Religion booknotes

...Mark Francis • John Gallen Christian eyes to the East...

...Neo-Platonism...

...There are entries on all Au- himself points out in more than one edited by G. W. Bowersock, Peter gustine's extant writings and thematic ar- place, suggests a confession of praise Brown, and Oleg Grabar tides on major doctrinal and philosophical and an affirmation of faith as well as a Harvard University Press, $49.95., 780 pp...

...True, some have rian) Copts of Alexandria are now seek- more talent and desire for public enTELL IT ON THE ing to undo that damage...

...cracies...

...Each side is understand- PO.Box 397, Woodstock, VT 05091-0397 Lawrence S. Cunningham teaches theology Call Toll Free (877) 863-0222 at the University of Notre Dame...

...The welter of detail does not detract from the work's overall aim which is to provide a guide to the new directions in the historiography of the era that "point firmly away from any commonly accepted stereotypes of the period...

...tailed essays on the reception of Augustine's thought (by Thomas Aquinas, Erasmus, Luther, Calvin, and others) chart his lasting influence...

...In Possidius, writing shortly reading about regional councils and AuA after the death of the great gustine's visits to various cities it would African bishop, opined that have been nice to have had a map of it would be difficult for an educated where these places were...

...Alas, there was no entry for her...

...One can get some sense of this linguistic expansion by recognizing that before the end of the first millennium, "more than five hundred titles of books in Syriac are attested in China, among them a Holy Scripture containing twenty-seven books, including probably Old Testament books...

...For some weeks I read systematically through these to satisfy my somewhat promiscuous intellectual curiosity...

...Having recently read that "classics" have been staples in my class- Lawrence S. Cunningham letter (more like a treatise), I looked up room teaching and other works have Proba...

...It is the precise merit of Gillman and Klimkeit's book to illustrate in copious detail how these various religious traditions intermingled, dashed, or lived in uneasy neighborliness...

...WILLIAM M. SHEA authors offer what seems to be, at least the public interest than they do for Saint Louis, Mo...

...The second is Ruddy's Rome were even worse) in the face of tension between the demands of the equally straightforward awareness, "heretical" Christians, and how little in- academy and the needs of the church...

...The second consists of more traditional treatments of specific topics...

...I hope Ruddy is not setting up a CELEBRATE LITURGY & SPIRITUALITY fect complement to the first volume of tension between being a professional COME TO Samuel Moffett's A History of Christiani- person and being a Christian, whether VERMONT'S LITURGY FESTIVAL ty in Asia (HarperSanFrancisco, 1992...

...to what But had I not already known that the letdegree is it historical and to what de- ter to Proba contained a commentary on Augustine through the Ages: An gree rhetorically constructed...

...They are also good at making use of historical and archaeological evidence to assess the value of competing Christian traditions in the East (for example, the "Thomas" Christians of Southern India who claim apostolic origin...

...The range of topics is fascinating: one can read about agriculture, the baking of bread, how the governments of the period handled the problem of famine, the various forms of music at the time, etc...

...Also included are bio- There are so much valuable synthesis By "Late Antiquity" the distinguished graphical essays on individuals and so- of scholarly material and so many odd editors of this volume mean the period cial groups of Augustine's time, from the pieces of information in Augustine from roughly A.D...

...educational and ecclesiastical bureauSebastian Brock, Kathleen McVey, Sid- Think of Erasmus...

...There are reasons Tell It On The Mountain in each case...

...Finally, there are wonderful entries on pastoral, homiletic, and liturgical practices in the North African church, and also reports on the extensive archeological research at sites connected to his life and times...

...It was neither academic circles...

...1-1 etly antagonistic, as is my own situa- www.tellitonthemountain.com tion in Saint Louis...

...In the second part, called "the alphabetical guide," there are hundreds of entries of varying length covering places, persons, movements, and aspects of culture...

...in others A RETREAT AND REVELS EVENT on the same waves of plague that dev- it is nonexistent...

...The better Christian KILLINGTON MOUNTAIN though Gillman and Klimkeit seem more you are, the better you should be at LABOR DAY WEEKEND thorough...

...None appear to be caught in a deracination...

...commendation...

...stymied in finding out even minimal inedited by Allan D. Fitzgerald, O.S.A...

...The authors (one an Australian...

...Nevertheless, this Eerdmans, $75, 902 pp...

...It will Commonweal 2 9 June 2, 2000...

...This is consolation...

...But none of this amounts to is a useful reminder that dialogue and a crisis in the practice of theology...

...issues (everything from Christology to confession of sin...

...Both volumes invite us to turn our be a good one, and the rest will follow...

