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The Catholic Historical Review 92.4 (2006) 640-641

Reviewed by
Alastair H. B. Logan
University of Exeter
From Dogma to History: How Our Understanding of the Early Church Developed. By William H. C. Frend. (London: SCM Press. 2003. Pp. viii, 212. £12.99 paperback.)

This, William Frend's last book, is a fitting summary of his personal concerns and contributions to the history and archaeology of the early Church. It is as much about the six giants, two German, two French, one Scot, and one Englishman, who particularly influenced his views, as about the development of the modern disciplines of church history and Christian archaeology, whose history he so memorably traced in his 1996 book. His own liberal tendencies and sympathies are evident in the treatment of figures often in dispute with authority, conservatism, and traditionalism, and his own personal reminiscences of two of them add color to his account. His choice, if personal, as he admits, is certainly well justified: it comprises Adolf von Harnack, Hans Lietzmann, Stéphane Gsell, Sir William Ramsay, Louis Duchesne, and Norman Baynes, covering the first six centuries of church history and ranging from armchair historians (von Harnack, Baynes) to full-blown field archaeologists (Gsell, Ramsay) and revealing the fascinating other roles they played. After a characteristic Introduction giving details of his own autobiography, Frend allots a chapter to each scholar, supplying very valuable biographical information, putting each in context, and assessing their careers and contributions. A brief Epilogue, while gloomy about prospects for early church history in British divinity faculties and about the threats facing archaeological sites, notes the rise of interest in Late Antiquity in classics and other departments in Britain, the Commonwealth, and America, and ends on a characteristically optimistic note.

Frend's English background did give him a valuable entrée into both German and French scholarly circles before and during World War II and the ability to be fair to both sides in what emerges as often a nakedly political contest to exclude the rival country (and sometimes Britain as well) from a particular [End Page 640] region, such as North Africa. His own training as an archaeologist also enables him to chart the developing interplay between it and church history, one of the most significant factors in the last century: we can no longer study the latter in blissful isolation, but must let texts and sites, theologians, historians, and archaeologists, interact. His judgments are generally fair, if he can be critical. Harnack he sees as making a fundamental contribution to the study of church history, taking it far beyond the confines of dusty doctrine, if no archaeologist. Lietzmann he presents, again like Harnack, as a staunch Lutheran and a man of the Church, who not only successfully combined a study of history, archaeology, and liturgy, but also was responsible for some key series of scholarly aids covering both the New Testament and the early Church. The lesser-known Gsell is rightly lauded for his painstaking and uniquely valuable contribution to the history, geography, and archaeology of early Christian North Africa, and useful detail of later scholarly developments in the field is supplied. Ramsay's pioneering work in Asia Minor and Phrygia and its continuing relevance, despite his dated political judgments, are duly recognized. Duchesne's judicious balance between history and the development of doctrine, despite his bitter struggles with Roman Catholic authority, and his recent rehabilitation, are sympathetically sketched. Finally Baynes' contributions to patristic as well as Byzantine scholarship are sympathetically presented.

Frend's book, with its blend of biography and autobiography, does indeed trace the move from dogma to history of the last century, while it also highlights the problems of the discipline and the struggles of major scholars to combine faithfulness to their subject matter with loyalty to their Christian tradition. The future may lie with a different approach, but Frend has written a fitting account and defense of his.

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