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A Century of Miracles - Christians, Pagans, Jews, and the Supernatural, 312-410 (Hardcover)
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A Century of Miracles - Christians, Pagans, Jews, and the Supernatural, 312-410 (Hardcover)
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Traditionally, in the year 312, the Roman emperor Constantine
experienced a "vision of the Cross" that led him to convert to
Christianity and to defeat his last rival to the imperial throne;
and, in 394, a divine wind carried the emperor Theodosius to
victory at the battle of the Frigidus River. Other stories heralded
the discovery of the True Cross by Constantine's mother, Helena,
and the rise of a new kind of miracle-maker in the deserts of Egypt
and Syria. These miracle stories helped Christians understand the
dizzying changes in their fortunes during the century. They also
shed light on Christianity's conflict with other faiths and the
darker turn it took in subsequent ages. In A Century of Miracles,
historian H. A. Drake explores the role miracle stories played in
helping Christians, pagans, and Jews think about themselves and
each other. These stories, he concludes, bolstered Christian belief
that their god wanted the empire to be Christian. Most importantly,
they help explain how, after a century of trumpeting the power of
their god, Christians were able to deal with their failure to
protect the city of Rome from a barbarian sack by the Gothic army
of Alaric in 410. Augustine's magnificent City of God eventually
established a new theoretical basis for success, but in the
meantime the popularity of miracle stories reassured the faithful -
even when the miracles came to an end. A Century of Miracles
provides an absorbing illumination of the pivotal fourth century as
seen through the prism of a complex and decidedly mystical
phenomenon.
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