HeyJ LVII (2016), pp.

142252

BOOK REVIEWS
On Historical Distance. By Mark Salber Phillips. Pp. xvii, 293, New Haven, Yale University Press, 2013,
32.00.

Historiography can seem a problematic discipline

these days. First, the proliferation of published
works, especially on such popular topics as the
Holocaust or the American Civil War, can leave
scholars overwhelmed. Second, the practice of history has, in recent years, begun to encompass not
just academic tomes but also movies, historical
novels, museums, reenactments, and other popular
forms, forcing historians to engage with a much
wider array of material than previously. Identifying
main themes in this seeming cacophony of genres
can challenge even the most stalwart historian.
However, Phillips more than meets the challenge
by taking as his subject here the idea, central to
how history is conceived, that chronological distance from events lends one a greater insight into
the past by dint of placing those events within a
larger context. He begins his meditation with the
figure of Machiavelli, whose Florentine Histories
broke with the fashion of chronicling only recent
events and instead went back to the origins of the
city of Florence, as well as presenting a relatively
realistic portrait of factional conflict. [R]ather
than offering objects for direct imitation, writes
Phillips, the Machivellian metahistorian seeks to
uncover the larger designs governing success and
failure (46). Enlightenment historians such as
David Hume carried this further by expanding the
realm of historical analysis beyond wars and leaders to include industry and trade, thus rework[ing]
their customary tools for representing and
explaining the past by populating their work with
broad and often abstract social descriptions,
designed to discover the deeper logic of things
(66). However, the more historians represented the
past as a foreign country, different from our time
(especially as industrial innovations took hold), the
more they also worked to render that past more
vivid, to produce an emotional identification with
the figures of yesteryear, a trend which eventually
manifested itself in the Romantic contrastive narratives as well as the rise of nationalism. Phillips
even goes beyond the written word to examine historical paintings, as exemplified by the likes of
Benjamin West, in order to illustrate the shift from

the neoclassical presentation of the past behind a

veil of allegory and ideal truths (161) to a form of
representation that turns away from an emphasis
on heroic individuals and gives its energy to creating a sensation of presence (172).
The books last section examines the expanded
social and moral horizon of history with the convergence of popular sentimentalism and elite
knowledge in the rise of microhistory and other
genres which seek not only to rescue otherwise
unknown individuals and groups from oblivion but
also to bring internal, psychological states within
the purview of the historians discipline by answering the question of what it was really like to face
the Inquisition or live in Nazi Germany, for example. Moreover, modes of representation such as
heritage, memory, reenactment, writes Phillips,
owe the breadth of their appeal to an erasure of
the analytic distancing that academic historians
continue to claim is central to their own, more
judicious forms of historical representation (197).
The author even surveys the alternative history,
such as that offered by the Canadian Museum of
History or Philip Roths novel The Plot against
America, in order to explore the place of counterfactual narratives in the public realm.
Central to this phenomenal book is the argument that distance is best reconceived as a valuable heuristic rather than a mandatory stance
relation to the past, that distance is not the only
means of mediating a relationship with history.
Indeed, Phillips argues that a unitary concept of
history simply gets in the way. Far better to
imagine history as a cluster of competing
genresa crowded Thanksgiving dinner, perhaps,
were amid so many cousins the family never
speaks in one voice and there are always multiple
conversations going on (60). Written in a fluid
and engaging style, On Historical Distance is as
much a work of philosophy as it is of historiography, asking the big questions of how we relate to
our past, whether history has any claim to moral
witness, and to what extent historical thought is
shaped by present social and political concerns,
among others. Phillips does not seek to prescribe

C 2015 Trustees for Roman Catholic Purposes Registered. Published by JohnWiley & Sons Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and
V

350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.

BOOK REVIEWS

a preferred means by which historians might

responsibly fashion their narratives; rather, he
seeks, successfully, to honor the many-sided
character of historical engagement (236). This
book deserves to be read by all historians, by

143

anyone whose field of study takes them to the

intersection of the past and the present.
Encyclopedia of
Arkansas History & Culture

Guy Lancaster

Akhenaten & The Origins of Monotheism. By James K. Hoffmeier. Pp. xiv, 293, Oxford University Press, 2015,
$55.00.

Hoffmeier was born and raised in Egypt. He was

able to do graduate work under Donald Redford at
Toronto and to work with him on the Akhenaten
Temple Project, which pieced together photographs
of thousands of inscribed blocks that revealed
amazing decorated scenes from Akhenatens Theban
temples, before he built the completely new holy
city at Amarna. Such was the reaction against
Akhenatens monotheistic reform of traditional
Egyptian polytheism that these temples had been
destroyed and dismantled, and their blocks used elsewhere. But the inscriptions were still visible on their
undersides. Since then Hoffmeier has done much
excavation work himself, tracing the stages of
Akhenatens attempted purification and return to
traditional Egyptian solar religion, dominated by
Amun-Re as head of the pantheon during the Old
Kingdom (2650-2400 B. C. E.), and the advance,
probably based on a powerful personal theophany
and reflection on the solar gods unique status as
formless (similar to the Hebrews later ban on statues of their god Yahweh) as well as self-created
and thus the creator of everything else. This involved
a tumultuous personal conversion that led Akhenaten
to destroy the temples and cults of all other Egyptian
gods, as well as a colossal building project of a new
sacred city dedicated to this one god under his new
(or true) name Aten (meaning discovered,
found, or manifest). Akhenaten initially imposed
this reform on all Egypt, but he failed to build up a
coterie of followers or disciples moved by the same
philosophical-theological insights that had led to
this purification, and would maintain the cult
after Akhenatens death. This was similar to

Muhammeds later purification of traditional Arab

religion to radical monotheism - and then what happened during Islams proselytizing expansion when
it encountered Hinduism in India; for the first time
Islam met a polytheism it could not convert or
reform. The people not to mention the powerful
traditional priesthood and sages were too attached
to their scriptures, stories and cults. The attempted
monotheistic reform proved too severe; it was
defeated or was pushed back. The same thing happened in Egypt; however, Akhenaten left a cultural
legacy which could have influenced the amazingly
similar religious reform that Moses executed among
the resident Hebrews and this time for the first
time in history! - it succeeded. Hoffmeier is opposed
to evolutionary theories of religious development,
preferring a phenomenological approach that
leaves room for punctuated conversion moments,
to use Stephen Goulds term, and for rapid, revolutionary leaps in personal insight and consequent
cultural sophistication. He also joins an increasing
number of Biblical scholars who reject the fashionable scepticism towards an Israelite period in Egypt,
an exodus into the wilderness, a covenant
experience with the deity who had allowed such
works, and a subsequent conquest of Canaan. As
with Akhenaten, however, all this was presented as a
return to the god of the ancestors Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob to soften the appearance of discontinuity. This is a fascinating contribution to the
ongoing study of the difficult and perilous emergence
of salvific monotheism out of earlier human culture.
Heythrop College

Patrick Madigan

The Texts of Early Greek Philosophy: The Fragments and Selected Testimonies of the Major Presocratics. Translated and edited by Daniel W. Graham. Pp. xiv, 1020, Cambridge University Press, 2010, 110.00/$180.00;
60.00/$99.00.

For over a century, the study of the so-called Presocratic thinkers and the Sophists has relied above all
on the magisterial work of Hermann Diels, first published in 1903 and subsequently revised by Walther
Kranz: Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker. These volumes give us the standard numbering of the frag-

ments and testimonia. But of course especially

given the contentiousness of the text of many of the
fragments a great deal of work has gone on over
the decades, in articles or in book-length editions of
individual thinkers, and Diels/Kranz has long been
recognized as being out of date. Hence, for German-

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BOOK REVIEWS

speakers, Jaap Mansfeld has already published his

own equivalent of this book by Graham (Die Vorsokratiker, 2 vols, 1983-6); and de Gruyter has recently
published the first volume of a multi-volume collection of the complete Presocratic testimonia.
Graham gives us a true feast. Not just an up-to-date
text of the Greek of all the major fragments of all the
major Presocratics and Sophists, and of the most
important testimonia (because many of them are repetitive, trivial, or incomprehensible), but also a decent
apparatus criticus, a facing English translation (with
fragments translated in bold font, and testimonia in
ordinary font), and a page or two of introduction to
each thinker. For English translations, we have recently
depended on Jonathan Barness Penguin Classic, or
my own Oxford Worlds Classic (The First Philosophers). These books have the advantage of price, of
course, and will continue to attract students, especially
those who are Greekless, but for serious scholars of the
Presocratics Grahams The Texts of Early Greek
Philosophy will suffice for the foreseeable future.
Grahams translations are plain and unadorned
necessarily so, to avoid introducing tendentious ideas.
The book is published in two volumes or parts.
The first volume is concerned with the Presocratics,
from Thales to Democritus, and the second with the
major Sophists. They are treated as a single volume in
the sense that the first part includes the preliminary
matter and introduction, while the second ends with
Bibliography, Concordance (comparison with the numbering of Diels/Kranz, for Graham has adopted his

own system), and three indexes (of sources, of passages, and general). The concluding bibliography,
however, contains only general works: every individual
thinker also gains his own special bibliography at the
end of his chapter.
Of course, neither the texts nor the translations
are going to please all the people all the time.
There is very little interpretive agreement among
students of the Presocratics, and inevitably Graham
has had to make decisions that will displease some
scholars. On the whole, however, it seems to me
that he has made sensible and judicious choices.
Perhaps the most radical decision was to confine
Pythagoras to an appendix, rather than awarding
him his own chapter within the main book. This is
due to the fact that much of the material labelled
Pythagorean may well not predate Socrates at all.
Philolaus, however, the fifth-century follower of
Pythagoras who was probably responsible for a lot
of what we think of as Pythagorean doctrine, does
get his own chapter: another sensible decision.
This is a very well produced book. Accuracy is
essential for such editions, and I have yet to find a
misprint. It is a book to be worked with on a daily
basis over the years. Every academic library in the
world will want to own these volumes, and so will
every scholar in the English-speaking world who is
the slightest concerned with the origins of western
thought.
Lakonia, Greece

Robin Waterfield

Philosophy Before Socrates: An Introduction with Texts and Commentary. By Richard D. McKirahan. Second
edition. Pp. xviii, 494, Indianapolis, Hackett, 2010, $55.00/$21.95.

First published in 1994, this work rapidly established

itself as one of the leading sourcebooks for the study
of the Presocratics and Sophists (for one of the
unusual features of the book is that it covered the later
thinkers as well as the natural scientists etc.). It occupied a middle range: not a full scholarly commentary,
but providing students with more commentary than,
say, my own The First Philosophers. In price and
length, it challenged KRS (G.S. Kirk, J.E. Raven, and
M. Schofield, The Presocratic Philosophers), which
has long held sway in Britain. It suited both the pockets and the information level of undergraduate students, especially thoughtful ones.
The books virtues were many: plenty of aids (maps,
concordances, indexes), a nice clear layout, comprehensiveness, up-to-dateness, translations of all the
main fragments and testimonia, judicious commentary
(i.e. not engaging too often with too many scholarly
controversies, letting the reader think for herself, not

going on too long). None of these virtues are lost

in this second edition, which was necessitated, as
the author explains, by a great deal of innovative
new work in the field, and by some rethinking on
his part. The second edition is sixty pages longer
than the first. There is an entire new chapter on
Philolaus (undoubtedly in response to Carl Huffmans 1993 monograph), and a new 40-page appendix containing some related fifth-century texts (the
Derveni papyrus and some Hippocratic treatises),
but most of the new work is less visible, consisting
of revisions to existing chapters (especially on the
Pythagoreans, Eleatics and post-Eleatics) and an
updated bibliography.
This second edition is very welcome. It hugely
enhances the books usefulness and prolongs its
shelf-life. Highly recommended.
Lakonia, Greece

Robin Waterfield

BOOK REVIEWS

145

Early Greek Philosophy: The Presocratics and the Emergence of Reason. Edited by Joe McCoy. Pp. xxxv, 237,
The Catholic University of America Press, 2013, 59.50.

This book consists of introduction, ten chapters on the

Presocratics by ten different authors, and the usual end
matter. The first of the ten chapters is an overall
survey of early Greek philosophy, then the next seven
each focus on just one of the Presocratics, with no overlap, and then the final two chapters are about the reception of the Presocratics. With such a format, you might
expect the purpose of the book to be an introduction to
Presocratic thought, but in fact each of the essays develops a particular thesis about just some of the chosen
thinkers work, rather than the whole. However, several
of the chapters begin with a kind of survey of the whole
of the thinkers thought. Overall, however, the collection is designed, as the editor says in his introduction,
to elaborate the development of certain basic philosophical notions by the Presocratics, as well as to study
their later reception (xii). The chapters originated in a
lecture series at the Catholic University of America.
The introduction surveys the entire Presocratic
enterprise and their legacy, slotting summaries of the
subsequent chapters into their places in the story. The
first chapter, by Charles Kahn, is another survey, taking early Greek philosophy up to Platos Timaeus.
Whereas McCoy in the introduction divided the
Presocratic enterprise into three main phases, Kahn
describes it as a drama in five acts. His purpose is to
bring out at each phase the boldness and genius of the
thinkers and the overall enterprise.
Chapter 2 is a fairly slight offering by Kurt Pritzl on
Anaximander, exploring the relation between the
apeiron and Anaximanders famous fragment. He
finds the connection in the concept of time. Taking
the primary meaning of apeiron as circular (which
can only be a secondary meaning), he connects this
with the circularity of time in ancient thought and concludes that the apeiron in the fragment is itself time.
In a rather pointless essay, Kenneth Dorter tackes
the problem of evil in Heraclitus, but all he does is
pr
ecis Heraclitus thought and say that though it is
better for humans to wake up to the reality Heraclitus
is trying to describe, there is a place within the unity
that makes up the universe even for sleepers.
With Carl Huffmans essay on reason and myth in
early Pythagorean cosmology we get more substance.
What part did the Pythagoreans play in the transition

from mythos to logos? Recent work on Pythagoras has

emphasized that, as far as our meagre evidence goes,
he was not a mathematician and scientist, but an expert
on religious ritual and promulgator of a particular way
of life. And so Huffman concludes that Philolaus was
the first scientific Pythagorean, and that within Pythagoreanism itself there was a parallel transition from
mythos to logos.
J.H. Lesher considers to what extent Xenophanes
deserves to be called a Presocratic: was he any
kind of systematic thinker, or just a poet? Lesher
argues that in at least three important areas of
thought cosmology, theology, and epistemology
Xenophanes had a unified system, whatever we
are to make of the rest of his fragments. The essay
serves as an excellent introduction to the philosophical side of Xenophanes poems.
Alexander Mourelatos next brings out the importance
of Parmenides astronomical breakthroughs, despite the
fact that he chose to present them in the Doxa part of his
poem. This is the best account of Parmenides astronomy that I have read. Mourelatos ends with reflections
on whether the distinction in Kant between noumena
and phaenomena, or the distinction in Sellars between
Scientific Image and Manifest Image, can shed light
on the relation between the two parts of Parmenides
poem: Sellars more than Kant, he thinks.
Patricia Curd argues for the incorporeality of
Empedocles cosmic forces Love and Strife. They are
not equivalent to his four elements. This is a good
paper, and makes its case clearly, but she is arguing
for a position that most would accept anyway.
Daniel Graham argues for the thoroughly scientific spirit Anaxagoras displays in a number of contexts, but most specifically in determining the
causes of both solar and lunar eclipses (where he
built on the work of Parmenides that Mourelatos
discussed in his chapter).
The final two chapters consider the reception of
the Presocratics, by Francis Bacon (John McCarthy,
seeing, therefore, Presocratic influence right at the
start of modern scientism) and by Nietzsche and
Heidegger (Richard Velkley).
Lakonia, Greece

Robin Waterfield

The Oxford Handbook of Presocratic Philosophy. Edited by Patricia Curd and Daniel W. Graham. Pp. xii, 588,
Oxford University Press, 2008, 87.00/$150.00.

OUPs terrific Handbook series continues with this

weighty volume on the Presocratics weighty, but
several of the Handbooks Ive seen run closer to 1,000
pages than 500. The aims of the series, as announced

on the back jacket flap, are awkward: one sentence

speaks of an authoritative and state-of-the-art survey
of current thinking and research in a particular area,
but the next talks about compelling new perspectives.

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BOOK REVIEWS

A book of new perspectives is not a book of surveys,

nor vice versa; and the volume under review suffers, I
think, from the tension between these two aims. Some
of the essays indeed incline towards surveys (though
they often find interesting angles from which to come
at the subject), while others dont. In fact, one of the
essays begins: There have been a number of surveys
of ancient Pythagoreanism in recent years, so there
seems little point to providing another one here (284).
But isnt that exactly what we should expect from a
handbook? A handbook should be sufficient unto
itself; one should hardly need to look elsewhere for
fundamental information. To some extent, however,
this Presocratics handbook sees itself as just another
collection on these thinkers.
The quality of the individual essays is, however, as
high as one would expect from the contributors.
There are twenty essays, prefaced by an Introduction,
and followed by the expected Index Locorum and
General Index. Note, then, that there is no synoptic
reading list. The essays are divided between four
parts: Background (2 essays), Figures and
Movements (11 essays), Topics (5 essays), and
Reception (2 essays).
The two essays in the Background section are
good surveys. Runia tackles the problem of the sources
of our information, which are frequently no more than
summaries, suffering from altered vocabulary, bias, or
some other form of tendentiousness. Burkert sees the
Presocratics broadly as innovators who nevertheless
drew on traditional material from other cultures.
In the Figures and Movements section: White sees
the Milesians primarily as astronomers, their contribution to the development of philosophy stemming from
their combination of observation and theoretical modelling. Mourelatos does a good job of showing that
Xenophanes is more of a mainstream Presocratic than
has often been thought, not just because of his epistemological asides, but also methodologically. Graham
interestingly argues that Heraclitus had a coherent philosophy, based on criticism of his predecessors.
McKirahan gives a very detailed analysis of fragment
B8 of Parmenides, its assumptions, arguments, and
conclusions. Curd gives a good, unified account of
Anaxagoras. Primavesi makes a noble attempt to reconcile the physical and spiritual theories of Empedocles. Huffman argues that the influence of the
Pythagoreans on Plato was much less than is usually

thought, and that many of the members of the ancient

lists of Pythagoreans do not belong there. Sedley brilliantly shows how atomism developed by responding
to, especially, Zeno and Melissus. Graham (again)
attempts to isolate Leucippus from his more famous
successor Democritus. Laks continues his efforts to
reinstate Diogenes of Apollonia as more than a thirdrate Ionian born too late. Gagarin and Woodruff ask a
number of pertinent questions about the Sophists.
There is much to be thankful for in all this, but
some disappointments. I have already mentioned
the fact the book should have included a proper
survey of Pythagoreanism, rather than an essay
entitled Two Problems in Pythagoreanism.
McKirahans work on Parmenides is excellent
but there is a great deal more to Parmenides than
B8, however important that particular fragment is.
And we have long known how dangerous it is to
treat the Sophists as a unified movement, rather
than a ragbag collection of thinkers with different
views, but some common threads.
The next section, Topics, avoids these problems,
because each essay is necessarily more of a survey.
Van der Eijk considers the interactions and connections between medicine and philosophy in the fifth
century. Wright gives a synoptic view of Presocratic
cosmologies, focusing especially on what the cosmos is made of and how it started. Hankinson does
the same for their theories of causation, and Lesher
for epistemology. Finally, T.M. Robinson considers
their theology, their views on the relations between
human and divine, and the extent to which they
were demythologizing theological thinking.
The final section, on the reception of the Presocratics, contains a close analysis of Aristotle, Metaphysics 1.3-6 by Frede, showing how and why he
saw the Presocratics as his forerunners; unusually for
an Oxford Handbook (they trumpet their contents as
specially commissioned essays), this is a reprint.
And Palmer shows how Platos and Aristotles views
on the Presocratics were influenced by the work of,
especially, Hippias and Gorgias.
Despite one or two weaknesses, this is a very
good collection, aimed at postgraduate students and
higher levels, and priced for libraries rather than
for individuals.
Lakonia, Greece

Robin Waterfield

Greek Popular Religion in Greek Philosophy. By Jon D. Mikalson. Pp. xii, 302, Oxford University Press, 2010, 60.00.

Probably no one in the world has written more

about Greek religion than Jon Mikalson. This
book fills a gap in his publications. The ancient
Greek philosophers he limits himself to
the period from the Presocratics to the early

Hellenistic period had plenty to say, in approval

or disapproval, about the religious practices of the
state and the ordinary man. What light can these
remarks shed on our knowledge of popular
religion?

BOOK REVIEWS

The book promises two things, then: I hope to

discover more about both the nature of Greek practised religion and how the individual philosophers,
especially Plato, fitted elements of that religion
into their own philosophical theories (2). If philosophical texts could tell us more about the beliefs
and practices of the ordinary Athenian, this would
indeed be a boon, since our knowledge of popular
religion is always in need of supplementation. But
as it turns out, the payoff in terms of insights into
the practice of popular religion is slight.
The book begins with a valuable introduction,
outlining the goals of the book, discussing the differences between, say, gods and daimones, and
drawing some terminological distinctions that are
of the utmost importance. The conventional translation of eusebeia, for instance, as piety is misleading, Mikalson claims, as is holiness for hosiotes.
The former is proper respect (for gods or men)
and the latter is religious correctness. Translators
(myself included) often take them as synonyms,
but they are used quite distinctly by ancient Greek
authors. These distinctions resurface later in the
book; indeed, they are the most important constituents of the chapters on these concepts (see especially pp. 167-73).
The chapters that follow survey a full range of
texts drawn from philosophical works, especially
from Plato, in pursuit of the twin goals of insights
into both the philosophers and popular religion.
The concept of service to the gods Mikalson pinpoints the kind of service as analogous to that of a
child to a parent is fundamental, and forms the
topic of Chapter 1. Chapter 2 takes the components
of popular religious practice prayer, sacrifice, festivals, dedications, and priests. Chapter 3 surveys
texts on divination and dream-divination; Chapter 4
is on eusebeia and hosiotes in a cult context; Chapter 5 on hosiotes in a broader moral framework;
Chapter 6 on the benevolence of the gods.
As a survey, these chapters are very useful.
None of the relevant texts is left unturned. We see
that the philosophers sometimes accepted the practices and assumptions of popular religion, and
sometimes rejected them. In either case, deductions

147

might be made. For instance (from Chapter 2), we

see that the philosophers often criticized the use of
sacrifice to make the gods overlook injustice. We
are therefore able to infer that this commercial
use of sacrifice was a common approach or attitude
towards the practice. Interestingly, Mikalson suggests that the characterization of service to the gods
as commercial is endorsed neither by Socrates nor
Euthyphro. Or again (from Chapter 3), we see that
the philosophers were far more interested in revelation than is apparent in everyday religion: in their
ideal cities, it was the gods, and especially Apollo,
who, through divination, set the rules about all religious matters. Mikalson appears to suggest that this
should act as a corrective to the common view that
ancient Greek religion was scarcely a revealed
religion.
One of the fundamental problems with the book
emerges from the appears Ive just written. Each
chapter surveys and discusses the relevant philosophical texts, but the reader is invariably left to
guess exactly what conclusion Mikalson wants us
to draw. The book badly needs this kind of guidance. Without it, Mikalson has provided little more
than a survey: the philosophers criticize this and
accept that. Anyone who is already familiar with
the philosophical texts and the elements of Greek
popular religion is bound to be left feeling that
the meagre results could have been achieved more
economically, perhaps in a journal article. Alternatively, if the book is for less informed readers
undergraduates, perhaps we return to the issue of
the lack of guidance.
Occasionally, there is more of a payoff. In
Chapter 5, for instance, Mikalson shows just how
revolutionary Plato was being in claiming that all
human moral behaviour is of concern to the gods
and therefore falls under the rubric of hosiotes. But
such insights are rather rare. In his preface,
Mikalson claims that the book has had a long gestation. Actually, I think that a little more thought
would have made it better.
Lakonia, Greece

Robin Waterfield

Ritual Texts for the Afterlife: Orpheus and the Bacchic Gold Tablets. By Fritz Graf and Sarah Iles Johnston.
Pp. xii, 284, Routledge, 2013, 22.99/$37.95.
The Orphic Hymns: Translation, Introduction, and Notes. By Apostolos N. Athanassakis and Benjamin
M. Wolkow. Pp. xxi, 255, The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013, 12.00/$22.95.

These books are both second editions (though this

is unannounced on the cover of the Athanassakis).
The changes to The Orphic Hymns are slight, but it
is good to see the book back in print. Ritual Texts

has never been out of print since its first publication in 2007; this second edition is a valuable
updating of a volume which may be said to have
played an important part in triggering the ongoing

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BOOK REVIEWS

work that has already made a second edition

worthwhile.
The evidence for Orphism is slight so slight
that for a long time it was unclear even whether
there was a distinct sect of people claiming to follow the beliefs and practices established by the legendary bard Orpheus, which included, primarily, a
fascinating cosmogony/theogony, an eschatology
and reincarnation, and an emphasis on the value
of ascetic purification. Nowadays, most scholars
believe that Orphism was in fact an aspect of the
Dionysiac mysteries. Each of these two volumes
contains one set of important evidentiary material.
Ritual Texts is an edition (with facing translation)
of, and commentary on, thirty-eight remarkable
inscribed gold tablets that have been found in
graves dating from the fifth century BC to the second century AD, in Sicily, Italy, Thrace, mainland
Greece and Crete (so far). There are two categories
of tablet: the most immediately attention-grabbing
contain instructions to be remembered by the soul
of the dead man or woman as it navigates its way
through Hades and towards reincarnation; the
others are what the authors call proxies, in that
they speak for the soul of the deceased, saying (for
instance): So-and-so is an initiate. The Orphic
Hymns is a translation of eighty-seven hymns to
various deities, both familiar and unfamiliar.
Following the texts and translations of the tablets, Ritual Texts continues with essays that contextualize and interpret them: A History of
Scholarship on the Tablets; The Myth of Dionysus (i.e. the myth that the authors find underlying
the tablets); The Eschatology behind the Tablets;
Dionysiac Mystery Cults and the Gold Tablets;
and Orpheus, His Poetry, and Sacred Texts. The
book concludes with four appendixes, three of
which are new to the second edition and constitute
the major updating of the volume: Orphism in the
Twenty-first Century; The Tablets from Pherae
(the most important of which had only just been
published at the time of the first edition and needed
further attention); and The Tablets from Roman
Palestine (on a series of tablets of a different
but also eschatological provenance). The fourth

appendix, repeated from the earlier edition, is

Additional Bacchic Texts.
Ritual Texts is an attempt to make sense of texts
that are often fragmentary or utterly obscure in
themselves, and to make them accessible to a wider
audience. Inevitably, such an attempt involves the
authors in speculations that have not pleased all
scholars. The essay The Myth of Dionysus, for
instance, assumes that the only written version of
the myth, dating from the sixth century AD, underlies material from a thousand or more years earlier
and was the work of a single bricoleur (as the
authors call him). By contrast, the essay on the
eschatology of the tablets judiciously avoids commitment to a single eschatology, and focuses on
displaying the main elements of the eschatology or
eschatologies assumed. But any attempt to provide
a rounded picture of the tablets is bound to involve
speculation, and the authors are far more to be
commended for the way they have gone about it
than they are to be criticized for any alleged
defects.
There is less to say about The Orphic Hymns. In
the translation, Athanassakis has done well to combine adherence to the Greek with an attempt to
give the hymns some pleasing quality, and the
notes usefully clarify many obscurities. These short
hymns are all late, from some time in the first four
centuries AD (and so poor evidence for early
Orphism). They were probably composed in Asia
Minor, since three of the hymns address Anatolian
deities unknown elsewhere in the Greek world.
They are called Orphic because some of them
reflect Orphic beliefs. Other than this influence,
they are so thoroughly syncretic that it hardly
makes sense to worry about the many streams that
have made them what they are. They have a
powerful devotional quality. Invariably, following
an invocation, a hymn consists of little more than a
list of epithets appropriate for the deity in question,
rather like magical incantations. This makes for
boring reading, but Athanassakis usefully reminds
us to think of them as chanted.
Lakonia, Greece

Robin Waterfield

Parmenides and Presocratic Philosophy. By John Palmer. pp. xii, 428, Oxford University Press, 2009, $99.00.

Although, of course, each interpreter has stood on

the shoulders of giants, the last fifteen or so years
have seen such a thorough revolution in Parmenidean studies that a scholar from an earlier generation would be hard put to recognize the same
thinker. Palmers book develops and defends a new
interpretation, one which will take its place among
the front-runners.

The usual end matter of excellent bibliography

and indexes is preceded by eight substantial chapters,
and an appendix which contains, for handy reference,
the Greek text of the fragments of Parmenides, a
facing English translation, and a discussion of
philological points for, as Palmer rightly says in his
preface, an interpreter of Parmenides has to be as
much a philologist as a philosopher.

BOOK REVIEWS

The introductory chapter is very useful a survey

of the three main lines of interpretation of Parmenides
to date. Palmer calls them strict monism, the logicaldialectical view, and the meta-principle reading; the
interpretations are those associated particularly with
the names of, respectively, Guthrie (and many others,
since it was for decades the orthodoxy), Owen, and
Curd (preceded by Mourelatos). Palmer points out
some fundamental problems with these views above
all their inability to take account of the Way of
Seeming, and their lack of correspondence with the
Aristotelian evidence.
There is a lot of general polemic in this chapter,
and there is a lot of detailed polemic in the book
in order, Palmer says (318), for his reading to gain
a fair hearing. Hes right to have done this,
because in Parmenidean studies the inertia particularly of the strict monism view is immense. In any
case, this is not a short book, but is designed to be
thorough. He has revolutionary views, and they
need careful grounding.
Palmers own view of Parmenides is developed
in chapters 2-4, and then chapters 5-8 assess the
effect of this new interpretation on our view of
Parmenides place in the history and development
of Presocratic thought. Again, this is an important
topic, because it has been universally assumed
(though in different ways depending on the writers
views) that Parmenides was a pivotal figure in the
development of Presocratic philosophy, and it has
become standard Parmenidean methodology to
assess the validity of an interpretation of Parmenides himself by seeing whether it makes sense as
a criticism of his predecessors and, more importantly, as a benchmark to which his successors felt
bound to respond.
Palmer starts with the successors: Zeno and
Melissus (ch. 5), Anaxagoras (ch. 6), and Empedocles
(ch. 7). The atomists are neglected because Palmer
takes it as already established that they were responding more to Zeno and/or Melissus than to Parmenides
himself. Then in chapter 8 Palmer considers Parmenides predecessors: the Ionians, Heraclitus, and Xenophanes. To summarize a long and complex series of
arguments, Palmer finds Parmenides far less pivotal
than he has been taken to be. He bases this view not
just on his new interpretation, but also on a fresh look

149

at the Aristotelian evidence. He argues that Parmenides influence on Zeno was negligible, and that
Melissus was the first strict monist, thus disposing of
the view that they were orthodox Parmenideans. Then
he argues that, if we must see Anaxagoras as responding to a predecessor, Zeno is a better fit than Parmenides; and, as for Empedocles, Palmer argues that he
was no kind of atomist, and therefore drives a solid
wedge between Eleatic and Empedoclean thought.
But what is the new view of Parmenides that
Palmer develops in chapters 2-4? He sees Parmenides
as an acute metaphysician and epistemologist who
developed his views on the basis of an explicit recognition of modalities. Again, careful attention to the
Aristotelian (and, in this case, Platonic) evidence
supports his case: Palmer argues that neither of them
ever implies that Parmenides was a strict monist, but
some kind of generous monist; and that both of them
recognize Parmenides as an epistemologist as much as
a metaphysician, in the aspectual sense that, just as
there are different modes of being that the things of
the world can have, so there are different epistemological states that allow us to perceive or know the
things of the world in these different modes. So what
Parmenides does, in the critical fragments of the Way
of Conviction, is rigorously follow the consequences
of the different modes of being that things can have.
Palmer identifies Parmenides three ways as the
three possible modes of being that things can have. In
addition to their changeableness, which is perceptible
by the sense, there are, logically, the modes of what
must be and cannot not be and what cannot be and
must not be. But since, as Parmenides recognized,
what necessarily is not cannot be apprehended or
spoken about, he concentrates on teasing out the
consequences of necessary being.
Some readers of this review will not be surprised
to find Palmers Parmenides emerging as an epistemological dualist on Platonic lines; Palmer has
argued as much in an important earlier book, Platos
Reception of Parmenides (1999). Between them,
these two books form a watershed in Parmenidean
studies, such that no one in the future will be able to
ignore them.
Lakonia, Greece

Robin Waterfield

Essays on Being. By Charles Kahn. Pp. vii, 285, Oxford University Press, 2009 (2012 paperback, 21.00).

This volume collects all the essays written by

Kahn on the ancient Greek verb einai, to be,
between 1966 and 2004. His opus magnum on the
topic, The Verb Be in Ancient Greek, came out in
1973. All of this work is well known to ancient
philosophers and has been argued about more or

less intensely since its inception. The various

essays together do make up a book, since the topic
is single, as long as a book is allowed to encompass not just statements of a theory, but applications of the theory, and subsequent corrections and
improvements. The theory itself has proved more

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BOOK REVIEWS

acceptable over the years than some of its

applications.
The situation that Kahn found enshrined by decades or even centuries of scholarly assumption was
that einai had both a complete and an incomplete
use, that in its incomplete use it was copulative or
predicative (A is F), and in its complete use it
was existential (To be or not to be). Kahn established that in its complete use it could also be
veridical (A is the case), and argued that the
predicative use was fundamental, such that even in
its complete uses, there was an assumption that the
subject was awaiting predication. He argued that
for the ancient Greeks to say A is F is at the
same time to assume the existence of A, and that
the copulativeexistential distinction is unhelpful
and potentially misleading. The papers that address
these linguistic and syntactic issues are reprinted
here as Chapters 1-3 and 5. Kahns willingness to
correct himself and refine his ideas explains the
chronological detachment of Chapter 5 from the
rest.
As a philosopher, though, Kahn was always
interested in the application of such linguistic ideas
to philosophical texts. It is well known that the
Presocratic philosopher Parmenides centralized
einai (in its form as esti, third person singular present indicative, so roughly [it] is) in his abstruse
philosophical poem, making it the starting-point of
a series of logical deductions about what there is,
and that Plato, above all, responded to Parmenides,
especially in his dialogue Sophist. So Kahn next
turned to consider what light his new distinction
shed on these and other ancient philosophical texts.
By close textual analysis, Kahn argued that the
copulativeexistential distinction fails to make
sense of the relevant texts and obscures the point
of the arguments. These essays form Chapters 4
and 6-8 of the present volume. Chapter 4 considers
the use of einai, ho estin, and ousia in Platos
middle-period metaphysics; he finds an essential
connection between einai and truth, and then shows

how that connection is present in some later texts

as well, not concerned with the Theory of Forms.
Here his study of a passage of Theaetetus has Plato
actually arguing for Kahns view of einai, such
that propositional structure saying something
about something is a prerequisite for any opinion
that can aspire to truth.
The essay here reprinted as Chapter 6, The Thesis of Parmenides, has proved controversial. The
temptation has invariably been to read Parmenides
esti as existential. Kahn argues that it is actually
veridical, so that Parmenides thesis reduces simply
to: if there is to be knowledge, and truth, something has to be the case. Kahn then goes on to
apply this interpretation to other fragments of
Parmenides.
Chapters 7 and 8 belong together as refinements
of Chapters 4 and 6. In Chapter 7, Kahn argues
that Parmenides, rather than basing himself on the
veridical use of einai (as in Chapter 6), is extralinguistically assuming not just the predicative einai
(always for Kahn the fundamental sense of einai),
but also the real existence of objects or facts in the
world. Hence for him to use einai veridically is for
him to assume a reality that can be an object of
knowledge, and therefore true. He then goes on to
support this reading of Parmenides by analysing
some of Platos responses to the Presocratic. In
Chapter 8, Kahn chiefly clarifies his position on the
existential use of einai.
A final essay on Aristotles categories scarcely
belongs in this collection, and was added for this
paperback reprint of the original hardback. It is a
valuable general exploration of what the categories
were for Aristotle, starting from the familiar observation that they or some of them are somehow
related to the interrogative form. It earns its place
in this collection simply because the categories are
of course in some sense categories of being.
Lakonia, Greece

Robin Waterfield

Presocratics and Plato: Festschrift at Delphi in Honor of Charles Kahn. Edited by Richard Patterson, Vassilis
Karasmanis, and Arnold Hermann. Pp. xxix, 599, Las Vegas, Parmenides Publishing, 2013, $87.00.

Charles Kahn has been a major presence in the world

of ancient Greek philosophy since his first publications
at the end of the 1950s. The present volume, a Festschrift, contains an 11-page list of his publications,
and anyone working in the field will instantly recognize many of the titles and know their importance.
Post-Aristotelian philosophy features rarely, Aristotle
somewhat less rarely, Plato (especially early Plato)
and the Presocratics heavily. Hence the title and focus

of this book, though in fact of the three essays in the

fourth and final section of the book, Plato and
Beyond, two are on Neoplatonism (the other on
Aristotle). The other sections are: The Presocratics
(six essays); Plato: Studies in Individual Dialogues
(nine essays); and Themes in Plato (five essays).
Given Kahns longevity and importance, it is no surprise to see that the list of contributors, friends and students, is star-studded.

BOOK REVIEWS

Enrique Piccone reads Heraclitus B6 as an

instance of general Heraclitean principles regarding
flux, renewal, and human incomprehension.
Alexander Mourelatos reconsiders the text of
Parmenides B14 and strengthens the case that
Parmenides was the first to appreciate that the
moon gets its light from the sun. Diskin Clay
examines the new Strasbourg papyrus of Empedocles, adding to the increasing scholarly consensus that he wrote a single poem, not two. Richard
McKirahan discusses the cosmogony of the Derveni papyrus. John Dillon asks whether Critias
should count as a philosopher, or just a typical
Athenian intellectual. Carl Huffman argues that
Aristoxenus account of Pythagoras can add to our
exiguous knowledge of Pythagoras himself.
David Sedley defends the Cyclical Argument
of Phaedo 70-71, not as sound, but as intended by
Plato to be taken seriously. Julia Annas studies the
relation between virtue and law in Republic, and
contrasts it with that of Laws. Vassilis Karasmanis
consders the relations of the second part of
Parmenides to the first part, and to Republic, concluding that it is a purely formal exercise in the methodology of investigating first principles. Arnold
Hermanns take on the second part of Parmenides is
quite different, seeing it as fully fledged metaphysics,
but the stimulating main point of his paper is to argue
that Plato avoids and argues against the selfpredication of Forms. Lesley Brown reconsiders the
baffling Sophist 257-259. Sarah Broadie finds Plato
responding to fifth-century cosmological concerns in
Timaeus, and includes a persuasive interpretation of
the Receptacle. Satoshi Ogihara returns to the vexed
issue of the falseness of pleasure in Philebus, and
stresses the role of imagination in feeling now an
imagined future pleasure. Susan Sauv
e Meyer comes
up with an interesting new interpretation of the moral
psychology of Laws 644-645 (including Phileban
pleasures of anticipation). Christopher Rowe
continues the thrust of some of his recent work by

151

arguing that even in Laws Plato is pursuing Socratic

projects.
Tony Long argues that we can reliably attribute
the foundation of the metaphorical use of slavery
in Xenophon and Plato to the historical Socrates,
and considers its use within the moral psychology
of Republic. Dorothea Frede offers a functional
interpretation of Forms that avoids some of the difficulties of a radical two-world theory; this is a
very important paper, to my mind. Paul Kalligas
considers the relationship of Form to copy and
argues that Plato was not meaning to impugn the
reality of the copies, the things of this world, but
only our ability to grasp them. Tom
as Calvo argues
that the method of hypothesis and the method of
collection and division are in fact one and the
same, a position which I have long felt to be true.
Richard Patterson breaks new ground in thinking of
Plato as a stylist, by suggesting ways in which we
can grasp the slippery effect or intended effect of
his powerful images, especially the myths.
In the only essay in the book on Aristotle, Aryeh
Kosman argues that Aristotles view of perception
incorporates not just awareness of others, but selfawareness, as in Platos Charmides. D.M. Hutchinson
teases out distinctions between sumpatheia and
sunaisthesis in Plotinus. In a final, fascinating paper
Richard Sorabji argues that the Greeks and Romans
played a larger part than is generally recognized in
developing the concept of a moral conscience, and
traces both Platonist and non-Platonist aspects of
thinking on the topic, such as Socrates guardian spirit, or the concept of being watched in Epicurus (he
should have considered Critias).
This is a very important and satisfying collection
of essays, priced so that most university libraries
should be able to afford it. They will not regret
owning it. It contains an above-average number of
ground-breaking or otherwise important papers.
Lakonia, Greece

Robin Waterfield

Likeness and Likelihood in the Presocratics and Plato. By Jenny Bryan. Pp. viii, 210, Cambridge University
Press, 2012, 55.00/$95.00.

Similarity, suitability (especially suitability

in an argumentative context, and so plausibility) these are concepts that are bound to
crop up in philosophical discussion, in ancient
times as now. All of these concepts were covered by a single word in ancient Greek, eoikos.
The flexibility of the word is an important part
of Bryans monograph. She considers the work
of three ancient philosophers Xenophanes,
Parmenides, and Plato (in Timaeus) and her

concern in part is to show how they consciously

or unconsciously manipulated the various shades
of meaning of the word in their arguments. The
more important part is that she also attempts to
show how each of the three thinkers was
responding to their predecessors or predecessors
positions. The two projects are closely related:
the flexibility of the terminology allowed each
thinker to claim (implicitly) that he was improving over his predecessors.

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BOOK REVIEWS

Xenophanes position as a Presocratic is tenuous: he is really a bard who makes occasional

philosophical remarks, especially of a theological
nature. One of his fragments (Diels/Kranz 34;
Graham 74) suggests a proto-sceptical awareness
of the fallibility of human reason, and his theological remarks point in the same direction. In her
first chapter (6-57), Bryan argues that in F35
(Graham 75) Xenophanes is claiming an apparent
but potentially specious similarity to truth (46),
which therefore supports the proto-sceptical reading of F34. This is good stuff, but I find the
attempt in this chapter to distinguish between
Xenophanes and Homers use of like both
unconvincing and unnecessary.
In the second chapter (58-113), she turns to
Parmenides, and the notoriously difficult penultimate line of F8 (Graham 17). Reading this as a
deliberate alteration of Xenophanes use of eoikos,
she also argues that it carries no one meaning, and
that Parmenides means it to be ambiguous, just
because the mortals whose mistakes he is describing arrive at their erroneous beliefs in a number of
ways. It is both a qualified endorsement and a
warning that what follows may be specious rather
than true. Parmenides corrects Xenophanes,
because Xenophanes had held out the possibility
that his account might be true, whereas Parmenides

says that no opinion about the material world could

possibly be true. Bryan also has some useful
remarks in this chapter on Parmenides use of forensic vocabulary.
The final two chapters (114-91) concern
Timaeus. Bryan first argues that in describing his
cosmology as a likely story, Plato does not mean
us to doubt it so much as to understand that it is a
likeness of the truth. She is aware, of course, not
only that the word does usually indicate at least a
degree of doubt, but also that it does so elsewhere
in Plato; but she believes that Platos Timaeus is
simply using the word in a special way. Personally,
I think she is wrong, but there is plenty of good
material here to think about, and it is supported by
the argument of the final chapter that Plato is deliberately, intertextually, correcting the use of the
word by Xenophanes and Parmenides. A threepage conclusion, bibliography, and the usual
indexes round off the book.
Because of its limited topic, this is a rather slight
book, clearly deriving from a good PhD dissertation. It will be referred to in footnotes rather than
stirring up major controversy, but its contribution
to scholarship on these three thinkers will be
welcomed.
Lakonia, Greece

Robin Waterfield

The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Rhetoric. Edited by Erik Gunderson. Pp. x, 355, Cambridge University
Press, 2010, 50.00/18.99; $94.99/34.99.
Classical Greek Rhetorical Theory and the Disciplining of Discourse. By David M. Timmerman and Edward
Schiappa. Pp. ix, 192, Cambridge University Press, 2010, $80.00/45.00.

Gundersons Companion makes an excellent indepth and insightful introduction to ancient rhetoric
in theory (rhetoric) and the centrality of its practice
(oratory) in ancient Greece and Rome. The
approach is more thematic than text-based: a given
speech of Demosthenes, say, is referred to in support of some point, rather than studied. The book
falls into four sections. In the first, the archaeology of ancient rhetoric is explored in three essays:
Nancy Worman on archaic Greek poetry (but nothing on early Latin literature); Robert Wardy on
debates about the meaning and significance of
logos; and on early attempts to categorize modes
of rhetoric and fix terminology. This last chapter,
by Malcolm Heath, is fascinating: a story of false
starts more than of smooth progression.
The second section, The Field of Language,
consists of four chapters. Catherine Steel considers
the divisions of speech; James Porter the aesthetics
of rhetoric; Gunderson the rhetoric of rhetorical
handbooks; Joy Connolly the politics of including

rhetoric as part of the standard ancient curriculum.

Rhetoric is supposed to produce good citizens.
The third section (six essays), The Practice of
Rhetoric, is about oratory. Jon Hesk reconsiders
the standard classification of speeches as deliberative, forensic, and epideictic, against the fact that
these genres blur together in practice. Victoria
Wohl maps ancient rhetorical practice onto the
ancient Athenian psyche and finds that oratory was
not so much the art of deception as a way of
preaching to the choir and legitimating the preferred structures of society. John Dugan does the
same for Rome. Against the background of the
well-known connections between ancient Athenian
drama and rhetoric, David Rosenbloom points out
that, nevertheless, the dramatists felt free to turn
rhetorical strategies against the society that had
produced them. William Batstone explores the connections between drama and rhetoric in Rome,
arguing that the very essence of what it was to be
Roman was explored in the plays. Then Simon

BOOK REVIEWS

Goldhill surveys the Second Sophistic, when rhetoric was king, pointing up the paradox that, for all
its modernity, rhetoric was wedded to a selfconscious return to its roots.
In the final section, Epilogues, Todd Penner
and Caroline Vander Stichele tell the story of the
emergence of a specificially Christian rhetoric;
Peter Mack surveys the rediscovery of ancient rhetoric in the Renaissance, and considers to what
extent they took things over, rather than making
changes; and, in a typically uncategorizable contribution, John Henderson surveys the volume as a
whole.
As befits such a book, nearly all the contributions are well written none more than the introduction, which is really a delight, as well as
educational. The potential dullness of the subject is
offset by this, and by the number of connections,
implicit or explicit, that the authors find with other
fields: aesthetics, epistemology, drama, and so on.
In the second book, Classical Greek Rhetorical
Theory and the Disciplining of Discourse,
Schiappa, one of the giants of ancient rhetoric studies, and one of his former students, develop a new

153

approach to the history of rhetorical theory, by

studying rhetorical concepts and the uses to which
they have been put. The basis for such an approach
is the observation that the introduction of any new
terminology helps us to think in new ways and
theorize further. Hence ancient rhetorical theory
can be approached by tracking the introduction of
new terms. The book proceeds by means of a series
of case studies (previously published as papers):
Platos usurpation of sophistic dialegesthai to
describe the art of dialectic; Isocrates attempt to
claim the term philosophia for his own; terms used
within the context of public deliberation. The
authors then demonstrate, by means of an introductory study of the anonymous fourth-century
Rhetoric to Alexander, the value of a focus on rhetorical terms in illuminating a text. It encourages
us to ask new questions of familiar texts and to
revisit old questions (16). Finally, they suggest
that rhetorical technical terminology developed
later than has often been thought, in the fourth
rather than the fifth century BC.
Lakonia, Greece

Robin Waterfield

Prodicus the Sophist: Texts, Translations, and Commentary. By Robert Mayhew. Pp. xxix, 272, Oxford University
Press, 2011, 50.00/$75.00.

Prodicus is usually bracketed alongside Protagoras,

Gorgias, Antiphon, and Hippias as one of the most
important members of the sophistic movement.
This book delivers exactly what the title and subtitle suggest: a Greek text of all the testimonia, with
facing English translation (65 pages), bracketed by
an introduction (16 pages) and a commentary on
the texts (168 pages). Appendixes and a bibliography follow. There are a few misprints, but nothing
serious.
A great deal of the material is repetitious.
Mayhew has divided the ninety testimonia up into
four sections Life and Character, Language,
Natural Philosophy, Cosmology, and Religion,
and Ethics. But little is known about Prodicus,
and what there is usually focuses on only a few
facts or ideas. For instance, Xenophon paraphrased
his famous Choice of Heracles story, and then
that story is further summarized in later sources.
The Introduction therefore simply summarizes
material from the Commentary. And so on.
So the book is a dull read, but Mayhews intention is to provide, once and for all, an edition of
what little remains of Prodicus, and he has succeeded in doing that, at the cost of repetition and
often labouring the obvious, when there is otherwise little or nothing to say about a passage. He

has come up with many more testimonia than were

included in the standard Diels-Kranz, Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker. Nothing is gained by
these extra testimonia, because they are repetitive,
but completeness is a virtue in such a book.
There is nothing new to say about Prodicus linguistic work. He is known to have attempted, as
though he were working towards the first dictionary,
to distinguish near synonyms, insisted that words
should have only one meaning, and explored some
etymologies too. Mayhew displays the evidence, but
seems to find it pedantic rather than important, and
includes a final text including Prodicus among those
sophists who denied the possibility of contradiction:
To speak the truth is to speak what is; to speak a lie
is to speak what-is-not; to speak what-is-not is not to
speak at all. But since Mayhew wants to present Prodicus as having a firm ideas, presumably therefore in
contradiction to others ideas, he concludes that if
Prodicus denied contradiction be did not do so globally (159).
On cosmology and religion, Mayhew takes a single reference in Aristophanes Birds to imply that
Prodicus was known as a cosmologist. However,
even Mayhew can find nothing to say about this
cosmology other than that it must have been radical (172). He agrees with other scholars that

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BOOK REVIEWS

Prodicus was an atheist, but this conclusion is perhaps too hasty: Prodicus might not have denied the
existence of the gods so much as denied the existence of the Olympian gods.
Mayhews commentary is consistently conservative and cautious. This is a flaw only if one were
to argue that we need an edition of Prodicus only
if fresh testimonia have come to light (they
havent) and/or if the author has something fresh
and important to say. His best attempt at teasing
something original out of the material comes with
the long Xenophontic passage on the Choice of
Heracles, to which Mayhew devotes 20 pages of
commentary. Whereas the story seems to be
straightforward Heracles has to choose between
the path of Virtue and that of Vice, who, personified, lay out the advantages and disadvantages, and
he chooses Virtue Mayhew argues that both

choices are seen as morally optional (xx), which

is to say that there are no objective moral truths
and/or moral absolutes (205). Heracles is offered a
genuine choice: if you want to maximize your
pleasures, follow the path of Vice; if you prefer
honour to pleasure, follow Virtue. This is interesting, but it is not how anyone understood the story,
which was hugely popular, over the centuries. It is
Mayhews attempt to keep Prodicus within the
mainstream of the sophistic movement. For
Mayhew, contrary to recent thinkers such as R.W.
Wallace, with whose work Mayhew seems unfamiliar, thinks that there was a distinct movement,
sharing common features (listed on p. xxiv), one of
which is precisely that morality is in some sense
relative.
Lakonia, Greece

Robin Waterfield

The Symposion in Ancient Greek Society and Thought. By Fiona Hobden. Pp. xiii, 299, Cambridge University
Press, 2013, 60.00/$99.00.

Long before Plato and Xenophon wrote their

famous philosophical Symposia (Xenophons is not
well enough known, but is to my mind one of the
best things he wrote), and for centuries afterwards
as well, writers and artists were portraying
symposiastic scenes in verse, prose, and painting.
Arguably, in fact, Plato and Xenophon were appropriating the topic and creating a new stream of
interest in the symposium as a setting for strictly
philosophical discussion. Certainly, this is
Hobdens position in this book. But this is the
books only philosophical intervention, strictly
speaking. The rest of it, which I found absolutely
fascinating, deals with non-philosophical texts and
contexts, with the aim of elucidating the rhetoric
of symposiastic portrayal. The book serves, therefore, as the ultimate contextualization of Platos
and Xenophons works.
It consists of introduction, five approximately
50-page chapters, a brief Conclusion, and the
usual lists at the end. References to symposia
abound in ancient literature and on pots, and the
book does not pretend to be comprehensive, but
she discusses a great many texts, and a few pots,
and may fairly be said to have provided us with a
representative sample, certainly enough to establish
her theses. One of the delights of the book is the
sampling of many different genres: epic poetry,
lyric poetry, tragedy, comedy, philosophical prose,
forensic oratory, biography, satire all play a part.
The first chapter covers the Archaic period, and
the verses of such as Theognis and Anacreon.
These poets tended to put themselves centre-stage,

as if to claim expertise at sympotic conventions,

and therefore provide a lens through which to view
the behaviour of other symposiasts. By singing
these verses at symposia, a symposiast was laying
claim to the same expertise, and competed with
others, competition being an essential aspect to a
symposium, which included games, recitations, and
spontaneous inventions designed to do better than
the previous player or singer, and rewards for the
one judged best.
The second chapter continues the theme of competition. Hobden shows that presentations of symposia were frequently used as a way to present
ideas about ethnicity and character. That is, ones
behaviour at a symposium marked one as Greek or
as barbarian, and value judgements adhered to such
a presentation. Hobden shows how Greek readers
of texts or viewers of pots could interrogate
their own and others norms by these means. The
rhetoric of the symposium emerges as absolutely
central to Greek prescriptions of normality.
The symposium was often a venue for political
discussion, and even for fomenting rebellion and
revolution, especially (since it was largely an elite
practice) anti-democratic revolution. Chapters 3
and 4 cover the political aspects of symposia, in
performance (Ch. 3: that is, the relations between
symposiasts and the political world outside, in the
polis) and in practice (Ch. 4: that is, the relationship between the symposiasts themselves). Participants at literary symposia wear their politics on
their sleeves, and use the occasion to enact (often
rather than directly to state) their political

BOOK REVIEWS

positions. Demosthenes, for instance, argued that his

rival Aeschines behaviour at a Macedonian symposium demonstrated his disloyalty to Athens (Speech
19). Alcibiades left no doubt about his oligarchic or
even tyrannical intentions by mocking the Mysteries
at symposia. The symposium emerges as being a far
from peaceful setting; on the contrary, it was rife
with dangers from the murder of Agamemnon by
Aegisthus and Clytemnestra, to the murder of Clitus
by Alexander the Great, and the Conquerors own
subsequent poisoning at a banquet. Heavy drinking
was a hazard for everyone, whatever their political
position.
The final Chapter 5 turns to Plato and Xenophon
(and then subsequent developments). Plato takes
over all the standard sympotic features competition, self-promotion, and so on and turns them to

155

philosophical use, to test the truth rather than just

to test character or whatever. Hobden argues that
the speeches are meant to cap one another (while
retaining as valid some features of earlier contributions) and lead up to Socrates speech.
Xenophon too does something similar, in his own
individual way: we see Socrates constantly trying
to combat the sexual and other currents of the
symposium and convert them to philosophical discussion. At least in part, Xenophon is responding
to Plato, and this initiated one of the features of
subsequent literary symposia that instead of, or
as well as, symposiasts trying to cap one another,
now we have authors trying to cap one another
over time.
Lakonia, Greece

Robin Waterfield

Platonic Dialogue and the Education of the Reader. By A. K. Cotton. Pp. ix, 330, Oxford University Press,
2014, 70.00/$125.00.

