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The Final Pagan Generation (Transformation of the Classical Heritage) by Watts, Edward J. (2015) Hardcover
The Final Pagan Generation recounts the fascinating story of the lives and fortunes of the last Romans born before the Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity. Edward J. Watts traces their experiences of living through the fourth century’s dramatic religious and political changes, when heated confrontations saw the Christian establishment legislate against pagan practices as mobs attacked pagan holy sites and temples. The emperors who issued these laws, the imperial officials charged with implementing them, and the Christian perpetrators of religious violence were almost exclusively young men whose attitudes and actions contrasted markedly with those of the earlier generation, who shared neither their juniors’ interest in creating sharply defined religious identities nor their propensity for violent conflict. Watts examines why the "final pagan generation"―born to the old ways and the old world in which it seemed to everyone that religious practices would continue as they had for the past two thousand years―proved both unable to anticipate the changes that imperially sponsored Christianity produced and unwilling to resist them. A compelling and provocative read, suitable for the general reader as well as students and scholars of the ancient world.
Hardcover
First published January 6, 2015
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About the author
Edward J. Watts
10 books63 followersEdward Watts teaches history at the University of California, San Diego, He received his PhD in History from Yale University in 2002. His research interests center on the intellectual and religious history of the Roman Empire and the early Byzantine Empire.
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June 8, 2019
Generation Gap in 4th century Rome -- with the Establishment in this case being the old pagan elite.
The author compares the younger generation of Christian leaders who rebelled against them to hippies. In fact, they more closely resembled Bolsheviks. Their aims certainly were totalitarian: Everyone had to be Christian, and Christianity had to rule every aspect of life. (That's ironic, of course, since Bolsheviks were officially atheist. But the important distinction here isn't between God/no God; it's between allowing diverse views versus quashing them.)
The old elite didn't recognize the threat to their traditions because they couldn't imagine a world in which the ancient gods would disappear. Even after the Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity around 312 CE, traditional religion remained dominant. Some elites did begin to convert to Christianity, often to court imperial favor. But the majority of the Empire's upper class remained pagan. And paganism was pluralistic, with hundreds of gods. The monotheistic absolutism of Christian leaders was something the old pagan elites could not understand.
After Constantine converted, he began directing funds away from traditional religions, toward Christian churches. Within a few decades, the resources of the church had grown substantially. This burgeoning wealth attracted the attention of some Christian elites, who began to realize that it could allow the church to create its own separate power base, outside of imperial control.
One of the earliest Christian elites to recognize this was Ambrose, a former Roman governor who became bishop of Milan in 374. Ambrose was a savvy political operator who understood how to manage large properties and schmooze with the imperial court. As such, he became far more powerful than the less socially connected bishops who had dominated the church up to that point.
Ambrose also typified the extreme positions that Christian leaders were beginning to take toward non-Christians. He argued that merely allowing the continued existence of pagan religious practices amounted to persecution of Christians -- and he even demanded a church veto over imperial policies (he didn't get it).
Interestingly, like later Communists, early Christian leaders spent as much time purging heresy from their own ranks as they did persecuting those outside their party (Jews and pagans). Ambrose gained episcopal power in large part because of a conflict between Nicene Christians and Arians (who followed another, then-widespread, variant of Christianity). Once he became bishop, Ambrose worked industriously to suppress Arians and other non-Nicene Christians (along with anyone else who didn't buy his religious brand).
Christian leaders of the late Roman Empire didn't have the technological reach of 20th century authoritarians, of course. So it took them a long time to smother dissent and establish themselves as the only acceptable religion. But the outlines of their eventual takeover were already becoming visible by the end of the 4th century.
The author compares the younger generation of Christian leaders who rebelled against them to hippies. In fact, they more closely resembled Bolsheviks. Their aims certainly were totalitarian: Everyone had to be Christian, and Christianity had to rule every aspect of life. (That's ironic, of course, since Bolsheviks were officially atheist. But the important distinction here isn't between God/no God; it's between allowing diverse views versus quashing them.)
The old elite didn't recognize the threat to their traditions because they couldn't imagine a world in which the ancient gods would disappear. Even after the Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity around 312 CE, traditional religion remained dominant. Some elites did begin to convert to Christianity, often to court imperial favor. But the majority of the Empire's upper class remained pagan. And paganism was pluralistic, with hundreds of gods. The monotheistic absolutism of Christian leaders was something the old pagan elites could not understand.
After Constantine converted, he began directing funds away from traditional religions, toward Christian churches. Within a few decades, the resources of the church had grown substantially. This burgeoning wealth attracted the attention of some Christian elites, who began to realize that it could allow the church to create its own separate power base, outside of imperial control.
One of the earliest Christian elites to recognize this was Ambrose, a former Roman governor who became bishop of Milan in 374. Ambrose was a savvy political operator who understood how to manage large properties and schmooze with the imperial court. As such, he became far more powerful than the less socially connected bishops who had dominated the church up to that point.
Ambrose also typified the extreme positions that Christian leaders were beginning to take toward non-Christians. He argued that merely allowing the continued existence of pagan religious practices amounted to persecution of Christians -- and he even demanded a church veto over imperial policies (he didn't get it).
Interestingly, like later Communists, early Christian leaders spent as much time purging heresy from their own ranks as they did persecuting those outside their party (Jews and pagans). Ambrose gained episcopal power in large part because of a conflict between Nicene Christians and Arians (who followed another, then-widespread, variant of Christianity). Once he became bishop, Ambrose worked industriously to suppress Arians and other non-Nicene Christians (along with anyone else who didn't buy his religious brand).
Christian leaders of the late Roman Empire didn't have the technological reach of 20th century authoritarians, of course. So it took them a long time to smother dissent and establish themselves as the only acceptable religion. But the outlines of their eventual takeover were already becoming visible by the end of the 4th century.
December 2, 2015
Watts surveys the transition from traditional religion to Christianity in the fourth century by following the careers of four influential members of the final pagan generation (Praetextatus, Libanius, Ausonius, and Themistius). These men, born in the 310s, were participants at various times and in various ways in the imperial governmental system as it was in transition to becoming a Christian-dominated bureaucracy. He contrasts the lives and careers of these men who worked within the system to those of younger men born in the 330s (such as Chrysostom, Basil, and Paulinus) who dropped out in the 360s and 370s and became part of a Christian counterculture. The technique functions well to give a sense of how gradual and yet dramatic were the changes confronting the final pagan generation as they moved through the stages of education, employment, and retirement. At the same time, these men, so far removed from us in time and culture, dealt with all of the human concerns with which we deal today (advancing their careers, raising families, caring for aging parents, administering family lands, mourning the deaths of family members and friends, and finding meaning in retirement). That they engaged in these common human activities while the worldview of those around them was changing in ways they could not have imagined in their youth gives us a real sense of what the swerve the Roman Empire took between the reigns of Constantine and Theodosius meant for the professional classes. Extensive notes accompany this fine contribution to our understanding of the end of traditional religion and the rise of Christianity in late antiquity.
January 16, 2015
This is similar to recent books I've read on the Reformation which showed that the situation "on the ground" was more complicated than "we're Catholic; now we're Protestant." Watts' aim is to show that this final generation lived in a world that, though there might be seemingly anti-pagan laws, mostly went on as usual. Watts feels that many laws were put forward as a way of showing the anti-Pagan (or anti-Christian) beliefs of the law giver but were not really meant to be enforced, in fact were often unenforceable. Pagans and Christians were family, were friends, worked together. The book could be a bit dry at times (and I confess to getting lost between the handful of lives he covered) but the book was short--much shorter than apparent since the actual text took up only 52% of the book (ah, the pleasures of digital reading).
Read
July 15, 2016Brilliant example of how to write a biography of multiple people and a period and get everything right. I loved this book. It focuses on a generation and a transition, and it does it very well -- in depth, close up, well presented and well written.
November 25, 2024
Oare cum arătau ultimele generații păgâne, cele care trăiau în Imperiul Roman undeva în anii 310-392, de la primii ani ai Împăratului Constantin cel Mare până la distrugerea de către creștini ai Serapeumului din Alexandria? (Cum spune autorul, este vorba de „ultimii romani care au crescut într-un mediu care nu-și putea închipui o lume romană dominată de o majoritate creștină”.)
Ei bine, a fost o perioadă de mari transformări în imperiul care devine treptat creștin, deși nimic nu s-a întâmplat peste noapte, pentru că nici împărații, nici senatorii sau conducătorii de facto ai diferitelor provincii nu au impus imediat și direct distrugerea templelor sau interzicerea sacrificiilor, ba unii dintre ei au fost sprijinitori ai „păgânismului” (care nu era altceva decât o altă religie, dar politeistă). Așa că procesul a fost treptat, iar realizarea sa finală nu a fost până la urmă „meritul” conducerii, ci acțiunile (ori violente, ori pașnice prin intermediul discursurilor) ale episcopilor și altor creștini.
