Eusebius, Christianity and Judaism (review)

162 SHOFAR Fall 1994 Vol. 13, No. 1 that Philo saw no contradiction between the fulfillment of the command- .ments of Torah and athletic training. What then are we to do with I Mace. 1:11-15: "and underwent operations to disguise their circumcision, rebelling against the sacred covenant." Was Alexandria different from Jerusalem? There is so much learning in this volume and so much to be learned that one cannot but be sad that it has been diverted to an unprofitable thesis that twists it out of shape. Lou H. Silberman Vanderbilt University/ University of Arizona Eusebius, Christianity and Judaism, edited by Harold W. Attridge and Gohei Hata. Studia Post-Biblica Volume 42. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1992. 802 pp. $94.50. This fine collection of essays goes far beyond the scope that its title suggests. One might expect to I1nd here a set of papers focusing on the works of Eusebius of Caesarea and his views on Christianity and Judaism during the early fourth century. Such contributions are indeed represented , occupying about half the volume. But the editors also have broadened the range to cover anew every topic that Eusebius took up in his Ecclesiastical History and some that he would never have imagined. The result is a sort of" new Euscbius"-a comprehensive scholarly review ofChristianity and Judaism during the I1rst three centuries of our era. The volume is divided into eight sections: (1) Christian Origins, (2) The Growth and Expansion of Christianity, (3) Orthodoxy and Heresy, (4) The Fate of the Jews, (5) Eusebius as Apologist, (6) Eusebius as Exegete, (7) Eusebius and the Empire, and (8) The Legacy of Eusebius. The thirty contributors range from relatively young scholars to well established major figures. The quality of the work represented is generally very high, and the contributions arc fresh, up to date, and informative. For readers of Shofar, the first four sections of the volume will have the most interest. The section on Christian origins includes complementary essays on "Jesus and Judaism," from Christian and Jewish perspectives, by Richard Horsley of the University of Massachusetts at Boston and David Flusser of the Hebrew University ofJerusalem. Richard Horsley interprets Jesus and the proto-Christian response to his ministry in relation to socioeconomic tensions within Jewish society of the period. Professor Flusser's Book Reviews 163 article sets jesus' thaumaturgic career, his criticism of the Pharisees, and his proclamation of the Kingdom of God within the context of contemporary judaism, seeing jesus as the representative and culmination of significant trends within jewish religious development. Both articles are free of religious predilection, and both are thought-provoking. In the second section is a fine article on early Christian and jewish art by joseph Gutmann of Wayne State University. Focusing on the synagogue at Dura-Europos, Gutmann introduces the reader to the scholarly controversies on the roots of Christian art and on the question of whether early judaism interpreted the Second Commandment as forbidding all representational art. While its subject is perhaps of less intrinsic interest to readers ofShofar, the contribution by Charles Bobertz of Loyola College in Maryland deserves notice. This article on the development of episcopal order in early Christianity is one of the best short introductions to that controverted problem available. Professor Bobertz argues that Christian assemblies gained the basic features both of their community organization and of their cultic practice from the jewish synagogue and that ironically it was precisely this jewish heritage that allowed the early Christian community to define itself as separate from Judaism. The section on orthodoxy and heresy includes a contribution by Alan Segal of Barnard College on jewish Christianity. Professor Segal briefly surveys so-called Jewish Christians from Paul and james to the pseudoClementine literature and the Ebionites, searching for an adequate definition of this ambiguous terminology. He concludes that jewish Christianity is not to be understood as an ethnic designation referring to some ancient equivalent of "jews for jesus," but as a theological position on the correct way to carry out the teachings of jesus. Segal sees the phenomenon as deriving from and complementing theological options within judaism of the same period. Under the perhaps too baleful title, "The Fate...