Rebecca's Children: Judaism and Christianity in the Roman World by Alan F. SegalReview by: Martin A. CohenThe American Historical Review, Vol. 93, No. 1 (Feb., 1988), pp. 129-130Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Historical AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1865710 .

Accessed: 28/06/2014 13:29

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

.

Oxford University Press and American Historical Association are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize,preserve and extend access to The American Historical Review.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 91.220.202.75 on Sat, 28 Jun 2014 13:29:26 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Ancient 129

over the interpretation of his last years and ultimate plans arid cannot be finally settled.

TFhe book is wide in scope (Caesar marries, we get an account of Roman marriage ceremonies; he goes to Rhodes, the city is described), but it lacks depth. Kahn exhibits some credulity toward ancient rhetor- ical historians and a desire to draw parallels between the society of the falling republic and what is seen as a similar crisis in America, which leads him to underplay the foreignness of Rome; for example, the nature of traditional societies in general and Roman ancestor worship, literal and less literal, in particular, are crucial to any understanding of the conservatism of the oligarchs. Elsewhere too Kahn is unfair to Caesar's opponents. He speaks of Pompey's "high, empty forehead," but the famous bust reveals a somewhat low forehead, and the career shows great administrative ability and an interest in and respect f'or intellectual matters. Cicero is treated with old-fashioned contempt, and the intellectual contrast between him and Caesar misunderstood: we are told that Caesar stood for "the enlightened Epicurean philosophy" (the idea that it was a left-wing creed has in fact been largely exploded, andl Caesar seems not to have been inter- ested in philosophy as opposed to other intellectual subjects) and that Cicero's philosophic treatises were in essence politically reactionary assaults on this doctrine. t'his is hardly even kindly to be described as an oversimplification.

The book, then, is not for academics; some gen- eral readers may find it a way into a fascinating period, in spite of the excess of detail that sometimes obscures the significance of events. But it fails in its ambitious purpose, for its analysis of the collapsing society of the Republic is too pedestrian to help us undlerstand either that period or the American present.

ELIZABEETH RAWSON

Corpus Chrish College University of Oxford

ALAN F. SEGAL. Rebecca's Children: Judaism and Chrns- tianity in the Romacn World. C(ambridge: Harvard University Press. 1986. Pp. viii, 207. $20.00.

Alan F. Segal's latest work is an important contribu- tion to the analysis of rabbinic Judaism and early Christianity from the perspectives of the social sci- ences. It is an effort to plumb the origins of these constellations of faith through political science, his- tory, sociology, anthropology, economics, linguistics, and literary analysis. fo this end Segal reviews the histor-y of Israel frorn the Persian period to the first century. Against this background he provides de- tailed chapters entitled "Society in the Time of Jesus," "Jesus, the jewish Revolutionary," "Paul, the

Convert and Apostle," "Origins of the Rabbinic Movement," and "Communities in Conflict." He prefaces these with an analytic resume of the world view or "myth" that ancient Israel bequeathed to the theocracy and thence the first century. In these studies Segal applies social-scientific insights to such topics as the diminution of Near Eastern agricul- tural power before Alexander, the societal roots of Hellenization, the extrareligious dimensions of the Hasmonean revolution, the sociopolitical role of first-century sectarianism, the psychology of apocalypticism, the social foundations of Jesus' orig- inal support, cognitive dissidence and Pauline the- ology, and the social valence of the Pharisaic purity procedures.

Segal's text of fewer than two hundred pages could hardly be expected to provide a detailed history of early Christianity and early rabbinic Ju- daism or their social dynamics. Understandably, therefore, many facets of Segal's study require fur- ther consideration in the light of conternporary societal theory and available studies. TFhus, all ge- neric treatments of the Essenes, the Qumr-an secta- ries, the early Christians, the emerging Pharisees, the constitutional struggles within early rabbinic Judaism, and the often specious dichotomies between the religious and the political motivation of first- century events can now be cogently reassessed on sociopolitical grounds.

Other traditionally accepted views should also be reconsidered: that the Sadducees were an upper- class group; that Paul was a convert to a new religion from the "Pharisaic movement"; that mid-first- century Judaism and Christianity were two separate religions; that the practice of the Law (written and oral) was foreign to early Christianity; that the havurot were "purity clubs"; thatJudaism and Chris- tianity developed into religions primarily of per- sonal piety; and that early rabbinic Judaism and early Christianity conflicted with one another but were essentially united.

Segal's adumbration of many problems suggests the renewed youth of the fields of late biblical, intertestamental, and early rabbinic studies in the light of the approaches he represents. His brief but incisive insights into subjects such as the Passover and Gnosticism exemplify the directions needed for deeper study. Perhaps in his own elucidations the author might wish to clarify the meaning of expres- sions such as "intermarriage" in theocratic Israel or "national life" or "membership in the Jewish reli- gion" for protorabbinic Judaism. Equally valuable would be an exposition of some of his novel ideas, among them that of the founcling of "historical Zionism . . . by the post-exilic Isaiah" (p. 16).

