through philosophy, which brought him to follow (in succession)
the Stoics, the Peripatetics, the Pythagoreans, and the Platonists,
before he found truth in Christianity (Dialogue with Trypho2–3).
A similar story was told by Augustine of his conversion in the
late fourth century: his quest brought him at various times to
Platonism and the doctrines of the Persian mystic Mani (see
p. 163). The similarity between Justin’s and Augustine’s accounts
suggests, perhaps, some literary artifice (cf. Nock 1933: 256).
Their experiences, however, must have been very different: in
Justin’s day, Christians were few in number, while Augustine lived
in a culture where Christianity was becoming increasingly the
norm. Another reason for conversion is found in the writings of
the late third-century north African Arnobius of Sicca, who
claimed that he turned to Christianity because he had become
disgusted at pagan sacrificial ritual (1.29) – but his revulsion is
expressed in terms of stock Christian denunciations of paganism,
and so might reflect Arnobius’ later reinterpretation of his conver-
sion experience. This suggests that converts could construct
pictures of their conversion that fitted with their perceptions of
their altered religious status: for Justin and Augustine, Christian-
ity was superior to other forms of enlightenment; for Arnobius,
it was more satisfying than pagan sacrifice. We can see a similar
picture emerge for the conversion experience of the first Christian
emperor, Constantine. There has been much debate about the
extent to which he might have been influenced by Christians
in his family. However that may be, Constantine’s first overtly
Christian action was to fight the battle of the Milvian Bridge on
28 October 312 with the Christian God as his champion. In the
letters that he wrote in later years, he never forgot his debt to
the God who had granted him victory.
The variety presented by such examples suggests that
conversion could occur for diverse reasons, which defy attempts
at generalization. We should also bear in mind that the religious
experience of individuals in the ancient world was diverse and
more fluid than categories such as ‘pagan’, ‘Jewish’, and ‘Chris-
tian’ suggest. We have already seen in this chapter how theCONTEXTS FOR THE ORIGIN OF CHRISTIANITY
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