Encyclopedia of the Early Church (review)

This formidable work of reference should be on the shelves of every college and seminary library. It is attractively produced and extremely instructive. Like every work of reference, it has its particular strong points, and on these it should be one of the first books to consult; but it also has peculiarities, which amount in many cases to shortcomings, and it suffers from many errors, especially in syntax and typography. If your students tell you that "Catechesis" is derived "from the verb χριστός," and in "Catechumen," "Paul used the verb κρύπτειν, meaning to teach the faith orally," this is where they got the information.

The Institutum Patristicum Augustinianum in Rome originated this encyclopedia, which appeared first in Italian. Therefore the reader will not be surprised that the majority of articles are by Italian scholars, some of them already internationally famous, and others, on the evidence of their articles, destined to be. Manlio Simonetti certainly belongs in the first category, and he is represented by articles on every aspect of the history of theology and exegesis, as well as on early Irish and British writers. Salvatore Lilla is given most of the responsibility for philosophers and philosophy (with the important exception of "Stoicism and the Fathers," by Carlo Tibiletti); Tito Orlandi, Paolo Siniscalco, Maria Grazia Mara and Pier Franco Beatrice all confirm their reputations for solid, illuminating scholarship. Long-time Roman resident Basil Studer stands out for his treatment of doctrinal issues. The encyclopedia gives particularly strong coverage to areas like the Balkans and the eastern fringes of the Roman Empire, and the detail provided on artistic and architectural remains is outstanding. There are sections on archeology in the articles provided for each province of the Roman Empire. This interest in realia is also reflected in the 44 maps and 320 figures (plans and photographs, some in color) appended to the second volume.

Articles are cross-referenced by an asterisk inserted before each word on which the reader can find another article elsewhere in the encyclopedia; this becomes tedious when the term is * Fathers, * letter, or even *God. It would have been better to exercise discernment and make cross-references only to articles which could throw light on the matter at hand. Many of the articles themselves are listed in places where only a browser would find them, e.g., "Anonymous Apollinarist," "Anonymous Apollinarists," and several others, as well as too many entries beginning with "Ad" and "De" to list. There is an Index, but it is not particularly helpful: what does one do with 115 bare page references for "Cross, Crucifix" or 151 for "Liturgy," while the reader who looks up "Worship" finds nothing, not even a cross-reference? One useful feature of the index is that it gives the page references for the contributions of each author in the encyclopedia. Finally, the bibliographical updating is rather hit-or-miss: for example, "Baleari" has been enriched with a reference to an article by Raymond Van Dam on Consentius—but it has not been added to the bibliography for "Consentius"; "Noetus of Smyrna" lists only Hilgenfeld's century-old treatment, not the more recent work of Nautin and Butterworth.

Some articles lack balance. For example, "Acts and Canons, Conciliar" and "Blessing" are exclusively Latin. This shortcoming is noticeable in other articles such as "Liturgical Year," and in the absence of Greek technical terms alongside their Latin equivalents in many places. "Antiquity-Novelty" deals with the Bible and sees novelty as unequivocally good, leaving an unwary reader in the dark about the coherence of Judaism and also ignoring the intensely negative attitude of the Fathers toward doctrinal innovation. "Aristotelianism" omits John Philoponos, and "Augustine" and "Augustinianism" are more triumphalist than explanatory. The article "Canonical" is oddly limited, and equipped with a bibliography on cathedral canons! "Diaconate (minor * ministries)" does not discuss deacons (though there is an article "Deaconesses"), and neither "Clergy" nor "Ministries...