Worshippers of the Gods tells how the Latin writers who witnessed the political and social rise of Christianity rethought the role of traditional religion in the empire and city of Rome. In parallel with the empire's legal Christianisation, it traces changing attitudes toward paganism from thelast empire-wide persecution of Christians under the Tetrarchy to the removal of state funds from the Roman cults in the early 380s. Influential recent scholarship has seen Christian writings renders one of the leading voices of early modern philosophy accessible to English-language audiences. Reflecting the impressive breadth of Fenelon's thought, the volume includes work on topics ranging from education to literature to religion and statecraft. In the realm of political philosophy and ethics, Fenelon was an uncompromising critic of Louis XIV and absolutism, committed to reformingFrance's social, political and economic institutions. In the Enlightenment, he cameto be celebrated as a pioneering theorist of education and rhetoric, a prescient student of economics and international relations, and a key voice in the philosophical debates among the heirs of Descartes - not tomention his fame as one of the seventeenth-century's most preeminent theologians and spiritualists and masters of French prose. With an extensive introduction to Fenelon's life and work, this volume is a critical resource for students and scholars of French history, i idea of a unified "paganism",often seen as a capricious invention, actually arose as a Christian response to the eclectic, philosophical polytheism in vogue at Rome. | Worshippers of the Gods by Mattias Philip Gassman, Hardcover | Indigo Chapters