{"title":"Conclusion","authors":"Mattias Gassman","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780190082444.003.0007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190082444.003.0007","url":null,"abstract":"Fourth-century writers dealt with traditional religion and its shifting place in Roman society with the help of myth, philosophy, and observation of cultic practice. These were not mere ‘antiquarian’ endeavours but resources that fleshed out a picture of traditional religion whose frame was set by each author’s social situation and theological convictions. The diversity of the resultant texts precludes a grand narrative of pagan evolution, or even of the formation of a new conception of ‘paganism’ or of ‘religion’. Nevertheless, the long arc of polemical discourse from Diocletian to Valentinian II testifies to the importance of the changing legal and political context that framed each author’s approach to pagan cult. It also makes clear the abiding differences that separated Christians from pagans, despite shared civic space and social ties. Much the same remained true, after decades of anti-pagan legislation, in Augustine’s early-fifth-century North Africa, where devout Christians struggled (sometimes violently) with influential pagans. Faced by the fall of Rome, Augustine produced City of God, whose only ancient Latin rival for breadth and theological vision is Lactantius’ Divine Institutes. Traditional religion was a still-potent reality in a Roman Empire that was no longer definitely pagan but not yet definitively Christian.","PeriodicalId":211334,"journal":{"name":"Worshippers of the Gods","volume":"28 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-07-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128299216","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}