Edward J. Watts merge prin această istorie, pe care o explică atent și convingător, deceniu cu deceniu, în timp ce ia ca exemplu patru personalități ale vremii, membrii ai elitelor romane (Libanios, Themistios, Ausonius și Praetextatus), pe care le însoțește pas cu pas în acest secol de la așa-zisul final al păgânismului. Sincer, tocmai această a doua încercare a autorului mi s-a părut mai puțin atractivă pentru un cititor obișnuit (nespecialist), pentru că mi-ar fi plăcut să există mai multă informație despre oamenii simpli, despre felul în care aceștia au trecut sau s-au lăsat convinși în acel secol de creștinism.
PS: Din notele de final:
„Păgânii aveau o diversitate considerabilă de credințe și practici. Nu toți păgânii erau politeiști, nu aveau un crez comun și respectau sau ignorau zei, ritualuri și sărbători potrivit propriilor lor înclinații individuale. Ținând seama de scopul studiului de față, termenul de „păgâni”, oricât de imprecis ar fi, este de preferat denumirii mai lungi de „adepți neevrei ai unor zei mediteraneeni tradiționali.”
Ei bine, a fost o perioadă de mari transformări în imperiul care devine treptat creștin, deși nimic nu s-a întâmplat peste noapte, pentru că nici împărații, nici senatorii sau conducătorii de facto ai diferitelor provincii nu au impus imediat și direct distrugerea templelor sau interzicerea sacrificiilor, ba unii dintre ei au fost sprijinitori ai „păgânismului” (care nu era altceva decât o altă religie, dar politeistă). Așa că procesul a fost treptat, iar realizarea sa finală nu a fost până la urmă „meritul” conducerii, ci acțiunile (ori violente, ori pașnice prin intermediul discursurilor) ale episcopilor și altor creștini.
Edward J. Watts merge prin această istorie, pe care o explică atent și convingător, deceniu cu deceniu, în timp ce ia ca exemplu patru personalități ale vremii, membrii ai elitelor romane (Libanios, Themistios, Ausonius și Praetextatus), pe care le însoțește pas cu pas în acest secol de la așa-zisul final al păgânismului. Sincer, tocmai această a doua încercare a autorului mi s-a părut mai puțin atractivă pentru un cititor obișnuit (nespecialist), pentru că mi-ar fi plăcut să există mai multă informație despre oamenii simpli, despre felul în care aceștia au trecut sau s-au lăsat convinși în acel secol de creștinism.
PS: Din notele de final:
„Păgânii aveau o diversitate considerabilă de credințe și practici. Nu toți păgânii erau politeiști, nu aveau un crez comun și respectau sau ignorau zei, ritualuri și sărbători potrivit propriilor lor înclinații individuale. Ținând seama de scopul studiului de față, termenul de „păgâni”, oricât de imprecis ar fi, este de preferat denumirii mai lungi de „adepți neevrei ai unor zei mediteraneeni tradiționali.”
September 4, 2019
This book offers a compelling portrait of the final pagan generation, but if you're looking to understand why they were the final pagan generation, you have to look elsewhere.
Within the tight confines of its limited ambition, it's a well-researched, well-organized, and well-written work. On the one hand it focuses on emperors and imperial policy; on the other hand it follows the lives of four elite Romans of the time who represent the final pagan generation. There's very little concerning the lives of ordinary people, the mechanics of the spread of Christianity, etc.
Within the tight confines of its limited ambition, it's a well-researched, well-organized, and well-written work. On the one hand it focuses on emperors and imperial policy; on the other hand it follows the lives of four elite Romans of the time who represent the final pagan generation. There's very little concerning the lives of ordinary people, the mechanics of the spread of Christianity, etc.
February 27, 2023
A very helpful survey from Constantine to the destruction of the Temple of Serapis. Watts uses four men (Ausonius, Themestius, Libanius, and Sosipater) as foci for this time and helpfully builds in the political, social, and intellectual context.
March 15, 2023
A fascinating period but this is no broad sweep of history. Watts focuses very tightly on four men of one generation, their letters, their roles, their changing world.
September 18, 2017
The Final Pagan Generation covers the 310s – 390s CE. It looks at four elites of the Roman social world — Libanius, Themistius, Praetextatus, and Ausonius. Three were traditional religionists, and one was Christian. Watts follows this cohort’s lives to answer the questions of how the radical social, political, and religious transformations would have been perceived by people living through them.
I valued The Final Pagan Generation most for how it took a complex and fast-moving century and broke it out into pieces that were easy to digest while not sacrificing the period’s complexities. As a non-historian, I can’t really speak to the narrative’s historical approach. It was coherent, well-researched, and engaging. I think it’s a useful read for anyone in modern polytheisms centered around Mediterranean pantheons, for thinking about modern conversions and religious intimidation worldwide, or for anyone interested in this historical period.
Comparing the anxieties of growing up Neopagan and not being treated like a serious intellectual to an environment where texts written by and about polytheism and its philosophical schools were the core educational material is an important mental exercise I engaged in while reading the book. I'm a Hellenic polytheist, so it does have a lot of relevancy to that.
I valued The Final Pagan Generation most for how it took a complex and fast-moving century and broke it out into pieces that were easy to digest while not sacrificing the period’s complexities. As a non-historian, I can’t really speak to the narrative’s historical approach. It was coherent, well-researched, and engaging. I think it’s a useful read for anyone in modern polytheisms centered around Mediterranean pantheons, for thinking about modern conversions and religious intimidation worldwide, or for anyone interested in this historical period.
Comparing the anxieties of growing up Neopagan and not being treated like a serious intellectual to an environment where texts written by and about polytheism and its philosophical schools were the core educational material is an important mental exercise I engaged in while reading the book. I'm a Hellenic polytheist, so it does have a lot of relevancy to that.
June 26, 2020
Watts spends a great deal of time on the role of networking and social positioning for the generation that chose a traditional path in the imperial Roman world of the 300s. More interesting was his presentation of how the political environment allowed those outside of this structure ( those of the new sect called Christian taking the roles of bishops and ascetics) to gain power and influence.
I appreciated this window into an important turn of history and the author’s knowledge of the period. The notes section, which is comprehensive, contributes to the work. In fact, many of the notes should have been incorporated into the body of the book itself. For example, defining the term “pagan” and pointing out that no non-Christian Roman of the period would have considered themselves part of an defined religious sect adds incite to the period.
I appreciated this window into an important turn of history and the author’s knowledge of the period. The notes section, which is comprehensive, contributes to the work. In fact, many of the notes should have been incorporated into the body of the book itself. For example, defining the term “pagan” and pointing out that no non-Christian Roman of the period would have considered themselves part of an defined religious sect adds incite to the period.
September 10, 2020
The Final Pagan Generation takes a close look at Rome's 4th century transformation from a world where "elite Romans, both pagan and Christian...believed that the pagan public religious order of the past few millennia would continue indefinitely" into a "Roman world dominated by a Christian majority" (6). This story is very much an elite tale, as Watts explores this "failure of imagination" among four Roman elites who left abundant epistolary evidence about their evolving views throughout the 4th century, yet died (falsely) believing that the religious order of the past would continue as it always had.
By focusing on these four elites personal stories, Watts is able to tell a chronological tale that begins in the 310s and ends in the 390s. The book is full of biographical detail, and where information is scant about his main characters, Watts is able to zoom out and describe the Roman experience during the 4th century more generally. He covers birth and early childhood, the education system, elite social networks, family dynamics, economic changes in the monetary system, the (mostly) non meritocratic imperial system, and dynastic struggles both pre and post Constantine. Such broad range gives you a feel for life in the 4th century that made the book intriguing and about far more than just the evolution of religious policy. However, Watt's main focus is describing how a slate of Christian emperors, beginning with Constantine, started to chip away at state support of pagan religion and how this final pagan generation responded.
In short, they didn't do a whole lot in response. Watt's basic argument is that in the relatively stable imperial system of the 4th century, their was abundant incentive to go along with the gradual erosion of state support for pagan religion. "Most members of this generation pursued their personal and professional interests and advocated for those of their friends much more frequently and with much greater vigor than they fought for their God or gods" (7). The final pagan generation's complacency was largely due to how gradual and non threatening the changes in state policy seemed. Despite the histrionics many anti-Christian writers use in describing iconoclastic Christian attacks on pagan religion, harshly written anti-pagan laws were rarely enforced and were mostly symbolic. Watts describes how Constantine passed laws to remove pagan statues, destroy temples, and ban sacrifices, but explains that "these were statements of legal principle...they were deliberately left without enforcement mechanisms...while Constantine opposed much of traditional worship on principle, he apparently did nothing more to deter its practice than to suggest that he found it distasteful" (43). Constantine's laws were off-putting to the final pagan generation no doubt, but these privileged men "had too much to lose and little sense that resistance was necessary." Even after Constantine's son and successor, Constantius, imposed harsher laws against pagan religion in 356, "the gods remained present everywhere in forms that could be seen, heard, smelled, and touched in every city across the empire. Constantius' policies may have been disagreeable, but they hardly seemed to be a pressing or universal threat" (89). For the final pagan generation, "it made much more sense to swallow one's discomfort with a set of largely symbolic policies and work with the emperor and his administration" (102).
