The translation of Leppin’s German book, originally published in 2018, is fortunate and timely.[1] Since Robin Lane Fox’ enticing Pagans and Christians (1986), no ancient historian has published a general discussion of early Christ-religion from beginning until the Constantinian turn. Leppin is a leading German historian of ancient Christianity and a highly qualified candidate for this endeavour. The German edition was captivating, and so is the English version. Luddecke elegantly captures Leppin’s German and offers a superbly reliable and stylish translation. The reproduction of black and white pictures is better in the English edition and the inclusion of colour-photos enhances the value of the book, which is nearly flawless (typos found on pp. 355, 393, and 396). New is a foreword by Jan Bremmer, who extensively reviewed the German edition.[2] Additionally, Leppin concludes with a brief postscript reacting to the criticism voiced in reviews of the German version and pointing to areas in current research that should lead to new avenues, different accentuations, and nuances of the argument. The postscript bears witness to a scholar of high integrity and in possession of intellectual soberness.
The book does not “offer a linear history of Christianity during the first centuries CE but attempts to show how Christians met the expectations and challenges of their environments” (394). Similarly, Leppin does not seek to paint one big picture, but to create a kaleidoscopic image of the constant variety of Christ-religious viewpoints. The perspective is compliant with the postscript’s contention that the recent scholarly focus on particular regions and the accumulation of local evidence as witnessed by new monographs and series should lead to greater appraisal of the regional differences within early Christ-religion. Yet there is a danger that by focusing on individual trees we no longer see the forest with the consequence that humanists neglect the duty also to provide grand-scale scholarly informed narratives. Leppin will undoubtedly object that this is exactly what he aims with a kaleidoscopic image of diverse viewpoints, but that begs the questions what holds the centre together allowing the pieces to appear in a regular pattern and precluding things falling apart. To answer this question, Leppin applies Wittgenstein’s idea of family resemblance built on the taxonomic properties of the attribution of a decisive role to Jesus in allowing humans to approach God together with baptism and the eucharist as the genus definiens (8). Things, however, become muddled, when he also introduces Wittgenstein’s idea of a continuous thread comprised of interconnecting fibres with no constant fibre running through the entire thread (9). Some forms of Christ-religion downplayed for example the role of baptism, but they still belong to the family (10). This categorisation is unproblematic, but queries emerge with the metaphorical constellation. What is the thread if individual fibres can be dispensed with? How many main fibres of the genus can lack for the thread still to exist? – i.e. from the observer’s perspective.
As much as Leppin rightly accentuates diversity at the actors’ level, he sometimes comes too close to emphasising it also at the observers’ level, which skews the argument in terms of philosophy of science (Wittgenstein included, despite his defiance of a theoretically thought-through philosophy). The concomitant claim to avoid a monothetic narrative of formative Christ-religion also runs counter to the actual depiction because one grand narrative permeates the book from introduction to end and gives name to three of four main sections. It originates in the Pauline idea of Christ-adherents suspended in tension between this world and a heavenly citizenship (cf. Phil 3:20) or in the wording of the Ad Diognetum: “Christ-followers inhabit the world, but they are not of the world” (6:3b; cf. 5:5a). Leppin elevates this idea to the point of seeing Christ-religious life as intrinsically thorny:
Christians belonged to two worlds; they gave rigorous thought to both but in this life, with all its constraints and challenges, they could not but act. The majority will have wavered in the strength of their faith, and then had to live with that feeling of having sinned. To live a Christian life was difficult – and yet many made up their minds to try and agreed to be baptised (24).
Christ-followers, however, neither formed a unified group nor belonged to one homogeneous institution like the Church. Fortunately, this means that Leppin does not stay with canonical literature but includes all available representations regardless of their later status in Christianity.
Apart from a short introduction that spells out the premises and a prologue with the alluring title A Dead Body Is Lost to the World revolving around the different understanding of time among Christ-supporters – expecting the return of their saviour in foreseeable future – and the ancient Graeco-Roman world, the book consists of four main sections divided into 34 sub-chapters. The first section takes up the Christ-religious duality by depicting Christ-followers as “Neither Jewish nor Pagan?”. In chapters on (for example) festivals, burial, miracles, and views of demons, Leppin shows how Christ-followers in some regards shared the views of their contemporaries, while in others diverging significantly from them. Despite the catchiness of the chapter title (Gal 3:28) – horizontally exemplifying in Leppin’s understanding the Christian tension par excellence – it is moot by suggesting the non-Judaic character of formative Christ-religion. Yes, their writings engaged in severe criticism, verging on disparagement, of both inter– and intra-groups of “Judaic” nature, but from an external perspective this does not entail their non-Judaic character.[3] The belligerent ostracization processes – orchestrated by the texts – of rivalling forms of Judaic religion served to claim the exclusive status of Christ-religion as the true Israel; but this vilification of other types of Judaic religion is similar to for example the Qumran Ỵahad texts and Philo’s denigration of the radical allegorisers in De migratione Abrahami. It does not set “Christianity” apart from “Judaism.”
The second main section, entitled “Christian Authorities,” shows the legacy of Weber’s thinking on authority in the German humanist tradition, but rather than apologise for this as Leppin comes close to doing (397), I think he should bluntly emphasise the theoretical preeminence of this model. Weber’s ideal trichotomy enables us to see how different forms of authority—displayed throughout the history of Christianity—serve as checks and balances against each other continuously recharging the religion with new energy. Leppin excellently grasps how different forms of authority came to expression in a range of institutions and life forms (e.g., prophecy, philosophy, episcopate, economy, asceticism, city centres).
