La Iglesia como sistema de dominación en la Antigüedad Tardía ed. by José Fernández Ubiña (review)

Max Weber defined domination (Herrschaft.), the cornerstone of his sociology of political, religious, and economic organizations, as "the probability that a command with a given specific content will be obeyed by a given group of persons" (Economy and Society, edd. Guenther Roth and Claus Wittich [Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1978], p. 53). The culmination of a three-year international research project based at the University of Granada, this book seeks to investigate the applicability of Weber's theory of domination to the political establishment of Christianity in the later Roman empire. Given Weber's continuing importance and influence, this is an exciting prospect. Unfortunately, while a few of the book's authors do engage with Weber—above all, Gonzalo Bravo Castañeda, the only author to actually quote him—most do not, except indirectly in their titles, introductions, or conclusions. This will prove a disappointment to readers interested in a comparative approach to the sociology and politics of the early Church. Yet because the papers, written by experts, are so informative for the wide range of religious and political topics they do cover, the book as a whole is far from being a disappointment.

The book's overall structure reinforces its Weberian intentions. Part One is introduced by the most theoretical piece in the book, Bravo Castañeda's assessment of church and empire as "systems of domination." The remaining papers in this section survey the confluences between theology and politics—Arian/Nicene Christian and Muslim—in the fourth-century Roman empire (Andrew Fear), Visigothic Spain in the late sixth century (Pedro Castillo Maldonado), and alAndalus in the early eighth century (Luis A. García Moreno). Part Two examines the role that bishops and monks played in the consolidation of ecclesiastical domination. Bishops are featured in papers on the definition of episcopal power in the pre-Constantinian period (José Fernández Ubiña), the historiography of the schism surrounding Meletius of Antioch (Alberto Quiroga Puertas), and the collaboration between bishops and barbarian rulers in the fifth- and early sixth-century West (Purificación Ubric Rabaneda). This part concludes with an essay on monks and the practice of charity as reflected in Spanish monastic rules of the sixth and seventh centuries (Francisco Salvador Ventura). Part Three focuses on the instruments of domination. Under this heading are gathered a more diverse group of papers. Immacolata Aulisa studies the process by which imperial territory was organized into ecclesiastical dioceses, governed by bishops, and furnished with church buildings. Chantal Gabrielli investigates the political value of martyr cults in Donatist and Caecilianist North Africa. Jamie Wood analyzes preaching as a form of education and persuasion in Augustine's De catechizandis rudibus. and Martin of Braga's De correctione rusticorum. Amparo Pedregal examines models of exemplary women (martyrs, ascetics, wives, and mothers) as mechanisms for church control. Céline Martin identifies definitions of paganism in Visigothic legislation of the sixth and seventh centuries as forms of domination. And in the final paper—there is no conclusion—Raúl González Salinero traces the transformation of anti-Jewish polemic into legislation and violence against those who along with heretics and pagans "evaded [church] control and refused to accept its claims to universal authority" (escapaban a su control y se resistían a aceptar su pretendida autoridad universal, p. 308).

In their introduction, the editors express the hope that their work will be useful in future investigations of the subject (p. 19). One might begin by suggesting that further research place more emphasis on two points with which Weber was greatly concerned and which have continued to draw the attention of scholars (Mark Haugaard, "Domination," in Encyclopedia of Social Theory, ed. Austin Harrington, Barbara L. Marshall, and Hans...