however, is that even in religion, in terms of practices, attitudes, and beliefs, there
was much that pagans and Christians shared. Moreover, recognition of a religious
koineinto the late fourth century should not be surprising; religion in antiquity
had always been intimately integrated into Roman culture and society, and deeply
embedded in the state and its institutions.
Yet the willingness of Christian emperors to find common ground with pagans
did not survive the fourth century. Although some practices and attitudes inherited
from pagan religion continued without any question into the fourth century or later,
many came under attack; over the course of the fourth century, bishops and monks
widened their definitions of “pagan” practices and attitudes and then preached against
them as sinful or sacrilegious. By the end of the fourth century, late Roman
Christian authorities and emperors had undermined and reshaped the religious koine
that pagans and Christians had shared in public and private; religious practices and
beliefs once considered acceptable were increasingly prohibited by imperial legisla-
tion and canon law. Even the notion that a shared religious outlook was desirable
came under attack. The tolerance for religious difference that had once comprised
part of the shared religious outlook of many early fourth-century pagans and Chris-
tians disappeared under the increasingly hostile assaults made by clerics, monks, and
emperors. In the 380s and 390s, as we shall see, the laws issued by the Christian
emperor Theodosius mark the official end of tolerance for religious differences; by
the early fifth century, the validity of alternative religious traditions – be they pagan,
Christian, or Jewish – was denied by emperors and clerics in search of a unified and
more uniform Christianity.
The growing willingness on the part of late Roman Christian emperors and
bishops to prohibit practices and beliefs labeled as “pagan,” and the desire to silence
religious dissent of any kind and especially within the Christian community, are signs
that the empire was indeed moving closer to orthodoxy. The growth of intolerance
is, I would argue, one of the most negative legacies of the fourth century, but one
that survived, with destructive consequences, into the Middle Ages and beyond.
Admittedly, certain elements of the early fourth-century religious koinecontinued
into the new Christian empire of the late fourth and early fifth centuries, but these
elements were increasingly subjected to reinterpretation along “acceptable” Christian
lines, so as to be stripped of any “pagan” meaning. By the end of the fourth cen-
tury, the new religious koinewas imperial Christianity, and it was a Christianity that
was unwilling to brook religious dissent, both within and without the church. This
chapter will explore these changes in Roman religion and society over the course of
the fourth century.
Religious Koine in Public Cult and Ritual:
Shared Religious Traditions in Roman Religion in
the First Half of the Fourth Century CE
As Constantius’ visit to Rome showed, Romans of all religious affiliations –
Christians, pagans, and Jews – inhabited the same city and encountered each other110 Michele Renee Salzman