...emic time working hard in local geous...

...which the Lord's Prayer, I might well have been Encyclopedia are surveyed in a balanced fashion...

...ably nervous about the other...

...Somehow the Though I agree with Ruddy that the George Higgins . Nathan Mitchell world seems a smaller place when one relationship between bishops and the- Donald Neumann . Basil Pennington learns that Tibetans had contact with ologians in this country is in desper- David Power • Helen Prejean both the Nestorian Christians of Central ate need of construction, the situation Robert Rambusch Asia and the Manichaeans of Persia as we find ourselves in is a new one and Wayne Teasdale and others early as the eighth century, and that the there is responsibility enough to go CELEBRATE WITH THE Music OF Hildegard VonBingen • Mozart Gregorian decline of Asian Christianity in the four- round...

...But, of course, Christianity also moved eastward, as the chapter heads under "Christians in Asia before 1500" show: Arabia, Armenia, Georgia, Persia (Iran), India, Central Asia (via the southern and northern silk routes), China, and Southeast Asia...

...The MOUNTAIN the search for mutual understanding are fact is, if you want to work in a univer- t always to be preferred...

...Their work also benefits from your work-unless you are in the SEPTEMBER 1.4, 2000 some black-and-white illustrations as wrong line in the first place...

...in some few it is qui- For more information astated Europe...

...Ruddy's aim, as I this unfailingly interesting volume, it is connection to the church...

...organized...

...The recent discussions be- tween "faith and reason" endemic to Bonaventure) and present (Rahner tween (Chalcedonian) Rome and (Nesto- the intellectual life...

...more convinced that Garry Wills's re- work belongs on the reference shelf of cent decision in his book on Augustine every theological library...

...As Christianity moved east, it had inevitable clashes with other great religious traditions: the fire worshipers of Iran, the slow but inexorable spread of Islam from the seventh century on, the religious traditions of the Indus Valley which we conveniently lump under the generic title of Hinduism, and, of course, Buddhism...

...In addition, there are generous treatments of movements as diverse (to stay with just the letter M) as the Manicheans, monasticism, Mandean religion, magic, Muhammad, and Mithraism, to say nothing of mosaics, both ecclesiastical and secular, metal ware, the making of maps and medallions...

...First, the vol- to the Indus River...

...The roster of scholars is impressive...

...The long essays have ample footnotes for further study and the alphabetical entries have a select bibliography...

...person to read and understand all of Second, this work is not encyclopedic...

...The book is handsome and economically priced...

...the saint's writings...

...But I don't think he's got the At the end of their long narrative, the churches, and many publish more in lay of the land...

...After just clopedia's extensive essay on De Doct- She is mentioned by name in the entry working through the entire De Trinitate rina Christiana, so influential in biblical on prayer, but there is no indication of in seminar (anyone who has attempted interpretation and literary theory, Ernest who she was...

...Because of the complexity of the period, they do not privilege entries dealing with Christianity, information that is readily available in sources like The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church...

...In fact, if bent low under the burden of academ- more than bureaucratic self-interest at there is a single criticism to be made of ic culture to the detriment of their work in each side...

...This designation covmember, to the Pelagians with whom he ume should have provided a few visual ers the interlocked worlds of Rome, battled...

...gustine through the Ages...

...The essays touch not only on big ideas and big movements but also on what the many discrete researches, ranging from literary criticism to anthropology, tell us...

...A dialect of Aramaic, Syriac developed mainly in Edessa on the east bank of the Euphrates in what is present-day Turkey...

...sity you have to be a scholar of some JUBILEE 2000 Gillman and Klimkeit's work is a per- sort...

...While there are schematic boxes in- Byzantium, the Persian Empire, and the gustine's schooling in rhetoric and the im- dicating the order of Augustine's ser- newly emerging culture and kingdoms pact of Cicero, are taken up as well...

...In some dioceses, the relation- Chant • Haugen • Taize teenth century may be partially blamed ship is forming quite nicely...

...They subsequently discov- and Protestant, that I help train, exhibit creasing captivity to the mores of the ered how rigid were the Chalcedonian nearly universally a desire to serve the academy and its concurrent ecclesial Christians (the later missionaries from church...

...But I am hopeful that it will ney Griffith, Joseph Amar, Susan Har- Nor are these "older theologians" happen, because there is so much vey, and Robin Darling Young...

...Christians in Asia before 1500 by Ian Gillman and Hans-Joachim Klimkeit University of Michigan, $55,391 pp...

...In this long narrative the crucial role that Syriac played in the expansion of Christianity to the East stands out...

