H.A. Drake A Century of Miracles: Christians, Pagans, Jews, and the Supernatural, 312-410. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017.Excerpt:
Historians in the twentieth century tended to read the fourth century as a great conflict between diametrically opposed ideologies: “paganism” and “Christianity.” Drake argues that these historians—influenced by the categories and anxieties of the Cold War—exacerbated a tendency amongst scholars to narrate the fourth century as a “black and white” contest between two incommensurable ideologies that for power over the late Roman Empire (19-21). In contrast to this approach, Drake contends that it might be better to look to a center of interests, concerns, and attitudes that were shared by those with varied religious identities. This shared middle is revisited and expanded throughout the book, and is fully on display in Drake’s chapters that describe Judaism.
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