Arguably, the interlocutors of a Platonic dialogue

are shown being educated, or potentially educated,
by the course of the arguments of the dialogue.
Cottons central claim is that Plato attempts to
engage the readers of his dialogues in the same
way to educate us, or at least point the way to
our further education in philosophy. In itself this is
hardly a startling claim, but rather a truism. The
value of Cottons book is that she spells out in
detail the relationship between reader and interlocutor, and the specific kinds of response that she
sees Plato inviting from the reader.
In Chapter 1 she bundles readers and interlocutors together as receivers, and shows how Plato
often more or less obliquely raises the issue of
receivership. She suggests that we should not
expect to find knowledge in the dialogues, but
methods of alerting us to the existence of knowledge and starting us on our personal philosophical
journeys. She aligns herself, then, with those who
hold that the dialogues do not contain determinate
views of Platos (25), although at the same time
she wants the dialogues to show us that there is a
philosophical pot of gold at the end of the indeterminate rainbow. What is important about the dialogues, though, is the development of the reader
rather than the development of doctrine.
How, then, are the dialogues constructed to aid
this process? By helping us to acquire the skills
and dispositions of a productive and independent
learner (27) or, to put it another way (32-5) by
helping us to escape from the Cave. In Chapter 2,
she emerges as a kind of developmentalist: she
accepts the standard division of the dialogues into

early, middle, and late, and claims that earlier

dialogues offer the reader more help than later
ones (54) and that the dialogues represent different
stages of learning (65). The educational methods
employed by Plato to elicit reader-response, however, and the process of learning, or the gradual
acquisition of virtue, remain the same throughout
(Chapter 3).
In Chapter 4 she considers the role of characterization in the educational process. She argues that
the interlocutors do not act quite as models for
readers, butas triggers to guide our responses.
Sometimes their responses may even be misguided,
pointing us towards a more correct approach; even
Socrates is not entirely a positive character. She
leaves it unclear, to my mind, how we are to distinguish between cases where interlocutors are positive models and when they are negative. If she
were to claim that the difference lies in whether or
not an interlocutor agrees with Socrates, then she
has reimported doctrinalism into the dialogues.
Another weakness of the chapter is that many of
the interlocutors in the dialogues (especially the
middle and late dialogues) are scarcely developed
enough as characters to generate a meaningful
response in us as readers. When she discusses the
disappearance of character in the later dialogues,
she sees this as part of the general decrease in aids
to the reader that the later dialogues offer, as in
Chapter 2.
In Chapter 5 she tackles another problem with
the late dialogues that they are more didactic,
more treatise-like, and apparently contain fewer
attempts to engage the interlocutor or therefore the

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BOOK REVIEWS

reader. She argues that even if the dialectic of the

later dialogues is somewhat different, it is still
designed to engage us in the same way as the earlier dialectic: we still have to participate in the
dialogues, and even to do so in a more demanding
fashion.
Some dialogues are more obviously a structural
unity than others. In Chapter 6, Cotton argues that
Plato employs structural devices such as dead ends,
changes of direction, and repetitions to arouse the
readers reflective responses. In Chapter 7 she does
the same for what she calls the irresolution, marginalization, and fragmentary nature of Platos
narratives. We often do not hear the endings of, for
instance, the life stories of interlocutors. She suggests, then, that Platos narrative strategies (which
she thinks are unique in classical literature) are
also ways of alerting readers.

The concluding Chapter 8 pulls together the

strands of the books arguments, and adds a political dimension, given that we are encouraged to
see individuals against the backdrop of their
society (270) and that the virtue that readers are
supposed to gain from reading the dialogues has
practical applications. So she argues that, as
readers, we are also being educated in civic
involvement.
This is an interesting book, and I have necessarily omitted mention of many subtleties of argument
and perceptive arguments against other scholars.
But she will, I feel, fail to convince those many
scholars who still read the dialogues as containing
Platonic doctrine.
Lakonia, Greece

Robin Waterfield

Socrates and Philosophy in the Dialogues of Plato. By Sandra Peterson. Pp. xvi, 293, Cambridge University
Press, 2011, 55.00/$90.00.

This is a challenging, but, I think, ultimately

unconvincing book. Peterson proposes to extend
Socratic ignorance until Socrates never anywhere
in the Platonic corpus has any positive doctrine to
assert. His sole concern is to elicit the views of his
interlocutors, and then to test them. This is doing
philosophy, for Socrates. Any appearance of positive doctrine is mistaken, though sometimes Platos
Socrates finds that the best way to elicit ideas from
his interlocutors is to fly a doctrinal kite or two.
The book consists of nine closely argued chapters, a good bibliography, and the usual indexes.
Much of it has appeared before, as articles, but its
good to have it all put together with a clear, overarching thesis. The first chapter is introductory,
contrasting her proposed thesis with alternative
explanations of the clash between a Socrates who
knows nothing and a Socrates who propounds
doctrine, and retailing some general considerations
(e.g. that Platos Socrates uses conspicuously bad
arguments) that give her thesis prima facie
plausibility.
In Chapter 2 she examines Apology to remind us
that this foundational portrait of Socrates insists on
his ignorance, and that all he claims to do is test
others views. But this view of philosophy clashes
with the description of the philosopher in the
digression of Theaetetus, so in the next chapter she
argues that in this digression Socrates is displaying
philosophy as his interlocutor Theodorus thinks of
it, and that Socrates himself could never think of
philosophy as assimilation to god. (On the contrary,
however, many readers of Platos dialogues find

the idea of assimilation to god one of his central

ideas.)
But what of the central, theory-building, middleperiod dialogues, where a great deal of positive
doctrine appears to be put into Socrates mouth?
This is Petersons greatest challenge, and she rises
to it in the next three chapters, 4-6. Chapters 4 and
5 consider Republic. In Chapter 4, she argues that
the whole of Socrates speech in Books 2-10 is
triggered only by his interlocutors request for such
a speech, and that Glaucon imposes conditions on
Socrates which are bound to make the doctrine of
the dialogue an expression of his interlocutors
hopes rather than anything Socrates might entertain. She argues that Platos readers would expect
such a speech to respond to the audiences prejudices rather than necessarily being an expression of
the speakers own views. She also thinks most of
the views expressed in the dialogue too bizarre to
have been held by an astute philosopher, and in
any case she thinks they are argued conditionally:
only if X, then Y. Chapter 5 argues that the Republics expressed view of philosophy is incoherent,
and gives this as a reason for believing that Plato
did not mean his Socrates to endorse the theory of
forms. According to Peterson, then, Platos Socrates does not even have a theory of forms, but his
interlocutors do! Why would Socrates use an incoherent argument as a means of persuasion? She
sees all Socrates arguments as means for his interlocutors to face their core assumptions, what they
are inclined to believe (216), and put them to the
test.

BOOK REVIEWS

Chapter 6 does the same for another apparently

doctrinal dialogue, Phaedo (and so the chapter is
subtitled Another Persuasion Argument). Again,
she emphasizes that all the positive doctrine of the
dialogue arises from his interlocutors requests that
he argue for a specific conclusions, which are
unlikely, therefore (sic), to be Socrates own conclusion. Socrates remains only the questioner.
Chapter 7 considers some differing views of philosophy that occur in other dialogues (including the
spurious Lovers), in the mouths of speakers other
than Socrates. Socrates recognizes them as valid or
at least current conceptions of philosophy, but they
are not his.
Chapter 8 ties up some loose ends, chiefly by
arguing against alternative views of whats going
on in the dialogues, especially developmentalism
(in either the Vlastosian or Kahnian form). Moreover, Aristotle seems to take Platos dialogues as
containing positive doctrine. Peterson argues
that Aristotle was just the first of many to mistakenly take as doctrine views that should properly
be attributed to Socrates interlocutors, or, more
charitably, that when he says Plato says X, he
means A character in one of Platos dialogues
says X.
The final Chapter 9 considers the various conceptions of philosophy that occur in the dialogues,

157

to confirm that the only kind to which Socrates

lays claim is his activity as a questioner. Since
he is aware of more normal conceptions of
philosophy, Peterson asks why he called this activity philosophy, when it is so different from the
others. She suggests, first, that since philosophy is
literally a searching after wisdom, it suits Socrates
because he insists that wisdom is something he
lacks; and, second, that the young people with
whom he chiefly conversed were interested in
philosophy and so Socrates called what he does
philosophy in order to attract interlocutors; and,
third, that, in Apology at least, he calls what he
does philosophy because that is what his accusers
had called it.
Its not just that, if Peterson is right, every
reader of Plato for dozens of generations has been
wrong. We are also left with a very peculiar Plato,
who spent much of his life repeating the same
moves over and over again, showing Socrates
developing to absurdity different interlocutors
views. What would be the point of that? It still
seems to me that where we find views that are consistently argued for in the dialogues and placed in
the mouth of Socrates, we have good grounds for
attributing them to Plato.
Lakonia, Greece

Robin Waterfield

Arguing with Socrates: An Introduction to Platos Shorter Dialogues. By Christopher Warne. Pp. xii, 209,
London, Bloomsbury, 2013, 16.99.

As the title suggests, this is very much an introductory book. In the first chapter, Warne surveys the
characters Plato, Socrates, the interlocutors to
set the background to our reading of the dialogues.
He eschews the Socratic Problem and suggests that
that we should take the interlocutors interventions
seriously: they are not always simply Socrates patsies. However, this insight does not materially
affect the discussion of particular dialogues that
occupies much of the book. A second introductory
chapter is on Socratic argumentation. His account
here is unsatisfactory in that it constantly raises
interesting issues only to pull back from discussing
them. All the elements are discussed the elenchos, the search for definitions, what Socrates
might reasonably claim to know, inductive argument, and Socratic irony but only to raise
awareness of the issues surrounding Socrates
approach to philosophy (31). His discussion of the
possible constructive use of the elenchos, for
instance, is more likely to puzzle student philosophers than help them. Or, on definition, what use is
it to point out that the value Socrates places on

definition may be fallacious, but then to fall silent

at that point?
After these opening chapters, the rest of the book is
devoted to analysis of nine shorter dialogues:
Apology, Crito, Euthyphro, Hippias Major, Ion,
Laches, Meno, Protagoras, and Symposium. We are
never told why Euthydemus is not considered, or
Charmides, or Lysis, or Hippias Minor (let alone Alcibiades I or Republic I). If the criterion is length alone
(and why else include Symposium, which is otherwise
cut from quite a different cloth), why not Critias,
even? Nor does he ever tell his student audience that
these other dialogues exist. The reader is led to believe
by the books subtitle that these are all the shorter dialogues. Nor are Symposium or Protagoras particularly
short: Sophist is almost exactly the same length, and
Parmenides is quite a bit shorter. So this is an idiosyncratic choice of dialogues, and it is not clear whom it
is designed to please. It is not a complete set of
shorter dialogues, as promised by the books title,
nor is it a complete set of those dialogues commonly
called Socratic. The choice must have been dictated
by authorial whim.

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BOOK REVIEWS

Each of these chapters follows the same pattern:

a brief introduction highlighting the interest of the
work (sometimes, usefully, by getting student readers to reflect on a pertinent contemporary event) is
followed by a section on the drama of the dialogue, and a brief dicussion of the key concepts
(such as obedience to the law or piety or story
and truth (Ion)). Sometimes, but not always, there
is a further subsection called The Text, devoted
to tying up further preliminary matters. Then there
follows a section-by-section analysis and discussion
of the text. The clarity of presentation is pleasing,
and the analyses are on the whole sound, but perhaps too brief to be of much help (the average
chapter length is fifteen pages). The student audi-

ence for this book will also be making use of the

standard translations of Plato in the Oxford
Worlds Classics and Penguin Classics series, and
there is little or nothing in the pages of this book
that cannot be found in the introductions to such
translations.
In the end, then, I saw little purpose to this
book. The selection of dialogues is incomplete by
any criterion, and the discussion is not long or
strong enough to make the book more useful to the
students who are its audience than the introductions
to translations or other introductory volumes to
Platos shorter dialogues.
Lakonia, Greece

Robin Waterfield

The Sacrifice of Socrates: Athens, Plato, Girard. By Wm. Blake Tyrrell. Pp. xix, 189, Michigan State University
Press, 2012, $29.95/25.50.

It is probable that the work of Ren
e Girard is

unknown to some readers of this review. As I
understand it from this book, at the heart of his
thinking was a sequence of ideas: that we learn to
desire things by imitating others; that these
mimetic desires bring us into conflict with the
person we have taken as our model, in the form of
rivalry over the desired object, changing mimetic
desire to acquisitive desire; all disputes and violence arise out of this rivalry; that the scapegoat
ritual was the foundation of religious feeling in culture, and religion was developed as the means of
controlling this violence.
This scheme strikes me as one of those that
occupies such a high level of abstraction that it can
be applied to almost anything. And so it is in this
book: Aeschylus Agamemnon is in competition
with Priam; Plato is in competition with other writers over Socrates, and with poets over authority; all
the Socratics are, of course, in competition with
Socrates, and then, after his death, with their ideas
of Socrates; and so on. Above all, Platos Socrates
sets his interlocutors up as models, desires the
knowledge they are supposed to have, and is disappointed of his desire by the aporia at the end of a
typical Socratic dialogue. The interlocutors
diminishment by the Socratic elenchus sets up
resentment, and in the end the community bands
together and rejects Socrates as a scapegoat.
The idea that Socrates was a scapegoat was
broached in a different way in my 2009 Why
Socrates Died (and then plundered by Bettany
Hughes in her 2010 The Hemlock Cup). I was talking
about the historical Socrates, but Tyrrell focuses
entirely on the literary Socrates, the Socrates of
Platos dialogues. Much of the first chapter of the

book is taken up with laying out these ideas and

applying the blueprint to some of the early dialogues.
His conclusion about Gorgias, for example, is:
Imagined through the motif of enemy brothers
[Zethus and Amphion in the dialogue], Socrates dies
the death dictated by the crisis in Athenian society.
He is its victim . . . He dies, as he says, like the doctor
on trial before a jury of children (40).
Chapter 2 is intended to provide background by
showing how the scapegoat ritual survived in
ancient Athens, and applying the idea to certain
texts texts about Iphigeneia, obviously, but less
obviously Aristophanes Knights. Chapter 3 is concerned with how Aristophanes in Clouds made
Socrates a potential victim, and the final Chapter 4
is an analysis of the Platonic drama of Socrates
death to show how Socrates status changed from
potential victim to actual scapegoat.
Analysis of the dialogues is bound to proceed
with some theoretical underpinning, but the emphasis should still always be on a bottom-up approach:
first see what happens, what the texts actually say,
and then formulate the theory. The blanket application of a broad scheme like Girards will never tell
us much about the content and meaning of the dialogues. Tyrrell says in his Preface that he wants
the book to be a contribution to Girardian studies
(ix), and I take this absolutely literally, in the sense
that, reading the book, I learnt a lot about Girard,
and almost nothing about Plato or Socrates or
ancient Athens. Girards approach may say something about the dramatic dynamism of the dialogues, but it tells us nothing about Platonic or
Socratic philosophy. Its also difficult to know
what conclusions we are supposed to draw. Suppose Girards scheme maps perfectly on to Platos

BOOK REVIEWS

dialogues, or on to his portrayal of Socrates: are

we then supposed to think that Plato was deliberately portraying Socrates as a scapegoat, which
would make Plato a follower of Girard before the
time? That would seem to be the logical conclusion. But if that is absurd, what are we supposed

159

to think, because otherwise mapping Girards

scheme on to Platos dialogues is no more than an
intellectual game.
Lakonia, Greece

Robin Waterfield

The Cambridge Companion to Socrates. Edited by Donald R. Morrison. Pp. xviii, 413, Cambridge University
Press, 2011, $95.00/29.99; 60.00/19.99.

This is an excellent (and long-awaited) collection

of essays, another fine book for the Cambridge
Companions series. It consists of the editors preface, fifteen essays, bibliography, and the usual two
indexes (names/subjects, and passages). Unusually
for a Cambridge Companion, four of the essays
have been previously published in some form (one
unannounced in the preface). In general, the book
comes across as a little tired, with scholars merely
rehearsing views they have developed elsewhere.
Though the essays are not divided into sections,
they effectively fall under three or four headings.
The first two are introductory; the next two focus
on Socrates as reflected in the work of his students,
apart from Plato; the next ten focus largely on
Plato, and discuss all the major aspects of Socratic
thought and self-presentation; the final essay looks
at the reception of Socrates in later Greek
philosophy.
In the first section, Louis-Andr
e Dorion gives a
swift survey of the Socratic Problem, on which he
adopts a sceptical but optimistic position: we may
not be able to recover the historical Socrates, but
there is still plenty of useful work to be done.
Then Klaus Doring surveys the work of the minor
Socratics.
The next two essays look at Socrates as reflected
in, first, Xenophon (David OConnor), and, second,
Aristophanes Clouds (David Konstan). OConnor
gives us a typically sensitive appreciation of
Xenophon as a true Socratic, and his own man, not
a Plato manqu
e. Konstan agrees with the general
consensus, that in Clouds (our only nonposthumous portrait) Socrates is no more than a
portmanteau figure, so that the portrait is no real
help in tracing the historical Socrates.
In the substantial section on Socrates thought
and method, first Paul Woodruff assesses what he
owed to, and how he differed from or developed,
the work of the Sophists. Then Mark McPherrran
reprises his views on Socrates religious beliefs,
concluding that it was his daimonion, his little
voice, that truly offended his contemporaries
sensibilities. Josiah Ober looks at Socrates relations with democratic Athens, and suggests (not

originally) that he was basically content with Athenian culture, because it allowed him to get on with
his mission, and that for this reason he chose not
to escape from prison, but obey the laws. Hugh
Benson discusses the kinds of arguments Platos
Socrates employs; there are several kinds, but the
elenchus dominates, and is Socrates distinctive
method.
Christopher Rowe reflects on Socrates insistence
on self-examination, and his use of rational means
for this, given that, as he is the first to admit, the
soul does not consist only of rational elements.
Richard Bett does the same for Socrates pervasive
denial of knowledge in Plato. It raises a host of
questions, perhaps the most important being
whether he means that he knows nothing, or is
ignorant only of moral truths. Bett suggests
(Platonically) that it is the subject matter that determines whether or not knowledge is possible; he
undermines the notorious Priority of Definition thesis; and concludes that, though no true Sceptic,
Platos Socrates consistently disavowed systematic
and comprehensive ethical knowledge (231).
Melissa Lanes essay on Socratic irony is
delightful. Effectively, she denies that it plays an
important role in Socrates argumentative method.
It is a rhetorical or other device that he uses from
time to time, but on nowhere near as many occasions as some scholars have thought. Terry Penner
rehearses his views on Socratic moral psychology.
He unpacks Socrates arguments and assumptions
and concludes that Socrates is not being philosophical subtle, but simply realistic. Christopher
Bobonich considers in what sense Socrates was a
eudaemonist, committed to eudaimonia as the final
end of life. He finds a number of gaps and
difficulties in Socrates views as displayed by
Plato. Charles Griswold considers Socrates political thought, and stresses that Socrates throws out a
few political ideas, rather than having a coherent
programme of political reform. His underlying concern was always to stress that the philosophically
examined life is best. Finally Tony Long surveys
the reception of Socrates in the Stoics, Epicureans,
and later Platonists.

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BOOK REVIEWS

To my taste, the outstanding essays are those by

Dorion, Lane, and Bobonich. But every single
essay is well worth reading and studying, and
cumulatively the book does add up to a genuine

Companion, in that it will make readers reflect and

read their Socrates more deeply and thoughtfully.
Lakonia, Greece

Robin Waterfield

Plato and Pythagoreanism. By Phillip Sidney Horky. Pp. xxi, 305, Oxford University Press, 2013, 47.99.
On Pythagoreanism. Edited by Gabriele Cornelli, Richard McKirahan, and Constantinos Macris. Pp. xix, 532,
De Gruyter, 2013, 109.95.
Pythagorean Women: Their History and Writings. By Sarah B. Pomeroy. Pp. xxii, 172, The Johns Hopkins
University Press, 2013, 32.00.

Horkys conclusions in Plato and Pythagoreanism

are quite easy to summarize, even if it takes him a
book-length analysis of the difficult sources to
reach them. In the first three chapters, he develops
the originally Aristotelian distinction between two
kinds of Pythagoreans, the mathematici and the
acusmatici. Aristotle distinguished them by virtue
of their methodologies, the latter being more dogmatic and the former being concerned with explanation. (The historian Timaeus paralleled the same
division in terms of the political schism in southern
Italy, with the acusmatici being oligarchs and the
mathematici democrats.) It was the mathematici
who found similarities between numbers and perceptibles, enabling the extension of mathematical
ideas into other areas such as politics. It was
Hippasus of Metapontum who began this trend.
Most interestingly, for Hippasus number is what
God looks to as a paradigm when organizing the
universe.
It should be clear, then, even from this sketch
that, if Horky is right, that there is some plausibility to the contemporary claim that Platos notion of
the participation of particulars in forms was no
more than a change of terminology from the
Pythagorean notion that things imitate numbers.
But in the final three chapters of the book, Horky
pursues a more subtle agenda, showing how Plato
responds to ideas and concerns of the mathematici
in three dialogues: Cratylus, Phaedo, and Philebus.
The overall picture that emerges is of a Plato who
was more deeply engaged with Pythagoreanism
than sceptics could suspect. The book is very
nicely produced, with all the usual indexes, and a
good bibliography. There is no doubt in my mind
that it will prove to be a provocative book, a stimulus to future discussion.
On Pythagoreanism is also easy to summarize. It
is a collection of nineteen essays by an impressive
range of different hands. Though published in the
series Studia Praesocratica, contributions range
from the sixth century BC to Late Antiquity, and
even to the reception of Pythagoreanism in the
Renaissance and beyond. All the essays are in

English, many translated; there is no cumulative

bibliography. Essays seek not only to interpret
Pythagoreanism in all its various phases, but also
to contextualize it historically and suggest methodological approaches to the problems. Cornellis
account, which opens the book, of the history of
scholarship on Pythagoreanism is an excellent way
to approach the subject. Of particular interest in
the context of Horkys book will be the essay by
Carl Huffman, which comes to some of the same
conclusions about the influence of Philolaus on
Plato, and the one by Leonid Zhmud on Pythagoreanism in the Early Academy. Beatriz Bossi on the
influence of Philolaus on Platos Philebus is also of
considerable interest, especially since she manages
to tie in Platos approach to pleasure as well. Other
highlights: Dominic OMeara on Late Antique Pythagoreanism, a much neglected area; two essays on the
relations between Pythagoreanism and Orphism;
Richard McKirahans analysis of Philolaus arithmology. In short, this book is quite simply an indispensable guide to the study of ancient Pythagoreanism.
It is also interesting in that, by the very range of
the essays, it suggests that Pythagoreanism was a
long-lasting tradition that, in some respects,
mutated less than one might think over a thousand
years.
Pomeroys Pythagorean Women continues her
series of studies on women in antiquity (e.g. Spartan Women). She writes as a social historian, and
has Vicki Lynn Harper write a final chapter on
The Neopythagorean Women as Philosophers.
Pomeroy is so trusting of the usually very late
sources that one or two of her conclusions seem a
bit implausible. Her central contention is that
Pythagoras himself initiated groundbreaking principles for family life, such as strict monogamy.
But the difficulties with the sources are such that
scepticism is perhaps a sounder response to them:
Pythagoreans may have done what Pythagoras himself never did, and then projected it backwards.
The Pythagorean community was surely living a
pure life in some form right from the start, but it
seems rash to think that all the details of that life

BOOK REVIEWS

go back to Pythagoras himself. In the latest and

best attempt to reconstruct the original Pythagoras,
Christoph Riedwegs 2005 Pythagoras: His Life,
Teaching, and Influence, these sorts of details play
no part. Pomeroy would want to reply that this is
because Riedweg and everyone else has ignored
this crucial testimony, as part of the neglect of
ancient women authors. But we know from
Aristotle, for instance, that the category woman
belonged for the early Pythagoreans in the same
column as evil; it seems unlikely that Pythagoras
was being as charitable to women as Pomeroy has
him.
Leaving such worries aside, there is much to
enjoy in this book. Its most enduring contribution
will be Chapters 3-6, where the extant remains
attributed to female Neopythagoreans are translated, contextualized and discussed. These are
letters (many spurious, though, in my opinion)
offering advice, a few treatise fragments, and

161

some apophthegms. There is some extremely

interesting material here, well worth having in a
more accessible form. The very first one she
translates, for instance, reputedly by Theano, wife
of Pythagoras, clears up a common misconception: Pythagoras did not claim that things were
made out of numbers, but that things were made
according to number: their existence depends on
numerical principles. Pomeroys commentary is
detailed, and then in a final chapter Harper seeks
generalities and goes as far as one can down the
road of assessing these womens place in ancient
Greek philosophy in general and Pythagoreanism
in particular.
It is very welcome to see as difficult a figure as
Pythagoras, and as tricky a tradition as Pythagoreanism, receiving the high-quality attention that
these books give them.
Lakonia, Greece

Robin Waterfield

Platos Parmenides: Text, Translation and Introductory Essay. By Arnold Hermann; translation in collaboration
with Sylvana Chrysakipoulou; foreword by Douglas Hedley. Pp. xxiv, 246, Las Vegas: Parmenides Publishing, 2010, $65.00/42.00.

Generations of scholars in the English-speaking

world have been trained to think of Platos Parmenides as consisting of exercises in logic. In the first
part, a young Socrates is questioned by his formidable interlocutor, who (depending on ones point of
view) either demolishes the Theory of Forms, or at
least points out problems with it. In the second part,
Parmenides encourages Socrates by demonstrating
the application of logic to a series of premises and
their antinomies, such as If there is one, it cannot be
many, and If there is one, it must be many.
In addition to this view of the dialogue, however,
there has always been another approach, which one
might call Neoplatonic. On this view, the One that is
puzzled over in the second part of the dialogue is a
cipher for God, or the metaphysical unity of all
things. This is the view of the dialogue urged in the
preface by theologian Douglas Hedley. He sketches
the history of this approach in the West, shows that it
has been influential, and even suggests, contrary to
all scholarship that I know of, that Plotinus might
have been influenced by Vedic thought.
In his 70-page introduction, Arnold Hermann
himself is somewhat more restrained. He sees the
First Part of the dialogue as targeting naive misreadings (15) of the Theory of Forms, and the
Second Part as a successful attempt to illuminate
the difficulties raised by the First (17). For
instance (to take an easy example), a form is itself
by itself, and such simplicity or straightforwardness

is explored in Argument I of the Second Part. Or

again, since Forms have to interweave, they can be
seen as complex, such as the One Being of Argument II. These are not original lines of thought, but
the introduction well conveys the authors enthusiasm for a dialogue that strikes many as rather dry.
Throughout, Hermann corroborates his views by
drawing connections with the thought of the
Parmenides and Zeno, and other Platonic passages.
The eight Arguments of the Second Part are subjected to a particularly close analysis (41-54), and
Hermann concludes that they are primarily concerned with the interweaving and isolation of canonical Forms. Especially useful, to my mind, is the final
section of the introduction, where Hermann lists the
major issues and offers solutions.
The translation that follows seems fine to me;
there are a couple of rival translations of Parmenides
Gills and Scolnicovs come to mind but Hermanns takes its place alongside them. The translation has been helpfully split up into sections with
subheadings. But then the difficulty of the dialogue
lies not in its Greek (which is remarkably easy, on
the whole), but in its interpretation. The translation is
faced by the Greek text (taken from the Loeb), with
little apparatus. The bibliography is somewhat idiosyncratic. I would recommend this book primarily
for its thoughtful introduction.
Lakonia, Greece

Robin Waterfield

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Parmenides, Venerable and Awesome (Plato, Theaetetus 183e). Edited by N
estor-Luis Cordero. Pp. xvi, 414,
Las Vegas: Parmenides Publishing, 2011, $65.00.

As the editor notes in his introduction, Parmenides

studies are thriving at the moment. There is always a
trickle, but there has not been such a flood since the
1960s, perhaps. The present meaty volume contains
24 new essays, mostly on the Presocratic, by an array
of international scholars. The book is largely the fruit
of a multilingual 2007 conference in Buenos Aires,
but all the essays are presented here in English. In a
collection of this kind, there is generally a certain
unevenness of quality. This collection is no exception.
There are some standout papers (for my money, those
by Austin, Bollack, Cordero, Curd, Mourelatos, and
Thanassas), but some of the others are rather poor or
inconsequential. Several do not even look like
academic papers, in that they lack apparatus such as
footnotes and bibliography.
There are too many essays to summarize in a
short review. I will isolate some themes that recur
throughout the volume.
The most noticeable topic, because it is either the
focus or an incidental concern of several papers, is the
old chestnut of the relation between the two parts of
Parmenides poem, Truth and Seeming. Bollack
and Dueso find orthodox ways of trying to reconcile
the two parts, Bollack by arguing that the same sense
of being is employed, Dueso by reading Parmenides
primarily as a logician, and only secondarily as an
ontologist, and finding the same rigorous logical
method in both parts of the poem. Cordero and
Pulpito, however, apparently independently, see the
poem as falling into three parts, not two; for Cordero,
the Seeming section could not have included a cosmology, because such a cosmology would automatically be untrue or unreliable. Mourelatos, on the other
hand, argues that there is room in the Seeming section even for scientific opinions. Meanwhile, Curd
reinterprets B16 as part of Seeming and distinguishes
mortal thinking (as passive sense perception) from
true Parmenidean thinking.
The chief revolution that has taken place in
Parmenides studies in the last couple of decades
involves the reinterpretation of Parmenidean monism. While many scholars still see Parmenides
arguing for strict monism, such that there is in reality only one thing, others, following the lead of
Patricia Curd, read him as a serial monist, such
that all the furniture of the world consists of
discrete unities. This issue is so critical that it is
surprising to see how little attention is paid to it in
this volume. Perhaps it is an issue that exercises
the American-British analytic tradition rather than
the continental style of philosophy which forms the
background of most of the contributors to this

volume. Only Thanassas seems to find room for

Curdian monism, while others, such as Austin and
Robbiano, simply assume traditional monism.
In B4, B5, B6, B8.34-35, and B16, Parmenides
gives us some puzzling reflections on thought, perception, and their relation to being. Three papers
those by Santos, Curd, and D
az attempt to cast
light on the puzzles. The first two tackle the fragments on their own terms, while D
az focuses on
Aristotles criticism of Parmenides views on sense
perception in Metaphysics 4.5. As with any Presocratic, much of his work comes to us via Aristotle
or the Aristotelian tradition. Casertano argues that
in order to understand Parmenides at all we must
reject the distortions of Aristotle; Spangenberg
reflects on Aristotles criticism of Parmenides in
Physics 1.2-3.
Two papers take Platos remarks about Parmenides in Sophist as their starting point. Hermann
argues that Platos criticisms of Parmenides miss
the mark; Livov explores the meaning of Platos
image of Parmenides as his father. Two papers,
those by Cerri and Mourelatos, try to make sense
of Parmenides astronomical views. Though this
is not the primary focus of their papers, both
Austin and Mourelatos see Parmenides as a forerunner in certain respects of some modern
philosophers.
So much for discernible themes. The remaining
papers treat disparate topics: the impossibility of
translating Parmenides (Cassin); the Pythagoreans
as the likely targets of his criticism (Fre`re); his
epic language (Santoro). The final eight papers of
the volume were not part of the original conference, and so treat various topics in ancient philosophy. Those that focus on Parmenides have already
been mentioned; otherwise: on Gorgias Helen
(Bieda); Platos Politicus as a response to the Parmenideanism of Republic (Livov); on the Ladder
of Love in Platos Symposium (Ludue~na); the influence of Eleaticism on the Megarian school
(M
arsico); on negation and not-being in Sophist
(Mi
e); an analysis of Corderos 2004 book on
Parmenides (Soares).
The book concludes with an Index Locorum and an
adequate index. There is no synoptic bibliography.
The book is well produced, free of misprints, with a
good font size and spacing throughout, and generous
use of subheadings. This is a very specialist tome,
suitable for individuals or libraries with specific interests in Presocratic philosophy.
Lakonia, Greece

Robin Waterfield

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163

Platos Philebus: Selected Papers from the Eighth Symposium Platonicum. Edited by John Dillon and Luc
Brisson. Pp. x, 430, Sankt Augustin: Academia Verlag, e55.00.

Following the editors preface, fifty-one papers are

reprinted, from a conference that apparently featured over a hundred. The papers are mostly short;
there must have been a strict time limit. The papers
are in several languages: English (31), French (10),
Italian (4), Spanish (4), and German (2). The editors have distributed the papers among the three
broad themes that the dialogue covers: Logic and
Dialectic, Ethical Questions, and First Principles. And these papers are preceded by the keynote paper by Dorothea Frede, the greatest living
interpreter of Philebus, and succeeded by a section
on the Influences and Interpretations of the dialogue. I shall pr
ecis only the keynote paper and a
few others, so let me say straight away that the
quality of the papers is generally high, though,
given their brevity, most deal with small details. I
shall cover only those that deal with slightly
broader issues. But never has Philebus (which suffered from relative neglect until the 1980s)
received such detailed treatment. This will be a
volume of fundamental interest to scholars of the
dialogue. A good bibliography, Index Locorum,
and Subject Index complete the book.
Fredes paper is rather disappointing, on two
counts. First, it is substantially identical to a 1999
paper of hers in German; second, in arguing that
Philebus is in line with Platos earlier austerity
about pleasure, she goes against the explicit words
of the dialogue, which seeks the recipe for a
human rather than godlike life.
Several papers in the first section, on Logic and
Dialectic, address the method advocated in 16c-17a.
Hugh Bensons slight essay suggests that this method
is the same as that of Phaedrus, while Mary Louise
Gill argues that it isnt. Richard Patterson, rather
more constructively, suggests that the three methods
in the Platonic dialogues elenchus, hypothesis,
division are much closer than is usually thought.
Since I believe this myself, I look forward to more
detailed work on the matter. Hallvard Fossheim,
meanwhile, argues that the method of Philebus is
not incompatible with the elenchus, but assumes that
argument (by elenchus or hypothesis or whatever)
will have gone on beforehand. Naomi Reshotko
tweaks the translation of 16c9-10 to achieve greater
coherence with 23e ff.
Some other papers from this section: Christopher
Gill argues that the dialogue form of Philebus is a
model of Platos understanding of dialectic as a
non-doctrinal, open-ended quest. Charles Kahn sees
continuities of concerns between Philebus and
other late dialogues, and continuity of ontology

from the middle-period dialogues. Harold Tarrant

reads some passages of Philebus as windows on to
debates going on at the time in the Academy.
A selection of papers from the ethics section of
the book: Beatriz Bossi argues that the three different positions on pleasures relation to the unlimited
can be reconciled. Annie Lariv
ee argues that the
dialogue belongs to the protreptic genre but then
by her criteria almost any dialogue would. M.M.
McCabe reflects amusingly and thoughtfully on the
mixed pleasure of laughing at others, and finds
Platos remarks somewhat unsatisfactory. Mark
McPherran teases out the slight reference to eros in
the dialogue and finds it compatible with Symposium. Suzanne Obdrzalek finds that Plato does not
quite rule out the divine ahedonic life and argues
that it is in keeping with Platos injunction to liken
oneself to god. Satoshi Ogihara gives us a precise
analysis of the relationship between soul and body
in the dialogue. Richard Parry (again) find a distinction between ontological and epistemological
truth useful in analysing false pleasures in Philebus
and Republic. Richard Stalley argues that the brief
remarks at 58a-d rehabilitates rhetoric (as compared with Gorgias) and lines the dialogue up with
the politics of Statesman and Laws. Mauro Tulli
finds Platos suggestion that self-ignorance makes
for comedy compatible with what we find in Aristophanic comedy. Katja Maria Vogt argues that the
dialogue is not anti-hedonist something that
shouldnt even need arguing, since that is what the
dialogue says.
From the third section: Francesco Fronterotta
analyses the notion of cause in 26e-27b and finds
it in line with Platos remarks on causality in
Sophist and Timaeus and, more suggestively,
Phaedo. Lloyd Gerson finds the prize-giving of
59-66 not entirely comprehensible except by reference to other dialogues. Andrew Mason looks for
insights from the dialogue, to help decide whether
Platos god was immanent in the world as its soul,
or a remote creator, or a soul but not the World
Soul. He leans towards the latter position. According
to Erik Ostenfeld, the view of the soul in Philebus
is almost Aristotelian: the dynamic structure of the
body. Moon-Heum Yang attempts to align the dialogue with Aristotles remarks on Platos ideal
numbers.
The book is highly specialist, of course, but it is
a landmark in Phileban studies, and will be a good
tool for scholars of the dialogue.
Lakonia, Greece

Robin Waterfield

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Euthydemus: Ethics and Language. By Samuel Scolnicov. Pp. 179, Sankt Augustin, Academia Verlag, 2013
(Lecturae Platonis 8), 26 e.

The book is rather oddly put together. There is an

enthusiastic foreword by Harold Tarrant (but
Scolnicov is eminent enough not to need a puff),
and then Scolnicovs material: a very brief introduction, and five lectures on Platos Euthydemus.
The lectures are short and take us up to p. 83.
The remainder of the book there is only a short
bibliography, and the usual indexes is taken
up with responses to Scolnicovs lectures by
Maurizio Migliore (the editor of the series in
which the book is published) and Lucia Palpacelli
(author of a recent Italian commentary on the
dialogue), then a shorter one by a Spanish academic called Dennys Garcia Xavier, and finally
Scolnicovs responses to each critic in turn.
Despite the international setting, the entire book is
published in English.
At the heart of Scolnicovs reading of the
dialogue are two ideas. First, that no Platonic dialogue can or should be read in isolation from other
dialogues; so, according to Scolnicov, Euthydemus
parodies other dialogues, shares themes with them,
and cannot be fully understood without them.
Second, that anything said by any speaker in any
dialogue is largely determined by the context and
by their character.
In the somewhat meandering first lecture
Scolnicov argues that true dialogue is always situational (30). He acknowledges that this creates
problems for interpreting Plato, since it makes it
hard simply to detach propositions from their context and hold them up as Platonic doctrine. The
resulting indeterminacy, Scolnicov seems to imply,
helps us to understand Socratic irony: if Socrates
were to treat his interlocutors to doctrinal statements of his own views, such statements would
necessarily be taken out of their contexts. The
form of the dialogue also seems significant to
Scolnicov: as a direct dialogue that narrates
another dialogue, it has inbuilt incompletenesses
and uncertainties, such as whether the narrator is
remembering the conversation with perfect accuracy, and allows the narrator (in this case Socrates
himself) to interrupt his account to give
commentary.
In the second lecture, Scolnicov distinguishes
between utterance and proposition, such that the
former, but not the latter, is contextually determined.
The fundamental problem with the work of the
sophistic brothers Euthydemus and Dionysodorus,
then, is that they deal with propositions and ignore
the fact that these were utterances, delivered by a
particular person in a particular context. Ironically,

this makes the sophists, but not Plato, the forerunners

of Aristotle and formal logic, and explains the sophistic concern with orthoepeia, disambiguation of
near synonyms or the correct use of words. For the
sophists, A is the name of A; for Scolnicovs solipsistic and Protagorean Plato, A is the name of A
applied by speaker S.
On the sophistic binary model, falsehood is
impossible: to say A is the name of A is either
true or it is saying nothing. In the third lecture,
Scolnicov discusses the sophists denial of the possibility of contradiction, first establishing its Parmenidean background. He stresses that this is a
serious problem for Plato, since contradiction (refutation) lies at the heart of his dialectic, and since a
good soul (according to Scolnicov) is one that is
free of contradictions. The sophists make it impossible for us to distinguish good souls from bad
souls; they destroy ethics along with logic.
Scolnicov claims in the fourth lecture that for
Plato the soul intermediates between word and
object: the soul is what gives meaning to the outside world, and what knows. The sophists model
leaves no room for opinion; there is only a case of
knowing or of not knowing. Nor does it leave any
room for soul and by eliminating soul they eliminate the possibility of education and moral
improvement. All they do is play with words; they
do not change the way people live.
Finally, in the fifth lecture, Scolnicov establishes
criteria to distinguish Socrates from the sophist
brothers, given that their argumentation and effects
are very similar. Socrates focus, however, is on
the interlocutor, not just the words, so he is a true
educationalist. Socratic aporia is productive; sophistic aporia is stultifying. Socrates prepares his
interlocutor, morally and intellectually, with a protreptic; the sophists plunge straight in. In the end,
his moral intuitions, supported by the method of
hypothesis, seem surer to him than the sophists
deductions.
I have focused on Scolnicovs actual lectures.
The critiques that follow, and Scolnicovs
responses, raise some good points, but they are not
the main feast. In the end, however, this is a slight
book; Scolnicovs many useful insights might have
been better served by developing the lectures into
something more substantial. Above all, his heavily
contextualized reading of the dialogues needs
greater confirmation.
Lakonia, Greece

Robin Waterfield

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165

Philosophos: Platos Missing Dialogue. By Marie Louise Gill. Pp. x, 290, Oxford University Press 2012, 30.00/
$55.00.

This book is a very stimulating account of Platos

later dialogues (specifically Parmenides, Theaetetus, Sophist, and Statesman), centring on the following puzzle (203-6): Plato several times
announced or intimates that, having discovered the
nature of the sophist and the statesman, he will
next go on to do the same analysis for the philosopher. So why was this third dialogue, Philosophos,
never written? Gill believes, in short, that Plato
had no further need to write it, because he had
effectively answered the question already.
Gill holds that Parmenides sets a specific programme. Following his fairly devastating critique
of the theory of Forms, Parmenides claims that
Socrates will become a true philosopher by working through exercises such as that found in the
antinomies of Part 2 of the dialogue. The pattern of
the exercises is that first an antinomy is presented,
then an attempt is made to find a middle path, and
finally an attempt is made to undermine the solution just found. She believes that the divisions of
Sophist and Statesman constitute such exercises,
but more importantly that a similar exercise has
lain hidden from scholars eyes for 2,500 years,
and spans both Theaetetus and Sophist.
The methodological weakness is apparent: why
should Plato have buried such an apparently important exercise, the one that reveals the work of the
philosopher, so thoroughly and mystifyingly, rather
than just presenting it? Gill belongs to the school
of Plato interpreters who hold that Plato commonly
means his readers to excavate meaning from his
texts. (12).
In Chapter 1, Gill argues that the first part of
Parmenides presents problems with the separateness of Forms. Hence (Chapter 2), the point of the
second part of the dialogue is to get Socrates to
recognize that each Form is both one and many,
and that the problem of participation is a problem
relating to the very being of Forms. Chapter 3
develops the view of Theaetetus and Sophist (244b245e; 248a-249b) as presenting a similar exercise.

An antinomy is set up between the Heraclitean and

Eleatic conceptions of being, leaving reconciliation
between the two viewpoints urgent, and prefigured
by the reconciliation of the Gods and Giants.
Chapters 4-6 each survey one dialogue: Theaetetus, Sophist, Statesman. In Chapter 4, Gill argues
that the philosophers knowledge is knowledge as
expertise, combining all three kinds of knowledge
discussed in the dialogue, and rejected as definitions on their own of knowledge. This knowledge
is the genus to be divided in searching for the
sophist, statesman, and philosopher. The following
two chapters survey in these terms the definitions
of the sophist and statesman.
In the final Chapter 7, Gill argues that passages
in Sophist and Philebus show what the dialectician
or philosopher must know and what methodology
she has to follow. Plato assumes, or believes he
has shown, that being is structured, and so that all
beings, the true nature of all things, are the province of the philosopher, and that she acquires
expertise by following the kind of exercise on
being that Gill has extracted from Theaetetus and
Sophist, with the final stage of challenging the
accepted reconciliation so as to take the inquiry to
a deeper level, to the level of being itself rather
than any of its qualities. So the philosopher has
been adequately delimited, and there is no need for
a separate dialogue, because the exercises of these
later dialogues have already adumbrated the philosophers work.
So much for the central argument of the book.
Long stretches, especially in Chapters 5 and 6, are
analyses of the relevant dialogues, and so, apart from
the interest of the central argument, readers will also
find themselves guided, with plausible analyses,
through the main points Plato wants to make in these
dialogues. This too is useful perhaps more useful
than the central argument, which many, I suspect,
will find somewhat implausible.
Lakonia, Greece

Robin Waterfield

Platos Gods. By Gerd van Riel. Pp. vii, 137, Farnham: Ashgate, 2013, 50.00/19.99.

There are considerable obstacles to understanding

Platos theology. What he says is vague and sometimes apparently self-contradictory. Despite the
centrality of religion to the lives of his contemporaries (and despite some religious-minded scholars
desire to see that centrality reflected in the
dialogues), Plato seems not to have been very

concerned with theological issues. It is not even

clear whether he was a monotheist or a polytheist;
I would say probably the latter, but inclining
towards the former. If he had a supreme deity, it is
not clear whether he was merely a creator god (the
Demiurge of Timaeus) or a supreme metaphysical
principle on which all other such principles and the

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world ultimately depend, perhaps the Form of the

Good.
Van Riels interesting monograph addresses
these issues and more. The book consists of an
introduction, three chapters, a very brief conclusion, and the usual end matter. There are omissions
in the bibliography, probably generated by the fact
that van Riel is clearly more familiar with Continental work than the English/American tradition:
no mention of Daniel Dombrowskis excellent A
Platonic Philosophy of Religion (2005), or Richard
Mohrs God and Forms in Plato (1985, reissued
2005). Mark McPherrans 1996 The Religion of
Socrates is also relevant, since by Socrates in the
title he means the early Platonic dialogues. Nor is
there mention of David Sedleys 1999 The Ideal
of Godlikeness, a very seminal article, or an
important 2007 paper by Jan Bremmer on what
atheism meant in the ancient world. Then for the
general background on Greek religion, he relies
entirely on Walter Burkerts 1985 Greek Religion,
when there are newer and better books available.
Moreover, scholars such as Julia Kindt are developing a more capacious view of Greek religions,
including personal religion, whereas van Riels
Greek religion is purely civic religion.
Chapter 1, Platos Religion, develops Platos
view of piety. Piety is a matter of inner disposition
as well as performance. If god is the measure
(Laws 716c), and we must do what pleases god,
then we must be good (act with justice), because
god is good. Part of being good is humility,
because as mortals we cannot hope to become gods
or even to know what god wants us to do. The
ideal of assimilation to god is moral, not
intellectual.
Chapter 2, Platos Theology, stresses that theologia for Plato does not imply a fully articulate theology, but just, literally, talking about the gods.
He also stresses Platos hesitancy: while falling
short of agnosticism, Plato is always aware of the
limitations of our knowledge of the gods, and
therefore does not intend to revolutionize our

thinking about them, but to clarify the rules that

theologians must abide by in their accounts. First
and foremost, our ideas about them must be purified by holding constantly to the view that the gods
are always good and are the causes only of good
things. Second, the gods are unchanging, since
change would be necessarily be a change for the
worse. The best argument for the existence of the
gods, in Platos view, is the argument from design.
The celestial gods are undefiled souls, and the
heavenly bodies are their bodies, while the traditional Greek gods probably have no bodies in
themselves, except for purposes of epiphany. The
gods creative function is to see that the world is
informed by the intelligible structure of Forms.
Their eternal contemplation of truth is a life of
bliss. The gods remain plural; Platos use of the
singular ho theos means more or less the divine
(but the masculine noun is odd for this, I would
say); he accepts the existence of both celestial and
traditional gods.
Chapter 3, Theology and Metaphysics, argues
(especially against Stephen Menn and Michael
Bordt) that the claim that Platos god was a
supreme metaphysical principle rests on an misguided attempt to Aristotelize Platos theology. Nor
is his god just a creator god (the Demiurge or intellect); the Demiurge is one god among many. The
relation between the gods and Forms is that the
Forms provide the framework of goodness and
intelligible being within which the gods function,
just as we do too. The Forms thus fill the place
occupied in traditional Greek religion by Fate, and
the gods draw on the Forms to ensure that the
world is orderly and good.
Plato thus ends up more as a philosophical interpreter and clarifier of traditional religion, rather
than an innovator like Aristotle. This feels right to
me, though I would not agree with van Riel on all
the details of his account.
Lakonia, Greece

Robin Waterfield

Nature and Divinity in Platos Timaeus. By Sarah Broadie. Pp. ix, 305, Cambridge University Press, 2012,
55.00/$95.00.

This brilliant, difficult book falls well short of

being a full commentary on Platos Timaeus, but it
discusses all those aspects of the dialogue that
scholars have found most rewarding and problematic: creation and the nature of the Demiurge, the
Receptacle, Forms, the relationship of Timaeus to
Critias, and so on. Seven chapters, often densely
argued and tough to read, develop Broadies often

innovative views on these topics; each chapter is

effectively a separate paper, though as the book
progresses links emerge. The book ends with an
appendix (effectively, a long footnote left over
from an earlier chapter), a manageable bibliography, and the usual indexes.
Chapter 1 considers a nest of issues surrounding
the Demiurge, but especially his separateness from

BOOK REVIEWS

creation. Broadie argues that the very fact that the

Demiurge uses pre-existent material for his creation
guarantees his separateness from the materials, in the
way that a dyadic picture of just cause and product
would not. She then asks why Plato needs the Demiurge at all, given that the world-soul itself is divine
and creative. She shows that the world-soul and the
Demiurge are models of different kinds of causality
oneone and onemany, respectively and suggests
that for Plato this makes them distinct principles. She
sketches an account, to be completed later in the book,
on which the separateness of the Demiurge and creation in time hang together: if Plato was serious about
one, he was serious about the other.
Chapter 2 turns to the status of the account. Cosmology can only ever be a likely account, because
it is an account of a likeness, in the sense that the
world is no more than likenesses of such paradigms. Nevertheless, Timaeus speaks with great
confidence, because his account is meant to be as
scientific as possible under the circumstances. It
remains, however, a corrigible account.
Chapter 3 contains a difficult, but important argument, essentially that Plato, despite what we think of
as his other-worldly interests and despite occasional
glimpses of such interests in Timaeus itself is truly
concerned to explain the cosmos, just as, and just
because, the Demiurge was truly concerned to create
the best possible world. The argument of the chapter
thus has connections with important recent work by
Andrew Gregory, rehabilitating Platos attitude
towards the sciences, but Broadie also stresses that she
is not undermining Platos platonism: there is still
plenty in Timaeus to put off a naturalist.
Chapter 4 is concerned with the nature of humankind. Man is a mixture of mortal body and immortal
soul, which makes him both similar to and different
from anything else in the universe. But he completes
the universe, in that all the paradigms must be instantiated and, in general, because soul needs body to
complete it. But his being ensouled within the flux of
the world makes it much harder for him to realize his
potential as a rational agent. Broadie argues, interestingly, that this is how it should be that otherwise
man would not complete the universe.

167

Chapter 5 explores the connections between the

cosmology of Timaeus and the pseudo-history of
Critias. She argues that Plato is licensing, as legitimate areas of study within the Academy, both
cosmology and historiography. Less plausibly, perhaps, she reads the pseudo-history of Critias as
implicitly critical of Athenian democratic imperialism, in that it tells of a pre-naval heroic Athens.
Does she undermine this point by also arguing that
Critias is a kind of opposite of Socrates as well as
of Timaeus? For surely such a critique would come
better from Socrates.
Broadies understanding of the Receptacle in
Chapter 6 is quite revolutionary. Stressing the way
it is introduced as solving a particular problem, she
limits its function to acting as a precondition for
creation to take place (as opposed to, say, explaining the relation between sensibles and Forms, and
the quasi-being of sensibles). The Receptacle
account functions as a different, but overlapping
version of the four-element theory, and especially
to explain movement. The final Chapter 7 rounds
things off by stressing that creation is creation in
and over time, so that she argues against the common sempiternalist reading.
At the start of the book, Broadie announces that she
is going to study Timaeus and Critias on their own
terms, without reference to other dialogues, and she
maintains that stance pretty well throughout the book.
Nevertheless, it should be acknowledged that taking
account of other dialogues might stress her account at
certain points, such that she can either say that
Timaeus is simply unique, or might have to reconsider
some points of her analysis. For instance, she has
argued that fallible mortal reason is a necessary part of
the universe and therefore a good thing, but elsewhere
in the dialogues Plato is commonly concerned about
the grim effects of the material world on our souls. Or
again, she has argued that the dialogue is meant to
have the status of a scientific account, and that opens
up a nest of issues relating to Platos attitude towards
the physical world. So I would describe this as a
challenging book, and I am sure that scholars will rise
productively to the challenges she offers.
Lakonia, Greece

Robin Waterfield

One Book: The Whole Universe. Platos Timaeus Today. Edited by Richard D. Mohr and Barbara M. Sattler.
Pp. viii, 406, Las Vegas: Parmenides Publishing, 2010, $87.00.

Platos Timaeus has been receiving some highquality attention recently, after some decades of
comparative neglect. This generous collection of
newly commissioned essays is undoubtedly the culmination of the trend.

It is immediately noticeable, from the contents

page, that all the usual topics are discussed. There
are the sections on God and Related Matters (five
essays), Space, Place, and Motion: The Receptacle
of Becoming (five essays), Aristotles Timaeus

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BOOK REVIEWS

(two essays), Reason and Myth (two essays), and

Time, Narrative and Myth (three essays). One is
struck by the capaciousness of the discourse no
fewer than five essays on or around the Receptacle
and by the eminence of the contributing authors
(everybody who is anybody in the world of Timaean
studies). But, for the classicist and ancient philosopher, there are some surprises, some unfamiliar names.
Eminent physicists (one a Nobel laureate) also gives
their views; one of the essays in Time, Narrative and
Myth is about the depiction of Atlantis on film
(Timaeus in Tinseltown); there is a two-essay section
on the influence of the dialogue on modern architectural movements. In short, this is a wide-ranging and
peculiarly interesting collection.
Summaries: Anthony Leggett, Nobel Laureate in
Physics, reveals the enduring value of Platos
approach to science. Anthony Long locates Platos
theology within the stream of Greek theological
thinking from the Presocratics to the Stoics. Allan
Silverman explores the relation between knowing
good and doing good in Timaeus and Republic.
Charles Kahn continues to push his brand of unitarianism with a survey of all Platos supposedly later
dialogues, including Timaeus. Matthias Vorwoerk
looks at later Platonists take on the Demiurge, as
Ian Mueller does for the Receptacle. Thomas
Robinson reflects (after a lifetime of studying the
dialogue) on creation and the Demiurge. Donald
Zeyl and Verity Harte, in their essays, provide different, but equally interesting accounts of the
Receptacle and its relations to material objects and
forms. Stephen Menn argues that the chief weakness Plato found in his predecessors was a failure
to develop a coherent teleology. Zina Giannopolou
critiques Derridas assertion that Platos reliance on

the Receptacle proves the unsustainability of his

basic dualism. Thomas Johansen argues that Aristotle was right not to find final causes in Timaeus,
while Alan Code attempts to resurrect Platos
account of weight as more coherent than it appears
to be. Gabor Betegh defends Burnyeats already
classic account of the likelihood of the Timaeus
myth, while Alexander Mourelatos criticizes it
and defends the traditional account, where likely
sheds more doubt. Barbara Sattler argues that in
Timaeus Plato allows more comprehensibility to
physical processes than in his earlier metaphysics.
Kathryn Morgan, on the contrary, argues for the
radical imperfection of the physical world. Jon Solomon follows the reception of Timaeus from Renaissance times to Hollywood movies. Anthony
Vidler shows how influential Platos description of
the layout of Atlantis has been on later architectural
thinking. Ann Bergren relates Platos account of the
construction of the world to a modern architectural
movement called animate form. Sean Carroll
whisks us through modern astronomical physics,
with the implicit view that Plato has been left far
behind.
As it happens, the publishers asked me to
endorse this book, so I may be forgiven for ending
by quoting myself from the back jacket: The comprehensive scope of the dialogue is magnificently
matched by the essays in this volume. All the usual
matters are discussed, but always as matters
deserving fresh investigation. . . . Every single
paper in this volume is of the highest standard. I
still agree, on a second reading.
Lakonia, Greece

Robin Waterfield

Plato: Theaetetus. Translated by John McDowell, with an introduction and notes by Lesley Brown. Pp. xxxiii,
161, Oxford University Press (Oxford Worlds Classics), 2014, 9.99.

There is little to say about this book. It exactly

reproduces McDowells 1973 translation of the
dialogue, originally published, along with extensive commentary, in Oxfords Clarendon Plato
Series. Not surprisingly, given the stature of
McDowell as a philosopher, the commentary
remains, along with Burnyeats, some of the very
best work available on the dialogue. The translation has always been one of the better ones of the
dialogue: it is accurate and readable, and begs as
few questions as a translation finds possible. One
minor change has been made at 182c; the change
is unexplained, but it affects nothing of philosophical significance. McDowells readings that differ
from the Oxford Classical Text have also been

extracted from the 1973 commentary and printed

as Textual Notes.
What is really new is all the rest. Lesley Brown, a
renowned expert on Platos later dialogues, has written the introduction and notes, bibliography, and a
pedagogically useful glossary. The introduction
presents the dialogue as enigmatic and Brown then
frames her comments as a survey of responses to
those enigmas. Her summary of the dialogue is brilliantly clear (x-xv). In the commentary, she sticks
strictly to her project of presenting ancient and
modern readers understandings of the dialogue,
but it is a critical commentary, and the relative
strengths and weaknesses of interpretations are often
explained. All this has obvious pedagogical merits.

BOOK REVIEWS

The commentary is shorter, and less partisan, than

the Penguin version (my own), which is likely to be
its main rival. Brown also suggests that the dialogue
is a literary masterpiece (xv-xvii).
The notes explain historical and mythical allusions, critique the arguments, occasionally engage
in a little scholarly controversy, and comment on

169

other matters that Plato scholars and students will

find interesting (such as the dialogue form). The
most valuable aspect of them will prove to be
their close engagement with the arguments, which
is always clear and instructive.
Lakonia, Greece

Robin Waterfield

Platos Theaetetus as a Second Apology. By Zina Giannopoulou. Pp. ix, 205, Oxford University Press, 2013,
$55.00/35.00.

