THEOLOGY: A History of Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years, By Diarmaid MacCulloch, Allan Lane, 1161pp, £35
'JEWGREEK IS GREEKJEW. Extremes meet," quoth the Cap (with saturnine spleen) in the Circe chapter of Ulysses, and while Joyce's Nighttown episode may seem far from a summary of the history of Christianity, it is striking how apposite these words are for just such a task. The first generation of Christians were Jews living in a world shaped by Greek elite culture. So much of the subsequent history of Christianity has been a history of successful and failed attempts to reconcile opposing positions, frequently of the extreme variety.
It has seen spectacular successes: the appropriation of Greek thought that climaxed in the doctrinal definitions of Nicea and Chalcedon had a less than promising beginning when St Paul was laughed off the stage at the Areopagus; the second millennium then saw the same drama played out with equal success when Thomas Aquinas dodged the heresy bullet and left a sublime theological synthesis that incorporated the hitherto threatening figure of Aristotle.
If anything, it has been the failed attempts to make extremes meet that have left the more lasting mark: the rupture between Latin and Greek Christianity and its entanglement with both the collapse of the Western Empire and the rise of Islam are a signal example of the type of failure whose aftershock we still feel today.
Diarmaid MacCulloch’s magisterial work is divided into seven parts that deal with what he sees as the three principal strands of Christian history: Latin, Greek and Syriac. His provocative subtitle means it is not surprising to find him begin dramatically with a bravura summary of the entire classical tradition, carried out in less than 60 pages. He teases out the roots of Christianity in both Greek myth and logos and follows this with an equally impressive summary of the history of Israel, conceived, especially after the destruction of the temple and exile, as a salvation history that would culminate in the realisation of messianic expectation.
When dealing with the historical figure of Jesus of Nazareth and the emergence of early Christianity, MacCulloch acknowledges the difficulty of rewriting the New Testament as history. His handling of this difficult task is brilliantly executed, and he is particularly adroit in dealing with the first Christians' eschatological problem of the non-arrival of the Last Days. In fact, it would do no harm if this section of the book were made compulsory reading for anyone who wondered, even for half a second, if there was any historical basis to The Da Vinci Code.
Having analysed the emergence of Islam and its initial impact, MacCulloch moves to a most impressive treatment of the Orthodox tradition. He brings a refreshing perspective to familiar topics such as the iconoclastic controversy of the eighth century that saw the almost total destruction of Byzantine iconography. It is his lengthy consideration of Russian orthodoxy up to the present day, however, that is one of his key marks of distinction; he draws out the importance of the Russian church for Christian history as well as making clear the precise significance of this form of Christianity for the emergence of specific – and not always positive – forms of Russian national identity.
When he moves to consider the Reformation, it is striking that MacCulloch uses the dramatic subtitle “Western Christianity Dismembered”. Notwithstanding his undoubted pre-eminence in the field of reformation history, this title does prompt one to ask whether he has taken sufficient account of contemporary ecumenical developments in theology, where references to dismembering are, mercifully, rather sparse.
The book concludes with a long section much of which is taken up with the contrasting responses of Protestantism and Roman Catholicism to modernity in all its dimensions. MacCulloch identifies correctly the first World War as a catastrophe with fatal consequences for certain notions of Christendom. He gives proper weight to Karl Barth's 1919 thunderbolt, The Epistle to the Romans, which in its turn, drawing as it did on the experience of a devastated continent, pierced the heart of so many forms of liberal theology. He sees Islamic and other contemporary fundamentalisms as primarily a reaction to 19th- and 20th-century imperialisms and the Christian cloaks that they were permitted to don. He does acknowledge, however, the heroic resistance of Christian individuals to Nazism and other dictatorships, and he is forthright in his recognition of the positive, catalytic role played by the Christian churches in the liberating events of 1989.
In a work of this scale some false notes are inevitable. It is unfortunate that one should come as early as page one, where he describes Christianity as “a personality cult”, a term that might better have been eschewed, both for its theological inaccuracy and for the unfortunate set of connotations it brings with it in the wake of the 20th century. It is also regrettable that he lapses into the cliche of calling Christianity, Judaism and Islam “religions of the book” when the status of the Koran within Islam is manifestly different to that of the sacred books of the other two Abrahamic faith traditions. It does seem disproportionate to describe John Henry Newman’s opposition to the Anglo-Prussian bishopric of Jerusalem as “tantamount to anti-Semitism”, as it seems a tad gratuitous to refer to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith as “the (renamed) Roman Inquisition”.
But these are minor blemishes in a great work, some of which may be attributable to its being the book of the current BBC television series. If one were to seek a final reason to recommend this book to Irish readers, one might paraphrase Yeats and ask whether our own forms of religion have not too often maimed us with great hatred and fanatic hearts. We have perhaps spent too much time vilifying the other to define the self and need reminding that we are a very small part of a much greater story. To engage seriously with MacCulloch’s history might prompt us to both greater accuracy and humility in our narratives, whatever our specific allegiance.
Dr Pádraic Conway is director of the UCD International Centre for Newman Studies and vice-president for university relations
