The eight contributions to this volume originated at a symposium organised by the research group ‘Histoire des doctrines de l'antiquité et du haut moyen-âge’ of the French CNRS in 2001. They were written by some of the foremost scholars in the field of the encounter between paganism and Christianity in antiquity. In his introduction Éric Rebillard outlines the reflections which led to the organisation of the symposium. (I wonder, though, to what extent the traditional paradigm of an ‘encounter between Hellenism and Christianity’ is still useful, since, as has repeatedly been pointed out in recent years, Christianity developed from the start as part of a ‘Hellenistic’ culture.) Pierre Chuvin and Claire Sotinel look at the way traditional cults may (or may not) have been affected by the spread of Christianity and how Christianity was transformed through actual encounter with these cults, and they discuss problems of literary and archaeological evidence. Richard Goulet effectively refutes Pier Franco Beatrice's hypothesis that there never was a work called Against the Christians by the philosopher Porphyry. Jean Bouffartigue emphasises the importance of Neoplatonist philosophy for the intellectual mindset of the Emperor Julian. Pier Franco Beatrice claims that the meaning of the term ‘atheism’ underwent radical change as a result of the emergence of Christianity. John Rist describes the development of the encounter of Christianity and Neoplatonism and the appropriation of philosophical methods and doctrines by Christian writers. Finally, Irena Backus looks at the Rezeptionsgeschichte of paganism in church histories of the sixteenth century (Melanchthon, Chronicon Carionis; David Chytraeus, Chronologia [1565]; the Centuries of Magdeburg; Caesar Baronius; Carolus Sigonius; John Micraelius, Syntagma historiarum ecclesiae [1630]). The book gives a clear idea of contemporary research in this field which continues to attract the attention of scholars. Unfortunately, there are no indices. In the table of contents there is a strange misprint (‘antiplatonisme’ instead of ‘néoplatonisme’ in the title of Rist's article).