The remaining two main sections return to the overarching theme of the Christ-religious duality staged on a horizontal “(Not) of This World: Caring for Self and Others” and vertical axis “Citizens of Two Worlds.” Section three discusses morality as regards marriage, sexual boundaries, children, slavery, poverty or early welfare, and the question of Christ-religious labour, while section four focuses on the tension between imperial loyalty and zealous as well as wavering faithfulness to God expressed in (for example) martyrdom, persecutions, and the situation of soldiers simultaneously serving God’s army and that of the emperor.
The individual chapters present an impressive range of examples from the first three hundred years of Christ-religion demonstrating Leppin’s enormous breadth of view over the source material and an ability to present it in a thought-provoking and appealing way. His sagacity is admirable, but I also have some queries. Here I concentrate on two central points.[4]
I agree with Leppin’s emphasis on Christ-religious enclavism as a distinctive marker as regards most other types of Judaic religion and Greco-Roman culture and religions in general, but I wonder if it constituted a socially, factual phenomenon rather than a chiefly ideological element. Leppin writes: “Most Christians presumably brought up their children in the same way as all Romans did, were proud of them, tried to be good parents and expected their offspring to support them in their old age. But such events seldom feature in the sources” (256). Here, he hits the nail on the head. Should we become seduced by the largely ideological character of the sources and see them as mirroring the territory, or should we rather reckon their ideal nature? Leppin thinks the texts can be used to say something about the actual, social life of Christ-followers, whereas I am less positive. This is not a historical vs. a non-historical literary approach. It is a foundational discussion about the character of religious writings and their potential for two different historical approaches that of interpreting them on the background of Ereignisgeschichte vs. that of analysing them as remnants of a certain socio-cultural environment on which they seek to exert influence by advocating and instilling specific ideals, norms, and rules but in acknowledgement of the discrepancy between actual and ideal social life.
One’s perspective has a crucial bearing on how one hermeneutically goes about. Leppin’s discussion of Christ-followers situated in a socio-cultural tension with the surrounding cultures is a truly riveting read, but one should acknowledge the premises it is built upon. In a discussion about social stratification, Leppin in my view rightly contends that early Christ-adherents were not the poorest but adds: “The original disciples are said to have owned a fishing boat, or a house.” Can this be taken to reflect the early situation or is it rather a Markan socio-symbolic thematisation of the ideological turning things 180 degrees around that led Nietzsche to see early Christ-religion as “Platonismus fürs „Volk“.”[5] Similar problems pertain to Leppin’s other uses of the Gospels, Acts, and his discussions of the martyr texts. Whereas he considers it possible to sift the texts carefully and reach conclusions on the actual life of early Christ-followers, I see them as predominantly mirroring the ideologies of different Christ-religious groups, or how their life should be in contrast to how it was. The religious overdoers, as Lane Fox aptly called them, were the exception. Even the martyr texts, I think, are religious writings of propagation rather than depictions of actual events.
This question latches on to another problem. Leppin argues, somewhat contradictory to his use of the sources, that the texts of formative Christ-religion should be seen as reactions to challenges of the social environment. Can this be done without an elaborate theory and, I would say, evolutionary model for how it takes place? What kind of selection pressures feature? In what way do they exert pressure on culture and society? How do groups respond to such pressure?[6] Unless the idea of adaptations to environmental changes is theoretically spelled out and a model is presented backed by methods to safeguard the movements to and from the theoretical outlook and the empirical spectrum contained by it, it is difficult to see how it can be done.
These essential questions need in-depth discussion, but they figured prominently in my thinking about the book. In conclusion, though, I want to emphasise that these questions aside, which I mean in the spirit of Leppin’s postscript as an invitation to further reflection on reconstructing past religions, I have learned considerably from the book. It witnesses immense erudition and is a genuinely inspiring read.
Notes
[1] Reviewed in BMCR by Ulrike Roth: BMCR 2019.08.20.
[2] ARYS 17 (2018), 202-16.
[3] This is the reason underlying my conceptual use of Christ-religion and Judaic religion in order not to signal the “non-Jewish” character of early Christ-religion. Similarly, I want to avoid that the phenomena we now rubricise by “Christianity” and “Judaism” are retrojected into a world in which they neither existed as phenomena nor as concepts. The two religions emerged on the basis of previous traditions, but this should not lead us to conflate them with their predecessors. They are late post-fourth century phenomena as it is clear with respect to Judaism presupposing the existence of the two Talmuds as perceptual filters for the interpretation of the previous scriptural traditions.
[4] See my extensive forthcoming review in Numen 2025.
[Editors’ note: BMCR does not publish reviews by persons intending to publish another review of the same work (or who have already done so). This instance arises from a lack of communication between the reviewer and the journal and BMCR accepts its equal fault in this case.]
[5] Nietzsche, Werke in Vier Bänden. Band IV. Jenseits von Gut und Böse, Salzburg: Bergland-Buch, 1985, 156.
[6] See J.H. Turner, A. Maryanski, A. Klostergaard Petersen, and Armin W. Geertz, The Emergence and Evolution of Religion: By Means of Natural Selection, London: Routledge 2018.