Polemiques Entre Paiens Et Chretiens

In Late Antiquity (4th and 5th centuries), a number of pagan intellectuals had initiated a covert war of words against Christian thought which was starting to gain a foothold at the time. This work redraws the outline of polemic relations between pagans and Christians under the reign of Theodosius (379-395).At the centre of this conflict was Virius Nicomachus Flavianus, a complex and polymorphic figure. The Christians had made him one of their privileged adversaries. As a senior judicial system official close to Theodosius, he was an astute jurist, a lawmaker in the Prince’s service, as well as a clever propagandist, in Historia Augusta, who wrote of themes ideologically very similar to positions adopted by the pagan aristocracy, such as sexual morality and asset management. An analysis of little-known documents also suggests that the man was a proponent of Neoplatonism — a fact which had never been previously established. Fear of police repression induced him to encrypt his political and religious messages by systematically making use of the inexhaustible resources of art and fiction.Essentially, the author provides readers with an original perspective on what he calls “the pagan malaise,” based upon the finding that, like Christians, pagans tended to use elaborate literary forms in expressing and defending their religious convictions. Fiction and religion thus constituted two themes common to all intellectuals of that era and cannot be excluded from any exploration of such a prolific period.