Even as the final pagan generation aged, and a new and increasingly influential generation of zealous Christian bishops and ascetics emerged, these men continued to work within the imperial system to protect their traditional religions. Watts outlines several efforts of the pagan official Libanius to halt anti-pagan violence that worked in the early 390s. As ground level Christian violence periodically flared up against traditional religion, Libanius effectively petitioned the emperor for relief. Watts explains that "Libanius certainly noticed the new direction in which imperial policy had moved in 391 and 392...But he also lived in an empire that still had hundreds of thousands of open temples, a city that had tens of thousands of images of the gods publicly displayed, and at a time when the streets regularly filled with processions and festivals honoring the traditional gods. Traditional religion remained very much alive throughout the empire. Once can then understand why Libanius's concern about having law restricting traditional religion was only one among may things that demanded his attention in his last year" (209). It's striking how little had changed in Libanius' long public career with regard to traditional religion. Many emperors had instituted harsh sounding anti pagan laws and despite an uptick in sporadic violence led by Christians, the overall pagan world seemed quite healthy. Libanius and his final generation of pagans would be shocked to read histories of the 4th century as the period when "Christianity eclipsed paganism" (220). For these men, it was a time of opulence, career success, and friendship with emperors that occurred in cities absolutely teeming with pagan religious practice. The final pagan generation was ultimately "too old to experience the steady tightening of restrictions on traditional religious practice in the early fifth century. All of them died too soon to appreciate that these fifth-century policies grew out of fourth-century trends" (6-7). Trends they did so little to curb.
Watt's book has several important takeaways for those who are concerned with the current standing of our own age's traditional religion, Christianity. For one, revolutionary ages are not always visible to those living through them. While initial glances make it seem like the final pagan generation was "asleep at the wheel", what really occurred was an extremely gradual change that was only implemented slowly and at first, symbolically. The final pagan generation lived and moved in a world that still felt profoundly pagan, even as laws and the growth of a new Christian generation was sowing the seeds for its downfall. A man like Libanius could live a full, extremely successful life as a pagan politician and go to his death bed oblivious to how quickly religious changes would unfold in the near future. Watts describes his book as "in a sense, the history of the people who spent the fourth century doing the equivalent of going to work, washing their cars, and mowing the lawn while their children participated in the unfolding of a revolutionary age" (9). The fact that the time leading up to a momentous change can be totally invisible to so many, including the smartest and best educated, should be humbling for those of us trying to make predictions on the future. Most Christians today seem to sense that society is turning away from traditional religious institutions, but Christianity remains very powerful. Perhaps, like 4th century paganism, 21st Christianity is even more vulnerable than most realize. Courts and political decisions that go against traditional Christian beliefs may be largely symbolic today, in a country where a majority at least claim Christian belief, but this detente may not hold forever.
Secondly, this book shows how key generational dynamics are in fueling social change. Watts describes how the "final pagan generation was fading out, and the empire was steadily passing into the hands of a younger generation that had less faith in and ties to the social and political regime of their parents" (189). Sound familiar? A brief look at pew statistics on any socially conservative belief will show how applicable this dynamic is in 21st century America. Church attendance will also show this trend in stark relief. If a generation fails to transmit it's faith in and ties to an institution, then that institution can shrink shockingly fast. Christians should take not.
Overall, this book made me somewhat more sympathetic to the alarmist warnings about a post Christian West that you hear from the likes of Rod Dreher (it's not coincidence that I learned about this book from his blog). A traditional religion can seem safe and secure right up until it is not. Social movements are dynamic, unexpected, and extremely sudden, but if you study a period like the 4th century you can see parallels to American society today. The old regime of American Christianity still has a lot of accrued power and capital from its historical prominence, but both legally and generationally it is vulnerable. Elites increasingly dismiss traditional religous beliefs as incomprehendible nonsense in an age of science and legal protections for beliefs based on traditional faith are increasingly undermined. The up and coming generation is far more socially liberal and more disengaged from institutional religion than any other cohort in American history. America could very well be in the process of a radical religious transformation analogous to the Roman world of the 4th century. Those living through it just don't notice.
That said, is their a good counter argument to Dreher's take away? What about current American culture differs from the 4th century Roman empire? I can think of a few salient differences:
1. Christianity, as an opponent to traditional Roman paganism, was likely more organized than the rising religious "nones" that are so often remarked upon as a threat to Christianity today. Watts describes the rise of the church as a powerful institution that managed to lure in many disaffected elites by offering them participation in a new status hierarchy. Likewise, the ascetic Christian youth culture that formed super tight communities of the faithful and supported them in their rebellion agains the imperial system sounds very much like the "Benedict Option" that Dreher advocates (164). Do we have good indications that the religiously disaffected have found any kind of alternative institution that would be a secure base for their efforts to replace, or oppose, Christianity in a sustained way? Sure, church attendance may drop and skepticism may rise and wane, but could this just be the natural order or things and Christianity's staying power will remain as it has for 2,000 years? While much debated by historians, the low level of piety in the past among the common folk is often quite shocking. Many people in the middle ages for example were only loosely tied to any kind of sustained Christian practice.
2. Christianity in the 4th century had a big advantage over paganism because it was an exclusive and missionary faith, unlike paganism. Christians viewed paganism as idolatry and increasingly wanted to remove it from the public sphere and choke off paganism's state funding. Watts describes how Ambrose intervened to have the Altar of Victory removed from the Roman curia. Ambrose did this because paganism was a threat and an affront and had to be resisted and removed by a Christian emperor. It's hard to imagine a pagan emperor having the same mindset. Paganism worshiped a panoply of god's and was not exclusive in the sense that Christianity was. While paganism was not always tolerant, see it's sporadic persecution of Christianity, the final pagan generation "generally shared neither their juniors' interest in creating sharply defined religious identities nor their tendency toward violent religious confrontation" (4). Bart Ehrman, in his book "The Triumph of Christianity" quotes the Roman statesmen Themistius, one of the pagans profile by Watts, as arguing "Thus, you realize that, while there exists only one Judge, mighty and true, there is not one road leading to him" (272). Themistius sounds like a 21st century pluralist and pleads for toleration of the pagan gods alongside the Christian one. For Christians, there was just one road to God, and accepting him meant rejecting the pagan gods. Ehrman writes, "For most of those who came to this belief (Christianity), it meant abandoning the worship of other gods. As we have begun to see, this made converting to the Christian faith different from anything else in the pagan world...it is this difference, I will be arguing, that ultimately mattered for the Christian mission" (114). Ehrman also writes how the Christianity had a unique advantage because it actively sought converts. "In fact, we don't know of any missionary religions in the ancient world" (116). Alternatives to Christianity today may be missionary at times, and some of them are exclusive in some respects, but they are facing and exclusive and missionary belief system itself in Christianity. Paganism was especially vulnerable to a belief system that was both compelling and exclusive. Rodney Stark's "The Rise of Christianity" lists the myriad reasons Christianity was appealing and Ehrman documents its exclusivity. Watts also shows how the final pagan generation didn't understand the impacts of Christian exclusivity in depth. Modern ideologies lack this advantage.
3. Birth rates. Sociology continues to find again and again that those with traditional religious belief out reproduce more secular folks (see the secular stagnation thesis). Rodney Stark, in the "The Rise of Christianity" makes a strong case that this sociological phenomenon held true in the Roman empire as well (116). Society may be trending to be more post Christian, but higher birth rates among the faithful could lessen this trend or even reverse it over time. Sociologist Eric Kaufmann spoke of this connection between religious belief and fertility in his conversation with Tyler Cowen, "If you look worldwide, next to women’s education, religiosity is the next strongest predictor of total fertility rate. There’s almost no country in the world where committed religious women have a below-replacement fertility. The difference in Western developed countries — the religiosity actually matters more than women’s education. So I don’t see that factor going away. I think it’s going to be a key factor driving fertility differences going forward." Christianity's opponents will certainly not out reproduce them.
Now just because modern Christianity doesn't share all of paganism's vulnerabilities does not negate that there are new, more modern challenges that it has to confront. Being seen on the wrong side of social liberalism with regard to gender and sexuality, massive increases in economic affluence and comfort, new scientific challenges, the rise of textual criticism, and other issues confront Christianity with a whole host of new challenges in this crucial moment. There are not necessarily lessons to be learned from the final pagan generation in these new arenas. The future is of course, as always, far from clear.
By focusing on these four elites personal stories, Watts is able to tell a chronological tale that begins in the 310s and ends in the 390s. The book is full of biographical detail, and where information is scant about his main characters, Watts is able to zoom out and describe the Roman experience during the 4th century more generally. He covers birth and early childhood, the education system, elite social networks, family dynamics, economic changes in the monetary system, the (mostly) non meritocratic imperial system, and dynastic struggles both pre and post Constantine. Such broad range gives you a feel for life in the 4th century that made the book intriguing and about far more than just the evolution of religious policy. However, Watt's main focus is describing how a slate of Christian emperors, beginning with Constantine, started to chip away at state support of pagan religion and how this final pagan generation responded.
