How Christianity imitated pagans?

Many other ancient authors stressed this fact, which was never a secret in Christian thought, and they drew from it very different conclusions. Anyway, a very thorough and readable study of these borrowings and adaptations can be found in the short essay, published in 1996, of Ramsay MacMullen, "Christianity and Paganism in the Fourth to Eighth Centuries". I just finished this book written by a very great scholar, high above any polemics, and it's worth the reading.