One True Life: the Stoics and early Christians as rival traditions
C. KAVIN ROWE

When, in the early Roman Empire, people “turned from idols to serve the living and true God”, as St Paul says, what kind of activity did they think they were engaged in? What kind of group did they think they were joining? What to most people now is the obvious answer – that they were adopting a religion and joining a religious community in the modern (Christian) sense – is the least likely.

In the Roman world, there was probably no concept of “religion” as we understand it – a life-changing set of beliefs about the divine, expressed and developed through institutions, theology, ethics, ritual, spirituality, stories, art and so on. The meaning of religio in Latin was narrower, centring on piety and scrupulousness.

Other possible answers are the subject of much scholarly debate. Was becoming Christian like joining one of the other non-state-sponsored cults which flourished around the Mediterranean? Was it more like joining a new tribe or nation formed of Jews and Gentiles? Or was it more like joining a philosophical school, which offered a life path informed by certain understandings of the divine, nature and humanity?