In short, they didn't do a whole lot in response. Watt's basic argument is that in the relatively stable imperial system of the 4th century, their was abundant incentive to go along with the gradual erosion of state support for pagan religion. "Most members of this generation pursued their personal and professional interests and advocated for those of their friends much more frequently and with much greater vigor than they fought for their God or gods" (7). The final pagan generation's complacency was largely due to how gradual and non threatening the changes in state policy seemed. Despite the histrionics many anti-Christian writers use in describing iconoclastic Christian attacks on pagan religion, harshly written anti-pagan laws were rarely enforced and were mostly symbolic. Watts describes how Constantine passed laws to remove pagan statues, destroy temples, and ban sacrifices, but explains that "these were statements of legal principle...they were deliberately left without enforcement mechanisms...while Constantine opposed much of traditional worship on principle, he apparently did nothing more to deter its practice than to suggest that he found it distasteful" (43). Constantine's laws were off-putting to the final pagan generation no doubt, but these privileged men "had too much to lose and little sense that resistance was necessary." Even after Constantine's son and successor, Constantius, imposed harsher laws against pagan religion in 356, "the gods remained present everywhere in forms that could be seen, heard, smelled, and touched in every city across the empire. Constantius' policies may have been disagreeable, but they hardly seemed to be a pressing or universal threat" (89). For the final pagan generation, "it made much more sense to swallow one's discomfort with a set of largely symbolic policies and work with the emperor and his administration" (102).
Even as the final pagan generation aged, and a new and increasingly influential generation of zealous Christian bishops and ascetics emerged, these men continued to work within the imperial system to protect their traditional religions. Watts outlines several efforts of the pagan official Libanius to halt anti-pagan violence that worked in the early 390s. As ground level Christian violence periodically flared up against traditional religion, Libanius effectively petitioned the emperor for relief. Watts explains that "Libanius certainly noticed the new direction in which imperial policy had moved in 391 and 392...But he also lived in an empire that still had hundreds of thousands of open temples, a city that had tens of thousands of images of the gods publicly displayed, and at a time when the streets regularly filled with processions and festivals honoring the traditional gods. Traditional religion remained very much alive throughout the empire. Once can then understand why Libanius's concern about having law restricting traditional religion was only one among may things that demanded his attention in his last year" (209). It's striking how little had changed in Libanius' long public career with regard to traditional religion. Many emperors had instituted harsh sounding anti pagan laws and despite an uptick in sporadic violence led by Christians, the overall pagan world seemed quite healthy. Libanius and his final generation of pagans would be shocked to read histories of the 4th century as the period when "Christianity eclipsed paganism" (220). For these men, it was a time of opulence, career success, and friendship with emperors that occurred in cities absolutely teeming with pagan religious practice. The final pagan generation was ultimately "too old to experience the steady tightening of restrictions on traditional religious practice in the early fifth century. All of them died too soon to appreciate that these fifth-century policies grew out of fourth-century trends" (6-7). Trends they did so little to curb.
Watt's book has several important takeaways for those who are concerned with the current standing of our own age's traditional religion, Christianity. For one, revolutionary ages are not always visible to those living through them. While initial glances make it seem like the final pagan generation was "asleep at the wheel", what really occurred was an extremely gradual change that was only implemented slowly and at first, symbolically. The final pagan generation lived and moved in a world that still felt profoundly pagan, even as laws and the growth of a new Christian generation was sowing the seeds for its downfall. A man like Libanius could live a full, extremely successful life as a pagan politician and go to his death bed oblivious to how quickly religious changes would unfold in the near future. Watts describes his book as "in a sense, the history of the people who spent the fourth century doing the equivalent of going to work, washing their cars, and mowing the lawn while their children participated in the unfolding of a revolutionary age" (9). The fact that the time leading up to a momentous change can be totally invisible to so many, including the smartest and best educated, should be humbling for those of us trying to make predictions on the future. Most Christians today seem to sense that society is turning away from traditional religious institutions, but Christianity remains very powerful. Perhaps, like 4th century paganism, 21st Christianity is even more vulnerable than most realize. Courts and political decisions that go against traditional Christian beliefs may be largely symbolic today, in a country where a majority at least claim Christian belief, but this detente may not hold forever.
Secondly, this book shows how key generational dynamics are in fueling social change. Watts describes how the "final pagan generation was fading out, and the empire was steadily passing into the hands of a younger generation that had less faith in and ties to the social and political regime of their parents" (189). Sound familiar? A brief look at pew statistics on any socially conservative belief will show how applicable this dynamic is in 21st century America. Church attendance will also show this trend in stark relief. If a generation fails to transmit it's faith in and ties to an institution, then that institution can shrink shockingly fast. Christians should take not.
Overall, this book made me somewhat more sympathetic to the alarmist warnings about a post Christian West that you hear from the likes of Rod Dreher (it's not coincidence that I learned about this book from his blog). A traditional religion can seem safe and secure right up until it is not. Social movements are dynamic, unexpected, and extremely sudden, but if you study a period like the 4th century you can see parallels to American society today. The old regime of American Christianity still has a lot of accrued power and capital from its historical prominence, but both legally and generationally it is vulnerable. Elites increasingly dismiss traditional religous beliefs as incomprehendible nonsense in an age of science and legal protections for beliefs based on traditional faith are increasingly undermined. The up and coming generation is far more socially liberal and more disengaged from institutional religion than any other cohort in American history. America could very well be in the process of a radical religious transformation analogous to the Roman world of the 4th century. Those living through it just don't notice.
That said, is their a good counter argument to Dreher's take away? What about current American culture differs from the 4th century Roman empire? I can think of a few salient differences:
1. Christianity, as an opponent to traditional Roman paganism, was likely more organized than the rising religious "nones" that are so often remarked upon as a threat to Christianity today. Watts describes the rise of the church as a powerful institution that managed to lure in many disaffected elites by offering them participation in a new status hierarchy. Likewise, the ascetic Christian youth culture that formed super tight communities of the faithful and supported them in their rebellion agains the imperial system sounds very much like the "Benedict Option" that Dreher advocates (164). Do we have good indications that the religiously disaffected have found any kind of alternative institution that would be a secure base for their efforts to replace, or oppose, Christianity in a sustained way? Sure, church attendance may drop and skepticism may rise and wane, but could this just be the natural order or things and Christianity's staying power will remain as it has for 2,000 years? While much debated by historians, the low level of piety in the past among the common folk is often quite shocking. Many people in the middle ages for example were only loosely tied to any kind of sustained Christian practice.
2. Christianity in the 4th century had a big advantage over paganism because it was an exclusive and missionary faith, unlike paganism. Christians viewed paganism as idolatry and increasingly wanted to remove it from the public sphere and choke off paganism's state funding. Watts describes how Ambrose intervened to have the Altar of Victory removed from the Roman curia. Ambrose did this because paganism was a threat and an affront and had to be resisted and removed by a Christian emperor. It's hard to imagine a pagan emperor having the same mindset. Paganism worshiped a panoply of god's and was not exclusive in the sense that Christianity was. While paganism was not always tolerant, see it's sporadic persecution of Christianity, the final pagan generation "generally shared neither their juniors' interest in creating sharply defined religious identities nor their tendency toward violent religious confrontation" (4). Bart Ehrman, in his book "The Triumph of Christianity" quotes the Roman statesmen Themistius, one of the pagans profile by Watts, as arguing "Thus, you realize that, while there exists only one Judge, mighty and true, there is not one road leading to him" (272). Themistius sounds like a 21st century pluralist and pleads for toleration of the pagan gods alongside the Christian one. For Christians, there was just one road to God, and accepting him meant rejecting the pagan gods. Ehrman writes, "For most of those who came to this belief (Christianity), it meant abandoning the worship of other gods. As we have begun to see, this made converting to the Christian faith different from anything else in the pagan world...it is this difference, I will be arguing, that ultimately mattered for the Christian mission" (114). Ehrman also writes how the Christianity had a unique advantage because it actively sought converts. "In fact, we don't know of any missionary religions in the ancient world" (116). Alternatives to Christianity today may be missionary at times, and some of them are exclusive in some respects, but they are facing and exclusive and missionary belief system itself in Christianity. Paganism was especially vulnerable to a belief system that was both compelling and exclusive. Rodney Stark's "The Rise of Christianity" lists the myriad reasons Christianity was appealing and Ehrman documents its exclusivity. Watts also shows how the final pagan generation didn't understand the impacts of Christian exclusivity in depth. Modern ideologies lack this advantage.
3. Birth rates. Sociology continues to find again and again that those with traditional religious belief out reproduce more secular folks (see the secular stagnation thesis). Rodney Stark, in the "The Rise of Christianity" makes a strong case that this sociological phenomenon held true in the Roman empire as well (116). Society may be trending to be more post Christian, but higher birth rates among the faithful could lessen this trend or even reverse it over time. Sociologist Eric Kaufmann spoke of this connection between religious belief and fertility in his conversation with Tyler Cowen, "If you look worldwide, next to women’s education, religiosity is the next strongest predictor of total fertility rate. There’s almost no country in the world where committed religious women have a below-replacement fertility. The difference in Western developed countries — the religiosity actually matters more than women’s education. So I don’t see that factor going away. I think it’s going to be a key factor driving fertility differences going forward." Christianity's opponents will certainly not out reproduce them.
Now just because modern Christianity doesn't share all of paganism's vulnerabilities does not negate that there are new, more modern challenges that it has to confront. Being seen on the wrong side of social liberalism with regard to gender and sexuality, massive increases in economic affluence and comfort, new scientific challenges, the rise of textual criticism, and other issues confront Christianity with a whole host of new challenges in this crucial moment. There are not necessarily lessons to be learned from the final pagan generation in these new arenas. The future is of course, as always, far from clear.
