Coming Out Christian in the Roman World

The supposed collapse of Roman civilization is still lamented more than 1,500 years later-and intertwined with this idea is the notion that a fledgling religion, Christianity, went from a persecuted fringe movement to an irresistible force that toppled the empire. The "e;intolerant zeal"e; of Christians, wrote Edward Gibbon, swept Rome's old gods away, and with them the structures that sus...