Interest in the world of Late Antiquity is currently undergoing a significant revival, and in this provocative book, now reissued in paperback, E. R. Dodds anticipated some of the themes now engaging scholars. There is abundant material for the study of religious experience in late antiquity, and through it Professor Dodds examines, from a sociological and psychological standpoint, the personal religious attitudes and experiences common to pagans and Christians in the period between Marcus Aurelius and Constantine. He looks first at general attitudes to the world and the human condition before turning to specific types of human experience. World-hatred and asceticism, dreams and states of possession, and pagan and Christian mysticism are all discussed. Finally Dodds considers both pagan views of Christianity and Christian views of paganism as they emerge in the literature of the time. Although primarily written for social and religious historians, this study will also appeal to all those interested in the ancient world and its thought.

‘The outstanding characteristics of [Dodds’s] work … are a rather rare union of detachment and sympathy, a combination of precise scholarship and a degree of acquaintance with contemporary psychological theories unusual in a classical scholar, and last but not least, an ability to write very well.’

Source: The Times Literary Supplement

‘Professor Dodds mutes and muffles nothing … His tone is level and just, his understanding is comprehensive and his emphasis is never polemic. There is a dry inner light in his writing which falls evenly in every sentence, a distillation of restrained wit and of the lifelong exercise of scholarship.’

Peter Levi Source: The Tablet