December 20, 2023
At the beginning of the fourth century, Christians in the Roman Empire were still a large but marginalized minority. Though the days of active persecution were long past, Christians lived in a pagan-dominated society. But by the end of that century, the tables were completely turned. Christians now increasingly dominated the Empire and pagan temples were being destroyed and the old sacrifices were prohibited. Nothing epitomized these changes more than the Christian destruction of the magnificent temple of Serapis, the Serapeum, in Alexandria in 391 AD.
This book by Edward Watts is about the last generation of Roman citizens born into a pagan dominated empire. As Watts makes clear in the preface, these were not the last pagans in the Roman empire, since paganism survived all the way into the seventh century. Nor was this generation comprised exclusively of pagans–by the beginning of the fourth century, a substantial minority of Romans were already Christian. What Watts means by the “final pagan generation” is that this was the last generation that viewed a pagan world as unchanging and natural. It was inconceivable for them that the Roman Empire could be anything but pagan.
Watts bases his book on works written by or about a quartet of prominent Roman citizens, including their letters, memoirs, orations, encomiums, eulogies, etc. Libanius was a professor of rhetoric from Antioch, though he served in other cities too. Themistius was a senator from Constantinople and Praextatus the scion of a prominent family, who held a number of governorships and other top-level administrative posts. Finally, Ausonius was a teacher of rhetoric from Burdigala (modern Bordeaux). The first three were pagans, and Ausonius a Christian. All four were advisors to emperors, and played leading roles in politics and administration in their times.
Watts follows the same structure in nine of his ten chapters (the tenth is the conclusion). In each he begins with a big political developments of that time, usually a decade or so of the cohort’s life. He then relates what our principal characters were up to during that time–and by extension, the experiences of their generation at that stage of their life.
The political story of the century–told piecemeal in each chapter–is itself fascinating, but very complicated. The century begins with the rule of Diocletian (abdicated 305), but the real story gets going with his successor Constantine’s conversion to Christianity in 312 after he won a major victory in battle, supposedly after seeing a sign in the sky. Both Constantine (306-337) and his son Constantius (337-361) suppressed traditional sacrifices, confiscated temple property and sanctioned the destruction of temples, but according to Watts, these were mostly symbolic gestures that were not implemented except in a few cases. On the death of Constantius, his cousin Julian (361-363) became emperor. A pagan, Julian reversed many of the policies of his predecessors, returning some of the confiscated property to the temples. He died after an ill-advised military adventure into Persia, and a military officer, Jovian (363-364) was elected emperor. But he too died in less than a year, and a duo of brothers, Valentinian (364-375) and Valens (364-378), became emperors of the western and eastern Roman empires. After his death, his minor son Valentinian II (375-392) was named emperor, but effective power was wielded by an older son, Gratian (375-383). Gratian died in battle with a rebel and Valentinian II acquired full power in the West. Meanwhile in the east, Valens was killed in battle with the Goths and Theodosius (379-395) became the eastern emperor. This is the political story in outline, but the full story is a lot more complicated, with pretenders, wars of brother against brother, usurpers, rebels, and betrayals.
Against this backdrop, Watts describes what was happening to our four main characters. Born mostly in the 310s, the four were mostly infants and students during the reign of Constantine. Watts describes how the elite of the time employed wet nurses to care for the really young and pedagogues (learned slaves) to tutor the younger children.Then they were off to residential schools run by scholars in the cities. Watts describes street battles between rival schools, in which it was considered an honor for a student to get injured defending the good name of his teacher and his school. But though they were outside the home for the first time, students were still unaware of the religious battles because teachers were mostly pagan–or if Christian, the classical education their students needed was still imparted using the old textbooks. The atmosphere inside the schools was largely unchanged.
In the 330s, as Constantius was coming to power, the last pagan generation were initiating their careers. Watts describes how young men embarking on careers relied on networks of access and patronage to acquire positions in the imperial administration or the professions. You needed to have someone write to someone they knew on your behalf, to get your foot in the door. Often, all that the letter accomplished was to get the recommendee an audience with a prominent figure or a chance to display your skills–thereafter, it was up to you. And once in a position, it was the obligation of those who benefited from the patronage network to extend the same courtesy to those who came after them–often honoring recommendations from their former benefactors. All our heroes managed to acquire good positions by the end of the decade.
These networks explain why the emperors’ religious edicts had limited impact. Elite Roman society was a densely interconnected network cutting across denominational and confessional boundaries. Christian and pagan alike were beholden to each other and to the imperial system. In case of any adverse action, against a temple or an individual, there was always someone to approach who can quietly shelve the proposal, or slow the process, or appeal to higher authority on their behalf. So neither the anti-pagan rules of Constantine and Constantius, or the pro-pagan reversals of Julian had much impact.
But something new was stirring in the 360s: a new generation of Romans born in the 330s and 340s, inspired by accounts such as Athanasius’s Life of Antony, were refusing careers in the imperial bureaucracy and the professions, to become Christian hermits or churchmen. Here, Watts draws an interesting parallel with the counter-culture movement of the 1960s, of young persons many from well-to-do families, rejecting the values of their elders and dropping out of society. But for the Christian youth of the 390s, it was not all idealism: as the Life of Antony demonstrated, an ascetic acquired moral and spiritual authority, or even powers of divination and thaumaturgy, that allowed them to rejoin society later with enhanced stature. Even careers in the church were becoming newly respectable and remunerative, as Christian institutions gained revenue and wealth through public donations and private tithing. But not all members of this generation became Christian dropouts–enough of them followed the traditional career paths, just as there were many youth in the 1960s who enlisted in the army or took up corporate jobs.
What set these “dropouts” apart was that Christian saints such as Antony, and bishops such as Ambrose were not beholden to the emperor or the imperial patronage networks. They were able to take an increasingly strident line against paganism, and proved to be immune to the blandishments of lucre or power that had tamed the Christians in the last pagan generation. One incident in particular is highlighted by Watts: in 384, after the death of Gratian, the very young emperor Valentinian II was in a weak position and beholden to his advisers, several of whom happened to be pagan. They sensed an opportunity to reverse some of the anti-pagan steps taken by Valentinian I and Gratian, including the removal of the Altar of Victory from the Roman Senate. A group of senators led by the powerful Symmachus asked for the Altar to be restored – arguing that some of the recent disasters that had befallen the Empire, such as the killing of the Eastern emperor Valens by the Goths and the death of Gratian in combat with a rebel, were due to the displeasure of the traditional gods. But Bishop Ambrose, hearing of the petition, also wrote to Valentinian II saying that, as a Christian the emperor was obligated to do what is religiously sanctioned, rather than what is expedient. Valentinian bought the argument, and the Altar was not restored–though Watts leaves the possibility open that it was not the power of his argument but his political pull with the emperor, that allowed Ambrose to win the day. In either case, Ambrose for the first time established the principle that the church can have a veto–in the name of doctrinal conformity–in matters of public policy.
Now with two networks of power–disconnected and adversarial to each other–the Roman state had to appease both and balance their interests. But in some ways the Christian network had the upper hand, since the imperial patronage network was subject to persuasion and influence. That was its traditional function. But the church was immune to influence and could push harder on the levers of power. By the end of the century, as represented by the sack of the Alexandrian Serapeum, Christian mobs were beginning to take the lead in the battle against paganism.
The story of the final pagan generation demonstrates how it is possible for people to sleepwalk into epochal changes. Perhaps the generation of 310 never realized that the time-immemorial pagan world they were born into was being erased forever.
Watts has a talent to marshal enormous amounts of information into a narrative that still holds the reader’s attention. While readable and interesting, the book is also a work of scholarship extensively annotated (83 pages of notes accompanying 220 pages of text), with an excellent bibliography (20 pages, more than 220 entries), and a decent index.
This book by Edward Watts is about the last generation of Roman citizens born into a pagan dominated empire. As Watts makes clear in the preface, these were not the last pagans in the Roman empire, since paganism survived all the way into the seventh century. Nor was this generation comprised exclusively of pagans–by the beginning of the fourth century, a substantial minority of Romans were already Christian. What Watts means by the “final pagan generation” is that this was the last generation that viewed a pagan world as unchanging and natural. It was inconceivable for them that the Roman Empire could be anything but pagan.
Watts bases his book on works written by or about a quartet of prominent Roman citizens, including their letters, memoirs, orations, encomiums, eulogies, etc. Libanius was a professor of rhetoric from Antioch, though he served in other cities too. Themistius was a senator from Constantinople and Praextatus the scion of a prominent family, who held a number of governorships and other top-level administrative posts. Finally, Ausonius was a teacher of rhetoric from Burdigala (modern Bordeaux). The first three were pagans, and Ausonius a Christian. All four were advisors to emperors, and played leading roles in politics and administration in their times.
Watts follows the same structure in nine of his ten chapters (the tenth is the conclusion). In each he begins with a big political developments of that time, usually a decade or so of the cohort’s life. He then relates what our principal characters were up to during that time–and by extension, the experiences of their generation at that stage of their life.
