This is a really exciting Italian book drawing from scholars in a number of disciplines which shows among other things that Christianity in Egypt at the time of Hadrian may have been more pluralistic.
The Second century played a key role in the development of ancient Christianity. From Pliny’s perception of the nova superstitio as separated from its Jewish roots to Celsus’ powerful attack on Christianity under Marcus Aurelius and thereafter, this period saw the wide social diffusion of Christianity, the flourishing of its early literary production according to the standard patterns of classical literacy 1 and above all its institutionalisation, centred on the emerging figures of the monarchic bishops 2. On the other hand, the Roman empire from Trajan to the Antonine dynasty enjoyed a relative political and military tranquillity (lasting almost until the last three decades of the century) and a great cultural effervescence, evidenced by phenomena such as the Neo- sophistic movement 3 or the philo-Hellenistic attitude of emperors like Hadrian. The aim of this book is to examine the connection between these two historical processes in order to figure out whether any specific factor within this broader context eased or accelerated the affirmation of Christianity in the Second century Roman world4. The emergence of Christian identities and ecclesiastical institutions and of Christianity’s relationship to the social and cultural reality of the Empire has received great attention in recent scholarship, from the point of view of which, the making of Christianity must be considered as a long term phenomenon, lasting three centuries or more; following the methodological suggestions of authors such as Foucault or Bourdieu, recent scholarship has stressed the role of discursive analysis and other socio-cultural hermeneutical tools in order to explain such historical transformation
