Judaism & Christianity in the Age of Constantine: History, Messiah, Israel, and the Initial Confrontation (review)

When Jacob Neusner's Judaism & Christianity in the Age of Constantine first appeared in 1987, it was on the cusp of newer scholarship that was postponing the decisive split between the two religions from the first century to the fourth. Following this trend, Neusner believed he had identified in the Age of Constantine a unique moment in the relationship between the two faiths, one in which Christians and Jews, both reacting to the changes effected by that emperor's conversion, for the first time confronted each other over questions of history and identity. As a result of this confrontation, "Judaism as we have known it was born" (p. ix). In a series of chapters, Neusner compares his readings of the document familiarly known as the Jerusalem Talmud (Neusner prefers "Talmud of the Land of Israel"), which was probably completed during this period, with the writings of three contemporary Christian authors—Eusebius of Caesarea, the celebrated "father of Church History"; the Antiochene priest John Chrysostom, who subsequently became bishop of Constantinople; and Aphrahat, whose poetic homilies earned him the title of "the Persian sage." As never before or since (until modern times), Neusner argued, these authors addressed the same questions and used the same methods and same texts, and did all of this in an atmosphere of civility and respect, "each with dignity, each in defense of the new faith" (p. 152).

This is a sweeping claim. Readers will immediately wonder why Justin's Dialogue with Trypho in the second century or Jerome's interactions with Jewish tutors in the fifth do not constitute similar confrontations, especially since, as Neusner is forced to admit, there is no evidence his authors were directly responding to each other, or even aware of the arguments being put forth by the other side. The answer lies, in part, in the limited selection of texts Neusner considers. This book is part of a trilogy that grew out of his study of Mishnaic and Talmudic texts, which do demonstrate the changed interest he discerns. Another reason is that he relies heavily on others for his judgment of Christian authors. Here, too, his selection of texts is limited. In the case of Eusebius, for instance, Neusner limits himself to the Chronicle and Church History—two works completed in whole or part before Constantine's accession—when two other works, the Praeparatio and Demonstratio Evangelica, would have provided much richer evidence of engagement with issues of Jewish history and identity, though hardly with the respect and civility that Neusner maintains characterized this period. Another odd conclusion, that the "principal form in the writings of Eusebius was the saint's biography" seems to be the result of a misreading of Arnaldo Momigliano's classic essay, "Pagan and Christian Historiography" (in Momigliano's The Conflict Between Paganism and Christianity in the Fourth Century [Oxford, 1963], pp. 79–99), where Momigliano was not discussing the Church History but flaws in another work, the Life of Constantine.

Neusner has to stretch some common meaning to make his case. Because the Talmudic scholars and Eusebius both argued from history, for instance, he classifies them as "social scientists" (p. 37), despite the obvious theological bent to their writings. Momigliano, in the same essay Neusner used above, came closer to the mark when he observed that, to Eusebius, "chronology was something between an exact science and an instrument of propaganda" (p. 85). Similarly, Neusner's fungible definition of such terms as "confrontation" and "debate" can lead to confusion in the reader, if not himself. In a chapter on "falsification," in which Neusner tests his thesis against the writings of Jerome, he concludes that, despite direct interaction, Jerome does constitute either a debate or a confrontation because, "[w]hile Judaic and Christian exegetes may have met in confrontation on a given verse" and "we find numerous indications of Jerome's knowledge of Judaic exegesis," the sages do not...