Rabbles, Riots, and Ruins: Twelve Ancient Cities and How They Were Evangelized

by Mike Aquilina

Jerusalem, Rome, Antioch, Alexandria, Ephesus, Carthage, Edessa . . . These were some of the ancient cities that once raged against the Gospel and persecuted the Church but later came to admirable faith. Each city had its own unique commerce, culture, and institutions. Each city was different from all the others, and each became more perfectly itself through the influence of Jesus Christ.

In the pages of this book, you'll climb the hills of these cities, sail into their harbors, look up in awe at their titanic public works, walk their streets, push your way through their bustling markets. And you'll see how all those things shaped the expression, practice, and history of the Christianity we know today.

This is your imaginative entry into the world of the Church Fathers, the saints, and sages who converted the world to Christ. During their era—and in their hostile cities—the Church grew at a steady rate of 40 percent per decade, and practices such as abortion, infanticide, and euthanasia went from commonplace to unthinkable. The Fathers have something important to teach the modern Church about evangelization.

Among Mike Aquilina's many works about the Church Fathers, this is his most complete and compelling overview of the Fathers' amazing achievements.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

206 pages, Paperback

First published June 17, 2024

About the author

Mike Aquilina is author or editor of more than thirty books, including The Fathers of the Church, The Mass of the Early Christians, and A Year with the Church Fathers. He has co-hosted eight series that air on the Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN). He has co-authored books with Cardinal Donald Wuerl of Washington, D.C., and theologian Scott Hahn. He is past editor of New Covenant magazine and The Pittsburgh Catholic newspaper. He appears weekly on Sirius Radio's "Sonrise Morning Show." Mike and his wife, Terri, have six children, who are the subject of his book Love in the Little Things.

In 2011 Mike was a featured presenter of the U.S. Bishops' Diocesan Educational/Catechetical Leadership Institute. He also wrote the USCCB's theological reflection for Catechetical Sunday in 2011.

His reviews, essays and journalism have appeared in many journals, including First Things, Touchstone, Crisis, Our Sunday Visitor, National Catholic Register, and Catholic Heritage. He contributed work on early Christianity to the Encyclopedia of Catholic Social Thought.

Mike is a also poet whose works have appeared in U.S. literary journals and have been translated into Polish and Spanish. He shared songwriting credits with Grammy Award-winner Dion DiMucci on the forthcoming album "Tank Full of Blues."

Reviews

[John LaGreca · Rating 5 out of 5]

I learned so much about early church history. I am amazed how cities build up, then destroy themselves, but the one constant is the growth of the church. Great and easy read.

[Carol Albert · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book came to my attention when reviewed in The Catholic Telegraph, which comes to me from the archdiocese of Cincinnati. It gives the history or twelve ancient cities, all important to early Christianity. Some you know from the Bible. Others, you will be introduced to. For instance, you have heard of Jerusalem, Antioch, Rome, and Constantinople. If you are like me, cities like Lugdunum and Ejmiatsin may be new to you. Aquilina tells us the political and religious histories of each place. They often intersect. He gives us the names of significant Christian people (usually men, but not always) who contributed to the early development of Christianity and the way we practice it today. It is a lot of in formation to hang on to, but the Afterword sums it alll up nicely. While there is a good Bibliography at the end, there is no index. I also wish some maps were included. I enjoyed reading this book and will hang onto it as a reference when reading my Bible.

[Marksmillie · Rating 5 out of 5]

chocked full of information about the ancient christian cities--stuff I knew and stuff I didn't know.

[Richard Grebenc · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.