History and Religion in Late Antique Syria by Han J. W. Drijvers (review)

746book reviews His new book aims to "tell in its own way a story that is aUeady weU known . . ." (p. x). It. is, indeed, very much in its own way.That the book is perhaps less surprising than so much in Peter Brown's writings is in very large measure the result of their success in shaping a generation's view of the history of Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages.That we have come to give weight to the religious and cultural assumptions and expectations ofLate Roman persons in their history and that we are far more sensitive to the ways in which these determined their approach to the administrative and political developments in their societies, we owe mainly to Peter Brown's work. The air of famiUarity about his account of the formation ofWestern Christendom is a measure of his achievement. It is hard to single out any among the many muminating discussions.The redescription of "barbarians" (pp. 8-12), the marveUously lucid and humane account of the christological debates of the fifth century (pp. 70-75), the treatment of"paganism" as the power of the past to re-emerge in the Christian present (pp. 98-99), the pages on Gregory ofTours and the Christian world of sixth-century Gaul (pp. 107-110), the Uluminating comparison of country and city-Christianity in the East and the West (pp. 116-117), of Chalcedonian and dissident communities (pp. 130- 131), the description of a nouvelle cuisine ofa simple,"rustic," Christianity put forward as a setf-conscious alternative to the reUgion of the old high culture by men such as Caesarius ofAries and Gregory of Tours (pp. 151-152), and the portrayal of "micro-Christendoms" more or less isolated from a larger ecumenical world, driven to pursue their own form of completeness reflecting in microcosm"the imagined, aU-embracing macrocosm of a world-wide Christianity" (p. 218): these seem to the present reviewer among the high points. Perhaps most important, because most often neglected, is the underlying conception of Christianity as less a fixed quantity than a constantly developing body of normative belief and practice, variable not only in time but also from place to place. Rich in insights, highly readable and informative, the book wiU give those unfamiliar with the period a sense ofits shape and interest, to those more at home in it a great deal to ponder, and to both sorts much deUght. R.A. Markus Nottingham History and Religion in Late Antique Syria. By Han J.W. Drijvers. [Variorum CoUected Studies Series, 464.] (Brookfield, Vermont: Variorum, Ashgate Publishing Co. 1994. Pp. xii, 305. $87.50.) Professor Drijvers has had a remarkable career at the University of Groningen . Beginning with his groundbreaking study of Bardaisan (1966), he has labored to transform the study of Syriac Christianity from the stepchUd of theology to a subdiscipline of the study of Late Antiquity.The present volume book reviews747 contains a reprint coUection of nineteen articles originally published between 1983 and 1992.This was a remarkably fruitful decade of scholarly enterprise. The first section includes ten articles in which aspects of problems related to the roots of Syriac Christianity were re-examined. He studied the relationships between Jews and Christians, pseudepigraphical Uterature produced and/or transmitted in Syriac, the theology and influence ofTatian, and Syriac Christian spirituaUty. He argued throughout that the roots of early Syriac Christianity are to be found in middle-Platonic thought and not in some sentimental theory of Jewish Aramaic origins. Another group of articles in this collection dealt with Marcion and the Marcionites who were competitors of Bardaisan and the Manichaeans as weU as Ephrem of Syria. In articles which have yet to receive serious consideration in early Christian studies, Drijvers, correctly I would argue, identified Marcion's philosophical system as dependent upon a particular middle-Platonic perspective .This analysis which goes against the standard fare found in generations of textbooks on early Christianity wiU require significant re-examination ofthe relevant texts. The third branch of the coUection presents two of Drijver's most controversial articles.These deal with Manichaeism.What has offended many scholars of Syriac studies, although few have made serious efforts to present...