"It is hardly surprising that scholars working within the Aryan Model prefer to neglect the Christian factor and see these events as representing a resurgence of Egyptian Oriental fanaticism against Hellenistic rationalism. But, if one disregards the absurd implication that Europeans cannot be fanatical, these two explanations – that the fanatical mob was both Christian and Egyptian – are not mutually exclusive. By the 4th century AD, Egypt was a passionately – if not the most passionately – Christian province in the Roman Empire."