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4 - Why Did People Become Christians in the Pre-Constantinian World?

Reframing the Question

from Part I - Contested Contexts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 August 2023

By
Éric Rebillard
Edited by
Bruce W. Longenecker  and
David E. Wilhite
Bruce W. Longenecker
Affiliation:
Baylor University, Texas
David E. Wilhite
Affiliation:
Baylor University, Texas
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Summary

The question contained in this chapter’s title continues to elicit many answers from academics, particularly in publications addressed to a larger audience.1 As has been observed by more than one scholar, however, the answers have not changed much since the time of Edward Gibbon (1737–94).2 Moreover, in my view the answers typically given are not fully convincing, so I take the opportunity here to reconsider the question – in fact, even to question the question. Instead of a critical review of the answers typically offered, I seek to deconstruct the question, using the words that compose the title of the chapter as a guide for uncovering the many assumptions that lay behind it. As a result, I will complicate the picture and illustrate the many ways that things can go wrong if fundamental assumptions embedded within the question are left unexposed, as is usually the case.

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The Cambridge History of Ancient Christianity , pp. 80 - 106
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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