Review: [untitled]

Author(s): Gillian Clark

Reviewed work(s):
Basil of Caesarea by P. Rousseau
Source: The Journal of Roman Studies, Vol. 86 (1996), pp. 240-241
Published by: Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/300475
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240 REVIEWS

weary stride, and struggles on thereafter. This is a convincing portrayal of a man who survived
much, and an authoritative guide to the complexities of the post-imperial experience.

Keio University NEIL MCLYNN

P. ROUSSEAU, BASIL OF CAESAREA (The Transformation of the Classical Heritage xx). Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1994. Pp. xx + 412, i map. ISBN 0-520-08238-9. US$55.oo.
Rousseau's purpose (xiii) is not to write the definitive biography, but to discover why Basil
became a bishop, how he interpreted the task, and how well he did it. Basil, he suggests, was
'probably rather odd, and not entirely successful', and R. declines to generalize him, to smooth over
inconsistencies, or to produce apophthegms about fourth-century Christianity. Instead, he opts for
patient, charitable, nuanced characterization of people, events, and perspectives. The narrative is
detailed, but always lucid, and often refreshing in its treatment of human relationships, and the long
footnotes display wide and sympathetic, but critical, reading.
A likeable book, then, but by its very particularity not easy to review, even to indicate the range
of content. Ch. i presents Basil's Christian family as a product of local Pontic tradition with
noticeably diverse opinions about the practice of religion and about Basil himself. Ch. 2 deals with
academic life in the Athens of Prohaeresius, Himerius, and Libanius (who turned down a chair),
and with contemporary debates on the purpose of education and the use of classical culture for
Christian purposes. In Ch. 3 Basil returns to his homeland and explores the varieties of asceticism
offered within his family and by his then mentor Eustathius, in Syria and Egypt, and in the tradition
of aristocratic otium; meanwhile he tries out ideas on his indecisive friend Gregory of Nazianzus,
excerpts Origen for the Philocalia, and experiences baptism, ordination, and Church controversy.
Ch. 4 takes him into the Arian debate, which R. presents as it was experienced by Basil in the 36os
and later. This is not an easy story for new readers: they might like to start with A. Meredith, The
Cappadocians (I995), a concise and helpful treatment of theology in its intellectual context. R.
discusses Basil's most important anti-Arian text, the contra Eunomium, as a work of philosophy
concerned with time and eternity, language and reality, God in relation to humans, and intellectual
enquiry in relation to Church tradition and experience of God; it 'reveals the formation of a
churchman' (132).
Ch. 5 considers this churchman at work in Caesarea, where his Basileiados, a complex of clergy
housing, guest-rooms, and welfare centre, reflects his concern with the Church both in relation to
the civic community, and in relation to the moral history of the individuals who form the Church.
In ch. 6 the 'pastoral history' (i90) is set alongside Basil's special concern for ascetic Christians. R.
speaks with particular authority on late antique ascetic patterns (Ascetics, Authority and the Church
in the Age of Jerome and Cassian (1 978); Pachomius: The Making of a Christian Community in Fourth-
Century Egypt (i985); and several papers). He argues here against the easy assumption that Basil
wrote 'monastic' texts for distinct communities: rather, Basil expects all Christians to show
commitment, and addresses those who take it seriously. Temporary retreats from the world and
austerity practised at home were also options, and separate communities raised questions of
authority (to interpret Scripture and to decide on rules of life) and of relationship to the wider
Church.
Ch. 7 gathers together themes of Basil's life as manifested in various friendships: his edgy,
sometimes mishandled, closeness to Gregory of Nazianzus; his admiration of Eustathius giving way
to painful disagreement; his reliance on Eusebius of Samosata as episcopal mentor and safety-valve;
and his affection for his junior Amphilochius, who evoked or at least received some of Basil's most
important theological work. Ch. 8 explores Basil's experience of the world beyond his see, in local
church networks, diplomatic missions in Armenia, troubled involvement in the schisms of Antioch,
and negotiations with the Western Churches; and ch. 9 goes out with a bang, celebrating the
Hexaemeron, Basil's last sermons in which (like Augustine in the final books of the Confessions) he
works towards an understanding of the self and of the created world through the reading of Scripture
within a believing community.
R.'s Basil is a churchman, much more than he is a Cappadocian aristocrat and a pupil of
Libanius. R. reads Basilian rhetoric straight: even Letter 243, lamenting the dire effects of the
Antiochene schism, is taken (3 I i) as reportage of specific results. He is interested in friendships as
expressions of Christian community rather than as ways of getting things done (though he is also
alert, 158-66, to the practical uses of letters). The last few decades have seen a very welcome
collaboration of ancient history and patristics, with results which are interestingly diverse. Some
scholars take a theological, others a sociological, approach to religious belief. Neil McLynn's
Ambrose of Milan, also published in Transformation of the Classical Heritage and in the same year,
is about a complex politician who operates as a bishop in fourth-century North Italy; Basil of
 IV. THE LATE EMPIRE 24I
Caesarea is about a bishop whose work in fourth-century Cappadocia both expresses and helps to
form his theology.

