Gillian Clark, Christianity and Roman Society - Huntington University

104 BOOK REVIEWS
Foucaultian revisionists (66-70). Clark posits the possibility that we are simply working
with “rhetoric all the way down” (69, 77). The chapter capitalizes upon examples of
monastic near-starvation, voluntary squalor, and repressed sexuality, but only casts a
brief sympathetic glance upon the life of prayer and scriptural meditation. Clark helpfully
contrasts Christian asceticism with the contemporaneous non-Christian versions.
Christian asceticism was “accessible to the poor and uneducated” (75), and Christian
ascetics “were expected to care for those in need” (75-6).
Chapter five discusses Christian education, literacy, and preaching. Although early
Christians were “people of the book,” they were by no means all literate. Opponents of
Christianity often castigated its “simplicity,” but actual Christian attitudes toward Greco-
Roman philosophy, education, and rhetoric varied. The generation of late-fourth century
bishops, in particular, was “outstanding for brilliance and productivity” (87). For
example, “Ambrose was quite capable of attacking ‘dialectic,’ that is, philosophical
argument, in a sermon that made use of dialectic” (82-3). Of course, homiletical
standards varied among congregations, and some preaching “must have been mediocre or
even misguided” (88). On the other hand, Clark argues (against Ramsay MacMullen) that
the sermons of John Chrysostom were not intended only for an elite urban audience
consisting of the wealthy and well-educated (87-8). Church leaders “recognized their
obligation to make the good news reach the poor and the country people and foreigners”
(88).
The final chapter canvasses the events leading up to and following the reign of
Constantine. Clark notes that “every stage” of the traditional narrative has been
questioned (94-5). Constantine clearly supported Christianity “in the same way that
previous emperors had shown support for their favourite cults, by making lavish gifts”
(101). Clark queries whether the Constantinian turn drained qualified talent from public
service, and basically answers no. “Only a few people are known to have moved from
public service to church service; and church service increasingly became public service,
especially in dealing with legal disputes and in providing for the poor” (105). What
difference did “Christianization” make? Not as much as one might expect: “Law has to
be enforceable, and Christian emperors had to legislate for an empire that was not
consistently Christian” (107).
“One difference that Christianity did make,” contends Clark, “was in provision for
the poor” (107). Although those historians who “think that religion is the pursuit of
politics by other means” may view the development of Christian charity as an attempt to
develop “rival patronage” (or a “power base”), Clark wisely avoids such simplistic
reductionism (107-1). She also argues against equating the later Christian oppression of
pagans with the former pagan oppression of Christians (113). Clark concludes that
Christianity changed Roman society, and Roman society changed Christianity. The
bishops of Late Antiquity wrestled with popular, syncretistic views of patron saints,
Christian pilgrimages, and martyr festivals (114-5). Yet the church survived the decline
of Rome and preserved and transmitted much of classical culture into the medieval world.
Even today, the Roman-Christian heritage raises sensitive questions about cultural
identity and the Western tradition (116-7).