...We tend to think of early Christian expansion in terms of its thrust toward the West: from Jerusalem, say, along the Mediterranean littoral with probes into what is now Turkey (Galatia, Ephesus, etc...

...This massive volume is an extremely to translate confessiones as "testament" useful and beautifully produced guide to is wrong since it loses the thick mean- Late Antiquity: A Guide to the a thinker whose influence on Christianity ing of the word which, as Augustine Postclassical World is inestimable...

...In fact, most understand it, is admirable and his that its bibliography contains almost of them spend much of their nonacad- willingness to chide all sides is couranothing written after the early 1980s...

...250 to 800, and the schismatic Donatists to the Manichees, of through the Ages that it is difficult to cavil, world from the Iberian Peninsula east whom Augustine himself had been a but cavil a reviewer must...

...been a source of edification...

...The index seems adequate although there are no cross references at the end of the alphabetical entries themselves...

...His influence on subsequent movements, from the Carolingians and the scholastics through the Renaissance humanists to the modern period, are also covered...

...vividly exemplified by contrasting exclined they were to listen and try to un- True, there are always the tensions be- amples from both past (Thomas and derstand...

...Syriac writers, beginning in the fourth century, developed a splendid body of Christian literature as well as a particular church style, ascetic practice, and a Syriac-based liturgy...

...the other a German) always pause to outline the major Christian doctrinal and liturgical practices that established themselves in different places...

...In addition to the treatise on the Trinity, I paid careful attention to the encyCommonweal 2 7 June 2, 2000 NflIY_Ir1G'fl0N -- Lea-1'r-KoVRFeLFr XS . " - ~ - 1w~ L -Fff I . P ~ The editors explicitly caution that this work is not an encyclopedia...

...Even before the arrival of the Jes- starved for accessible and competent "Young Theologians" deserve special uits, many Christians in the East used theological literature...

...in part, a cautionary tale...

...what is its purpose...

...De- mons and writings, there is no map of connected to the rise of Islam...

...Today, there is an intense interest in Syriac Christian writings, both because of their inherent beauty (a good deal of this literature is poetic and hymnic in nature), and because of the fascination of seeing a Christian literature that, at least in its earliest examples (the writings of Saint Ephrem is one), was not nourished Commonweal 2 8 June 2, 2000 by Greek thought forms...

...It is a pity, then, CORRESPONDENCE take a lot of work to build what has that the authors of this book give no in- (Continued from page 4) not been in place historically, and dication that a good deal of Syriac liter- there is, alas, not a plethora of humiliature is available to us thanks to the fulfilling an ancient task of Catholic ty and gentleness in the leaders of our labors of such Anglophone scholars as intellectuals, whether clerical or lay...

...If you STUDY WnH well as maps, charts, and a fairly good want to be a Christian scholar, be one, Eleanor Bernstein • John Buscemi Robert Drinan • Edward Foley index...

...Reading this account makes me all the formation about her...

...This history gagement...

...There is not a literate Nestorian nor Orthodox Christians who Catholic in the country who can com- Ruddy's right managed the great penetration into the plain legitimately that he or she is Two of Christopher Ruddy's points in East...

...The book is set out in two parts...

...Augustine wrote a I cannot make the claim of having read very famous letter on prayer to a woman all of Augustine, although some of the named Proba...

...Confessions still presents for- aristocratic Roman who had taken refuge inal treatise by Rowan Williams in Au- midable scholarly problems (how is it in North Africa after the sack of Rome...

...The first section has long essays tracing the broad contours of the culture of Late Antiquity...

...There are also two maps of the Late Antique world, more than forty black-and-white illustrations, and fifteen color plates interspersed in the text...

...Finally, in a very good arto do so will applaud our achievement), Fortin's comprehensive account of City ticle on Augustine's reflections on the it was most pleasurable and instructive of God, and, of course, to the entry on Lord's Prayer, Proba is identified as an to read the learned account of that sem- Confessions...

...Syriac Christianity became "the liturgical language in India and China as much as in Mesopotamia," despite the fact that after the rise of Islam it ceased being, for all practical purposes, a spoken language...

...I offer one example...

...The essays stress that this period should not be seen atomistically...

...In pursuit of that goal, there are substantial entries on sacred landscapes, philosophical traditions, religious communities, barbarians and ethnicity, war and violence, empire building, Christian triumphs and controversy, Islam, the "good life," and habitat...

...in theology, law, medicine, history, or That earlier volume is more readable, al- the life sciences...

...The first is his indictlocal language and ideas to articulate The "younger theologians," Catholic ment of contemporary theology's "intheir faith...

...Intellectual influences, such as Au- aids...