University of Liverpool GILLIANCLARK

N. B. McLYNN, AMBROSE OF MILAN. CHURCH AND COURT IN A CHRISTIAN CAPITAL (The

Transformation of the Classical Heritage xxii). Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994.
Pp. xxiv + 406, illus. ISBN0-520-08461-6. US$45.oo.
Neil McLynn's breezy study of Ambrose should be required reading for students of late
Roman, and of ecclesiastical, history. It sets out systematically to undermine prevailing orthodoxies;
these, in M.'s view, are based on Ambrose' own carefully crafted version of events, which the bishop
imposed on a credulous public n his lifetime and, posthumously, on his biographer, Paulinus of
Milan, who found that 'his work had been done for him' (371) through Ambrose' careful editing of
his writings. In the course of his reconstruction of the bishop's career, M. sets Ambrose in his
context as a (minor) late Roman aristocrat, who resorted to characteristically late antique methods
to enhance his authority and destroy his enemies. Thus Ambrose's father, prefect of the Gauls
under Constantine II, emerges as, in Roman terms, a peripheral figure, while Ambrose's own
Romanitas was 'perhaps more acquired than innate' (33). Contrary to the 'official version', his
consecration was not a unanimous election by acclamation of an unwilling consularis but the outcome
of Ambrose's partisan intervention as governor on behalf of a minority faction of Nicene dissidents,
who imposed their choice on the city through a series of carefully staged episodes culminating in
deception of the distant emperor, assisted by the great power-broker, Petronius Probus. From this
inauspicious beginning, Ambrose moved to establish control of his own city through a series of
theatrical gestures, the consecration of specially imported holy virgins, and orchestrated confronta-
tions with ecclesiastical opponents, such as Palladius of Ratiaria, who became one of several hapless
victims of this episcopal Godfather. Through conventional use (and abuse) of patronage, and the
opportune discoveries of martyrs Ambrose established a reputation for being in control of events,
which persisted down to the very hour of his death on Easter Saturday, which allowed his funeral to
'blend seamlessly' (367) with the Easter Service.
That this control was less absolute than it was made to appear is brought out in M.'s
reassessment of Ambrose's dealings with emperors. The bishop's relationship with Gratian was not,
as commonly believed, a 'triumphant ascendancy' but 'an anxious and uncertain struggle for
recognition' (i i8). Events surrounding the 'Easter Crisis' of 386 were equally unpredictable: 'for all
the statuesque calm of his demeanour, Ambrose was holding a wolf by the ears' (217). His
relationship with Theodosius I was also problematic. After bungling his intervention over the
disorders at Callinicum by misunderstanding Theodosius' priorities in the West (298-309),
Ambrose re-established his position by conniving with Theodosius in handling the public relations
fall-out of the Thessalonica massacre (315-30). However, the advent of Eugenius saw the bishop in
full retreat (344-53), seeking to cover his tracks by diversions on the Altar of Victory (non-) debate
of 384 and a high-profile discovery of martyrs at Bologna.
Like Ambrose, M. adopts the role of advocate, taking every legitimate opportunity to push his
case against the official line. Such eloquent advocacy of a less obviously pious but also a more
authentically late antique Ambrose deserves to provoke further debate. This should perhaps now
focus on how the bishop's writings should be reassessed to provide a fresh analysis of his Christian
convictions. It was not Ambrose's style to bare his soul, but are we to assume that this little brother
of a saintly sister, brought up without a father, conditioned in youth by the stern doctrines of Roman
asceticism and, when consecrated in his thirties, still unmarried, was entirely immune from the
spiritual angst of an Augustine? Or that his rhetoric of 'love' and of 'tears' would have carried the
conviction that it did, had his audience not believed that this austere and reticent figure was capable
of both?
M.'s vision of his central character will surely provoke fruitful controversy for some time to
come. In presenting, not the Ambrose of the record, 'frozen in majesty' (371), but a late Roman
bishop, eloquent, manipulative, ruthless, a gambler for high stakes in an uncertain world, M. may
have subverted the saint, but his reinterpretation has recovered much of the historical reality of the
man.

St Salvator's College, St Andrews JILL HARRIES

G. GOULD, THE DESERT FATHERS ON MONASTIC COMMUNITY (OxfordEarly ChristianStudies).

Oxford:ClarendonPress, 1993. Pp. x + 202. ISBN 0-19-826345-7. ?27.50.
The Apophthegmata Patrum, or Sayings of the Desert Fathers, are a sprawling, eclectic gathering
of sayings and brief vignettes attributed to the early Egyptian desert ascetics. Most often associated