The political story of the century–told piecemeal in each chapter–is itself fascinating, but very complicated. The century begins with the rule of Diocletian (abdicated 305), but the real story gets going with his successor Constantine’s conversion to Christianity in 312 after he won a major victory in battle, supposedly after seeing a sign in the sky. Both Constantine (306-337) and his son Constantius (337-361) suppressed traditional sacrifices, confiscated temple property and sanctioned the destruction of temples, but according to Watts, these were mostly symbolic gestures that were not implemented except in a few cases. On the death of Constantius, his cousin Julian (361-363) became emperor. A pagan, Julian reversed many of the policies of his predecessors, returning some of the confiscated property to the temples. He died after an ill-advised military adventure into Persia, and a military officer, Jovian (363-364) was elected emperor. But he too died in less than a year, and a duo of brothers, Valentinian (364-375) and Valens (364-378), became emperors of the western and eastern Roman empires. After his death, his minor son Valentinian II (375-392) was named emperor, but effective power was wielded by an older son, Gratian (375-383). Gratian died in battle with a rebel and Valentinian II acquired full power in the West. Meanwhile in the east, Valens was killed in battle with the Goths and Theodosius (379-395) became the eastern emperor. This is the political story in outline, but the full story is a lot more complicated, with pretenders, wars of brother against brother, usurpers, rebels, and betrayals.
Against this backdrop, Watts describes what was happening to our four main characters. Born mostly in the 310s, the four were mostly infants and students during the reign of Constantine. Watts describes how the elite of the time employed wet nurses to care for the really young and pedagogues (learned slaves) to tutor the younger children.Then they were off to residential schools run by scholars in the cities. Watts describes street battles between rival schools, in which it was considered an honor for a student to get injured defending the good name of his teacher and his school. But though they were outside the home for the first time, students were still unaware of the religious battles because teachers were mostly pagan–or if Christian, the classical education their students needed was still imparted using the old textbooks. The atmosphere inside the schools was largely unchanged.
In the 330s, as Constantius was coming to power, the last pagan generation were initiating their careers. Watts describes how young men embarking on careers relied on networks of access and patronage to acquire positions in the imperial administration or the professions. You needed to have someone write to someone they knew on your behalf, to get your foot in the door. Often, all that the letter accomplished was to get the recommendee an audience with a prominent figure or a chance to display your skills–thereafter, it was up to you. And once in a position, it was the obligation of those who benefited from the patronage network to extend the same courtesy to those who came after them–often honoring recommendations from their former benefactors. All our heroes managed to acquire good positions by the end of the decade.
These networks explain why the emperors’ religious edicts had limited impact. Elite Roman society was a densely interconnected network cutting across denominational and confessional boundaries. Christian and pagan alike were beholden to each other and to the imperial system. In case of any adverse action, against a temple or an individual, there was always someone to approach who can quietly shelve the proposal, or slow the process, or appeal to higher authority on their behalf. So neither the anti-pagan rules of Constantine and Constantius, or the pro-pagan reversals of Julian had much impact.
But something new was stirring in the 360s: a new generation of Romans born in the 330s and 340s, inspired by accounts such as Athanasius’s Life of Antony, were refusing careers in the imperial bureaucracy and the professions, to become Christian hermits or churchmen. Here, Watts draws an interesting parallel with the counter-culture movement of the 1960s, of young persons many from well-to-do families, rejecting the values of their elders and dropping out of society. But for the Christian youth of the 390s, it was not all idealism: as the Life of Antony demonstrated, an ascetic acquired moral and spiritual authority, or even powers of divination and thaumaturgy, that allowed them to rejoin society later with enhanced stature. Even careers in the church were becoming newly respectable and remunerative, as Christian institutions gained revenue and wealth through public donations and private tithing. But not all members of this generation became Christian dropouts–enough of them followed the traditional career paths, just as there were many youth in the 1960s who enlisted in the army or took up corporate jobs.
What set these “dropouts” apart was that Christian saints such as Antony, and bishops such as Ambrose were not beholden to the emperor or the imperial patronage networks. They were able to take an increasingly strident line against paganism, and proved to be immune to the blandishments of lucre or power that had tamed the Christians in the last pagan generation. One incident in particular is highlighted by Watts: in 384, after the death of Gratian, the very young emperor Valentinian II was in a weak position and beholden to his advisers, several of whom happened to be pagan. They sensed an opportunity to reverse some of the anti-pagan steps taken by Valentinian I and Gratian, including the removal of the Altar of Victory from the Roman Senate. A group of senators led by the powerful Symmachus asked for the Altar to be restored – arguing that some of the recent disasters that had befallen the Empire, such as the killing of the Eastern emperor Valens by the Goths and the death of Gratian in combat with a rebel, were due to the displeasure of the traditional gods. But Bishop Ambrose, hearing of the petition, also wrote to Valentinian II saying that, as a Christian the emperor was obligated to do what is religiously sanctioned, rather than what is expedient. Valentinian bought the argument, and the Altar was not restored–though Watts leaves the possibility open that it was not the power of his argument but his political pull with the emperor, that allowed Ambrose to win the day. In either case, Ambrose for the first time established the principle that the church can have a veto–in the name of doctrinal conformity–in matters of public policy.
Now with two networks of power–disconnected and adversarial to each other–the Roman state had to appease both and balance their interests. But in some ways the Christian network had the upper hand, since the imperial patronage network was subject to persuasion and influence. That was its traditional function. But the church was immune to influence and could push harder on the levers of power. By the end of the century, as represented by the sack of the Alexandrian Serapeum, Christian mobs were beginning to take the lead in the battle against paganism.
The story of the final pagan generation demonstrates how it is possible for people to sleepwalk into epochal changes. Perhaps the generation of 310 never realized that the time-immemorial pagan world they were born into was being erased forever.
Watts has a talent to marshal enormous amounts of information into a narrative that still holds the reader’s attention. While readable and interesting, the book is also a work of scholarship extensively annotated (83 pages of notes accompanying 220 pages of text), with an excellent bibliography (20 pages, more than 220 entries), and a decent index.
January 10, 2017
I was really interested in the approach taken by Watts for this book: looking at ancient history from a generational point of view, something done all the time for recent history but very rarely (almost never?) for ancient history.
I thought it worked really well and allowed for a fresh approach. I admit, the transition from pagan to Christian Rome is far from my area of expertise, but I found this very interesting. Certain things always hold true: the younger generation thinks the older is hidebound and the older thinks the younger is foolish and disrespectful. In case you had any doubts about that.
This book focuses quite closely on four important cultural figures, a mix of Christians and Pagans, like a four-part biography. Fair enough: you can't write about everything. But I would have liked a little more...something a little broader, maybe, a little broader cultural context (though this may be because I wasn't going in with the relevant background). Watts does an excellent job, though, putting you on an intimate level with these men's lives and careers.
I thought it worked really well and allowed for a fresh approach. I admit, the transition from pagan to Christian Rome is far from my area of expertise, but I found this very interesting. Certain things always hold true: the younger generation thinks the older is hidebound and the older thinks the younger is foolish and disrespectful. In case you had any doubts about that.
This book focuses quite closely on four important cultural figures, a mix of Christians and Pagans, like a four-part biography. Fair enough: you can't write about everything. But I would have liked a little more...something a little broader, maybe, a little broader cultural context (though this may be because I wasn't going in with the relevant background). Watts does an excellent job, though, putting you on an intimate level with these men's lives and careers.
August 23, 2020
Look, I read it for the same reason all y'all's read it: to try and understand the transition happening today, as Christianity is supplanted much the same way it supplanted paganism. And that was a very interesting perspective!
But it was also just a really well-done history about certain Roman elites in the fourth century. I would have liked a bit more at the end (after all that buildup) describing the actual final collapse and what happened to paganism in the 10-20 years after our studies passed away. I know paganism lingered for centuries, but how hard was it to be a pagan on the ground by 520? How popular? I didn't get a good sense for that.
But I did get a good sense for how the system that protected state paganism were gradually eroded in ways that people acting within that system, formed by that system, could neither understand nor even recognize. And that was very interesting.
But it was also just a really well-done history about certain Roman elites in the fourth century. I would have liked a bit more at the end (after all that buildup) describing the actual final collapse and what happened to paganism in the 10-20 years after our studies passed away. I know paganism lingered for centuries, but how hard was it to be a pagan on the ground by 520? How popular? I didn't get a good sense for that.
But I did get a good sense for how the system that protected state paganism were gradually eroded in ways that people acting within that system, formed by that system, could neither understand nor even recognize. And that was very interesting.
Read
June 4, 2019I think this book was very good, but honestly, it was out of my reach, above my pay grade, way way over my head, lacking, as I do, much knowledge about antiquity or ancient Rome or Greece or Empire. So I can't give it a rating.
I did learn stuff, though, especially from a description toward the end, as the elders of the last generation of pagans continued to work and opine and think as everything was shifting and changing. He describes one of his focal characters as a Polaroid executive during the rise of smartphones.
So, in summary, please go elsewhere for a competent review. I need to go back to the children's section maybe.
