…In 5th-century Egypt:

To a Christian Copt from the desert fringes, the words ‘Greek,’ ‘Roman,’ and ‘Pagan’ must have been near-synonyms, and the fabulous Museion (‘Temple of the Muses’), with its tradition of secular learning and its attached great library, probably seemed to be a house of Satan. The matter was made worse in Egypt by the cult of monasticism, especially strong there, which placed several thousand vigorous but sex-starved young males at the service of anyone who wanted to whip up a religious mob.
Which, of course, ambitious politicians—a category that at this point in Roman history frequently included officers of the church—often did.

—–From Unknown Quantity, Chapter 3