How did the early Christian church manage to win its dominant place in the Roman world? In his newest book, an eminent historian of ancient Rome examines this question from a secular-rather than an ecclesiastical-viewpoint. MacMullen's provocative conclusion is that mass conversions to Christianity were based more on the appeal of miracle or the ...
The slaughter of animals for religious feasts, the tinkling of bells to ward off evil during holy rites, the custom of dancing in religious services - these and many other pagan practices persisted in the Christian church for hundreds of years after Constantine proclaimed Christianity the one official religion of Rome. In this book, Ramsay ...
Ramsay MacMullen, Dunham Professor of History and classics at Yale, here offers a new perspective on the decline and fall of Rome. He argues that a key factor in the empire's military and administrative failures was a steady loss of control over government, as its aims and focus were thwarted for private gain by officials and military men at all ...
During the lifetime of Augustus (from 63 B.C. to A.D. 14), Roman civilization spread at a remarkable rate throughout the ancient world, influencing such areas as art and architecture, religion, law, local speech, city design, clothing, and leisure and family activities. In his newest book, Ramsay MacMullen investigates why the adoption of Roman ...
The Roman empire was a success story. The achievement of such success required a broad consensus in social norms, in ethics and aesthetics to strengthen a distinct way of life. At the same time, however, there were necessarily deviants and deviations from the norm: enemies of the Roman order. Dissidents emerged across societal groupings - from ...
In this study, Ramsay MacMullen steps aside from the well-worn path that previous scholars have trod to explore exactly how early Christian doctrines became official. Drawing on extensive verbatim stenographic records, he analyzes the ecumenical councils from A.D. 325 to 553, in which participants gave authority to doctrinal choices by majority ...
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