Zwischen den Welten wandern: Strukturen des antiken Christentums

In Zwischen den Welten wandern Christoph Markschies offers a “structural history” (Strukturgeschichte) of early Christianity, meaning one which focuses on its development from the first to the fourth centuries in a situation where, as his title suggests, its adherents moved back and forth between their religious world and the earthly society to which they also belonged.

The book is composed of four main sections. The working principle of the first (“space and time”) is that for a long time Christianity was nearly exclusively confined to the Roman Empire, leading Christians to share the general notion that the empire was the only world which mattered. Certainly the empire’s languages, geography, and factors of regionalism (one could add: plain politics) played a role in how Christianity developed. In their view of time, pagan and Christian did differ, not over the perception that history develops toward a predetermined objective, but over the nature of that objective. This difference resulted in a divergence between them over “diagnosing the times” (39). Specific consequences of the Christian perspective on time were the growing significance of Sunday, the dating of Easter, a developing sense of the “liturgical year,” and various approaches taken by ancient historiographers to Christianity’s past. In this context, Markschies makes a plea for dropping the term Frühkatholizismus from current discourse (46), though he considers second-century Christianity to have marked a significant shift from its earlier forms.

The second section (“the individual”) recounts how Christians thought of the major turning-points in their lives, from birth through conversion and baptism, to death. The account includes the notion of conversion in pagan antiquity, rates of conversion and births among Christians, and the differing approaches to death by Christian and pagan. From these considerations Markschies turns to Christian practices and piety. These include the development of the New Testament canon (but with no mention of the Muratorian Fragment), scriptural reading, prayer, pilgrimages, relics, fasting, and practices (such as reciting incantations) borrowed from paganism. The section concludes with several pages on Christian daily life (Alltagsleben), which externally diverged from its pagan counterpart mainly in small things (138), the most visible being perhaps the range of permitted occupations and entertainments.

The third section (“lifestyles”) deals mainly with marriage, family life, slavery, the place of women, and asceticism. The principal theme here is that the church attempted to modify behavior in these categories in the light of gospel teaching, without seriously interrogating the quality of the social constructs themselves. The section closes with a (surprisingly) brief account of monasticism.

In the final section (“the community”) Markschies deals with worship services (format, texts, space), penance, and acts of charity. He also looks at communal life, community structures, communications between communities, and ministries (but with no mention of “ministries of the Word”).

Markschies has covered considerable ground and communicates a broad spectrum of scholarly research, including his own. He is careful to point out what is known, what is not, and what is open to discussion. The reader is assisted by ten illustrations and two maps, as well as a glossary, a bibliography, and several indices. The bibliography is wide-ranging, but could have included Maier on the social setting of early ministries, Meeks on urban Christianity, and Beatrice on Porphyry. On the other hand, the author’s German Evangelical origins lead him to a predilection for Harnack and Campenhausen. On a more minor note, there are no references for the Oxyrhynchus papyri (34), nor for the third-century Roman opponent of married “priests” (224). Also, Markschies refers to Athanasius as the “patriarch” of Alexandria (36 and 66), while indicating this term came into use considerably later (see 201).

As its name implies, the volumes of the “Europäische Geschichte” series aim to display various facets of European history. Like this contribution by Markschies, most were written especially for the series, and are offered at what in Europe is a very reasonable price. Unfortunately, they can only...