Four chapters analysing the main arguments of

Platos Theaetetus are bracketed by an introductory
chapter and a brief conclusion. The central four
chapters consist chiefly of a commentary on the
dialogue, much of which could have stood alone,
without being attached to the rather odd thesis of
the book, which is developed in the introductory
chapter. This, as the books title implies, is that
Theaetetus is a philosophically sophisticated elaboration of Apology that successfully distinguishes
Socrates from the sophists (2). I say that this is an
odd thesis because there is nothing within Theaetetus itself that would suggest it, and people have
been reading the dialogue for hundreds of years
without even beginning to suspect it.
When Giannopoulou comes to develop this thesis, it turns out (6-8) that the only real resemblance between the Socrateses of the two
dialogues is their self-professed ignorance (hence
Socrates image of himself as a midwife, in
Theaetetus). The only way he is not a sophist,
then, is that a sophist professes knowledge and
the ability to impart it. But this is not enough for
Giannopoulou to develop the thesis she wants.
For one could equally say about every dialogue
prominently featuring Socrates that Plato implicitly distinguishes him in this way from the
sophists. One of Platos aims throughout his writing career was the posthumous defence of his
master. Giannopoulou is really saying little more
than this. Theaetetus is an aporetic dialogue, so
that Socrates is shown clearing his interlocutors
mind, rather than filling it, as sophists do. But,
again, there are many dialogues where Socrates
does this. Theaetetus might become particularly
relevant to this project if it explicitly distinguished
Socrates from the sophists (as Euthydemus does),
but nothing like that happens. The word sophist
does not even occur in Theaetetus, except once in
an adverbial form at 154e, but this is incidental,
and Giannopoulou rightly makes nothing of it.
Giannopoulous thesis, then, seems misguided.
Naturally, in the central chapters, from time to time

she makes an attempt to link Apology with Theaetetus, but these attempts never throw up anything substantial. She talks more about echoes than points
that might truly substantiate the thesis. The most sustained attempt depends on her identification of Protagorean relativism with sophistry; then she can say
that the refutation of the first definition of knowledge
as sense-perception is a refutation of sophistry. But
she also finds Protoagorean elements within the last
two definitions as well, so that she can continue to
say that the refutations of the definitions are refutations of sophistry. But this is implausible, since Protagoras entirely disappears from the dialogue after
the refutation of the first definition.
Her analysis of Theaetetus also seems occasionally muddled. For instance, she declares, programmatically (13), that Platonic metaphysics is absent
from the dialogue, meaning that it is entirely
absent, that we can make perfect sense of the dialogue without reference to Forms. Some scholars
would question this, but that is not my point now,
which is that by the end of the book Giannopoulou
attributes the failure of the final argument of the
dialogue to its failure to take account of Forms,
which are the sole objects of Platonic knowledge.
So she finds Platonic metaphysics implicit in the
dialogue, after all.
There are other problems. In Chapter 3 she
wants to argue that Socrates does have godlike wisdom despite the fact that he is incapable of giving
an account of justice or anything. He has practical rather than theoretical knowledge. But the
notion of godlikeness for Plato precisely involves
removing oneself from the world as much as possible, especially by attending to the eternal realm
(Forms, again) and turning away from the material
world. That is, only a philosopher can be godlike,
and a philosopher has access to eternal verities and
can give accounts. But if Platos concern in Theaetetus is to distinguish Socrates, as a philosopher,
from the sophists, it would be strange for Plato to
be downgrading Socrates philosophizing until it is
precisely closer to that of the sophists.

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BOOK REVIEWS

In short, I find little of value in this book. The

analysis of Theaetetus is largely unoriginal and
occasionally muddled, and the central thesis of the
book is implausible. If there is any plausibility to

the thesis, it would have been better developed in

an article.
Lakonia, Greece

Robin Waterfield

From Plato to Platonism. By Lloyd P. Gerson. Pp. xi, 345, Cornell University Press, 2013, $59.95/34.95.

Nietzsche famously opined that the last Christian

died on the cross. In a similar vein, Gerson asks:
Was Plato a Platonist? To what extent did the
reception of Plato in antiquity accurately reflect
Platos own philosophical intentions? The discussion falls into three parts. In the first part
(chapters 1-4), Gerson considers some basic
assumptions that guide our approach to the Platonic dialogues, including Aristotles take on
them, with a view to clearing the ground. In the
second part (chapters 5-8), he looks at what Platos immediately successors and certain Middle
Platonists made of the dialogues. In the third part
(chapters 9-11), he argues that Plotinus was a true
Platonist. A short concluding chapter precedes a
bibliography and two indexes. The overall thrust
of the book is contentious: Gerson attempts to
establish a positive answer to his question in the
face of pretty constant negative answers from
other scholars.
The problem, of course, is that in order to
answer the question we need to know what Plato
was getting at in the dialogues, so that we have a
standard against which to set the work of later Platonists. Gerson identifies within the dialogues what
he calls Ur-Platonism (UP) a set of five philosophical positions. These five positions are (10-19):
antimaterialism, antimechanism, antinominalism,
antirelativism, and antiscepticism. He argues that
the Platonism of Platos dialogues consists precisely in his responses to or developments of these
five positions; and that this is how later Platonists
saw Platos philosophy, as one possible set of such
responses.
So Gerson argues that in the dialogues we find
Plato elaborating his response to UP, and also that
UP is capacious, capable of accommodating a
(finite) number of philosophical positions, all of
which could then be termed Platonist in that they
are all responses to UP, but which may even
contradict one another on several issues. Thus
Aristotles rejection of Forms, and Speusippus
commitment to a different version of Forms, can
still count at their responses to UP, so that even
Aristotle counts as a Platonist. Even the Sceptics
can count as Platonists, if their rejection of the possibility of knowledge can be read as a response to
UP.

The meat of the book is in the detailed arguments for this thesis. He has many broad issues
to deal with: rival views of Platonism; a denial
that there is a separate Socratic philosophy to be
found in some dialogues (deemed early); a
denial of non-trivial developmentalism and certain
forms of unitarianism, in order to establish a unitarianism based on UP (that is, he reads all the
dialogues as responses to discussions of problems
arising within the Academy, each time stressing
UP as the appropriate response); an attempt to
reinstate Platos unwritten teachings as another set
of responses to UP in fact, as the culmination
of the teachings found in the dialogues (so that,
paradoxically, Aristotle, rather than the dialogues
themselves, becomes our best source for our
knowledge of Platos Platonism (97)); an interpretation of Aristotles entire philosophical enterprise as being aimed at identifying and repairing
problems in the Platonic positive construction out
of UP (101-2; that is, Platonism is therefore an
ongoing project (129), always with work still to
be done (133) by Aristotle and then by other
Platonists).
Having established Aristotle as a continuator of
Platonism, it is of course easier for Gerson to argue
that Platos immediate followers (Chapter 5) and
then the Middle Platonists (Chapter 6-8) are also
Platonists in the same sense. Gersons chief problem here is to explain how during its Sceptical
phase, Academicians were still Platonists, if a core
feature of Platonism is antiscepticism. In Chapter
6, Gerson reads Academic Scepticism as a development of certain epistemological ideas and tactics
deployed by Plato in the dialogues, and as an
attack on Stoic epistemology, not Platonism. In this
way he argues that a skeptical approach to knowledge is not incompatible with Platonism.
The final part turns to Plotinus. Plotinus modestly described himself as no more than an exegete of Plato. Gerson argues that this is correct
that Plotinus was essentially concerned to tie up
what he saw as loose ends in Platos Platonism and
explain its obscurities.
This is, plainly, a bold and important book. It is
also one we have been waiting for since Gersons
2005 Aristotle and Other Platonists, where we met
the seeds of UP and some of the other ideas

BOOK REVIEWS

developed here, especially the idea that Aristotle

was essentially in harmony with Platonism. The
difficulty surely lies in the capaciousness of this
Platonism. He stresses throughout the book that
Platonism is a metaphysical philosophy. Now, the
first thing one thinks of in the context of Platonic
metaphysics and epistemology is the Theory of
Forms (such as it is). But, of course, since Aristotle
and the Sceptics denied the Theory of Forms, if

171

that theory counts as core Platonism, Aristotle and

the Sceptics could not be Platonists. So Gerson has
to read the theory as one of Platos responses to
UP, rather than being a core part of Platonism.
This, I would guess, is the kind of chink in his
armour that will enable scholars in the future to
argue against his thesis.
Lakonia, Greece

Robin Waterfield

Platos Republic: A Critical Guide. Edited by Mark L. McPherran. Pp. xiii, 273, Cambridge University Press,
2010, 50.00/$85.00.

In the past dozen years, there have been five

collections of essays dedicated to Platos Republic,
including another one published by CUP. Just
about every Handbook, Companion, or Guide
series has one; I cant think of any other single
book that has become so privileged. The work is of
course of critical importance, but is there room for
another such collection? Has scholarship moved
on so greatly, or are the terms of this series
(Cambridge Critical Guides) so different from
those of other series?
Most of the twelve essays in this volume originated in a conference on Republic. This is not an
auspicious start for something as comprehensivesounding as a guide, but McPherran was able to
commission two further essays and add one of his
own to round out the volume. The result is pretty
comprehensive, but theres nothing on Republic I,
little on the first phases of education, and surprisingly little on the metaphysics and epistemology.
Compare the comprehensiveness of the Blackwell
Guide, with about the same number of essays, or
of the Cambridge Companion. We want a critical
guide to leave us with a sense of all the various
debates the work throws up, and Im not convinced
that this book does that.
But perhaps Im only quibbling about the choice
to publish this collection of essays as a guide.
The series blurb talks of cutting-edge research volumes, newly commissioned essays, and a scholarly and graduate-level audience. McPherran talks
of veterans of the text who are looking for
thoughtful, detailed excursions into the problems
posed by the text (2). This raises the bar to the
level of, say, Richard Krauts Platos Republic:
Critical Essays (1997), but while this consists of
reprinted essays, McPherrans collection is all original work.
So lets say that there is still room for a collection
of enlightening and original essays on Republic
(though perhaps not published as a guide). In that
case, this volume performs superbly. Most of the

authors are long-established scholars, but there are a

couple of younger entries. Every contribution is of
the highest quality.
Ferrari considers the character Socrates in
Republic, and goes some way towards undermining
the impression readers receive that Socrates is controlling the direction of the arguments. Barneys
fascinating essay argues that the entire work is
governed by ring-composition, and expands out
from that to argue that we are seeing a case of
Plato employing the scientific method. Annas
argues that the Atlantis story of Timaeus and
Critias illustrates Republics teaching on the intrinsic value of virtue. Kamtekar provides a new solution to the old problem that while Plato says hes
going to talk about social justice, he appears to talk
about individual justice. Smith addresses another
old chestnut, the happy philosopher problem, and
gives interesting reasons, from within Republic
itself, for thinking that for philosophers to return to
the Cave does not transgress the rule that justice is
always preferable to injustice.
Hitzs essay considers the defective regimes in
Books 8 and 9 and shows precisely why they are
defective. From Platos perspective, they all aim at
defective standards of excellence; but Hitz also
argues that Plato is not giving us just a philosophers take on real politics, but means his analysis
to apply historically (as Polybius did, for instance).
McPherran considers the often-neglected Myth of
Er and, focusing on personal responsibility for our
moral conduct, argues that it does not undermine
the project of Republic as much as has been
thought.
Shields sharpens up Platos notion of what a
part of the soul might be like, and finds partition
to be non-essential to the soul; thus he aligns the
discussion of soul in Book 4 with that of Book 10,
where soul is undifferentiated. Lesher worries that
clarity might not be the correct translation of the
criterion by which we are asked at 509d to divide
the Line; but his worries are allayed by glossing

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BOOK REVIEWS

clarity as full awareness of reality. Benson

tackles the old issue of the top two divisions of
the Line, stressing that they are differentiated not
by their objects but by method. Approaching Forms
by means of the dialectical method is more thorough and certain than the dianoetic method.
Reeve points out the centrality of education to
all the concerns of Republic. Focusing on the
higher phases of the education of guardians, he
shows that the Platonic educational programme is
designed for all three castes of Kallipolis, but condemns the two lower orders to making potentially
disastrous choices for their next lives. Education is
the one great thing for philosophers only. Finally,
Schofield considers, first, the positive role Plato

allows music in shaping a soul, and contrasts it

with his dismissal of poetry. He drives a familiar
wedge between the discussions of poetry in Books
3 and 10, and argues that the more negative attitude of Book 10 is due to the fact that the poetry
there discussed is more or less devoid of music.
An undergraduate or beginner to Republic might
profit by working through the text with the help of
a good commentary and the Cambridge Companion
or the Blackwell Guide. This collection is aimed at
those who are occupied with a deeper level of
research and will stimulate scholars for many
years.
Lakonia, Greece

Robin Waterfield

Blindness and Reorientation: Problems in Platos Republic. By C.D.C. Reeve. Pp. xvi, 214, Oxford University
Press, 2013, 40.00/$65.00.

Reeves engagement with Republic is long and

deep: two translations (one a revision of Grube,
one his own), one book (Philosopher-Kings, 1988),
and a string of articles. This book is a redeployment of a number of these articles. Each of the
nine chapters draws on at least one previously published paper. There is a general preface, and two
consolidated indexes, but there is no single bibliography. The book remains essentially a collection of
essays; there are recurrent themes and interests, of
course (especially education), but there is no
overarching, unifying thesis. Despite the books
subtitle, Republic scarcely figures in Chapters 1-2
and 6.
Chapter 1 argues that Socrates special deity was
Apollo. He was the god of divination, and hence a
plausible candidate for the source of Socrates little
voice, and he was the source of the Delphic maxims such as Know Yourself with which Socrates
engaged. Reeve also argues that, if the wisdom of
the gods is a form of craft knowledge, it is therefore something to which we can all aspire. Chapter
2 shows how subtly misguided Alcibiades speech
in Symposium is as a portrait of Socrates, and yet
how, almost despite itself, it contains some seeds
of truth.
With Chapter 3 we turn to Republic. In the Myth
of Er, what is it that enables philosophical souls to
make better choices than the rest about their next
incarnations? Reeve shows that this is because the
philosopher, uniquely, combines theoretical knowledge with practical experience.
Chapter 4 revisits Glaucons challenge. In a
compelling account of these opening pages of
Republic, Reeve teases out what precisely Glaucon
asks Socrates to demonstrate in Republic, does the

same for Thrasymachus definition (or definitions)

of justice in Book 1, and shows that Glaucons
challenge is very much a continuation of the Thrasymachean line of thought.
Chapter 5 is on the tripartite soul. Reeve
methodically homes in on the nature of each part,
focusing on its chief object: goodness for the
rational soul, money for the appetitive soul, and
honour for the spirited soul. The spirited party is
the natural ally of reason because it seeks the
souls unity or harmony. The appetitive part has
many jobs, but they are unified by its concern with
money. The rational part is the true self, immortal,
and capable of autonomous activity.
In Chapter 6, Reeve ponders how beauty, which is
immediately visible even to non-philosophers, helps to
guide us to know the more elusive goodness. On the
way, he tackles a number of puzzles in Diotimas
speech, especially what it is to beget in beauty.
Chapter 7 considers issues concerning Platos
remarks on education as reorientation of the
rational faculty towards the forms. Trainee philosophers have to put in fifteen years of practical
politics mainly because only a user truly has
knowledge of things; see also Chapter 3 on experience. Other forms of education have nothing to do
with Forms. On the way, Reeve usefully argues
that the language of likenesses and originals that
Plato uses to try to communicate the cognitive reliability of Forms can be misleading.
Chapter 8 is a broad-ranging discussion, starting
with Platos conception of craft, and moving on to
its connections to goodness. Mathematical method,
for instance, is employed because rational order is
good. But the good is also an object of desire not
just of cognition, and Reeve ends with a discussion

BOOK REVIEWS

of how philosophical pleasure is, according to

Plato, the most pleasant kind.
Finally, in Chapter 9, Reeve turns to the old chestnut
of the philosophers happiness in Republic. If their happiness lies in contemplating Forms, then forcing them
to administer Kallipolis impairs their happiness.
Reeves approach is to show that, for any philosopher,
living in an existing city would be a disaster, so that as
an ideal Kallipolis must be more attractive. He accepts
the consequence that this only makes him better off,
not truly happy.

173

A notable feature of the book is its lack of

engagement with the views of other scholars. The
book is designed in the first instance for those who
want some help in thinking with Plato by themselves; hence, too, there are plenty of translated
extracts. The book is an excellent example of a
philosopher puzzling in an Aristotelian fashion
through issues, and guiding others as he guides
himself.
Lakonia, Greece

Robin Waterfield

Myth, Metaphysics and Dialectic in Platos Statesman. By David A. White. Pp. ix, 272, Aldershot, Ashgate,
2007, 60.00.

Platos Statesman appears to offer plenty of positive teaching in the realm of political thought, but
for White the dialogue is aporetic, or rather, its
puzzles and poor argumentation invite the reader
to think for himself and see that the solutions are
no real solutions. White locates the puzzling myth
the myth of the reversed cosmos as central to
the dialogue. His interpretation of the myth, and of
its bearing on the rest of the dialogue, is what
chiefly leads him to read the dialogue as aporetic,
though he also finds pointers in the same direction
in the character of the Eleatic Stranger and in the
circularity of some of the results of the method of
division as practised by the Stranger. Finally, the
aporetic nature of the dialogue, on this interpretation, is highlighted by comparing it to Philebus,
with which it has metaphysical affinities, and to
Laws, with which it has political affinities.
The Stranger takes over from Socrates at the
beginning of the dialogue, but his applications of
the method of division produce results which, by
his own admission, are not always sound. This, to
White, is Platos way of saying that the results
of the dialogue are not Socratically/Platonically
sound. In particular, the circularity of some of the
Strangers results seems to White to reflect
the cycles of the myth: hence in part his taking the
myth to be both central and critical to the dialogue.
The myth is supposed to warn us, the dialogues
readers, to be on the lookout for such circularity in
the argument that follows it. The myth also,
according to White, has the demiurge producing a
cosmos that is in certain respects incomplete
warning us, along with certain clues in the text, to
take even the final definition of the statesman as
incomplete too. We may be left with true opinion
about the statesman, but we do not yet have knowledge, as the limitations of the method of division
(as practised in this dialogue) also suggest. The
problem, as White sees it, is that the method is

practised in Statesman in a merely mechanical

manner, with being founded on knowledge of true
reality. Hence all its results must be provisional, at
best, and can yield only opinion, not knowledge.
The same goes for the metaphysical underpinnings
of the dialogue: they too are only partially sound,
or not wholly Platonic.
These are the theses pursued, somewhat doggedly, through the first five chapters, in which
White goes through the dialogue from beginning to
end. Chapter 1 finds that the introductory sections
of the dialogue adumbrate its later inconclusiveness
in a number of ways. In particular, mechanical
division fails to address questions of value of
which of the things divided is better and which
worse. Chapter 2 explores the myth and concludes,
among other things, that neither Cronos nor Zeus is
the paradigmatic statesman-shepherd, but the
demiurge who created the whole universe, with its
various cycles, in the first place. Since the Stranger
will immediately go on to take Zeus as his paradigmatic ruler, he must be making a mistake. Chapter
3 investigates the Strangers notion of a paradigm,
stressing that according to him it can yield no
more than true opinion (as opposed to Platonic
paradigms, the Forms, which are yield knowledge),
and that the paradigm of wool-weaving again more
or less ignores questions of value.
Chapter 4 considers the lengthy methodological
digression of 283b-287b. A different kind of measurement specifically, valuational measurement
is needed to determine not just whether something
is not just F, but too F. The Stranger hints that
knowledge of Forms is required, and White finds
the trigger for this volte face in the myth. The
Stranger needed the myth to correct his approach
to dialectic. Chapter 5 finds inaccuracies deliberately built into the final isolation of types of government and that the nature of the best government
is outlined in a severely truncated (106) form that

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BOOK REVIEWS

dooms the final result to inconclusiveness: statecraft in its essence (115) cannot be discovered by
this method of enquiry, which fails to take knowledge and the forms into consideration.
And so Chapters 6 and 7 look at Philebus to see
what the method of division would look like if it
did take knowledge and the forms into consideration. Philebus in general shows, according to
White, how mistakes in dialectic can be corrected
(without reference to a myth, but) by reference to
Forms, and especially to the good and the beautiful
i.e. the valuational aspect of Forms. According to
White, lacking the kind of account of the good that
is found in Philebus, the results of Statesman are

bound to be provisional. A final Epilogue reads

Laws as corrective of some of the flaws of
Statesman.
There is plenty to be grateful for in this book,
especially in its account of the centrality of the
myth in the dialogue, and as a thorough investigation of a difficult dialogue. I believe it is
methodologically flawed in certain respects, but it
will still prove to be a useful tool for those
studying late Plato. It is better at analysing small
stages of the argument than overall themes and
conclusions.
Lakonia, Greece

Robin Waterfield

Platos Political Philosophy. By Evangelia Sembou. Pp. vii, 125, Exeter: Imprint Academic, 2012, 8.95/$17.90.

The declared purpose of this short book is to introduce the reader to Platos political thinking and
to locate it within his broader philosophy. Fully
two thirds of the book is on Republic, with just sixteen pages at the end on Politicus and Laws, and
an appendix explicating a particular argument from
Republic (576b-592b). The book ends with a short
bibliography and an index. By focusing entirely on
these three dialogues, and introducing other work
only to elucidate some point or other, she places
herself firmly outside the Straussian tradition, prevalent in political science departments in the USA;
for they find political messages in almost all
Platos dialogues and so would not see this book as
a proper introduction at all.
No Straussian I, yet I too cannot see much point to
this book. It consists almost entirely of summary and
short quotation of the relevant content of the dialogues
she considers, with minimal comment. The book will
thus help a student understand the course of Republic,
especially, but will not help him or her develop critical
philosophical thinking. The first book of Republic is
good to cut ones philosophical teeth on, but we are
told nothing about the validity of the arguments she
summarizes, nor about the ambiguity of Thrasymachuss position, for instance. And so on throughout the
section on Republic: none of the controversial aspects
of the dialogue play the slightest part in this book
the Sachsian fallacy, the question of the happiness of
philosopher rulers, feminism, the state-soul analogy,
the noble lie, the advantages and disadvantages of pluralism, and so on and so forth. If some, at least, of
these matters are mentioned in passing, none of them
is actually discussed.
So who is the book for? Despite the occasional
slight English lapse (it is not her first language),
the writing is very lucid. Perhaps a first-year
undergraduate or an enthusiastic sixth-former might

benefit. But there are good introductions to the dialogue, such as Pappass Routledge Philosophy
Guidebook, that go further than Sembous book
and genuinely help a student to think about the
issues thrown up by Platos political thought.
And, since Sembous book does little more than
summarize, it is not clear to me what the advantage
is of reading it rather than reading the original
dialogues.
The sections on Politicus and Laws are unsatisfactory in their brevity. She introduces the political
views of Politicus as not that different from those
in the Republic (89), seemingly unaware that this
is a very controversial issue. Christopher Rowe has
indeed argued that the views of Republic and
Politicus are closer than most scholars think, but
the orthodox view is that Politicus is a kind of
bridge between Republic and Laws.
But Rowes work is nowhere referenced. Sembous reading list has some startling omissions:
nothing by Rowe (hardly anything on Politicus or
Laws, in fact); no mention of by far the most
important recent book on Republic and Platos
political views, Malcolm Schofields 2006 Plato:
Political Philosophy; and there are other odd
omissions. She gives the impression of not really
being familiar with recent work on Republic: only
a few footnotes reference modern scholarship, and
apart from a 2000 publication by a Greek scholar
called Tsatsos, she refers chiefly to Nettleships
Lectures (first published in 1897), to the fourth
volume of Guthries A History of Greek Philosophy (1975), and to Cross and Woozleys 1964
commentary. These are good books, but plenty of
good work has gone on since then. Some of it is
mentioned in the bibliography, though not made
use of in the main text. Sembou seems to use the
bibliography to point readers to further works

BOOK REVIEWS

even on topics she hasnt discussed. So, for

instance, Platos feminism is not discussed in the
book, but there are items in the bibliography on
it. But if the bibliography is to serve in this way

175

as a pointer, it needs to be more thorough and

more up to date.
Lakonia, Greece

Robin Waterfield

The Circle of Socrates: Readings in the First-generation Socratics. Edited and translated by George Boys-Stones
and Christopher Rowe. Pp. xiv, 321, Indianapolis, Hackett, 2013, 19.95/$25.00.

Following Socrates death, a number of his followers turned to writing prose works with
Socrates as the protagonist Sokratikoi logoi, as
Aristotle called the genre. We have the complete
Socratic works of Plato and Xenophon, but we
also have fragments of, or testimonia about, dozens more Socratic works by well over a dozen
other writers. The most familiar of these lesser
Socratics are perhaps Aeschines of Sphettus, Antisthenes, and Aristippus, but there are others. The
standard collection of these fragments and testimonia is Gabriele Giannantonis Socratis et Socraticorum Reliquiae (Naples: Bibliopolis, 1990;
abbreviated SSR), which comes in four fat volumes two of texts, and two of notes and other
addenda. What Boys-Stones and Rowe have done
in this volume is collect and translate passages
from Plato, Xenophon, and the SSR authors.
Translations are either original, or taken from preexisting or forthcoming translations published by
Hackett. The main point, obviously, is to illustrate
the interests of this first generation of Socratics.
Those scholars who optimistically regard the
Sokratikoi logoi as being biographical, or reflective of the interests of Socrates rather than just
the various Socratics, will also find a secondary
point, though it is carefully denied by the editors:
to triangulate on to the nature and concerns of the
historical Socrates himself.
Inevitably, in such a collection, texts by Plato
and Xenophon predominate, though the editors say
that they have been parsimonious in this respect.
But this is a fairly meaningless assertion, since, as
first-generation Socratics, all of their Socratic work
could have been included. Picking a chapter at random Chapter 7 of the forty-five texts included,

no more than half are from Plato or Xenophon, but

they occupy about seventy percent of the chapter.
Plato and Xenophon have also been allowed to
dictate the selection in the sense that passages from
SSR authors have been included especially when
they resonate with lines of thought to be found in
Plato and Xenophon (ix). Hence the titles of the
chapters that follow the book is organized thematically are familiar: Argument and Truth;
Happiness and the Good; Virtue and Pleasure;
Body and Soul; Education; The Erotic Sciences; Alcibiades and Politics; Aspasia and the
Role of Women; God and the World; Lesser
Divinites and Socrates Sign; Debates and
Rivalries (a tellingly short chapter). Each chapter
begins with an introductory couple of pages by the
editors, and then the texts, accompanied by infrequent footnotes.
This is a substantial and important volume. It
ends with a very brief bibliography, an index of
Socratics (which also usefully provides a concordance with SSR numbers), and an index of sources.
In the introduction, the editors claim that reading
Plato and Xenophon alongside their more fragmentary peers can lead to some surprising answers and
fruitful new perspectives. No one would deny it. It
is very interesting to know, for instance, that
Eucleides of Megara may (like Plato) have held the
strange theory of the unity of the virtues; or to see
various authors different takes on Socrates daimonion; or to see how often Aristippus is the odd
man out from the rest. This book will be a very
useful teaching tool for courses on Socrates, but it
will be more useful as a research tool.
Lakonia, Greece

Robin Waterfield

Explorations in Ancient and Modern Philosophy. By M.F. Burnyeat. Vol. 1: pp. x, 382; vol. 2: pp. x, 356,
Cambridge University Press, 2012, 135.00/$235.00.

This book is a self-chosen celebration of the work

of Myles Burnyeat, formerly Laurence Professor
of Ancient Philosophy at the University of Cambridge, and latterly a Senior Research Fellow of
All Souls, Oxford. It contains thirty papers, and
professional readers will note many of their old

favourites, but also some omissions (such as his

2005 Eikos Mythos, or recent work on Platos
Republic). The papers included were published
between 1971 and 1998. Another two volumes
could easily be made up out of omissions; there
is a full list (to date) at the back of Maieusis,

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BOOK REVIEWS

a recent OUP volume of essays in honour of

Burnyeat.
Burnyeat has always been one of the most stimulating workers in the field of ancient philosophy, not
least because he brings insights gained from reading
more recent philosophers to bear on ancient philosophy. I vividly remember the excitement of attending
his lectures on Platos Theaetetus in Cambridge in
1978, and it may fairly be said that it was his studies
on this dialogue that first brought him international
fame. They are a remarkable series, and they are all
included in these two volumes, under Logic and
Dialectic or Knowledge. Study of Platonic epistemology was changed for ever; thanks to Burnyeat
Theaetetus became, and remains, a good place to start
thinking about epistemology.
Logic and Dialectic, Knowledge, Scepticism,
Ancient and Modern, and Philosophy and the Good
Life, are the titles of the four sections into which the
papers are divided, and are easily recognizable as
Burnyeats chief concerns. Not all the papers readily
fit into these categories: Sphinx without a Secret is
simply a brilliant attack on the Straussian approach to
ancient philosophy, concluding devastatingly with:
Surrender of the critical intellect is the price of initiation into the world of Leo Strausss ideas.
Everyone will have his or her favourites. The
anti-Straussian paper just mentioned is one of
mine, along with many of the papers on scepticism
and relativism. In Protagoras and Self-refutation in
Later Greek Philosophy and Protagoras and
Self-refutation in Platos Theaetetus he carefully
distinguished subjectivism (every judgement is true
simpliciter not merely true for the person whose
judgement it is) from relativism (every judgement
is true for the judging person), and attributed the
latter but not the former to Protagoras (or Platos
Protagoras). These papers, closer to forty than
thirty years old now, show Burnyeat at his best,
combining acute philosophical argument with

equally acute arguments based on philology. This

combination has always been Burnyeats signature,
and several papers take historical factors into
account as well, though I think this is not one of
Burnyeats particular strengths.
In his controversial 1980 paper Can the Sceptic
Live His Scepticism?, Burnyeat tackled another threat
to scepticism, taking up Humes doubts about whether
scepticism can ever be more than an intellectual position and concluding that, since a true sceptic has no
beliefs, he cannot operate in the material world. In his
1987 Wittgenstein and Augustine De magistro, these
two philosophers are both equally subjected to analysis but Burnyeats purpose is as much as anything to
illuminate an aspect of Platos epistemology. In the
earliest paper in the collection, the 1971 Virtues in
Action, Burnyeat honed some differences between
Socrates and modern approaches to ethics, focusing
in particular on the question whether being good necessarily precedes doing good.
And so on. I have mentioned a few papers just to
make the point that Burnyeat has consistently discussed central problems in ancient philosophy, or has
centralized previously unrecognized problems. He is
equally at home in discussing ancient and less ancient
philosophers, and one of his main contributions over
the years has been to demonstrate how fruitful the
marriage of the two can be for the study of ancient
texts. The exponential growth in recent years of interest in post-Aristotelian philosophy has been strongly
aided by his interest in scepticism later than Plato, and
for almost twenty years he made Cambridge a thriving
centre for ancient philosophical studies across the
board. The essays included in these two volumes have
been at the core of the study of ancient philosophy for
over forty years, and it is extremely useful to have
them all collected.
Lakonia, Greece

Robin Waterfield

The Development of Dialectic from Plato to Aristotle. Edited by Jakob Leth Fink. Pp. vii, 355, Cambridge
University Press, 2012, 60.00/$99.00.

The books title is misleading: none of the twelve

essays in the book directly tackles the specified
topic. The essays are more disparate, and therefore
I shall summarize each in turn rather than attempting a synopsis.
The editors introduction is a thorough analysis of
the nature and uses of dialectic in Plato and Aristotle.
Formally, there is not much difference between the
two, though Plato of course was portraying actual
respondents; but whereas for Plato dialectic was his
main tool in the search for truth, for Aristotle it has a

far more restricted role, to test the validity of arguments and as a training instrument.
Luca Castagnoli enters the fray of the currently
most important debate within Platonic studies the
relative importance of the dramatic contexts of the
dialogues and argues, to my mind successfully,
that we do not do justice to Platos self-refutation
arguments, at least, if we ignore their dialectical
context. But since the same is true of Aristotles
self-refutation arguments, this feature may be a
consequence of this type of argument.

BOOK REVIEWS

Maria-Liisa Kakkuri-Knuuttila considers Aristotles

claim (in Topics) to have been the first to establish the
rules for the respondent in dialectical debate. She
agrees that he was the first, but argues that Plato
anticipated his most important rules, though without
formulating them as such.
Hallvard Fossheim argues, against the grain of
scholarship, that Platos method of division is not
meant to be a method of search, but only of presenting discoveries.
Lysis is in many ways a puzzling dialogue.
Morten reads the dialogue as consisting of a number of pieces, each of which is inconclusive in
itself, but when added together and collected until
we gain a synoptic view (using tools imported
from other dialogues) sheds genuine light on the
nature of friendship (the dialogues theme).
Holger Thesleff uses Platos Laches to develop a
new developmentalist approach. Noting that in this
dialogue the dialectic is less aggressive, he suggests that Plato began to turn away from his
Socratic inheritance in this regard and to develop
his own uses of dialectic.
Charles Kahn tackles the old chestnut of why
Plato chose the dialogue form. He argues that Plato
worked with schemata philosophical insights
that are revisited time and again from different
angles. (So, for instance, emergence from the Cave
in Republic and ascent to forms in Symposium and
recollection in Phaedrus are all the same schema.)
He then argues that the literary form best suited to
presenting these various facets is dialogue, because
it allows different perspectives onto the same
schema. The central insight about schemata seems
to me indisputable, and Kahns version of unitarianism is quite attractive.
The editor contributes an interesting essay on
Aristotles attitude towards Platos use of dialogue.
Notoriously, Aristotle pays no attention to the form
of Platos work, and merely extracts arguments
from it. Fink argues that in fact Aristotle does
allow dialogue some use, to represent character,
but that he still largely eschews this use of dialogue in his own fragmentary dialogues and in his
dialectical arguments. His concern is content, not
form.
Vasilis Politis asks what motivates Socrates
search for definitions. He answers that the questioner

177

must already be puzzled about the topic in question, and in particular must wonder whether F
deserves the descriptions it has received. I am not
sure what the point of this essay is. Of course, in
order to ask a question we have to have a sense
that there are questions to be asked, but we do not
have to have already encountered reasons for finding the topic puzzling, which is what Politis is
claiming.
Hayden Ausland considers induction, chiefly in
Plato and Aristotle. His main finding is that
Aristotle was, as usual, not a very good historian
of philosophy. Whereas Socrates used induction in
a number of different ways, often as part of a rhetorical strategy, Aristotle narrows it down to what
has become known as inductive inference, a
method of seeking universal propositions.
Louis-Andr
e Dorions contribution considers
Aristotles definition of elenchus in the light of
Sophist 230b-e. As we have seen already several
times in this volume Aristotles attitude is selective. He treats refutation as a purely logical phenomenon and ignores Platos emphasis on its moral
value.
Robert Bolton also considers Aristotle on the
elenchus, in Sophistical Refutations. He argues that
for Aristotle it does more than just expose inconsistencies; it also proves the falsity of propositions.
Aristotle even defines elenchus as a deductive argument proving the contradictory of a respondents
thesis. Hence, indirectly, the elenchus can establish
propositions as true. The consequences of this for
scholarship on the Socratic elenchus could be
profound.
Finally, Wolfgang Kullmann thinks he can trace
a development within Aristotle in which he moves
away from an initial interest in dialectic as a
method of apprehending general principles towards
a more empirical approach. But he weakens his
thesis by (rightly) tentative statements about the
relative ordering of Aristotles works, and by preemptively restricting the term dialectic.
Like many such collections, not all the papers
have equal strength. But the preponderance of good
over bad makes this a useful volume, which libraries will want on their shelves.
Lakonia, Greece

Robin Waterfield

Virtues of Thought: Essays on Plato and Aristotle. By Aryeh Kosman. Pp. viii, 325, Cambridge, MA, Harvard
University Press, 2014, $49.95/36.95.

Is a collection of previously published essays

greater than the sum of its parts? If we agree with
Kosmans statement in his introduction to this

volume, the answer in this instance is no. He warns

us that there is not a great deal of thematic unity
to this collection; these are simply some of the

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BOOK REVIEWS

essays that my reading and thinking about Plato

and Aristotle have produced (p. 2). A further
departure from thematic unity is the chronological
sequence of the chapters according to their publication dates, from 1973 to 2010.
Of the books fifteen chapters, eleven deal with
Aristotle, three with Plato and one with both. The
topics of the chapters on Aristotle are understanding,
explanation and insight; perception; virtues, actions
and feelings; the (in)coherency of his modal logic;
mimesis; the maker mind (active intellect); understanding and explaining phenomena scientifically;
friendship and happiness; male and female roles in
generation; how best to translate otria; and virtues

of thought. The topics for Plato are love; justice and

virtue; and self-knowledge and self-control. The
chapter on beauty and the good is the only one that
involves both philosophers.
The book displays Kosmans broad knowledge
of authors, both philosophers and others, both
ancient and modern, who have discussed the topics
he treats. It is liberally sprinkled with Greek terminology which, despite their translations/explanations, will challenge the non-specialist reader.
Others will find here much to ponder and debate.
University of Ottawa, Canada

John R. Williams

Teleology, First Principles, and Scientific Method in Aristotles Biology. By Allan Gotthelf. Pp. xvii, 440, Oxford
University Press, 2012, $87.21.

Not quite a book but much more than a collection

of papers (p. x), this is an overview by perhaps the
dean of contemporary Aristotelian scholars of his
entire career, from his discovery of Aristotle through
Ayn Rands Atlas Shrugged in 1961, through his
study at Columbia University under John Herman
Randall, Jr., his concentration on and defense of teleology for the correct understanding of the development of living organisms, and thus a defense of
Aristotles biological works as science, and of their
legitimate significance for other parts of his philosophy, especially the natural philosophy and metaphysics. In this defense Gotthelf joined a wider stream,
with first David Balme and later David Charles, J. M.
Cooper, Montgomery Furth and Jim Lennox. Gotthelf
presents his principal papers in chronological order,
the earlier ones with a contemporary postscript to
review work that has since appeared on the same
topic. This single work allows the reader to review the
debates and progress in Aristotelian scholarship since
Gotthelf took the baton from the likes of Marjorie
Grene and Darcy Thompson. The growth in precision,
scale, and consequent richness has been exponential.
Over 25 percent of the surviving Aristotelian corpus
are biological works, and what we have here are close
readings of passages from The Generation of Animals,
The Parts of Animals, and The History of Animals
which, first, destroy the stereotype of Aristotle as an
armchair philosopher who read his metaphysics a
priori back into his biology and natural philosophy.
Aristotle recognized natural mechanisms, and he was
open to revision in his theorizing such that he would
have welcomed Darwins later account of the facts of
biological species through natural selection as a
friendly amendment that in no way threatened, but
rather strengthened his own balance of natural mechanisms operating within the context of a principle form

for every member of a species, whose operation has to

be mentioned in any adequate explanation of its development and present functioning. In fact, as Gotthelf
shows, Darwin himself recognized this and came to a
warm appreciation of Aristotles achievement when
he first made serious contact with his biological works
only months before his own death. It is the recognition, balance, and interworking of mechanism and teleology together in Aristotles accounts that bestow a
amazing subtlety to his analyses and makes him stand
head and shoulders above both his predecessors and
successors. Several of his observations, long doubted,
were only vindicated late in the 19th century, and the
style nd power of his explanations have not been
superseded in our own day. A distinction between primary and secondary teleology allows Aristotle to
show how the nature operating within each organism
first forms the core organs for its existence and functioning, and then uses the residue produced by natural mechanisms to form later details in a way best
suited for the organisms flourishing. Further, there is
a trust in ordinary language to distinguish the principal
genera or super kinds of animals only to a certain
extent; in a sense, we are too close to this extremely
large subject, and must step back after collecting and
correlating principal features in the search for causes,
to see super kinds for which we do not have a word
in our language, because we ordinarily do not need to
make such a distinction.
This work provides a thorough immersion in and
persuasive, vibrant defense of Aristotles teleological biology, natural philosophy, and metaphysics; it
brings the reader up to speed with the recent
debates and developments in Aristotelian scholarship for which Gotthelf has been a major catalyst.
Heythrop College

Patrick Madigan

BOOK REVIEWS

179

Aristotles Empiricism: Experience and Mechanics in the 4th Century BC. By Jean De Groot. Pp. xxv, 442, Las
Vegas/Zurich/Athens, Parmenides Publishing, 2014, $107.32.

De Groot upsets the modern dismissal of Aristotelian natural philosophy as naively realistic or
qualitative vs. quantitative, as built up dialectically from conventional opinions rather than making hard contact with experience, by showing it
to have been more empirical than modern mechanics because based on the kinaesthetic awareness of
such things as leaning into a curve as you go
around a corner on a motorcycle, so that the tire
bites deeper into the road to get traction, an experience that puts us in unmediated contact with an
arche, or principle implying a necessary connection between a subject and an attribute that is
then abstracted into the principle of ratios in the
lever and eventually the moving radius principle
that was (and is) omnipresent in our everyday
experience. In other words, arche or a principle
does not mean something deep or reached only
after a long train of induction and located at the
top of a theoretic or contemplative edifice, but an
encounter with power or potentiality (the epistemological origin of dunamis) and necessity as near
the surface in the mundane experiences we constantly make use of for action, to get things done

efficiently using mechanical advantage. We should

therefore imagine Aristotles Lyceum as surrounded
by workshops and factories, rather than classrooms
and libraries, and presupposing a sense of experience spanning a sophisticated pre-propositional
muscle memory - a sense of how to get things
done, or to stabilize oneself when one feels oneself
in danger of falling, up to the abstraction of invariant traits from diverse sectors of our experience in
contemplative mathematics, that constitutes the rich
but unseen and presupposed subsoil from which
Aristotles physics grew and which is not outdated
even in our own day. This book presents an
other or alternative Aristotle to the caricature and
straw man set up through the mistaken Baconian
capitulation to Democratean sense data, a nonempirical ideology that distorts rather than
enhances our radical, unavoidable, pre-philosophic
experience of power and necessity. This is a revolutionary book that transforms our view of Aristotle
and specifically our evaluation of his natural
philosophy.
Heythrop College

Patrick Madigan

Doing and Being: An Interpretation of Aristotles Metaphysics Theta. By Jonathan Beere. Pp. xiv, 367, Oxford
University Press, 2009, 2012, $42.95.

In this expansion of his doctoral dissertation under

Michael Frede and John Cooper, Beere gives a commentary on the nine sections of Aristotles Metaphysics Theta. It is in this chapter that Aristotles strongest
metaphysical conclusions are reached, and with this
the failure of his attempt to produce a wisdom or
science of Being qua Being is also revealed. Beere
is helpful in supplying the background discussions in
Platos works (and elsewhere) which Aristotles own
interventions presuppose and against which they must
be appreciated to be properly evaluated; this is a great
service to the student. Beere sees Aristotles project
as coming out of the passage in the Sophist where the
Eleatic Visitor develops an impasse about Being,
referring to a battle between Gods and Giants about
what being is. Both sides accept the composite
structure of moving substance, but the Giants stress
the material side as primary, losing the distinctness
and diversity of beings in a radical reductionism,
while the Gods are Platonists who stress the (static)
form as primary, and as a consequence do not account
for the changing aspect of the objects of our experience. This launches Aristotle into his classic discussion of the relation between being-as-capacity and

being-as-energeia, his argument for an asymmetric

relationship and the ultimate priority in time, account,
and being for being-as-energeia, and the identification
of the eternal heavenly substances (and the unmoved
mover) as energeia without a corresponding capacity.
Beere describes the hierarchic or asymmetric relation
of capacity to energeia in the composite substance as
adjectival (rather than substantial), for it is the
form that tells us what a thing is; this almost suggests that material aspects participate in substance,
always to a relative degree, rather than possessing or
inhabiting it substantially. This also intimates a
deeper problem in accounting for the independence
and diversity of material substances; the fact of their
existence must be taken as a radical surd. No deeper
account can be given. The necessarily analogical
nature of the extremely broad (and made-up) word of
energeia is explained patiently, as are all of the other
distinctions Aristotle makes. But while Aristotle
stresses that the material aspects of composite substance depend on energeia for their being, and that
composite substances ultimately depend on the
unalloyed energeia of the unmoved mover for their
being, he nowhere explains how the latter transfers to

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the former, or even how this would be possible. In

other words, this account remains a promissory
note; it is nowhere redeemed or produced. The situation is worse, for as we learn in Metaphysics Lambda,
the unmoved mover is locked into thought about itself
as its only permissible energeia; so why should there
be anything in existence except itself? Platos position
was stronger, because he stressed the aspect of goodness whereby it seeks to disperse or communicate
itself as widely as possible. Aristotle identifies the

good as what things seek, and accounts only for the

desire of moving substances to possess or imitate the
unmoved mover as far as possible. Plato had a
resource to explain the exitus of things from the
Good; Aristotle can only explain the redditus. His
highest instance of Being remains a black hole in
the cosmos, absorbing all energy (including its own)
into itself, allowing nothing to escape.
Heythrop College

Patrick Madigan

How Aristotle Gets By in Metaphysics Zeta. By Frank A. Lewis. Pp. xvi, 324, Oxford University Press, 2013,
$88.76.

Following on his Substance and Predication in

Aristotle (1991) and Form, Matter, and Mixture in
Aristotle (1996) which he co-edited with Robert
Bolton, this new volume cements Lewis reputation
as the best cicerone for guiding us through this
central chapter of the Metaphysics that is all too
easy to approach ideologically, positively or negatively, but whose agenda, method, use of other
Aristotelian texts, and ultimate success it is maddening to evaluate. The first sixteen sections of
Zeta are given over to a review of what other
thinkers (Plato, Democritus, and Aristotles other
selves, or positions he takes in other texts) have
said about the nature of primary substance; only in
the final 17th section, and briefly, does Aristotle
unveil his new, or partisan theory of form-matter
composition, with (Aristotelian) form being identified with primary substance, or the substance of a
thing. And what is the primary ambition of this
chapter: to produce a definition of primary substance as Aristotle announces, or a demonstration
(in accord with the Posterior Analytics) of the
superiority of his candidate over its rivals? And if
both, how is one related to the other? Lewis disentangles these issues and finds a way to measure
Aristotles success against his announced ambition
that all should find satisfying.
Lewis excels at the close reading that is necessary of this chapter and the other works in the
Organon upon which Aristotle relies to disclose the
logical rigor of the advance to causal explanation
(in his understanding of causes), the way the middle term in a proper demonstration establishes the
proper scope, and ultimately the relevant cause,
that allow us to frame the correct definition of a
species under study, and how this procedure indirectly or obliquely allows us to achieve the (different) objective of framing a correct definition of
primary substance (in the abstract or singular, the
distinctive goal of metaphysics). The structure of

the argument is maddeningly complex, with fresh

starts apparently interrupting the logical sequence
and important conclusions stated elliptically (if at
all) and picked up or invoked later to do important
work in unexpected contexts. But perhaps Lewiss
greatest achievement, which he could have been
less modest in stating, is to show it is not inappropriate to approach this crucial section of the Metaphysics, and perhaps the treatise as a whole, as an
immense work of rhetoric or persuasion (almost
conversion), and not just of logical rigor. That is, it
is clearly Aristotles ambition, from stating initially
with great respect and neutrality the three received
candidates for first substance of essence, universal,
and subject (to be followed later by matter), to
display confidence in the tradition which he wants
to portray himself as summing up and bringing to
fruition, to save the appearances by showing that
how we speak is valid, if a loose way of dealing
with things, and to save his respected predecessors
the humiliation of being bested in this most important competition by going out of his way to show
that his own superior theory saves all that recommended their less adequate candidates, so that their
insights are brought forward, and his own advance
would have been impossible without them. His
conclusions go modestly understated, almost as
asides - though they fall like ripe fruit - so as to
minimize the pain of defeat for the others. Aristotle
is interested in conversion, not just in being right,
for this is also part of his thesis, and his philosophy
is marching forward constantly on multiple fronts.
Philosophy he sees as a profession with a long history, and it is now approaching its conclusion. We
must glory with and give thanks for the results
through our corresponding contemplative activity,
and not worry overmuch who won.
Heythrop College

Patrick Madigan

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181

The Activity of Being: An Essay on Aristotles Ontology. By Aryeh Kosman. Pp. xv, 277, Cambridge/London,
Harvard University Press, 2013, 33.95.

Kosman, emeritus professor of Philosophy at

Haverford College, crowns his career with an
encompassing, subtle, and penetrating study of
Aristotles Metaphysics. Too long has the study of
Aristotle been dominated by the topics of motion
and change from the Physics, and the correlative
modal translation of potentiality and actuality, misleading in that they do scant justice to the ability,
or first-order realization that the positive competence of a potentiality already is for Aristotle,
and to the centrality of activity, or the excellent
exercise of a competence, to the entire Aristotelian
philosophical construction, all the more so in first
philosophy. Kosman is helpful in showing how
the enterprise of a first philosophy is necessarily
closer to a Platonic dialogue than to a demonstrative
system a way up rather than a way down that
must proceed dialectically as we leave the familiar physical world behind, feeling our way in the
dark, with frequent, but still instructive, aporetic
deadends and failures. A major aid in this spelunking in the dark (to reverse our image) is the
guide-wire of language; indeed, trust in ordinary
ways of speaking is one of the major differences
between ancient and modern philosophy, and is
nowhere more evident than in Aristotle. If language is successful, there must be something right
about the way we speak, however cautious we
should be about an overly-simple or uncritical
interpretation. The object of study is nothing less
than Being qua being, all of being; too broad by
Aristotles own admission, since being is not
used in a univocal sense. The key insight that
renders a probing and advancing exploration nonetheless possible, is that the equivocation is not
total or complete, but that the diverse senses have

a focal homonymy, a reference to one primary

sense, that is being in virtue of itself rather than
in virtue of another. Aristotles categories are thus
not divisions of things but rather of types of
being, which have their own surprising relationships and implications. For example, a numerically singular individual is host to many beings,
contrasting but mutually valid characterizations,
each valid under a different description. With this
commentary Kosman establishes himself as the
new Virgil who leads us through the apparent
starts-and-stops of the Metaphysics, disclosing the
fil conducteur that impels the study onward and
upward, through a series (in this rarefied air) of
synecdochal revelations that disclose that the
structure of substance is indeed the structure of
all being, and that within the uniquely tight, intimate, and inextricable unity of substance (which it
is the main thrust of the Metaphysics to appreciate and illuminate), it is not the Good or the
One that emerges as the best face or representation of what is ultimate or primitive, but activity understood as the full achievement of a
substances competence to be.
Controversial will be Kosmans interpretation of
Aristotles comments in Ch. 12 about the divine
and its characteristic activity of thought thinking
itself. He interprets this in a Kantian direction,
similar to the transcendental unity of apperception
- not necessarily as a distinct entity, but as a structure present in any thought as thought or awareness
and that functions to assure the adequacy or completeness of thought to its object. But he leaves it
to us to decide.
Heythrop College

Patrick Madigan

Aristotles Ethics: Moral Development and Human Nature. By Hope May. Pp. xiv, 189, London/NY, Continuum,
2010, 65.00.

May gives us in effect two works. On the one

hand, by showing how one must make use of what
Aristotle says in his physical and biological texts
to make sense of what he says in his ethical and
political works, May provides a most lucid explanation of the inner dependencies as well as of the
overall coherence and adequacy of Aristotles
ethics of eudaimonia (here translated flourishing).
In the second half of her work, May links this
theory with insights from contemporary developmental psychology and the psychology of learning
in such a way as to incorporate her scholarly

results in an impassioned advocacy for an Aristotelian theory of positive autonomy (linked to goalsetting and goal-achieving willing) rather than
merely negative autonomy (freedom from external
intrusion, chiefly from the State), to which the latter is too often reduced in contemporary liberal
society. She thus rescues Aristotelianism from the
scrapheap of interesting but outmoded cultural artefacts from a bygone era to foreground it as an
urgently needed antidote to the unhelpful psychologies and alienated ideologies popular in our day
that do nothing to empower young people trying to

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BOOK REVIEWS

coach themselves into insightful and confident

goal-seekers and contributors in the midst of a liberal society in which they too often end up floating passively as excluded and embittered losers.
This book would thus make an excellent text in the
final year of secondary school or the first few years
of university.
In the first half May takes up the debate between
the Intellectualists and Inclusivists to show that
the moral virtues are developmental preconditions
for the intellectual virtues, and that practical virtue
or phronesis implies a specific motivational system
bringing about a necessary but painful break with
our initial or default orientation towards the bodily pleasures, offering powerful epistemic and motivational (will-based) supplements that allow us to
taste new and alternative pleasures, thereby to lift
the good we are pursuing to one that incorporates
a perception of ourselves pursuing a (by comparison) superior goal and that results in a richer, more
self-consonant, and satisfying character. Such training provides a first-level flourishing accessible
and in some sense required of everyone. Additionally it provides the necessary platform for
cultivating the ultimate or most final intellectual
virtue of contemplation, by which the individual
may probe dialectically the ultimate causes of not
just the moving world but of the deepest, unmoving or transcendent structure of the world as
well. May displays both scholarly assiduity and

psychological insight in explaining the complicated

relationships between affective virtue, practical
wisdom, and how higher aspiration must be awakened and pursued with discipline by self-coaching
as the individual takes account of distinctive
pleasures that accompany new activities as their
hedonic signature. She is perhaps too sanguine
concerning the prospects for contemporary liberal
society being prepared to shape-shift from the
negative to the positive form of autonomy she correctly diagnoses as the deepest hemorrhage in our
post-revolutionary ideological exile. We may have
to carry on, as Aristotle says we inevitably must,
under the laws of a less-than-ideal state, in which
the good person must swim against the tide and
form a silent, minority opposition to the magnetism
of the ever-popular but too-easy dismissal of any
need for self-correction and self-formation:
In the Spartan state alone, or almost alone,
the legislator seems to have paid attention to
questions of nurture and occupation; in most
states such matters have been neglected, and
each man lives as he pleases, Cyclopsfashion, to his own wife and children dealing law. (NE 1180a, quoted p. 69)
Heythrop College

Patrick Madigan

Pleasure in Ancient Greek Philosophy. By David Wolfsdorf. Pp. xi, 299, Cambridge University Press, 2013,
55.00/19.99; $90.00/34.99.

It has been quite a while since J.C.B. Gosling and

C.C.W. Taylors monograph The Greeks on Pleasure (OUP, 1982), but it may still seem bold to
some for Wolfsdorf to revisit the territory. Typically, however, he gives us a valuable book, based
closely on the relevant texts, well argued, and eminently readable.
The book is organized chronologically: after an
introductory chapter, arguing that the ancient
approach to pleasure was significantly different
from ours today, and therefore worth studying, we
have Pleasure in early Greek ethics (Prodicus,
Democritus, Antisthenes, Aristippus, Socrates);
Pleasure in the early physical tradition (Empedocles, Diogenes of Apollonia, and others who discussed pleasure in the context of either nutrition or
sexual pleasure). There then follow two chapters
on Plato, the second on Philebus and the first on
the rest; and then one chapter each on Aristotle,
Epicurus and the Cyrenaics, and the Old Stoics.
Chapter 9 discusses contemporary conceptions of

pleasure from Ryle onwards, and a final concluding

chapter compares ancient and modern treatments.
The ethical or eudaemonist approach to pleasure
focused on the contribution pleasure makes towards
human happiness. Prodicus, Democritus, and Antisthenes seem to have regarded some pleasures as
acceptable and some as not, though different sets in
each case. The relation of good pleasures to happiness is obscure in these fragmentary texts. Aristippean
hedonism is interpreted as presentist that is, the
injunction that one should try to find pleasure in whatever ones present circumstances are. The first chapter
concludes that neither Socrates nor these predecessors
of his tried to define pleasure.
Chapter 2: Theophrastus account of Empedocles
on pleasure is untrustworthy; if he is to be trusted
on Diogenes, then Diogenes had some kind of
theory associating pleasure with air in the body.
Polybus of Cos developed a replenishment model
of physical pleasure in Diseases IV, and in On
Generation associated pleasure with bodily heat.

BOOK REVIEWS

Chapter 3 discusses Platos use of the replenishment

model, and teases out of the texts considered all the
elements of the theory, especially the part the soul
plays in perceiving pleasures. Chapter 4 turns to Philebus and the peculiar branding of some pleasures as
false. Wolfsdorf does not read truth and falsity
here as a single notion. With Philebus building on
Republic 9, Wolfsdorf distinguishes no fewer than ten
kinds of true or false pleasures, and not all of them are
true or false in the same way. Some are representationally true or false (i.e. the appearance of pleasure
is true or false), others are ontologically true or false
(i.e. they just dont exist).
In Chapter 5, he turns to Aristotle. He detects
development in the Stagirites conception of pleasure, from something akin to Platos restoration, to
his more mature position in the Eudemian and
Nicomachean Ethics, whereby pleasure is an energeia and he actually criticizes the restoration
theory. Wolfsdorf translates energeia activation,
and after some discussion reaches the following
definition of pleasure for Aristotle: pleasure is the
unimpeded and thus full or complete activation of
sense-perceptual, characterological, or intellectual
faculties that are in their natural conditions (123).
But this is from Eudemian Ethics 6; in Nicomachean Ethics 10, Aristotle appears to be saying
something different that pleasure completes activation (i.e. a fully realized activation is pleasant).
Rather than trying to reconcile these two views,
as many scholars do, Wolfsdorf sees further
development.

