[5] Beit She'an was primarily Christian, as attested to by the large number of churches, but evidence of Jewish habitation and a Samaritan synagogue indicate established communities of these minorities.
Dedicatory inscriptions indicate a preference for donations to religious buildings, and many colourful mosaics, such as that featuring the zodiac in the Monastery of Lady Mary, or the one picturing a menorah and shalom in the House of Leontius' Jewish synagogue, were preserved.
A Samaritan synagogue's mosaic was unique in abstaining from human or animal images, instead utilising floral and geometrical motifs.
In 359 he was a member of a delegation sent to Emperor Constantius II to protest against depositions of Arian clergy by Basil of Caesarea.
[8] Other bishops of Scythopolis include Philip and Athanasius,[9] both Arians; Saturninus, present at the First Council of Constantinople in 381; Theodosius, friend of Saint John Chrysostom; Acacius, friend of Saint Cyril of Alexandria; Severianus, killed by Monophysites in 452;[10] John, who wrote in defence of the Council of Chalcedon; Theodore, who in about 553 was compelled to sign an anti-Origenist profession of faith, still preserved (Le Quien, "Oriens christianus."
Many monks lived in the town and its environs, occupied in making baskets and fans from the palms in the neighbouring forests (Sozomen, "Hist.
", VIII, 13); with them the four Tall Brothers took refuge when expelled from Egypt by Patriarch Theophilus for so called Origenist ideas.