Ella Sahivirta: Christianity as the downfall of Rome - The pagan aristocracy's concerns about Christianity at the turn of the fifth century

My submission is on my master's thesis on the reactions of pagan aristocracy in Rome to Christianity. My primary source was a Roman pagan senator, Rufius Antonius Agrypnius Volusianus, and the correspondence he had with Bishop Augustine and their mutual friend tribune Flavius Marcellinus between 411-413. Volusianus representes the generation of ancient Roman nobility that some scholars have called the last pagans, raised in an Christian Empire but with pagan identity and tradition, including the religious obligations to Pax Deorum as a senator of Rome. Volusianus' concerns are those of a senator; he has seen weak administration run by a Christian dynasty, the restrictions on ancestral tradition and the growing influence of the Church on the Emperor and the turbulence caused in the Empire by Christianity's internal conflicts. The negative affect on Rome was emplified with the view that Rome had angered her gods, causing the sack of 410. Apart from national concerns Volusianus sees Christianity as unintelligent and overly emotional, with ridiculous doctrines such as immaculate conception, the unpatriotic pacifism of the Gospels, God in human form and miracles that romans had seen from magicians before. The new trend of celibate asceticism had reached his family, something that had caused concern among the aristocracy since 380's. What Volusianus opposed is not the new state religion in itself. He fears that it will lead to Rome's ultimate defeat as a nation, and losing what it is to be Roman.