Religious Education in Late Antique Paganism

Abstract

Research on the religious and cultural life of Late Antiquity has so far given the topic of religious education little attention. This chapter focuses on the importance of religious education for paganism at the beginning of the increasingly severe crisis that it faced during Late Antiquity. It focuses on texts originating in the intellectual circles around the emperor Julian. With Julian and his friend Salutius, the chapter catches a glimpse of the ideas about religious education and their role in the Julianic attempt to revitalise 'Hellenism'; Eunapius of Sardes, who studied with the same philosophical teachers as Julian, allows us a look at later times, after the triumph of Christianity during the reign of Theodosius. The chapter enables studying the evolution within one particular strand of late antique pagan intellectual life and draws some conclusions which provide the basis for further research.