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DRAKE, H. A., A Century of Miracles. Christians, Pagans, Jews, and the Supernatural, 312-410. Oxford University Press, 2017. XVI,312p. Hardbound with dust wrps. 'This book by H. A. Drake is aimed at a semi-popular audience, and is a showcase for his most valuable qualities: an engaging style, a patient awareness of the complexity of the evidence, and a desire to recapture the human element of late-antique Christian belief. It will appeal to anyone wanting to know why fourth-century Christianity is worth studying. Drake does an excellent job of showing how Christianity was remade in this period by the pressures of imperial and episcopal politics. His focus is on a particular Christian rhetoric of legitimation which explained the achievements of Constantine and his successors by the interest of God in their affairs; which permitted the apostate emperor Julian to be written off in hindsight as no significant threat; and which proffered the minor miracles performed by ascetics as proof of God’s presence in the world. (...) his book (...) gives an insightful and engaging account of the development of Christian ideology across the fourth century, and is probably all the better for sidelining the doctrinal controversies that might otherwise bog down the narrative. There are plentiful insights and neat turns of phrase, and helpful illustrations (....).' (MICHAEL STUART WILLIAMS in BMCR 2018.05.11) € 40.75 (New) ISBN: 9780199367412