Ramsay MacMullenBesprekingen

This study by a Yale historian and classicist at the very end of the 20th century treats the late antique and early medieval periods, with an inquiry into the relationships between Christianity and the prior traditional religions of the greater Mediterranean region. It is fairly brief, with four moderately-sized chapters plus a concluding summary, but it reminded me in style and perspicacity of Keith Thomas' Religion and the Decline of Magic, which sought to characterize "popular beliefs in 16th- and 17th-century England." In many ways, MacMullen charts a reverse course that took place more than a millennium earlier.

He discusses the political and social ascent of Christianity and the tide of anti-intellectualism and anti-rationalism that accompanied it. The new dominance of supernatural thinking demanded continued expressions and mechanisms for celebration, community, and magic that had been developed in the pagan world, but were lacking in Christianity. So there was ultimately an assimilation of pagan forms of practice, leading to survivals even into modern times.

The narrative of assimilation that MacMullen offers makes this book into something like a complement to Hislop's The Two Babylons. Where Hislop's Protestant paranoia guided his interpretation of the pagan features of traditional Christianity (which he read as the pernicious conspiracy of the Roman Church), MacMullen appreciates the basic social and cultural dynamics that made such assimilation necessary and inevitable.

MacMullen emphasizes the qualitative difference between Christianity, a religion prioritizing creed and rooted in texts, and its local and imperial predecessors, anchored in practices and tolerant of varying or absent belief. He cautions against "presentist" bias in the treatment of ancient religions (107), and he welcomes the anthropological perspectives that have made it "common to accept the impossibility of separating magic from religion" (144).

Half of the book is endnotes, opaquely replete with a classicist's pervasive abbreviations, and the body of the text is laden with data that sometimes feel difficult to keep in context and perspective. But the argument is worth following, and represents a sane and realistic take on an important historical change of episteme.

Whew! I made it. This is one of the thickest books I've read, thick in terms of academic content and difficulty reading. There are only 140 pages of text here - the rest is footnotes and bibliography. Thoroughly researched doesn't do it justice, but it nevertheless reaches the common conclusion of nearly every book I've read on the subject - the pagan cults, offering no definitive afterlife simply couldn't compete against Christianity, which did. It neglects the top down aspects of the transition, but so do most books on the subject. It's worth the slog, I suppose, but be prepared.½

A great biography that avoids needless detail. Highlights the way Constantine saw Christianity in ways supportive and aligned with the imperial power. Assumed a degree of familiarity with Roman history that a modern reader would likely not have

The book covers the history of the early Christian fate, and how some key elements of this fate were decided.
It is writte for a large public, so ideal for people like me, who do not want to become specialists in this historical period, but find it interesting enough to read about.
The author clearly knows the subject and the historical period, but is not doing a
Very good job in transferring that knowldege: poor writting style, with complex sentences, abrupt chagres, repearing similar points. But if you can get over that, the book remains informative enough to be interste.

Marc

For me, every scrap of writing that survives from the Classical era is precious. Reading through fragments such as those collected in this book is an active pleasure where one absorbs the text and reconstructs the dusty, tumultuous culture glimpsed between the lines: a piece on the interpretation of dreams illuminates the role of the Olympian gods in everyday life; a trial involving rival Christian factions in North Africa animates the perjuries and revelations of the Roman courthouse; a letter of the Emperor Julian captures the dying breath pagan culture.

The selections here do a wonderful job tracing the transitions of Late Antiquity and I can't imagine anyone with an interest in that time not finding something evocative and new in this excellent anthology.

An excellent book that uses all the evidence of other theories (at least that I’ve read) of Rome’s fall and comes with a compelling, thoroughly convincing explanation: rampant governmental corruption crippled the administration militarily and economically. MacMullen illustrates his point with several revealing anecdotes from Roman contemporaries. He shows us how Roman justice and law really worked: by influence and money. He covers how worthless latter Roman troops were -- and how valuable barbarians came to be. He makes the valuable point that the barbarians who destroyed Rome were citizens of the Empire. MacMullen rightly points out that not all the Empire crumpled at once and some traditions (such as civic benficience) continued sparingly. He shows a compelling picture of a society gone amok, sunk in a morass of greed, extortion, and influence-pedalling.