I did learn stuff, though, especially from a description toward the end, as the elders of the last generation of pagans continued to work and opine and think as everything was shifting and changing. He describes one of his focal characters as a Polaroid executive during the rise of smartphones.
So, in summary, please go elsewhere for a competent review. I need to go back to the children's section maybe.
December 27, 2018
This is a dry, scholarly, but still fascinating account of a few key individuals as exemplars of what the Roman empire went through as it switched from being a pagan empire to a Christian one. Unlike another book I read recently on this topic (The Darkening Age), this book was really nuanced, capturing both the intolerance and violence of religious zealots as well as the more relaxed interactions that happened across much of the empire, where some pagan religious observances continued as late as the 10th century in some places.
February 10, 2025
In some way, this is the oldest of stories: the young take over from the old. Specifically, the book details the fourth century Roman Empire as the generations passed from the last generation to be born in a pagan empire, in the 310s, to those born later in a Christian Roman Empire. In that time, the Empire flipped from being a place that persecuted Christians to one in which Christians celebrated when pagan temples, statues, sanctuaries and shrines were torn down and burned. What did that older generation think of what their students were doing and how did they react?
The author centers the narrative on the surviving writings of four members of the elite, all born in the 310s, in both the Eastern and Western Roman Empires. All occupied high offices as teachers, scholars and administrators. The chapters generally start with detailed discussions of fourth century Roman life. For example, how the architecture and rituals of pagan gods permeated Roman cities, how elite Roman boys were educated, how their careers progressed, how the economy worked, how the government was structured, or how vast the wealth of some people was compared to how poor most people were. The second parts of the chapters look at how those four selected people navigated the selected aspect of the Empire. It is an effective structure.
The Empire moved from toleration of Christianity, to support of Christianity, to de-paganization. In 324, the Christian Emperor Constantine became Emperor of the entire Empire, East and West. Although he was a Christian, he still supported pagans as well as Christians. Over time, however, new Christian emperors became stricter. Old temples were replaced with churches. Sacrificial offerings were repressed. New generations rejected the imperial system and dropped out, becoming priests, bishops, monks, or ascetics, with much influence on the Christian side of the imperial bureaucracy. In 380, the emperors cut funding to the old pagan temples.
The men studied were not the actual last people who were pagans but the last generation in the Roman Empire who were born into a world in which the pagan and imperial system that had existed for a thousand years still seemed unshakable. They could not imagine a world controlled by a Christian majority and such rigid religious identities. The old found it difficult to counteract this through official channels. The contacts these men had made and the relationships they had nurtured were not as influential by the 380s and 90s. New, more diverse councilors were nurtured, hard-line Christians for Christian emperors, One of the problems was that mobs and crusaders and bishops were taking extralegal steps against pagan temples and shrines. George Floyd riots, you ain’t seen nothing when Roman cities erupted. The Emperor was at least not stopping them.
From what I understand, this book has become popular because some on the American right equate the new Christian generation born in the Roman Empire in the 330s and 340s to today’s Gen Z woke kids, and the older pagan generation was the equivalent of the Baby Boomers. I understand what they are getting at, especially when one considers both new generations’ enthusiasm for new ideologies and iconoclasm. When looking at the passing of generations generally, though I wonder if there is more difference between Baby Boomers and Gen Z than there was between the Greatest Generation and the Baby Boomers. And looking at American politics right now, I think that a better comparison would be the end of the Roman Republic.
This is a scholarly work with many citations. The author’s prose is not fascinating or flowery, but it is businesslike, and he moves the narrative along. Do you know the difference between Nicenes and Arians? Who was a Constantinopolitan? You could search to find these things out as you read, but while you don’t need to be a specialist to appreciate the book, this will be much easier for readers who already have some background in the period.
A larger question that the book does not address is, were these changes good or bad for the Empire. In The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, the historian Edward Gibbon blamed the rise of Christianity for the fall of Rome. I am not so sure. I agree with him that the decision of many able young elite Christians to opt for the Church rather than the army or bureaucracy was not good for the health of the Empire, but to be further convinced, I would need to see events in which splits between pagans and Christians meant that the Empire was not properly defended against barbarian invasion. I am more persuaded by long-term structural causes such as depopulation by plagues and endemic political instability combined with short-term bad decisions made by emperors and the bureaucracy. Rome was sacked in 410, but a theocratic Constantinople lasted for another thousand years.
The author centers the narrative on the surviving writings of four members of the elite, all born in the 310s, in both the Eastern and Western Roman Empires. All occupied high offices as teachers, scholars and administrators. The chapters generally start with detailed discussions of fourth century Roman life. For example, how the architecture and rituals of pagan gods permeated Roman cities, how elite Roman boys were educated, how their careers progressed, how the economy worked, how the government was structured, or how vast the wealth of some people was compared to how poor most people were. The second parts of the chapters look at how those four selected people navigated the selected aspect of the Empire. It is an effective structure.
The Empire moved from toleration of Christianity, to support of Christianity, to de-paganization. In 324, the Christian Emperor Constantine became Emperor of the entire Empire, East and West. Although he was a Christian, he still supported pagans as well as Christians. Over time, however, new Christian emperors became stricter. Old temples were replaced with churches. Sacrificial offerings were repressed. New generations rejected the imperial system and dropped out, becoming priests, bishops, monks, or ascetics, with much influence on the Christian side of the imperial bureaucracy. In 380, the emperors cut funding to the old pagan temples.
The men studied were not the actual last people who were pagans but the last generation in the Roman Empire who were born into a world in which the pagan and imperial system that had existed for a thousand years still seemed unshakable. They could not imagine a world controlled by a Christian majority and such rigid religious identities. The old found it difficult to counteract this through official channels. The contacts these men had made and the relationships they had nurtured were not as influential by the 380s and 90s. New, more diverse councilors were nurtured, hard-line Christians for Christian emperors, One of the problems was that mobs and crusaders and bishops were taking extralegal steps against pagan temples and shrines. George Floyd riots, you ain’t seen nothing when Roman cities erupted. The Emperor was at least not stopping them.
From what I understand, this book has become popular because some on the American right equate the new Christian generation born in the Roman Empire in the 330s and 340s to today’s Gen Z woke kids, and the older pagan generation was the equivalent of the Baby Boomers. I understand what they are getting at, especially when one considers both new generations’ enthusiasm for new ideologies and iconoclasm. When looking at the passing of generations generally, though I wonder if there is more difference between Baby Boomers and Gen Z than there was between the Greatest Generation and the Baby Boomers. And looking at American politics right now, I think that a better comparison would be the end of the Roman Republic.
This is a scholarly work with many citations. The author’s prose is not fascinating or flowery, but it is businesslike, and he moves the narrative along. Do you know the difference between Nicenes and Arians? Who was a Constantinopolitan? You could search to find these things out as you read, but while you don’t need to be a specialist to appreciate the book, this will be much easier for readers who already have some background in the period.
A larger question that the book does not address is, were these changes good or bad for the Empire. In The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, the historian Edward Gibbon blamed the rise of Christianity for the fall of Rome. I am not so sure. I agree with him that the decision of many able young elite Christians to opt for the Church rather than the army or bureaucracy was not good for the health of the Empire, but to be further convinced, I would need to see events in which splits between pagans and Christians meant that the Empire was not properly defended against barbarian invasion. I am more persuaded by long-term structural causes such as depopulation by plagues and endemic political instability combined with short-term bad decisions made by emperors and the bureaucracy. Rome was sacked in 410, but a theocratic Constantinople lasted for another thousand years.
October 19, 2018
Overall, this was a detailed work that didn't delivery on its purported project of illuminating the transition from a pagan to a Christian empire, but it does deliver on providing an understanding of the elite structure of the post-Constantinian empire.
Watts tells the story of the 4th century AD using the lives of 4 men as the narrative hook. Watts gives descriptions of these men's education and early life; the system of imperial bureaucracy built on a network of favors; the various laws passed against pagan rituals (enforced with high variance); the weakening of the imperial network as wealthy men (and, as Mary Beard would certainly emphasize, they were all men) found a pathway to success and influence through positions in the church; the back and forth in religious politics (religion seems to become more important as imperial and provincial hostility towards traditional religion grows); and Watts culminates the narrative with the destruction of the Serapeum, a pagan temple in Alexandria.
One of the book's strengths is telling the story (to a large degree) from the perspective of the 4 central characters. This is an interesting approach and provides one window into this time in the Roman empire, but it also provides only a partial understanding of the topic at hand. There was less about religion (pagan or otherwise) in this book than I was expecting. The 4 men Watts follows through their letters (and literary mentions subsequent to their deaths) are all very privileged, all having contact with the emperor at some point. Watts highlights various topics by using other characters as well, but there was a lack of discussion about the archeological record. You still don't get a sense of how widespread Christianity was or how it was growing. Watts gives evidence that public traditional religion survived into the 5th and 6th centuries, becoming more private and household centric throughout this time. But the lack of a broad overview of the decline of traditional religion and the rise of Christianity left me with an incomplete understanding of the transition from a pagan to a Christian Roman empire.
