The Imperial Cult and the Development of Church Order: Concepts and Images of Authority in Paganism and Early Christianity before the Age of Cyprian (review)

Allen Brent. The Imperial Cult and the Development of Church Order: Concepts and Images of Authority in Paganism and Early Christianity before the Age of Cyprian. Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae, vol. 45. Leiden: Brill, 1999. Pp. xviii + 369. $118.00.

There was a time in the not-too-distant past when scholars routinely evaluated the traditional religions of the Roman empire by Christian standards and, not surprisingly, found them wanting. More recent scholarship has sought to evaluate these religions on their own terms, and found them not only more consistent, but surprisingly vigorous long after the old thinking would have them dead and buried. Rather than seeing Christianity as the driving force behind religious change, this scholarship has also tended to see both Christianity and traditional religion being moved by underlying shifts in religious temperament to which both were obliged to respond.

With this book, the argument comes full circle. Brent's thesis is that Christian ritual developed in direct response to imperial theology as expressed in the ruler cult, thereby exhibiting all the traits of a "contra-culture." After two chapters discussing the thesis and the development of the imperial cult, Brent takes the reader step-by-step through parallel developments in imperial ideology and Church Order as demonstrated in Luke-Acts (ch. 3), Clement of Rome (ch. 4), the Apocalypse (ch. 5), and Ignatius's letters (ch. 6). Two final chapters deal with changes under the Severans. In chapter 7, Brent branches out to discuss universalism in the cults of Isis and Magna Mater and developments in classical philosophy, which he then compares with growing Christian thought about the Trinity. In the final chapter, Brent draws parallels between the careers and thoughts of Elagabalus and Callistus.

This is heady stuff. Few today would argue with the general notion that Christians drew on imperial patterns as they developed their liturgy, just as their apologists drew on the imperial image to flesh out their picture of divine monarchy. Brent seems to acknowledge as much, stating at several points that the real innovation of his book is its systematic application of the concept of a contra-culture to Christian development. In a contra-culture, Brent explains, "the values of the dominant culture are reversed, and members of that contra-culture achieve a status denied them by wider society" (15). Such a group "legitimates itself by constructing an alternative frame of reference with a related alternative scale of values that justified both its significance and indeed its very existence." In this sense, it is "parasitic . . . on the social construction of reality of the host culture" (130).

Brent's approach elicits many useful and insightful parallels between Christian and imperial practice, and his emphasis on the frequently neglected religious significance of imperial cult is all to the good. But his argument is marred on several levels. The most basic one is structural. Brent's standard means of exposition is to assert a point, then take a phrase, note the parallels and move on. The result is a choppy text with some subsections that are no more than a paragraph in length. More importantly, the method prevents a connected exposition and forecloses the opportunity to consider alternative explanations or to explore the ramifications of a decision. The difference between correlation and causation, for instance, is never broached. Instead, the parallel, however tenuous, becomes the proof.

For an argument with such broad implications, Brent's focus is, in fact, surprisingly narrow. His thesis precludes considering the extent to which imperial cult might itself have been influenced by broader trends, because in Brent's view it was the function of imperial cult to assimilate all of these traits to begin with. On the Christian side, although...