Liberty, Dominion, and the Two Swords: On the Origins of Western Political Theology (180–398) (review)

Lester L. Field, Jr. Liberty, Dominion, and the Two Swords: On the Origins of Western Political Theology (180-398) Publications in Medieval Studies, Volume 28 Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1998 Pp. xviii + 542. $95.00 (cloth).

Political theology is by nature a labyrinthine subject, and the present work reflects that fact. In a comprehensive study of the changing relationship between spiritual and temporal powers in the west during the first four centuries of Christianity, Field has laid out the intricacies of conflict and cooperation which characterized the period. The author has clearly done his research. With over 170 pages of notes and almost 80 pages of bibliography appended to a lengthy text, he treats a broad range of topics (e.g., martyrdom, Christian participation in the state, the interplay of emperors and churchmen, the relationship between heresy and orthodoxy, and the Roman primacy) which are related to freedom and dominion. Thus, he provides a multi-faceted explication of issues which continued to be important for both church and state during the Middle Ages.

The principal focus of the volume is the manner in which libertas, understood not as "liberty of conscience" but as "freedom from the evils of sin, death, and domination," represented a cry of resistance throughout the first four centuries of Christianity. During periods of persecution, freedom meant resistance to the temporal power seeking to control Christian faith and practice; during the post-Constantinian years freedom meant resistance to heresy (a term mutually applied to opposite sides of theological debate) seeking to undermine the content of faith and practice. True freedom is an eschatological concept. In the world of time, however, it is always circumscribed by both secular or ecclesiastical institutions, and Field's study has to do with the changing role of these institutions as Christianity developed. While not presenting a particularly new approach, the author provides a good understanding of the ways in which writers from Tertullian and Irenaeus up through Ambrose understood the important issues involved in this development.

Field's treatment of the bishop of Milan, which encompasses roughly the last third of the volume (pp. 185-252), is the clearest and most persuasive part of the book. He deals effectively with the implications of the Callinicum affair and with the excommunication of Theodosius, and he is surely right in noting the significance of a correct reading of Ambrose's famous remark, Imperator enim intra ecclesiam non supra ecclesiam est. Removing the comma before non makes for some important distinctions.

Field has a highly aphoristic writing style, which is rich in suggestion and very thought-provoking. More frequently than one would like, however, it gets in the way of narrative clarity, and makes it difficult to follow the thrust of the author's argument. Fortunately, he has helped the reader to stay oriented by including useful summaries at the end of several (albeit not all) chapters.

The author's extensive citations of source material not only lend persuasive force to his argument but provide much color as well. One quickly gains a sense of both the content and the context of a particular writer's position. Not infrequently, however, these citations are marred by English renderings which are quite infelicitous or inaccurate.

In the Gesta of the Council of Aquileia (CSEL 82/3, 331), for instance, Field (193) has misconstrued the first sentence of Sabinus' comment as well as the meaning of exspectavimus. Later in the same dialogue (ibid., 338) Ambrose surely said, "Anathema on him who does not confess that the son of God is true God" (rather than "does not confess the true Son of God"). In the passage cited above concerning the emperor intra ecclesiam (CSEL 83/2/, 106) the bishop of Milan must have argued that a good emperor does not "reject" (rather than "suppress") the help...