Gregory the Great and His World by R. A. Markus (review)

BOOK REVIEWS441 tine.'" We never really find out (p. xix) "what was at issue when Augustine became a Christian." Danuta R. Shanzer Cornell University Gregory the Great and His World. By R. A. Markus. (NewYork: Cambridge University Press. 1997. Pp. xxiii, 241. $59.95 hardback; $22.95 paperback.) Students of late antique/early medieval history will welcome the appearance of this volume, the work of a major scholar and the much anticipated corollary to his earlier study, The End ofAncient Christianity (Cambridge University Press, 1990). Although of modest size, it is an ambitious undertaking, one demanding the wide-ranging expertise that Markus can bring to bear upon it. As Markus himself points out, the closest parallel in the large and constantly expanding bibliography of Gregorian studies is Dudden's Gregory the Great: His Place in History and Thought (London, 1905), a work of over 900 pages in two volumes that remains a classic in the field, but that also in many respects has been outdated by ninety-three years of subsequent scholarship. In much more limited compass Markus sets out to provide something analogous: a study that places Gregory the Great in the context of both the social world of the late sixth century in which he lived and the intellectual and spiritual world that gave shape to his thought. In doing so he draws on the best of recent scholarship , treating different subjects more or less extensively as the situation requires, often referring the reader to his own previous studies for further information . In the first part of the book, after an introductory chapter devoted largely to a biography of Gregory, it is Gregory's thought world that dominates. Chapters 2-5 explore a number of related issues, but they can be grouped under the key headings of ministry in the Church, the interpretation of Scripture, the approaching end of the world, and the nature of the Christian community. With Chapters 6-12 the focus shifts to the social reality that Gregory confronted in the papal office. Markus leads off with the Christian empire, a matter of central importance, given the degree to which the imperial ideology as fixed byJustinian governed Gregory's perspective. Of no less importance, however, were more local, Italian issues, to which the better part of three chapters is devoted. In the remaining chapters the focus ranges over the rest of the world as Gregory understood it,from the churches of Dalmatia and Illyricum to Anglo-Saxon England. Because of the variety of subjects addressed, the book is difficult to summarize , and in his brief epilogue Markus himself makes no attempt to do so. There are, however, several themes that recur throughout, the most prominent being "The Civ. Dei dominates the discussion overwhelmingly. 442BOOK REVIEWS the notion of a major intellectual and spiritual shift that occurred in the Latin West between A.D. 400 and 600 and that forever separated the Christianity of St. Augustine and John Cassian from that of Gregory the Great. In The End of Ancient Christianity Markus develops the idea at length. The basic change had to do with a contraction of the intermediate realm of the 'secular,' the realm of religious neutrality that separates the 'sacred' from the 'profane.' The precipitating cause was the triumph of an ascetic form of Christianity that made little provision for the innocent vestiges of ancient, non-Christian culture. Despite the profound influence that Augustine exerted on Gregory, therefore, they inhabited different worlds. Whereas Augustine lived and wrote in a varied intellectual culture, Markus states, Gregory's was much more homogeneously biblical. The idea is an illuminating one and can, I think, be employed to help explain real differences. It may also, perhaps, encourage the exaggeration of others. Drawing on his Signs and Meanings: World and Text in Ancient Christianity (Liverpool University Press, 1996), Markus presents Gregory's approach to allegorical exegesis as completely lacking the restraint and caution that characterized Augustine's. The point may seem surprising, given Augustine's ability to provide allegorical readings of Scripture as fanciful as anyone's. However, this is a minor caveat. Judged by the breadth of its scholarship and the richness of its ideas, Gregory the Great...