Top Highlights

• These three chapters are a version of lectures delivered atCambridg e on 22, 23 and 24 November 1993.
• We are like little boys on the sea-shore. We watch withfascinated delight as the tide sweeps in upon an intricate sandcastle. We note when each segment crumbles before theadvancing waters. Some parts fall quickly. They have well-knowndates: 384, for the controversy on the removal of the Altar ofVictory from the Roman Senate-House; 392 (perhaps), fo...
• As Robin Lane Fox haswarned us, in the opening pages of his vivid book, Pagans andChristians, the brilliant reign of Constantine 'was only a landmarkin the history of Christianisation, that state which is alwaysreceding, like full employment or a garden without weeds'.11
• When we turn to the public culture of the fourth century, weare faced by a series of apparent disjunctions that force us tore-think what we mean by 'Christianisation' in this period. Thesituation is as follows. In the fourth century AD, there were manywell-placed inhabitants of the restored Roman empire who wouldhave agreed with Professor Clifford ...
• The change is as elusive in its onset, but as unmistakable, as achange of pitch in the hum of an engine. It is easier to describethan to explain.