A now conventional model, developed by Robert Markus, sees late Roman cities as fundamentally secular landscapes. Focusing on Augustine's sermon against a feast of the genius of Carthage (Sermo 62), this article argues that narratives of ‘secularity’ have neglected pagans’ own attitudes and the circumstances that drove ordinary Christians’ participation in civic rites. Behind Augustine's charges of ‘idolatry’ lay the religious convictions of the feast's non-Christian sponsors and behind their expectations of Christian attendance lay the recent destruction of a pagan shrine on church property. For Augustine's listeners to construe the feast as religiously irrelevant was an expression not of routine social solidarity, but of fear before powerful patrons. What was ‘secular’ was open to doubt and negotiation, both here and in empire-wide celebrations such as the Kalends of January; the boundary between the ‘pagan’ and the ‘secular’ can be located only with careful attention to the diversity of opinions about each particular rite.

中文翻译：

---

迦太基的盛宴：在古代晚期测试“世俗”的极限

罗伯特·马库斯（Robert Markus）开发的一种现在传统的模型，将晚期罗马城市视为基本的世俗景观。专注于奥古斯丁针对迦太基天才盛宴的布道（塞尔莫62），本文认为“世俗”的叙述忽视了异教徒自己的态度和促使普通基督徒参与公民仪式的环境。在奥古斯丁对“偶像崇拜”的指控背后，是盛宴的非基督徒赞助者的宗教信仰，而在他们对基督徒出席的期望背后，则是最近在教堂财产上毁坏了一座异教神殿。对于奥古斯丁的听众来说，将盛宴解释为与宗教无关，这不是常规社会团结的表达，而是在强大的赞助人面前的恐惧。什么是“世俗的”，无论是在这里还是在诸如一月的 Kalends 之类的帝国范围内的庆祝活动中，都值得怀疑和协商。“异教”和“世俗”之间的界限只有在仔细注意对每个特定仪式的不同意见的情况下才能确定。