The Christians and the Roman Empire By Marta Sordi. Translated by Annabel Bedini. (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 409 Major articles, five to seventeen pages each, are devoted to nine modern encyclicals (JRerutn Novarum, Quadragesimo Anno, Mater et Magistra, Pacem in Terris, Populorum Progressio, Redemptor Hominis, Laborem Exercens , SollicitudoRet Socialis, and CentesimusAnnus), and similar or shorter articles to conciliar decrees and other church documents ("The Bishops' Program of Social Reconstruction," Gaudium etSpes, "Justice in the World"), significant social movements {Action LibéraleNationale, Association of Catholic Trade Unionists, Campaign for Human Development, Christian Family Movement, Volksverein), influential figures (Wilhelm von Ketteler, Oswald von Nell-Breuning, John LaFarge, Frédéric Ozanam,John Ryan), and important themes (care of the aged, capital punishment, euthanasia, homosexuality, Liberation Theology, pacifism, the right to strike). Contributors include Walter Burghardt, Lisa Sowie Cahill, Charles Curran, Avery Dulles, Gerald Fogarty, JosefFuchs, James Hennesey, Sandra Yocum Mize, Michael Novak, and Ladislas Örsy. In all, the book offers 267 articles by 170 contributors. With such diversity, the style and quality of the articles vary. Many give excellent historical background, tracing the Church's teaching through the centuries, and most include a short but up-to-date bibliography. Many do not presume a strict or narrow definition of "social thought" but incorporate the Church's moral and ethical teachings as well, adding to the value of the work. This reviewer considered the entries on capitalism, communism, John Courtney Murray, neoconservatives, war, theology of work, and the summaries of official church documents particularly worthwhile. Since several contributors are members of the groups or organizations they discuss, their descriptions are detailed and accurate but their evaluations less critical. Many entries, in fact, are primarily descriptive, although others—"The Rights of Children" and "Mutuality," to name only two—also suggest where the Church's social teachings might progress further. Each user will undoubtedly question why some topics were included and others not, or why relative lengths were assigned to each, but the overall sweep and balance are easily defensible. The book has had to be priced too high for many users, and this is to be lamented. It is an excellent reference tool for historians and all serious readers. One may not agree with all the articles presented but everyone will learn something interesting and valuable from reading on almost any page. Thomas E. Blantz, C.S.C. University ofNotre Dame Ancient and Medieval The Christians and theRoman Empire. By Marta Sordi. Translated by Annabel Bedini. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. 1994. Pp. vi, 215. $14.95 paperback.) 410 BOOK REVIEWS In 1965, Marta Sordi's// cristianesimo e Roma made the then-useful point that modern accounts erred in characterizing Roman persecution ofChristians as "political," because in so doing they failed to take into account the religious nature of ancient state institutions. This argument she took to a wider public in / cristiani e Vimpero romano in 1983, translated into English in 1986 and now made available in paperback. The book is divided into two parts. The first, "Christians and Political Power," containing nine of the total thirteen chapters, covers Christian-Roman relations down to the time of Constantine in the early fourth century; four chapters in the briefer second section, "The Christians in the Roman World," address ways in which the new religion adjusted to Roman society. Sordi's story is one of generally benevolent emperors who attempt to shield Christianity to the extent that they can against popular and Senatorial prejudices. The exceptions—Nero and Domitian, for instance—are emperors who abandon Roman principles for a "theocratic and oriental form of dominatio" (p. 29). Christianity and Rome shared a universal outlook that made them natural partners, despite the efforts of persecutors who vainly attempted to impose ethnic distinctions more suitable to Greek and Jewish thought. The argument has a familiar ring. For all of Sordi's detailed and frequently original scholarship, she has failed to distance herself from a conceptual scheme laid down by the apologists of the second and third centuries. It therefore comes as no surprise that in Part One Sordi completely accepts the claims ofAthenagoras, Melito, and others that Montanists were the ones really responsible for alienating Marcus Aurelius from Christianity (p. 72), or those of Tertullian and Hippolytus that Septimius Severas was not to...