Far from being a standard historical recording of the earliest church councils, this work instead advances by way of four socio-religious categories: the democratic, the cognitive, the supernatural and the violent. In treating the ‘democratic’, MacMullen concentrates on the various conventions of authority and influence running throughout both the empire and the ecclesia. For the Roman senate became the model for holding a church council (regardless of size or area involved) and the local aristocracy, the ordained and the (often) baptised accordingly kept each other from monopolising power. MacMullen's ‘democratic’ thus refers to those rumbling noises of humanity accounted for by the more astute historians: the tense exigencies between the various ‘interest groups’, the backroom politicking, the nods and winks, voting methods and all the diverse ways of interacting during, before and after any human gathering. The next chapter takes up the ‘cognitive’ and here we have a beautiful essay on both what is at stake when speaking ‘officially’ about God and how mortal creatures can claim to do so. While the catechetical knowledge of many was far from sophisticated, feelings none the less ran very high over particular points of doctrine and persons, with the sense that what was ultimately at stake was the difference between a unified body of believers (and belief) and a splintering hairesis.

The classic villain here is of course Arius and he appears again under what MacMullen next refers to as the ‘supernaturalist’. This construct focuses on the perceived enmity not only between the orthodox and the heretical but, infinitely more important, on the war between the good and the evil spirits, between God and Satan, between Jesus and Jupiter. This dichotomy was of the utmost importance. As MacMullen rightly concludes, ‘If those powers are really likely to intervene, to bless or more particularly to harm or destroy or punish, to do so instantly or for all eternity, then the common sense of the thing is to pay attention, to insist, to press for action or one's self to take action in some strident or urgent or extreme fashion’ (p. 55). The final element is the ‘violent’ and the opening line of this chapter summarises it succinctly and provocatively: ‘not less than twenty-five thousand deaths’ (p. 56). After these four dimensions of early council life, MacMullen closes with two chapters focusing more on the persons and the taxonomy of the words which played such essential roles. Here special attention is paid to Chalcedon, the events leading up to it, as well as the involvement of Dioscorus throughout.

Now Emeritus Professor of History at Yale, Ramsay MacMullen has published many writings essential for any student of late antiquity. His latest volume is not only freshly original, it acts as a superb example of how historians should proceed and precisely what they should recall.