The quest for laypeople in late antiquity is an arduous (some have argued even an impossible) task (Vauchez 1993: 28). The difficulty derives from a paradox: While non-clerical actors formed by far the largest parts of Christian communities, they only very seldomly produced evidence available for study today. When laypeople are explicitly addressed as such—be it in canons, homiletical texts, or epistolography—they appear as the objects of attempts at clerical regulation with minimal agency of their own.
In his Laici Religiosi, Michael Hahn questions such unilateral understandings of processes of norm enforcement, which situate agency exclusively with clerical actors. He offers surprising perspectives on behavioral norms while also highlighting laypeople’s agency. He defines laypeople as non-clerical members of late-antique Christian congregations who did not live in separate, organized religious communities (20). While this definition excludes ideal-typical monastic actors, it does include ascetics who lived among their fellow Christians like widows, virgins, or the Syrian children of the covenant (48). Notably, his definition also encompasses women. Hahn understands laypeople not as passive objects masterminded by clerical actors but rather as active custodians of Christian rules of conduct including their self-understandings as Christians. According to him, Christian behavioral norms were effective as the result of an interplay between clerical and non-clerical actors in which laypeople were not only the addressees of norms but also actively contributed to their enforcement (13). The methodological key for this approach is the concept of vigilance. Hahn understands vigilance not in an individual, psychological sense but rather as the basis of a performative social dynamic in which individual attention is aligned with supra-individual goals. Through their vigilance, he argues, laypeople made an understudied contribution to the Christianization processes of the-late antique Christian world (7).
The chronological focus of Hahn’s study is the mid-fourth to mid-fifth century—framed by the age of Constantine and the Council of Chalcedon (451). At times, he offers perspectives reaching into the sixth century. Hahn has opted against an in-depth study of only one region but rather focuses thematically on larger developments and dynamics across two regions: north Africa and eastern Asia Minor/western Syria. He studies north African Christian communities in the works of Augustine, the Antiochene congregations as mirrored in the works of John Chrysostom, and Cappadocian Christians during the time of Basil of Caesarea (14–15). At the same time, he does not focus exclusively on ecclesiastical contexts; as an ancient historian, he is likewise interested in the non-Christian surroundings. This wider perspective becomes most clear in his examination of whether Christian communities harbored a larger potential for surveillance and norm-control than pre- or non-Christian communities of the Roman Empire.
The book is divided into seven chapters. The first chapter, situates Hahn’s approach in the context of scholarship on late antiquity, providing an overview of his methodology and sources. The second chapter delineates late-antique Christian congregations with a particular focus on relationships between laypeople and clerics. It also situates Christian communities within their respective wider religious topographies. According to Hahn, the plurality of religious offerings in Christian contexts and beyond created competitive situations, increasing the importance of vigilance across communities—and concomitantly lay agency.
Chapters three to five are thematic, outlining different areas of Christian life particularly subject to Christian norms. Each of these chapters is divided into two sub-chapters: Chapter three addresses sexual norms, divided into different aspects of sexual continence and adultery—two areas where Christian and pagan moral precepts differed quite significantly from each other. Laypeople supervised the normative conformity of the activities of married people, penitents, clerics, and especially consecrated virgins. The existence of competing religious offerings within Christian contexts—e.g. the Donatist “schism” in north Africa—further strengthened the role of laypeople’s vigilance. Especially when it comes to the regulation of clerical behavior, Hahn correctly addresses the question in how far people actually knew the precepts of clerical celibacy. Chapter four treats the violation of religious boundaries, divided into contacts with heretics and “judaizing.” According to Hahn, the recognition of deviant behavior by laypeople for the most part was situated on an orthopraxical level. Rather than monitoring deviant convictions, vigilant laypeople focused on suspicious whereabouts such as synagogues or taverns as well as specific behaviors. Vigilant laypeople were an important aid in the differentiation between different Christian as well as Jewish and Christian communities. Chapter five focuses on disparities between Christian norms and Roman culture with perspectives on visits to baths and attitudes to the attendance of games and theatre visits. While these areas were subject to regulation by clerical and some lay actors, these attempts did not spark significant changes but rather smaller adaptations in Christian mentalities and practices.
In his sixth chapter, Hahn moves beyond the study of individual aspects to analyze potentials for lay agency. In their sermons, bishops called on Christians to watch over their fellow neighbors and enforce Christian rule. The partial transfer of vigilance from clerical to lay actors can be labeled “responsibilization,” as Hahn puts it. Similarly, he stresses that laypeople could well have their own motivations—be they strictly religious or connected to strengthening their own secular position (429). Ascetics living within the Christian communities but also clerics were subject to special surveillance. Individual laymen of particular wealth and/or influence could likewise play special roles in the enforcement of Christian behavioral norms. Despite significant potentials of vigilance in Christian communities, Hahn concludes that there existed no comprehensive social control. A very brief final chapter summarizes his conclusions.
