The Conflict of Religions In the Early Roman Empire

A large part of this book formed the course of Dale Lectures delivered in Mansfield College, Oxford, in the Spring of 1907. For the lecture-room the chapters had to be considerably abridged; they are now restored to their full length, while revision and addition have further changed their character. They are published in accordance with the terms of the Dale foundation.


To see the Founder of the Christian movement and some of his followers as they appeared among their contemporaries; to represent Christian and pagan with equal goodwill and equal honesty, and in one perspective; to recapture something of the colour and movement of life, using imagination to interpret the data, and controlling it by them; to follow the conflict of ideals, not in the abstract, but as they show themselves in character and personality; and in this way to discover where lay the living force that changed the thoughts and lives of men, and what it was; these have been the aims of the writer,—impossible, but worth attempting. So far as they have been achieved, the book is relevant to the reader.


The work of others has made the task lighter. German scholars, such as Bousset, von Dobschütz, Harnack, Pfleiderer and Wernle; Professor F. C. Burkitt and others nearer home who have written of the beginnings of Christianity; Boissier, Martha and Professor Samuel Dill; Edward Caird, Lecky, and Zeller; with the authors of monographs, Croiset, de Faye, Gréard, Koziol, Oakesmith, Volkmann; these and others have been laid under contribution. In another way Dr Wilhelm Herrmann, of Marburg, and Thomas Carlyle have helped the book. The references to ancient authorities are mostly of the writer's own gathering, and they have been verified.


Lastly, there are friends to thank, at Cambridge and at Woodbrooke, for the services that only friends can render—suggestion, criticism, approval, correction, and all the other kindly forms of encouragement and enlightenment.