Sulla resurrezione: Discorso cristiano del II secolo (review)

The book under review is a thorough and impressive treatment of the three substantial fragments "On the Resurrection" (DR), attributed in St. John Da-mascene's Sacra parallela to Justin Martyr. D'Anna enumerates the many reasons this attribution is doubtful (92-100), but he also persuasively argues that DR was written in the mid-second century. So DR is considerably interesting as an early Christian account of the resurrection of the body, not least because it is seen to be in conversation with Classical philosophy. For instance, DR takes stock of three cosmologies—Platonic, Stoic, and Epicurean—and then argues that the physical reconstitution of the body is not incompatible with their principles. This argument is preliminary and serves to pre-empt any criticism that belief in resurrection is incoherent or even derisible. The view advanced by DR turns on the twin affirmation that humans are composite beings, made up of body no less than soul, and that both body and soul are the good creation of God. The power of God is also much in evidence, and particular reference is made to the incarnation and life of Jesus Christ (see ch. 4). From these principles, DR pre-sents a very forceful case for the physical reconstitution of the bodies of the dead.

In addition to a new critical text of DR—basically, K. Holl's edition (TU 20.2, 36-49) augmented with readings from three more MSS—with an elegant Italian translation, the monograph includes a lengthy critical study. D'Anna begins with a structural analysis of the fragments. The fragments contain a proemium, a narratio, an argumentatio (featuring a refutatio and a probatio) and an epilogue, all of which, D'Anna observes, generally conforms to the conventions of Aris-totelian rhetoric; he therefore concludes that the fragments represent nearly the whole treatise (89). He follows this up with a literary-historical analysis. Noting that DR contains neither historical nor autobiographical detail, D'Anna relies on the relationship of claims made in DR to claims made elsewhere in order to date it. He persuasively shows that DR directly influenced Tertullian's De resurrectione mortuorum, a fact which means that the terminus ante quem for DR is 211-12.

On the basis of his analysis of the adversaries depicted in DR, however, D'Anna is prepared to offer a more precise estimation of the work's provenance. Working with Celsus, Galen, and the Neoplatonic interpreters of Aristotle, he provides a detailed and sympathetic reconstruction of their objections to the notion of resurrection (135-37, 172-76). The ripostes of DR are comparable to the arguments of Justin, Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Origen. D'Anna sees a particularly salient parallel between DR and Irenaeus' Adv. haer. 5, on the strength of which he infers that DR is addressed primarily to Christians who have adopted the arguments of anti-Christian polemicists; in other words, the adversaries are inter-ecclesial (270-71). In fact, D'Anna is so confident in the parallel that he concludes both works are aimed at the same Christian popu-lation. This deduction leads him to offer a reasonably precise date for the composition of DR, i.e., c.150-180, and the prossimità of DR to Justin's undis-puted writings motivates him to locate the composition in Rome (279).

Some synthetic observations are in order. First, the monograph presents a thorough orientation to the scholarly discussion about DR and does so in an accessible way. Secondly, the arguments are extremely clear and free of unnecessary jargon. On a related note, several charts are inserted into the monograph at appropriate places to facilitate understanding the arguments. Thirdly, on a practical level, the book is very modestly priced. This fact alone is grounds for recommending it; the attractive combination of meticulous scholarship and lucid presentation is grounds for highly recommending it.