Religiously the Empire was pluralistic and marked by a search for a faith which would be satisfying intellectually and ethically and would give assurance of immortality.

Latourette is characterizing the religious climate of the Roman Empire (especially in the early imperial centuries) as diverse and experimental rather than monolithic. Traditional civic cults, philosophical schools, mystery religions, and imported deities coexisted, and many educated people sought a religion that could satisfy both the mind (coherence with reason and philosophy) and the conscience (ethical seriousness). The added desire for “assurance of immortality” points to the period’s heightened concern with personal salvation and the afterlife—one reason Christianity could appear compelling, since it offered a morally demanding way of life and a confident promise of resurrection and eternal life.