Le Martyre de Pionios Prêtre de Smyrne ed. and trans. by Louis Robert

Abstract

630BOOK REVIEWS The basic framework for doing this was that of two covenants of God with his people, with the second constituting progress over the first. At this point, starting with Irenaeus, Kinzig begins his detailed analysis of the idea of salvation history as progress. The Montanists raised the possibility of ongoing revelation. For Tertullian, this took the form of a more stringent discipline by means ofwhich the Church would become progressively better. But these ideas did not receive general acceptance. He shows how Clement, Origen, and Arnobius all contributed to the growth of the idea of salvation history as progress, but, for them, this was primarily a justification of Christian origins. The author sees the culmination of the development of the Christian idea of progress in the work of Lactantius and Eusebius at the beginning of the fourth century. The defining event of this time was, of course, the conversion of Constantine. The Church was psychologically unprepared for this great turnabout, but, he insists, the work of authors like Origen had laid the theoretical foundation for the conclusions drawn by Eusebius. The latter did not politicize theology; rather, he formulated a theological politics. For Eusebius, the Constantinian empire emerged as the vanguard of a God-directed progressive development. The Christian empire became an anticipation of God's kingdom. Since Eusebius had little interest in eschatology, one can conclude that this progress would not stop soon but would continue in this world for a long time to come. Kinzig concludes with a modest amount of editorializing, exhorting Christians to abandon the idea of progress. Eusebius, not for the first time, emerges as a sort of theological villain whose spiritual myopia cost the Church dearly. While scholars in the future will continue to debate these issues, the painstakingly amassed data and careful analysis of this work will no doubt furnish them with a place to start. Robert B. Eno, S.S. The Catholic University ofAmerica LeMartyre dePioniosPrêtre de Smyme. Édité, traduit et commenté par Louis Robert; mis au point et complété par G. W. Bowersock et C. P. Jones. (Washington D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection. 1994. Pp. ?, 152. »35.00.) The third-centuryMartyrdom ofPionius was already well known to English readers from Herbert Musurillo, The Acts of the Christian Martyrs (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972). Musurillo's edition, however, has come in for a good deal of criticism, not least from Louis Robert himself, who had been working on an edition for Sources Chrétiennes since at least I960. The work under review is a posthumous production, which reproduces Robert's edition of the BOOK REVIEWS631 Greek text and his French translation en face (pp. 21-45). The commentary (pp. 49-121) is based on the "vast and wide-ranging files" entrusted by Mme Jeanne Robert to Professors Bowersock and Jones, who have "edited and supplemented them in French so as to incorporate, wherever possible, his original words" (p. viii). Robert's unequalled knowledge of the topography, prosopography, archaeology, epigraphy, numismatics, and local calendar and cults of Smyrna converges to shed radiant new light on every one of the twenty-six paragraphs that make up this Martyrium. Above all, he dissipates any lingering doubts about its authenticity, and firmly situates it in the persecution of Decius rather than of Marcus Aurelius. Also included here are eight plates illustrating the agora, the coinage and inscriptions of Smyrna, an extract from a very moving lecture on Pionios, delivered to a Warsaw conference by Robert in 1968 (pp. 1-9) and (for the first time) a French translation of the Old Slavic text by André Vaillant (pp. 123-136). Robert considered the Martyrium Pionii not only authentic but a "jewel" among ancient texts. It is a pleasure to accord the same rating among modern editions to the present work. Thomas Halton The Catholic University ofAmerica Constantine the Great: The Man and His Times. By Michael Grant. (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. 1994. Pp. xii, 267. »27.50.) The renowned and prolific British historian Michael Grant has written several dozen books concerning the different periods, personalities, and phenomena of classical antiquity. In this work, he expands upon subject matter he...