Tom Holland

Children and slaves first

It thrived by killing off the opposition, says Bart Ehrman. But it also appealed to Rome’s enslaved masses

issue 31 March 2018

In the reign of Constantine, whose conversion to Christianity in AD 310 set the entire Roman world on a course to becoming Christian, a Palestinian scholar named Eusebius pondered the reasons for the triumph of his faith. Naturally, he saw behind it the guiding hand of God; but he did not rest content with that as an explanation.

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