183

Chapter 7 compares the views of Epicurus and

the Cyrenaics. Epicurus famously held that the
good was the absence of pain (bodily or mental),
while the Cyrenaics held that the good was bodily
pleasure. Though the ancients (followed by modern
interpreters) distinguish their views on pleasure,
Wolfsdorf brings them closer into alignment, while
recognizing differences due to the fact that the
Cyrenaics were not atomists. Above all and this
will prove controversial he interprets Epicurus on
katastematic pleasure so that it is not just a placid
state, but involves movement and restoration
(which makes katastematic pleasure rather too similar to kinetic pleasure for my liking). He also
interprets Epicurean kinetic pleasure as similar to
Aristotelian pleasure.
Chapter 8, on the Old Stoa, subtly distinguishes
the views of Chrysippus from those of Zeno and
Cleanthes; Chrysippus introduced a more cognitive
element. But for all of them, he argues, pleasure
was a kind of passion (pathos) or excessive
impulse excessive because it is not based on
sound reasoning; pleasure depends on the belief
that something present is good, and that therefore
one should feel joy at it.
The final two chapters are a useful survey of
some modern views on pleasure, with a plea for
enrichment of the debate by paying attention to
ancient views as well.
Lakonia, Greece

Robin Waterfield

The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Greek Political Thought. Edited by Stephen Salkever. Pp. ix, 380,
Cambridge University Press, 2009, 55.00/19.99.

There are, literally, hundreds of Cambridge Companions. Typing Cambridge Companion into
CUPs search engine produced 1045 hits. Granted
that hardback and paperback editions are listed separately, this is still a long list. It seems quite possible that the original concept of the series which I
take to be to provide a collection of authoritative
essays on a topic or author is becoming diluted.
And it seems possible to me that the volume under
consideration is a symptom of this decline. Some
of the essays in the volume lack the generality,
authority and longevity that one might expect from
a Companion.
In the first place, we have to ask whether there is
a need for this Companion. After all, there already
is in existence The Cambridge History of Greek
and Roman Political Thought (2000), a collection
that certainly has the authority that one would
expect. But there are two main differences between

the two volumes (apart from contingencies such as

extent). First, the History is written predominantly
(though by no means exclusively) by British scholars, whereas the Companion is written entirely by
North American scholars (and indeed is published
out of CUPs New York office). Second, the overall
aim of the History is exegesis, the attempt to
understand ancient thinkers in their original context, whereas the aim of the Companion is to
engage with ancient Greek political thinkers in
order to bring voices embodied in these ancient
texts into our contemporary discussions of political
thought and action (1-2). All the essays nod at
exegesis, but it is usually no more than a nod. So
perhaps there is enough difference between the two
volumes to warrant a Companion.
These two differences dovetail, in the sense that
the way political science is practised and taught in
North America can differ considerably from the

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BOOK REVIEWS

UK: American scholars allow themselves more

licence to read ancient texts in ways that the
ancient authors themselves might not originally
have intended, provided that the reading affords
some insight relevant to modern concerns. The
upshot is that some of the insights gleaned in the
essays that make up the Companion are distressingly vague. For Arlene Saxonhouse, for instance,
the tragedians remind us of the limits of what
speech and thought can accomplish (63). Fine, but
there is so much more to the tragedies, even when
viewed as political texts; but the so much more is
determined by their fifth-century context. They are
concerned largely with tensions within fifth-century
Athenian democracy. Or again, Susan Bickford
concludes that Plato wants us to deliberate about
politics, with the primary aim of caring for the soul
hardly a surprising conclusion.
This determined lack of attention to context
explains, I suppose, why one of the most important ancient Greek political thinkers is altogether
omitted in this Companion. The Old Oligarch,
as the anonymous author is known, is important
as having written the first-ever exclusively political tract, an attack on Athenian democracy. But
theres the rub: his work is so obviously restricted
to contemporary concerns that he is a difficult
author with whom to have a conversation about
modern concerns.
But there is also plenty to enjoy in this book.
Fred Miller attempts, to my mind unsuccessfully,
to argue that there was more of a concept of individual rights in the ancient Greek world than is
usually assumed. The editor, Stephen Salkever,
develops some of the implications of the fact that
Aristotles Nicomachean Ethics and Politics were
originally a single course of lectures, while missing

what seems to me the essential point, that ethics

was in those days a political subject: Aristotle and
others took for granted the fact that a good polis is
one in which all or most of the citizens are able
to develop as moral agents. Jill Frank and Sara
Monosons joint paper takes a fresh approach to
Aristotles (or pseudo-Aristotles) Athenian Constitution by arguing that it is not just a dry historicalpolitical text, but (as one might expect given the
assumptions of ancient historians) also contains
moral exemplars. These two essays are the only
ones on Aristotle, again highlighting the deficiencies of the volume as a Companion: can one have
a Companion to Ancient Greek Political Thought
without an essay devoted to Aristotles Politics?
(Or to Hellenistic theories of kingship in general?)
Ryan Balot, always good value, develops his concept of virtue politics (by analogy with virtue
ethics) in a good study of the Athenian orators.
David Roochnik successfully shows how hard it is
to pin Plato down in Republic as a political thinker:
again, I think he misses the obvious implication,
which is that Republic is not primarily a political
text. Catherine Zuckert puzzles through some of
the puzzles of Platos Statesman, which seems to
both value and devalue political leadership. Norma
Thompson shows that while Herodotus and Thucydides are firmly opposed to tyranny, neither of
them show the famous Athenian tyrannicides in an
unambiguous light.
There are twelve essays in this somewhat unsatisfactory volume. I have mentioned nine, omitting Dean
Hammer on Homer, Gerald Mara on Thucydides, and
Eric Brown on The Emergence of Natural Law and
the Cosmopolis.
Lakonia, Greece

Robin Waterfield

The Ancient Commentators on Plato and Aristotle. By Miira Tuominen. Pp. xii, 324, Stocksfield: Acumen, 2009,
50.00/16.99.

The ancient commentators on Plato and Aristotle,

from roughly the first century BC onwards, were
hardcore academics. Compared with the self-help
aspects of much ancient philosophy, the topic may
sound dull, but there is a great deal of intrinsic
interest in it. They were not mere commentators,
but used their commentaries to develop their own
ideas, which they sometimes saw as the hidden
meaning or the implications of the object text on
which they were commenting. They also looked
back to what other thinkers had said on relevant
issues, and so preserved fragments and testimonies
about thinkers who sometimes would otherwise be
little more than names to us.

Tuominens project, however, is restricted to just

one aspect: their work as original thinkers in their own
right. Since she covers a number of thinkers and five
centuries of thought, and since the details are often
complex, I restrict myself to generalities. Tuominen
herself proceeds not chronologically (though there is a
useful chronological introduction to the major commentators in her opening chapter), but thematically:
the book contains only seven chapters: an introduction, and then chapters on, respectively, epistemology,
science and logic, physics, psychology, metaphysics,
and ethics. A very useful, short concluding summary
is followed by notes, bibliography, and a rather inadequate index.

BOOK REVIEWS

To begin with, there is what she does not include.

The topic is vast, and the book would be twice as
long and more than twice as complex, if she tried to
be exhaustive. Basing herself on the claim that the
commentators themselves perceived their work to be
hierarchical, in the sense that whereas Aristotle was
the master where the sensible world was concerned,
Plato occupied that position for the supra-sensible
world, she excludes commentaries on Platos dialogues, on the grounds that she is writing an introductory book, and should therefore focus on what the
commentators themselves saw as introductory, viz.
Aristotelian philosophy. Thus the major figures in
the book are Themistius, Alexander of Aphrodisias,
Simplicius and Philoponus, with others such as
Ammonius and Aspasius featuring from time to
time. Proclus, Olympiodorus et al. scarcely appear;
Porphyry mainly puts in a late appearance on ethics.
Later commentators, such as Boethius, are excluded
on the grounds that they belong more to the medieval
world than antiquity.
This exclusivity makes the mention of Plato in the
books title rather misleading. In an ideal world, the
author of a self-professed introductory book such as
this should be able to generalize enough from the
details to present a wider overview. This is, as far as I
know, the first ever introduction to the thought of
these commentators; but I still await an even more
introductory volume. It is also a moot point whether
the commentators themselves would have agreed with
the exclusion of Platonism, since they were often concerned to try, against the odds, to reconcile Platonism
and Aristotelianism. Anyway, given her focus on Aristotelianism, Tuominens general procedure, in each
chapter, is to outline the Aristotelian background
before turning to the commentators views.

185

Throughout the book, Tuominen well brings out

that the commentators were not slavish followers of
Aristotle. On physics, for example, they worked with
six causes, not the Aristotelian four, and they challenged his (admittedly awful) theory of dynamics.
And Philoponus, as a Christian, famously denied Aristotles view that the world was eternal. Their theories
of the soul and perception were influenced by Platonism, or showed marked originality (for instance, in
ps.-Philoponuss introduction of a new capacity for
the rational soul or nous, the attentive function, as
part of his explanation of perception). In general, the
differences between the views of the commentators
and those of Aristotle himself are explicable by the
influence of Neoplatonism, and especially Plotinus.
The ethical views discussed by Tuominen are markedly different from those of Aristotle, but that is at
least in part because the ethical commentaries of the
Aristotelian commentators have largely not been
preserved.
The dryness of the subject matter is offset by
good, clear writing, especially impressive from one
whose first language was not English. There is the
occasional infelicity, but nothing misleading. Still,
this is not enough to make the book an easy read:
the subject matter precludes that. And so I doubt
that the book will attract readers among students,
as Tuominen hopes. But it is exceedingly good to
have a general survey of at least some of the work
of the ancient commentators. This book is the fruit
of the high-class attention they have been receiving
in the last couple of decades.

Lakonia, Greece

Robin Waterfield

The Stoic Sage: The Early Stoics on Wisdom, Sagehood and Socrates. By Ren
e Brouwer. Pp. x, 230, Cambridge
University Press, 2014, 60.00/$90.00.

Though the attainment of sagehood was an express

goal of Stoicism, wisdom and sagehood have not
been much studied recently. Brouwers monograph
fills the gap. Chapters 2 and 3 have been published
recently as articles, and are here repeated almost
verbatim in the context of a more comprehensive
monograph; Chapter 4 also reproduces some of an
earlier paper.
Chapter 1 asks what the Stoics understood by wisdom. They had two definitions. The first, focusing
on theory, is that wisdom is knowledge of human
and divine matters; the second, focusing on practice,
is that wisdom is fitting expertise. As a result of
Brouwers discussion, we see that both definitions
are closely connected. The knowledge involved is

knowledge of all the three parts of philosophy recognized by the Stoics: ethics, physics, logic. But sagehood is not omniscience, but knowledge of oneself
and the appreciation that ones own nature (ethics) is
part of the rational whole (physics). (Brouwer does
not do so well with logic, because that is not so
much something that one knows, as something one
knows with.) This alignment with or participation in
the rationality of the universe gives a sage the appropriate expertise. Even if knowledge is not omniscience, for example, the sages disposition enables
him easily to grasp the principles, if not the details,
of all intellectual subjects, and to base his actions
and decisions on the correct assessment of incoming
impressions.

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Chapter 2 asks how one becomes a sage. The

discussion proceeds largely by close analysis of a
Plutarchan text, Synopsis of the Treatise The Stoics Talk More Paradoxically Than the Poets,
which is not in the standard collections of Stoic
material. According to the Stoics, enlightenment
was an instantaneous change from vice to virtue
(ethics), from ignorance to knowledge (logic), and
from human to divine (physics). The Stoics also
claimed that this transition could happen without a
persons being aware of it at first, and Brouwer discusses the problems surrounding that idea. It can
be unperceived because it is not an experience of a
different reality, but a perfect alignment with the
forces of the world so perfect, that it may be
unperceived, like a following wind. If, after years
of practice, one evening you attain perfection on
the flute, you would not know that you had it until
later, when you tried it out on other people and
saw how easy it had become for you to play with
virtue.
Chapter 3 asks whether the Stoics recognized
any sages. Brouwer answers that they never did:
the early Stoics (whom he goes through one by
one) did not claim to be sages (as has been
asserted), and later Stoics almost certainly thought
that sagehood has never been attained by anyone,
even Socrates. This goes against the direct evidence of at least one text, which says that Zeno
regarded Socrates as a sage, and in Chapter 4
Brouwer develops an interesting solution to this
puzzle. Meanwhile, in Chapter 3, if the Stoics did

not claim wisdom for themselves, why should we

trust their views? Brouwer points to a difficult
Stoic distinction between the truth, which only a
sage has, and the true, which people can have accidentally, without knowledge.
In Chapter 4, Brouwer claims that the Stoics
were pessimistic about the possibility of attaining
wisdom because they modelled themselves exactly
on the Socrates of Platos dialogues, especially
Apology (though Brouwer himself makes too much
of what he sees as echoes of a passage of Phaedrus
in the early Stoics). They derived their definition of
wisdom as knowledge of human and divine matters
from him (from Plato, Apology 22c-e and Xenophon, Memorabilia 4.6), and they made the attainment of wisdom more or less impossible because
he did; and they were pessimistic about the existence of sages because Socrates disavowed wisdom
himself. Nevertheless, Brouwer finds evidence that
some Stoics did think that Socrates had attained
wisdom at the end of his life without his noticing
it, presumably (see Chapter 2).
This is a rather specialist monograph, but it has
been written in an accessible style. Texts are
closely analysed; each stage of arguments is neatly
flagged. Given the centrality of the ideal of sagehood to the Stoics, I see no reason why the book
should not serve as an introduction to Stoicism, a
launching-pad for exploring the rest of the system.
Lakonia, Greece

Robin Waterfield

Stoic Virtues: Chrysippus and the Religious Character of Stoic Ethics. By Christoph Jedan. Pp. xi, 230, London/
NY, Continuum, 2009, $23.49.

Modifying his habilitationschrift, Jedan extends the

work of Maximilian Forschner to argue that, in the
shift from Athens where the Phoenician Zenos
slightly antinomian, Cynic-leaning preference for
physis over nomos fitted in well with philosophys
critical attitude toward the traditional polytheistic
religion, to Rome where stoicism became the bracing
support for the conservative land-owning elite in the
late Roman Republic, a sea-change took place, consolidated by Chrysippus, whereby Stoicism became
a kind of Masonic ideology, a philosophy-lite or
hodgepodge of somewhat inconsistent prejudices
whereby the initiates, distinguished by entrance into a
difficult and selective mystery cult, could have it both
ways - feeling progressive by exercising doubt about
Roman polytheism while confident that the materialistic God who was identical with the cosmos, was still
Zeus, a personal deity and benevolent administrator,
whose determinism did not take away but rather called

and empowered them through fusion to greater personal responsibility and obedience to their class-related
obligations. Falling back from Aristotles recognition
of an irrational part of the soul that required a virtue
beyond theoretical knowledge, the stoics maintained a
monistic psychology and continued Socrates position
that virtue is knowledge. The change to a virtuous
character is not gradual but instantaneous once knowledge is attained; they were forced to explain the resistance most people experience as due to social
influences. Mercifully for those who do not want to
exercise their intellects too much, even the sage so
rare that he may not even exist is not omniscient, so
no one else need feel guilty for falling short here.
Rather the sage distinguishes himself by undergoing
the proper conversion whereby he adopts the divine
perspective on the single world, experiences the calming stability this transformation imparts, and henceforth in all ethical struggles factors in the maintenance

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of this attitude as his highest priority. The acquisition

and maintenance of this virtue was the proper worship of the Deus sive Natura, replacing the tedious
orthopraxy of the temple cults. The attraction of Stoicism was thus not intellectual but as a serviceable
replacement for traditional religion during a period of
doubt and as a psychological prophylactic for main-

187

taining peace of mind in the midst of social and political upheaval. It could provide support for the practical
allegiances to which the elite were for extraneous reasons committed, provided not too many questions
were raised about the foundations.
Heythrop College

Patrick Madigan

The Cambridge Companion to Epicureanism. Edited by James Warren. Pp. ix, 342, Cambridge University Press,
2009, 45.00/19.99; $83.99/29.99.

This is an excellent collection of essays, exactly

what one wants from a Cambridge Companion.
The articles are as highly informed as one would
expect from a stellar list of contributors (the collection includes two translated pieces), and are also
highly informative, thanks to the clarity of writing
and presentation.
The papers fall into two groups. The first three trace
the history of Epicureanism from its beginnings until
the Roman Empire, and the final essay in the collection
covers the reception of Epicureanism in early modern
philosophy. These papers make up an introduction to
the major figures of the school and their specific contributions; the overall effect of reading these four papers
together is to give an impression of a single, dynamic,
and widely influential school, evolving in response to
internal discussions and external debates. In his introduction, Warren stresses the wide variety of sources
for Epicureanism, and it is very timely to have a paper
more or less devoted to Philodemus (by David Sedley),
and another more or less devoted to Diogenes of
Oenoanda (Michael Erler). A very different picture
of Epicurus emerges, for instance, from the papyri of
Philodemus: Epicurus the guru, rather than the hardcore philosopher-scientist.
The remaining eleven papers focus on specific
issues within Epicureanism. There are four papers
on physics and metaphysics; one on epistemology;
one on philosophy of language; one on aesthetics;
four on ethics and politics. The contributors of
these chapters write more as philosophers than as
historians, in the sense that, after presenting the
evidence, they tend to engage with the ideas rather
than seeing them as part of the development of the
school. These chapters are not surveys, then, but
invitations to the reader to think critically about
central Epicurean concepts. One of their most
helpful aspects is a higher degree of internal crossreferencing than is usual in such collections.
Pierre-Marie Morel suggests that, following
Democritus, Epicurean atomism was at once a
theory of the make-up of the universe and of its
generation; as such, it is a plausible theory of
everything. This is the least well written (or translated) essay in the book. Elizabeth Asmis considers

the Epicurean idea that all perceptions are true.

She founds this idea on the vividness of perceptions, with the addition that, despite being composed of atoms, objects persist for long enough to
act as a reliable foundation. Liba Taub discusses
the Epicurean attempt to undermine the fearfulness
of meteorological and other large-scale phenomena,
and outlines Epicurean cosmology, especially its
use of analogical reasoning.
Christopher Gill (always excellent) asks whether
the Epicurean conviction that the soul was made of
atoms gave them a basis for explaining all the
functions of the human soul, including agency and
responsibility. Ancient critics denied this, but Gill
argues that they were mistaken. This chapter links
nicely with the next, Tim OKeefe on action and
responsibility. Is free will possible for Epicureans?
Controversially (but in keeping with a recent book
of his), OKeefe finds an Epicurean answer not in
the atomic swerve, but simply in the fact that we
are rational beings. Raphael Woolf explores Epicurean moral psychology, focusing on the rejection of
luxury and extreme pleasures, which Woolf argues,
with doubtful correctness, is more nuanced than is
usually recognized.
Eric Brown discussed Epicurean views of politics and society. Their rejection of a political life
does not mean that they thought all societies
equally just. The Epicurean ideal turns out to be
the community of wise friends (195), and this is
a political aim. Catherine Atherton asks whether
there is such a thing as an Epicurean philosophy of
language, and finds a few interesting remarks, but
nothing as organized as a theory. David Blank
draws on material from the Philodeman papyri to
demonstrate that, contrary to the famous Epicurean
opposition to education, there are a number of arts
and crafts (such as grammar and rhetoric) that are
taken to enhance the good life. James Warren
tackles the central question of the removal of fear.
There is nothing particularly orginal in this necessary essay, but Warren tries to inject some new
thoughts, such as: if an Epicurean sage had
achieved ataraxia, would there be any point in his
prolonging his life? Since the Epicureans frowned

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BOOK REVIEWS

on suicide, the answer is surely that the sage would

life for ever in bliss. Finally, Voula Tsouna takes on
the recent, valuable trend to see Epicureanism as
therapeutic, and displays the strategies especially
having a correct mental disposition that enable the
therapy to work. A reasoned and rational approach
lies at the heart of it.

The book ends with an excellent bibliography,

and with the usual indexes. I would have no hesitation in recommending this Companion to anyone
interested in Epicureanism, from postgraduate level
upwards.
Lakonia, Greece

Robin Waterfield

The Cyrenaics. By Ugo Zilioli. Pp. xv, 224, Durham, Acumen, 2012, 40.00/$75.00.

This is, I think, the first ever book-length treatment

of Cyrenaic philosophy as a whole. It was famous
as a fully fledged hedonistic philosophy. The
school was founded by Aristippus of Cyrene, a follower of Socrates. They are not much studied anyway,
and the most recent book on them was a study of their
epistemology by V. Tsouna in 1998. The reason for
their neglect is that we have no direct evidence and
are reliant on the often flimsy reports of later writers.
One of the good things about Ziliolis book is that at
the end it lists in English translation the main testimonia about Cyrenaic philosophy (as distinct from the
many testimonia about Aristippus life, shipwreck,
apophthegms, etc.)
Aware that he is breaking new ground just in providing a book-length treatment, Zilioli proceeds comprehensively. An opening chapter introduces us to the
school and to recent scholarship. Chapter 2 is a good survey and discussion of testimonia relating to Aristippus
himself, starting from the biographical evidence of
Diogenes Laertius that he was a hedonist, that he wrote
books, that he founded a school.
With Chapter 3, we approach the philosophical
meat of the book. Basing himself on the probability
that Plato must have referred to a fellow Socratic
(even if not by name, except for an insignificant
mention early in Phaedo), he identifies a stretch of
Theaetetus (156a-160c) as of central relevance.
Here Plato ascribes to certain subtle or elegant
thinkers a doctrine of radical flux, such that perceptual error is impossible for the privately perceiving
subject. Zilioli is not the first to find Aristippus in
the background here, but Tsouna, for instance,
argued that there was actually an incompatibility
between the views of the subtle thinkers and those
ascribed elsewhere to Aristippus. Zilioli disagrees,
and on this basis (despite admitting that there is no
more than a good chance (67) of the identification), in the following chapter, he attributes a metaphysics of indeterminacy (76) to the Cyrenaics.
In the preliminary matter, Zilioli warns us that
The approach I adopt in the book is thoroughly revisionary (viii), and it is precisely this attribution of a
metaphysics to the Cyrenaics that constitutes his main
revision. Adducing some stretches of Aristotles

Metaphysics C as well as Theaetetus, he claims that

the Cyrenaics held that the world exists as an indeterminate substratum, made up on no discrete and distinct objects (78). There are no objects as such, with
identifiable properties, out there.
In Chapter 5, Zilioli extends this doctrine of
indeterminacy to the human self too. Just as the
world is an undifferentiated lump of matter, in constant flux until or unless a perceiving subject fixes
it temporarily with a quality, so the self is nothing
in itself, but a bundle of perceptions (117) that
emerge only to disappear again.
Now, such a metaphysics is certainly odd (as
Zilioli stresses more than once), but there is evidence that Aristotle and others made it their target
from time to time. The question is whether the
Cyrenaics were his (unnamed) targets, and here
Ziliolis thesis runs up against a serious difficulty,
which is that one of the few things we do seem
securely to be able to attribute to the Cyrenaics is
that they held that only subjective affections are
knowable. But if that is all, nothing about the
external world is knowable, not even that it is an
indeterminate lump of matter in constant flux.
In Chapter 6, Zilioli turns to a different problem
that we are told (by Sextus) that the Cyrenaics
accepted the meaningfulness of language, saying
that there were common meanings for terms such
as white or sweet. But if perceptions are absolutely subjective, not common at all, how can this
be? Zilioli fills the gap by suggesting that it is
still possible for a Cyrenaic to learn the public
usage of words by observing how other people
react to things they describe as white or sweet.
In Chapter 7, Zilioli turns to the Cyrenaic view
of pleasure, for which they are famous. He displays
the evidence for their having been hedonists, taking
fleeting pleasure to be the goal of life, and argues
that, despite their downgrading of happiness (which
almost every other ancient Greek ethical thinker
took to be the goal), they can still speak of happiness as a dependency of pleasure, if they see happiness as the imperfect collection of transient
episodes of pleasure (163).

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A final chapter narrates the subsequent break-up

of the Cyrenaic school into three branches, and the
extent to which they remained true to the founding
principles.
This is a bold book, an attempt to bring the
Cyrenaics further into the mainstream of ancient
Greek philosophy. But there are always going to be

189

difficulties in attributing a philosophy, as such, to

thinkers whose primary position is the absolute
temporariness of sensations and the existence of
nothing else.
Lakonia, Greece

Robin Waterfield

The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Scepticism. Edited by Richard Bett. Pp. xii, 380, Cambridge University
Press, 2010, $95.00/33.00.

Another excellent Cambridge Companion. The

book consists of an introduction, and then fifteen
essays divided among three parts, an outstanding
435-item bibliography, and the usual indexes.
Betts introduction discusses the difference between
ancient and modern scepticism and introduces us
to the main Sceptics. Then six essays make up
Origins and Development, seven essays make up
Topics and Problems, and finally two essays
make up Beyond Antiquity.
Mi-Kyoung Lee discusses the antecedents:
although they preceded the formation of systematic Scepticism, certain sceptical arguments were
deployed by the Presocratics and others on one or
both of two grounds, a metaphysical deficiency
in knowable objects, or an epistemological deficiency in our sensory or reasoning apparatus.
Savar Hrafn Svavarrson recovers what can be
recovered in a brief compass about Pyrrho himself in the late fourth century, and Harald
Thorsrud does the same for Arcesilaus and
Carneades, the leading lights of the Sceptical
Academy, who read the Platonic dialogues in a
Sceptical light, and developed arguments against
the ambitious system of the Stoics. Carlos L
evy
whisks us through the tenuous evidence for the
main Sceptical thinkers in the Academy after
Carneades, which he paints as a period of decline
and disintegration. Our knowledge of Aenesidemus, the reviver of Pyrrhonism, is equally tenuous (depending on how much we assume is
reflected in Sextuss writings), but R.J. Hankinson does a good job of displaying what there is.
Finally, in this section, Pierre Pellegrin outlines
the main features of Sextuss books.
The essays in this first section are, necessarily,
often taken up by minutiae and controversies.
There is painfully little evidence about many of the
pre-Sextan Sceptics, and scholars are accordingly
reduced to teasing out texts, trying to fix the meaning of technical terms for which we hardly have
any context, wondering how many Sceptical Treatises Sextus wrote and at what length that kind of
thing. This makes the material harder to read, but a

study of the section as a whole does enable a

reader to gain a good overview of the progress and
principal teachings of the Sceptics.
The second section, on Topics and Problems,
begins with a fascinating exploration by Casey
Perrin (Scepticism and Belief) of, first, Arcesilauss claim that one should have no beliefs at
all, and then Sextuss claim that one should
have no beliefs of a certain kind. But isnt
Arcesilauss claim itself an expression of a
belief? Was it just a dialectical move against the
Stoics? Did he mean that one should not
strongly assent to anything, though weak assent
is permissible? Perrin dismisses this possibility
in favour of a puzzling distinction between
assenting to a proposition and merely treating
that proposition as true (149), or merely
approving it (150). But its not clear to me
how such approval differs from Fredes weak
assent. As for Sextus, what kinds of belief did
Sextus believe to be compatible with Scepticism? Perrin concludes that Sextus held that the
Sceptic could consistently assent to his own
immediate and subjective feelings, since they are
evident and non-dogmatic.
Katia Maria Vogt next tackles the equally important topic of how a Sceptic can act in the world at all.
How can he even cross the street, if he suspends belief
about whether what is bearing down on him is a bus?
The answer is, because he adheres to something
called the norms of ordinary life, albeit that he does
so not unthinkingly, but as a philosopher. Richard
Bett considers Scepticism as a practical philosophy,
supposedly leading to ataraxia, tranquillity. How can
Sextus consistently hold out the promise of an end, a
stopping point, when inquiry is supposed to be continuous? It is, rather, negative: tranquillity as the absence
of the intense turmoil caused by the holding of beliefs
that certain things are good or bad. The Sceptic is
bound to come across as aloof rather than ethically
engaged.
Gisela Striker gives a general survey of the main
similarities and differences between Academic and
Pyrrhonist Scepticism. Paul Woodruff investigates

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how the Pyrrhonian Modes (he focuses on the Ten

Modes) were put to use to various Sceptics. James
Allen considers the relations between Scepticism
and the schools of medicine. How on earth can a
Sceptic simultaneously practise medicine and suspend belief? How can Sextus, an empiricist,
approve of medical methodism? Allen suspects that
Sextus wanted to blend Empiricism and Methodism, to rid both of their objectionable aspects.
Finally, in the second section, Emidio Spinelli
does the same for the relation between Scepticism
and the specialized sciences, and concludes that
Sceptics could and did enjoy scientific activity,
provided it focused on empirical observation rather
than dogmatic inferences.
The two essays in the final section detail the reception and rediscovery of Scepticism from late antiquity

to the seventeenth century (Luciano Floridi) and how

Descartes transformed the Sceptical tradition
(Michael Williams). Obviously, there could be a
lot more in such a section an essay on Humes
Scepticism, for instance but this is a book on
ancient Scepticism, and these essays are appropriate since their focus is still on the ancient world
as much as more recent thinkers.
This collection of essays will take its place as
one of the standard works on ancient Scepticism,
next to Harald Thorsruds introductory book, and
more specialized discussions such as Alan Baileys
close discussion of Sextus.
Lakonia, Greece

Robin Waterfield

New Essays on Ancient Pyrrhonism. Edited by Diego E. Machuca. Pp. xi, 207, Leiden: Brill, 2011, e97.00/
$133.00.

All eight essays in this volume are in English,

despite the fact that one of the books strengths is
to make accessible the work of some scholars who
generally write in other languages. The volume
makes no claims to comprehensiveness, though a
wide range of topics are covered, and insights
abound into Sextus Empiricuss work. The editors
aim was simply to provide state-of-the-art original
essays on a topic which is attracting increasing
scholarly attention.
The book starts with a rather slight essay from
Bonazzi. The degree to which Platonism and Plato
himself approximated to Pyrrhonism was in ancient
times and still is a hot topic. Sextus simply
included him among the dogmatists, so that he was
no sceptic. Bonazzi reconstructs Aenesidemuss
claim that Plato was no sceptic to show that Sextus
was not being original in PH 1.220-225.
OKeefe considers the apparent similarity
between Pyrrhonism and the Cyrenaics, in that
they both claim that we have access only to our
subjective feelings, so that we can say that we
have a sensation of sweetness even while denying
that honey is really sweet. But OKeefe shows that
the differences between them are more significant
than this superficial similarity: the sceptic cannot
accept the Cyrenaic theory that feelings are selfevidently true.
Warren argues similarly, from a detailed consideration of AM 9.162-166 (where Warren identifies
Sextuss opponents as Stoics), that Sextus does not
hold that individuals have privileged and incorrigible access to subjective states.

Grgic raises the question of how thorough-going

Sextuss scepticism was. Does he suspend judgement about everything, or only refuse to take up
any philosophical or scientific beliefs? The question, Grgic suggests, is perhaps too black-andwhite. The sceptic will accept non-committal
notions that I do have feelings, for instance
without committing himself to any consequent
view about human nature. Radically, Sextus seems
even to be asserting that this is how ordinary
people interact with the world.
Thorsrud takes as his starting-point the fact
that the sceptic acts as if the gods existed even
while denying knowledge of their existence or
nature. Is this just a cynical ploy? No: the
Pyrrhonist can sincerely perform acts of devotion
by following his subjective states. In other words,
of the two premises that having the relevant
beliefs about the gods is a necessary condition
for performing genuinely pious actions and the
sceptic has no beliefs about the gods, where
others might reject the latter premise, Thorsrud
argues against the first: the skeptic can perform
genuinely pious actions in accordance with religious impressions, or affective states, that fall
short of belief (94).
Marchand asks how Sextus can even put pen to
paper, given that that is an encouragement to readers to learn and hold opinions. He shows that the
sceptics adopted stylistic devices to counteract this
problem. Timon, for instance, retained his aloofness by extensive use of metaphor and humour.
Marchand argues that Sextus developed a style

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based on subjective avowals, so that he was not

claiming to give an objective description of reality.
Machuca argues that in AM 11 (Against the Ethicisists), although Sextus appears to espouse and
promote a version of ethical realism, he does not.
The paper consists largely of a long and careful
analysis of the text, and a convincing response to
some work of Richard Bett.
Finally, Bueno. Jonathan Barnes has argued that
the sceptics position is undermined by the very
fact that in his criticisms of others he is bound to

191

employ assumptions, so that he tacitly relies on an

internalist conception of knowledge, even while
denying external knowledge. Bueno argues, on the
contrary, that Sextuss internalist arguments are
merely part of his dialectical strategy, familiar
from all over his work, against the possibility of
any kind of knowledge.
This is a very useful collection of essays for the
specialist.
Lakonia, Greece

Robin Waterfield

Aristotle, Plato and Pythagoreanism in the First Century BC: New Directions for Philosophy. Edited by
Malcolm Schofield. Pp. xxiv, 305, Cambridge University Press, 2013, 60.00.

In his introduction, Schofield justifies the

books subtitle by claiming that in the first
century BC the boundaries between the main
philosophical schools were becoming blurred,
perhaps as a result of the philosophers diaspora after the sack of Athens by Sulla; and
that not only were Stoicism, Epicureanism, and
Academic scepticism thriving, but Aristotelianism was revived as well. The eleven articles in
this collection (which spring from a 2009 conference)
certainly bear out the contention that interesting
philosophical work was going on. The first paper considers what texts of Plato and Aristotle were being
read at the time, then there are three papers on
Aristotelianism, followed by two on Platonism, two
on Platonist Pythagoreanism, and three on Ciceros
Plato. Each chapter weighs in at a substantial twenty
pages or so, and they are followed by a consolidated
bibliography and the usual indexes.
Myrto Hatzimichali argues that, in addition to
text-critical studies of both Plato and Aristotles
works, Andronicus of Rhodess division of Aristotles works into books, and ordering the canon of
treatises, created a revolution in the way people
were reading Aristotle, and were particularly
important in transferring scholars attention away
from his published, popular works and towards the
school treatises.
Riccardo Chiaradonna considers the work of
four Platonists and finds a range of engagement
with Aristotles texts, from relative negligence
to relatively close study. Oddly, though, as
Chiaradonna also shows, it would be a couple of
centuries before such close work extended beyond
Categories or was able to influence the flavour of
Platonism in general.
Marwan Rasheds chapter elucidates a very interesting and important aspect of Boethuss philosophy.
Rashed argues that Boethus used Aristotles Catgories
as a materialist basis for seriously curtailing the onto-

logical realm (77), by denying the existence of intangible entities and arguing, unusually, for the primacy
of individual material substance.
Andrea Falcon reads Xenarchus as a developer
of Aristotle rather than a critic, in the sense that
there was no orthodoxy at the time and that was
what it was to be an Aristotelian. Against this
background,
Falcon
considers
Xenarchuss
criticisms of the theory of motion found in De
Caelo, which results in his elimination of the need
for a fifth element, and points also to evidence that
Xenarchus was similarly developing some of
Aristotles ethical claims as well.
Anna Ju considers a passage of Plutarch that preserves some of Posidoniuss commentary on Platos
Timaeus, in which Posidonius (whom Ju incidentally reads as an orthodox Stoic) seems to have
construed reason and the human soul as a whole
in mathematical terms, and to have argued that
mathematized reason was the ultimate principle of
cognition in Pythagoreanism.
Roberto Polito wonders why Asclepiades, a
hard-nosed medical theorist, should have drawn on
Heraclides of Pontuss theory of matter, when
Heraclides held a vitalist view of the universe, and
concludes that Asclepiades was offering a deliberate challenge to Platonism, by altering the nature
of Heraclides immaterial elements and resurrecting
materialism.
Tony Long investigates the multifarious roots of
Alexander Polyhistors Pythagorean Commentaries,
concluding that there is actually little that is Pythagorean about it, and so that Diogenes Laertius was
wrong to make it the basis of his account of
Pythagoreanism.
Mauro Bonazzi shows that calling Eudorus a
Platonist does not necessarily label him as a sceptic, and indeed that he was the first, along with his
teacher Antiochus of Ascalon, to give us a doctrinal rather than a sceptical Plato. He pins this to an

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argument that Eudoruss Pythagorizing Platonism

drew as much on Aristotle for its conception of the
ultimate principles of the universe as it did on a
Pythagorean version of Plato.
David Sedley considers Ciceros translation of
Timaeus, and finds that Cicero slanted his translation in a sceptical direction, rather than reading it
purely as a Pythagorean tract, as his contemporaries were, especially by using it to set up a conflict
between Platonism and Aristotelianism, such that
scepticism proves to be the best way to resolve the
conflict.
Julia Annas argues that Cicero drew more heavily than has been appreciated for his De Legibus on

Platos Laws, not just for the idea of writing such a

book, but for its substance as well, some of which
is Platonist as much as it is Stoic.
Finally, Ingo Gildenhard considers Ciceros
engagement with Platonic metaphysics in general,
and finds a kind of progress towards a greater
acceptance of the Theory of Forms in Ciceros latest philosophical writings.
This is an excellent, occasionally challenging, very
specialized collection of essays. Given the relative
lack of attention paid to this philosophical era, several
of the essays will undoubtedly prove foundational.
Lakonia, Greece

Robin Waterfield

Plutarchs Practical Ethics: the Social Dynamics of Philosophy. By Lieve Van Hoof. Pp. xi, 328, Oxford
University Press, 2010, $125.00.

Plutarch (c. 45-120 CE) was a Greek philosopher

making his living under the Roman Imperium. He
wrote technical philosophy challenging his fellow
philosophers, usually Stoics and Epicureans, in
defense of Plato, epideictic works putting his rhetorical skills on display before large audiences
during the Second Sophistic, and practical philosophy directed at the political elite, those with literary education and some philosophical training
but who were not ready or able to abandon their
political station or social career for a life dedicated to philosophy. It is this last genre, cast as
essays, letters, and dialogues, that Van Hoof
examines here. Plutarchs purpose was to reassure
this socially prominent sector of society that they
could still be happy when facing the tricky and
stressful storms of political life in the Roman
Imperium, but they would need philosophy to do
it his philosophy with philosophy itself reconfigured not as an end but as a means to altering
their behaviour by changing their intentions to
keep their eye on the prize and not be rendered
traumatized or distraught by the upheavals to
which they were regularly exposed. He thus presented himself like a contemporary life coach to
the rich and powerful who did not require that
they abandon their political ambitions to achieve
true happiness or the virtuous life, but who
insisted that philosophy could still be an aid to
them was, in fact, an indispensable aid if they
were to attain the happiness they sought amidst
the gales of social competition and vagaries of
imperial patronage. The good news was that it
was a both/and rather than an either/or situation; the bad news was that the change must
come from within and would be a lifelong challenge. Still, he could point to his own career as a

case in point, and thus that he should be considered an expert.

Van Hoof gives detailed examination to six of
these practical works: On Feeling Good, On Exile,
On Talkativeness, On Curiosity, and Precepts of
Health Care. What emerges is an insightful and
skilled psychological understanding of the dynamics of what today would be called behaviour modification and personality change, to overcome
inappropriate reactions to personal and social challenges as well as to the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune for a generation that was not free to
abandon their social duties in an increasingly
powerful but unstable political universe. Plutarch
shows the reader how to put himself through two
kinds of exercises or discipline (askesei) so as
not just to know the truth (the goal of philosophy) but to actually bring about change. The first is
reflection, by which the reader changes his intentional object or mental picture of the form of
behaviour to which he is subject and that he wishes
to modify. This involves meditating on the negative
effects, to ourselves and to others, so as to feel
shame and distress at repeatedly behaving this
way; the criterion, however, is honour and social
advancement, not the evil of the actions. The second involves developing new responses or alternative reactions when similar circumstances again
present themselves. Here we accustom ourselves to
move in the opposite direction given the same
stimulus, and through such habits expand our repertoire for dealing with such situations. Again an
appeal to honour and its opposite, shame are
found more effective in moving us to change than
a simple appeal to truth. Through this combination
of exercises the most stubborn or immovable
personality malformations can be gradually altered

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but the individual must undergo a kind of conversion by which he becomes self-conscious and
distances himself from the behaviour or old self
he wishes to modify. It is this kind of selfknowledge, involving an expansion and alteration
of the intentional object of our behaviour, that

193

Plutarch believes his philosophy can best provide.

Actually, it is rhetorical skills that are on offer
directed to oneself - but they are accurate and
effective.
Heythrop College

Patrick Madigan

Hellenisms: Culture, Identity, and Ethnicity from Antiquity to Modernity. Edited by Katerina Zacharia. Pp. xvi,
473, Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008, 60.00.

The study of ethnicity thrives, and the Greeks,

both ancient and modern, make good test cases,
because the one thing that seems to have characterized Greekness over the centuries is diaspora.
They lack, then, some of the markers that one
might take to be essential to ethnicity, or selfidentification, such as rootedness in a single part
of the world and a shared history. This is the
starting-point of this useful collection of essays
on Greek ethnicity, written by a collection of outstanding scholars.
The introduction is not really helpful, first
because the editor has also written the first, introductory chapter of the book, and second because it
is largely written in dense, theory-laden sentences.
In her opening chapter, then, she maps the territory. Ancient Greek identity emerged not just by
us-them contrasts with barbarians, but also by
means of subdivisions within Greek culture itself
(e.g. Ionian or Dorian). The very number of
ways in which an ancient Greek could identify
himself leads to a certain complexity, which makes
facile distinctions hard to maintain.
This sense of the fluidity of ancient Greek identity pervades the essays that constitute the book.
Ethnicity has been intensively studied in recent
years, and we are now in a position to write about
it in a more nuanced fashion. The next four essays
all adopt this more fluid perspective as they study,
respectively, the archaic and classical periods, the
Hellenistic period, the Roman period, and the
Byzantine period. The next section of the book,
with four essays, focuses on the Tourkokratia (the
almost 400 years of Turkish rule of the Balkan
peninsula) and especially the period before, during
and after the war of independence. The final
section of the book, with five essays, considers
modern Greece. The book concludes with a good
bibliography, a glossary, and a thorough index.
In his essay on archaic and classical Greece,
Simon Hornblower argues convincingly that even
the apparently simple Greek-barbarian distinction
can be curiously elusive, and that the exclusivity
of Greek communities and the rigidity of citizenship rules have been much exaggerated (58).

Stanley Burstein next maps the changes that

occurred in the concept of Greekness during the
Hellenistic era, as a result of (a) increased cosmopolitanism, and (b) the fact that Greeks were a
colonial elite. He is careful to avoid generalizations, and notes the differences between Greeks in
Seleucid Asia, and Greeks in Ptolemaic Egypt.
Ronald Mellor fluently and magisterially surveys
all the relevant aspects of Roman cultural and military
history from the time of the conquest of Greece to late
antiquity, by which time there was more or less a single, fused Romano-Greek culture that then formed the
basis for European culture. Claudia Rapp shows how
the quest for Hellenic identity in the Byzantine period
involved balancing the demands of a Greek past with a
roman and Christian present.
The next section focuses especially on the emergence of the new Greek nation state after the War
of Independence. Since European interpretations of
Greekness abounded, and most of the prime movers of independence were Greeks who lived abroad,
who said what it was to be Greek? The polymath
Glenn Most discusses Philhellenism in Germany,
especially as it manifested in Humboldtian humanism, and how that clashed with increasing German
nationalism. Olga Augustinos shows how Korais
wanted to re-awaken Greek identity by a programme of reminding the Greeks of their classical
past. Antonis Liakos brilliantly shows how at the
heart of Greek identity even today lies a sense of
continuity with its classical past, even though that
was in large part a nineteenth-century construct
(e.g. by Korais), and how that involved obliterating
large chunks of Greek history and language those
chunks that had been tainted by the Turks. Dimitris
Livanios surveys the importance of the Greek
Church in maintaining a sense of Greek identity
through the Tourkokratia.
The final section of the book is less historical. In
these five essays, scholars from widely different
disciplines explore aspects of modern Greek ethnicity. Charles Stewart examines, from a psychoanalytical perspective, a remarkable series of
dreams from the island of Naxos in the nineteenth
and twentieth centuries, and shows how they

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BOOK REVIEWS

stealthily supported both continuity with the past

and a prosperous future. Peter Mackridges wonderful essay looks at various ways in which idea of
Greekness has been disseminated, e.g. by schoolbooks and the 2004 Olympic Games campaign.
The editor, Katerina Zacharia, returns with a survey of the representation of Greece and Greeks in
popular cinema from the 1960s onwards. Yiorgos
Anagnostou considers the stresses Greek immigrants to the USA faced, and what steps they took
to assimilate while at the same time preserving
their Greekness. Finally, Artemis Leontis does
much the same by showing how womens heirlooms preserved their sense of Greek identity,

while at the same time threatening to condemn

Greek immigrant women to the same subservient
role their female forebears had endured.
Even though I have done nothing more than
summarize the contents of this book, I hope to
have suggested that it is a rewarding tome that will
be of interest to a wide range of scholars from
many disciplines. Certainly, the book will be essential for anyone interested in Greek history, ancient
or modern, and in the factors that have moulded
modern Greece.
Lakonia, Greece

Robin Waterfield

Philosophy and Salvation in Greek Religion. Edited by Vishwa Adluri. Pp. xii, 398, Berlin: de Gruyter, 2013
(Religionsgeschichtliche Versuche und Vorarbeiten, Band 60), 130.00/$182.00.

I found the title of the book somewhat misleading. Rather than being about the presence
of philosophical and salvationist notions in
Greek religion, the focus of the book is
squarely on the presence of salvationist elements in Greek philosophy. But it is true that
it was largely the philosophers who imbued
religion with an element of salvationism, based
on their philosophical principles. Greek religion
itself was chiefly a religion of practice, rather
than belief. And so the overall aim of the volume is to consider how ancient philosophy
addressed itself to the task of answering mans
existential questions . . . [including] some conception of the souls ultimate fate and purpose
(14). It falls short of this goal only in so far
as it fails to cover the full range of Greek philosophy; the typically Hellenistic philosophical
schools are unrepresented, despite their importance to this theme.
The introductory chapter by Adluri lays out
some of the terminological background, establishes
the plausibility of talking about ancient philosophical soteriology, and suggests the main parameters
of such discussion: it must focus on the individual,
and on the soul, death, initiation, and eudaimonia,
the state of blessedness that is supposed to be the
result of salvation.
Miguel Herrero shows how influential the allegorical interpretation of Homers Odyssey was on
later soteriological texts. So, he suggests, ancient
soteriology is characterized by ideas of wandering,
arrival, seeking protection, and receiving it. He
traces these ideas in the Orphic gold leaves and in
Empedocles, on whom much of the paper focuses;
but he suggests that their influence was wider than
this.

Arbogast Schmitt addresses the old chestnut of

individual autonomy in Homer. Homeric individuals seem to attribute their motivations to the gods,
or to a combination of some god and the individual. Schmitt argues that there is a vein of genuinely free human activity in Homer, in that
humans are entirely responsible for their relationship to the divine, and their happiness (i.e. salvation) depends on this relationship. The argument
is, necessarily, subtle, and will convince few, I
think. He appears not to have read Gills 1996
Personality in Greek Epic, Tragedy, and
Philosophy.
The third chapter, unusually, is a translation of a
seminal 1969 article by Walter Burkert, Parmenides Proem and Pythagoras Descent, in which
he demonstrated (though not to every later scholars satisfaction) that the proem of Parmenides
poem describes not an ascent to the light, but a
descent to the underworld.
Alberto Bernab
e discusses Platos use of
Orphic elements in his eschatological myths, and
finds that Plato draws on Orphism, but also on
other literary and philosophical strategies (118),
as required.
Barbara Sattler shows that Plato draws on the
imagery and metaphors of the Eleusinian Mysteries, and specifically the Homeric Hymn to
Demeter, as a template for the ascent to the Form
of Beauty in Symposium (151).
Stephen Menns paper surveys all the main
soteriological passages of Platos dialogues. He
finds that Plato transfers soteriological vocabulary
to claims he makes for philosophy, though not necessarily in an entirely consistent way. He seems
not to connect deliverance with escape from the
rebirth cycle. The main constant is the view that

BOOK REVIEWS

political virtue is insufficient to save either an individual or the city. I wonder whether this takes
enough account of the possibility held out in
Republic that a properly ordered city will enable
all its citizens to live well, which is, in Platos
view, the only way to escape the evils of the
world.
Menns idea is pursued in the next chapter, by
Adluri and John Lenz. They argue (with references
to parallels in Herodotus) that the overall tendency
of Republic is to reject a political solution, promoted by the Myth of Gyges, in favour of a nonpolitical understanding of salvation, promoted by
the Myth of Er.
John Bussanich points out that the elements of
Platonic soteriology, as found in Plato and Plotinus,
have been strongly ethicized: ones status in the
afterlife is determined by the ethical qualities of
ones embodied existence (244). He traces the elements of this idea in Plato and Plotinus, and finds
that ideas implicit in Plato were more fully developed into a karmic ethics by Plotinus.
Luc Brisson argues that for Plotinus the souls
salvation is intrinsically bound up with its memory.

195

There is no point, for instance, in a souls being

punished unless it remembers its sins. But Brisson
argues for a stronger position, whereby the identity and the quality of a descended soul is determined by its memory (311).
Svetla Slaveva-Griffin investigates the concept
of pure soul as applied to and by Plotinus. The
term comes out of a soteriological tradition, but
Plotinus adapts it somewhat to refer to a soul that
rests in the intelligible realm. Along the way, she
finds significant parallels with the idea in Chaldean
and Indian thought.
John Finamore shows that Iamblichus made a
real change in Neoplatonism, by arguing that philosophy is not enough on its own to save man, but
that ritual practice, or theurgy, is also required for
a man to ascend to perfection.
This is an excellent collection of essays. It is a
pity that it is a rather obscure and expensive publication, since several of the essays deserve to be
more widely known.
Lakonia, Greece

Robin Waterfield

The Neoplatonic Socrates. Edited by Danielle A. Layne and Harold Tarrant. Pp. vi, 256, University of
Pennsylvania Press, 2014, $75.00/49.00.

Most scholars today would agree that there is no

Socrates apart from the received Socrates. Any
studies of his reception are therefore welcome.
This one, focusing on his reception among the
Neoplatonists is more arcane than most. This is
largely because Plotinus himself referred to Socrates as a philosopher only once, and perhaps, as is
suggested in the introduction, because Socratic
aporia was uncongenial to these theory-builders.
The Platonic dialogues usually commented on by
the Neoplatonists were not those that we take to
display Socratic method or thought. The Introduction therefore is largely concerned to justify the
books existence: the Neoplatonists still owe a
distinct debt to Socrates, even if they mention him
little. Following the introduction, the book consists
of ten chapters, a brief conclusion, an appendix
(containing brief biographies of the main Late
Antique sources for Socrates), and then the usual
end matter.
In Chapter 1, Geert Roskam asks what the Neoplatonists made of Socrates claim to be attracted
to young men, but only for educational purposes.
Focusing on Hermias and on the Socrates of
Phaedrus, Roskam shows that there was no doubt
in Hermiass mind that Socrates had a beneficial
effect on his young associates. I found the paper

somewhat thin, much of it just a summary of

Hermias.
In Chapter 2, John Finamore considers
Plutarchs and Apuleius treatises on Socrates
daimonion. What interested the Neoplatonists
about Socrates daimonion was where it fitted
into their hierarchy of supernatural beings. Finamore claims to show that Plutarch and Apuleius
used their discussions of the daimonion tradition
to develop their own views, but in fact it is not
so much that their views are different (both, for
instance, place Socrates daimonion at the head
of the daimonic hierarchy), as that their focus
is different: Apuleius focuses more on the lower
levels of the hierarchy which do not interest
Plutarch.
The daimonion is also the subject of Chapter 3,
by Crystal Addey, who focuses on Proclus Commentary on the First Alcibiades. She argues that
for Proclus Socrates was simultaneously a rationalist philosopher and a mystic. Mysticism is not seen
as irrational, but as supra-rational. Socrates daimonion taught him by supra-rational means the
right moment to approach his students by rational
means.
In Chapter 4, Christina-Panagiota Manolea summarizes those passages of Hermias commentary

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on Phaedrus that refer to Socrates. Here we find

Socrates the educator, with the daimonion as a necessary curb on his heroic urge to educate everyone.
Manolea suggests that Socrates represents to some
extent Hermias teacher, Syrianus.
In Chapter 5, Danielle Layne asks what the
Neoplatonists made of the fact that Plato used a
literary medium to convey his thought.
Famously, they often allegorized his scenic settings, but Layne shows that there is much more.
Focusing on Proclus, she argues that embedding
themselves in and understanding a Platonic dialogue was for the Neoplatonists a way to gain
for oneself whatever virtue or topic is being
demonstrated in the text or in the life and methods of Socrates.
In Chapter 6, Michael Griffin successfully argues
for what is perhaps the most interesting use made
of Socrates by the Neoplatonists, namely his positioning as a hypostasis within the ontological hierarchy. Whenever Socrates appears in a later
Neoplatonic commentary on a Platonic dialogue,
he consistently represents the highest, knowledgeable part of the psyche. As a Neoplatonist worked
his way through the curriculum based on the dialogues he started below Socrates and gradually
overhauled him, using Socrates as a pardigm, perhaps, to aid his ascent.
In Chapter 7, James Ambury considers Socrates
character in Proclus commentary on the First
Alcibiades. He embodies erotic intellect, seeing
Alcibiades as an embodiment of Beauty and seducing him away from the world and towards selfknowledge.
In Chapter 8, Francois Renaud discusses
Olympiodorus take on Socrates elenctic procedure
in the first section of the First Alcibiades, stressing
that he focuses not just on Socrates arguments, but

on his character. Renaud brings out a number of

aspects of Socrates tactics, stressing especially the
purgative nature of the elenchus, and suggests
contrary to normal practice nowadays that students of the dialogue could still profitably read
Olympiodorus commentary.
In Chapter 9, Marilynn Lawrence investigates
the idea of self-control and moral weakness in Simplicius commentary on Epictetus. She positions
him close to Aristotles commonsense approach to
the problem. This is a useful addition to the copious literature on akrasia, but it is scarcely about
Socrates.
Finally, in Chapter 10, Harold Tarrant presents
the results of a computer analysis of Platos dialogues that seems to reveal stylistic variations ranging from mundane prose to inspired speech. On the
basis of this he argues that the Neoplatonists were
sensitive to when Platos Socrates was changing
register, from rational arguer to poetic or mythic
mode, and afforded such passages special
reverence.
Overall, the volume succeeds in showing that
the Neoplatonists did engage with Socrates, even
if often obliquely. He was seen chiefly as a beneficial educator and as a paradigm. Above all, they
treated Socrates as a character in a book, someone
who can mean whatever they want him to mean,
not as an objective historical personage. That
way, they could incorporate him into their own
philosophies. The results of their various incorporations are very interesting though more to a
student of Neoplatonism than to a student of Socrates himself and this is sufficient justification
for the book.
Lakonia, Greece

Robin Waterfield

Plotinus Ennead II.5: On What is Potentially and What Actually. Trans., Intro. & Commentary by Cinzia
Arruzza. Pp. 201, Las Vegas/Athens, Parmenides Publishing, 2015, $37.00.

Act and potency are analytical concepts in

Greek philosophy employed as a couple; wherever one appears, the other appears as well, and
the one relates specifically to the other. These
were famously employed by Aristotle to preserve the unity of the human subject who has
both intellectual and physical capacities, over
against Plato who tended to see the soul as falling into a foreign body and thus viewed the
human subject dualistically. Plotinus attempts to
systematize Plato and thus concentrates on the
necessity for the soul to turn its gaze from
earthly things to their intelligible Form, for this

allows the soul to begin the re-ascent to this

higher realm whence it has fallen. Also, philosophy in the Hellenistic world was a way of life
involving asceticism, withdrawal, and study
leading to contemplation and higher union, similar to the monks of the West and of Buddhism,
the latter of whom Plotinus hoped to visit in
244 CE, but failed to reach. On the other hand
Plotinus, basing himself on statements by the
Eleatic Stranger in Platos Sophist, breaks
through the Aristotelian dead-end or announcement of failure to the philosophical project with
his conclusion that the first or ultimate

BOOK REVIEWS

substance, the unmoved mover, must be conceived

as locked in a narcissistic self-enthrallment as
Thought thinking Itself, and thus cannot consciously generate the world. This is a late influence of the Parmenidean bias towards Being
over Becoming, and the postulation of a strong
opposition between the two. Also, in Greek
thinking, the higher never bows or stoops to
help the lower; rather, it is for the lower to
convert and work to re-join the higher. After
confronting the friends of Form the Eleatic
Stranger says in exasperation: For heavens
sake, are we going to be convinced that its true
that change, life, soul, and intelligence are not
present in that which wholly is, and that it neither lives nor thinks, but stays changeless, solemn, and holy, without any understanding?
(248e7-249a2) In other words, the highest substance must be conceived as a Person, containing all the perfections we observe in the world
about us. This breaks the Parmenidean deadlock,
and allows the project of philosophy to continue. Still, Plotinus makes significant concessions to the Aristotelian definition of perfection
(and salvation) as contemplation of the highest:
each level of reality is only fully constituted as
real when it turns back to contemplate what lies

197

above it, at which point it increases its generative power and, like the One itself, produces the
next lower level below itself unconsciously as
an unintended side-effect. In this Plotinian universe, whatever a thing does once, it does
always, but at least thereby the universe is
explained. We approach the concept of pure
matter or potentiality asymptotically, as a limitconcept or thought-experiment for the last ripple of emanation that is so weak that it cannot
turn back towards the intelligible realm, and
thus has no generative power. If union with the
One is salvation, this limit must be called the
damned. Plotinus thus opens up the Aristotelian
cosmos to an adventure of salvation that was
unknown to Aristotle himself. His ingenious
application of the two levels of activity to
the possession of a faculty and to its actual
exercise will allow subtle distinctions and
speculative probing by later scholastic philosophers and theologians as they seek to further
refine and customize the powerful intellectual
tradition and paradigm they have inherited. It is
still an unfinished work in progress.
Heythrop College

Patrick Madigan

Plotinus, Ennead IV.8: On the Descent of the Soul into Bodies. Translation, Intro. & Commentary by Barrie
Fleet. Pp. 209, Las Vegas, Zurich, Athens, Parmenides Publishing, 2012, $32.26.

