Books Received

Several titles previously published in hardcover are now available in paperback editions. Peter Brown’s The Rise of Western Christianity, originally published in 1996, has been published by Blackwell Publishers for $29.95 (ISBN 1-57718-092-5). From A History of Private Life Harvard University Press excerpted Late Antiquity, also by Brown, a brief (89 pages), well-illustrated paperback priced at $10.00 (ISBN 0-674-51170-0). Hubert Cunliffe-Jones’ A History of Christian Doctrine, originally published in 1987, has been reissued as paperback by T&T Clark, and the North American distributor is Books International, Inc. The text sells for $34.95 (ISBN 0-567-08580-5). G. W. H. Lampe wrote the section on Early Christian theology. Baker Book House just published a paperback editon of J. N. D. Kelly’s Golden Mouth: The Story of John Chrysostom for $19.99 (ISBN 0-8010-2210-X); the original appeared in 1995.

Two new Festschriften have appeared. Frederick Norris, Abraham Malherbe, and James Thompson have put together a collection of essays in honor of Everett Ferguson in The Early Church in Its Context, published by E. J. Brill (ISBN 90-04-10837-7). In addition to twenty-one contributions, mostly by North American scholars, the book includes a nine-page bibliography of Ferguson’s writings, which demonstrate the extent of his contribution to Early Christian studies. Let me add a personal note and acknowedge another of Everett’s contribution to the field, his work as one of the editors of this journal. The price of the volume is a hefty $137.50, but Everett is worth every penny.

The second Festschrift is entitled Nova et Vetera: Patristic Studies in Honor of Thomas Patrick Halton, edited by John Petruccione for the Catholic University of America Press (ISBN 0-8132-0900-5). The collection includes seventeen essays by mostly North American scholars, and the collection reflect Halton’s many interests: exegesis, rhetoric, and textual transmission. A bibliography of his writings reflects these interests. This is only $59.50, less than half the price of the Ferguson volume, but presumably not a reflection upon Tom’s contribution to the discipline.

JECS readers may be interested in two volumes intended primarily for our New Testament brethren. Karl P. Donfried and Peter Richardson have edited Judaism and Christianity in First-Century Rome, published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Co., for $24.00 (pb), ISBN 0-8028-4265-8. It contains ten essays on the Jewish community in Rome, examining both the realia and literary evidence. Most studies relating to Early Christianity deal with the New Testament, but I Clement and Shepherd of Hermas figure prominently in several essays. Walter Elwell and Robert Yarborough haved edited Readings from the First-Century World, published by Baker Book House for $19.99 (pb), ISBN 0-8010-2157-X. It has an intriguing organization. The editors cite a passage from a NT book and then list a source or sources, Jewish, Greek, or Roman, relating to it. For example, I Peter 1:1 refers to the church in Bithynia, so the editors have printed Pliny’s letter about his persecution of the Christians in that region. While this method helps illustrate the NT texts, the relevance of the source to the NT text is often a judgment call by the editor, which does not make the sources easy to find.

Alister McGrath’s Historical Theology: An Introduction to the History of Christian Thought, Baker House Books, $34.95 (pb), ISBN 0-631-20844-5, traces the history of theology from the first century until today. About a fourth of the book deals with “The Patristic Period.” The book is clearly aimed at students, not scholars, whom the author presumes to be familiar with the material. The University of Notre Dame Press has published a handsome edition of John Scottus Eriugena’s Treatise on Divine Predestination, $30.00, ISBN 0-268-04207-1, translated by Mary Brennan. This was a major text in the Carolingian revival of patristic, particularly Augustinian, theology, the first time the Fathers were widely used in theological debate after the patristic period. This is a useful...