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

by James J. O'Donnell

Overview

A provocative and contrarian religious history that charts the rise of Christianity from the point of view of traditional” religion from the religious scholar and critically acclaimed author of Augustine.

Pagans explores the rise of Christianity from a surprising and unique viewpoint: that of the people who witnessed their ways of life destroyed by what seemed then a powerful religious cult. These “pagans” were actually pious Greeks, Romans, Syrians, and Gauls who observed the traditions of their ancestors. To these devout polytheists, Christians who worshipped only one deity were immoral atheists who believed that a splash of water on the deathbed could erase a lifetime of sin.

Religious scholar James J. O’Donnell takes us on a lively tour of the Ancient Roman world through the fourth century CE, when Romans of every nationality, social class, and religious preference found their world suddenly constrained by rulers who preferred a strange new god. Some joined this new cult, while others denied its power, erroneously believing it was little more than a passing fad.

In Pagans, O’Donnell brings to life various pagan rites and essential features of Roman religion and life, offers fresh portraits of iconic historical figures, including Constantine, Julian, and Augustine, and explores important themes—Rome versus the east, civilization versus barbarism, plurality versus unity, rich versus poor, and tradition versus innovation—in this startling account. 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780061845390
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	03/01/2016
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	288
Sales rank:	400,590
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

James J. O'Donnell is a classicist who served for ten years as Provost of Georgetown University and is now University Librarian at Arizona State University. He is the author of several books including Augustine, The Ruin of the Roman Empire, and Avatars of the Word. He is the former president of the American Philological Association, a Fellow of the Medieval Academy of America, and the chair of the Board of Directors of the American Council of Learned Societies. He is seen here at an ancient monastery on the eastern frontier of the Roman Empire, in Syria.

Table of Contents

Prologue 1

Part I Religion Without A History

Chapter 1 The Tour Guide's Version 9

Chapter 2 The Games of the Century 17

Chapter 3 An Eloquent Man Who Loved His Country 45

Chapter 4 What Is a God? 55

Chapter 5 Divine Butchery 71

Chapter 6 Ways of Knowing 89

Chapter 7 The Specter of Atheism 97

Chapter 8 Gods at Home 105

Chapter 9 Divine Exaltation 115

Part II The History of Paganism

Chapter 10 Constantine in his World 121

Chapter 11 A New Leaf 135

Chapter 12 The Birth of Paganism 149

Chapter 13 The Baptism of Paganism 159

Chapter 14 The First Christian Emperor 165

Chapter 15 The Servant of Christianity 177

Chapter 16 The Triumph of Paganism 191

Chapter 17 What Remained 201

Chapter 18 Cicero Reborn 213

Chapter 19 A Roman Relgion 225

Epilogue 237

Notes 243

Further Reading 261

Index 263

Editorial Reviews

Trenchantly interprets how an oddball religious cult became the official faith of Rome. . . . It makes for a thoughtful tour of Rome.” — New York Times Book Review

“Mr. O’Donnell tells the familiar story of Christianity’s heroic age of expansion, from Constantine to Theodosius, with verve and wit.” — Wall Street Journal

“James J. O’Donnell’s fine new book . . . is short but multilayered, erudite and dense.” — Cleveland Plain-Dealer

“[A] fascinating and insightful study of the pluralistic pagan gods. This book is a must read for everyone who is interested in either general history or the history of Christianity in particular.” — Washington Book Review

“Although [Pagans] is serious scholarship, it does not take itself too seriously. The result is an engaging view of antiquity few of us have seen. — Booklist

From the Publisher

Although [Pagans] is serious scholarship, it does not take itself too seriously. The result is an engaging view of antiquity few of us have seen.

Booklist

[A] fascinating and insightful study of the pluralistic pagan gods. This book is a must read for everyone who is interested in either general history or the history of Christianity in particular.

Washington Book Review

Mr. O’Donnell tells the familiar story of Christianity’s heroic age of expansion, from Constantine to Theodosius, with verve and wit.

Wall Street Journal

Although [Pagans] is serious scholarship, it does not take itself too seriously. The result is an engaging view of antiquity few of us have seen.

Booklist

Mr. O’Donnell tells the familiar story of Christianity’s heroic age of expansion, from Constantine to Theodosius, with verve and wit.

Wall Street Journal

James J. O’Donnell’s fine new book . . . is short but multilayered, erudite and dense.

Cleveland Plain-Dealer

Trenchantly interprets how an oddball religious cult became the official faith of Rome. . . . It makes for a thoughtful tour of Rome.

New York Times Book Review

01/19/2015
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.)

Publishers Weekly

★ 02/01/2015
O'Donnell (Georgetown Univ.; The Ruin of the Roman Empire) offers a view of the rise of Christianity from a unique perspective—that of the pagans whose traditional religions faded in popularity as monotheism took root. O'Donnell contends that "all [traditional] religion was local" and without a recorded history, since religion was so embedded in daily life. He notes that certain pagan practices, such as blood sacrifice, lost popularity and had all but vanished long before they were officially banned by Christian officials. While Emperor Constantine I converted to Christianity and gave imperial patronage to his chosen religion, allowing Christianity to expand significantly its numbers and reach, the concept of "Christianity" in opposition to "paganism" wasn't created until the fourth and fifth centuries CE, when Christian writings overdramatized the vanquishing of outdated, disparate paganism. During those centuries, Christianity provided a radically new idea of a religion that also constituted a single community of worshippers, cemented by the recorded texts that gave it history and consistency. VERDICT Though the rise of Christianity did not follow a simple path, the author presents this somewhat circuitous route through an engaging narrative. While clearly geared toward a general audience, O'Donnell's work is grounded in solid scholarly research. This book will appeal to the armchair historian and those with an interest in the Roman Empire, early Christianity, traditional religions, and religious history.—Crystal Goldman, Univ. of California, San Diego Lib.

Library Journal

2014-12-11
Georgetown University provost and author O'Donnell (The Ruin of the Roman Empire: A New History, 2008, etc.) offers a revisionist tour of the reach and purpose of the gods for the Romans, from the height of Rome's temple building by Augustus in 17 B.C. to the Christian incursions of the A.D. fourth century.Senior statesmen privately consulted the ancient Greek Sibylline books kept beneath the Temple of Jupiter in Rome not to predict the future so much as to "determine what it would take to placate the gods—and thus produce a better future." O'Donnell emphasizes how very gradual changes took place in how the people viewed their religion, as in the fluid exchange between the Greek and Roman pantheons and a general willingness by migrating people "to discern a familiar god behind an unfamiliar name." The author describes with relish some of the various rituals practiced in ceremonies of sacrifice at the Roman temples, including prodigious spilling of blood, and popular notions of divination, such as augury (the watching of birds) and haruspicy (the reading of the innards of various animals), all of which were slowly eclipsed by the spread of Christianity. Yet Christians, too, had their magic incantations and secret societies. Examining the works of such philosophers as Plotinus, O'Donnell explores the eager adoption of new ideas about a more powerful deity and bloodless ritual. Yet Constantine's gathering of bishops at the Council of Nicaea in 325 spurred the birth of paganism, as Christianity was fundamentally defined in opposition to it: as a rejection of false gods and old ways. Eventually, O'Donnell arrives at what a pagan is (from the Latin paganus, or peasant): anybody who was not a soldier of Christ. A roundabout historical lesson that employs the classical texts with irony and irreverence.

Kirkus Reviews