The Religion of the Earliest Churches: Creating a Symbolic World (review)

Gerard Vallée. The Shaping of Christianity: The History and Literature of Its Formative Centuries (100-800). New York: Paulist Press, 1999. Pp. xiii + 265. $21.95.

The purpose of this book, as it states in its introduction, is "to whet the appetite of its readers" (p. 1), to provide those unfamiliar with the events, controversies, and personalities of the formative period of Christianity with some idea of the history of that period, as well as some basis on which to base further study. In the introduction, the author also defends his rather longer definition of the patristic period, and gives readers a sense of historical consciousness, alerting them that this book is not theological, but historical and social in its analysis.

Chapter 1 describes the situation in the Roman empire faced by Christians at the end of the first century. Chapters 2 and 3 analyze the Jewish and Greek backgrounds (while admitting their overlap) that Christianity inherited. Chapter 4 considers syncretism, especially the mystery religions that preexisted and competed with Christianity, and the Gnostics, who competed both within and without Christianity. Chapter 5 considers the major schisms that occurred in the second through the fifth centuries. Chapter 6 traces how Christianity had to adapt to becoming the established religion of the Roman empire, and then to being a survivor of the fall of that empire. Chapter 7 examines a rather huge number of issues under the broad category of praxis, including ethics, liturgy, asceticism, and monasticism. Chapter 8 returns to theological disputes, describing the Christological and Trinitarian controversies of the fourth to the seventh centuries. Chapter 9 examines much of the patristic literature, especially as it relates to Origen, and chapter 10 gives the major historical developments from the end of the Roman empire to the rise of Islam. A conclusion offers final observations, most of which try to tie things together around the conflict and interaction between Christianity and culture: ". . . religion not only is a tolerant friend of culture, but positively needs it in order to express itself and find its necessary embodiment. . . . The difficulty was then for Christianity to grow out of its first inculturation and, further, out of its subsequent ones" (219).

This final sentence is typical of the nuanced yet straightforward approach that the book takes. Christianity never existed in some pristine state and then moved through various tainted compromises with its surroundings: it has always been inculturated, living and breathing a particular culture. But if it were to survive, it had to breathe the air of new cultures, evolving in the process. Such simple but decisive points are found throughout the book, as in the observation that, "To a large extent praxis comes before theory" (98), a simple but sobering statement in a field that tends to privilege the ideas of Christianity over the lives and actions of Christians.

My further observations on the work should not be taken as criticisms, but only as questions to be considered by readers (and by those who might wish to write another patristic introduction). By attempting to cover eight centuries in a little over 200 pages, there were great sacrifices in detail: Jewish sects are described in two pages (31-33, with no description of the Samaritans), as are the Greek philosophical schools (49-51). Valentinus is mentioned (67, 70, 77), but never described. But more interesting is how profoundly the analysis can be shaped by the way in which one groups the material. The fact that mystery religions are treated under the heading "syncretism," rather than as part of the Greek background, already leads one away from thinking of them as a part of or an influence on Christianity. This also reverberates through the analysis of Gnosticism: although it is also treated as a schism, the fact that it has already been analyzed as "syncretism" leads one to regard...