Some topics could have been discussed in greater detail or distinguished more clearly from each other. For example, in cases where certain laici religiosi feature in the sources, Hahn offers no interpretation of these laypeople apart from the fact that they were especially vigilant and at times also particularly influential in their communities. One wonders if the denotation “laici religiosi” does not refer to members of a specific group or at least a distinct phenomenon of lay life in the congregations. Moreover, the author mentions Egyptian brotherhoods known as spoudaioi and philoponoi by labeling them “fanatic Christians” (407). While it is true that Zacharias of Mytilene describes their prominent involvement in anti pagan raids, it becomes obvious from the Life of Severos that members of brotherhoods could cherish amicable relationships to pagan contexts. One example can be found during the burial of the philoponos Menas which also was attended by pagan students (Zach. Myt. Vit. Sev. 60–61). Further, more balanced aspects of relationships between brotherhoods and pagan contexts in the Vita Severii were discussed by Frank Trombley (Trombley 1994). Additionally, we need to note that scholarship by ancient historians on these groups has regrettably limited itself to the violent aspects of the Life of Severos without paying much attention to other hagiographical and particularly papyrological material (Wipszycka 1996 266–267; cf. also Camplani 2013 134). If we consider these sources together, a more nuanced picture of Christian brotherhoods arises in which their anti-pagan activities are much less prominent than suggested by Hahn; the phenomena of philoponoi and spoudaioi cannot be reduced to the catchy term “fanatical Christians.” Hahn also names the parabalani/parabolani in one context with Christian brotherhoods of Egypt.[1] While it is true that parabalani are likewise associated with anti-pagan activities, namely the atrocious murder of the Neoplatonic philosopher Hypatia, they—unlike the brotherhoods—were closely regulated by the bishop.[2] They are a related but not an identical phenomenon. Regarding the seniores laici, the book could have benefited from the insights of the recent Regensburg dissertation by Pascal Olivier Angue (Angue 2022).
Hahn has decided against more targeted studies of individual groups of laypeople and opted for painting a larger picture of lay agency in Christian communities. Especially in his thematic chapters, he compares Christian with pagan norms in great detail. He does so insightfully but his reflections can become lengthy and the reader needs to be patient until vigilant laypeople finally enter the picture. When they do, Hahn’s knowledge of the sources and his comprehensive references to secondary literature are impressive. When things get really exciting, not some indistinct laypeople but more specific subgroups appear. At the same time, we need to note that Hahn set out not only to draw the picture of laypeople’s agency but also to situate Christian behavior and its norms in contemporary contexts in and beyond Christian communities. These two aspects of Hahn’s study correspond to the two fields he is moving between: ancient history and religious studies. In his Laici Religiosi, Hahn masterly navigates between these two disciplines but remains true to the perspective of the ancient historian. His book is an exciting addition to the growing number of studies on laypeople in late antiquity. It makes a compelling case for understanding laypeople not only as the objects of clerical regulation but vigilant representatives and enforcers of Christian behavioral norms.
References
Angue, Pascal Olivier. Les Seniores Plebis, Une institution laïque en Afrique du Nord: Contexte historique et questions théologiques, pastorales et organisationnelles. Inauguraldissertation zur Erlangung des Grades eines Doktors der Theologie (Dr. theol.). Regensburg 2022. Online: urn:nbn:de:bvb:355-epub-531458, last access 14/07/2025.
Grégoire, Henri. «Le Personnel Hospitaliers des Églises» Byzantion 13,1 (1939): 283–285.
Trombley, Frank R. Hellenic Religion and Christianization C. 370–529. Vol. 2. Religions in the Graeco-Roman World 115/2. Leiden et al.: Brill, 1995.
Vauchez, André. The Laity in the Middle Ages: Religious Beliefs and Devotional Practices, ed. Daniel Bornstein, trans. Margery J. Scheider. Notre Dame, IN: UNDP, 1993.
Wipszycka, Ewa. “Les Confréries dans la vie religieuse de l’Égypte chrétienne.” In Proceedings of the XIIth International Congress of Papyrology, Toronto 1970, 511– 524. Repr. in Études sur le Christianisme dans l’Égypte de l’Antiquité tardive, hrsg. v. id. Studia Ephemeridis Augustinianum 52. Institutum Patristicum Augustinianum: Rome 1996, 257–278.
Notes
[1] The spelling “parabolani” was long common based on the manuscript tradition of the Code of Justinian. Henri Grégoire has compellingly argued for the spelling parabalani by referring to the manuscripts of Ephesos II / Chalcedon containing παραβαλανεῖς (Grégoire 1939 283–284). Today, this spelling is widely accepted among others in the new translations of the Acts of Chalcedon by Price and Gaddis and the Code of Theodosius translated by Pharr.
[2] Cf. C.Th. 16,2,42; I argue this in my forthcoming dissertation “A Civic Expression of Late Antique Christianity. Brotherhoods in the church of Alexandria.”