With the arrival of a so-called Christian emperor, Constantine the Great, Christian leaders gained the long-awaited tolerance of the empire. Christianity’s transition into the favored religious cult of the imperial household and Roman elite involved significant growing pains. The road to conformity was anything but smooth, as a series of controversial ecumenical councils demonstrated. I…
The religions of ancient Greece and Rome are extinct. The so- called divinities of Olympus have not a single worshipper among living men. They belong now not to the department of theology, but to those of literature and taste. There they still hold their place, and will continue to hold it, for they are too closely connected with the finest productions of poetry and art, both ancient and modern…