise of Christianity rethought the role of traditional religion in the empire and city of Rome. In parallel with the empire's legal Christianisation, it traces changing attitudes toward paganism from the last empire-wide persecution of Christians under the Tetrarchy to the removal of state funds from the Roman cults in the early 380s. Influential recent scholarship has seen Christian polemical literature-a crucial body of evidence for late antique polytheism-as an exercise in Christian identity-making. In response, Worshippers of the Gods argues that Lactantius, Firmicus Maternus, Ambrosiaster, and Ambrose offered substantive critiques of traditional religion shaped to their political circumstances and to the preoccupations of contemporary polytheists. By bringing together this polemical literature with imperial laws, pagan inscriptions, and the letters and papers of the senator Symmachus, Worshippers of the Gods reveals the changing horizons of Roman thought on traditional religion in the fourth century. Through its five interlocking case studies, it shows how key episodes in the Empire's religious history-the Tetrarchic persecution, Constantine's adoption of Christianity, the altar of Victory affair, and the 'disestablishment' of the Roman cults-shaped contemporary conceptions of polytheism. It also argues that the idea of a unified 'paganism', often seen as a capricious invention, actually arose as a Christian response to the eclectic, philosophical polytheism in vogue at Rome.
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Citizens of the Earth presents the first comprehensive account of Augustine's engagement with traditional Roman religion. A multifaceted case-study in the Christianization of the Roman Empire, it anchors Augustine's works in their intellectual and social context, narrating political and intellectual renegotiation of the public cults of North Africa from the 390s until after Augustine's death in 430. At the same time, it tests modern conceptions of the role of religious conviction and religious difference in late antique society against the ideas of one of the most influential late Roman thinkers.Approaching Augustine simultaneously as thinker, practical preacher, and observer of his North African world, Citizens of the Earth synthesizes Augustine's ideas about religion from sermons and treatises, describes how his polemical approach to the Roman gods developed across his career, and reconstructs competing ideas developed by his interlocutors. It emphasizes pagan conviction and lay religiosity, argues that we should see Augustine's polemics as attempts at practical outreach and persuasion, and stresses the importance of conversion for understanding the pagan-Christian boundary.The book closes with both historical and theoretical conclusions. After proposing that the Vandalic conquest of Carthage (439) marked a final ending point for traditional, public religiosity in North Africa, it considers how Augustine's contributions can still inform modern approaches to late antique religion.