In Hora Mortis: Évolution de la pastorale chrétienne de la mort aux IVe et Ve siècles dans l'Occident latin by Eric Rebillard

Abstract

In Hora Mortis: Evolution de la pastorale chretienne de la mort aux IV sup e et V sup e SIECLES DANS L'Occident latin. By Eric Rebillard. [Bibliotheque des Ecoles francaises d' Athenes et de Rome, Fascicule 283.] (Rome: Ecole Francaise de Rome. 1994. Pp. xvi, 269.) This book studies the attitudes toward the fear of death and the fear of judgment at the turn of the fifth century. It sets out to document a significant and radical change in the Western Christian attitude toward the fear of death and judgment. A careful reading of this study may not seem obvious within a time when things like death, sin, and penance are rarely addressed in the mainstream of Christian life or conversation. Yet, the process of discovering the rich transformations of another age may well open the way to the positive, forward looking aspects of those themes for present-day Christian life and thought. In any case, this finely crafted book is worth the time and effort. In continuity with their predecessors, preachers such as Zeno of Verona and Ambrose of Milan spoke of death as a good; fear of death was a sign of a bad conscience (p. 19);faith was said to destroy the fear of death (p. 25). In the context of a Stoic philosophy or at a time when there is a need to affirm the value of Christian martyrdom, the view that death is a good to be desired and the fear of death is a sign of guilt may be understandable. However, by the beginning of the fifth century, figures such as Augustine, Peter Chrysologus, and Leo the Great thought of the feat of death as a normal, acceptable human and Christian experience, not a sign of a bad conscience. Rebillard provides a clear, detailed, and valuable analysis of sermons, burial inscriptions, and other related material from that time, thus documenting a changed pastoral approach toward death at the beginning of the fifth century. A significant aspect of his analysis centers on the impact of the Pelagian controversy on this multifaceted aspect of Christian experience. Holding that the fear of death is not a fundamental part of human nature, Augustine used the common fact of fear to say that death is a punishment original sin (pp. 63-65). He thus made a conscious break with the heroic ideal of the mastery of self, the keystone of which was the acceptance of death without fear (p. 119). It was the Pelagian controversy which led Augustine to crystallize some previously held aspects of his thought on the effects of original sin (p. 84). As with other fifth-century writers, his acceptance of the fact that one cannot be without sin allows him to emphasize daily penance and focus, not on fear of death or of judgment, but on the hope of salvation p. 144-145, 165-166). Rebillard's study of the fear of judgment is similar to that of the fear of death, showing how fear came to be a sign of a clear, rather than a bad conscience (pp. 148 and 225) and how penance itself came to be redefined in terms that touched all Christians rather than just the serious sinner (pp. …