This volume attempts to correct a perceived ‘lack of understanding of Late Antique Arianism’. It brings together an impressive range of scholarly contributions, with the aim of offering a comprehensive overview of the evolution of Arian Christianity in the Roman kingdoms of the fifth and sixth centuries. In this endeavour the book is largely successful. We are provided with judicious accounts of the influence of Arianism in North Africa, Visigothic Spain, Ostrogothic and Lombard Italy, Gaul – and even Britain. The crucial role of Ulfila (the ‘apostle of the Goths') is helpfully analysed from several different perspectives, and wider questions of Arian church organisation and liturgical practice are also addressed.

A few contributions stand out especially. Sara Parvis convincingly demonstrates that Ulfila was not in any meaningful sense homoian in his theological outlook. She notes that the fleeting homoian settlement of 359–60 (forged at the twin councils of Rimini and Seleucia) was a colourless compromise, which no one – least of all Ulfila – regarded with particular affection. If anything, Parvis contends, Ulfila was doctrinally closer to Arius himself, and to his earliest supporters. Ralf Bockmann gives a fascinating survey of Arian material culture, arguing that Arian churches possessed a ‘non-archaeology’ – that is, they were essentially physically indistinguishable from their Nicene counterparts. Bockmann speculates that churches could thus not only switch easily from one denomination to another, but could even be used by members of both denominations at the same time. Uta Heil gives a nuanced analysis of the political and theological controversies of the late 350s and 360s, whilst Ralph Mathisen delineates the ways in which Arian episcopal structures were moulded according to local contexts. Hanns Christof Brennecke provides a characteristically lucid overview of the wider historical and theological issues which late antique Arianism raises.

This book is not, however, without its frustrations. One or two of the articles are comparatively insubstantial. The quantity of ‘scare quotes' (especially adorning words such as ‘orthodox’ and ‘Arian’) quickly becomes wearisome. The final contributor's tirade against ‘Nicene myopia’ seems somewhat ill-judged, since his rousing call for scholars to ‘concentrate less on theology, and more on the political, social and cultural function of Arianism’ is strangely at odds with the editors' stated desire for the theological character of Arianism to be taken more seriously by historians of the period. It is also perhaps unfortunate that, on the very first page of a book devoted to making Arianism clear to the non-specialist, the orthodox position should be labelled as hoomoiousios – in such matters, a single iota really does make a difference. Even so, this book is undoubtedly a valuable single-volume resource for the study of Arianism, and should commend itself to any serious academic library.