ABSTRACT
Our first question is how Christianity had developed to take the shape it had on the threshold to the fourth century. Of the areas we identified as fields of our investigation of contextualisation, we will concentrate on the first two: the relation between Church and State and the legacy of paganism. Both recommend subdivision into two aspects, the latter being the logical consequence of the first. Thus we will treat four issues:
1 the relations between the Christians and the Roman Empire and its social and religious life;
2 the repercussions of Church growth and of the persecutions on the traditional group morality;
3 the selective association with philosophical school traditions on themes of ethics and anthropology;
4 the Salvation in Christ as response to the various needs for salvation of the epoch.
