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Reviewed by:
  • Grammar and Christianity in the Late Roman World
  • Tina Chronopoulos
Grammar and Christianity in the Late Roman World. By Catherine M. Chin. [Divinations: Rereading Late Ancient Religion.](Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. 2008. Pp. viii, 272. $59.95. ISBN 978-0-812-24035-1.)

In this rich and learned study, Chin seeks to answer the short, yet major, question: "How did literate Romans of the fourth and fifth centuries come to the idea that there was such a thing as Christianity?" (p. 1). By applying the theories of philosophers and sociologists such as Pierre Bourdieu, Judith Butler, Gilles Deleuze, and Louis Marin, to a large body of primary sources, Chin explores "how the teaching of language in Late Antiquity shaped the ability of late ancient readers and writers to have concepts that we call religious" (p. 1). Chin considers how the Latin artes grammaticaeas educational texts both put forward a classical ideal and constructed new subjects in relation to that ideal. The chronological span ranges from 350 to 500 AD, and the list of primary sources used for close reading is striking (including grammarians such as Donatus, Charisius, and Priscian, as well as literary and religious texts dealing with grammar by authors such as Macrobius, Ausonius, Augustine, Rufinus, and Jerome).

The book proceeds in six chapters. The first (brief) chapter is introductory and outlines Chin's approach, which is, essentially, to focus on the practice of reading and its effect on both religious and literary discourse and identity. The second chapter ("Imagining Classics") explores the ways in which grammarians formulate the idea of the ancients or the "classical" ( veteres/ antiqui) and the late-ancient present ( nos). Their technique is what Chin calls fragmentation ("the quotation of earlier texts as exempla," p. 12) and the making of lists. By quoting ancient authors, the grammarians create a literary past; by rearranging the quotations in lists they instruct their readers in correct Latin usage. It is this reading that creates the idea of the "classics," in other words the relationship between the imagined past and the imagined present. In chapter three ("From Grammar to Piety"), Chin considers how grammatical texts and texts about grammarians create a bond of obligation between the antiquiand the nos. Readers encounter examples from earlier literary texts that are either prohibitive (don't do it) or prescriptive (do it). From this results another relationship, that between linguistic obligation (to the auctoresand to correct usage) and literary piety (from the present toward the past). Chapter 4 ("Displacement and Excess: Christianizing Grammar") discusses the ways in which Christian-identity writers use the techniques of the grammarians (fragmentation and listing) to devise an idea of them ( gentes) and us (Christians) in a religious, as well as literary, context. By looking at Rufinus, Jerome, and Augustine, Chin shows how these authors see themselves either as bound up [End Page 782]with the text being read, or as separate from the text, and how this creates a Christian space. In the fifth chapter ("Fear, Boredom, and Amusement: Emotion and Grammar"), Chin looks at how the depiction of people and their emotions during the process of learning grammar produces amusement in the reader. This audience response to the narrative delineates their awareness of a "classical"/pagan past. The final chapter ("Grammar and Utopia") examines how the language of space and geography in the texts under consideration expresses the difference and indeed spatial distance between the "classical"/pagan and the present/Christianity. By looking at Ausonius, Paulinus of Nola, and Jerome, as well as how they variously create and locate "classical" and Christian spaces both in reality and in their imagination, Chin describes how Christian identity, by way of grammar, comes into existence.

In sum, this is an impressive and variegated study of the important subject of late-antique education, with a particular focus on the convergence of reading practice/literary culture and religious identity. There is a wealth of original material (with plenty of footnotes and a useful index), to which the author constantly clings and refers back. For example, the second chapter is particularly strong on the formulation of a literary past at the hands of the grammarians. We...

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