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"Let there be an end to superstition, let the madness of sacrifices be done away with." Theodosian Code, 16.10.2

[the Roman Emperor] Mauricius (582- 602)… saw to it that pagans were brought before the courts 'in every region of the city,' ..."Some he managed to convert to Christianity, while many who resisted he carved up, suspending their limbs in the main street of the town."
[Ramsay MacMullen, Christianity & Paganism in the Fourth to Eighth Centuries (1997), pg. 27]

In one dark way the new Christianities differed from the other Pagan religions. They were exclusive. They were intolerant. They hated dissent and crushed freedom. And in the black seed of Christian intolerance lay the death of ancient civilization. Which brings us to...