The Archaeology of Early Christianity: A History by William H. C. Frend

Abstract

book reviews729 ume closes with the scientific discoveries and theory of evolution which undermined faith in Genesis in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Although a tour de force by a meticulous researcher at the height of his powers, History of Paradise is not without flaws. Attempting to cover his topic's every aspect, Delumeau see-saws between centuries, often repeating himseU. There are a wealth of endnotes (953 individual citations on pp. 237-270), with full bibUographical information in initial citations, but no bibliography .This makes checking references annoyingly tedious, and Delumeau frequently returns to sources, often in widely separated chapters, as he jumps back and forth in time.The index, which Usts only persons cited, is of limited value and (as spot checks demonstrated) incomplete. Lastly, as might be expected in such a wide-ranging work, some sections, particularly the discussions of medieval cartography and travel literature, are quite superficial.These reservations stated, the patient reader wUl derive a wealth of interesting information and stimulation from History ofParadise. James D. Ryan Bronx Community College City University ofNew York The Archaeology ofEarly Christianity:A History. ByWUUam H. C. Frend. (MinneapoUs : Fortress Press. 1996. Pp. xix, 412; 3 plans, 8 maps, 16 b/w figures, 10 color figures. $3900.) Reverend Professor W. H. C. Frend, D.D., F.B.A., Professor Emeritus of Ecclesiastical History (Glasgow) and AngUcan Divine, is one of this century's great figures in the study of early Christianity. Frend is a master narrator, and I found his most recent book a treasure-trove of personaUties, places, and events that have shaped our current understanding of the material world brought into being by the earUest Christians. Frend paints with a very broad brush. He begins his version of the story with Helena, Constantine, and Eusebius, arguably the first "archaeologists " of early Christianity, and he concludes somewhere in the tomorrow, asking pointed questions about the prospects (in his view rather dim) for the study of early Christian archaeology; the latter, he warns, may well suffer the fate of New Testament studies and become starved of new materials. . . . Reworking a static data base is the way to fossUization and irrelevance. ... (p. 388). Archaeology consists in fifteen chapters. Chapter One concerns the Constantinian discoverers of their Christian antecedents.Two begins (ca. 413) with Jerome's Sunday visits to the catacombs and ends in the seventeenth century, but the focus is on Bosio, Chifflet, Mabillon, and Camden, in other words ItaUan, French, and British antiquarians of the seventeenth century.Three concerns the eighteenth century not a highpoint in the study of early Christianity, although it 730book reviews did produce important historical works by TiUemont, von Mosheim, and Gibbon . Four, entitled "Napoleon," focusses on discoveries in Egypt, especiaUy Nubia, which is one of Frend's particular interests. Five concerns mid-nineteenth -century French excavations in Algeria and the Donatists (another Frend domain in which he has distinguished himself); Chapter Six recounts the work of Cardinal Lavigerie in Algeria and Tunisia; of de Vogüe in Syria; of de Rossi in Rome; and of Leblant in early Christian Provence. Seven concernsW. M. Ramsay inTurkey. Eight covers the years leading up to the outbreak ofWorldWar I: the French inTunisia and Algeria; the British (Ramsay and BeU),Austrians, Germans, and Americans inTurkey and northern Syria; the EngUsh and Germans in Egypt and Nubia; the Germans and French in Ethiopia and central Asia; de Rossi's followers in the Roman catacombs; Bulic , Dyggve, and Egger in the Balkans. Nine and Ten concern the important achievements (notably the Franco-American project at SaUyeh/Dura) ofthe interwar period, 1919-1940. Eleven recounts the excavations under St. Peter's, at Toura, Nag Hammadi, and Qumran (on which now see R. Donceel, OEANE [NewYork, 1997], s.v.).The last three chapters concern field work carried out since 1945 along with publications and episodic accounts of meetings held in the postwar period.The book concludes with a map ofthe Roman Empire, an appendix that gives the dates ofthe thirteen Congressi Internazionali di Archeologia Cristiana, a select bibliography, and a general index. Frend covers a huge amount of ground in this book. It is difficult to summarize a book of this scope...