Whiteheads comment that the history of Western Philosophy is a series of footnotes to Plato
is seriously misleading. The first half of this
history attempted to organize Platos doctrines,
while the second half attempted to reject and
overcome Platonism. Seven centuries after Platos death, Plotinus began the project to systematize Plato for the emerging Hellenistic culture
under Roman hegemony. Parmenides Publishing
is bringing out the Enneads with critical commentaries in handy pocket installments. This is
the key treatise IV. 8, which raises the central
and most crucial tension in Platonic exegesis:
which tendency will prevail, the doctrine deriving from the allegory of the sun, that the Good
is naturally self-diffusive and seeks to spread or
communicate itself, or the equally Platonic doctrine, derivative from the cave as an allegory
for philosophic education and liberation, that the
higher is properly self-preoccupied and never
stoops or inclines toward the lower; rather, it is
for the lower to convert and rise, through
arduous purification and gradual perfection, to
make contact with and eventually fuse with the

higher? Both are present in Plotinus, and it

must be admitted that this is one tension in
Plato that he was not successful in resolving.
This manifests itself chiefly in the question of
the reason for souls descent into body: was
this a rebellion, resulting in a tragic fall or
punishment for an improper attempt by lower
soul to seize power and exercise rule over a
realm below it, rather than maintaining its gaze
upwards, usurping the prerogatives of the higher
hypostases? Or was it a generous and beneficent
self-expenditure on the part of lower soul to
transmit the order and peace which characterize
the intelligible realm to the unruly and chaotic
world of temporality, matter, and motion? Whatever the motive, this missionary expedition was
a failure; matter cannot be further organized than
higher soul is already achieving, and lower soul
is best counseled to expend all its energies to
reverse its initial descent, escape this turbulent
and unhappy realm, and return to its origin with
higher soul or even higher - for Plotinus opens
up this possibility. So perhaps the descent,
although a mistake, did have a point and a

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potentially more-than-happy ending! Plotinus

claims to have actually made contact with the
One four times during his life. And who is to
say that this was not part of the plot allowed,
if not intended, by the One and source of all, so
that the ultimate story is not one of rebellion
and just punishment, but one of error and correc-

tion in a larger pattern of divine comedy? For

the reader to decide but here join Plotinus who
begins the process of interpreting the texts.
Heythrop Journal

Patrick Madigan

Plotinus: Ennead IV.3 4.29: Problems Concerning the Soul. Translation, Introduction & Commentary by
John M. Dillon & H. J. Blumenthal. Las Vegas, Athens, Parmenides Publishing, 2015, $47.00.

The new translation of the Enneads, edited by John

Dillon and Andrew Smith, continues apace. Blumenthal, an expert in Plotinus psychology, had
done a translation with partial notes by the time
of his untimely death in April 1998. Dillon took
over and has brought the work to a masterful
conclusion.
The soul is the key doctrine in Plotinus, both
as a topic and as justification for his methodology. For humans to turn to address the soul is
for them to obey the Socratic injunction to
know thyself. It is the point of entry into a
study that will open to all of reality, insofar as
it can be known. As bequeathed from his predecessors Plato and Aristotle, the soul has two
functions, to be the principle of life and unity
for a body, but also to be a pivot of vision or
realization that may turn either up or down. By
turning up, it allows humans to study the Intelligible world of the Forms, amongst which a part
of itself that is unfallen resides, which makes
possible this upward attention and ascent.
Because in knowledge mind becomes one with
its object, as we turn our gaze upward and attend
to the higher reality, we simultaneously hoist ourselves back up whence we have fallen, reverse
by ourselves our fall, complete the cosmic
motion of return after the initial exitus, and
may even go past our original starting point to
attain fusion with the principle of unity, which
can only be described negatively as the One,
and that is the mysterious source of all cosmic
activity. The soul has various levels corresponding to its various duties; only the highest level is
immortal, indeed as said, a part of it is already
saved. This gives Plotinus the confidence to
speak not only as though the process of return
he describes may be successful, but in a sense as
though it is already accomplished. It is all a
question of returning to our true self. Plotinus
gives philosophers a sense of their superiority,
but also a grounding for their belief that moral
striving is worth the effort.

The ambiguity between the Ones changelessness and self-regard, versus its (unconscious) production of and ordering of the rest of the world
is repeated at every level in the Plotinian hierarchy. In Platonic philosophy, which Plotinus saw
himself expounding and clarifying, the higher
never inclines or stoops to aid the lower; it is
rather for the lower to convert and rise to rejoin the higher, who must remain as indifferent
to the return as it was to the production. This
principle accounts for the strange language in
Plotinus, notably that body is said to be in
soul, rather than soul in a body. The latter
would imply that body is somehow higher, more
real or powerful than soul; the former is simply
a way of expressing that the reverse is the case.
The principle that love must be proportional to
its object, and that the One is thus appropriately
fixated in narcissistic self-enthrallment, and indifferent to the rest of the world, has always been
controversial; in particular, the explanation of the
production of the lower stages as an unintended
side-effect of this self-contemplation seems arbitrary, fanciful, of the hand-waving variety almost mythological. Better perhaps to turn to
Platos other depiction of the first principle as
the Good, and suggest that as the supreme
source, the Ones love of itself is so intense that
this leads it to want to produce another with
whom to share itself. Such an explanation seems
less jury-rigged, more precise and satisfying. It
would also explain Plotinuss comportment of not
only remaining detached in contemplation, but
expending himself tirelessly not only for his students such as Porphyry, but also for the orphans
and wards committed to his care. He saw himself
as doing what the highest principle was doing.
As Porphyry said, he was present to himself and
others at the same time.

Heythrop College

Patrick Madigan

BOOK REVIEWS

199

Ennead IV.4.30-45 & IV.5: Problems Concerning the Soul. Trans, Intro, & Comm. By Gary M. Gurtler, SJ.
Pp. 363, Las Vegas/Zurich, Parmenides Publishing, 2015, $47.00.

In this third and last part of Problems Concerning

the Soul, Plotinus takes up three final problems or
aporiai; insights from the first two parts are used
to attack the popularly-credited influence of the
planets on human enterprises, and the attendant
problem of their memory and cooperation with
evil. Confronted with the potentially reductionistic
astronomy of Ptolemy and the medical lore of
Galen, Plotinus complemented his Platonic sense of
the cosmos as a single living thing (Timaeus 30d31a) with the Stoic notion, notably compatible with
a thorough-going materialism, of a cosmic sympathy by which the cosmos is sympathetic with
itself, and everything in it is sympathetic with
everything else. Each thing has two acts, its core
identity, and an aura or effluvium that reaches out
and washes over everything else. Plotinus is thus at
pains to demonstrate that we are not forced to
choose between a reductionistic materialism and a
more consoling traditional mythic account; it is
both/and rather than either/or. In medicine for
example all a doctor can do with a break is often
to move the affected pieces close to one another.
They then advance towards one another in sympathy and knit themselves back together again.
Nature herself shows that materialism does not

exclude purpose or mutual adaptation. Similarly,

we need fear no influence of the planets on our
enterprises, or any other superstition; the souls of
the planets have no memories and are always
directed toward the intelligible realm, as ours
should be, whereby our souls become similarly
immune to the slings and arrows of fortune. The
souls of persons whose attention sinks to material
objects are buffeted by external objects. Plotinus
defends a strict theodicy the gods and higher
souls (planets) are only responsible for the good,
although how we receive this influence can turn
them to evil; further, a strict justice pervades the
cosmos, such that every infraction will be punished. There is thus no reason to become upset by
the apparent success of an evil person. The second
of the two acts of each object is also invoked to
explain apparent action at a distance (which even
after Newton we still cannot explain) and sight of
a distant object; as an expression of the cosmic
sympathy, for Plotinus these both are manifestations of how all things reach out to take account of
one another.
Heythrop College

Patrick Madigan

Plotinus Ennead VI.4 & VI.5: On the Presence of Being, One and the Same, Everywhere as a Whole. Translated,
with Introduction and Commentary by Eyj
olfur K. Emilsson and Steven K. Strange. Pp. 295, Las Vegas/
Zurich/Athens, Parmenides Publishing, 2014, $37.00.

Steven Strange did a first translation of this

extremely rich portion of the Enneads before his
untimely death, which Eyj
olfur Emilsson - benefiting from Christian Tornaus German commentary
on the same section was able to bring to completion. As a platform for Plotinus view of philosophy as a return back up the scale of being towards
union with the transcendent One, this shows the
strengths, but also the weakness offered by Plotinus attempted systematization of Greek philosophy
coming to him primarily from the Platonic tradition. The weakness is that true being cannot
change, and in particular that the higher cannot
incline or stoop towards the lower. Love must be
proportional to its object, and each level of being
is appropriately taken up with itself, or the stages
of being above itself, in its attempted return to the
One. It is rather up to the lower realm to convert
and re-direct its vision from the still lower realm
of matter where they sought empire and glory,

towards the upper realm which must, to stay perfect, remain indifferent towards them. Since in
knowing, knower and object known become one,
this is enough to pull the lower back whence it has
fallen. Looking down is always a sin, motivated
by hybris, envy, and a sense of lack never by
compassion. This doctrine, however, leaves a hole
in Plotinus explanatory structure, as in previous
Greek philosophy.
Knowledge of itself is the explanatory engine for
creation in the descending cascade of the emanation,
but as a second activity, and unintended side-effect,
of each levels self-contemplation; in no sense is it an
initiative of the higher towards the lower. The emanated spume immediately turns back towards its
source, receives its higher form insofar as it is able,
and consolidates as a new, lower hypostasis which in
turn knows itself and inadvertently generates a still
lower level, all the way down to inert, lifeless, dispersed matter. World soul links the higher

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intelligible realm to the lower sensible realm;

besides animating the latter, it also provides unity and
providence (because body is in soul, rather than soul
in body). It thus serves as a counter-force to the
tendency towards dispersion and lack of being, and
excites individuals to search for yet higher forms of
unity and being. This section shows how the soul
stays free from the localization and divisibility that
characterize body; soul makes the intelligible
realm present whole and entire at every point in
the universe, whence the latters aid to uplift, contemplation, rest and eventual union with the One is
available to every individual, but unfortunately can
be received only according to the particular nature
of these lower creatures. But where did these dif-

ferences among lower beings come from? This

Plotinus cannot answer although the fate of each
and every lower being hangs in the balance. Is it a
question of destiny, free will, favourable dispositions or their absence, or perhaps predestination? Is
it chance or luck but more basically, without a
reason for it, how can there be any differences at
all? As the lacunae stand out more glaringly, we
begin to notice that Plotinus soul-scape is good
as far as it goes, but stands in need of a doctrine
of original sin as well as of divine initiative - in
both creation and salvation - to give us a complete
or adequate picture.
Heythrop College

Patrick Madigan

The Call of Abraham: Essays on the Election of Israel in Honor of Jon D. Levenson. Edited by Gary A. Anderson
and Joel S. Kaminsky. Pp v, 390, Notre Dame, Indiana, University of Notre Dame Press, 2013, 42.00.

This eclectic collection of fifteen essays is a tribute

to Jon Levenson, marking a sustained engagement
with his thesis that the particularity of Israels election ensures the universality of Gods relationship
with all humankind. Organized chronologically by
subject matter, the scholarly material ranges from
lexical analysis of Hebrew texts (Garr) to theological appropriations of Luther and Calvin (Schramm
and Batnitzky). Overall, this diverse anthology
offers three major themes emergent from the call
of Abraham.
First, the question of why Israel was chosen. As
Levenson has shown, the narrative of beloved son
winds through Jewish and Christian Scriptures. For
authors in The Call of Abraham, the events surrounding the Akedah show forth Gods mysterious
and inscrutable affection for the chosen people.
Madigan sees the Akedah as an intersection point
between God and humanity, and the opening of a
community faithful to God. Pivotal events like the
near-sacrifice of Isaac, for Kaminsky and Schifferdecker, highlight the ambiguous privilege of being
elected to sufferto bless the world, but also to be
held accountable for its course. Clifford notes that,
in a theocentric universe, there is always space for
a sovereign God to intervene and direct Israel
toward the fulfillment of its calling. Through the
exilic period and beyond, the drama of Israels
election is continually replayed. For example,
Hirshmans midrashic study reveals that Jerusalems temple was viewed both as a locus of international judgment and as a peaceful house of
prayer for all people. While modern Biblical scholarship tended to see Judaism as exclusivist and particularistic, this anthologyand particularly
Batnitzkys piece, which engages twentieth century

Jewish scholars like Wyschogrod and Rosenzweigembodies the growing consensus that
Gods particular love for Israel makes possible
Gods love for humanity as a whole.
The second predominant theme involves Scripture and the ramifications of Israels election.
Almost all of the authors in this collection wrestle
with a productive tension between the contingency of Israels election (i.e. the need for works
and obedience), and the inevitability of Israels
election (i.e. the gift faith or trust). The majority
opinion is that these two aspects are of equal
importanceto downplay one runs the risk of distorting a complex picture of divine-human interchange. To paint such a picture, the essays in this
anthology offer a sweeping exegetical overview.
Kaminsky, for example, hones in on the irrevocability of Gods covenant with Israel. On the other
hand, Schifferdecker emphasizes the need to bargain with God in the stories of Abraham and Job.
Likewise, Batnitzky is convinced that Gods election of the Jewish people depends on human action
(318). But Garr, Moberly, and Anderson temper
this view by critiquing the rigor of Deuteronomist
texts. Specifically, Anderson sees Job as a bulwark
against retribution theology (116), and raises
Tobit as an exemplar for the daily life of Hebrew
faith. In the realm of pseudepigraphal literature,
Henze and Kugel use the Jubilees to show that
Israels responsibilities change with the evolution
of scriptural interpretation in history. Finally,
Goerings impressive read of Sirach brings forward
a compatibilism between divine sovereignty and
human action, placing this text between the particularism of Jubilees and the universalism of third
Isaiah.

BOOK REVIEWS

The final major theme is theological. Does

Gods sovereign nature imply absolute mastery
in the selection of the elect, or can there be
room for distinction and ambiguity within the
economy of salvation? Today, Jewish and Christian scholars are asking difficult questions about
the relationship between Gods irrevocable covenant with Israel and Christs offer of sacramental
life to all through the Church. Batnitzky and
Schramm point out the historical animosity
between these two positions (e.g. 293, 315), and
Madigan parses the distinction between allegorical types and anti-types in the Church Fathers
views of Old Testament characters like Isaac
(242). Marshall and Reasoner, however, are more
optimistic. The latter argues that Paul ties salvation to the earthly flourishing of Israel (260).
The former engages with Catholic tradition, from
Aquinas to the Second Vatican Council, to show

201

that Jews and Christians alike await the same

Messiah (343). Ending on an ecumenical note,
The Call of Abraham accentuates Gods particular choice (e.g. of a Jewish man who lived and
died two thousand years ago) as what is necessary for humans to probe the mysterious ways of
YHWH. While the anthology is loosely organized and sometimes in need of closer editing,
common themes emerge when contemplating the
whole. Specifically, the book explores fruitful
questions about the source, development, and end
of Israels election. Scripture scholars are the target audience for the majority of the essays, but
historians and theologians will also benefit from
reading this volume, which reveals how assumptions about Jewish and Christian exegesis have
changed over time.
Saint Louis University

Benjamin Winter

The Jews and the Bible. By Jean-Christophe Attias; translated by Patrick Camiller. Pp. xv, 235, Stanford, Stanford University Press, 2014, 14.99.

Attias is professor of Medieval Jewish Thought at

the Sorbonne; this is his fourth book to appear in
English. He has two aims here. The first is to
examine the place of the Bible in Jewish culture
through the ages; surprisingly he finds it was
highly respected, but not at the centre. First, the
canonical Bible as we know it was not the
source, but rather the product of post-70 CE rabbinical culture, which eliminated certain Greek
texts produced during the Second-Temple period,
and gradually turned away from the international or cosmopolitan Greek Bible the Septuagint which had been a Jewish point of pride
and was even declared equally as inspired as
the Hebrew original chiefly because the translation made it easier for the rabbis chief competitor for the title of New Israel the Christians
to argue that the martyred prophet Jesus was the
long-awaited messiah. The Hebrew Bible came to
be prized as an object indeed a holy or most
sacred object as the scrolls kept in the ark and
unfurled in Sabbath liturgies in contemporary
synagogues are conspicuously treated but seldom read, even in translation. The text itself is
often difficult or confusing, or ambiguous to the
point of giving rise to endless possibilities of
interpretation, as the rabbinical debates demonstrate. Instead, the Talmud, the book of the Law
and ceremonies, moved to the centre of Jewish
life; allegiance and compliance with its 613 codicils determined what it meant to be a Jew. The
commentaries on scripture that had started with

the Pharisees during the Hasmonian period mushroomed with the emergence of the rabbis, in part
as a compensation for the destruction of Jerusalem and the Second Temple, as the Law became
the sole way God was still present or faithful to
his people - all the more important for now having to shoulder the load alone. The ocean of
commentary that threatened to drown each verse
repeatedly provoked a back to the text movement, starting with the Second-Temple Sadducees, the later Karaites, and under pressure from
the sola scriptura wing of the Reformation,
modern Jewish Biblical studies, which has led to
a final dismissal of the Biblical master-narrative,
expressed by Israeli archaeologist Zeev Herzog in
the following, quoted on pp. 149-50:
(T)he Israelites were never in Egypt, did not
wander in the desert, did not conquer the land in
a military campaign, and did not pass it on to the
twelve tribes of Israel. Perhaps ever harder to
swallow is the fact that the united monarchy of
David and Solomon, which is described by the
Bible as a regional power, was at most a small
tribal kingdom. And it will come as an unpleasant shock to many that the God of Israel, Jehovah, had a female consort and that the early
Israelite religion adopted monotheism only in the
waning period of the monarchy and not at Mount
Sinai.
The second aim of the book is that any fallenaway Jew who is thinking of returning in light of
the above result and because of the violence which

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BOOK REVIEWS

the the Father of the Bible has inflicted on the

Jews (in the holocaust) and on the Palestinians (in
the re-conquest) should start, not with the
Bible, but with elements taken from the feminine
side of Judaism the Oral Tradition, which the
rabbis claimed was also given to Moses on Mt.
Sinai, but was not shared with the nations, could
not even be written down but was kept secret and
esoteric as part of the election, and is primarily
concerned with the survival of the Jewish people.
In turning inward, however, Attias omits any
treatment of the central external questions that
bother scholars today: (1) what was different about
Hellenism that it prompted such a change in the
Jewish posture towards its host culture (there was
no Assyrian, Persian, or Aramaic translation of
their Bible). (2) the later puzzling abrupt turnabout after this surge towards Hellenistic culture,

the elimination of Greek texts and the disavowal of

the Greek translation. These parallel and accompany a contraction of Judaism, focusing on survival
as a precarious venture, cutting away elements of
messianism as an end to this process, because the
latter had been appropriated by the rabbis chief
rival. (3) The hypothesis of the Oral Tradition
itself, which rose to prominence with the rabbis.
This appears suspiciously handy, mysterious, malleable, and self-serving possibly a magic trick
as when a card is produced out of thin air authorizing whatever the rabbis decide they need to safeguard their version of Judaism and to exclude the
minim.
Perhaps we must go back and rehabilitate the
Father after all.
Heythrop College

Patrick Madigan

Israel and Empire: A Postcolonial History of Israel and Early Judaism. By Leo G. Perdue and Warren Carter;
edited by Coleman A. Baker. Pp. x, 328, London/NY, T&T Clark, 2014, 24.99.

This is the work of three scholars working at

Brite Divinity School at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, Texas. The project and 2/3 of
the text are by Leo Perdue, a native American
biblical scholar who proposed to write a history
of Israel as one would-be empire among the
larger world empires of the Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, and Romans, but became
ill before he could produce a final draft. This
would not be a top-down history as written by
court scribes or social elites, but the reverse, one
taking advantage of the theoretical discourse of
postcolonial historiography as developed by
Frantz Fanon, Michel Foucault, R. S. Sugirtharajah, Edward Said and others, to produce a history
from the bottom up, reflecting the point of view
of the traditionally invisible and silent subaltern
and oppressed. In this regard Homi Bhabha holds
that the objective of colonial discourse is to construe the colonized as a population of degenerate
types on the basis of racial origins in order to
justify both conquest and the establishment of
systems of administration and instruction.
(quoted p. 15) While this is a bit strong, at the
very least the basis of the traditional project to
empire involves a divine mandate to impose
order upon natural and social chaos, with the
king becoming Gods representative on earth, and
the claim that the host culture is superior to,
indeed a means of salvation for, the guest or
outsider culture. The colonized do not normally
agree with this evaluation, but must bow to the
superior military power at least publically. The

authors are expert, however, at teasing out the

form that resistance to imperialism, in a kind of
mocking samizdat literature and other means of
negotiating the imposition of a typically oppressive colonial burden, appear early and regularly
among the Jews throughout their history up to
their definitive loss of empire with the Second
Temple. Whatever God had in mind for them,
this apparently was not it.
Through vertical violence (taxes, tribute,
enslavement) imperial cultures split potential
indigenous resistance into complicit sub-elites
who profit from the system and a vast majority
who are exploited and sucked dry by both, and
who typically respond with horizontal violence
whereby they fight among themselves, dilute their
power to overthrow the outsider - thus justifying
a low opinion of themselves by the dominant culture. From a Nietzschean perspective, the impotent resistance modes of ambivalence, hybridity,
and mimicry are universal gestures among
oppressed people, as a pathetic means to achieve
distance and independence and preserve some
shred of dignity without risking total annihilation.
The Jews were unique and provocative in that
their mimicry and fantasy revenge led them to
generate a theology of empire themselves, when
they did not have the material resources or
military power to back it up. This could appear a
triumph of backlash illusion over reality. In any
case, the nail that sticks up too high gets hit by
the hammer. Rome eventually treated them
worse than it treated its other serious rival in the

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Mediterranean, Carthage; it did not sow salt in its

soil so that people could no longer live there, but
it did raze the Jews national Temple to which
the nations had been intended to come streaming to build, under Hadrian, a temple to Jupiter
Capitolina, for which all Jews had to pay tax
which provoked the final Bar Kochva revolt, similarly put down brutally.

203

The text is strong in the amount of data the authors

assemble and digest. The editing of Perdues initial
draft is not entirely successful, with repetitions and
overlaps and the occasional serious typo (as at the bottom of p. 155, where Ptolemy should be Joseph)
and loses the meaning of the text.
Heythrop College

Patrick Madigan

David: The Divided Heart (Jewish Lives Series). By David Wolpe. Pp. xvii, 153, New Haven/London, Yale
University Press, 2014, $18.99.

Wolpe is rabbi at the Sinai Temple in Los Angeles;

he was named the most influential rabbi in America
by Newsweek Magazine in 2012. He has published
seven other books. He was invited by Yale University Press to contribute to their Jewish Lives series
by writing on an eminent Jewish figure; he has
chosen David. He treats him in seven chapters
addressing first his youth and then his successive
roles as lover and husband, fugitive, king, sinner,
father, caretaker (of the kingdom he will pass
on), and finally his death. Wolpe writes brilliantly
and studs his tapestry with gems taken from earlier
treatments of David by eminent artists and thinkers.
The story is familiar, but Wolpe makes it fresh,
fascinating, and constantly engaging. You may not
finally agree with him, but you learn much from
him.
Wolpe takes the now familiar line that David
was complicated, even contradictory, with deep
flaws matching his energetic cunning, brilliant success in fields as diverse as music, poetry, and
military-political strategy, and his unwavering
devotion to the one God of Israel who had chosen
him in his youth for the monarchy when he was
the neglected shepherd of his father, and to Whom
he constantly returned in repentance when he had
sinned. And sin he did, seriously, not so much
through lust with Bathsheba, but through murder,
intrigue, and self-serving lies and deception to survive the roiling currents of high-stakes politics and
to remove obstacles on his path to the kingship.
For Wolpe this complication makes him modern,
human, and explains why he was much beloved
by everyone even by God. He was indeed a
golden boy brimming with self-confidence, when
the first candidate for the monarchy, Saul, revealed
himself riddled with fear and self-doubt; despite
the sins, David thought this was good enough,
and that consequently his regime should never
have to change. Deploying brilliantly the skills crucial when he was zig-zagging his way to the top,
he failed to cultivate the new and different set
of virtues prudence, humility, and wisdom that

would become necessary once he had reached the

summit. His career follows the all-too-familiar trajectory of the adolescent who joined everyone in
admiring his own excellence, but never saw the
need to advance beyond that particular stage of
development. A product of inadequate fathering, he
was too flawed to be considered the messiah
himself - only the ancestor of the messiah. He
evolved into an inadequate father himself whom a
later Son would have to recognize and forgive whose flaws he would have to repair and redeem.
That David was loved by God means for
Wolpe that God was using him to give a firm basis
to the kingdom He meant to found - and He would
be faithful to his covenant with David, just as He
would be faithful to his covenant with Israel, of
whom David becomes a symbol and mysterious
surrogate or double. Thus God used David much
the way Hegels World Spirit used Napoleon
exploiting his flaws, personal foibles, passions and
vanities to achieve something of which the worldly
hero was unaware. Reciprocally, David only prayed
or approached God when he needed to or was in
trouble; he was too politically preoccupied to be
conventionally pious (witness his abrupt breaking
off his prayer and fasting at the death of the infant
who was the fruit of his adultery). When he was
lean and hungry and finally achieved his dream,
David rewarded himself first through aggressive and eventually murderous presumption and selfindulgence, and then in lazy inattention when his
own children required oversight (viz., the tragedy of
Absalom). Rather than being special, this is the
all-too-typical pattern of a successful man in a
ruthless society in which most are poorly parented
and that consequently has difficulty making proper
use of success. as well as it handles deprivation and
setbacks. Although a step up from Saul - and thus
necessary for Gods covenantal plans for Israel David remains more a warning than a model.
Heythrop College

Patrick Madigan

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BOOK REVIEWS

Hannibal: a Hellenistic Life. By Eve MacDonald. Pp. xv, 332, New Haven/London, Yale University Press, 2015,
25.00.

MacDonald has written the most complete life of

Hannibal to date, and probably the most complete
life that can be written. She is hampered by the
fact that the Romans destroyed any records or
histories that may have existed from the Carthaginian side when they destroyed the city; we thus
must fall back to Livy, Polybius, Suetonius, Silius
Italicus and the like all Roman historians who
had their own agenda and generally, while
acknowledging Hannibals boldness, creativity,
courage, and tenacity, attributed treachery, trickiness, and deceitfulness to him and to Carthaginians in general; they used him as a foil and
valuable enemy that brought out Romes opposite
virtues and propelled it towards its historical destiny. MacDonald displays how Hannibal has been
depicted down the centuries to our own time;
while she seeks to overcome the bias of the
Roman historians (who, because of the absence of
other voices, set the tone for all later representations), fights shy of giving a final evaluation
herself.
This is all the more called for in that she does
present evidence that the depictions of Hannibal
and the Carthaginians as wily and deceptive, with
the Romans being honest and noble, are the opposite of the truth. The temptation is great to present Rome and Carthage as Girardian doubles,
locked into and spurred on by imitation of one
another towards a final fight-to-the-death for the
same prize supremacy over the entire Mediterranean, or an empire of the whole world. But
this would be false; Carthage never aspired to
such. What is true is that both came of age at
the same time; both were expanding and conquering new territory (chiefly in Spain, where they
initially made military contact). Further, all military commanders at this time were fired by the
recent example of Alexander of Macedon, whose

brilliance and gift for unorthodox strategy gave

him the element of surprise, and typically the
fruit of victory, in his astoundingly successful
campaigns. But it was the Romans who used
trickery and deceit in pursuit of victory over any
perceived rival, not the North Africans, who were
only defending their sphere of interest and influence, and were willing to recognize and respect
a Roman sphere as well. Further, for all his brilliance, Hannibal was ultimately defeated through
a war of attrition; after his overwhelming victory
at Cannae he declined to march directly on Rome
and press for unconditional surrender (as the
Romans eventually did for Carthage); the Romans
were thus allowed to withdraw and fight another
day.
But was it just force of arms and fighting on
their home territory that gave a morally vicious
Rome victory over this brilliant general? There was
more. Beneath the cruelty, corruption, and megalomania of the Roman state was another element
from the legacy of Alexander that the Carthaginians did not pick up a sense of vocation (and
divine favour) as pious Aeneas would later be
depicted by Virgil coming to found the New
Troy, but also, perhaps unconsciously, carrying
forward what Hegel would call a world-historical
undertaking. The Carthaginians had no such vision.
They were traders, merchants, middle men, profiteers from the Greco-Roman perspective good at
making money, but clueless as to how to spend it
wisely on literature, history, philosophy, and art.
There was more to Roman ambition than treachery
and greed. The Carthaginians were innocent of any
higher calling, unaware of any deeper plot. The
two were not pursuing the same prize.
Heythrop College

Patrick Madigan

Scripture and Law in the Dead Sea Scrolls. By Alex P. Jassen. Pp. xxii, 298, Cambridge University Press, 2014,
$99.00.

Jassen published his first book, Mediating the

Divine: Prophecy and Revelation in the Dead Sea
Scrolls and Second Temple Judaism in 2007. Here
he expands his comparative analysis from the use
made of the prophetic and narrative sections of
the scriptures by diverse groups in Second Temple Judaism and the later rabbis, to a similar anal-

ysis of the use made of Jewish law and legal

exegesis by the same groups. He builds on the
work of his mentors Lawrence Schiffman and
Moshe Bernstein at New York University in continuing the revolution in our view of this period
when the canon was in process of formation
and of the tumultuous forces that were in play

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beyond the political and military for the protorabbinic group to decide that it was time for the
canon to be closed. For what characterizes this
period of dissatisfaction with a Temple priesthood
that began with the Hasmonean unification of the
kingship and high priesthood, extended to calendar changes and liturgical reforms, and a general
reaction against a Temple establishment viewed
as too accommodated to the occupying Roman
force and as having betrayed their own traditions
and become cut off and indifferent to the mass of
the people, is how hydra-headed Judaism was at
this period, how it was an evolutionary bush
growing in multiple and opposed directions - anything but stationary and monolithic. For what
stands out about all the various groups is that
they were agreed that revelation was still going
on, indeed that new revelations were challenging,
superseding, and replacing the older covenants of
Noah, Abraham, Moses, and David, to culminate
in their own teacher of righteousness, Enochic
scribe turned other-worldly visionary, or longawaited messiah. Revelation looked forward
rather than backward to a decisive divine intervention, as each group tried to use this motif to
trump the others and establish its claims to be
the final vehicle of Gods Will. Legal exegesis
took place simultaneously with textual revision,
as alternative versions of the scriptures were (and
had been for some time) in circulation, and rewritten Bible was a now-established genre,
almost a cottage industry, rather than a scandal.
The rabbis tried to put a stop to this by insisting
on a sharp distinction between a text which must

205

be kept inviolate and sacredly intact down to the

last diacritical mark (even if it was incomprehensible) from an exegesis and commentary that may
encompass and surround, but never transgress,
this holy precinct. Even the rabbis, as Jassen
shows, updated the scriptures by taking advantage of this literalism to read progressively more
astounding and often far-fetched interpretations,
which they insisted were allowed (or at least
could not be excluded) from a text. This was usually done for homiletic purposes, but developed
into a game that extends down to our own day,
and baffles outsiders; however, it was the only
way creativity and innovation could show itself.
The rules were clear: the goal is to calmly deliver
a most counter-intuitive, indeed jaw-dropping
interpretation of an apparently straightforward
passage, implicitly insisting on what a faithful
(but minimal) interpretation of the text may conceal (or allow) and implying that your interlocutor has been too stupid to think of it as yet.
Thereby the floor drops out of his world (see pp.
31-32). This technique counts as a goal, or even
a slam dunk. As an extension of this refinement,
the rabbis tried to make sense of the carrying
prohibitions on the Sabbath, which led to distinctions of how a hand may (or may not) reach out
from (or in through) a window on the Sabbath to
give a coin to a beggar (see p. 206) - which
bypasses completely the dimension of charity, and
brought this one-ups-manship competition into
disrepute, even in Jesus day.
Heythrop College

Patrick Madigan

The Many Faces of Herod the Great. By Adam Kolman Marshak. Pp. xxix, 400, Cambridge/Grand Rapids,
Eerdmans, 2015, 23.99/$35.00.

Herod the Great has been too long viewed as a

parvenu who felt permanently insecure in view of
his Idumaean origins a people who had been
forced to convert to Judaism only a few generations back under the Hasmoneans and who as a
consequence were not viewed as fully Jewish by
many native Jews. He married into the high
priestly family to cover and compensate for this
lowly and unworthy social origin, but here again
he did not feel fully accepted. His insecurities
reached paranoid level as he began to view conspiracies everywhere; he lashed out against imagined foes in a desperate and irrational manner,
executing eventually his wife, at least three of his
sons, his former sovereign Hyrcanus II, and many
others as well. The body count is correct, but the
psychological profile is mistaken.

Marshak sets the record straight by unfolding

first the patron-client relation which was universal and decisive for power relations throughout
the Middle East and the Mediterranean world.
Superiors sought out local lieutenants to settle
disputes, keep the peace, and reliably supply
military support and tax funds; in return the
patron would promote the lieutenant, protect and
advocate for him against attacks at court or from
the wider world, and generally function as a
godfather who would be as reliable as his subordinate. During the reign of the last of the Hasmoneans, Idumaeans were the most powerful,
prestigious, and confident faction at court; Herod
was an ambitious courtier who had to fend off
more opposition from rival Idumaean cliques who
were envious of his expertise and consequent

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BOOK REVIEWS

ascent in royal favour than from native Jews. The

Hasmoneans themselves had a weak claim to the
throne; they were there not as chosen by God,
but by the pragmatic choice of the Roman
emperor. Herod saw quickly that the Romans
were the new power in the world, and the principal audience towards whom he should develop a
face, image, or self-presentation that would
meet their expectations for a faithful lieutenant
with whom they would be inclined to enter into a
patron-client relationship. He gained a reputation
as a fixer for the pragmatic needs of the
Romans in the Eastern Mediterranean, and soon
rose in status. As a client-king he adroitly
jumped ship from Mark Anthony when the latter lost to Octavian at Actium in 31 BCE, ran to
plead his changed loyalty to Octavian soon after
the battle, and emerged from the potentially disastrous situation stronger than ever. He fended
off Cleopatras designs on his territory and
pleased his patron at the same time by building a
magnificent artificial harbour for the Roman fleet
at Caesara Maritima, flatteringly named after his
patron. Herod also served as a patron both to
native Jews and to Jews of the diaspora, advancing their interests and defending their privileges
as they achieved economic success (and the
attendant enmities) at all of the large metropoles

around the Eastern Mediterranean. He advanced

proudly from being King of Judaea to King of
the Jews. In short, Herod mastered the patronclient relation, and the relation served him well.
Jesus shared with Herod the new and revolutionary outlook that a page had been turned for Judaism with Hellenism, that the Jews could no longer
go back to the separation and exclusivism that had
allowed them to survive under past empires, and
that they would have to move out to forge their
fate in a wider world. Like Herod, they would have
to become comfortable in both cultures; they could
no longer be content with being second-class citizens in exchange for permission to exist. The
nations were not yet streaming towards Jerusalem, so which would have to change first? Jesus
(and Paul) decided that Judaism would have to
change, that the Law would henceforth be viewed
as a propaedeutic for a free ethic of proper motivations and that this had always been Gods deepest intention. Jesus paid the price for this gospel
with his life, but paradoxically thereby achieved a
greater openness and fusion with the Gentiles than
had Herod, and for posterity wrested from him the
title King of the Jews.
Heythrop College

Patrick Madigan

The True Herod. By Geza Vermes. Pp. xvii, 181, London, Bloomsbury, 2014. $25.23.

This delightful book, something of a series of stories about Herod, or a set of memories, aimed at
restoring the reputation of that gifted man (at
least to some extent), represents a very considerable labour of love by the widow of Geza
Vermes, after the sadness of his death in 2013.
The manuscript was completed just a month
before Vermes death; and indeed he was making
some minor adjustments only a few days before
he died. On the whole Christians and Jews have
given Herod a bad press; but Vermes argues that
he should be regarded as a genuine tragic hero,
one who was the victim of his own faults, but
was nevertheless sufficiently gifted as a politician
to die in his own bed, rather than by someone
elses sword, and to have only the Emperor
Augustus and his friend Agrippa take precedence
over him in the circles in which he desired to
succeed. This is a popular book, on an interesting
character, one of the foremost men of his generation, which deserves to be widely read. It starts
with a useful trip through the history of Israel
from David to Herod (for those who have forgotten one or two of the relevant dates), with helpful

illustrations of key archaeological evidence, without which it would be practically impossible to

understand Herod the Great, especially when it
gets down to those puzzling Maccabees; then
there comes a useful guide through Herods
uncomfortably internecine family tree. Vermes
explains for us some of the well-known difficulties of the accounts in Luke and Matthew (for
Herod, of course, especially Matthew) of Jesus
infancy, as well as the evidence of the rabbis, and
most especially that of Josephus, who is the
source of our most substantial testimony about
Herod. Vermes gives us a careful examination of
the extent (and observancy) of Herods Jewishness, including what was perhaps his greatest
achievement, the rebuilding of the Temple, but
also his refusal to allow statues of himself in Jewish territories, or portraits on his coins (unlike his
descendants of the Agrippa ilk), and his propensity to keep kosher. Not that the picture is
entirely a cheerful one; Herod was undeniably
ruthless, but he had a gift for picking winners
(especially in those all-important Roman power
struggles); and he was honoured by both Mark

BOOK REVIEWS

Antony and Octavian (this even after Antonys

fall); he became Augustus second best friend.
Vermes divides Herods life into three periods,
which he calls consolidation (37-25BCE), building (25-13), and, those sad last years, decline
(13-4). Herod was undeniably of murderous disposition, ordering the execution, not merely of his
in-laws, but even of his beloved wife Mariamme.
As a builder he was simply brilliant. Little
remains of the Temple which was his greatest
achievement (he started it in 19BCE, and the
main sanctuary was complete inside eighteen
months); but you can still clamber up Masada or
stroll through the remains of the Herodian buildings at Caesarea Maritima and see for yourself
the legacy of his genius. He played the part of a
Hellenistic monarch, and the harbour at Caesarea
was as big as the Piraeus; he also built at what
we now call Caesarea Philippi, Beirut, Tyre, Rhodes, and Syrian Antioch. The decline was sad,
however, with constant family quarrels, and the
execution of his sons Alexander and Aristobulos,
and the command to Salome to kill all the leading
men of Judea in the hippodrome at Jericho, as
soon as he should be dead, so that the population
would have something to weep for (happily his
sister disobeyed the order). Vermes tells us of the
sad decline, and the spectacular funeral; then he
turns to consider what Herod was actually like.
The verdict is that he was powerful and athletic
(and it was quite important to let him win if you
were competing with him); he had nine wives still

207

living at the end, was a highly successful general

and politician, though marred with a terrible inferiority complex, and was perhaps a paranoid
schizophrenic. Students of English history may
feel that there is more than a touch here of Henry
VIII. He was also intensely loyal to his friends.
Perhaps his most abiding memorial is what he did
for the Temple, and that will have achieved wonders for the prosperity of Judea and for tourism to
the area (then and now). He was good to the poor
and hungry, and liked his Pharisees and Essenes.
In the end, however, Vermes feels that his fall
was inevitable. The book ends with an interesting,
perhaps too brief, reflection on Herod in literature
and the cinema, some very helpful reflections on
his legacy in the form of his unattractive offspring (though it must be said that no one seems
to have offered any criticism of Philip) and their
own issue. Vermes conclusion is sombre: . . .the
time of the Herods ran out. They promptly vanished from history. But while it lasted his career
was eye-catching; and even if Matthews story
comes from an ancient Jewish midrash, Herod
undeniably fits the part of the slaughterer of the
innocents, and is an important element in the
background against which we are to read the gospels. Herod was in his way a great man, and a
worthy challenge for the distinguished scholar
who made this his final oeuvre.
Campion Hall, Oxford

Nicholas King

Judeans and Jews: Four Faces of Dichotomy in Ancient Jewish History. By Daniel R. Schwartz. Pp. xvii, 173,
Toronto/London, University of Toronto Press, 2014, $60.00.

This is a modest proposal whose long-term consequences the author does not want to point up, a short
(89 pages of text, plus an appendix and notes) stick of
dynamite whose explosion the author tamps down to
an academic firecracker. Studies of Second-Temple
Judaism have struggled with the question of whether
one term should be used for the Jewish people of the
time, or two Judean for residents of Palestine and
Jews for long-term residents of the diaspora.
Schwartz supports the latter option and backs it with a
courageous analysis of three dichotomies in key
areas of Jewish history, together with an analysis of
the failed attempt of the 19th-century German scholar
Heinrich Graetz to maintain a single term for the
Jewish people, based upon his prior belief that their
history was that of a single people. Schwartz finds that
the three dichotomies ultimately reduce to one, and
this amounts to the concession that a fundamental
change took place during the Second-Temple period

that is sufficiently deep that the Jews cannot be called

a single people. The Jews are not, and probably can
never be, what they once were; one can be happy (as
Schwartz presents himself) or sad about this, but there
is a fundamental rift between Jews as they are
presented in the historical books of the Bible and
Rabbinic Judaism. One cannot pretend that they are the
same thing. Rabbinic Judaism is an etiolated, stateless
version of a previous covenant involving a particular
land, king, and temple; Jews are a permanently-exiled
association whose voluntary membership are encouraged to follow the one remaining vestige of their previous vital cult the 613 codicils of the Law whose
basis is no longer nature but the arbitrary, voluntaristic fiat of an invisible and non-intervening legislator;
they are further encouraged to embrace and become
missionaries for universal values they can share with
their fellow, non-Jewish citizens. The Jews have been
turned out from the riches of their first incarnation, and

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have been granted precious little to sustain themselves

as they nervously carry a heavy burden in their second.
Viewed as Jews by descent, and not by choice, by the
gentiles around them in the diaspora (and who now
already pledge allegiance to these universal values),
and with their choice in fact severely limited if they
opt to follow the Law, they sit uncomfortably on the
assimilationist border, unsure whether to go in or come
out. There seems no longer any reason or justification
for their being the special people they are. If the
Enlightenment is the culmination of their mission, it
has been accomplished.
The first dichotomy Schwartz presents are the
opposed readings we get of the same history from 1
and 2 Maccabees one from a pragmatic, secular
defender of the Hasmonean rebellion written in
Hebrew, the other from a Hellenized Jew of the diaspora written in Greek. According to the first the cause
of the disturbance was foreign domination of Judea;
according to the second, it was Jewish sin and the
consequent atonement. The second dichotomy is the
conversion the historian Josephus underwent from
being a priestly aristocrat and general in the Jewish
rebellion against Rome in 66 CE, to becoming the
court historian for the Flavian emperors in Rome during his later years. Where some see conversion,

others see betrayal and hypocrisy in the discrepancy between the accounts he gives of the same material in The Jewish Wars and in the Antiquities written
twenty years later; in the latter the Jewish religion is
never admitted to have been a cause for political disturbance. The fundamental dichotomy, however, is
between Priestly Law and Pharasaic-Rabbinic
Law, the former recognizing status by birth and law
based on nature (alone), while the latter cuts away this
earthly foundation for an ethereal or cultural support,
acknowledging only status by achievement or recognition, and a minimalist law based on choice and
explicit agreement.
The destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple effectively ended Priestly Law; by default Rabbinic Law
now took its place in the diaspora (which because it
was occupied by the Romans, included Judea itself).
The fusion of political and religious leadership under
the Hasmoneans had been a corruption of their earlier
relationship, against which both the Pharisees and
Christians protested. The Christians saved more of the
Priestly religion than the Pharisees; henceforth one
had a choice of worshipping a God whose Church
was everywhere, or whose Law was everywhere.
Heythrop College

Patrick Madigan

Did Jesus Exist? The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth. By Bart D. Ehrman. Pp. vi, 361, NY, HarperCollins, 2013, $16.99.

Ehrman has ignited a firestorm of controversy

about the Churchs traditional views on Christology. By analyzing the origins of Christianity from
a strictly historical standpoint, Ehrman came to the
conclusion that Jesus was not God incarnate and,
as a result, abandoned his Christian faith. He now
considers himself an agnostic with atheist leanings.
Currently serving in the religious studies department at the University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill, Ehrman has written four New York Times
best-sellers on the historical figure of Jesus and the
reliability of the New Testament.
Unlike many of his earlier works on the historical Jesus, his recent book, Did Jesus Exist? should
be welcomed by Christians of all persuasions.
According to Ehrman: At the same time certain
readers who have found some of my other writings
dangerous or threatening will be surprised, possibly
even pleased, to see that here I make common
cause with them (6). Ehrman lays out the evidence
for the historicity of Jesus and concludes that the
case undoubtedly renders a positive verdict. Of
course this conclusion does not mean that everyone
in the debate will be convinced of the historical
arguments in support of Jesus, but for those who

understand and interpret the evidence with an open

mind, it can be shown that Jesus almost certainly
existed: Jesus existed, and those vocal persons
who deny it do so not because they have considered the evidence with the dispassionate eye of the
historian, but because they have some other agenda
that this denial serves. From a dispassionate point
of view, there was a Jesus of Nazareth (7).
Most scholars of antiquity take Jesus existence
for granted, and as such they do not spend much
time on the pertinent arguments in the debate.
Nonetheless, Ehrman was able to pinpoint the
loud minority of voices who have challenged the
academys longstanding conviction about Jesus
(11-34, 177-264). He discusses the work of Bruno
Bauer, J.M. Robertson, Earl Doherty, George
Wells and Robert Price, among others. To counter
their mythicist view of Jesus, Ehrman turns to
the classical non-Christian sources who mentioned
Jesus in their writings (35-68): Josephus, Tacitus,
Pliny the Younger, Suetonius, etc. He also brilliantly treats the Gospels as historical sources
(69-93). My claim, says Ehrman, is that once
one understands more fully what the Gospels are
and where they came from, they provide powerful

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evidence indeed that there really was a historical

Jesus who lived in Roman Palestine and who was
crucified under Pontius Pilate (70).
After discussing some of the early Christian
writers (Ignatius, Papias, etc.), Ehrman then turns
to the writings of Paul (142-176). Pauls corpus
provides two key data in support of Jesus. The
first is Pauls association with James (Gal.
1:18-20), the brother of the Lord. Paul knew one
of Jesus brothers personally. This point is hugely
significant in the case for Jesus existence: It is
hard to get much closer to the historical Jesus
than that. If Jesus never lived, you would think
that his brother would know about it (148). The
second key data was Pauls association with
Peter. Ehrman also plunges into the paradoxical
claims of the early Christians about a suffering
Messiah who died on a cross (159-167). Such
indisputable evidence assumes the very fact that
Jesus existed. The book culminates with an excellent introduction to the topic of the historical
Jesus (267-340).

209

Although the historicity of Jesus is not all that

controversial in academic circles, this should not
prevent inquisitive individuals from purchasing and
reading this book. It could serve as an excellent
introductory work in courses related to Christology
and/or the historical Jesus. Indeed, the careful reader
will come away from the book with more than just
an arsenal of quick, rapid fire arguments for Jesus.
Instead Ehrman methodically demonstrates the guiding principles that historians use in coming to the
conclusions that they do about Jesus and earliest
Christianity. Correlatively, these explanations enable
the reader to step back from the fine points of detail
that are usually found in books on the historical
Jesus by introducing the foundational issues that
specialists rely on when making their arguments.
Always accessible and enlightening, Ehrmans book
is to be welcomed by all students and scholars of
Christology and the historical Jesus.
St. Josephs
University, Philadelphia

Glenn B. Siniscalchi

Jesus: An Historical Approximation. By Jos
e A. Pagola. Pp. 557, Convivium Press, Kyrios Series, 3rd printing,
2012, $31.02.

The question Who was Jesus? will not go

away, despite the efforts of his enemies and his
friends. This book is now in its third printing in
English, despite serious attempts to destroy it.
(There may be a lesson here.) The aim of the
book is to approximate Jesus with historical rigour and in simple language, and, by and large,
it succeeds. Pagola combines a powerful religious
faith (he is a Catholic priest, but that is not what
I mean) with wide reading and serious scholarly
methodology. The book is beautifully produced,
and well translated, although there are two serious irritations, in that, first, Hebrew words are
left, confusingly, in their Spanish transcription,
and, second, that books written in English, or
existing as English translations, are cited in
Spanish (and those who enjoy translationese
will find gentle humour in a reference to Antipas and his courtesans, where presumably courtiers is what the author meant). That is
something that should have been sorted out at
the copy-editing stage. That apart, this book is to
be strongly commended: the footnotes are on the
page to which they refer (which is where they
belong); each separate chapter is so structured as
to point to key aspects of the profile of Jesus,
his message and activity. There is an excellent
account of the political and social setting of the
Galilee from which Jesus emerged. Pagola shows

how Jesus mind-set was formed by Galilean

agricultural practice, and is very helpful on
Jesus religious experience, and how his celibacy
springs from his passion for God and for the
poorest of Gods sons and daughters. The author
is also very perceptive on Jesus attitude to John
the Baptist: Jesus never admired anyone as he
did John the Baptist. He never talked about anyone in the same way. Pagola brings out well the
significance of the Jordan for the Baptists
work, representing the entry into the Holy Land.
Jesus however goes beyond John, who saw only
disaster, and a sense that the history of the
Chosen People has ended in failure. Jesus, by
contrast, goes on to God is near, an insight that
he expresses with a poets imagination. Pagolas
Jesus is one who is very far from being boring;
the author tells a beautiful story, and that is not
something that one can always say of the quest
for the Historical Jesus. What this book yields is
a credible reconstruction of a plausible 1st century figure, which also carries a hint of why his
appeal might remain to this day; it is also, however, a very challenging Jesus (something that
Historical Jesus scholars sometimes appear to
avoid). The fact is that Jesus is different; he is
utterly rooted in the best of Jewish traditions, but
with a quite different edge to him, for God is
an experience of Jesus, not a doctrine: Jesus

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does not talk like a rabbi expounding the law,

but as a prophet filled with Gods spirit. And
Pagola succeeds in showing (as all quests for the
historical Jesus must show) why Jesus was dangerous enough to be executed. Above all, Jesus
has a gift for symbolic acts, which create a
mood against the carefully constructed background that Pagola offers, of Jesus ministry in
the Galilee and of his last days in Jerusalem,
especially his solemn dismissal of the Temple.
It would be a brave scholar who claimed (though
many do) that they know precisely what happened in the last hours of Jesus life, but Pagola
is probably correct in his assertion that the reign
of God defended by Jesus is a simultaneous challenge to the whole Roman structure and to the
temple system (p.368). There is a compelling
final chapter presenting the identity of Jesus,
and an epilogue that serves to remind us that the
important question here is not what do the ecumenical councils say? nor how do theologians
do Christology?, nor yet what are the results of
modern historical Jesus research?, but who do
you say Jesus is? Pagola ends with a vision of

what the world might be like if Gods reign

were to come, and seven useful appendices on
exegetical methods, as well as an unexpected
tailpiece on Jesus in science fiction! So this
book is to be welcomed, and should be widely
read; it can safely be put in the hands of beginners, and more experienced scholars will find
plenty of new insights. If one must make a criticism, it is that occasionally Pagola makes an
interesting but unsupported assertion, such as that
Matthews version of the Lords Prayer is earlier
and more authentic than that of Luke, or on the
dating of Galatians and Romans. There is occasional circularity in the argumentation, and an
unsupported firmness on the authenticity (or not)
of logia that not all would accept. This book,
however, deserves wide reading: it offers a rare
combination of scholarship and accessibility, and
presents us with a historical Jesus whose impact
on the poor and whose death at the hands of the
powerful we can understand.
Boston College School
of Theology and Ministry

Nicholas King

The Jesus Movement and Its Expansion: Meaning and Mission. By Sean Freyne. Pp. xii, 383, Grand Rapids/
Cambridge, Eerdmans, 2014, $35.00/23.99.

This final book before Freynes death is an expansion of the Schafer lectures which he delivered at
Yale University in 2010 and is a magnificent culmination to his career devoted to Galilean Christianity, to the early expansion of the Jesus
movement north and east, along the Johannine
rather than the Pauline tradent, which allows
Freyne to revisit key questions involving relations
between Hellenization, Romanization, Judaism, the
Herodians, and the various messianic movements
for Jewish restoration down to a key difference
between hellenists and hebrews among the early
Jewish Jesus-followers concerning what conditions
should be placed on Gentile converts. This is a
feast for those interested in what can reliably be
said about the origins of Christianity, a banquet
whose richness can only be sketched here.
Freyne first alerts us to the importance of the
matrix or unmentioned but dynamic background with much history beneath it that is an active player
in the typically tense relations between the Jews in
Galilee - most of whom were fairly recent transplants
from Judaea and the force of Hellenization emanating from Herod the Great and then his son Antipas,
with the resulting clash of values leading to the
capitulation and compromise of the Jewish leaders
before foreign domination, which made many feel

that a Jewish restoration was essential and immanent. Freyne uses anecdotes from Marks gospel to
illuminate relations between Galilean Jews and the
Syro-Phoenician cities along the coast and Greater
Syria to the north and east. It was perfectly possible
to be at home in several cultures; specifically for
Jews in Galilee, accepting Hellenization did not
mean one had to give up ones Jewish heritage
quite the contrary. Jesus was seen, and clearly saw
himself, as spearheading one such Jewish restoration
movement; the words and signs he used, however,
were and had to be oblique and indirect. Appointing
the twelve was a provocative signal, tapping into
memories of the original twelve tribes, but equally
his visits to greater Galilee and beyond, indicating
an interest in re-appropriating the ideal Israel associated with both David and the coming messiah. Still,
Jesus was a pioneer who charted his own path.
Unlike the Pharisees, who were zealous in democritizing the concerns for ritual purity by which the
Saducees, scribes and Jerusalem elite maintained
their aloof and exalted position, thereby showing
poor Jews how they too could attain self-respect,
Jesus proceeded to a simplifying reversal of the
whole issue, demonstrating a breath-taking indifference to such external matters as well as to the kinbased concerns essential to traditional Jewish piety

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and fulfilment of the Law. This could be both a

strength and a weakness in later proselytizing efforts
among Jews and Gentiles. Jesus was proposing a new
ethnos, a people without kinship relations or descent
from a postulated common ancestor, which called for
a greater interiorization and maturity than most were
used to. On the one hand the Jesus movement could
present itself as Judaism for the masses Judaism
without the burden of the Law and without the exclusivism and snootyness many found unattractive; on
the other, Jewish-Christian communities continued
into the fourth century - and were even attractive to
Gentiles - because people wanted the matrix and
safety net of family and social relations to support
their religious beliefs, rather than to be cut free from
them.
The transition from the Hasmoneans to the Herodians in Palestine occurred simultaneously with the
transition from the republic to the empire in Rome,

211

and with it Romes natural tendency to see its

emperor as divine and the sole ruler of the world.
Client-kings like Herod the Great actively promoted both the ideology and the cult, and even
members of the Jewish elite, such as Josephus,
conceded that God had gone over to the side of the
Romans. It was in this contested atmosphere that
the conflict between these two great ideologies
concerning what God was like and what he wanted
from humans would play itself out and who
would have bet on the dark horse? Perhaps the
surprising thing is how quickly the (apparently
failed) Jesus movement began to attract supporters
initially Jewish, then Gentile and how soon it
took over the empire. Although there were bumps
in the road, it was really no contest.
Heythrop College

Patrick Madigan

Hypocrites or Heroes? The Paradoxical Portrayal of the Pharisees in the New Testament. By Roger Amos.
Pp. xii, 234, Eugene, OR, Wipf & Stock, 2015, $27.00.