Segal's work reveals a broad command of the sources and the multidiscipliniary outlook requisite for modern reconstructions. He has raised issues

This content downloaded from 91.220.202.75 on Sat, 28 Jun 2014 13:29:26 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

130 Reviews of Books

that will excite discussion and respectfully challenge many a traditional approach.

MARTIN A. COHEN

Hebrew Union College Jewish Inastitute of Religion

MARTA SORDI. The Chnritians and the Roman Empire. TFranslated by ANNABEL BEDINI. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. 1986. Pp. 215. $22.50.

Marta Sordi has already established her reputation as an expert in the history of early Christianity. The present volume is the latest of her works translated from the Italian, which appeared in 1983. TFhe book is divided into two unequal sections. TFhe first, by far the longest, discusses church-state relations from New Testament times to the peace of Constantine, the second deals with issues facing Christianity in a pagan society. This section contains only a few short essays and an introduction.

TFhe first chapter discusses the trial of Jesus and the situation of the early church up to 62 A.D. Here the author contrasts the benevolent attitude of the emperor toward Christ and the (Christians with the hostility of the senatorial aristocracy. TFhe second chapter is mostly concerned with the Neronian persecution, by which time Christianity, we are told, had penetrated the aristocratic circles of Rome; the irnstitutum Neroniantum, however, which the author treats as a historical fact, made Christianity into a relhigo illicita. In the third chapter we read that the Flavian emperors made the acquaintance of Chris- tianity already in Palestine during the Jewish war, but Domitian's persecution helped identify Chris- tianity as a f'orm of impiety, atheism. Frajan's rescript occupies the major portion of the fourth chapter, and again Sordi claims that the emperor was completely convinced of the political harmless- ness of the (Christians, although Antoninus Pius had a "reactionary attitude." Marcus Aurelius actively intervened against the Christians; the main reason behind his move was the fact that the pagans mis- took Montanism for Christianity. TFhe fifth chapter deals with the Severan age, during which there was a "de facto" toleration, and the sixth with Philip the Arab, who is presented as a practicing Chr-istian. After a brief treatnment of Decius's attempted pagan restoration we come to chapter 7, which covers the reign of Valerian, whose persecution resulted in the recognition of the Christians by Gallienus. Diocle- tian's great persecution is the subject of chapter 8, and the first section of the book ends with chapter 9, a discussion of Constantine, who, according to the author, had a genuine and sudden experience of conversion and made "a complete break with all the traditions of the empire" (p. 135). TFhe remaining four chapters (and an introduction) deal with the

philosophical and religious traditions of Rome, the cult of the emperors, the organization of the early church, and pagan public opinion ahout Christian- ity.

Sordi knows much about the early church and the Roman empire. She also appears to be a conserva- tive scholar who does not like to deviate fr-om traditional Christian views. Her professed aim in this book is to prove that all persecutions were religiously motivated, because the Romans "almost never" thought of the Christians as a political threat. TFhe point could be debated, for some of the au- thor's arguments appear rather far-fetched. 'Fo name only two, the suggestions that Tiberius may have originated a debate in the Rornan Senate on the issue of' Christ's divinity is anachronistic, and, as far as Montanism is concerned, many historians refuse to classify it as a non-Christian movement and would rather think of' it as a deviant form of Christianity. Unfortunately, Sordi could not consult many new studies that have recently appeared in this field in English, obviously, because of the time gap that necessarily exists between the finishing of a manuscript, its publication, and its translation into a foreign language. But, in spite of all this, she has given us a challenging book, well worth reading.

STEPHEN B ENKO

California State University, Fresno

MEDIEVAL

JOHN W. BALDWIN. The Government of Philip Augustus: Foundations of French Royal Power in the Middle Ages. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. 1986. Pp. xxi, 611. $50.00.

In 1923 when Louis Halphen reviewed the last of Alexander Cartellieri's four volumes on Philip Augustus, he praised and lamented "la minutie de l'expos&" in observing that the Germian professor at Jena had scarcely touched on the monarch's devel- opment of government and administration. Now, sixty-five years later, it is precisely that enormnous lacuna that John W. Baldwin has sought to fill. In doing so, he has graciously based his narrative sections on Cartellieri's famous factual array.

Faking as his point of departure the long-held general view that Philip's reign was the turning point in the emergence of a strong and effective medieval French mionarchy, Baldwin has searched for the interior tournant, that moment within the reign when some new royal policy set in motion the forces that acconmplished that goal. In this search he has strictly rejected the earlier twentieth-century view that the maturing of Capetian government

This content downloaded from 91.220.202.75 on Sat, 28 Jun 2014 13:29:26 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions