Christianity seeped into the social, political, and religious fabric of the Roman Empire at an incredible pace, and during the late fourth to early sixth centuries the effects of christianization upon both the city and the countryside were profound. Frank Trombley looks specifically at this process he calls "christianization" and at the "points of conjuncture between the old and new religions, wherein the ordinary people of the Greek cities and their semi-Greek hinterlands accepted radical changes in their religious allegiances at the behest of Christian bishops, their deacons and periodeutai, the monks, and ultimately of the Christen emperors" (preface). Trombley's view encompasses not the intellectual elite but the "ordinary folk" of religious life. He studies, for example the effect of the laws against sacrifice and sorcery instituted by the Christian religion upon the Greek religious practices of the general populace. He also instructs us how official sanctions against pagan gods and the christianization of rite become the backdrop for better understanding conversion to Christianity. Trombley's firm grasp on a variety of complex disciplines reassures the reader throughout that his conclusions are informed by rigorous analysis.
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