The Cambridge History of Christianity, Volume 1: Origins to Constantine (review)

Early Christianity has officially entered the Handbook Age. In less than five years we have witnessed the publication of the first two volumes of the new Cambridge History of Christianity, which range from Jesus to the year 600, the Cambridge History of Early Christian Literature (2004), the Westminster Handbook to Patristic Theology (2005), the English translation of the German patrology Fathers of the Church (2007), and the Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Studies (2008)—to which we may add the several major dictionaries and encyclopedias published in the previous decade, as well as the revised third edition of the Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (2005). This is, of course, a phenomenon that is occurring in nearly every field: Routledge lists over 1800 handbooks, from Japanese culture and financial cryptography to couples therapy and pesticides, while Cambridge publishes a modest 778 “companions.” The production of vast numbers of reference books capitalizes on the convergence of several factors in manufacturing, distribution, marketing, sales, communication, and publication technology. Imagine editing such a volume before email, online library catalogs, Microsoft Word Track Changes, and computerized layout! Fueling this sizeable industry is the explosion of available knowledge and the natural desire to boil it down for easy consumption—no easy task, to be sure.

In this dense market situation, the first volume of the Cambridge History of Christianity succeeds admirably. The nine-volume series proposes to offer nothing less than “ the first complete chronological account of the development of Christianity in all its aspects—theological, social, political, regional, global—from the time of Christ to the present day” ( http://www.cambridge.org/uk ). This multifaceted design reflects several shifts in patristics/early Christian studies over the past century that have led to the incorporation of new socio-historical and theoretical approaches. The significance of this fact for the state of our field should not be missed. In a time of deep cultural division in the U.S. and the U.K., from which most of the contributors come, the fact that the regular meetings of the patristic societies in these countries, like the volume under review, contain sections on cultural contexts, multiple origins, self-definition, geographical variety, mainstream theological developments, and enculturation stands in contrast with the greater fragmentation that has occurred in other fields—including the study of other periods of church history. The recognition that these different approaches succeed most when they are allowed to challenge and learn from each other is an especially encouraging sign. How long it will last remains to be seen.

The most significant virtue of this volume is to bring a measured correction to the prevailing emphasis on the diversity of early Christianity. While preserving the complexities that we now take for granted, it seeks, at the same time, to indicate “some of the elements that make it possible to trace a certain coherence, a recognizable identity, maintained over time and defended resolutely despite cultural pressure that could have produced something other” (xiii). After this has all been accomplished, the editors ask in conclusion whether it is possible “to trace in the acorn” of the ancient period “the lineaments of the oak tree” of post-Constantinian Christianity. Again they answer with a qualified affirmative, in consideration of the “structures and forms of discourse . . . the texts, rituals, lifestyles, institutions, laws, forms of education and socialization, and various modes of historical self-understanding” established in the first three centuries that came to distinguish Christianity from then on (586). Given this perspective, it is fitting that the only single author to merit a whole chapter is Irenaeus, whose central focus was on “the universality of the church” (262), though Origen understandably receives equal attention scattered throughout. Thus one finds in these pages neither a pristine orthodoxy challenged by later divergences, nor an original heresy spoiled by orthodox corruption, but rather the dialectical construction of orthodoxies over and against heresies throughout the entire period. Rather than doctrinal development...