Perhaps most importantly the book brilliantly portrays what other books I’ve read seem to only gloss over: the exact nature of the patron-client relationship. MacMullen shows the terror the lower class held the potenti in, how jobs, justice, and favors were parlayed. How dignitas worked into this relationship (which explains more fully Caesar crossing the Rubicon and Domitian’s assassination and the prevalence of unanimous votes in the Senate), how slaves parlayed their position, and why soldiers (especially the Praetorian Guard) became dependant on their commanders (and how brutalized soldiers were by their officers and why they turned to extorting from urban dwellers to survive). I loved the vivid descriptions of corruption and extortion. Despite the lack of a definate chronology, it brought Roman society alive. The subverting of Diocletian’s caste system was well explained.

The only problems were the somewhat strange turns of phrase MacMullen used sometimes. However, some passages were very vivid and clear. The last chapter wasn’t as concise a summing up as it could have been, and it seemed to repeat conclusions of the third chapter. Some of the maps were missing crucial labels and the proofreader seemed absent at times. The book also exhibited the annoying feature of other academic history book’s I’ve read: it assumes the reader knows German and French. (I would expect it to asssume a knowledge of Latin.)

I had high expectations for this book. The topic is fascinating. I'd enjoyed a number of MacMullen's other books. I shelled out full price for the hardback and eagerly awaited its arrival. But I have to say, Voting About God is a dud. It's aimless and poorly organized. MacMullen avoids making real arguments and lays out thoughts and evidence in a breezy, distracted way, skipping around in time and topic, and making casual references to something happening without a date or an author.

What glimmers there were came in his attempt to understand how the councils really functioned. That we have actual acta for a number of councils is wonderful. But he doesn't make the use of them that I would have expected.

I'm neither a dummy nor an expert in this field, but I came away knowing very little more than when I entered. Toward the end I started skipping, which I rarely do.

Finally, I read it virtually together with John O'Malley's What Happened at Vatican II. I kept wondering if MacMullen had read it or any other book about a council we really know about. On a number of occasions MacMullen suggested something happened or couldn't have happened based on reasons that, if he had read about a few such councils, he might have reconsidered.

A poor show of it, all around.

MacMullen's examination of the interactions of Christianity and Paganism in Late Antiquity is a provocative one. He disputes earlier historiography, claiming that polytheistic beliefs and practices lingered in Christianity much longer than previously thought (indeed down to the present day) and that Christian persecutions of polytheists have distorted our understanding of the vitality of polytheism through to the early medieval period. So far, so unexceptionable, and MacMullen's argument is backed up throughout with an impressive level of citation (160 pages of text are accompanied by 80 dense pages of end notes and many more pages of bibliographies). Yet some of his other arguments—that, for instance, the early Christian period was in some ways a more superstitious period than was Classical antiquity—while intriguing and fodder for thought, are not quite so readily supported by his arguments. At times he seems to take his sources a little too much at face value. Was the highly erudite Augustine really such an anti-intellectual, such a Philistine, as he is presented here? Overall an intriguing book, but perhaps an unreliable one.½

Dated, (1975) but perceptive review of the crucial 3rd Century when the Roman Empire was nearly overwhelmed by German barbarians and a resurgent Persian Empire. While the Illyrian Emperors saved rome, that crisis resulted in dramatic changes in the Empire, leading to a temporary resurgence, but the first steps toward what would become medieval Europe.

Etude détaillée et passionnante sur l'intégration des populations conquises à l'empire romain.

This examines how the Roman Empire weakened itself from the top.

The glaring problem with this book is the poor organization of the footnotes. If you love history as I do you love good footnotes (or endnotes to be more precise). This book has irrelevant non-primary source footnotes. They are also unconnected to the Bibliography and have indecipherable abbreviations. It is more than annoying since over half the book is comprised of footnotes and notes. The writing could use a little help, too.½