Conversion: The Old and the New in Religion from Alexander the Great to Augustine of Hippo by A. D. Nock
$150.00
Conversion: The Old and the New in Religion from Alexander the Great to Augustine of Hippo by A. D. Nock, published in 1933 by Oxford at the Clarendon Press. A seminal work in the history of religion examining the transformation of religious life in the Greco-Roman world from the Hellenistic period through the rise of Christianity. Nock traces the movement of religious ideas and practices across the Mediterranean following the conquests of Alexander the Great, exploring the spread of Eastern mystery cults, their reception within the Roman Empire, and the changing religious landscape into which Christianity emerged. Chapters include “Greeks and the East after Alexander,” “The Path to Rome,” “How Eastern Cults Traveled,” “The Appeal of These Cults,” “The Success of These Cults in the Roman Empire,” “The Conversion of Lucius,” “The Teachings of Christianity as Viewed by a Pagan,” and studies of three distinct models of conversion represented by Justin Martyr, Arnobius, and Augustine of Hippo. Rather than treating conversion as a purely theological event, Nock analyzes it as a historical, intellectual, and psychological process, producing a work that has remained foundational in the academic study of religious change, late antiquity, and the encounter between paganism and Christianity. Hardcover. With original price-clipped dust jacket. The very lightest shelfwear.
