Early Christianity out of, and in, Context

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The author of this review is an historian of religion. He has studied ancient Christianity (and has a degree in theology), but has always done so within the context of the ancient Mediterranean world. Contextualizing 'religions' in their political, social, cultural, and ethnic settings in all their diversity and their dynamics and their homogeneities is an approach that has proved to be not merely fruitful, but in fact essential. Intensive interaction across ethnic and religious divides is evident everywhere. It is manifested in social contacts and elite formation, in philosophical thinking and in juridical procedure, in architectural style and in economic exchanges. Consider for a moment the many examples provided by ancient Palestine.1 The same is true for many other cities, regions, and provinces of the Roman Empire.2 From a different perspective, this emphasis on context and cultural exchange represents a return to directions taken by the Religionsgeschichtliche Schule at the beginning of the twentieth century. Today, however, our interest is no longer concentrated on genetic explanations, nor on Hellenistic philosophy and Iranian dualism. Writing histories of early Christianity that pay proper attention to context has not proved easy. Ten years ago, the titles of a Franco-German co-operative multi-volume Histoire du christianisme des origines a nos jours and the German version's subtitle Religion, Politik, Kultur indicated an interest in going beyond accounts of Christianity that treat it in isolation.3 But the results remained limited. More than 2,000 pages in two volumes were dedicated to the period up to A.D. 450. The second volume (dealing with the period from A.D. 250 onwards) concentrated on the organization and spread of Christianity and its development of a new social ethos, while the first dedicated one chapter to the 'separation' of Jews and Christians between A.D. 30 and 135 and another long one to 'Early Christians and Greek culture'. However, the perspective was always from the (often very diverse) Christian groups onto the surrounding religious and intellectual cultures, and the analysis employed metaphors of adaptation, conquest, and integration of elements of pagan culture. Of course (and rightly), Hellenistic Judaism was taken as a starting point: but it was treated too much as a world apart.