I saw the woman . . . and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration.
—Revelation 17:6
The man who enters [a fourth-century church] is bound to see drunkards, misers, tricksters, gamblers, adulterers, fornicators, people wearing amulets, assiduous clients of sorcerers, astrologers. . . .
He must be warned that the same crowds that press into the churches on Christian festivals, also fill the theatres on pagan holidays.
—St. Augustine1
RIDES THE BEAST