So many of Jesus encounters and so much of his

teaching are bound up with Pharisees (I counted
somewhere in the region of 200 references to Pharisaios or a synonym in the New Testament), it is surprising that so little has been written about them.
Apart from A.J. Saldarinis Pharisees, Scribes and
Sadducees in Palestinian Society (C.U.P., 1988, r.
Eerdmans, 2001), and a small handful of articles, I
cannot call to mind any other study (Amos, fortunately, lists half a dozen), except those included in
Commentaries and Dictionaries. So the present book
is a timely publication.
In the main, Pharisees come off rather badly, and it
is this bad reputation that has stuck. Jesus addresses
them on no less than 6 occasions as hypocrites (Mt
23: 13-29). The synoptics imply that the Pharisees
plotted to kill Jesus (Mt 12: 14; Mk 3: 6). Jesus brands
them as children of the devil (Jn 8: 40-44). No small
wonder, then, that Pharisees were to blame, at least in
part, for so much anti-Semitism; in common parlance,
too, they receive a bad press. Chambers Dictionary
describes a Pharisee as a very self-righteous or hypocritical person.
On the other hand, Jesus pays respect to them for
their righteousness (Mt 5: 20; Mt 9: 10-13; Mt 23: 2f).

He even enjoys healthy relations with them (Lk 7: 36;

Lk 11: 37; Lk 14: 1). And we must not forget Gamaliel (Acts 5: 27-41). How, then, does Amos approach
his subject? First, by examining every verse in the
New Testament that contains the word Pharisaios or
one of its synonyms; this is the burden of Chapter 2
with its 78 pages. The third chapter explores the
occurrences of hoi Ioudaioi (many of which refer to
the Pharisees) in Johns Gospel. A chapter succinctly
overviews references to Pharisees in Josephus and the
Rabbinic literature. Chapters 5 to 7 are historical
reconstructions of the origins of the Pharisees, the
Pharisees at the time of Christ, and Jesus and the Pharisees. The final chapter draws together strands that
have been followed throughout the book in an attempt
to answer the books title Hypocrites or Heroes?
The conclusions reached, on Sabbath breaking, Did
the Pharisees really plot to kill Jesus?, the Pharisees
attitude towards sinners, and What was Jesus
relationship with the Pharisees?, are convincing and
enlightening; the Sadducees come off the worse in the
comparison.
Dorset

Luke Penkett

The Birth of the Trinity: Jesus, God, and the Spirit in New Testament & Early Christian Interpretations of the
Old Testament. By Matthew W. Bates. Pp. xii, 234, Oxford University Press, 2015, $84.63.

On the dust jacket Joel Green calls this book a

game changer, and it certainly is that. A continuation and expansion of his earlier The Hermeneu-

tics of the Apostolic Proclamation: The Center of

Pauls Method of Scriptural Interpretation (2012),
this book demonstrates conclusively that the

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early Christian doctrine of the Trinity (and specifically the equality of Jesus with the Father) did
not develop gradually from a low-Christology
which accepted Jesus as a wonder-worker and
embarrassingly-executed messiah who was later
adopted as his Son by the Father at the Resurrection, nor from the rich cast of semi-divine intermediaries Second-Temple Judaism recognized as
surrounding, but not compromising, their exclusively single Deity, representing Him and carrying
out tasks for Him, nor from contact with Hellenistic philosophy, which did indeed later supply the
technical terms of prosopon and hypostasis by
which the third and fourth century fathers articulated the unity and procession within the Trinity.
The Trinity, and specifically a high Christology
(Jesus as pre-existent and equal with the Father)
were present from the beginning with Paul, perhaps with Jesus himself, and even before Jesus in
what Bates calls a prosopological reading strategy
by Jewish scholars of their own scriptures, especially of the psalms and the prophets. The latter
recognized dialogical shifts whereby the inspired
author clearly oscillates between and takes on different roles in reciting, or better performing, a theodrama, within the master plot of the Old
Testament of an eschatological redemption of the
exiled and scattered Jewish people by a vulnerable
and suffering messianic figure commissioned by

God for this very purpose, who is himself ultimately supported and redeemed by the Father. This
reading strategy is evident in Paul, the Acts, and
Jesus himself in the gospels, and was extended by
the first two generations of Christian apologists.
The doctrine of the Trinity did not develop grudgingly and with difficulty out of a pre-existent and
resisting monotheism, but was there almost before
Jesus as a role, one voice within an antiphonal
conversation evident in many Old Testament passages expressing trust, support, devotion, protection, redemption, and exaltation. Bates performs a
slam dunk on this issue by showing this prosopological pattern manifest everywhere in the earliest
Christian writings, well before the abstract and
technical discussions on the relations between the
persons began in the third and fourth centuries. In
a final chapter in fact, Bates shows that the characteristic way that disputes between Gnostic and
Orthodox brands of early Christianity took place
was through contested role assignments in such
conversations transcribed in the scriptures
between persons interior to the godhead. The prosopological reading strategy preceded the Trinity,
and indeed produced the Trinity; later influences
merely cemented or added to this pre-existing
foundation.
Heythrop College

Patrick Madigan

Jesus: Essays in Christology. By Thomas G. Weinandy, OFM, Cap. Pp. xiv, 426, Ave Maria, FL., Sapientia
Press, 2014, 27.94.

Acknowledged as one of the leading contemporary Catholic Christologists, Weinandy has collected in one volume his most important
contributions to our understanding of Christ. The
book is arranged in four sections. There are three
essays in the first section, Christology and the
Bible, in which he examines some of the biblical revelations concerning our Lord. The first two
(from 2009 and 2013 respectively) are a commentary on Pope Benedicts Jesus of Nazareth
(with a refreshing perception of Christ as the
New Moses, thereby enabling a more personal
encounter with God the Father and God the Son),
whilst the third (2005) deals with Aquinas Commentary on the Letter to the Hebrews.
Nine essays ranging from 1996 (Cyril of Alexandria on the Soul/Body Analogy and the Incarnation) to 2013 (Kasper on the mystery of Jesus
Christ) make up the second section, Historical
and Systematic Christology, covering patristic
(Ignatius of Antioch (which lays the foundation

for the twentieth essay in the collection, on Chalcedon), Athanasius, Cyril of Alexandria), medieval (Aquinas (which almost matches Aquinass
marvelling of the Incarnation)), and modern
(Walter Cardinal Kasper (in an useful essay that
points to the importance and relevance of Jesus
the Christ)) Christologies, Trinitarian Christology, the Annunciation (a beautifully written
essay on Mary as the new Eve), and the human
and sacramental acts of Jesus (the human acts of
Jesus as they form and instantiate the acts that
are the sacraments). Despite the fact that these
take a historical bias, does not prevent their contemporary relevance from being clearly
manifested.
The third section, Christology and Contemporary Issues, also has nine essays. The first four
are a refutation of false Christologies proffered
by Roger Haight SJ (1995 and 2001), Terence
Tilley (2009), and Gnosticism (2005). The second
group of three (1996/97, 2004, and 2006) explore

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the issue of Jesus human consciousness and

knowledge, including the question of whether or
not Jesus, whilst on earth, possessed the beatific
vision. The next essay looks at the Council of
Chalcedon in the twenty-first century (2006). The
section ends with a very necessary essay (2009)
on Christ in the light of Islam.
Christology and the Christian Life, the final
section, and, for me, the most telling one, considers the humility of Christ (1994), the Name of
Jesus (2013), his being lifted up (2010), his
Eucharistic commentary on his Passion and Death
(2011), and the Lords Prayer in the light of his
offering himself to the Father while on the Cross
(2012). These are followed by an essay on the
apostle Thomas (1990 and, therefore, the earliest
of Weinandys essays reproduced here), the
supremacy of Christ, which returns to a theme
begun in the third essay (2001), on encountering

213

the mysteries of the Eucharist (2009), on Athanasius soteriological praying of the Psalms (2010),
and Huckleberry Finn and Mark Twains soteriology (2003).
These essays ably demonstrate Weinandys
authoritative biblical knowledge, catholic understanding of the historical and doctrinal traditions,
awareness of contemporary Christological debate
and issues. There is a brief overview of the book
in his Preface, and there are Indices of Names and
Subjects. I would have welcomed a complete list
of Weinandys publications, especially those that
have appeared in journals, in order to have had an
idea of how the various articles relate, chronologically, to one another and how Weinandys thinking
develops.
Dorset

Luke Penkett

Drama of the Divine Economy: Creator and Creation in Early Christian Theology and Piety. By Paul M.
Blowers. Pp xvi, 442. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2012, 94.00.

Christian thinkers of the last three decades have

increasingly recognized the ineluctably theological consequences of ecological calamity. With the
imminent publication of an encyclical on climate
change by no less prominent a Christian leader
than Pope Francis, it seems as though the
groaning of creationand its environmentally
conscious Christian advocateshas reached something of a fever pitch. For such a time as this, as
it were, Paul Blowers has written a magisterial
study of early Christian attention to the doctrine
(s) of creation. Yet, Drama of the Divine
Economy is decidedly not a book intended primarily to address contemporary environmental concerns; it is, rather, an erudite and unflinching
study of patristic tradition, texts, and trajectories,
the breadth and depth of which is not compromised by the burden of a narrow conceptual
agenda. Indeed, Blowers most notable achievement in this commanding volume is the broad
lens with which approaches the topic at hand and
the way he permits patristic voices themselves to
carry the plot. His book is a veritable treasure
trove of relevant texts from a broad array of
Greek, Latin, and Syriac speaking figuresan
expertly embroidered quilt of citations that itself
mirrors the rich tapestry of themes (4) with
which, he notes, engrossed early Christians during
the centuries long development of what came to
be the orthodox doctrine of creation. The theological yield, albeit secondary, of this comprehensive
historical study for the current cultural moment is

Blowerss ample demonstration that disciplined

Christian reflection on creation is not only or
merely a contemporary development and that,
moreover, the Christian tradition has deep patristic wells from which to draw in response to the
environmental crises at hand.
In his initial chapters, Blowers deftly canvases
the legacies of both Greco-Roman and HellenisticJewish cosmological reflection, traditions of discourse, he notes, which would undoubtedly frame
the subsequent patristic discussion. The overarching
argument Blowers offers here, pace the common
tendency among scholars, is that tidy categorizations between Greek and Jewish cosmological
systems are historically untenable. Rather, suggests Blowers, over the course of the many centuries that preceded the early Christian period these
religious and philosophical traditions came to
address an array of parallel concerns (19), a series
of well-worn and syncretized motifs which were
then assumed by patristic authors in their own
theological dealings. Familiar patristic commentary
on complex cosmological themes such as logos,
archai, and creatio ex nihiloto name but a few
as well as the enduring question of a so-called
double creation, are intelligible only against the
backdrop of these interwoven Hellenistic and Jewish legacies. While the Platonic tradition is, unsurprisingly and rightly, accorded significant attention
in this section of the book, Presocratic, Stoic, and
Aristotelian writers also find roles in Blowerss discussion. Also highlighted is the unparalleled

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prominence of the Philonic corpus and Wisdom

literature for cosmological reflection within
Hellenistic-Judaism, two textual traditions that
became obvious points of contact for philosophically minded Christian exponents during the patristic period.
The ensuing narrative Blowers articulates is,
then, the centuries long Christian attempt to contend with these preceding and authoritative cosmological traditions while also grappling with the
multivocal scriptural witness and subsequent formation of a new religious community ordered
around the birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus
Christ. Predictably, given his already wideranging list of publications on biblical interpretation, Blowerss attention to patristic exegesis in
Drama of the Divine Economy is especially
insightful. In two complementary chapters titled
Creation in the Mirror of Scripture, which he
himself dubs the dual centers of gravity (8) for
the entire book, Blowers catalogues a full list of
salient biblical passages on which patristic authors
focused in their contemplation of Creator and creation, as well as these writers creative, often
diverse attempts to interpret such scriptural topoi
in light of both one another and the intellectual
inheritances of their Greek and Jewish forebears.
Also in concert with the caliber of Blowerss past
work is his treatment of representative figures
from the Greek patristic traditionnotably, Origen, Gregory of Nyssa, and Maximus the Confessor. Blowers here marshals both the sources and
secondary literature with the kind of dexterity
afforded only those at home among such texts,
allowing the reader undemanding yet privileged
access to the rich insights offered by these ancient

authors and the scholarly conversation that surrounds them.

One of the prominent, and most illuminating,
threads that runs throughout Blowerss assessment
is the unmatched importance of liturgical practice
for the development of a normative Christian doctrine of creation. The churchs liturgy, on this
account, became the confessional matrix in which
cosmological theory, biblical interpretation, and
ethical speculation made contact with popular
piety during the early Christian period. Blowers
provides, especially in the vitally important ninth
and final chapter titled Performing Faith in the
Creator, a portrait of doctrinal development that
is neither overly reliant on the talking heads of
Christian history nor unduly skeptical of such
indubitably important voices, but which, rather,
takes into account the focusing and synthesizing
spiritual vision of piety and liturgy (313) and the
ways in which theory and praxis congregate in
ritual performance. And it is here that the pregnant title of Blowerss remarkable book gathers
full significance. The divine economy of history the contours of which are continually
unfolded in the overlapping fabrics of creation
and scriptureis, on Blowerss account, the dramatic and defining perspective from which early
Christians contemplated the doctrine of creation
and in which they existentially grounded their
own lives as liturgical characters in a larger cosmic narrative. Blowerss book will for many years
unquestionably remain the authoritative study of
early Christian attempts to articulate such a grand
tale.
Duke University

Taylor C. Ross

Philo of Alexandria. By Jean Dani
elou. Pp. xvii, 184, Eugene, OR, Cascade, 2014, $23.00.

Although Dani
elous book was published in 1958,

his treatment of Philo supplies a degree of biographical detail, an engagement with serious
scholarship, and a judicious selection from the
writings we possess to lift this study head and
shoulders above anything else available. A scion
of the aristocratic Alexandrian Jewish diaspora
living after the translation of the Septuagint and
the appearance of major Jewish artists and intellectuals in Hellenistic society, Philo walked the
tightrope of trying to be an ambassador and apologist for the legitimacy, indeed the superiority, of
the Jewish religion over the dominant pagan
myths and cults according to its own criteria,
without falling into apostasy and assimilation as
not a few Jews, including his nephew Tiberius,

had done. A profound conversion experience during his youth, which led him to consider joining
the Jewish monks, or therapeutae who had retired
into solitude in the desert, protected him against
this danger. He embraced an outward-moving,
universalistic Judaism stressing the Wisdom tradition, shorn of the squabbles, political infighting
and subsequent apocalyptic fantasies that embarrassed nationalistic Palestinian Judaism during
this period. His was a timeless Judaism calling all
to a conversion away from the senses, and progressing through the intelligible realm that Plato
had also described, towards adoration, union, and
enjoyment of the One or the Good that corresponded to the transcendent deity that was the
distinctive contribution of Judaism. Too much of

BOOK REVIEWS

pagan culture, reaching into the philosophies of

Stoicism and Epicureanism, identified God with
the world, and thus never began the all-important
journey to a different land, the voyage to our
distant home. Besides the powers of creating
and ruling present with God was his Logos
apparently a distinct person who functions in
the outward movement of this transcendent deity
to produce an entire world. The Logos straddles
the abyss Judaism had opened up; he is responsible for creation, and then accompanies and
guides the universe as divine Providence. He does
not, however, figure historically in a distinctive
eschatological role. Indeed, there is no such
period. God is compassionate in sending oracles
through his prophets, pre-eminently Moses; but
these are deliverances of the Law, to start us on
the journey back to Himself. This Law is patient
of a literal and allegorical sense, but preeminently a mystical interpretation, whereby it
lifts us up to the heights of contemplation and
transformation described above, and thereby dovetails with and re-joins the best of Hellenistic
chiefly Platonic philosophy. This is the only
end to history that God has set up, but it is
adequate and available for both Jew and Gentile.
Because of his family station, Philo was drafted
for diplomatic missions. Relations between the
Jewish diaspora and native Egyptians had never

215

been good, because the Jewish scriptures gave an

insulting depiction of Egypt during their previous
stay. There had always been mystified respect
among pagans for the bizarre Jewish insistence on
a single patronal deity who is simultaneously god
of the entire universe, but who could not be seen
or depicted, in contrast with the numerous Egyptian
and Greco-Roman deities who each controlled a
part of the natural world. Also the Jews kept apart,
and this exclusivity created irritation. Their cult
seemed ungrateful and unpatriotic, and they were
common scapegoats when bad fortune struck the
state. The Romans initially followed the Ptolemys
in privileging the Jews with internal selfgovernment, but slowly turned against them under
Nero and Caligula as they began to recognize
another culture with universalistic pretentions. In
other words, the Romans sensed a serious rival,
and one further with a sense of superiority.
Judaisms entry into Hellenism was thus not just
cultural, artistic, or philosophical, but political, rhetorical, and brutally pragmatic. After Alexanders
call for a single ecumen

e, Jews had to decide
whether their religion was for themselves alone or
for all; and if for all, how could they then demonstrate their loyalty to a pagan empire?
Heythrop College

Patrick Madigan

Potamo of Alexandria and the Emergence of Eclecticism in Late Hellenistic Philosophy. By Myrto Hatzimichali.
Pp. ix, 198, Cambridge University Press, 2011, 55.00.

J. Barnes once lamented the fact that historians of

philosophy are often a little too cool about other
lines of approach, such as reflecting in the
abstract about ideas advanced in a text, taking
philological issues into serious consideration to
shed light on the ideas promoted, and analysing
the argument or train of thought in which ideas
are embedded (Method and Metaphysics: Essays
in Ancient Philosophy, 113). In terms of thoroughly explaining why specific textual testimonies
and their implications are selected, how questions
regarding such were formulated and why inferences based on these were either likely or certain,
Hatzimichali admirably fulfills each of Barness
requisites.
Evidencing a mastery of all pertinent references made to Potamo, from Diogenes Laertioss
inability to categorize precisely his doctrines
onward, H. refers to a contrast once made by
Barnes between the syncretism of an Antiochus
of Ascalon and what constitutes true eclecticism.
Antiochus, who flourished in the late first cen-

tury B.C., strove to integrate syncretically doctrines of the diverse philosophies of Peripatetics,
Stoa and Academics as though they were mutual
partners seeking truth. In contrast Potamo, whom
H. judges to have also thrived in roughly the
same period, held distinct suppositions and with
great discretion integrated eclectically only those
principles, methods and doctrines he discerned to
be fundamentally compatible that were drawn
from those he viewed as competitors seeking to
vanquish other interpretations (ch. 2). H. refuses
to project upon the reader her own assumptions
of what constitutes eclecticism, unlike some previous historians. She also establishes that no
such historical assumption about in-depth
agreement across the sects is implicit in eclecticism, which can acknowledge genuine differences, and thus avoid awkward attempts at
harmonisation. . . (p. 178). This is why, after
marshalling evidence to elucidate his historical
context, Potamo emerges as an astute and unique
speculator who in no way sought to blend

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BOOK REVIEWS

principles, rationales and conclusions into a

hodgepodge synthesis (ch. 1).
Of equal interest is H.s proposal that, throughout his career, Potamo was concerned with dissemination of his doctrines in logic, physics and
ethics, as evidenced by works written to be as
accessible as possible to win over contemporaries
(ch. 3). Titles definitely attributed to him, along
with passages in works purportedly by other
authors that arguably are attributable to Potamo,
as may be found in the Pseudo-Ammonius, testify
not only to his acute interest in geometry and
Pythagoreanism, but also to sustained reflection
on Aristotles On the Heavens and issues in linguistics (ch. 5). H. argues that Potamos sensitive
attention to language, as evidenced in his careful
analyses of the roles of adjectives and prepositions, along with his assimilation of insights from
Epicurus and the Theaetetus, reveal views on cognition and knowledge not at all identical with
those of the Stoics. His reflections on issues in
physics show a reliance on Epicurus, Peripatics,
Stoics and the Timaeus, and were aimed at refining the Stoic division of reality into active and
passive. As well in his considerations of ethics,

he makes a creative effort to reconcile Stoic

indifference towards all except virtue with Aristotelian finality pervading the pluralisation of
goods, in order to acknowledge virtues supremacy (ch. 4).
H. assuredly would have satisfied the stipulations
of Conan Doyles Holmes in The Boscome
Mystery and A Study in Scarlet, given her cautious, disciplined utilisation of circumstantial evidence and avoidance of any theorising with biased
judgements. Emphatically the detective seeking
causes and explanations and not a cartographer,
she has produced an exemplary study that shows
how one should investigate philosophys history.
One might be left wondering why Potamo has been
so ignored, given the expanding abundance of historical studies. Perhaps few possessed the refined
abilities of a Hatzimichali to unearth, as well as
possible, how he apparently aspired to elucidate the
deepest, principled convergences discernible
between apparently opposed doctrines, a task that
only some are sufficiently competent and disposed
to undertake.
Logos Philosophical Research

Michael Ewbank

Aesthetic Themes in Pagan and Christian Neoplatonism: from Plotinus to Gregory of Nyssa. By Daniele Iozzia.
Pp. xiv, 130, London/NY, Bloomsbury, 2015, $120.00.

Iozzia explores two related reasons not usually

mentioned when scholars ponder the movement
by Christianity in late antiquity (3rd- 4th centuries
C.E.) to engage Greek philosophy (which, for the
Protestant reformers during the Renaissance,
turned it away from the only valid source for
Christian theology the Bible), and this is not
only the objection by Greek philosophy to the
very possibility of the good news Christians
were announcing (evident in the reactions by the
philosophers in Athens to Pauls preaching the
resurrection of Jesus, recorded in Acts 17). The
first is the identification of the One with beauty
(or the Good) in the Platonic tradition, with the
attendant expectation that conversion, reorientation, and eventual union with the One
should be the easiest, most natural, indeed almost
expected form of human behaviour. Of course the
Platonic tradition also recognized a two-tiered
universe, and the fact that the human soul had
regretfully fallen from its true home in the
intelligible realm of the Forms into a painful
and unnatural exile among material objects, a
turn which it is the intent of the Platonic gospel
to reverse, to send souls back to the one place
where they can be happy. But if the One itself is

beauty, and the source of beauty even for material

objects, this means the link between the two
realms has not been severed - and specifically
that simply by pursuing beauty in an enlightened
fashion, it should be possible, indeed inevitable,
to work ones way back, in Pelagian fashion,
voluntarily leaving behind the image for the
reality.
This leads to the second, related point. Because
the link between the two realms has not been broken, the rhetoric, or paraenetic preaching, by
which the philosophical missionary seeks to prod
and move the would-be philosopher to undertake
this voyage and labor, need not involve a stern or
painful regimen that forces the student to choose
between or leave behind the beauties of the sense
world, but only to seek their deepest source. Such
a rhetoric does not presuppose a Manichean dualism, nor consequently involve a denunciation of
the irredeemable traps and vanities of the natural
world, requiring their complete abandonment,
which stipulation would most likely appear too
severe and difficult for a potential disciple, but
instead could take a honeyed form, without feeling it was falsifying reality or playing down the
dangers praising the subject for his interest and

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intelligence, even supporting his erotic explorations, encouraging him to take them further
rather than forbidding them. Such an intellectual
judo reinforcing rather than opposing an opponents strength, ultimately to throw him for a
pin is a more sophisticated and daring strategy
than simply issuing prohibitions; because it shows
esteem and respect for the student, it is more
likely to be accepted. This option was basic to
the ancient schools of rhetoric, especially when
addressing people in power or of high rank, as
they were less likely to take kindly to being
humiliated, insulted, or talked down to. Relatedly,
it was a tactic St. Paul knew and used slyly in his
letters giving thanks to God for a trait in his

217

correspondents he was actually encouraging them

to cultivate treating as an established fact what
was only just developing. In late antiquity, as the
Roman republic became the more decadent
empire, in the systematization of Plato carried
out by Plotinus, the One became more transcendent and matter fell close to becoming evil but
the link held. With Tertullian and the North
African Latin school Christianity could have
veered exclusively toward the denunciatory
school; Augustine (and Gregory of Nyssa) flirted
with it, but turned back. The link held.
Heythrop College

Patrick Madigan

Divination and Theurgy in Neoplatonism: Oracles of the Gods. By Crystal Addey. Pp. xv, 335, Farnham/
Burlington, Ashgate, 2014, 75.00.

Addey pulls her work over the past eight years

together to produce her first book, which sets a
new benchmark for the scholarly position on the
relation between the philosophical religion of
Plotinus and Porphyry, which seeks salvation of
the soul through union with the One by imitating
the disinterestedness and passionless nature of the
gods as far as we are able, ascending and equipping ourselves as best we can on the basis of like
knows like by removing all difference between
ourselves and the divine, cultivating openness,
humility, and receptivity for a union with the
constantly-available and self-donating highest
cause, on the basis of the identity of indiscernibles and the pursuit of this same goal through
the theurgy, sacrifice, and rituals of conventional
Graeco-Roman religion which similarly demand a
rigorous ethical conversion and ascetic preparation
before the trans-rational culmination and completion both disciplines recognize and pant after may
occur. Progress in this field has been hampered by
the fact that the positions of Porphyry and Iamblichus have been mostly available to us through quotations from their Christian opponents, who tended
to conflate theurgy with magic or sorcery
(goateia) trafficking with lower or evil demons,
in an over-reactive backlash to the charge of atheism by the philosophers for having abandoned the
traditional gods of Graeco-Roman civilization and
emperor worship. The scholarly consensus was
brought into an either/or dichotomy between the
philosophical withdrawal from the supposedly
crude voodoo and superstitious practices of the
popular cults, which sought to compel the gods
and which left the practitioner unchanged, in
favour of a noetic and comtemplative regimen that

operated on the traditional Greek principle that, in

the act of knowledge, knower and object known
somehow become one. In fact, theurgy and divination were always marked off from magic and sorcery by Neoplatonic thinkers in Late Antiquity,
including Iamblichus and Proclus who were often
contrasted with Plotinus and Porphyry on this issue.
Theurgy and divination were points on the same
line with philosophical meditation and contemplation, in which texts from Homer could be taken as
sources of inspiration by philosophers; all were in
pursuit of the same goal. There was a difference of
emphasis, or a succession of stages in the one
journey on which both were embarked, rather than
any true opposition. In both disciplines the goal
was a change in the ephebe, not primarily in the
god (who is viewed as constantly available and
beneficent); in fact, ritual practice acts both as a
protreptic device to lead the devotee into the elevated state of awareness and higher knowledge
such texts open up, and also as a protective structure for the ever-more-expert practitioner whose
higher awareness overrides sense perception during
such sessions, and who otherwise might be exposed
to harm from a material world of which he or
she has become unaware. The scholarly consensus
had transferred a post-Enlightenment opposition
between reason and ritual anachronistically onto a
Late Antique setting, where it was foreign and
inappropriate. As with the Reformations projection
of a pre-Constantinian ideal of Christian community, we fashioned an idol based on modern oppositions and alienations, and foisted this on a vanished
historical period that knew nothing of it.
Heythrop College

Patrick Madigan

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Religion and Identity in Porphyry of Tyre: the Limits of Hellenism in Late Antiquity. By Aaron P. Johnson.
Pp. ix, 374, Cambridge University Press, 2013, 65.00/$99.00.

Almost all the fragments we have from Porphyrys works come from his enemies, where the
observations of this Neo-Platonist student of Plotinus and teacher of Iamblichus are distorted to
the benefit of his critic or placed in a context
where they serve the agenda of the latter, which
was not Porphyrys own. Johnson here does the
hard detective work to free these observations
from this distorting encasement so that we may
see Porphyrys position pure and naked for the
first time. Lo and behold, we stand back in jawdropping amazement to discover that this philosopher thought to be implicated in the Great Persecution of Diocletian in the early 4th century and
known to us primarily through his treatise Against
the Christians, quoted and responded to by Eusebius of Caesarea, de-centers and purifies the untilthen nationalistic or helenocentric call to
become a philosopher by defending and promoting avant la letter Christianity (in its ascetic or
monastic expression) because of the latters
unique separation from the Jewish Temple, or any
unique privileged position or nationalistic tradition, where the conversion, purgation, and union
with the higher hypostases of the Neo-Platonic
divine hierarchy may be attempted. Porphyry was
a Phoenician from Tyre, hellenized but (unlike
his predecessors in the Neo-Platonic movement)
not narrowly Hellenic in insisting upon the superiority of Greek culture over all barbarian
nations. On the contrary, the pathway to heaven,
though difficult, may be found anywhere, and
there is much wisdom to be found in the traditions of many of the non-Greek nations. Porphyry
criticized the Christians only in finding them

ignoring the obvious or literal intended meaning

of the Jewish scriptures for what he considered
far-fetched allegorical interpretations whereby a
text is seen prefiguring its fulfilment primarily
in the words and deeds of Jesus. Indeed, Porphyry
ranks Brahman Indians and the Jews (in their
monastic Essene expression) above the Greeks
in having produced a lifestyle ideally suited to
help its devotees pursue the life of conversion,
ascesis, piety, and contemplation leading towards
union of the Neo-Platonic sage.
Where Porphyry gets into trouble, and which
Johnson does not go into, is in the logical difficulties that beset Neo-Platonism in that it stresses
simultaneously the goodness of the world together
with an extreme transcendence of the impassible
highest principle. The latter in effect blocks NeoPlatonism from a doctrine of creation it needs to
connect the world with the One or the Good,
and removes the foundation it needs to defend its
characteristic doctrines of divine providence,
human free will, and scorn for sacrifices and
theurgy to pay off or protect ourselves against
assaults from the lower daemons who would otherwise be in charge of this world, given the lack of
interest, unavailability, or default of the highest
hypostasis to create or intervene in our regard.
Porphyry assessed and ranked the various religions
by how close they came to Platonism; this distracted him from attending to difficulties internal to
Platonism itself, for which one or other of these
non-Platonic revelations ironically might provide
the only answer or remedy.
Heythrop College

Patrick Madigan

Universal Salvation in Late Antiquity: Porphyry of Tyre and the Pagan-Christian Debate. By Michael Bland
Simmons. Pp. xliv, 491, Oxford University Press, 2015, 64.00.

We have a new work definitive for its time on

the mysterious transition of Christianity from an
object of persecution under Diocletian (303-305)
to the official cult of the empire under Constantine (312), and finally to the banning of paganism under Theodosius (380). The culmination of
close to 30 years work, Simmons chef doeuvre is all the more impressive in that he had to
reconstruct the last, desperate counter-offensive
by Porphyry almost entirely from fragments
quoted by his enemies, the Christian apologists
responding to his vitriolic charges which were
all the more serious and incisive in that Por-

phyry as a youth had studied under Origen in

Caesarea and was most likely a former Christian
himself. In short, unlike Celsus, he had insider
information. Porphyry tried to match the Christian challenge by developing for the first time
in Roman history an encompassing theory
around a single cult, a three-tiered soteriology
that offered two side routes through theurgy and
continence for those unable to reach the same
goal of fusion with the One through a NeoPlatonic conversion from visible objects to the
intelligible realm through a study of mathematics and Platos dialogues, which was Porphyrys

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core discipline leading to purification and intellectual ascent.

The deeper thesis of Simmons work, which he
does not stress, is that Constantines turn to Christianity before the battle of Milvian Bridge, while
novel and a reversal of previous imperial policy,
was at a deeper level entirely continuous with the
search for a cult offering universal religious salvation to hold a centrifugally fragmenting empire
together over the crisis-ridden third century, after
the two other legs of the traditional ideological
tripod the army and the emperor had demonstrated that they were sadly not up to the task
despite the desperate tactic of declaring a living
emperor to be divine and a proper object of cult
and blessings throughout the empire. During the
second half of the third century imperial dynasties
gave way to short-term usurpers themselves
becoming assassinated as the legions became more
loyal to their own provinces and to their generals
than they were to the empire as a whole. Rather
than a sign of strength, Decius and Diocletians
insistence that every adult throughout the empire
offer incense before the royal statue was a sign of
desperation and a confession of weakness, grasping

219

at a final straw before capitulation, since religion

and cultic piety had always been a private and discretionary matter in Roman and Hellenistic society.
Although evidently based on an authentic conversion, Constantines sudden embrace of Christianity
was at a deeper level inevitable and entirely
rational, in that Christianity had shown itself
uniquely qualified to offer unity in doctrine and
practice and, more importantly, personal contact
and an emotional experience or relationship with
the deity during moments of crisis and times of
hardship, which Porphyrys austere Neo-Platonism
could not match. The Judaeo-Christian God comes
towards us in history; Hellenistic religious philosophy was hobbled by the Greek antipathy to motion
as a sign of weakness or imperfection. Their gods
could not officially change or respond to prayers or
sacrifice. For union, the higher never stoops to the
lower; it is rather up to the lower to convert and
rise to the higher and then become assimilated
into the same immobile character as the higher
principle.
Heythrop College

Patrick Madigan

Proclus: An Introduction. By Radek Chlup. Pp. xv, 328, Cambridge University Press, 2012, $110.00/69.00.

Chlups nuanced analyses of Procluss doctrines

through carefully chosen primary texts integrated
with pertinent recent secondary research is far from
a cursory or elementary introduction. It lucidly portrays the subtle coherence of Proclean principles
and the world of late Neoplatonism as a comprehensive, orienting wordview. Taking inspiration
from insights of P. Brown, M. Douglas and J.P.
Vernant, Chlup judiciously depicts the complementary nature of various Neoplatonic doctrines and
their contemporary historical socio-political contexts to reveal how such highly refined, abstractive
metaphysical speculation could retain a bond with
ordinary life and social embeddedness, in spite of
Procluss remarkable reported preference that, of
all books written by the ancients, he would advocate only the Chaldean Oracles and the Timaeus
be available for public dissemination (196).
The exposition is comprised of ten chapters: Historical background; Metaphysics; Polytheistic theology; Epistemology; Ways of unification; Inspired
poetry and symbolisation; Evil; Ethics; Wordview;
Procluss legacy. In appropriate sections, there are
fifteen effective diagrams that depict, insofar as
possible, Procluss dynamic logic of reality in
terms of dialectical contrasts that dissuade one
from presuming that he simplistically treated

Being, Life and Intellect as independent, for as is

confirmed in his Platonic Theology and commentary on Timaeus, all things are in all things, but in
each according to its proper nature such that Being
is existence of Intellect, Life is its potency, and
Intellect its activity, ever manifesting the fact that
every procession from provokes appetitive reversion towards the Good. (95, 69) Few so coherently
portray the fact that the elementary laws of
Procluss universe are limited in number, but they
all refer to one another. (47)
This is particularly highlighted in sustained contrasts of Procluss differentiated elucidations with
those of Plotinus and, to a lesser degree, Iamblichus, especially concerning how each develops
insights from Platos Phaedrus regarding inspiration, illumination and divine light. As is well
known, Iamblichus emphasised theurgical practices
to achieve union with the One, while Proclus advocated complementary and irreducible orders of
philosophical speculation and its bonding with
unique Hellenistic religious traditions to attain the
same. Ultimately, however, both approximated
Plotinuss confirmation that final unification
requires wait[ing] quietly till [One] appears, preparing oneself to contemplate it, as the eye awaits
the rising of the sun (Enn., v, 5; 174-5). Perhaps,

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these contrasts are more a matter of emphases and

articulation than substantive disagreement, since
even regarding the ultimate goal of philosophical
life the author confirms that Proclean mysticism
was more routine and predictable than the breathtaking attainments described by Plotinus, a difference reflecting Plotinuss unique personal
intellectual and religious experience versus eastern
Neoplatonisms technical and systematically standardized approach to both philosophy and religion
(183).
Nonetheless, his efforts to contrast Plotinus and
Proclus are illuminating, as when it is asserted that
Plotinuss detachment regarding political virtues
implied virtually total apathy, while Proclus advocated sustained mutual dependency of lower virtues
cooperating with higher virtues, ultimately due to his
having refused Plotinuss conception of undescended soul placing the essence of our being on the
level of rational soul only by qualifying Plotinian
union with the One by equating such with merely
attaining a derived correlate of the one in soul that
emulates true unity (240-1, 28, 164). Yet, Proclus
resorted to a distinction of essential and actualized knowledge, the former consisting in logoi
latent in the soul that we have apprehended from
eternity that need to be brought forth and reflected
upon consciously to discern the soul through such
symbols or tokens (synthemata) that the Father has
sown in the deepest ineffable core of each being . . .
which connect things to the henads [analogously] to
their participation in the Forms (145, 147, 167).
Similar contrasts are proposed concerning
Plotinuss and Procluss understanding of matter,
about which Chlup repeatedly insists that Proclus
and eastern Neoplatonists have a more positive
approach to the material world as compared to
Plotinus, who calls matter pure and absolute Evil
(citing Enn. 1,8,3), although in other contexts
Plotinus is ready to speak of matter more neutrally,
never quite managing to reconcile the two perspectives (204) Such reflects, in Chlups judgement,
perhaps influenced by J. Phillips (Order from
Disorder: Procluss Doctrine of Evil and its Roots
in Ancient Platonism), that Plotinuss universe is
bipolar, and the task of man is to keep as close as
possible to the higher pole, distrusting the lower
one and guarding against its traps.. . . [while]
Procluss universe, on the other hand, may be
imagined as a closed whole fully controlled by the
gods at all of its levels [in which] evil has a strictly
partial nature, is nowhere to be seen concentrated
and has its boundaries clearly set at all times.
(208) However, as D. OBrien has remarked while
directly challenging Phillipss presentation of
Plotinus (Plotinus on the Making of Matter, third
part, International Journal of Neoplatonism, 6

(2012), esp. 37-8; 58), even when Plotinus used the

phrase pante kakon in regard to matter, in no
sense did he ever equate such with utterly nonbeing or absolute non-existence. Further, as J.
Opsomer has insisted: Proclus completely disregard[ed] the sophisticated Plotinian distinctions
between the weakness of the soul and its badness.
Instead, Proclus claims that the souls fascination
for what is inferior is in itself already evil.. . . and
it is unlikely that Proclus paid much attention to it
or even noticed the complexity of Plotinuss argument (Proclus versus Plotinus on Matter, Phronesis 46 (2001, esp. 160).
Regardless, the elaborations, or if one prefers E.
Voegelins terminology differentiation, by Proclus
and other eastern Neoplatonists of what had been
elucidated compactly and profoundly by Plotinus,
testify not only to different stresses on the warp
and woof of Platonic principles, arguments or
rationales and doctrinal conclusions, but also, arguably, to the fact that Plotinuss path of interiority
uniquely synopsises the implicate within ancient,
diversified, localised Hellenistic religious cosmions,
which as Chlup notes, were displaced or alienated
within an ascendant, hierarchically structured and
centrally administered Roman imperial era (6). In
this latter context, the objective of Proclus and
other representatives of eastern Neoplatonism was
to offer a meticulously determined . . . wellcontrived hierarchical whole in which the room for
improvisation is minimal (12). Characteristics
such as these, derived from Proclus and Iamblichus, eventually would encode an emerging
Christianized order through the corpus of PseudoDionysius Areopagite. However, as Chlup astutely
remarks, while Iamblichuss attempt to conserve
the old Hellenic world was, for the most part, a
lamentable . . . [and] highly creative failure, even
with Emperor Julians effort to project Iamblichuss meticulous mediating externalizations into
politics, Procluss emphases upon negative theology, which makes us sensitive to other modes of
accessing the absolute, and his persistent effort to
integrate thinking with the whole for the human
person, arguably, still offer potentially fruitful suggestions for rehabilitating a cosmic perspective in
our own era (294, 289, 292, 274). Yet if such may
be true regarding Proclus, one may wonder whether
it might not be equally, if not more so, true in
regard to Plotinus, whose inward ascent to the
divine remains perpetually viable within any era
that promotes suppression of open plurality in
favor of a closed ontological universe to justify
subordinating interiority to the least hint of externalist uniformism (127, 275).
Metaxu Research

Michael Ewbank

BOOK REVIEWS

221

Cicero and the Rise of Deification at Rome. By Spencer Cole. Pp. vii, 208, New York, Cambridge University
Press, 2013, $90.00.

Cole here offers a fresh look at Ciceros relationship to

the rise of deification at Rome. This well-written case
study is divided into four chapters of careful textual
analysis that track in chronological order the relevant
discussions to be found in Ciceros oeuvre. Proffering
an argument that cuts against the grain of conventional
scholarly conclusions, Cole claims there is a cultural
dialectic operative in Ciceros writings on deification
and apotheosis: these not only acknowledge previous
movements towards deification, but are innovative
themselves, extending the dialogue on the subject.
Cole starts from the premise that Cicero exercised a
normative function in late Republican culture, not
only as regards politics, philosophy, and law, but religion also. Cole does not claim that Cicero fulfilled this
role via the articulation of an identifiably Ciceronian
position on deification that remained the same throughout his career; he rather claims that Ciceros texts provide us with a kaleidoscopic and experimental
snapshot of various approaches to divinization, which
reflect and direct the stage of the dialogue at various
times. The discernable exceptions to such variegated
findings are (1) Ciceros reliably consistent assertion
that divinization ought to be premised on moral
responsibility and civic accomplishment and (2) his
persistent shift away from the possibility of earthly
divinity, after his experimentations with the concept in
the Pro lege Manilia. The salient point is that the
explorations undertaken in Ciceros writings and
speeches aided in cultivating an environment in which
deification especially posthumous deification could
become a cultural possibility at Rome.
A notable feature of Coles argument is his interpretation of Ciceros metaphorical appellations of
divinity. Coles engagement with the theoretical
question of the nature of metaphor is one of the
books strengths. The conventional reading of
Ciceros metaphorical attributions of divinity to
Pompey, for example, is often premised on an understanding of metaphor as figurative, linguistic garnish
that remains conceptually barren. Following Lakoff
and others, Cole argues contrarily that metaphors are
not simply garnish, but are rather expressions that
bear conceptually potent mental mappings that can
influence both ideas and actions. For Cole, Ciceros
experimentation with metaphors of deification and
apotheosis served to lessen the conceptual distance
between gods and humans at a time when humans
(such as Pompey and Caesar) were being brought
into closer relationship with divinity (33). Nevertheless, were a reader to reject the authors interpretation of metaphor, Coles wider argument would not
be entirely overthrown; his textual analysis highlights

several of Ciceros discussions of deification and

apotheosis that move well beyond metaphor, and
which lend support to his thesis that Cicero had a
hand in shaping the discussion about deification in
the late Republic.
Coles textual study serves his argument in a
number of ways. In Chapter One, the authors commentary on the Pro lege Manilia is superb, as it
notes the importance of Cicero drawing amply on
Greek religious precedent in his exaltation of Pompey, particularly through his pivotal introduction of
the appellation of divine as a personal descriptive
adjective into Roman political discourse. In the latter part of Chapter Two, Cole reveals his versatility
as a scholar by engaging the more philosophical
De re publica (as well as the De legibus), in which
Cicero grants (implicit or explicit) legitimacy to
the notion of merit-based apotheosis: he reiterates
at length a version of the Romulus legend that
includes a heavy emphasis on the founders posthumous deification.
Chapter Three takes up the Caesarian speeches, in
which the two predictable tendencies of Ciceros
understanding of deification noted above loom large.
Cicero attempts to check the zeal for Caesars living
deification while regarding posthumous deification as
obtainable on condition of ongoing civic accomplishments and clementia towards his enemies and the
institutions of the Republic. Cole then moves to
assess several works that represent a time of fervent
reflection on religious matters for Cicero (i.e., 45-44
BC), no doubt spurred in part by the death of his
daughter Tullia, and his hopes for her deification. The
Tusculan Disputations, De natura deorum, De senectute, and De amicitia are all considered, occupying
the text from the end of Chapter Three into Chapter
Four. Throughout these investigations the author
highlights the manner in which Cicero reaches back
to draw on his earlier writings in the formulation of
these later texts. Cicero scholars will be particularly
interested in Coles reading of the De natura deorum,
wherein he follows Mary Beards work in suggesting
that Cicero does not privilege one viewpoint in the
dialogue, but rather intentionally produces a balanced
debate. The Philippics round out our authors study,
in which Cicero objects to divine honors being given
to Antony, while nevertheless offering divine praises
to Octavian.
Overall, Coles text succeeds in opening new
perspectives in Cicero scholarship and the study of
religion in late-Republican and Imperial Rome.
Ave Maria University

Matthew Kuhner

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BOOK REVIEWS

The Divinization of Caesar and Augustus: Precedents, Consequences, Implications. By Michael Koortbojian.
Pp. xxiii, 341, New York, Cambridge University Press, 2013, $99.00.

In this collection of relatively distinct historical

studies, Koortbojians expertise in archaeology and
classical art is masterfully brought to bear on the
issue of imperial divinization at Rome. This book
proffers an interdisciplinary treatment of its subject, assessing monumental, epigraphic, numismatic, and textual evidence that has not hitherto
been properly studied in a systematic and interrelated manner. This approach, combined with the
authors astute recognition of the scholarly status
quaestionis regarding imperial divinization at
Rome, secures the texts place as a successful and
formidable contribution to this field of study.
The key concept for the books scope of research
is representation. In a word, Koortbojian is investigating the various ways in which the novel institution of imperial divinization was represented in
Roman society; based upon this analysis, he subsequently gathers conclusions about the cultural consequences of this institution. He argues for three
theses throughout the nine chapters. The first thesis
concerns amalgamation: the imagery employed to
represent the divine Julius Caesar was amalgamated
from various ancient models, thus rendering this
representation both traditional (in its imitation of
well-known models) and innovative (in its simultaneous and unprecedented appropriations). Chapter
Three Augural Images illustrates how the presence of the littus on two important numismatic
images of Julius cult statue helped establish Caesar
as a new Romulus, perhaps additionally with the
famed augural powers of Attus. The intended imitation of these famous models was as innovative as it
was traditional, since the significance of the numismatic image was to communicate the new institution
of imperial divinization; this stretched the meaning
of the littus beyond its traditional bounds.
The second thesis regards development and accumulation: the difficulties inherent in depicting a divinized emperor resulted in a development and
refinement of the representations used. To keep with
the theme of the littus, Chapter Six Auspicious, Propitious, Victorious argues that the use of the littus
in the representation of the divi faded over time (along
with the Romulean model it signified) and was eventually replaced by the depiction of the victoriola. Such
a change (among others) indicates that the full sense
of what it meant to make men gods was articulated
only over time (138). What is more, Chapter Seven
Representation in an Era of Divinization articulates
that, while divinization did require new modes of visualization to reflect adequately the emperors new
divine status, these new modes would nevertheless

accumulate alongside older modes of standard mortal

depiction: in the world of statues and so in the
everyday life of the Romans the emperor might contemporaneously appear as both man and God (183).
The third and final thesis concerns conventionalization: the attempt to represent a novel and exceptional
institution subverted itself, inasmuch as the pervasive
use of the representation served to conventionalize the
institution and reduce it to something more akin to
metaphor. The study of several seminude statues of
unidentifiable individuals in Chapter Eight The
Imagery of the Divus and its Fate reveals how the
hipmantled cult statue of Divus Julius was often imitated, thereby allowing that Caesars new image
would serve as yet another conventional vehicle of
idealization (224).
Each of these theses presupposes, importantly,
that in the establishment of the new institution of
the divi, the language of imagery, both visual and
poetic, took pride of place (12). Tracking the development of the visual and poetic languages used to
convey the institution thereby amounts to a study of
the institution itself. Koortbojian is emphasizes the
malleable and evolving nature of the search for
adequate representational language for the new,
divine status granted to the emperor; however, he
has sober words regarding the ultimate success of
this search: the attempt to devise a compelling and
distinctive visual depiction for the divi, one that distinguished them in their new status from how they
had appeared as living men, proved to be beyond
the scope and power of images (226).
The relatively distinct nature of each chapter enables
a reader to cull from it competent yet manageable studies on the relationship of imperial divinization to statuary in general, portraiture, numismatology, augural
images and their meaning, nude statuary, the representation of the divi in public and private cult, and the
Eastern realms of the Empire. As is expected, the full
panoply of chapters provide the complete argument for
the three theses noted; nonetheless, each chapter grants
a unique glimpse into Koortbojians wider perspective.
Scholars in the field will be interested to note that the
author repeatedly engages and challenges the claim
of Ittai Gradel in Emperor Worship and Roman Religion concerning the implicit distinction between relative and absolute divinity in Roman religio.
This reviewer found Koortbojians discussions of
the distinction between public (official) and private
(unofficial) cult and the eventual conventionalization
of divi representation to be particularly helpful.
Ave Maria University

Matthew Kuhner

BOOK REVIEWS

223

From Jupiter to Christ: On the History of Religion in the Roman Imperial Period. By Jorg Rupke, translated by
David M. B. Richardson. Pp. vii, 328, Oxford University Press, 2014, $114.00.

Rupke has been a publishing machine for twentyfive years, having produced seven books and
numerous articles. Here he gathers together his
thoughts on how religion meaning the great,
but atypical and subversive monotheistic religions
changed the Roman empire, especially as it
moved from the Republican to the Imperial Age,
and how religion itself was changed by being
taken up within the empire, eventually as the official and legitimating ideology of the Imperial Age.
What we assist at here is the transition from polis
religion to confessional election. Polis religion
is essentially each towns patronal feast with a
sacrifice to the patronal deity (or deities), games, a
feast, and with it the strengthening of the colleges
and civic clubs that allowed the social elite to confer on a regular basis, vet the new admissions to
their caste, and secure oversight over the lower
classes. This degree of religion was universal,
unchosen, official, functional, and largely disinterested; it had to do with the well-being of the civis
and was preoccupied with the proper execution of
the cult rather than with any personal piety, the
basis for which was largely absent. Within this
context individuals could sacrifice or make vows
for favours to any of the various gods whose cults
were locally recognized, but these did not receive
municipal support from taxes as the official cult
did. Basically, the state was not interested in regulating religion, except in the case where it might
allow individuals to gather together who would
have a subversive or disruptive effect on the populace as a whole.
Rome had always seen itself as different. When
Virgil finally wrote his epic poem about its founding, he contrasted the Greek hero Achilles who

was indomitable, with the Trojan, and future

Roman hero Aeneas, who was pious. As Rome
conquered neighbouring Celtic lands, they were
careful to moderate the Druidic religions they
encountered, doing away with extreme rites such as
human sacrifice. Thus a certain sense of superiority
and civilization crept into a sense of the Roman
way. But it was the mobility and literacy that the
empire made possible and rewarded that transformed religion into an elected allegiance not
constrained by geographic or ethnic boundaries,
that paved the way for book religion which also
required for the first time a reflection on what religion was that led to the crisis of unpatriotic
monotheistic imports challenging and criticizing
the traditional cults; this crisis was made worse
than it need have been in that they arrived at the
same time as living emperors were proclaiming
themselves deities and installing their cults in the
colonies. Rhetorically and intellectually, the ultimate victory of the former was uncontested. The
reason Diocletian, for example, most likely began
his strange persecution of Christians in 303, late in
his reign before he retired in 305 after 20 years on
the throne, was as a means of safeguarding the succession, which had no dynastically-based legitimacy. The succession was validated purely on
religious grounds, and had to be assured of a positive reception (p. 180). Eventually for Constantine
the great enemy to polis religion Christianity
was perceived as providing the best available ideology to transform a fragmenting colossus into a centralized and governable organization.
Heythrop College

Patrick Madigan

Libanius the Sophist: Rhetoric, Reality, and Religion in the Fourth Century. By Raffaella Cribiore. Pp. x, 260,
Cornell University Press, 2013, 30.95/$49.95.

Libanius of Antiochs life spanned almost all the

fourth century: c. 314-393. This century is usually
presented as one of stark conflict between
Christians and pagans, stemming of course from
Constantines conversion (or conversion) in 312.
Three Christian emperors followed Constantines
death. This Christian sequence was dramatically
ruptured by the succession of Julian the Apostate in 361, but Julian died in 363 and the next
emperors were again Christian (though not adherents of the same sects). Other polarities litter the

historiography of the period: Julians reign as a

time of significant recovery for pagans; Libanius
and other intellectuals and power-possessors as
either unmitigated Christians or unmitigated
pagans. Though there undoubtedly were fervent
pagans and fervent Christians, the chief purpose
of Cribiores methodical and nuanced study is to
mitigate these polarities in Libaniuss case, and
incidentally in others too.
Cribiores focus throughout this book is on Libanius Orations and his Letters (ignoring here his

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BOOK REVIEWS

pedagogical works). This allows her to contrast the

public speaker (and she argues that more of the
speeches were for public consumption than others
think) with the private letter-writer. Although she
recognizes that this private-vs-public contrast cannot be hard and fast, she sees Libanius as often
constrained by the generic expectations of the
medium he was writing in and the consequent
expectations of his audiences. It is to these different expectations that she largely attributes apparent inconsistencies in Libanius beliefs, so that
he comes across less as a chameleonic trimmer or
a mere player of literary games than as a literary
traditionalist. He also comes across as less monolithic, and more liable to be affected by the turbulence and even bewilderment of the times than
others have given him credit for. He not only
counted Christians among his closest friends, but
and this is surely Cribiores most radical suggestion in this book often appears to be little
more than a lukewarm pagan. There is little evidence for regular pagan worship, his adherence to
certain pagan deities seems to have weakened
over the years, and while Cribiore denies that he
was drifting towards pagan monotheism, she
acknowledges that the term henotheism might be
a better fit (216).
Chapters 1 and 2, then, consists largely of a consideration of the constraints of genre in the relevant
works of Libanius. Chapter 1 lingers over the Autobiography (Oration I), using the Letters to correct
detectable artificialities in the Oration. Chapter 2
sets the scene by considering Libanius use of personal invective in his Orations, which is especially
puzzling given that sometimes the very same men
who are inveighed against in a speech are awarded
moderate praise in letters. Personal invective was
a marked feature of the oratory of the fourth cen-

tury BC (Aeschines, Demosthenes, etc.), and so

Cribiore argues both that Libanius is just being a
traditionalist in making use of the convention, and
that his audience knew that they were supposed
to take such invective with a generous pinch of
salt, so that there is really no clash with the
Letters.
In Chapters 3 and 4, Cribiore turns to Libanius
religious views. On the basis of a division of the
Letters into four phases of Libanius life (from
spring 355, when the extant letters begin, to
the death of Consantius II in 361; from then to the
death of Julian in 363; from then to 365, when the
extant letters cease; and from 388, when the extant
letters resume, until they end in 393 with Libanius
death), she builds up a picture of Libanius as a
man caught between the pagan and Christian
worlds a pagan through and through, to be sure,
but not fanatical and certainly prepared to support
and protect his Christian friends. Even if his
speeches stick to tried-and-tested dichotomies, the
Letters reveal more complex interactions. In this
respect, Libanius was typical of many pagans of
the period: paganism was still vital, but had to
make many compromises.
So the book pursues a clear agenda which is
bound to cause ripples in Libanius studies in the
future. But there is far more to the book, which
must go more or less unreported: along the way we
gain a lot of extra information about Libanius
about his life and friends, for instance, or his constant devotion to Julian, or his emulation of
Demosthenes, or his attitude towards Fortune (a
technical device, she thinks, rather than an object
of sincere devotion). In all respects, then, this is a
rewarding and challenging book.
Lakonia, Greece

Robin Waterfield

Controlling Contested Places: Late Antique Antioch and the Spatial Politics of Religious Controversy. By
Christine Shepardson. Pp. xxi, 288, Berkeley/London, University of California Press, 2014, $65.00.

Peter Brown and others have noted that in late

antiquity church leaders appropriated the charism
inherent in ascetics and the relics of martyrs in
order to strengthen their own authority, often in the
midst of sharp political and/or theological conflict;
however, they have not often identified the specifically spatial dimension of these appropriations, the
ways they marked certain places as Christian (or a
particular type of Christian), or the ways in which
the growing Christian devotions at martyrs shrines
were part of church leaders wider efforts to
replace traditional pagan shrines, processions, and
city festivities with Christian ones, thereby chang-

ing the perception of these places and instilling a

specific set of orthodoxy and orthopraxis amongst
their congregations. Space is not simply a neutral
medium in which events take place; it is shaped,
massaged, and manipulated as a contested site of
rival interpretations and negotiations on the basis
of which identities are forged, challenged, assumed,
or shed. Such topographical transformations in 4th
century Antioch is the topic of Shepardsons study,
and she does a masterful job of bringing to life the
shape-shifting of identity that was practiced in
and through space on the citizens of Antioch in
this tumultuous political-theological century by

BOOK REVIEWS

successive emperors, the sophist Libanius, and the

bishops John Chrysostom and Theodoret. Churchspace, synagogue-space, theatre and agora-space,
martyr shrine-space were all sites of power by
which the progress and regress of rival groups
were played out and their success measured. Space
was the common ocean in which they all swam,
but it was also compacted into prizes and rolled
out into battlefields about which rival armies
fought for supremacy by imposing their own interpretations on its hills and valleys, its knobs and
contours, in an attempt at a lasting legacy. Like
Tiananmin Square on which the regimes tanks
opposed a pro-democracy lay movement, the combat was as much for ideological control of the significance of important places, through the creation
and erasure of memories, by which the perception
of the land and a peoples self-understanding

225

would be simultaneously altered. From the building and preaching rights in churches, to the contestation of the relics of the bishop-martyr St.
Babylas when placed near and then removed from
the shrine of Apollo in nearby Daphne, to the
response to the statues riot by which Antiochans
offended the emperor, and through which an
unprecedented inversion between the urban and
rural populations took place, this study takes us
patiently through the physical and rhetorical
manipulation, re-molding, and re-packaging of
space in the service of ideological combat that
prepared for the medieval world. This is a complete treatment of Antioch that serves as a model
for potential similar studies of other late antique
Hellenistic cities.
Heythrop College

Patrick Madigan

Explaining the Cosmos: Creation and Cultural Interaction in Late-Antique Gaza. By Michael W. Champion.
Pp. x, 241, Oxford University Press, 2014, $47.07.

