Rabbles, Riots, and Ruins: Twelve Ancient Cities and How They Were Evangelized Paperback – June 17, 2024

The prolific Mike Aquilina has once again provided for us a glimpse into the early Church with his latest offering, "Rabbles, Riots, and Ruins: Twelve Ancient Cities and How They Were Evangelized." Best known for his work on the Fathers of the Church (although his more than fifty books delve into a variety of subject areas), with this volume, he not only gives us Fathers, but also some Mothers, lots of other historical characters of varying notoriety and virtue, plenty of history and context about the places in which these men and women were influential, and a number of doctrinal developments in the Church as we learn about saints, heretics, and councils.In the Introduction, Aquilina provides the reasons he took the approach of focusing on cities to highlight how the Church evangelized, reasons that are both biblical and practical. The questions the author tackles throughout the book are provided to us here, as well: “How did the Church come to be what it is today? How did the differences between East and West begin? Where did our most ancient traditions come from? How did Catholic theology find its intellectual foundations?” His approach to answering these queries is to look at how Christianity arrived at and developed in twelve major metropolitan centers of the ancient world.Some cities are quite familiar to us today and must quite obviously be covered when exploring the early Church: Jerusalem and Rome. Others we know from biblical references, like Antioch and Ephesus. Then there are famous cities that might not so obviously register with us as important in early Christianity, like Alexandria, Ravenna, and Milan. Finally, there are cities that most of us have never heard of, for example, Lugdunum and Ejmiatsin. Rounding out the list are the historic metropolises of Constantinople, Carthage, and Edessa.For each city, a brief secular history provides context and brings the reader up to speed with the milieu at the time when Christianity makes its appearance. Then, key figures and events, both Christian and secular, are introduced to us throughout each chapter, explaining how Christianity gained a foothold and subsequently grew in prominence.The brief Afterword nicely sums up what we learned in each of the twelve cities we visited. And, before closing the book, we’re given a final note of encouragement: “Scripture teaches us the ultimate end of the story, and history confirms it for us. We win. The Church goes on until the end of time.”What makes all of Aquilina’s history books so engaging is that he brings to life the places he describes and the figures he introduces. We are walking the streets of Rome admiring its great architectural feats; we are astonished as we come upon the bright lights and massive walls of Antioch; we are gazing in wonder at the towering lighthouse at Alexandria. Along the way in these journeys, we encounter: men like King Abgar of Edessa who purportedly had a mutual correspondence by letter with Jesus himself; women like Blandina of Lugdunum who remained steadfast in her faith despite incredible tortures before being martyred; two men whose fates intertwined incredibly in Armenia, Tiridates and Gregory the Illuminator, the latter whose suffering and miraculous power were instrumental in the conversion of the former.I found this read to be a real page turner. Admittedly, I have always been a history lover, but even for those who shy away from history books, finding the whole subject uninteresting, I believe this is a work that would be appealing to even the most ardent objector because it is engaging and story-driven, as described above. Also, it is appealing because it is fast-paced it covers a lot of ground in under two hundred pages. For those who wish to get a nice overview of the early spread of Christianity, this is a good start. And even if one goes no further, he has learned much. But for those who wish to go further, a substantial bibliography is included. And for those so inclined, the internet and online bookstores offer plenty of opportunities for deep dives on events and personalities of interest to which they have been introduced here.Rabbles, Riots, and Ruins should be an encouragement to all of us. No matter how dire the current circumstances of our culture, and no matter how oppressive the religious or political conditions are for Christians in any part of the world, the Bible and history tell us that with the Lord all things are possible.