It seems that the course of historical events was largely due to the fact that Constantine the Great needed the cohesive force of Christianity and lived long enough to ensure that Christianity was able to get a firm hold on power and influence. Julian "the Apostate," however, failed to accomplish the same for paganism because he simply didn't live long enough, reigned a mere two years, and died at the age of 32.
As energetic and personable as Constantine, he might have turned the whole thing around and forced Christianity into minority status — the fate of the West was determined by a single spear thrust in Persia, or perhaps by the fact that Julian neglected to buckle his breastplate securely before the battle. The actions of these two individuals literally changed the world in ways that continue to affect us today, and it's interesting to ponder what might have happened differently with just some small changes to their lives.
Religiously speaking, pagan polytheism is far more tolerant than monotheism. Polytheists don't really care if you worship a different god and can even be quite happy to incorporate your god into their own pantheon. This doesn't make polytheists inherently virtuous — when it came to political matters, their ability to deal out death and suffering was quite good.
The question is, though, whether the West might have been spared all of the religious wars had Christianity simply remained "one among many" religions rather than acquiring the power to drive out all other beliefs and enforce a rigid orthodoxy. Maybe, maybe not — it's not as though human beings are lacking any reason to go to war once religion is removed form the list of disagreements. Yet perhaps the absence of divine sanction for wars would have lessened their ferocity and impact.
Kirsch has a real flair for making these ancient figures come alive and his writing style makes this book an engaging and enjoyable read. This examination of the early relationship between Roman polytheism and Christian monotheism should give people good reasons to think a bit more carefully about the rise of Christianity and to what degree that was really a good (or inevitable) development.
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