VEIN BEST EVER

It flatters the ego as an inveterate reader, particularly of books on history, that's for sharing with the author (silent shares, transferable and yet very real), pages and moments of pure intelligence. It is saying that the work of Paul Veyne is brilliant, excellent, original, cheeky, readable by the common (?) Cultivated fatal (that would be a bit more difficult for people interested from afar the subject matter, but it would remain very affordable), written in simple language giving access walk-in reflection and admirably serving about, complemented by a balanced device reflecting the work (Lactantius, Ammianus, Eusebius, St Augustine, Plotinus ... but also Lenin, Trotsky embodied in an impressive portrait gallery).
It is remarqublement intelligent. And it is by enhancing the action of Emperor Constantine, by analyzing the role of bishoprics, round trips / zigzag / inconsistencies imposed by history to the emergence of a movement, which in retrospect, appears as an irresistible groundswell and the study of complex relationships that have maintained, in those early days of Christianity, Catholics, Jews and pagans, civil and religious authority, silent masses and "elite" social -culturelle. Besides this prospective approach (which is, as recommended by Lucien Febvre, to "put as much as possible instead of"), Paul Veyne puts into perspective so strong searched, the role of "habitus" in maintaining a compliance / social conformity, is interested in detail, to the emergence of Christian anti-Semitism and concludes masterfully by two "conferences", one devoted to the ideology, the other Christian roots Europe.
Very respectful of the religious sentiment ("One does not question an emotional man" he recalls, referring René Char), this atheist impétinent vision offers us a warm, friendly, ironic in places but without mockery or caustic, from that moment seminal in the history of Rome and of the World Religions.
As the Romans said: "Plaudite cives" (Applaud citizens) that I will translate so far removed, in one word: bravo.