Abstract
While documentary papyri are a priori the most reliable source for studying the pace of Christianization of the population, a broad statistical basis has yet to be established for assessing changes in the numerical ratio between Christians and pagans. The first to propose a solution was R. S. Bagnall (" Religious Conversion and Onomastic change ", BASP 19, 1982), who suggested that statistics be compiled using onomastic criteria to characterize the religious affiliation of individuals. This pioneering study provoked sometimes violent reactions ; however, M. Depauw and W. Clarysse (" How Christian was Fourth Century Egypt ", Vigiliae christianae 67, 2013) have recently reaffirmed the validity of the onomastic method using the prosopographic database of Trismegistos : the results thus obtained, close to those of R. S. Bagnall, place the tipping point in the numerical ratio between pagans and Christians in the middle of the 4th century, and show that it took less than two centuries for Egypt to convert completely to Christianity.
Having set the historical framework for our study of written culture, it's now time to examine how the exponential growth of Christianity was reflected in the field of literature.
