ABSTRACT

The author of Acts remembered that the apostle Paul had walked past pagans' shrines on his way to preach in Athens. The Athens sermon summed up Paul's protest against such idolatry: "The god, who made the world and everything in it, being lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by men." Had Augustine rid Christianity of neopaganism, the faithful might have accepted that the highest righteousness resided in heaven. Whenever Christians celebrated the eucharist, the very substance of the savior's perfect life, body and blood, touched down on the altars and transformed all who witnessed. Augustine wanted Christians to expect far less of martyrs, saints, and bones in terms of immediate, material gain and gratification. Episcopal independence seems to have been one casualty of Catholic Christianity's success. The great peril to Christianity, Innocent told Bishop Decentius of Gubbio, just northeast of Perugia, was diversity in doctrine, liturgy, and discipline.