The Columnist and the Dog: a tale of two ascetics

Left: Symeon the Stylite, 1901 illustration by W. E. F. Britten; Right: Alexander the Great visits Diogenes at Corinth, by W. Matthews, 1914. Images from Wikimedia.

On 27 February 380 CE Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire. This was the doing of the Emperor Theodosius I, who decreed Nicene Christianity to be the only acceptable belief. Anyone following alternative versions of the religion was thereby labeled a heretic and a “foolish madman,” and authorities where given f...