Vers la pensée unique. La monté de l'intolérance dans l'antiquité tardive (review)

As the author explains in the preface, this book sets out to describe the world of late antiquity as one characterized by the transformation from an anthropocentric society into a theocratic one, with religion as the single most important identifier and intolerance as the most distinctive spin-off of that transformation.

Chapter One discusses two sets of paradigms in the modern study of the later Roman world: the one that stresses continuity (as evidenced by the work of Peter Brown in particular) versus a more recent one that tries to come to grips with strong new evidence supporting the more traditional notion of decline and fall, as proposed by equally illustrious scholars such as Andrea Giardina, Wolf Liebeschuetz, and Bryan Ward-Perkins.

In Chapter Two, the author zooms in on developments she sees as the first step in the transformation of the Roman world, namely the emergence of a state religion starting with the policies of Decius and culminating in the reign of Constantine. Decius is credited with the transfer of religious prerogatives from city to state and is held responsible for the development of a "model of persecution." Because of all of this, Decius is seen as laying the foundation for the fragmentation and in-group conflicts that are to characterize the history of the early church down to the very end of antiquity. With regard to the phenomenon of ecumenical councils as instituted by Constantine, Athanassiadi stresses that violence was its most essential feature, underlining that it is the same sort of violence that also crops up in—and in fact permeates—the works of Eusebius of Caesarea.

Chapter Three, while briefly continuing the discussion of Eusebius, Constantine and his dynasty, is essentially about "the caliph of Hellenism," i.e. the emperor Julian. His efforts to institute a "pagan church" and a "unity of faith" are discussed as reflecting the spirit of the times in that such efforts were to encompass society as a whole and entailed the use of force vis-à-vis those that could not or did not want to comply. In a structural sense, Julian was as committed to furthering the cause of "monodoxy" as were his Christian contemporaries.

Chapter Four deals with orthodoxy within Christianity. It treats Nestorius, heresy, Chalcedon, and, in particular, the late antique tendency to circumscribe and codify every aspect of life, as evidenced, on the one hand, by Justinian's law codes and, on the other, by the emergence of florilegia and catenae compiled by ecclesiastical writers. Inasmuch as precise definitions always result in including some and excluding others, all this codification resulted in a "climate of theological terror" that, in the end, enabled those in power to accuse of heresy not only the living, but those who had been long dead (as happened to Origen, most famously, and to others such as the Three Chapters). An epilogue or "counterpoint" rounds off the book. It briefly discusses the life of Symeon of Edessa (the Fool) and Maximus the Confessor (the Wise) as two very different examples of people in whose lives spirituality triumphed over dogma.

The book under review here results from a series of lectures that were held at the Collège de France in 2006. Although revised, the original lectures have lost nothing of their original freshness: the book is well written and a joy to read; the author never beats around the bush. In particular, when it comes to characterizations or phraseology the author shows herself to be spot on throughout. Examples include the remark that the ancient Greek language did not know a separate word for "intolerance," the observation that conversion is nothing but violence by other means, or the conclusion that "to sacrifice eternal life to one's life in this world, or the opposite, was an impossible dilemma (for the average Christian)." Paragraph headings such as "Justinian and the end of laughter" likewise show that here there...