?The first chapter is devoted to an analysis of the dominant narrative of Christianization that circulated widely in Christian circles in the fourth and fifth centuries and that has been repeated, mutatatis mutantis, by many modern historians. (?) Yet, in the Western parts of the empire an alternative narrative was in the process of being constructed by Augustine and a generation of mainly Latin writers; ?the dark counterpoint to the triumphant narrative that circulated in other circles? (pp.22-23). A myth of the ?decline of the Church? was created and employed by these Christian critics (?.). In the second (?) essay Brown seeks to weaken the persuasive power of the narrative of Christianization generated by Christians and pagans alike, to wit, the unholy alliance between authoritarian legislation and a triumphant groundswell of Christian intolerance. (?) In the final essay, Brown revisits familial territory - the ?Lives' of the Christian holy men (?). Here Brown seeks to explain their overall significance for contemporaries and their relative importance in relation to other forms of religious activity. Once again Brown places the evidence in a bride social and religious frame, to recover the story that the ?Lives? were written, in large part, to eclipse. The holy men emerged not as champions of a triumphant and intransigent faith, but as brokers of religious authority, ?arbiters of the holy?, and as low-key facilitators for the creation of new religious allegiances and of new religious patterns of observance. (?) specific aspects of Brown?s analysis might be challenged (?) or pursued further, but the broad outline is persuasive.? (A.J. DROGE in History of Religions, 1998, pp.275-77). From the library of Professor Carl Deroux.