Watts tells the story of the 4th century AD using the lives of 4 men as the narrative hook. Watts gives descriptions of these men's education and early life; the system of imperial bureaucracy built on a network of favors; the various laws passed against pagan rituals (enforced with high variance); the weakening of the imperial network as wealthy men (and, as Mary Beard would certainly emphasize, they were all men) found a pathway to success and influence through positions in the church; the back and forth in religious politics (religion seems to become more important as imperial and provincial hostility towards traditional religion grows); and Watts culminates the narrative with the destruction of the Serapeum, a pagan temple in Alexandria.
One of the book's strengths is telling the story (to a large degree) from the perspective of the 4 central characters. This is an interesting approach and provides one window into this time in the Roman empire, but it also provides only a partial understanding of the topic at hand. There was less about religion (pagan or otherwise) in this book than I was expecting. The 4 men Watts follows through their letters (and literary mentions subsequent to their deaths) are all very privileged, all having contact with the emperor at some point. Watts highlights various topics by using other characters as well, but there was a lack of discussion about the archeological record. You still don't get a sense of how widespread Christianity was or how it was growing. Watts gives evidence that public traditional religion survived into the 5th and 6th centuries, becoming more private and household centric throughout this time. But the lack of a broad overview of the decline of traditional religion and the rise of Christianity left me with an incomplete understanding of the transition from a pagan to a Christian Roman empire.
October 22, 2020
Last pagan generation as author calls it was the last generation that grew up in pagan world and they were defined by its values. They were focused on building their careers within imperial sistem in contrast to generation born mid-century that created paralell, eclestial structures that became more and more influential in imperial court. This older generation was main focus of the author. He divided the book along their life periods. It starts with their births and early education, goes trough student days and their later careers all the way to old days. As one can imagine their lives did not follow the same path and author menages to form a big picture out of mosaic of their individual expiriences. But this is not just set of biographies of some prominent people, for each of these periods he also describes political, social and religious situation in the empire as the background. By telling their stories he explains how roman state aparatus worked, how members of the elite menaged their careers but also took care of their families and estates, different policies of the emperors and how they coped with changes of the regime. The 4th century was turbulent and revolutionary but focus is usually on emperors and their policies. This time author tells a story of it from another perspective. As for the negative side book was little dry at times and I dont see a point in putting references at the end instead of at the bottom of the every page, but good book nevertheless.
August 11, 2022
TFPG gives plenty of detail about fourth-century Roman patronage networks and lifestyles, but I didn't find the chronological chapter organization particularly conducive to reading. Watts clearly wants the reader to draw parallels between the 4th century and the 20th (he explicitly says so early on), but he never develops the comparison enough for the reader to evaluate.
I understand the impulse to stay within his field, but I wonder if Watts envisioned this project in several different ways through the writing process and ultimately decided to land somewhere among them: 1) a specialist history of 4th century Roman Christianity & paganism, 2) a historical parallel developing general rules for transitions between groups, and 3) popular biographies of some famous 4th century Romans.
Ultimately, I fault the editing for this result: I doubt Watts would have had to rewrite much to turn the book into a cohesive argument with repeatable themes rather than a set of disparate biographies that occasionally lands on a point or two.
I understand the impulse to stay within his field, but I wonder if Watts envisioned this project in several different ways through the writing process and ultimately decided to land somewhere among them: 1) a specialist history of 4th century Roman Christianity & paganism, 2) a historical parallel developing general rules for transitions between groups, and 3) popular biographies of some famous 4th century Romans.
Ultimately, I fault the editing for this result: I doubt Watts would have had to rewrite much to turn the book into a cohesive argument with repeatable themes rather than a set of disparate biographies that occasionally lands on a point or two.
September 11, 2023
Great reexamination of sectarian tensions in the 4th century Mediterranean world. Watts shows how the personal and especially careerist considerations facing members of the old pagan elite effectively prevented collective action against, and even collective awareness of, the riding tide of Christianity that would soon eliminate their cultural legacy. The highly personalized analysis of individual figures extends beyond late pagan intellectuals. The author’s cynical view of Theodosian intolerance as a PR pivot away from the eastern army’s failures in the Gothic wars is fascinating. Overall, a fresh and convincing look at an ancient question: how could a small but determined minority of ideologues and ascetics defeat a world-ruling elite, and compel them to abandon a millenium of their own cultural history? The answer (make use of career incentives in a cosmopolitan meritocracy) is more relevant than ever.
May 26, 2024
Despite using Mike Duncan's "History of Rome" as a guide to help me understand the specific period covered in "The Final Pagan Generation," I found myself lost among the endless litany of names and key figures.
I hesitate to give any book a two-star rating because I suspect this would be a good read for someone who's more of an expert on the subject. Unfortunately, that person is not me.
However, I greatly appreciated Watts' key thesis: we should never take for granted that the way we live is destined to go on forever, especially at a time when we may ourselves be living in the "final Christian generation."
Few could have imagined in the 360s that the paganism that had defined their world for the last millennium was on the way out. And fewer still could imagine what might be next for our own generation.
I hesitate to give any book a two-star rating because I suspect this would be a good read for someone who's more of an expert on the subject. Unfortunately, that person is not me.
However, I greatly appreciated Watts' key thesis: we should never take for granted that the way we live is destined to go on forever, especially at a time when we may ourselves be living in the "final Christian generation."
Few could have imagined in the 360s that the paganism that had defined their world for the last millennium was on the way out. And fewer still could imagine what might be next for our own generation.
June 14, 2023
4.5 stars, rounded up to 5.
Watts is a master. This fascinating, thorough history uses the major literary collections of the 4th century to paint a decade by decade picture of the lives of those living through Rome's transition from a majority pagan to majority Christian culture and government. It provides much food for thought about what it means to live in a multi-cultural society. It also exposes religious and worldly ambitions can get entangled and delicately hints that perhaps politcal-religious "victories" might be more political than religious. Food for thought indeed.
Aggressive footnotes. Aggressive bibliography. Anyone who wants to cross-check sources or consult further reading will not have any trouble doing so.
Watts is a master. This fascinating, thorough history uses the major literary collections of the 4th century to paint a decade by decade picture of the lives of those living through Rome's transition from a majority pagan to majority Christian culture and government. It provides much food for thought about what it means to live in a multi-cultural society. It also exposes religious and worldly ambitions can get entangled and delicately hints that perhaps politcal-religious "victories" might be more political than religious. Food for thought indeed.
Aggressive footnotes. Aggressive bibliography. Anyone who wants to cross-check sources or consult further reading will not have any trouble doing so.
April 17, 2024
This wasn't the book I wanted it to be. I was looking for a book on the transformation of pagan Europe to Christianity. This wasn't it. I've done that twice recently. I must be more careful reading the back-covers!
It is however a very well researched book on 4th Century life in the Empire, following the lives of a few selected characters. I am informed that, in 354 AD, the Roman Calendar had 177 festival days, devoted to, amongst others, Egyptian gods, Greek deities and celebrating the Roman pantheon, so the addition of a few new Christian festivals was no big deal for anyone. You could take them or leave them.
It is however a very well researched book on 4th Century life in the Empire, following the lives of a few selected characters. I am informed that, in 354 AD, the Roman Calendar had 177 festival days, devoted to, amongst others, Egyptian gods, Greek deities and celebrating the Roman pantheon, so the addition of a few new Christian festivals was no big deal for anyone. You could take them or leave them.
July 8, 2022
Judging by the 100 pages of references the scholarship must be impeccable, but Watts doesn’t really pitch into the mysterious matter of why Christianity, why at this moment?. What keeps a worldview dynamic and what makes that dynamism fail? What was conversion like, how polarised was the religious arena?
Was this the moment Christianity penetrated the elites, was there elite overproduction? And so on. Unfair to judge a book on what the author maybe never intended to write but 🤷♀️. In any case, powerful plus ça change vibes.
Was this the moment Christianity penetrated the elites, was there elite overproduction? And so on. Unfair to judge a book on what the author maybe never intended to write but 🤷♀️. In any case, powerful plus ça change vibes.
October 19, 2023
Fascinating exercise. He picks four people from fourth century Roman Empire, all pagans, and uses them to show the slow encroachment of Christianity on the experience of the empire as a pagan domain. The basic premise is that there is not a big demarcation at the time of Constantine and the Milvian Bridge but rather a slow ebb and flow that did not shift irrevocably until the passing at the end of the century of the generation that was born in the time of Constantine.
August 14, 2022
Worth reading, though not as relevant to the current moment as I'd heard, I think. To me the comparison of early Christian children with their still pagan parents reminds me of the hippies more. "Tune in, turn on, drop out of traditional imperial service and become a bishop or ascetic instead"
December 4, 2022
turning Point
Highlights not just the leaders of the final pagan generation but also highlights some key administrators. More than just the final generation but about the turning point in the history of the Roman Empire
Highlights not just the leaders of the final pagan generation but also highlights some key administrators. More than just the final generation but about the turning point in the history of the Roman Empire
March 11, 2023
The people who live through history often don't realize it. And who can blame them when they have families and careers and daily lives to take care of?
A unique prosopographical insight into a hinge moment in Ancient Roman history.
A unique prosopographical insight into a hinge moment in Ancient Roman history.
June 21, 2022
Interesting read on how Rome changed culture, spirituality, and state structure to Christianity. Even back in the 300's it was possible for a fringe group to usurp a well established empire.
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