A reader who comes to this book expecting a work patterned on Franz Cumont's venerable Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism (original French edition, 1906) will be pleasantly disappointed. Few these days subscribe to the notion of a pure Greco-Roman religion infected by exotic qualities of the east, and Edwards makes short shrift of it in this study (111). But his book, in addition to being more closely focused on the Age of Constantine, also amounts to a complete departure from Cumont's organizing principles. Where the Belgian classified religions by point of origin, with chapters on Asia Minor, Syria, Egypt, and Persia, Edwards has sorted his book into three innovative sections. Part 1, “Philosophical Variations,” begins with a chapter on Eusebius of Caesarea and continues with others on his western counterparts (Lactantius and Arnobius), “The Metamorphoses of Platonism,” “Pagan Holiness?” and “New Forms of Christian Holiness.” Part 2, “Religious Plurality,” looks at “Religions of the Vanquished,” “Religions of Transformation,” and “Jews and Judaism.” In the final part 3, “Christian Polyphony,” Edwards deals with “The Religious Integrity of Constantine,” “The End of Sacrifice,” “The Bible of the Constantinian Church,” “Celebrating Christ,” “From Origin to Arius,” and “Retrospectives, Christian and Pagan.” A brief Epilogue ends with a paean to Constantine for creating the conditions that made Christianity “the professed religion of a majority in the empire” (322).

This reshuffling of the traditional deck opens the way for Edwards to juxtapose subjects usually treated separately, resulting in fresh appraisals. For instance, Edwards acknowledges the importance of long quotations from lost works of classical philosophy in Eusebius of Caesarea's Praeparatio and Demonstratio Evangelica. But instead of portraying Eusebius as a steadfast opponent of these works, Edwards concludes that the bishop's aim was to flaunt “his erudition in the hope of convincing his readers . . . that everyone can enjoy dual citizenship as a Greek by nurture and a Christian by faith” (17). The effect is to move Eusebius closer to Lactantius and Constantine, both of whom made efforts to harmonize Christianity and classical erudition.

The chapters in part 2 produce similar connections between religion and philosophy. But the real payoff to Edwards's approach comes in Part 3 where he zeroes in on religious changes in the Constantinian era. Instead of limiting his treatment of sacrifice to the vexed question of whether Constantine outlawed the practice, Edwards takes into account disputes among the philosophers themselves and points out that “the cessation of sacrifice . . . was not the result of any one edict framed by Constantine” (200). His discussion of the Arian controversy benefits even more from Edwards's intermingling of the shifting currents of philosophy and religion in previous chapters. In the fifth century, the church historian Sozomen wrote that those bishops at Nicaea who either opposed “the introduction of novelties” or who “adhered to simplicity of doctrine” were overshadowed by others who were “remarkable for their dialectic skill, and practiced in such rhetorical methods” (Historia Ecclesiastica 1.17, NPNF tr.). Edwards's emphasis on the ties between religion and philosophy explains how that happened. Eusebius of Caesarea in particular emerges as a more three-dimensional figure, one who was neither an Origenist nor an Arian but decidedly “a trimmer,” one who “falls short of what we now call orthodoxy” only by his silence (245, 292, 286).

Detailed summaries of pertinent works by both Christian and classical authors are an important feature of this book. These include some that do not make it onto standard reading lists, such as the alchemist Zosimus of Panopolis in chapter 7 and Juvencus, author of a versified scripture, in chapter 12. Indeed, although this review has focused on Edwards's organization and conclusions, the bulk of most chapters consists of these synopses, making the book (as the jacket proclaims) “a comprehensive reference work.” Beginning students in particular will appreciate the care with which Edwards has performed this task. Since the works detailed in this way are distributed according to Edwards's schema, which results in some by the same author being treated in different chapters, readers will need to rely on the index to find the locations of specific works. A separate index or appendix listing these works by author and title would have been more useful.

Categorizing this book as a “reference work” may be doing it an injustice. If it were classed instead as a book on Constantine (certainly justifiable in light of its focus on this emperor and the lion's share of attention awarded to Christianity in its pages), the way Edwards demonstrates the overlap of philosophy and religious thought in the intellectual environment of the day would make it one of the more valuable offerings among the many that have saturated the field in the past decade.

In any case, readers should be aware that “reference” in this instance does not mean “bland.” Edwards has his own point of view and is not hesitant to state it. He is skeptical of such notions as “Christian toleration” and “pagan monotheism” and tart in his appraisal of sources (Eusebius “has the commentator's way of assuming his own deductions to be irresistible,” [287]). He has little patience for the circular reasoning that so often characterizes efforts to separate “heresy” from “orthodoxy.” All this makes Religions of the Constantinian Empire a useful book for advanced scholars as well as novices.

There are numerous typos, none serious but some delightful, (“a permanent sing of their vocation,” [119]), and others perplexing (“the unfolding of the bud from the flower,” [293]).