In this expansion of his doctoral dissertation

Champion gives us simultaneously an episode in
intellectual history and an analysis of social power
dynamics in Gaza in the late fifth century. Three
Christian thinkers Aeneas, Zacharias, and
Procopius associated with the Gazan rhetorical
schools are revealed as interesting intermediary
stages or missing links in the evolutionary
advance of the wary Christian appropriation of the
culturally dominant but still stubbornly pagan or
polytheistic Hellenism, that was the social filter
and sine qua non condition for upward social
mobility into elite circles of status, prestige, and
power. What becomes clear is that a broad Neoplatonism was the lingua franca for constructive dialogue and debate, even by those who were
opposing prominent anti-Christian Neoplatonic philosophers, such as Proclus (when Justinian closed
the school in Athens in 529, it had become Neoplatonic). These three present interesting combinations
of properties old and new, some more advanced
and subtle philosophically than those apparent earlier in the debates carried out in the councils of
Nicaea and Chalcedon, but less sophisticated than
those that would appear a century later with John
Philoponus, Simplicius, and the Coptic monk Cosmas Indicopleustes. The main objection these
Christian thinkers raised against Neoplatonism was
its doctrine of the eternity of the world, but interestingly, the issue that concerned them was that
this rendered impossible the second coming of
Christ and the new creation (or restoration) of the
world to its original perfection.

The deeper theoretical issue, however, consisted

in constructing a fire wall between Gods independent existence and a free, separate choice to
create a universe. In Neoplatonism the being and
goodness of the first principle was interpreted as
leading necessarily to an over-spilling of the One
into a series of dependent hypostases that culminated with matter as the lowest reality before
divine productivity gave out entirely. These lower
hypostases, and the cosmos as a whole, thus shared
in the eternity of the One, and in different degrees
of perfection or closeness to the One as the fallen
human soul made its return, passing through each
in its quest for ultimate fusion with the first principle. For Christians this made the creation of the
world an unintended side-effect of the Ones selfaffirmation and self-knowing, rather than a free and
deliberate choice; it also made the cosmos at least
semi-divine, or part of the Ones necessary and
inevitable self-unfolding. Neoplatonists would
counter that dependency on the One was sufficient
to establish the distinction between creature and
creator, and that eternity by itself did not therefore
bestow divinity.
Interestingly, Christians did appropriate the discussion about co-eternal hypostases to chart the
procession and relations between the Persons in the
Trinity. In fact, it was the expansion of the Neoplatonic One into the Christian Trinity that for the first
time allowed thinkers to overcome the apparent
puzzle about how the One could create without
doing it necessarily: the procession of the Persons
in the Trinity is necessary, but the love between

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BOOK REVIEWS

the Father and Son is so intense that it becomes a

third Person in its own right, the Spirit, and makes
the Trinity want to share its goodness beyond the
godhead with a creature able to appreciate and
reflect back the gift it has received. This last step

is a free move rather than a necessary expansion,

and begins the great adventure of creation and
salvation.
Heythrop College

Patrick Madigan

Orthodoxy and Heresy in Early Christian Contexts: Reconsidering the Bauer Thesis. Edited by Paul A. Hertog.
Pp. xii, 282. Eugene, OR, Pickwick PUBLICations, 2015, 21.00.

Walter Bauer (1877-1960) was an influential

German professor, a skilled linguist of classical
languages, a biblical commentator, and a historian
of early Christianity (1). His major work,
Rechtgl
aubigkeit und Ketzerei im altesten Christentum (1934), questioned basic assumptions in the
study of the New Testament and early Christianity,
arguing that (1) in many geographical regions what
came to be deemed heresy was the original form
of Christianity, (2) in many locales, the heretical
adherents outnumbered the orthodox adherents,
(3) orthodoxy suppressed heretical competitors,
often through ecclesiastical machinations and coercive tactics, and especially through the powerful
influence of the Roman Church, and (4) orthodox
parties then revised the churchs collective memory
by claiming that their views had always been the
accepted norm. This work, praised by Hans
Lietzmann as A splendid book . . . a frontal attack
on the usual approach to church history, vigorously
carried out with solid erudition, penetrating criticism,
and balanced organization (Bauer, Orthodoxy and
Heresy in Earliest Christianity, 28) came to be known
as Bauers thesis. A second edition was published in
1964, but it was this English translation (just quoted),
published by Fortress in 1971 that catapulted Bauers
influence into English scholarship. His book was also
translated into French, and the work is still available
in all three languages.
In celebration of the eightieth anniversary of the
first edition and the fiftieth of the second, Paul A.
Hartog seized the opportunity of reconsidering
Bauers thesis. The latter, with its international
group of adherents, is still enormously influential.
During the course of its eighty years, Bauers thesis
has authoritatively and comprehensively dismantled
monolithic dogma, introduced political and sociological elements into theological debates that would
otherwise have been ignored at their peril, and resurrected forgotten movements, once swept away by
history. On the other hand, Bauer overlooked,
ignored, or manipulated historical data, and frequently resorted to unfounded conjectures, special
pleading, or arguments from silence. His original
work purposely targeted only second- and thirdcentury Christianity and so the word earliest in the

title of his book Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest

Christianity is something of a misnomer
The essays in Hartogs book reveal post-Bauer
discoveries and post-Bauer refinements, illuminated
by new insights gained through the sort of historical and geographical detail Bauer would have
approved. As Hartog writes at the end of his Introduction, The contributors desire is that this fresh
examination of Bauers paradigm may serve as a
launching point to a richer and deeper understanding of the unity and diversity (and even normativity) found in the variegated early Christian
movement (5).
Following the Introduction, Rodney J. Decker
gives an overview of the critiques of Bauers thesis, dealing with H.E.W. Turner, Hans Dieter Betz,
G. Clarke Chapman, Jerry Flora, A.I.C. Heron,
Frederick Norris, Colin H. Roberts, James McCue,
Thomas A. Robinson, Michel Desjardins, Birger A.
Pearson, Ivor J. Davidson, Paul Trebilco, Andreas
Kostenberrger and Michael Kruger. What, then is
left of Bauers thesis apart from a konstruktive
Phantasie or an elegant ausgearbeiterte Fiktion
(Zum Stichwort, ZKG 80 (1969) 64)? The rest of
Hartogs book makes it clear that Bauer still casts
a long shadow over Early Christian scholarship.
Hartog examines Bauer and I Clement, Polycarp
and Ignatius, and finds him wanting. Carl B. Smith
explores post-Bauer scholarship on Gnosticism(s)
and concludes that although Bauer created his own
new orthodoxy here, scholars over the past eight
decades have used newly discovered materials and
creative analytical methods to make broad claims
about Christian origins (88).
William Varner looks at Jewish-Gentile Christianity(s) building on Raymond Brown. Rex D. Butler
points out that that the term orthodoxy did not come
into use until the fourth century, with regard to Montanism in and outside the Carthaginian Church. Bryan
M. Litfin looks at the Apostolic Tradition and the Rule
of Faith and wisely warns of the overuse of the term
Christian. David C. Alexander and Edward L. Smither
look at North African Christianity and find holes in
Bauers thesis (especially with regard to Tertullian)
while, at the same time, finding much that is new and
worthy of further research.

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W. Brian Shelton offers an essay on patristic

heresiology and concludes that Bauers thesis is
simplistic, at times unfair, and even biased in its
own venture (211). Whilst earlier articles in
Hartogs book have mentioned Rome, Glen L.
Thompson provides an excellent essay on the
growth of orthodoxy in Rome without finding
anything to bolster any aspect of Bauers thesis
concerning the early Roman church (234).
The final essay is by Hartog who traces the trajectory of scholarly critiques of Bauer. First, he compares
his own publication with the early critique of Bauer
written by Walther Volker (1935), then orients a

227

future possible trajectory by highlighting a topic for

further reflection: the pertinent role of philosophical/
theological horizons in historiography. The book
closes with a superb Bibliography.
The book sets the record straight over what second- and third-century Christianity was really like.
Throughout, Hartogs team of writers throw much
needed light on a wide variety of aspects of Christian living. It will be necessary reading for students
of the New Testament, history and theology.
Dorset

Luke Penkett

Ascetic Culture: Essays in Honor of Philip Rousseau. Edited by Blake Leyerle and Robin Darling Young.
Pp. 415, Notre Dame, Indiana, University of Notre Dame Press, 2013, $68.00 cloth, $47.60 E-book.

A recent essay by Aden Kumler has convinced me

to think of patronage as both the cause and the
effect of certain works of art, and so I have come
to think about the genre, festschrift, as platform
which QED-s the academy as both cause and effect
of a peculiarly enlightening, polyvalent patronage.
The patronal agency of the academys gathering
and dispersal of scholars and their pupils here elevates a particular scholar. The patronal agency of
the editors invitations elevates particular ones of
scores of former students and colleagues. The
implicit lasting value for what sorts of readers
seems to present a further sort of intellectual
patronage. The odds are only a few readers will
have been the dedicatees student or colleague,
might have heard a paper, or even know the work
or reputation. But that essays have been collected
alerts the reader to expect at least something like
the most moving obituary which inexorably conveys even to a stranger the breadth and reach of
the dedicatees scholarship and, hence, contribution
to a field. At its best, a festschrifts editors will
have vetted contributions from the cream of eminent colleagues and felicitously situated former students, provided an introduction which rehearses the
breadth and reach of the dedicatees teaching and
includes what would already be known alongside
of some delightful surprises. The essays themselves
would be both inviting to the dipper and substantive for some (future) course packets. Whatever the
backstory, the volume would be comprehensive
the editorial patronage among select scholars having made sure not to omit what/whom their patron
would hope to find included.
Here, Blake Leyerle and Robin Darling Young
have assembled their results with seeming perfect
pitch. Philip Rousseau (1972 PhD Wolfson College,
Oxford and present occupant of the Mellon Chair of

Early Christian Studies at the Catholic University of

America) is depicted as eminently worthy of such
warm respect and esteem. Self-described as having
been charmed by then-Wolfson president Isiah
Berlin, and accompanied by such fellow students as
John Matthews, Timothy Barnes, and Peter Brown,
Rousseau was part of a significant historiographical
movement. His scholarship of fourth and fifth century
Christian monasticism has encouraged scrutiny of the
social world that shaped and qualified the ascetics
theological ideas and spiritual ambitions.
Essays by Joel Kalvesmaki, Janet Timbie,
Malcolm Choat, Samuel Rubenson, and Georgia
Frank in Books as Guides probe the puzzle of an
angelic alpha-cryptic language in Pachomiuss letters kept secret by his followers, show how rules of
koinonia were written to sound like scripture (with
allusions and actual verses to reinforce and defend
monastic practices), and explore both the political
context of the Life of Antony and how Athanasiuss
letter written to his ailing friend Marcellinus prescribed psalmody as a therapy to meet new situations and effectively negotiate lifes uncertainties.
Essays by Daniel F. Caner, Catherine M. Chin,
Virginia Burrus, and Susanna Elm in Disciplines
and Arenas treat the disciplinary culture of asceticism, rules circumscribing the monks behaviour
and appearance, the emergence of penance and
mourning as dominant goals, and the individual,
the household, and the city as self-contained disciplinary spaces.
Essays by James E. Goering, Robin Darling Young,
Patricia Cox Miller, and Blake Leyerle in Landscapes
(with Figures) highlight visionary figures whose
writings sharpened distinctions between ascetic and
nonascetic Christians. Even urban ascetics and their
practices were likened to biblical figures. Readers
encounter the order of nature, what the editors call the

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BOOK REVIEWS

cultural myth of the desert as the product of selective

and purposeful memory, asceticism as exile, and
wheresoever the suitable place of monks.
Finally essays by Claudia Rapp and Elizabeth in
Founding the Field consider the place and development of 19th century scholarship in Germany and
North America. These genealogical musings by both
Rapp and Clark should be required reading for scholars, students, clerics of all ranks, for Who actually do
we think we are? How far, and in which directions,
does intellectual patronage extend? German initiatives
established the methodological triad of philology,
archaeology, and history as the key to detailed and
complete knowledge of the ancient world. It was
Adolf von Harnack whose abiding curiosity about the
evolution of Christianity as a cultural force brought
him to envision the third century as the paleontological layer crucial for the melding of Christianity with
the forces of antiquity that gave shape to later medieval culture, with repercussions to the present day.
Among a great many other projects, Harnacks collaborative genius (with Ulrich von WilamowitzMoellendorff and Theodor Mommsen) brought forth
Die Griechischen Christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten
drei Jahrhunderte (GCS), a Greek parallel to the Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum (CSEL).
In North America, professors at Princeton Theological

Seminary, Union Theological Seminary, the Yale

Divinity Department, and Harvard Divinity School
were wondering how the (to them) incongruous phenomenon of Christian asceticism developed. Ascetic
excesses of the East were degraded by American
professors as inimical to Protestant ideals of service,
industry, and an inward spirituality. Some utility
could be found in Western monasticism, whose values
(in new guise) supported the claim that historys
course led all the way to America. In contrast to what
today feels like a grim parochialism in these scholars
(whose English translations of ancient texts have
encouraged generations of Anglophone scholars),
Elizabeth Clark places her tribute to Philip Rousseau,
whose scholarship in particular provides a more just
understanding of Christianitys past, so, she argues,
these invidious comparisons have mercifully been discarded. Discarded by the academy, perhaps, but the
daily papers recount trailing effects among ordinary
folk of misunderstandings and triumphalism.
The lasting value of any essay in a collection
like this one is located in its effects, that is, the
reach of its patronage to new generations of ordinary students, by their teachers, thereby influencing
ranges of thinkers and writers.
University of Notre Dame

Laura Holt

Repentance in Late Antiquity: Eastern Asceticism and the Framing of the Christian Life c. 400-650 CE. By
Alexis Torrance. Pp. x, 244, Oxford University Press, 2014, $100.00.

Torrance proposes repentance as the notion that goes

deepest in explicating the core of Christian holiness as
this is appreciated and practiced in Late Antiquity, up
to the advent of Islam. This notion was not wholly
new, and Torrance explores its sources in the Septuagint, the New Testament, apocalyptic and early
Church material. The term is appreciated broadly so
as to mean something like return in the neo-Platonic
sense, with Christ substituted for the One to whom
we must first convert and then painfully make our way
back towards, until we may attempt fusion or union in
a repentance which, like that of Christ, is not trying
to make up for our own sins, but generously for the
sins of others.
Torrance proposes a threefold framework by
which ascetic theology of this period understood
this central and defining Christian journey: 1) an
initial repentance, implying a wrenching turn
against our past life, claiming and using the
baptismal graces largely unused until this point, or
moving towards baptism as an unrepeatable first
moment in either case, a second birth; 2) existential repentance, in which one aspires and finally
enters into a state of constant repentance, in which

one pushes the initial act of self-scrutiny and correction into every aspect of ones life, through
attention to Christs commandments and the practice of the virtues; 3) finally one aspires to Christlike repentance in which one extends or transfers
ones concern from ones own sins to those of
others, becoming a Christ for the neighbour by
being willing to stand surety for their repentance,
bear the punishment for the sins they are unable to
give up, and in general to lay down ones life for
ones neighbor. The emphasis is thus not primarily
to know Christ in a theological sense, as in the
neo-Platonic understanding of salvation, but to
become or act like Christ in an eschatological sense
for the transformation of the world. Unlike the
god of the philosophers, the God of Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob comes towards his creation in an
act of compassionate salvation, and this is also
how the authentic disciple of Christ must comport
himself towards the world.
The content of repentance is different for each
person at the beginning, referring to the primary lapse
or fault we encounter as we hit bottom and decide an
about-face is necessary with Gods grace, but

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becomes more common as we push this drive towards

correction into all the corners of our lives, and aim at
the same goal of making vicarious satisfaction for
others, that their own conversion might be successful,
as its culmination. This is instruction by ascetics for
ascetics, and Torrance studies the works of St. Mark
the Monk, Saints Barsanuphius and John of Gaza, and
Saint John Climacus. The goal is to get beyond
our external actions to the depth of our attitudes and
dispositions and do our main work there, aiming for a
softening of the will so as to become maximally disponible and open to the instructions of Christ and our
spiritual father. Theological debate is best left to the

229

priests and bishops, and the ascetic life is most profitably and fruitfully practiced with frequent recourse to
the Churchs sacramental system, especially confession and eucharist. The competition for which the
extreme ascesis of the East was later criticized is
avoided by attention to anything that leads to pride,
self-will, or irritability, which kill the humility and
mourning that characterize the authentic ascetic and
which lead to peace, reconciliation and mutual aid in
the cenobium, rather than to their opposites.
Heythrop College

Patrick Madigan

Fulgentius and the Scythian Monks: Correspondence on Christology and Grace. Translated by Rob Roy
McGregor and Donald Fairbairn. Pp. xv, 25, The Fathers of the Church: A New Translation (Patristic
series), Vol. 126. Washington, DC, Catholic University of America Press, 2013, $39.95.

This, the second volume in the series Fathers of

the Church dedicated to bishop Fulgentius of Ruspe
(ca. 467 ca. 532), narrows the focus of his extensive extant theological and moral treatises to his
519-523 communication largely about Christology
and divine grace with Latin-speaking monks from
Scythia (near the mouth of the Danube in modernday Romania). Classicist Rob Roy McGregor has
translated Fulgentiuss First letter to the Scythian
Monks (Ep. 17), Second Letter to the Scythian
Monks (Ep. 15), The Truth about Predestination
and Grace, as well as The Chapters of John Maxentius compiled against the Nestorians and the
Pelagians for the Satisfaction of the Brothers and
A Brief Confession of the Catholic Faith by the
Same Author which comprise the volumes two
appendices. Professor of Early Christianity Donald
Fairbairn has translated Letter from the Scythian
Monks to the Bishops (Ep. 16), has revised Professor McGregors translation, and has written the
introduction and notes. The hardcover edition
meets the customary high standards for FOTC
volumes (binding, paper, fonts, footnotes, indices,
affordable), although it lacks a map.
Fairbairns introduction explains that Fulgentiuss and the Scythians situations were both political and theological. From 439 to 535, North
Africa was ruled by Arian Vandals. Despite being
exiled to Sardinia, twice, by Vandal King Thrasamund, Fulgentius remained highly regarded as a
Catholic leader keen to regain intellectual and theological supremacy in North Africa. Fanned by
Vandal-Catholic animosities, disputes about the
person of Christ and the role of divine grace in the
Western churches had persisted divisively since
427, while disputes about the nature and work

of Christ had been simmering divisively in the

Eastern churches from the time of the Council of
Chalcedon (451).
Eastern churches were at odds about the two
natures of Christ. Was Christ truly God the Son
who had been fully human while remaining the
Second Person of the Trinity, or instead was Christ
a man who became divine because somehow (and
how?) indwelt by God? At issue was whether
human salvation derives from the downward movement of God himself directly into the human condition, or through the upward elevation of
humankind to God. Does the individual depend on
Christ, the Son of God who took on humanity in
order to come down to the human realm directly in
order to save us? Or upon Christ, a person like us
who was aided and indwelt by God, who leads a
sort of how-to-achieve-salvation life and death by
elevating ourselves to Gods heavenly realm?
Meanwhile Western churches were at odds about
divine grace. Was grace freely given by God, or
was it earned by human effort? At issue was
whether salvation requires human effort toward
what is good and or whether divine grace is all
that is needed. Must the individual strive in all to
do the good, including the good turn toward God,
in order to earn Gods grace and salvation? Or can
the individual depend upon Gods gracious goodness for salvation, and therefore disregard attempts
at discipline by community leaders and live any
sort of life, including doing little and letting others
do the work?
The writings of Fulgentius and the Scythian
monks show that Christology and the theology of
grace were not necessarily separate questions. Their
correspondence derives from a coincidence of

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BOOK REVIEWS

geography. While in Rome, the eastern Scythians

happened to learn about the western bishops in
exile in Sardinia and to decide to seek a useful,
highly necessary, and particularly profitable theological alliance, based upon what they and all the
holy churches of the East defend concerning the
Incarnation and the divine economy in the face of
the heretics who never stop troubling the ancient
faith of the church with their depraved and wicked
arguments (Ep. 16.1). As one would expect, their
letter in 28 sections sets forth their own upstanding
views juxtaposed with their opponents self-evident
heresies.
Fulgentiuss First Letter responds in 67 sections
on Christ who is wholly human while wholly God,
and on the primacy of divine grace in all good
works. His Second Letter is a 20-sectioned postscript reflection on the monks having mentioned
certain brothers [who] are not adhering to the correct path of the catholic faith in the matter of
Gods grace and human choice, but want to exalt
the freedom of human choice in opposition to
Gods grace (Ep. 15.2).
His treatise on The Truth about Predestination
and Grace extols those brothers who contend very
courageously and fervently on behalf of that grace
by which we are saved, while ruing that some of
our brothers, calling themselves Christians, strive
to deny the Catholic faith. Specifically, these men
attribute the gifts of Gods grace to the power or
merit of the human will, as if our effort, without
Gods help, might avail (De veritate praedestiona-

tionis et gratiae, 1). Fulgentiuss response is a

rehearsal of what he asserts the churches have
always believed, presented in a manner that presupposes his readers ability to recognise his extensive
allusions (largely from the Pentateuch, Psalter, and
Paul) and examples of Christ himself (mostly from
Matthew, Luke, and John). In the last pages of 39
sections, he turns to Augustine on the origin and
fate of the soul (28) before dispatching certain
errors of Tertullian (33), the Manichaeans (34), and
Origen (35). He summarises by insisting that
everyone who is either to understand or teach must
defend the content of what the Churchs faith
holds to be manifestly clear. Christ at once human
and divine is both the one answer to resolve the
necessity for grace, and the one source of all gifts
of divine grace.
Clearly, these texts present abundant research
opportunities concerning sixth century Byzantine
and Roman theology and modern reflection on
the relation between Christology and grace. This
correspondence written a century after Augustines death present vivid discussion that connects
the Eastern churches controversies over how
Christs divine and human natures are related in
the person and work of the Saviour, with the
Western churches controversies over how the
divine and human are related in the conversion,
Christian life, and ultimate salvation of each
Christian.
University of Notre Dame, USA

Laura Holt

Shenoute of Atripe and the Uses of Poverty: Rural Patronage, Religious Conflict, and Monasticism in Late
Antique Egypt. By Ariel G. Lopez. Pp. xiii, 237, Berkeley/London, University of California Press, 2013,
$67.60.

This is an extremely sophisticated analysis of the

new social dynamics emerging in upper Egypt in
the early fifth century of the Common Era. With
the invention of the water wheel making possible
extensive irrigation, independent family estates
began to be acquired and turned into large-scale
holdings by rich men choosing to reside in the
urban metro poles, simultaneously creating a class
of labourers renting lodgings on the estate property and dependent for all their needs on the honesty and fair-mindedness of the owner and his
foremen. At the same time, although the empire
was now officially Christian with paganism outlawed, Greek paideia had spread even into the
villages of upper Egypt where the schools were
producing a bumper crop of grammarians,
rhetoricians, poets and playwrights, and with it a
nostalgic retention of the old ways, including

the pagan deities of both Greece and Egypt, now

for reasons of status separation by the educated
elites, which jarred culturally with the spread of
Christian devotion through the new dioceses and
monasteries. Shenoute was abbot of the monastery
at Atripe near the flourishing river town of Panopolis, and was located precisely at a cross-hatching
of the fault lines mentioned above; his career as a
popular demagogue/social activist gives us insight
into the economic, political, cultural, and religious
tensions afflicting southern Egyptian society during this period.
A village boy, he elbowed his way into
becoming a player among the urban and even
imperial elite of his times by presenting himself
as the implacable advocate for the newlyChristian poor against the greedy, dishonest
(and often secretly pagan) rich land owners who

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lived in town, publically accusing the latter in

his sermons of cheating their workers as well as
breaking the law by only advancing to the
Christian catechumenate while retaining pagan
allegiances. As a matter of fact, labourers were
so scarce during this expansionist period that
there were plenty of opportunities for the poor
workers to manipulate and blackmail the rich,
as well as vice versa; Lopez presents Shenoute
as an abbot who uncharacteristically used his
position outside the monastery in society at large
opportunistically to lift himself up amongst the
movers and shakers of Egyptian society, availing himself of the poor (left vaguely undefined)
as a by-definition innocent, persecuted, guiltinducing constituency to harass the rich, force
concessions, as well as to stifle criticism of his
often outrageous behavior. He was able to establish himself as an intermediary between the contesting groups, an alternative patron and power
broker, outflanking the local land owners by
making contact with the Christian emperor,
obtaining money directly for relief for the poor

231

during droughts and for the construction of spectacular monastic buildings, and keeping permanent pressure on regional imperial appointees to
resist the blandishments of the local elite in
overseeing rents, loans, and the collection of
taxes. Lopez is especially good on how Shenoute
established an alternative economy of the
blessings of the Lord, which paradoxically violated the laws of common sense or classical economics: you create wealth by donating to the
poor and the monks, thereby creating treasure in
heaven - and it worked! This is a beautifully
written and illuminating account of a society in
transition economically, culturally, and religiously. Shenoute was a monstre sacr

e, a Tartuffe, a Savonarola, or a Robin Hood who stole
from the rich to give to the poor, depending on
how you choose to view him. Whatever his
motives, he used every tool at his disposal brilliantly to thrash his community towards the
Christianity it professed.
Heythrop College

Patrick Madigan

From the Oxus River to the Chinese Shores: Studies on East Syriac Christianity in China and Central Asia.
Edited by Li Tang and Dietmar W. Winkler. Pp. 472, Lit Verlag, Zurich-Berlin, 2013, e44.90.

Nestorian Christianity arrived in China in the late

eighth and early ninth centuries. It was brought
along the Silk Road by East Syriac missionaries
belonging to what is now known as the Church
of the East but which, at least in the West, used
to be named after Nestorius and, in China, was
called Jingjiao. The first wave of missionaries
ended with the persecutions of the Chinese
emperor Wuzong in the fifth decade of the ninth
century, but Nestorianism revived some two hundred years later when it was brought from
Mesopotamia to the Turco-Mongols. It can literally be said to have flourished in the thirteenth
and early fourteenth centuries when it covered a
larger geographical area than any other Christian
Church.
This book consists of twenty-nine highly rewarding papers most of which were presented at the
Third International Conference on the Church of
the East in China and Central Asia held in Salzburg in June 2009. It is divided into four sections.
The first, and the most technical, is on manuscripts
and inscriptions, some of which show how Syriac
terms and names were assimilated and conveyed in
Chinese the subject of Hidemi Takahashis paper
- or how Syriac texts were conditioned by their use
in China, Mongolia and Central Asia. The case of
the Sogdian Gospel lectionaries, for example, is

treated by William J. Pittard and Nicholas SimsWilliams.

The second section is largely devoted to archaeological evidence. First we have the Tang period with
objects such as the steles of Xian, treated by Samuel
N.C. Lieu, and the Jingjiao pillar from Luoyang,
studied by Matteo Nicolini-Zani, which provides an
indication of the ecclesiastical hierarchy and of the
terminology used to describe it. The terminology
was largely borrowed from Buddhism and the members of the clergy were mainly foreigners, from Persia and Sogdia. The Church of the East in China
emerges as the Church of a small minority, thoroughly dwarfed by Buddhism and Taoism. Evidence
from the Tang dynasty is followed by the MongolYuan period during which King George of the

Ongg
ut was converted from Nestorianism to Catholicism by the Franciscan missionary Giovanni da
Montecorvino. Two contemporary descriptions of
him are provided by Pierre Marsone and he is discussed further by Li Tang who points out that, in
Western eyes, he was associated with the mythical
figure of Prester John. Mehmet Tezcan and Asiye
Bayindir, finally, examine a number of impressive
aristocratic Mongol women in the Church of the
East and conclude that the lives they led can be
explained more by their nomadic culture than by
their faith.

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BOOK REVIEWS

From the Mongol-Yuan period the papers

advance into more modern times. Baby Varghese
examines the missionaries sent to the Malabar
coast and their strained relations with the Church
of Rome. The bishops who were true to the Church
of the East were under pressure from the Portuguese to convert to Catholicism and in 1552 John
Sulaqa was consecrated in Rome as the first Chaldean or Catholic patriarch. His successors, Mar
Joseph, Mar Abraham and Mar Simeon, on the
other hand, were distrusted by the Catholics and
were sometimes venerated by their flocks according
to the degree of their independence from Rome.
But in fact it is clear that most of the Malabar
Christians, in Vargheses words, were not aware
of the schism in the East Syrian Church and were
always happy to receive a bishop sent by the Patriarch of Babylon, whether Catholic or Nestorian.
The third section ends with an article by Jasmine
Dum-Tragut on the Assyrians in Armenia, an interesting study of a minority which still exists,
descended from emigrants from Persia and the
Ottoman Empire in the late eighteenth and early
nineteenth centuries.

The last section of this book is entitled Liturgical traditions and theological reflections. Starting
with a study of the Turfan Psalter by Mark
Dickens, it contains a discussion of the evolution
of pro-Nicene theology in the Church of the East
by Daniel H. Williams and an examination of the
significance of the theology of Jingjiao in Chinese
history by Garry Moon Yuen Pang. One of the
most intriguing articles is Glen L. Thompsons
How Jingjiao became Nestorian: Western perceptions and Eastern realities. Here the vexed question is broached of whether the Church of the East
can really be considered Nestorian - a term which
is now rejected. Thompson points out the ambiguity of a word which could either refer to the
groups founder or to the persons distinctive teaching. Yet the term was indeed appropriated by Mar
Shahdost or Eustathius from Tirhen as early as the
eighth century he referred to we the Nestorian
Christians - while dyophysitism was clearly
approved by Abdisho bar Berika in the late thirteenth century.
The Warburg Institute, London

Alastair Hamilton

Visual Judaism in Late Antiquity: Historical Contexts of Jewish Art. By Lee I. Levine. Pp. x, 582, New Haven/
London, Yale University Press, 2013, 50.00.

Levine, emeritus professor from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, crowns his distinguished
career with a sumptuous (128 black and white
illustrations) follow-up to The Ancient Synogogue:
the First Thousand Years (2000). Here he shows
that the conventional story of a decline and suppression of Judaism, and specifically of its artistic
activity, during the Byzantine-Christian period
(third to seventh century C.E.) is mistaken. While
conceding that this is the case in part for the later
medieval period (with a conspicuous exception in
literary and scholarly activity through engagement
with the newly-available Greek philosophy in its
Averroestic recension), expulsion and persecution
were not the order of the day during the Byzantine
period, and synagogue art experienced a striking
resurgence in creativity and variety incorporating
figural art, biblical scenes, and pagan themes
including the zodiac and a helios representation
of the Sol Invictus that would have been unthinkable during the earlier Hasmonean and Herodian
periods. Independent chapters are devoted to the
excavations from the Dura Europos synagogue, the
Bet She-arim necropolis, the Jewish catacombs in
Rome, and the synagogues in Galilean Tiberias
(which became an unofficial capital for the Jews

in the period after the expulsion from Jerusalem)

showing Patriarchal patronage, the most impressive
being the one in Hammat, a striking synagogue in
nearby Sepphoris as well as one at Bet Alpha in
the Jezreel Valley, to name only the most prominent. Further discoveries may strengthen Levines
case, but it is difficult to imagine it being overthrown or superseded.
Levine hints at tensions in the Jewish community
which his concentration on the archaeological and
artistic remains, to the neglect of the historical
which we know from both Jewish and non-Jewish
sources, prevents him from following up. The
Patriarchate seems to have carried on the role and
style of the Saducees (and the entire Temple establishment) of Second Temple Judaism in being
emphatically more Hellenized, opposed to the successive revolts, and engaging actively with civil
and imperial authorities as well as luminaries from
Hellenistic society, such as the rhetorician Libanius
at Antioch who was the early teacher and later b^
ete
noire of John Chrysosdom. This is in contrast to
the emerging sages and rabbis who supported the
revolts and forbad the use of mirrors, Roman hair
styles, and the study of Greek. The Jews enjoyed
the privilege of judicial autonomy, but the Patriarch

BOOK REVIEWS

would appoint lay judges to the courts, to the chagrin of the rabbis. The rabbis exercised little control over the synagogue congregations who hired
them, however; local Jewish elites made most of
the decisions about the architectural and artistic
style that would prevail in their synagogue. Levine
could have done more to discuss the two-way traffic that prevailed between Judaism and Christianity for quite some time; in fact, as a result of his
own research it seems that traffic is not the right
word, since the common people apparently were
hedging their bets, keeping their fingers crossed,
and playing both sides of the street. They saw no
reason to choose, but often perhaps typically
pursued a both/and rather than an either/or policy, to the dismay of both the Church Fathers and
the rabbis, who were constantly berating them to
make a choice one way or the other and stick with

233

it. Here Christianity has to be studied as a monster or a new, mixed thing. Founded by a hellenized Jew from the Galilee, it carried on Jewish
monotheism while relativizing the Law and contesting the extreme transcendence of this God (and the
practice of holiness as separation that went with it,
in favor of holiness as union with God that
was more compatible with Gentile Neo-Platonism),
asserting a new divine intervention that in fact introduced eschatological time something the rabbis
would acknowledge only with the expulsion of the
foreign oppressor and the rebuilding of the Temple.
Christianity was thus closer to the Hellenized Judaism of the Patriarchate and the syntheses it was pursuing than to the separation and isolation the rabbis
continued to encourage.
Heythrop College

Patrick Madigan

Remembering Constantine at the Milvian Bridge. By Raymond Van Dam. Pp. xiv, 296, Cambridge University
Press, 2011, $98.00.

In an informative and well-written work, Raymond

Van Dam examines the many different aspects of
Constantines victory at the Milvian bridge in 312.
Rather than writing a master narrative or using a
chronological approach that would judge the truth
of the matter (i.e. focusing on whether Constantine
actually had a supernatural encounter before his
battle with Maxentius), the author employs a
reverse narrative that goes backward in time to study
the context and influence of Constantine with as little
of an agenda or prejudice as possible. In general, Van
Dam believes too much stress has been laid on the
vision and Constantines religious conversion. He
argues that this has led scholarship to overlook other
important aspects of Constantines ascension and reign
in the early fourth century. For example, he argues
that it was Constantines victory over Licinius in 324
that did more for his legacy at Rome than his invasion
from Gaul and victory over Maxentius at the Milvian
Bridge. According to Van Dam, Maxentius represented a more republican style of emperorship that
sought to preserve Romes legacy and primacy in the
empire, while Constantine represented a warrior
emperor who initiated a new style of leadership, one
which lessoned the prestige of Rome, focused more
on strategic frontier locations, and articulated their
leadership more with religious symbolism than with
ancestral traditions of the Republic.
Of course, Van Dam also spends a considerable
amount of time examining the multiple representations of Constantine and his influence in
the Christian tradition, particularly his role in shap-

ing Christian ideals on leadership. Perhaps the

greatest strength of the work is its thorough treatment of every author (or legend) that contributed
to the prestige and influence of the fourth century
emperor. Beginning with medieval popes and their
use of the Donation, through Rufinus, Theodoret of
Cyrrhus, Sozomen, Socrates, Zosimus, and ending
with Eusebius and Constantinople himself, Van
Dam skillfully presents the numerous issues and
goals of each authors and how they contributed to
legend of Constantine and his battle at the Milvian
bridge. A few highlights include his treatment of
the east appropriating Constantines battle at Rome
to Constantinople, the various editions of Eusebius
Ecclesiastical History, and Eusebius use of
Constantines own (late) memories for his Life of
Constantine.
While some may have hoped for a more in-depth
treatment of Constantines religious conversion or a
broader discussion of the development of Christian
political theory, Van Dams decision to focus on less
developed aspects provides a helpful contribution to
the study of late antiquity. Both students and scholars, Christians and non-Christians, will benefit from
Van Dams excellent research and insightful summaries. His ability to delve through the multiple issues
and present all sides fairly, without judgment or prejudice, is an example which other historians would
do well to follow.
Ave Maria University

Luke Murray

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BOOK REVIEWS

Rethinking Constantine: History, Theology, and Legacy. Edited by Edward L. Smither. Pp. x, 167, Eugene,
Oregon, Pickwick Publications, 2014, $18.44.

This is a delightful and surprising contribution

coming from the Evangelical Free Church (Baptist)
tradition, which has traditionally looked askance at
strong Church-State relations, at an established
Church, and as a consequence has viewed Constantines declaring Christianity the official religion
of the empire (actually it was Theodosius who
went that far) to be a fall, the beginning of a
compromise and worldly captivity for a pilgrim
people. For what one discovers from the seven
scholars gathered here is an almost complete reversal of the traditional Free Church disdain of the
state and of Constantines revolution in particular.
As a result of recent scholarship there has been a
revalidation of the basic historical accuracy of
Lactantius and Eusebius (Jacob Burckhardt by contrast called Eusebius the first thoroughly dishonest
historian of antiquity and described Constantine as
the murderous egoist who possessed the great
merit of having conceived of Christianity as a
world power and of having acted accordingly,
quoted pp. 102-3), with their positive depiction of
the firmness and sincerity of Constantines conversion, of his search thereafter for how he should
integrate his new faith into the life of a soldier and
emperor (for whom it had formerly been anathema), his growth in flexibility and sophistication
in trying to resolve the Donatist schism in North
Africa, his self-control and ability to shrug off or
disregard personal abuse from recalcitrant bishops
during the Synod of Arles (314 CE). The Donatists were in a sense the Free Church of their
time, with a long history of persecution and
proud martyrdom at the hands of previous pagan
emperors, as a consequence of which they viewed
with a jaundiced eye, rather than unbelievable
joy, the sudden conversion of the State and the
new official policy of support for Christianity.
Constantine at first supported the bishop of
Rome, Miltiades, who summoned a regional

council to reconcile the aggrieved parties; but

Miltiades stacked his council with Italian bishops, which precluded a fair or complete hearing,
and the opposing parties were not reconciled.
Constantine showed surprising and commendable
forbearance in dealing with bishops, including
Miltiades, whose behaviour fell substantially
below what Constantine would have hoped for
from church leaders on the basis of his new
faith; he was not scandalized or enraged by this,
but galvanized to learn from it and work harder.
He was able to modify his initial expectation of
an expeditious return to a peace of God through
uniform Church practice by taking into account
the different traditions and experiences of distinct
groups within the empire. This early rough test
served him well when the Arian crisis broke out
in the East a few years later. Constantine called
the council at his summer residence at Nicaea,
participated actively but humbly (as just another
voice or bishop although a common bishop
without a diocese but representing all the people),
and probably himself proposed the term homoousious to explain the relation between the
Father and the Son, which broke the council
deadlock. In this arbitration Constantine showed
more openness and less intransigence than either
Arius or Athanasius. In general he demonstrated
greater tolerance and magnanimity than the bishops he had to deal with, while nevertheless pushing resolutely for resolution and doctrinal union.
This made Nicaea a good precedent for the
future. In fact, the conclusion would have to be
that, if later councils were not always successful
at overcoming episcopal wrangling and party
politics, it would be because they did not have
such a dedicated, pious, humorous, firm, but gentle Christian statesman at the helm guiding them.
Heythrop College

Patrick Madigan

Athanasius of Alexandria: Bishop, Theologian, Ascetic, Father. By David M. Gwynn. Pp. xvi, 230. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2012. $33.66.

My conception of Athanasius was unequivocally

rosy until I met Timothy Barnes, the distinguished
historian of the period (cited in this book), who
described him to me roundly as a bandit. Shortly
after becoming bishop, he was on the mat before
the emperor Constantine for his rough treatment of
the Melitian schismatics; who, like the later Donatists, thought that the Church at large had been
unduly lenient with regard to those who had

reneged under Diocletians persecution, but sought

to be reinstated (23, 25). Certainly, the saint was
not always excessively scrupulous in controversy.
It was unfair to include in his polemic against the
Arians that Arius sudden death took place in a
latrine in Constantinople; one is inclined to say
that that fact, if it is a fact, was just bad luck, and
could have happened to anyone. Gregory of Tours,
writing over two centuries later, added the

BOOK REVIEWS

picturesque detail that Arius died voiding his

entrails, in a manner no doubt befitting so outstanding a heresiarch.
After a sketch of Athanasius life and writings,
we have the story of his tumultuous career as
bishop of Alexandria - the first and second exiles;
the glorious return and golden decade; the flight
to the desert and the third exile; and the comparatively serene final years. In the context of treatment
of Athanasius as theologian, we are provided with
a description of Arius, Alexander of Alexandria,
the Council of Nicea, and the origin of the many
theological controversies which agitated the church
of the fourth century. After a section ominously
entitled Athanasian Arianism, we move on to the
saints later writings, which include reconciliations,
but also embark on fresh controversies. There follow chapters on Athanasius advocacy of Christian
asceticism, and his properly episcopal role as
father to his flock. Prior to the brief Conclusion,
we have an account of his death, and of his
remarkable legacy in the Greek East, the Latin
West, and in Syrian, Armenian, and Coptic
tradition.
The book is at once highly readable, and
extremely learned and thorough. And yet I think
that the author has missed the main point of Athanasius theological work, and thus the principal
reason for his abiding significance for the universal
Church and the development of her doctrine. The
authors perspective, indicated by the quotation
marks in which he puts Arianism and the Arian
heresy, is certainly historically useful; it was not
immediately clear, then or for a long time afterwards, who was right in the cause of the Council
of Nicea, as championed by Athanasius, and why.
Whatever was stated or implied by the polemics of
the time, not all members of either party were
either knaves or fools. There were rival councils,
also claiming ecumenical status, which rejected the
homoousios formula, as Dr. Gwynn points out.
But there was a real issue at stake, and a momentous one at that. Was the Son strictly speaking
divine, or was he not? (It was accepted on all
hands, of course, that the Son antedated the historical Jesus in whom he came among us as a human
being.) Arius claimed that he was not; he was not
eternal, but had come into being in time, albeit earlier than the rest of creation. En hote ouk en, as the
Arian slogan had it - there was a time when he
was not. It was generally maintained that the Son
was not simply identical with the Father (the heresy of Sabellianism), and indeed was in some
sense derivative from the Father; if one were not to
infer that there were more than one god, then the
Son, in the last analysis, must be a creature. It is to
the great credit of Arius that he grasped these logi-

235

cal points with unprecedented clarity. He and his

followers could appeal to such biblical texts as
Proverbs 8:22 (where Wisdom proclaims that God
created her at the beginning of his works); and to
some quotations from the work of Origen, that
great theologian and biblical exegete, who, however, taught clearly the eternity of the Son
The term homoousios - Latin consubstantialis was a metaphor taken over from ordinary language
(it is a mistake to suppose that it had any philosophical currency at the time, as of course the
terms person and nature did), and used by the
Nicene bishops in a technical sense (two goats are
consubstantial with respect to their goathood, two
human beings with respect to their humanity; so
the Son is consubstantial with the Father in that
he is really and truly divine, just as is the Father,
the paradigm case of divinity.) What they did is
closely analogous to the adoption of the term particle by modern physicists. The theological work
of Athanasius consisted largely of championing the
Nicene homoousios doctrine, and working out its
consequences; his achievements in this direction
were taken further by the Cappadocian Fathers,
Basil and the two Gregorys. The bishops at Nicea
were reluctant to adopt the non-Scriptural term; but
in the end felt compelled to do so, in order to rule
out the evasions of the Arians. But, of course,
once the foot of technical terminology was in the
door, there was no stopping the process which had
begun. If the Son was consubstantial with the
Father, how about the mysterious third being, the
Holy Spirit, mentioned frequently in the New Testament and the earlier Fathers as apparently distinct
in some sense from both Father and Son? And if
three distinct beings are God, how is tritheism, the
doctrine that there are three gods, to be avoided?
The way was open for the development of medieval Scholasticism, where the attempt was made, for
better or worse, to recast the whole of Christian
doctrine in a technical, systematic manner. Again,
there is a clear parallel here with modern physical
science, which does not confine itself to listing
observations and the observed results of experiments, but aspires to provide a technical language
which explains in a self-consistent manner why
these things are so. As Athanasius clearly saw,
these matters have a large bearing on ones conception of the Atonement. On an Arian reading of St
Pauls famous dictum (2 Corinthians 5.19), it was
not really God who was in Christ reconciling the
world to the divine Self, but the first and greatest
of creatures who was reconciling the world to God.
A Dictionary of Christian Biography published
in the later nineteenth century, while admitting that
Athanasius was not flawless, goes so far as to
declare that we will not be extravagant if we

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BOOK REVIEWS

pronounce his name to be the greatest in the

Churchs post-apostolic history. Edward Gibbon,
who is not notable for lavish praise of the Church
Fathers, had a quite kindly estimate of Athanasius,
which is worth quoting at length. Amidst the
storm of persecution, the archbishop of Alexandria
was patient of labour, jealous of fame, careless of
safety; and. although his mind was tainted by the
contagion of fanaticism, he displayed a superiority of character and abilities which would have
qualified him, far better than the degenerate sons of

Constantine, for the government of a great monarchy(225). On the concept of homoousios, as

opposed to homoiousios, on the other hand, the
famous historian is at his silliest. He asks sarcastically why so much fuss was made over a single
iota. One is inclined to reply with another question:
Why get into a lather about the placing of a decimal point in a medical prescription?
Calgary, Canada

Hugo Meynell

Christian Philosophy in the Early Church. By Anthony Meredith S.J. Pp. 173, T&T Clark, London/NY, 2012,
$25.95.

In the opening greeting to his 1998 encyclical,

Fides et Ratio, John Paul II fashioned the memorable image of faith and reason as two wings on
which the human spirit could ascend to contemplation of truth. But creatures with wings are
fragile and elusive things. As far as the Christian
intellectual tradition is concerned, at any rate, the
complex history of concord and conflict between
these two modes of engaging with reality attests
to the challenge of forging an enduring synthesis
between them. Yet this challenge was met as successfully as it ever has been in the first fitful centuries of the churchs history. Time was when
students of the history and theology of the Early
Church possessed very few solid overviews of its
deft engagements with the many fashionable philosophies of the period: those that did exist had
an antiquarian feel about them and rarely contained much in the way of penetrating analysis.
This situation compared especially unfavourably
with the astonishing vistas opened up by scholars
of late antiquity in the last four decades. Thankfully a handful of elegant monographs have begun
to address this problem with respect to doctrinal
developments; but the student attempting to
understand their philosophical pedigree has very
few decent introductory expositions from which to
choose, even if excellent specialist accounts do
exist.
It is for this reason that Anthony Merediths
new book is especially to be welcomed: his survey consists in what is often an able and insightful analysis of the traffic of ideas along the road
between Athens and Jerusalem. Chronologically
the work spans the period running from the New
Testament writings up to and including those of
Pseudo-Dionysius at the turn of the sixth century.
Meredith opens with a rather dizzying series of
thumbnail sketches illustrating the thought-world
of Second Temple Judaism and the Graeco-

Roman world. There follows a sound description

of the notorious ambivalence exhibited towards
the practice of philosophy in the Lukan and
Pauline writings. The account continues with
some brief and rather breezy sections on the
major sub-apostolic and early apologetic writings
(though oddly no section deals directly with Irenaeus). It must be said that the analysis here
attempts to cover too much to generate much
fresh insight, although the discussion of Origens
legacy is among the strongest in the book. Meredith then explores the philosophical hinterland of
the first four ecumenical councils in particular
the enormous influence of Alexandrian intellectual
culture before offering a short but sympathetic
assessment of Augustine as the determinative
influence over subsequent debates between faith
and reason in later theological traditions. The
book concludes with some scattered reflections on
its principal theme and a four-page appendix that
attempts the daunting task of summarizing Aristotles impact on Aquinas.
The ambitions of this interesting book range
well beyond the hundred and fifty pages or so to
which its argumentation is confined, so it is perhaps inevitable that much has been left untouched.
The Early Churchs fraught debates with the bewildering varieties of Gnosticism in the second century and with Neoplatonism in the centuries
thereafter might especially have benefited from a
little more of Merediths acumen. Somewhat surprisingly for the author of an excellent introduction
to Gregory of Nyssa, the Cappadocian Fathers are
obscured by the shadow of Augustine in his
account of the crosspollination of philosophy and
theology in the fourth century. And whilst
Meredith is surely correct to draw our attention to
the indelible stamp left on Christian metaphysics
by the Early Churchs exchanges with pagan philosophies, it might have been interesting to learn

BOOK REVIEWS

more of how much influence flowed in the other

direction as well. At one or two junctures the structure of the book may strike some as a little
ungainly. Thus the chapter ostensibly given over to
the conciliar decisions actually consists in an
extended discussion of the Council of Nicaea. Only
a few pages are devoted to the complex questions
of philosophical anthropology animating the
debates that led up to the Councils of Ephesus and
Chalcedon, after which a tantalizing glimpse at
Proclean influences on Pseudo-Dionysius is rather
awkwardly inserted. It gives this reviewer no pleasure to report that the number of typographical
errors and stylistic inconsistencies that mar the text
is unacceptably high. Indeed it is difficult to find a
page that is entirely free of them. Most are of
course very minor and do not affect the sense of
the authors argument. Some indeed may amuse:
the triple eponymous association with Christs sacrifice would doubtless have flattered Blaise Paschal [sic] (twice on page 5, once on page 163).
Some oversights, however, are more serious: it
was disconcerting to find Meredith using the word
homousion in his discussion of the Arian controversy to describe the Sons consubstantiality with
the Father instead of the standard transliteration
(homoousion): the elision of yet another vowel
from their Christological catch-word will disappoint homoians everywhere. This is compounded

237

by the fact that the term is never explicitly

defined in relation to the alternative (homoiousion) proposed by Athanasius rivals, which may
obscure precisely what was at stake in this debate
for any unfamiliar with it. The worry is that the
cumulative effect of these mistakes will strain the
patience of even the most tolerant of Merediths
readers and thus dissipate the persuasiveness of
his insightful commentaries. Although this book
serves its purpose as a delectable hors doeuvre
for those interested in the Early Churchs philosophical theology, it was disappointing not to find
more engagement with some more substantial specialist fare by such figures as Grillmeier, Kelly,
Louth, Osborne, Prestige, Stead, and Wolfson.
One or two gestures towards some of these contemporary treatments perhaps in the form of a
short bibliographical essay would have been
welcome. Conversely, it was puzzling to find a
popularising work by the classicist Keith Hopkins
accorded any prominence. Nevertheless, this book
succeeds in providing a succinct and serviceable
initial guide to the controverted relationship
between philosophy and theology in the Early
Church, especially for those who find themselves
understandably daunted by the prospect of extensive exploration in the primary sources.
St. Johns College, Cambridge

James Orr

The Philosophy of Early Christianity. By George Karamanolis. Pp. xvi, 317, Durham: Acumen Press, 2013,
25.00 cloth; 75.00 hardback.

These six chapters serve as a very robust and readable account of the philosophical concerns and
methodologies of the first Christian thinkers. This
study treats most central Christian figures between
St. Paul and St. Augustine (viz., mainly Clement
through the Cappadocians). It is Karamanolis overall thesis that the early Christians studied and sought
to appropriate the major figures and trends of pagan
philosophy not only to advance the Gospel message
but also to help clarify internal doctrinal disputes.
Obviously most of the attention here is paid to the
tenets of Platonism, but Karamanolis also shows
how understanding the various philosophical schools
like Skepticism (Academic and Pyrrhonean) as well
as Stoicism would have to be engaged if Christians
had any chance of understanding their own truth
claims with any real reason, not to mention making
them universally attractive for the larger world.
After a rather lengthy Introduction (pages 1-28)
where Karamanolis lays out both the approach and
the areas of this study, Chapter One (p. 29-59)
treats The Christian conception of philosophy and
Christian philosophical methodology. Here Kara-

manolis continues his appreciation for the multivalency of Skepticism to show how the early
Christians agreed with them in showing how so
many diverse and contradictory philosophical
schools only proved that pagan philosophy was not
enough to reach ultimate truth; but unlike the
Skeptics, Christians did claim to have direct access
to Logos in the person of Christ: Christianity is
marked by finality and perfection against which the
Hellenic tradition of philosophy is rudimentary,
imperfect and untrustworthy (p. 37). The Christian
claim, of course, is that the canon of scripture is
what grows and guides the true philosophers
understanding and attainment of truth. As such, the
first Christians built on ancient ways of reading a
text to engage scripture with a hermeneutic which
saw truth as a reality both personal and dynamic
without ever losing the universality and immutability so cherished by Roman Hellenism. Here, however, a serious concern must be raised, the question
of a canon: throughout Karamanolis depends heavily on a generic claim toward scripture or the
bible but shows no signs that the canon is not

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BOOK REVIEWS

actually defined until about the time his own study

here ends. One wonders what sense it makes to
continually appeal to a collection of revealed texts
which supposedly gives stability and structure
which itself is still being debated, decided and
determined. This symbiotic relation between scriptura and ecclesia is key to how one understands
the early Christian mind, a mind which knew that
scripture itself points to Church of the living God
as is the pillar and foundation of the truth (1
Tim 3:15). Early Christian thinkers always subjected the written word to the living Logos,
expressed in the regula fidei and in the way the
local Christian community lived and prayed.
In the second chapter, Physics and metaphysics:
first principles and the question of cosmogony
(p. 60-116), Karamanolis turns to how early Christian thinkers explained the intricacies of creation.
This is a challenging chapter in that our author
seems overly harsh regarding early understandings
of matter. Since Plotinus is so influential to third
and fourth century Christians, it is necessary to get
him right and Karamanolis does not: Plotinus never
identified matter with badness (p. 67)evidenced
most clearly in his treatise Against the Gnostics
(Ennead II.ix)but equated evil with tolm
e, diversity and rebellious separation. Thereafter, however,
we are brought through the various stages of
awareness of creation ex-nihil and the necessary
Christian truth (clarified definitively by Irenaeus)
that there are no intermediary creators outside the
Triune God. Discussions on how 2nd century
Apologists, Tertullian, and the Cappadocians
explained creation from nothing and the inherent
goodness of all that is are especially fine. Logic
and Epistemology (p. 117-43) comes next and
here Karamanolis focuses on the Christian understanding of mind and the relationship between the
noetic and ontological realms with clear implications for how the first theologians understood a
very inchoate form of the body-mind problem, as
well as various conceptions of the intellect.
A most important topic in these formative centuries is of course Free will and divine providence
(p. 144-80). The first questions surrounding free
will, we learn, have to do not with human agency
but in Gods free decision to create an ontologically distinct order. Humans are called to share in
this lack of coercion by fostering a morally upright

life wherein they are most free from fallen passions

and imprisoning habits. Naturally enough, most of
Karamanolis discussion here shows how Christian
thought both appropriated and rejected central tenets
of Stoicism and Epicureanism. The fifth chapter
takes up the theme of Psychology: the soul and its
relation to the body (p. 181-213) begins with the
unresolved question of the post-lapsarian souls
nature and possible origins. Questions of 1 Thess
5:23 and what it means to be soma as well as psyche
and pneuma take up much of the chapter here and
exactly where to posit sinful tendencies within this
triadic composition. Finally, in Ethics and politics
(p. 214-36) we receive a all-too brief examination of
the Christian vocation not only to live in but to
change the world.
A conclusion is followed by very helpful appendices giving illuminative biographies of the figures
just encountered as well as fruitful suggestions for
further reading and study. Karamanolis is an
Assistant Professor in Ancient Philosophy at the
University of Crete. His latest work serves as a
fairly sophisticated introduction to the Church
Fathers use of pagan philosophical and cosmological wisdom. This volume would no doubt prove a
valuable resource for advanced undergraduates in
philosophy and theology; it would also be very
useful in an introductory text in a survey course for
graduate students of late antiquity. The Acumen
Ancient Philosophies series is fairly recent, this
being its tenth volume. The series blurb states that
it seeks to provide a clear and rigorous presentation of core ideas and lay the foundation for a thorough and understanding of their subjects. To date
there are such foundational volumes in the Presocratics, in Plato and Aristotle, Ancient Scepticism,
Neoplatonism, Cynicism and Epicureanism,
Ancient Indian Buddhism and Confucianism. Karamanolis monograph is another excellent contribution. This is, be warned, truly a survey and it does
a good job covering a lot of intellectual terrain
over a lot of years. That said, the danger is what
the reader is forced to sacrifice in terms of social
and ecclesial context. As such, read this work
alongside a good Church history book or an accurate survey of the development of Christian creeds.
Saint Louis University

David Meconi

Gods Presence: A Contemporary Recapitulation of Early Christianity. By Frances Young. Pp. xiv, 474,
Cambridge University Press, 2013, 19.99.

