• Acknowledgments


• Abbreviations


• Introduction: Rhetoric and realities


• SECTION ONE: Imperial and ecclesiastical authority


• Chapter 1 The emperor and the dissenters


• Chapter 2 The realities of legislation


• Chapter 3 The bishops and the dissenters


• Chapter 4 The local limits of imperial and ecclesiastical power


• Chapter 5 Authority and aggression


• SECTION TWO: People in rhetoric and realities


• Chapter 6 Individuals, groups, and plural possibilities in Late Antiquity


• Chapter 7 Otherness outside: Making pagans


• Chapter 8 Deviance or otherness inside: Construing heretics


• Chapter 9 Reactions


• SECTION THREE: Time, place, practices


• Chapter 10 The transformation of practices


• Chapter 11 Economics of practices


• Chapter 12 Sacred places and spaces


• Chapter 13 Sacred times and spaces


• Chapter 14 Rhetoric and realities of magic


• Conclusion: The darkening age or the victory of John Doe?


• Bibliography


• Index locorum

Maijastina Kahlos is University researcher and Docent of Latin language and Roman literature at University of Helsinki and author of Forbearance and Compulsion: Rhetoric of Tolerance and Intolerance in Late Antiquity and Debate and Dialogue: Christian and Pagan Cultures, c. 360-430.

Religious Dissent in Late Antiquity reconsiders the Christianization of the late Roman Empire. The focus is on the shifting position of dissenting religious groups ('pagans' and 'heretics'). The book shows that the narrative is more nuanced than the simple Christian triumph over the classical world.