When Jesus Became God: The Struggle to Define Christianity during the Last Days of Rome

"A splendidly dramatic story… Rubenstein has turned one of the great fights of history into an engrossing story." –– Jack Miles, Boston Globe; author of God: A Biography.

The life of Jesus, and the subsequent persecution of Christians during the Roman Empire, have come to define what many of us know about early Christianity. The fervent debate, civil strife, and bloody riots as Christianity was coming into being, however, is a side of ancient history rarely described.

Richard E. Rubenstein takes the reader to the streets of fourth-century Rome, when a fateful debate over the divinity of Jesus Christ is being fought. Ruled by a Christian emperor, followers of Jesus no longer fear for the survival of their monotheistic faith. But soon they break into two camps regarding the direction of their worship: Is Jesus the son of God and therefore not the same as God? Or is Jesus precisely God on Earth and therefore equal to Him?

With thorough historical, religious, and social research, Rubenstein vividly recreates one of the most critical moments in the history of religion.