The Limits of Ancient Christianity: Essays on Late Antique Thought and Culture in Honor of R. A. Markus (review)

The Limits of Ancient Christianity: Essays on Late Antique Thought and Culture in Honor of R. A. Markus. Edited by William E. Klingshirn and Mark Vessey. [Recentiores: Later Latin Texts and Contexts.] (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press. 1999. Pp. xxv, 348. $54.50.)

This volume is a Festschrift dedicated to Robert Markus, the distinguished British scholar whose contributions to the field of patristics over the past forty years have been significant. His work has embraced a variety of topics including Augustine's philosophy of history and theory of signs; early-Christian self-definition; transformation in the theological and cultural underpinnings of late antiquity; Byzantine Africa; and the thought of Gregory the Great. Sixteen essays by colleagues and disciples of Markus constitute the volume.

In her article "Secundum Carnem: History and Israel in the Theology of St. Augustine," Paula Fredriksen demonstrates that Augustine's mostly positive valuation of the Jews arose from his theology of history and from his championing of the Old Testament against Manichaean detractors. Fredriksen argues convincingly that, unlike other Church Fathers, the bishop of Hippo regarded the Jews as witnesses to God's continuing prophetic revelation even in post-biblical history. In "Ideas of Schism and Heresy in the Post-Nicene Age," Gerald Bonner notes that the distinction between heresy and schism long remained ill-defined in early Christianity. With the alliance of Church and State under Constantine, however, new pressures emerged to define and control orthodoxy more precisely. Bonner's essay provides useful examples of the ways in which imperial expectations coincided with nascent heresiological impulses to produce an age of increasing political and religious conformity.

Literary theory provides the framework for Elizabeth Clark's chapter on "Constraining the Body, Expanding the Text: The Exegesis of Divorce in the Later Latin Fathers." She argues that while seeking to reconcile conflicting biblical and legal passages on divorce, leaders such as Ambrose, Augustine, and Jerome reinterpreted key passages to promote an ascetic message in their commentaries. The impulse toward asceticism in the post-Constantinian Church receives further treatment from David Hunter in "Clerical Celibacy and the Veiling of Virgins: New Boundaries in Late Ancient Christianity." This lucid article posits a direct link between two phenomena that came to prominence in the late fourth century--clerical celibacy and the rite of consecration of virgins. In Hunter's analysis, episcopal control was key: by embracing celibacy (as women ascetics were doing) and by claiming jurisdiction over those very women, bishops signaled that they alone presided over the Christian community as Christ's pure ministers.

Articles by John Cavadini and Carole Straw illuminate Augustine's pivotal role in the Christian understanding of death and Gregory the Great's expansion of the notion of martyrdom to include all Christians whose daily sacrifices and sufferings build up the body of Christ. The final essay is by Peter Brown, close friend and colleague of Markus. The debt owed to Brown by scholars of Late Antiquity is enormous, and in many ways Markus' work has mirrored that of his distinguished compatriot. Here Brown delves into the origins of early medieval Christianity's growing preoccupation with life beyond the grave and the terrifying fires of purgatory. In masterly fashion he concludes that Augustine gave great impetus to the movement by emphasizing the necessity of purgation of sins--great and small--in this world and the next. It is refreshing to witness a scholar such as Brown treat seriously early medieval theological developments that have long been dismissed in many circles as mere superstition. Space limitations preclude analysis of other essays in the volume, but well worth perusal are those by Philip Rousseau, Sidney Griffith, Frederick Russell, Paul Meyvaert, Robert Wilken, and Oliver Nicholson.

First-rate contributions by scholars of repute abound in...