[Suggerimento] R. Stark. Cities of God.

Titolo Cities of God: The Real Story of How Christianity Became an Urban Movement and Conquered Rome
Autore Stark, Rodney
Prezzo € 12,02
Rilegatura Paperback
Dati 280 p.; ill.
Anno 2007
Editore HarperOne

Contemplating the rapid spread of early Christianity, Lucian the Martyr marveled in the fourth century that "almost the greater part of the world is now committed to this truth, even whole cities." To explain Christianity's remarkable success in capturing the cities of the Roman Empire, Stark deploys an empirical social science that exposes the flaws in previous historical theorizing. By parsing records of church construction, inscriptions on tombs, and names on imperial contract permits, Stark converts plausible conjectures into testable hypotheses about the growth of Christianity in the 31 largest Roman cities. And while some of the statistically validated hypotheses fit within conventional wisdom, others compel fresh thinking. The traditional belief that Christianity spread through mass conversion, for instance, gives way to a numerically substantiated dynamics of person-to-person conversion. And despite recent acclaim for the Gnostics as the true early Christians, the evidence links the Gnostic impulse to dying pockets of stubborn paganism, not the rising new faith. Like Stark's Victory of Reason (2005), this book will spark controversy--the kind that attracts curious readers.

Si spera, ovviamente, che il testo in oggetto venga prima o poi tradotto nella nostra lingua. Per il momento, c'è solo l'edizione originale in inglese.