Proclus of Constantinople and the Cult of the Virgin in Late Antiquity: Homilies 1-5, Texts and Translations (review)

The tumultuous Christological debates of late antiquity have received much scholarly attention in recent years. Nicholas Constas's book on Proclus of Constantinople—a key player in the events but one generally understudied—is more than an addition to the conversation. It charts genuinely new ground. At the same time, it offers one of the most bracing, even exhilarating treatments of an ancient Christian homilist that I have read. It is a feast from start to finish.

The book is organized in three self-standing sections: chapters 1–3 present an historical account of Proclus' career; chapter 4 is a critical edition, translation, and commentary on Homilies 1–5; chapters 5 and 6 are excursions into the densely textured imagery of Proclus' rhetoric. These are followed by an appendix treating the Christology of Proclus according to the familiar 20th century categories best known to scholars through the work of Alyos Grillmeier, a lavish bibliography, and generous indices.

The historical chapters are challenged by the lack of reliable evidence. Constas is judicious in his treatment of what little there is, and he supplements by contextualizing Proclus as an early fifth century homilist. He is particularly illuminating in his presentation of Constantinople's intellectual life at the time. The account of the controversies surrounding the Council of Ephesus in 431 is fresh and vividly told, not least because Proclus himself offers a vantage point that differs from the more familiar stories of Cyril and Nestorius. Delving fearlessly into the murky years following Ephesus, Constas is especially interesting in his consideration of Proclus's Tome to the Armenians and the often unexpected ramifications (political as well as theological and religious) that might attend ancient biblical translation projects.

Of course, the homilies are the heart and soul of the volume, the jewels in its crown. Only Homily 1 has previously been translated into English, and it alone has had a reliable critical edition prior to Constas' work here. That said, the editions in this volume are sumptuously done. With ample discussions and apparatus and with Greek and English on facing pages, the scholar luxuriates in ease and depth of use. The translations are elegant, supple, and lyrically rendered, fittingly voiced counterparts to Proclus' exquisite artistry. The commentaries are a boon, digging deep into related literature from a variety of genres and producing intriguing parallels in Syriac as well as Greek texts. Despite their relative brevity, these homilies are a treasure trove for the historian no less than the theologian. Presented at the moment Marian piety leaps to the forefront of ancient Christian devotion, they mark the establishment of new Marian feast days, the evolution of dramatic liturgical changes, the "stuff" of civic religion in a still pluralistic urban context, and the intensely public role played by religious speech and performance in the late antique city. They make for riveting reading in and of themselves.

The tour-de-force comes in the final two chapters on imagery. Chapter five takes the theme of Mary's conceptio per aurem and launches into a remarkable exploration of the "poetics of sound" in ancient Christian imagination. This provides a means for engaging the mystery of the incarnation in terms that fully realize the profundity of bodily perception and experience. Chapter six is a frankly dizzying foray into weaving as a social and political phenomenon of late antiquity and, indeed, of the ancient world more broadly: a staple of daily existence, a device of social control, gendered behavior (and paradoxically resistant empowerment), an archetypal theme from folklore, a master craftsman's image for poetic prowess, and a theologian's incomparable symbol for how the divine and human natures joined in Mary's womb.

These chapters dazzle and delight, bordering on the excessive as does Proclus's own rhetoric. But they offer perhaps the most important insight of this book...