Mike Aquilina has distinguished himself as the foremost communicator of early Church history to a general audience. His forte is sifting through a pile of sources, finding valuable nuggets that will capture and keep the attention of a typical reader and presenting that material in an appealing, winsome fashion. In Rabbles, Riots, and Ruins, he’s done it again, telling the stories of the early Church from the perspective of 12 ancient cities, cities being the usual venues within which early Christianity spread.

The sites chosen for the book are a mixture of the obvious, Rome and Jerusalem, the unsurprising, Antioch and Alexandria, and the intriguing, Ravenna and Ejmiatsin. The final site is the spiritual heart of Armenia—the first Christian nation.

Combining the findings of historical and archaeological scholarship with religious legends and traditions, Aquilina pieces together each city’s Christian histories. Human nature’s unchanging character is one of history’s lessons on full display here! For example, if you were inclined to think that civil unrest is a peculiar feature of contemporary American cities, this account will dispel that illusion—there’s a reason the word “riots” is in this book’s title.

In some cities, the riots were incited against Christians. The histories of Rome and Lugdunum (present day Lyon) tell of persecutions that troubled the Church’s early centuries. In other histories, violence occurred among Christians themselves, as different factions fought for supremacy in their current theological disputes.

The treatments of each city are somewhat uneven in scope and depth, which is to be expected. Constantinople and Edessa are not equal in importance in Christianity’s history, for example, and we know much more about ancient Rome than Ejmiatsin. But each metropolis possesses unique features that contribute to the narrative. If Aquilina had omitted the Armenian city, he couldn’t have told the marvelous story of St. Gregory the Illuminator.

Aquilina also highlights how the Christian experience in these cities shaped the universal Church. He notes, for example, the enduring impact of African Christianity on liturgy and theology—even though Catholicism in North Africa all but disappeared over succeeding centuries. “The Christian tradition of Roman Africa, the ancient faith of Carthage,” he writes, “is invisible not because it has disappeared but because it has become the very air we breathe.”

Since its birth in Jerusalem, the Church’s history has been one of relentless encounter with new philosophies, cultures and political systems: Judaism, Greece, Rome, Egypt, Syria and beyond. This is the stuff of massive tomes in religious, intellectual and cultural history, but Aquilina has wrapped it all up in a neat 200-page package that encapsulates the first 400 years of the Church’s life. If you’re familiar with Aquilina’s work, it’s just what you’d expect. If you aren’t, then the joy of discovering his gifts lies before you. Either way, you’re sure to learn from and delight in the Riots, Rabbles, and Ruins amid which our forebears in the faith lived and died.

Kevin Schmiesing is the author of A Catholic Pilgrimage through American History: People and Places that Shaped the Church in the United States (Ave Maria, 2022).

Mike Aquilina, Rabbles, Riots, and Ruins: Twelve Ancient Cities and the How They Were Evangelized (Ignatius Press, 2024); 206 pages; $17.95

This article appeared in the January 2025 edition of The Catholic Telegraph Magazine. For your complimentary subscription, click here.