Book Description

It was one of the most characteristic if puzzling phenomena of the later Roman Empire that the man in the street commonly engaged in open and heated debate of complex theological questions that seemingly had no immediate relevance to his daily life ... And the passionate arguments that raged in all the cities of the East did not, in every case, end with mere words, but led often to acts of anger and violence. Churchees were burned in the night, and cities were drenched in blood ... Ancient authors, borrowing their models, perhaps, from Thucydides or Tacitus, recognized the danger inherent in urban upheaval and popular unrest; but with a general disregard for the substantive issues that provoked dispute, they were inclined to attribute them simply and wholly to a natural perversity on the part of crowds that caused them to resort to violence and foster rebellion for their own sakes ...