Paul Alexander had a fine eye for the tensions, the incoherences, the sense of fragility that lay beneath the confident surface of the Byzantine state. What he has written on Apocalyptic, therefore, is not merely a set of interesting studies dating and providing a setting for vaguely disreputable rumblings: it is a new view of Byzantium and its underworld." --Peter Brown "This is a very important book, setting out Professor Alexander's final conclusions on a group of Apocalyptic texts that have never been completely analyzed in relation to all the others. . . . Every stage in what are often intricate discussions of complex material is argued with characteristic care, clarity, and precise scholarship." --Marjorie Reeves