Looking back again over a publishing career that

spans nearly forty years, I think we may call Frances Youngs latest book, the publication of her

2011 Bampton Lectures, her magnum opus. During

these four decades a multitude of theology students
have been indebted to her for books such as From

BOOK REVIEWS

Nicaea to Chalcedon (1983, 2010), The Making of

the Creeds (1991), and Biblical Exegesis and the
Formation of Christian Culture (1997). Her contribution to The Myth of God Incarnate (1977), edited
by John Hick, alongside essays by Cupitt, Goulder,
Houlden, Nineham, and Wiles, was outstanding for
its integrity and breadth of vision. The art of performance: towards a theology of Holy Scripture
(1990) and Virtuoso Theology: The Bible and Interpretation (1993), building on the work of, inter
alia, Karl Barth and Hans Urs von Balthasar, have
challenged with their discussions of Biblical interpretation and performance. More recently, she
has provided us with The Cambridge History of
Early Christian Literature (2004) and volume one
of The Cambridge History of Christianity (2006).
During these four decades, too, some of us have
also had the privilege of witnessing Frances as a
devoted daughter, wife and mother caring for her
mother, her husband and their son and reflecting on
the interface between disability and Christianity in
such works as Face to Face: A Narrative Essay in
the Theology of Suffering (1985, extensively
revised 1991) and Brokenness and Blessing:
Towards a Biblical Spirituality (2007).
All of these (and more) elements are found in Gods
Presence. A Contemporary Recapitulation of Early
Christianity. The book, as Rowan Williams has
pointed out, combines an immense professional expertise in the literature of early Christianity with intense
personal and pastoral reflection, an insightful perspective on contemporary theological concerns and an
interweaving of sermons and poetic meditations that
remind us of Francess stature as a spiritual guide.
The Bampton Lectures, delivered to tremendous acclaim in Oxford during 2011, are here
extensively revised. Throughout, Young intentionally crosses boundaries in order to integrate in
each of her eight chapters patristic theology,
creedal doctrines, and contemporary audience,
showing how key concepts in the teachings of
the early Church may be applied today, in spite
of the differences in our ecclesial and intellectual
mindsets, and, in particular, the fragmenting
nature of our churches. An introduction is followed by chapters on first principles of Christian
theology, reading Genesis alongside Plato and
Darwin, creation and re-creation, incarnation and

239

the
osis, sin, redemption and atonement, discerning
the work of the Holy Spirit, ecumenism, and
dogma and the
oria. And all of this is combined
in a way that is profoundly mature and exceptionally professional, deftly combining head and
heart, and bringing together all that has been
fructful in Youngs academic work, notably as
Edward Cadbury Professor of Theology, Dean of
Arts, and Pro-Vice-Chancellor at the University
of Birmingham, vulnerable in her own life intertwined with that of LArche, and nurturing in
her pastoral ministry as Methodist minister.
The book also includes bibliographies of primary
and secondary sources, and Youngs own previously published studies to which she makes reference in the present book. There is a fully
comprehensive index where Carmel, Plotinus, and
spina bifida may be found as curious bedfellows.
There are two aspects of Gods Presence that merit
special attention. Special, perhaps because they are
least expected. Each chapter can easily stand alone, or
may be perceived as contributing to the whole, providing, as they do, a consistent overview of such overarching topics as the Bible as transformative text,
the apparent will of the transcendent God to accommodate the divine self to the human level, the sacramental perspective (5), or the mystery of the Trinity
as the all-embracing, overflowing wisdom of divine
love (6). And each chapter has a postlude, offering
some of Youngs own poetry, the words pointing
beyond themselves, in a manner after Ephrem the Syrian, to a deeper reality.
The other aspect that deserves our attention is the
cover image, designed by Silvia Dimitrova, depicting
the loving friendship of Jesus for Lazarus. As iconoclastic as unexpected, Lazarus is shown as a person
with learning disabilities, whose chariot serves as the
symbol of heavenly ascent, as well as Lazaruss
wheelchair. A building, standing both for the home of
Mary and Martha and one of the mansions in our
Fathers house, and the tree of life assist in creating an
implicit sphere, which is broken by Christ stepping
down to earth to heal Lazarus (and, by implication, to
heal each one of us).
Monaste`re de la
Sainte-Pr
esence, Brittany

Luke Penkett

Readers and Reading Culture in the High Roman Empire: A Study of Elite Communities. By William A.
Johnson. Pp. x, 227, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2010, 22.50.

This book has much to recommend it even for

those not specifically interested in ancient reading
cultures. By examining how ancient Roman writers
described (or, in many cases, prescribed) specific

practices of literary engagement, Johnson manages

to recreate a past that is exciting in part because its
people are strikingly different from us, rather than
being mere reflections of moderns but without all

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BOOK REVIEWS

of our technology. The result is a fascinating and

illuminating volume that reveals the real-world
importance of literary culture in the high Roman
Empire.
Johnson aims to go beyond the old argument of
whether or not the ancients read aloud and instead
hopes to redirect scholarly attention to what is, I
think, a much more interesting set of problems: how
exactly the ancients went about reading, and how the
ancient reading culture (as I will call it) does in fact
differ from the reading-from-a-printed-book model
familiar to us today (9). To this end, the author opens
by examining the implications of ancient bookroll
technology, highlighting the fact that such bookrolls
conveyed very little paralinguistic information, so
that the readers verbal presentation of the text
emerges from the confluence of the authors careful
stylistic constructionthe literary styleand the
readers informed interpretation and rendering (25).
The bulk of Johnsons book is spent sifting through
selected ancient writers for clues as to how Roman literary culture was made manifestor, at least, what
particular ideals were heralded by many of these writers, even if the reality sometimes fell short. Pliny the
Younger, for example, reveals just how much reading
was a group activity which embraced not only group
readings of high literature but also serious discussion
and debate, though these literary activities were,
ideally, subordinated to a broader conception of culture that included physical exercise and social arts
(39). Tacituss Dialogus de oratoribus illustrates an
abiding belief that elite studia cannot be separated
from broader social or political strivings, which fact
comes to life vibrantly in Johnsons chapter on the
physician and philosopher Galen. For the exclusivist
Galen, the production of literary works, especially
those directed to specific individuals, is deeply reflective of the contest for status within the reading community that Galen both participates in and seeks to
define (91)perhaps not so different from the publish or perish paradigm of modern academia, though
todays academics are not usually the darlings of political and financial elites. Contrary to the balance
emphasized by Pliny, the reading community as pre-

sented by Aulus Gellius relentlessly emphasizes intellectual achievement which holds antiquarian philology
as the height of amusement; his is a circle in which
the various competitive group interactionsto the
uninvolved reader often bizarrely pedantic and trivialshould be taken not only as vying for status within
the group but as efforts to stake out high-ground territory among the elite as a whole, especially as the texts
undergoing scrutiny are those designated as central to
traditional Roman culture (134). In such a world,
Marcus Aureliuss solitary musings are regarded as
somewhat contrary to the literary custom of the day,
though, in a chapter on the satirist Lucian, Johnson
explores the apparent artifice underlying some of these
elite communities, an artifice exhibited because intellectual culture had become so firmly rooted in the
elite system of validation that even the uninterested
felt the need to bring it under their wingnot unlike
the uncut books in Nick Gatsbys library (175).
In this era, we are apt to draw firm divisions
between primarily literary and primarily oral cultures,
just as we are apt to treat a text as something to which
we should respond passively, not something for which
we have a responsibility to interpret actively and
enthusiastically. Ancient Roman praxis, however,
drew no such stark divisions. As Johnson notes in his
conclusion, this was a culture of reading that cedes
less to authorial control, and for which active engagement is a base expectation in a wide array of activities
(200). Texts formed the foundation for regular face-toface activities that transcended stereotypical scholarly
quibbling and instead had real-world consequences for
ones status within the larger community. By revealing
the sort of literary engagement that underpinned elite
communities in the high Roman Empire, Johnson
offers us not just a new perspective on classical studies, but also a welcome insight into the project of literacy itself, overcoming tired dualisms for a more
complete view of the written words place in peoples
lives throughout history.
Encyclopedia of
Arkansas
History & Culture

Guy Lancaster

The Social World of Intellectuals in the Roman Empire: Sophists, Philosophers, and Christians. By Kendra
Eshleman. Pp. ix, 293, Cambridge University Press, 2012, 60.00/$99.00.

One begins this book with high hopes but puts it down
at the end, disappointed. Eshleman proposes a
sociological comparison between the self-generating,
self-certifying, and self-policing strategies of the professional rhetoricians of the Second Sophistic and
those of nascently-institutionalizing Christianity marking off for the first time borders between practitioners
considered orthodox and those excluded as hereti-

cal. In both cases ones status, reputation, or prestige

were dependent less on objective criteria of merit than
on how one was perceived and evaluated by powerful
personalities constituting an in-group jealously and
suspiciously distinguishing their community from dangerous and aggressive interlopers regarded as frauds.
With as yet no official licensing board, ones professional success depended on the outcome of personal

BOOK REVIEWS

interactions or duels with other would-be practitioners making similar claims for themselves.
This all remains abstract, however, and the specific theoretical and practical issues that stirred up
Christians are lost from view or diminished in
importance beneath the clash of egos clamoring for
recognition and prestige. This was a period when
the most basic issues were being challenged and
hammered out (the date of Easter, the relation of
the still-assembling New Testament to the Old
Testament under Marcion, gnostic or elitist versions of Christianity within each community, etc.),
but scriptural and doctrinal disputes are here transposed into a psychological and sociological register

241

made primary. The influence seems to flow in the

wrong direction. Strategies of attack and defense
were similar between the two groups struggling
towards self-identity, but with the content of the
disputes minimized, the social dynamic outcomes
seem tautological rather than informative. Esleman
brings a wealth of knowledge to the table, but it is
difficult to see what progress he offers towards
understanding Christianity, which was centred
around an eschatological message from its outset,
as distinct from promoting skills that would lead to
success in the imperial arena.
Heythrop College

Patrick Madigan

Between Pagan and Christian. By Christopher P. Jones. Pp. xv, 207, Cambridge/London, Harvard University
Press, 2014, $29.95.

Jones is now emeritus from Harvard and perhaps

best known for his 3-volume translation of Philostratus Life of Apollonius of Tyana, a wandering
Pythagorean philosopher and wonder-worker who
was contemporary with Jesus. At his final departure
Jesus had commanded his followers to preach the
good news to all nations, which fated Christianity
to become a proselytizing religion (unlike Judaism
which, while accepting converts, was historically
exclusionist and separatist) and set it into opposition
with the polytheism and idol-worship traditional to
all ancient cultures. Each city and each village had
its patronal deity who was assumed to be just,
rewarding the good and punishing the wicked; the
deity had more important things to do than care
about mortals, but it did look after the prosperity of
the city, and this relationship was carefully nurtured
and maintained through appropriate sacrifices during
the course of the year. Christians were initially
criticized because they refused to participate in these
sacrifices; when Constantine unexpectedly converted
in 313, he reversed this relationship and began the
slow and painful process of extirpating the
entrenched cults in favour of this new trans-ethnic
and trans-national outgrowth of Jewish monotheism
with a depiction of the deity through the passion and
death of his Son (and a liturgy in which his body
was eaten and his blood was drunk) that was not
congruent with traditional views. Christianity was
never entirely successful at uprooting what in the
West was called paganism; it early learned that
successful proselytism involved finding local saints
or martyrs who could take the place of the previous
patronal deities in looking after the city and legitimating periodic feasts. Two groups resisted most of
all: rustics in remote areas who maintained the old
ways on top of or behind a Christian surface, and the
intellectual-cultural elite teachers of philosophy,

oratory, poetry and literature, all involved in traditional Greek paideia who found exposure to the
new cult an uncouth and deflating experience, and
the lifestyle inculcated by its alarming ascetic heroes
incompatible with the dialogic, poetic, theatrical,
and gustatory pleasures they held to be the emblem
and crown of a worthwhile life it was certainly
what the gods were up to, enjoying the sacrifices we
offer them.
By now this is well-trod ground, but Jones is
able to offer new insights. For example, Constantines conversion may not have been as spontaneous or unconditioned as it looks. Shortly before,
the Sassanian kings of Persia had united a torpid
and fractured state, turning it into a formidable
eastern power by converting to Zoroastrianism as
the state religion and making Ahura-Mazda the
supreme deity. By contrast the Roman empire
lacked a unifying cult; Christianity may have
appeared the best candidate to fill this void (p. 22).
It becomes clear in this book that the deepest
value that appeared in jeopardy was that of reciprocal communication between gods and humans.
Through sacrifices, shrines, diviners, oracles, etc.,
the population had in place a traditional system
assuring this fundamental psychological, sociological, and political security. In dismantling these, it
was not immediately apparent what Christianity
had to put in their place. The sneering Hellenistic
intellectuals could not see how the cult and practices of the Christian sect could be the vehicle for
such a communication, and they never gave up
their resistance. Only through a slow and gradual
pedagogy and not an imperial proclamation
could the potential of the Christian liturgy to carry
this weight be progressively experienced.
Heythrop College

Patrick Madigan

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BOOK REVIEWS

Irenaeus of Lyons: Identifying Christianity (Christian Theology in Context Series). By John Behr. Pp. v, 236,
Oxford University Press, 2013, 60.00.

There were certainly more prolific Church Fathers,

there are indubitably more celebrated saints and
better chronicled martyrs, and surely there have
been more accomplished bishops. Yet, Irenaeus of
Lyons stands unmatched in helping those in the
Christian tradition understand and identify the fundamental and living nature of Christianity. By the
end of this fully-packed work, we learn from St.
Vladimir Seminarys John Behr that in Irenaeus
we have for the first time the following five foundational insights: (1) an articulate and operative
meaning of ecclesial orthodoxy (and, thus conversely of heresy), (2) the Churchs living rule
of faith, (3) the way the fullness of Christian writings (and practices) serve as an ongoing recapitulation and accessible manifestation of the canonical
scriptures, (4) the economy of God embraces a universally comprehensive movement from the first to
the second Adam, and (5) the imago Dei becomes
fully human only in deifying union with God
(p. 205). To show how these points have come to
us through Irenaeus, Behr has divided his latest
into a lengthy introduction providing the life and
times of this late-second century bishop, and then
two longer chapters analyzing his major work,
Against the Heresies.
In Irenaeus of Lyons: Ambassador for Peace,
Reconciliation, and Toleration (pp. 13-71), the
reader is brought back to Vienne and Lyons and
the particularly tumultuous period of the Churchs
life there. Irenaeus (and perhaps his family)
migrated from Asia to the West sometime after the
middle of the second century. Central to understanding this move and all it involved was what
David Brakke names hybriditythe confluence
of geographical and personal, intellectual and historical differences, composing any one person or
school of thought. This first chapter obviously
draws from the best of late antiquity studies, looking for ways that diverse cultures have influenced
what we now know of Irenaeus and his contemporaries. Not surprisingly, then, a host of other second century figures appear here, and their possible
interactions with Irenaeus world is explored: Justin
Martyr, various Gnostic leaders (Valentinus and
Florinus), the bishops of Rome (Eleutherus and
Victor), and Polycarp of Smyrna. It is the latter
who receives the most attention, and rightly so:
Polycarps visit to Rome in the mid-150s was
something of a catalyst for Christianity there, convincing many to turn away from the heresies of
Marcion and Valentinus, by precisely this appeal to
an apostolic connection (pp. 57-58). Then turning

to Eusebius, we are offered a very helpful chronology of Irenaeus writings and what in particular
occasioned his arguments and subsequent
explanations.
The next two chapters treat almost every facet of
Irenaeus major work The Refutation and Overthrowal of Knowledge Falsely So-Called, the
Adversus Haereses [AH]. First comes the analysis
of the overall structure of the AH and Books 1-2 in
particular (pp. 73-120). In looking at the configuration of the AH, Behr (rightly drawing our attention
to Scott Moringiellos divisions of the five books
into the classical proemium, narration, probation,
refutation, and recapitulation) astutely takes the
reader through Irenaeus vision of the work as a
whole, providing invaluable insights as an expert
guide through tough terrain. Given the prefaces
found prior to Book 1 and Book 3, Behr argues
that he is following Irenaeus lead in next treating
just Books 1-2 separately. This division is not arbitrary but suggests Irenaeus theological strategy in
first pointing out the problems posed by Gnosticism
and only then providing a robust explanation of the
inherent beauty of ancient and apostolic Christianity. What the reader will take away from these
pages is how Irenaeus taught readers of scripture
how to understand the biblical narrative rightly and
in a properly broad context when interacting with
those who misunderstand the unity of God, the
goodness of creation, and the glory of the human
person.
Treating Adversus Haereses 3-5 in the next and
lengthiest chapter (pp. 121-203), Behr shows us
how Irenaeus builds from the biblical basis laid out
earlier in order to advance his own particular
understanding of a human life in Christ. Here the
reader will find expert explanations of the multifaceted components making up the salvific arc from
the first to the Second Adam: Recapitulating the
ancient formation of the human being, and therefore also passing through every stage of human
life, by his obedience unto death Christ undoes the
slavery of sin and the bondage in death, into which
Adam, fashioned from the untilled soil, had drawn
the human race, and in doing so Christ vivifies the
human being (p. 170). In truth, this recapitulation
not only vivifies but also deifies the human person;
surprisingly, Behr does not devote much attention
to the rather unique theology of theosis found in
Irenaeus. These pages more or less follow the
movements of AH 3-5, providing wonderful
insights into the nature not only of the great
exchange found in the incarnation but the

BOOK REVIEWS

subsequent doctrines of Mary, the Church and the

sacraments as the great Bishop of Lyons envisioned
them.
Behr ends with helpful conclusion from which
we have already quoted, as well as an unmatchable,
up-to-date bibliography. As such, this short book
would make for invaluable reading for anyone
interested in Irenaeus and the roots ofto use

243

Galens phrase found throughout these pagesthe

Great Church. I have no doubt that this monograph will become compulsory on many graduate
reading lists as well as a guide for anyone searching for a more contextual and contemporary study
of one of Christianitys foundational figures.
Saint Louis University

David Meconi

Perichoresis and Personhood: God, Christ, and Salvation in John of Damascus. By Charles C. Twombly.
Pp. xv, 114, Eugene, OR, Pickwick, 2015, $14.89.

The Councils of Nicaea and Chalcedon were not

the end of Trinitarian and Christological speculation respectively, but in many senses just the
beginning. The formulae Three Persons, One
Nature for the first, and Two Natures, One Person for the second, set the broad parameters of
identity and difference that had to be respected in
any adequate discussion of the relevant issues, but
they were felt to be more the expression of a problem than its solution. Already physis and hypostasis
which had been roughly synonyms in common parlance had been stretched and technically contrasted
as a means to bring conceptual clarity into these
specific contexts. That process would continue over
the next four centuries, not only on the anvil of
controversy between Nestorians and Monophysites,
but as thinkers attempted to canvas and draft other
paradigms and devices from alternative universes
of discourse that could introduce further sophistication and clarity into what all confessed to be a
journey into the unknowable, but where any
reduction of the apparent tension and mystery
made our grasp of the source of this new life as
Christians less inadequate, the debate and apologetic with the pagan philosophical culture less
embarrassing, and missionary activity and evangelical announcement more persuasive. John of
Damascus in the eighth century reaped the harvest
of this development in his magnum opus, the Fountain Head of Knowledge, specifically its third part,
On the Orthodox Faith. He did not invent the
device of perichoresis (here translated primarily as
mutual indwelling) but appropriated, expanded,

and exploited it to render even greater justice to

the new problems raised by the successes of the
earlier councils, specifically to a co-presence of
identity and difference which could not be allowed
to reduce either pole to nothingness or a passive
partner, nor raise the potential rivalry to an explosive level, but tie off all dangers and explain all
harmonisations in a way that was appreciated as
persuasive rather than forced. Locating will in
Nature rather than in Person was one essential
step to success both in Trinitarian theology and
Christology, but it is the appreciation of salvation
as theosis or deification, rather than simply as
judicial righteousness or remission of sin as it was
too often understood in the Roman West, that
opened the door to understanding how the person
of the Divine Logos could coordinate and unify the
two wills of Christ in the Incarnation. Ironically,
perichoresis must yield to a weaker version of the
same influence in participation for understanding
salvation, for our union with Christ in this world
is less intimate and steadfast than is the relation
between the three persons in the Trinity or between
the two natures of Christ in the Incarnation. Only
after the final judgment will the participation of
the righteous with Christ approach the intimacy
and intensity of perichoresis. Twombly has himself
produced a superb illumination of this central, and
under-appreciated, development in the history of
Christian faith.
Heythrop Journal

Patrick Madigan

Christian Grace and Pagan Virtue: The Theological Foundations of Ambroses Ethics. By J. Warren Smith.
Pp. xxi, 317, Oxford Studies in Historical Theology. Oxford University Press, 2011, 64.00/$99.00.
Ambrose & John Chrysostom: Clerics between Desert and Empire. By J.H.W.G. Liebeschuetz. Pp. xii, 303.
Oxford University Press, 2011, 66.00/$110.00.

In his De Viris Illustribus, Jerome jejunely admits

to having read only Chrysostoms On Priesthood
(129), while tacitly vilifying Ambrose by refusing

to say really anything (afraid of being accused of

adulation if he were to praise him, afraid of criticism if he were actually to speak the truth; 124).

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BOOK REVIEWS

In his letter on marriage to Oceanus, Jerome gives

us another allusion to this one who yesterday was
just a catechumen but today more than a bishop;
whom we found yesterday in the amphitheater but
today in the church; who last night was reveling at
the circus but this morning was standing at our
altar (Heri catechumenus, hodie pontifex; heri in
amphitheatro, hodie in ecclesia; uespere in circo,
mane in altari; ep. 69.9). Jeromes characteristic
cantankerousness aside, Ambrose and Chrysostom
are surely ecclesial figures not easily categorized
by friend or by foe. Two recent Oxford studies
have therefore sought to provide a deeper picture
of these two foundational ecclesiastics. One work
argues for an overlap in both method and intention
between the two, the other deepens our muchneeded study into the life and theology of just
Ambrose.
In Christian Grace and Pagan Virtue, Duke Universitys J. Warren Smith sets out to show how
baptism becomes the pivotal moment in the Christian moral life. This may not sound surprising, but
set against the backdrop of alternative ethical systems, Smith argues that Ambrose continued to
transform the Christian question from one of What
should I do? to Who am I to become? While
acknowledging recent studies that focus the reader
on Ambroses theology of baptism and of grace,
Smiths contribution comes also by showing the
reader how Ambrose viewed pre-baptized humanity, the new agencies offered by ecclesial incorporation, as well as the effects of Ambroses
regenerative soteriology. To do this, he divides
his book into 7 chapters. The first three treat
Ambroses theological anthropology, with special
emphasis on the human person as a psychosomatic
being. Smith works hard to defend Ambrose from
Platonically over-emphasizing the soul to the detriment of the body but does so nicely.
Chapters 4-7 bring us to the pivotal act of Christian baptism as well as to the inner man who is
therein rejuvenated. Smith does a wonderful job
focusing the readers attention on the importance
of human desire as well as the gift of faith that
then properly aligns a creatures will to Gods
now reborn in baptism who bears the renewed
likeness of Christ (p. 161). Heavenly participation
is thus effected not by self-determination or by
pious works, but by appropriating the Christ-life:
. . .full entry into our heavenly citizenship comes
only at the resurrection, which is our hope. Nonetheless, the Christian in the present age can be
described properly as an inhabitant of heaven
because heaven and not worldly power or pleasure
is the object of her hope and is where she directs
the substance of her being (p. 220). After baptismal regeneration, therefore, all things in the course

of ones life can become united with Christ and

therefore become salvific. The insights Smith offers
throughout these latter pages are wonderful and
could have been parlayed into an even richer analysis of Ambroses theology of the Mystical Body.
What Smith accomplishes in depth, the University
of Nottinghams always reliable emeritus J.H.W.G.
Liebeschuetz achieves in breadth. Admittedly this is
too short of a book to provide not only two biographies of amazing men as well as a synthesis between
them (and Liebeschuetz does not treat the two equally,
evidenced by much lengthier treatment afforded
Chrysostom). There are four main sections here. The
first (pp. 9-54) deals with the pre- and extra-Christian
roots of spiritual ascesis, focusing on two very specific
elements: the role of parrhesia in the transformation of
a culture, as well as the importance the ancients placed
on sexual purity and the development of celibacy in
Christianity. Liebeschuetz draws masterfully from
ancient resources to show how a new sense of intrigue
began to be played out between bishop and emperor,
between the holy celibate and the worldlier potentate. This introduction alone would make an excellent
read for any graduate introduction to the Fathers.
Section two (pp. 57-94) reads as a good biography
of Ambrose of Milan, although others have achieved
what is done here. What these pages wish to show is
how Ambroses courage in confronting the sins of the
emperor as well as holding tenaciously on to the Catholic (versus Arian) expressions of Christianity are
extraordinary and probably unparalleled in Roman
antiquity (94). While the third section (pp. 97-247) is
dedicated to John Chrysostom, it opens with an superb
review of asceticism in fourth and fifth century Syria
and Mesopotamia, with its special emphasis on restoring Eden through self-denial and contemplation. Next
come the major happenings of Chrysostoms life and
episcopacyevents full of suspenseful manoeuvring
between opposing parties. Section four (251-76) serves
as a helpful and brief conclusion. What we come away
with is how both men respected and relied upon the
imperial system but chose to interact with rulers differently. In Ambrose we see a man confident in his power
to persuade and in his courage in opposing obvious
wrongdoing, regardless from where it arises. Chrysostom, on the other hand, comes across as lacking the
diplomatic skills (or diplomatic skulls as we read on
p. 259in fact, no less than a dozen typos were discovered in these works!) that could have saved him
from ecclesial division and eventual exile.
It used to be that scholarly interest in Ambrose
(evident even in Jerome above) centered mainly
around the politicalthe prefect turned presbyter.
More recent studies, works by Dan Williams and
Neil McLynn, for example, have set the exclusively political aside in order to see in Ambrose a
pastor who eschewed partisanship while never

BOOK REVIEWS

capitulating to Empire or Arian. The two works

covered here extend that theological trajectory a bit
more to see in Ambrose a preacher who is ultimately about boldly proclaiming (and exemplifying) holiness to the flock entrusted to his care. The
same goes for Chrysostom, as Liebeschuetz

245

rehearses that despite his inability to win at court,

the Golden Mouth displayed nothing other than a
wonderful mind and a pastors care for his people.
Saint Louis University

David Meconi

The Oxford Handbook of Late Antiquity. Edited by Scott Fitzgerald Johnson. Pp. xlv, 1247, Oxford University
Press, 2012, $175.00/95.00.

This book is everything an Oxford Handbook

should be, in terms of both thoroughness and
clarity. Every volume in the series known to me
has met with nothing but praise. This review will
be no different on that score. Late Antiquity is a
flexible term. The editor defines it as, roughly,
from Constantine to Muhammad, or the two centuries from the early fourth century CE, though
most of the contributors adopt a more capacious
understanding. But on one point it is clear that
none of the contributors would be flexible: this is
no longer describable as a period of decline and
fall. It was a time of vibrant flux.
The book consists of thirty-six chapters, covering
everything from agriculture to Zoroastrianism. The
chapters fall into five parts: Geographies and Peoples (nine chapters); Literary and Philosophical
Cultures (eight chapters); Law, State, and Social
Structures (eight chapters); Religions and Religious Identity (eight chapters); Late Antiquity in
Perspective (three chapters). For the sake of readers of this journal, I will summarize only those
chapters that focus on religious matters.
The overriding phenomenon was the process of
Christian self-definition. This crops up, explicitly
or implicitly, in chapter after chapter. In Travel,
Cartography, and Cosmology, Scott Johnson notes
the start early in the period of the identification of
Biblical sites in the Holy Land and the building of
churches and other structures on these sites, appropriating them for Christianity. Ann Marie Yasin
(Sacred Space and Visual Art) mentions these pilgrimage sites, but focuses more on the architecture
and design of basilicas. Though they show a lot of
variety, one of their functions was simply to be
instantly identifiable as Christian: this was a community that was becoming acceptable and could
now emerge from worshipping in private homes,
and build monumental edifices that acted as boundaries between Christian and non-Christian space.
Hence also Christians identified themselves to the
wider world by means of charitable acts: Peregrine
Horden (Poverty, Charity, and the Invention of the
Hospital) considers Basil of Caesareas hospital, a
kind of hostel for the indigent, with medical facili-

ties, and concludes that there was no real precedent: the hospital was a Christian invention. Even
the rise of monasticism fits into the selfidentification context, because so far from being a
countercultural phenomenon, new evidence presented by Samuel Rubenson (Monasticism and the
Philosophical Heritage) shows that it emerged
out of social and intellectual trends of the time,
and was supported by mainstream Christian
communities.
David Gwynn (Episcopal Leadership) tackles
the remarkable phenomenon of the emergence of
the Christian bishop as a figure of almost monarchical social as well as religious importance, and
contemporary debates about the nature and purpose
of episcopal leadership. Jaclyn Maxwell (Paganism
and Christianization) digs beneath the unstoppable
rise of Christianity in the fourth and fifth centuries
to ask why people converted, especially given that
pagan and Christian practices merged at the popular, magical or superstitious level. Christian coercion (by legal or violent means) is not enough to
explain conversion (and that was rarely as wholehearted as the bishops would have liked). Interestingly, one of the main motivators for conversion
turns out to have been Christian concern for the
poor, linking us back again to the invention of the
hospital. Aaron Johnson (Hellenism and Its Discontents) considers the conflict between Hellenism
(not quite the same as paganism) and Christianity.
Though Hellenism was sometimes simply equated
with impiety, this was more a fantasy based on
simple polarity, not least because Hellenism consisted of far more than a pagan religious element:
it was literature, philosophy, ethnicity, etc., so that
people could be Greek in some respects and not
others. It was Proclus and Damascius in the fifth
and early sixth centuries whose ideas of what constituted Hellenism focused on the religious and so
allowed a sharper, polemical polarity. Finally,
where conflicts are concerned, the elimination of
heresies (touched on, for instance, by Kevin Uhalde
in Justice and Equality) brings us back to Christian self-definition. Susan Wessel (Theological
Argumentation: The Case of Forgery) rounds the

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topic off by showing how certain texts were identified as forgeries and therefore eliminated from the
canon.
What of other religions? Judaism and Zoroastrianism were already in place, and so have no dedicated
chapters, but Islam arose and flourished in this period,
so it gets two chapters: Robert Hoyland (Early Islam
as a Late Antique Religion) and Stephen Shoemaker
(Muhammad and the Quran).

Every chapter (that I have read) is comprehensibly written by an expert for consumption by nonexperts, and is of a manageable length, with an
excellent bibliography. The chapters survey the
academic state of play in their fields rather than
develop abstruse positions.
Lakonia, Greece

Robin Waterfield

Doctrine and Power: Theological Controversy and Christian Leadership in the Later Roman Empire. By Carlos
R. Galv~ao-Sobrinho. Pp. x, 310, Los Angeles/London, University of California Press, 2013, 52.00.

In this expansion of his doctoral dissertation, G-S

documents the appalling descent by Christian
bishops in the East from engaging charitably in
debate and discussion when matters of contention
in the faith arose, in search of reconciliation and
inter-communion, to mutual exclusion, excommunication, and deposition, not excluding mobilizing entire
populations and armed thugs to violence, that began in
the early fourth century over the Arian conflict, lasted
into the fifth, and cost the lives of thousands. There is
no question but that this is a terrible witness to give to
the world of See how these Christians love one
another. Why was this dispute so different from what
had gone before? Could it have been avoided, or was
it something the Church had to work through? G-S
argues for the former, but his evidence suggests the
latter.
G-S spoils the detailed historical research he
has brought together by seeing this tragic incident
as a forerunner, dry run, or dress rehearsal for the
Protestant Reformation, one that ended horribly
by not concluding in a victory for private interpretation of the scriptures or freedom to worship
as one sees fit, but with rival armed camps each
seeking to impose its own more precise or
speculative theological agenda on the relation
between the Father and Son basically, either
equality or subordinationism on the other as the
true orthodoxy. G-S downplays the religious
issue in favour of a reductionistic interpretation
that casts the major prelates involved in the
mould of Borgia and Medici Renaissance cardinals fighting to increase their authority, prestige
and wealth, and to stay in power by destroying
their enemies before they could be destroyed by
them. A more accurate comparison would have
linked Arius with Abelard rather than Luther. The
real culprit was contact with Greek philosophy
and the discovery of dialectic; the underlying
agenda was the potential expansion and completion of the Greek idea of God as substance

independent, impassible, needing and wanting

nothing, self-preoccupied and self-satisfied to
include the Judeo-Christian notion of God as
active, passionate, jealous, grieving over a wayward people, the dynamic cause behind both the
existence of the world in creation and the salvation of the world through the power of his unique
Son. The Christian scriptures are ambiguous in
containing passages that suggest both Jesus
equality (or oneness), but also his subordination
to the Father. Arius protected the Greek notion of
God with an unctious display of apparently elevated devotion and orthodoxy, insisting that
only Jesus was subject to change: I do not want
a God who appears subject to the suffering of
outrages and degradation. . . God, when he made
the newly begotten and newly created essence of
Christ, prepared an assistant for Himself. (quoted
p. 116) Arius was a master orator, and indeed
many of the Arian leaders were sophists and
teachers of rhetoric. Arius dilated on half of what
the scriptures say about Jesus, but he was not
adequate to the full deposit. Like Abelard, he
took the first, decisive step in dialectic, introducing innovations that he claimed were the true
orthodoxy. Subsequent steps would have to follow to elucidate and defend a trinitarian structure
of the godhead, but they would take several centuries to work out. Meanwhile the Church was
stuck with the egalitarian formula of the Council
of Nicaea a litany of things one may not say,
certainly, but adequate to the deposit and able to
keep the faithful on the right path until a fuller
dialectical account could be constructed. Ambition, pride, and false piety the desire to innovate and distinguish oneself were introduced by
the Arians. Athanasius had no choice but to dig
in his heels and be cast into exile seven times.
Heythrop College

Patrick Madigan

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247

Orosius and the Rhetoric of History. By Peter Van Nuffelen. Pp. 272, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2012,
63.00/$110.00.

Van Nuffelens new text offers a revisionist reading of Orosius Historiae adversus paganos. The
author states that recent scholarly understanding of
the Historiae has misunderstood the text as a theology of history disguised as history. As such, he
says, scholars have largely dismissed the Historiae.
Van Nuffelens approach to the textliterary and
rhetorical rather than theologicalsheds new light
on the Historiae as exemplars of late antique history. By using such literary techniques as allusions,
metaphors, and panegyric, and by unmasking the
rhetorical techniques used by other historians, Orosius questions the pagan understanding of the glorious Roman past.
In the Introduction, the author begins by discussing why a new look at Orosius text is necessary.
He first says that the optimism of the Historiae is
strange to us because we know that shortly after it
was written (416/7), the Roman Empire collapsed.
This optimism has been one of the excuses for dismissing Orosius as an inferior historian. Second,
Orosius has been overshadowed by Augustineto
whom he dedicated the Historiaeand that that
relationship has led to a distorted reading of the
text as a theology of history, rather than history.
Augustines shadow, it seems, continues to loom
over Orosius in a delicious irony as the books
jacket illustration is not a portrait of Orosius himself but from Vittore Carpaccios The Vision of St.
Augustine (although this may be the fault of the
publisher, not the author).
The first chapter describes what can be known
about why Orosius arrived in Africa, and his relationship with Augustine. The author then proceeds
to demonstrate that Orosius literary allusions to
Vergil, the Confessions, and the Gospel of Matthew
are not simply demonstrations of erudition but add
new meaning and depth to the Historiae. He continues to show that Orosius dedication of the text
to Augustine in the preface demonstrates Orosius
relationship with and attempt to cash in on the status of Augustine (36) by drawing on the imagery
of a dog and its master.
Chapter two shows that Orosius intertextual
quotations of Vergil counter previous readings of
book two, which claim that the four empire
theory celebrates the eternity of Rome. The author
argues that Orosius demonstrates that Rome could
fall at any moment, but has not done so because it
has converted to Christianity. Book two reinforces
Orosius claim by Vergils discussion of the sack
of Troy. Throughout the Historiae, Orosius counters the classic understanding of the glory of the

Roman past by showing its shameful founding

based on murder and rape. By using the rhetorical
and historiographical techniques employed in the
early fifth century, Orosius shows the ultimate
superiority of Christianity.
In chapter three, the author focuses on book four
of the Historiae to show that Orosius demonstrates
that pagans do not have a clear understanding of
the true nature of their past and, therefore, their
present. Their rhetorical education has warped their
understanding of the past to the point that they
idealize Roman history. Roman historians often use
exempla in their writings, and these exempla have
distorted the truth about Roman history, which is
much uglier than his interlocutors realize. Orosius,
then, stands alone as the sole authority who truly
understands history as it actually was. He reinterprets common exempla of the shared Roman past
to show Romes foul history. Regardless of his critiques, however, Orosius is unable to escape his
own classical rhetorical education.
The fourth chapter assesses the sources that Orosius used for his Historiae. The standard scholarly
view is that Orosius copied a single source. Van
Nuffelen shows, however, that Orosius used a variety of sources while, at the same time, he rewrote
and expanded those sources instead of slavishly
copying them. Orosius used the collection of exempla from Valerius Maximus, while using a variety
of other sources, including: Augustine, Livy,
Florus, and Vergil, among others. Towards the end
of the Historiae, Orosius runs out of histories on
which to depend because he was writing about the
current age. The author argues that Orosius relied
on a variety of contemporary sources, such as
Jeromes Chronicon, but they are chronicles that
Orosius was forced to amplify and form into a
coherent historical narrative. This, in particular,
shows that Orosius was more than a stale copyist;
he was innovative.
Chapter five investigates Orosius description of
history. Rather than being dry facts, he uses a variety of rhetorical tools, including: enargeia, oratio
gravis, and pathos. Orosius, like many historians of
his time, used these and other techniques in order
to re-present them, and to make the audience experience them once again. The measure of truth, the
author says, is not the simple correspondence of
words to an external reality, but he correspondence
of the recreated experience of the readers perception with that of a real spectator (143). This, of
course, is in direct opposition to our modern understanding of history, which seeks to remove any

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BOOK REVIEWS

hint of inappropriate emotion from the description

of the past.
In the sixth chapter, the author discusses the use
of metaphors, models for historical development
(such as the four empire theory and the metaphor
of a human life span for a state), and panegyrical
passages in the Historiae. He shows that Orosius
uses these tools, which were common in ancient
historiography, to Godnot Romewho is the
sole reason Rome has not fallen. Second, Orosius
relies on Augustine to show the necessity of grace
because of the flaws of humanity. Because of
Gods grace, he says, the impact of the ills of
humanity is lessened than if Rome were still ruled
by pagans. Third, Orosius reminds his audience
that it is Christian Rome that has provided the refuges of Africa and Sicily for those fleeing in 410.
Such options were not available in previous periods
before Christians came to rule Rome.
Chapter seven addresses two related issues. First,
the author shows that the Historiae were not
intended to be a universal history of the world, as
has often been suggested, but that they were
intended to show that Roman history was Orosius
true concern. Orosius is interested in challenging
the glorious romanocentric view of the past that
was inculcated in the schools of rhetoric across the
Roman Empire (171). Second, the author investigates Orosius understanding of the barbarian
invaders. While some scholars have suggested that
Orosius had a positive view of barbarians and
others have suggested a negative, the author says
that Orosius used the barbarians as characters in

his narrative in two ways: they were the executioners of Gods divine justice on Rome and, at the
same time, show that the destruction they wrought
was not as severe as it could have been because
their Christianity tempered the violence.
The final chapter argues that Orosius aligned
himself much more closely to Augustine than previous scholars have argued. Orosius, for example,
relies on much of book 5 of De civitate Dei. The
author does acknowledge, however, that Orosius
was much more optimistic than Augustine about
the influence the Church had on the world because
he believed that Christianity is what held Rome
together while Augustine famously believed that
the wheat and tares are intermingled here on earth.
Van Nuffelens monograph is an important contribution to our understanding of Orosius and the
Christian response to 410. The author adeptly
weaves his way through Orosius tedious descriptions of Roman history (the type of history that
made me hate history as a child) and offers a corrective to the scholarly trend that assumes Orosius
was writing a theology of history. On the other
hand, I could not help but feel that the authors
arguments were not particularly revolutionary. Of
course Orosius used Roman rhetoric. Of course
Orosius used Roman literary techniques. Of course
Orosius was similar to many of the Roman historians of his day. The text, in the end, felt less revisionist and more like a necessary dose of common
sense.
Brescia University

Stuart Squires

Through the Eye of a Needle: Wealth, the Fall of Rome, and the Making of Christianity in the West, 350-550
AD. By Peter Brown. Pp. xxx, 759, Princeton/Oxford, Princeton University Press, 2012, 16.95.

As Peter Brown passes his eightieth birthday, and

emeritus from Princeton, he delivers a doorstop of
a book that sums up his work over the past two
decades, and in some ways over his whole career.
Although he performs at the beginning a perfunctory obeisance before his notion of objective
methodology for an historian forswearing any
and all notions of teleology as one describes a
particular institution or movement at a particular
stage of its growth what the book in fact does
is chart the hesitant, tentative, zigzag progression
by which Christianity, declared a privileged but
still minority religion by Constantine in 325,
initially is content to occupy the niche of a lowprofile, tolerated cult, is surprised by conversions
from the new wealth of upwardly-mobile town
counsellors, imperial bureaucrats, and military
men during the age of gold that Constantine

inaugurates who begin to challenge the super-rich

old wealth of the senatorial class who despise
Christianity and its counter-cultural outreach
towards the poor defined in Old Testament fashion as those who lack power and consequently
suffer injustice rather than those who are necessarily beggars or totally dispossessed. Then surprisingly individuals from the super rich turn
traitor to their class and begin to convert, and
here begins Christianitys interesting engagement
with the traditional contract by which the rich
and poor Romans collaborated and got along with
one another. Agriculturally-based society was necessarily hierarchical, and this allowed, indeed
almost necessitated, the accumulation by land
owners of super riches; exposure to drought and
crop failure was the great danger, and here the
rich were buffered and protected by their

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enormous warehouses wherein to store grain for

bad times. Terror before scarcity, and a consequent slide downward into true or literal impoverishment, held society together; owners were
allowed to become rich as long as they provided
grain during lean times and the spectacles and
games which were the chief form of entertainment, patriotism, civic munificence, and demonstration of their commitment to their native city
they were expected to finance or lay on and for
their own glory. That done, the work force
could be roughly handled and revolts put down
brutally.
Christianity disturbed this relationship by preaching that riches should be diverted from the wasteful
thrill of the games to providing basic necessities
and security for the poor and in general building
up the Church; deeper than that, pride rather than
money was the real evil, in that the former was
responsible for the cruelty, abandonment, and
injustice in society. The genius of Christianity
consisted in showing that it was the will rather
than matter that is the source of evil and thus
needed to be converted; money was a gift from
God that needed to be well used. When this hap-

249

pens, treasure on earth could be transformed into

treasure in heaven.
The interest of the book consists in showing how
this challenge from Christianity mixed with preexisting structures in Roman society, the need of
retreat for otium or the leisure to relieve stress, simplify ones life, to read and study the classics; and of
how the periodic attempts to demonize wealth or the
rich through calls for total renunciation by ascetics
were gradually tempered into the recognition of the
need for an internal conversion by all members of
society; indeed, it was lay Christians rather than
theological experts who began to insist on the otherness of the clergy through celibacy, through beautiful churches and basilicas, and through powerful
preaching and liturgical ceremonies, as they
acknowledged their own lapses and need for divine
assistance, to make sure that this commercium
between heaven and earth remained viable and salvation open for sinners. By 600 Europe was Christian and this new common sense was solidly in
place, later to be challenged occasionally but never
changed. A definitive work and fascinating read.
Heythrop College

Patrick Madigan

The Throne of Adulis: Red Sea Wars on the Eve of Islam. By G. W. Bowersock. Pp. xxii, 181, Oxford University
Press, 2013, $24.95.

Bowersock is unaware of Ren
e Girards theory of

mimetic desire, but he tells a story that almost cries
out to present itself as a case study supporting this
theory, which accounts for the amazing development of rival Jewish and Christian kingdoms simultaneously on opposite sides of the Red Sea in Late
Antiquity, and the miraculous appearance of Islam
from nowhere, as the Arab population became frustrated and exasperated trying to satisfy their
mimetic desire for monotheism through the acceptance of one or the other versions on offer from the
external (and rivalrous) great powers, and decided
instead to satisfy it by generating an indigenous
species which they claimed was continuous with
the original and pristine faith of Abraham and
which thus superseded the later versions of Moses
and Jesus!
The two great fascinating objects of desire in the
ancient world were, first, the monotheism of the
Jews that they claimed made them a special people
chosen above all others, and secondly, imperial
dominance that lifted up one people as rulers over
others. The combination became the Holy Grail
into whose pursuit and acquisition all cultures were
unconsciously sucked as they became aware of the
existence of these traditions. It is amazing how

early both the Ethiopian culture on the west bank,

and the Yemeni Arab culture on the east bank of
the Red Sea, became aware of the Jewish scriptures
and each tried to present their rulers as Sons of
David through the visit of the Queen of Sheba
who visited Solomons court, seduced him into
impregnating her, and returned with a royal heir
who founded their respective dynasties. Myths
aside, Ethiopia was early incorporated into
Alexanders Hellenistic culture, preserved Greek as
an official lingua franca beside the native Geez
for the all-important international trade, principally
with Ptolomaic Egypt and beyond, and accepted
the transition from polytheistic paganism to monotheistic Christianity in part out of rivalry and status
aspirations having to do with keeping up with the
Jones to their North. Amazingly the Arabs across
the water, not to be outdone by their trade rivals
and occasional political masters, accepted Judaic
monotheism, sponsored by Byzantines mimetic
rival, Persia. When Ethiopia threatened to reactivate claims to rule the Arab kingdom, the nowJewish ruler responded by massacring hundreds of
Christians. All-out war ensued.
The violence generated by the rival mimetic
desires ended with a scapegoat being found in the

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BOOK REVIEWS

duplicitous imperial cultures who had first

enflamed their upwardly-mobile aspirations by dangling monotheism above them, but had thereby
exploited these client states to fight a proxy,
brushfire war in their stead. As the two kingdoms
tired on both sides of the straight, the native Arab
pagan population saw a way to steal the prize, saying a pox on both your houses! An illiterate Arab
polytheist began receiving revelations from the

same monotheistic God, one that he claimed recovered the covered-over pristine faith of Abraham,
and thus superseded and invalidated the later two.
The Arabs thereby seized the initial object of
desire monotheism - and empire would naturally
come next. Read this fascinating book keeping a
copy of Girard by your side.
Heythrop College

Patrick Madigan

The Ancient Jews from Alexander to Muhammad (Key Themes in Ancient History). By Seth Schwartz. Pp. xi,
190, Cambridge University Press, 2014, 17.99/$29.99.

Schwartz builds on his Imperialism and Jewish Society, 200 BCE to 640 CE (2001) and Were the Jews a
Mediterranean Society? Reciprocity and Solidarity
in Ancient Judaism (2010) to write this briefer work
which is primarily an instruction in proper historical
methodology for the same period. Herein he calls
historians to be honest about what we dont know
about what was going on beneath the political surface, primarily among the non-elites who, more
often than not, were illiterate as well (even as concerns the Jews) and who thus left no written record.
He demonstrates a humbling and chastening agnosia, insists upon the complexity of the documentary,
philological, and archeological evidence, and is content to act as a spoiler to the grand narratives other
historians believe it is their proper mission to throw
up in this period where paradoxically we can say relatively little with confidence. Again and again he
turns the reader aside from the grandiose, heroic, or
eulogistic interpretations many of the texts we have
from the period want to give of the events they are
recounting, to consider a more every-day or deflationary alternative. This is a great service for this
period that includes the Maccabean Revolt, the rise
of the Hasmoneans and their relation to the surrounding Seleucid and Ptolemaic civilizations, the
incursion of Rome and its rivalry with the rising Parthian empire, the three catastrophic Jewish rebellions against Rome (with a possible fourth, largely
unrecorded, in 352 CE), their effects on a new form
of Jewish lifestyle with the rise of the Patriarch and
the rabbis, the shape that Judaism took under the
Christian emperors, the gradual marginalization of
Jews from political society, and the consequent sympathy of the Jews for heterodox (subordinationist)
forms of Christianity and the Sasanids against Rome
in the buffer states surrounding the Persian Gulf on
the eve of the Moslem conquest. There is thus no
lack of absorbing topic, and Schwartz gives us a
sober, unsentimental, and up-to-date presentation at
every turn. He is good at understanding, in an almost

Girardian manner, how Jewish and Christian villages

in Palestine during the Byzantine period could fall
into rivalry with other towns of their own persuasion
and with one another, so as to become virtual mirror
images of one another.
Girards theory of mimetic rivalry also helps to
explain the strange opposition that established itself
very early between Temple Judaism and the
Roman empire, the intensity of which goes so far
towards explaining developments during this period
down to the Moslem conquest. Here Schwartzs
methodological sobriety and modesty go too far
and outlaw or rout psychological insight: both cultures saw themselves as superior to those around
them and as having a world-wide vocation or mission of which each would be the center. Each promulgated a corresponding lifestyle the Romans
an euergetic and patronage system around big
men based on a mastery of Hellenistic literacy and
rhetoric in which the line between the sacred and
profane in public sacrifice was allowed to be
blurred or enlisted in the service of patriotic loyalty, divinization of the emperor, and to provide
food, circuses, theaters, and gladiatorial contests
for the large underclass; and the Jewish by a contrary emphasis on the separation between the
sacred and the profane and an elimination of such
public entertainments and their replacement by
authorized cult. Accommodation between these two
could go only so far; rivalry was inevitable. Similarly the relation between Judaism and Christianity
during the Byzantine period came down to a competition between two different interpretations of a
common transcendent or separate godhead with
the Arabs eventually trumping them both with an
even more transcendent and exigently demanding
revelation by the same godhead, thereby converting themselves from victims and spectators on the
political scene into a major new player.
Heythrop College

Patrick Madigan

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251

Abrogation in the Quran and Islamic Law: A Critical Study of the Concept of Naskh and its Impact. By Louay
Fatoohi. Pp. xiv, 287, NY/Milton Park, Routledge, 2014, 80.00.

Fatoohi is an Iraqi Christian who converted to

Islam and has subsequently conducted several studies of Islamic topics. This one is of the central
mechanism of abrogation, or Naskh, used to
resolve apparent contradictions in the Quran, or
between the Quran and the Sunna, an account of
the words and deeds of Muhammad held to be a
separate oral revelation. One modern scholar, alJabri, has stated that more Islamic works have been
written about abrogation than about any other subject in Islamic studies, yet there has been only one
earlier study on it in English, that by John Burton
in 1990. Abrogation is essential for ruling that one
saying in the revelation has been cancelled or
superseded by another, later one; otherwise, there
is no way to resolve an apparent contradiction. Yet
Fatoohis results are devastating; he joins Burton in
concluding that there is no basis for this notion in
the Quran or early Islam. It is a later invention,
devised by embarrassed legal scholars, and read
back into the original corpus of laws to allow
judges to achieve coherence in their pronouncements. Another word for it would be fraud; like
Luther using scissors to cut out passages from the
Bible, such as the Letter of James, that he didnt like,
this device gives Islamic scholars or anyone who
wanted to call himself such a tool to excise passages
from revelation that he felt constricted his behaviour
simply by declaring it abrogated or superseded in
effect no longer operative. In effect, he could produce his own Quran in fact, everyone did, because
there is no other way to reduce it to a coherent document. Needless to say, this greatly reduces the ability
of the revelation to act as a guide or curb to anyones
chosen behaviour. This device is not just a discovery
of recent jihadists who want to wrap themselves in the
Islamic flag and invoke Muslim authority to justify
actions they have antecedently decided upon

although it is that, and explains why there is and can

be no effective or official brake within Islam upon
such behaviour; this was a form of deception or deceit
practiced from the very beginning to allow Islam to
escape the charge of contradiction in its most basic,
authoritative documents - and by all legal scholars.
Thats why there are so many books attempting to justify it.
The most notorious case is the so-called verse
of the sword, or a verse that allows a scholar to
wipe out or kill a whole series of other Quran
verses that instruct Muslims to be tolerant of nonMuslims, to accommodate other religions, show
forgiveness, and seek peace; however this abrogation has no foundation in the Quran. More fundamentally, the Hadith makes a distinction between the
mushaf and the Quran, claiming that the mushaf,
compiled after the Prophets death, does not contain
all Quranic verses, as some were withdrawn by God
during the life of the Prophet and consequently not
recorded. God either made the Prophet and original
Muslims forget these verses, or his divine will,
which knows the temporariness or permanence of any
ruling, could change it at any time as He saw fit. Such
a powerful principle of cancelling or expanding
legal pronouncements at will, and invoking divine
authority to do so, makes a mockery of the notion of a
fixed standard. A concrete illustration is various practices of early Muslim communities that went against
the Qurans teaching; rather than change the practice
to reflect the Quran, the authorities massaged the
offending verses so as to soften them so that they
would tolerate the contrary practices or simply
invented new sayings of the Prophet that abrogated
the earlier verses. In other words, you make it up as
you go along. Let the mountain come to Muhammad.
Heythrop College

Patrick Madigan

Envisioning Islam: Syriac Christians and the Early Muslim World. By Michael Philip Penn. Pp. 294, Philadelphia,
University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015,

The first Christians to encounter Islam were not

Greek-speakers from Constantinople, still less
Latin-speakers from the western Mediterranean, but
Mesopotamian Christians who spoke the Aramaic
dialect of Syriac. Divided among themselves in
reaction to the Calcedonian formula of Christs
composition enforced by the Byzantines, which
they by and large rejected, and involved in internecine rivalry and exclusiveness, they had already
experienced a half-century of strife and regime-

change in the seventh century through conflict

between Byzantine and Persian armies, so that they
were not too upset at the Moslem forces who
arrived subsequently and did not inflict much damage indeed, the Syriacs were initially not even
aware the strangers had a distinct religion. Further,
the evidence suggests they did not. For the first
century of its existence, Islam was a loosely ecumenical movement towards theological simplification something like Bahai - which only

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BOOK REVIEWS

gradually solidified into a theological position.

Eventually it would accept everything in the Christian bible except that Jesus was the Son of God
(God is not only one, but hyper-transcendent and
hence changeless he has no sons). And Jesus
did not die on a cross. God comes close to us not
through a person, but in the Jewish fashion through
a book and its distinctive laws. Jesus was a
prophet, but Muhammad was the messenger of
God who received a revelation that supersedes all
others. This all came later, however. Initially, and
all through their rule, Moslems respected Christians
and especially their monks, often praying at Christian shrines and showing honour to their martyrs
and saints; they made no direct attempt to convert
them. It was through its political face, through
taxation and other forms of economic and social
discrimination, that Islam slowly tightened the
noose and made Christians pay for their sense of
superiority towards a group they seemed to consider theologically their little brothers.
Penn contents himself with disputing Huntingtons clash of civilizations as an accurate description of Christian-Moslem relations from the
seventh to the ninth centuries; while accurate, he
does not do justice to the data he himself puts on
display. The bewildering variety and proud refusal
to compromise among the rival christologies of the
Eastern Churches was unquestionably a powerful
factor towards Muhammads exasperation in cutting the Gordian knot by taking a step backward
to Judaism and beyond to affirm only the unity
of God, rejecting not only a composition in

Christs nature but even the Trinity. For their sin

of pride and failure to be reconciled, the Syriac
Churches paid a high price a punishment they
interpreted as for not being faithful to their own
exclusive christologies! Moslem assertions of
theological supersessionism were countered and
compensated for in practice by an acknowledgment of liturgical inferiority and social underdevelopment or lack of sophistication. They were
johnny-come-latelies, largely copying Jewish,
Christian, and Zoroastrian liturgical style and ceremonies; they esteemed the monks and holy ascetics
because they had no monasteries of their own, and
their description of paradise was indeed embarrassingly carnal and materialistic compared to the
Christian account. Syriac stories of social interaction are not simply samizdat or fantasy victories
by a politically impotent subject population, but
reflect an acknowledgment of social inferiority by
Moslems when they were alone and could afford to
be honest in various fora. Moslems exacted their
revenge for the Christians proud exclusiveness
through their social and economic extortions,
while conceding in secret that Christians had a
truer faith, and that they were only kept from converting through social pressure based on group
ressentiment and fear of punishment. Penn has told
us the story we should not tell (clash of civilizations) but he has not told us the story we should
tell which is there in the texts.
Heythrop College

Patrick Madigan