These are papers delivered at the two conferences of the society in 2005 and 2006. The volume is about toleration, and how to hold Christian communities together in doctrine and practice. Are there circumstances in which differing from the main tenets of a people can be not only troublesome for a Church but disruptive for the society, in which case the State is involved? Does one persecute heretics because what they do or say troubles the people, or because if they say it freely God will bring a poor harvest, or just because they are different from oneself? Robespierre held that since law could not make men or women good, a people must have religion if they are to be a moral enough society not to need an excess of policemen. The state should not ban atheism but the public propagation of atheism because that cannot be other than bad for the community. This age-long tension within States and Churches is illustrated within these valuable essays. That by Averil Cameron is a masterly survey of the generations within the Byzantine Empire and will upset axioms long held. M. C. Steenberg shows how to fake texts into orthodoxy There is a rather charming essay, if speculative, by Christine Trevett on Hippolytus and cabbage. A crux in the Arian controversy, the canons of Antioch (? 341) is taken up by C. W. B. Stephens, the famous decree of Theodosius I by E. D. Hunt. Stuart Hall defines Epiphanius as ‘pathologically pious’ and treats his view of the image of God in man in relation to those of others, especially Augustine.

Gillian Clark takes the notorious question about Augustine's ‘compel them to come in’ and interprets the texts sensitively. Thomas Graumann makes us dislike the way councils (e.g. Aquileia, 381 and Ephesus, 431) acted as pretend-law courts – ‘The acta of Ephesus offer – a carefully constructed simulacrum of a largely fictional theological debate.’ The book turns to medieval problems – bishops and monks in the Worcester diocese during the eighth century (Martin Ryan), Hermann of Reichenau (Hannah Williams), G. A. Loud on the varieties of discipline in southern Italy between Greek and Latin monks under Norman rule (much original material), Christof Rolker treats the canon law of marriage within prohibited degrees with examples of the flexibility of law for the powerful. Michele Moatt proposes an influence of Basil's rules on the ultra-ascetic practices of Ailred of Rievalux.

Anne Duggan has a humane article on the way in which papal lawyers faced impossible circumstances in marriage. Catherine Rider discusses the evidence of magic in John Bromyard. Diana Wood writes a most interesting article on the penalties for breach of Sunday observance, the attempt to stop fairs on Sunday and allow the purchase of necessary foods. Miri Rubin's article on the cult of St Mary is rather beautiful and asks why Mary appears so late in matters of discipline. Ian Forrest is on the 1405 case of John Edwards. Then two articles on the continental Reformation, David Bagchi on forms of Catholic resistance made necessary by the coming of Protestants and Philip Broadhead on Bucer against ‘Spiritualists’ (=Schwenkfeld, Franck, Hoffmann). The rest is modern English or Scottish – Peter Marshall on control by the Tudor state and its problem over exiles from Cardinal Pole downwards, a fresh treatment; Brett Usher on Thomas Walbot (sic) a London rector hitherto hardly known; Emma Watson on women's part in the survival of Catholicism in the Yorkshire moors under Elizabeth; Melissa Hollander interests the reader on discipline exercised by the Edinburgh Kirk session after 1560, on violence in the home. Nigel Smith deals with Elizabethan/Jacobean literature and theatre, with efforts at control – John Biddle the prominent figure.

Alex Craven records the presbyterians under the Directory in Lancashire, for there the system was nearly successful. Robert Ingram writes on the defence of Anglican orthodoxy by Secker, from Biblical scholarship to bullying liberal minds. Frans Ciappara writes on the inquisition in Malta during its last years of rule by the Knights of St John. For modern England Ian Randall is on Spurgeon and the Downgrade controversy, John Maiden on the failure of the attempt to revise the Prayer Book in 1927–8: perhaps he underestimates the force of Scottish MPs in parliament; Martin Wellings on ‘Catholic Methodism’ of the 1930s; and the volume ends with two excellent articles by Frances Knight and Stephen Sykes on the new ways in which Anglicanism was confronted by this tension of discipline versus diversity.