This book pivots around an intriguing question: what is the significance of books in a religion without scripture? M. takes as his focus an ‘efflorescence of a bookish discourse on the Roman cult’ in the late Roman Republic (p. 3), a discourse that he terms ‘civil theology’. Piecing together evidence from the notoriously lacunose and fragmented works of scholars such as Fabius Pictor, Lucius Cincius and Varro, M. paints a vivid portrait of Roman civil theology, before exploring the impact which this now legible form of Roman religion had in the early empire, both on imperial constructions of Roman religion and early Christian assertions of their religious difference.
M. works from a body of evidence that is hard to access and hard to interpret, preserved by ‘citation’ in later texts, many of which are Christian. It is easy to imagine a book based on the surviving scraps of these intellectuals being off-putting: but M. has produced quite the opposite. M. has a knack for telling a story from scraps of evidence, and chapters frequently begin this way; thus he entices the reader in, whilst making the anecdote pose a question or conceptual framework for the chapter ahead. M.'s work on these Republican intellectuals is also sorely needed: at present, fragments of Fabius Pictor et al. tend to be used by scholars of Roman religion as handy snippets of information, with little reflection on the nature or agenda of the writings in question. This book also makes a timely arrival into an academic world which is seeing its own efflorescence of interest in Varro (e.g. D. Spencer, Varro's Guide to Being Roman [forthcoming]; D. Butterfield [ed.], Varro Varius: the Polymath of the Roman World [2015]) and intersects with the arguments of J. Rüpke, Religion in Republican Rome: Rationalization and Ritual Change (2012), as M. flags up (pp. 5, 29).
Chapter 1 pushes back against a common understanding of Roman religion as ‘civic religion’, mediated by the state and characterised by rules and fixed ritual practices. Instead M. turns our attention to a plurality of Roman religious experiences, although the section devoted to this is short and boils down to a collation of examples (pp. 20–6), which may leave sceptics (of which I am not one) demanding more. M.'s purpose here is to throw into contrast ‘the bookish construction of “Roman religion” in civil theology’ (p. 15) and thus reveal the extent of the partiality of works of civil theology (the word ‘bookish’ could be used with more clarity in a book about books). It is a strength of the book that M. does not buy into the civil theologians’ rhetoric, but rather holds them to account for their role in cementing the influential idea of Roman religion as ‘civic religion’.
Chapters 2 and 3 work as a pair. Chapter 2 introduces the world and concerns of these late Republican scholars, focusing on their intellectual strategies in writing down Roman religion (e.g. list-making or legalistic language). Chapter 3 asks why civil theology was the product of this particular historical moment, and in the process offers subtle readings of Cicero's De domo sua and Catullus 17: and if the inclusion of the latter is a surprise, it reminds us of the cultural reach of civil theology, as constructed by M. Both chapters do scholarship a great service in fleshing out the intellectual priorities of figures such as Nigidius Figulus or Valerius Soranus, whom scholars on Roman religion are used to brushing up against, but may know as little more than names attached to citations.
Chapter 4 is unlike any other in the book, functioning as an intellectual breathing space within the book's overarching argument. Arguing that the Mishnah and Roman civil theology share ‘a concern to encompass a religious system in text’ (p. 79), M. compares the priorities and strategies of both. (An introduction to the Mishnah and the Tannaim is vital for Classicists unfamiliar with this material [pp. 81–4].) M.'s model for undertaking such a bold comparative move is sophisticated (relying on J.Z. Smith and M. Detienne), but this is likely the most controversial chapter for many readers. However, to my mind its value lies in the shock factor, in prompting us to view the claims of civil theology from a non-Roman perspective: thus we ‘sensitize’ ourselves (to borrow M.'s phrase, p. 95) to the way in which these claims have shaped our own constructions of Roman religion as ‘civic religion’.
Chapter 5 takes classicists back to familiar territory: the idea of an Augustan religious revival. Familiar as it may be, M. argues that we have ‘neglected the intellectual underpinnings’ of this revival (p. 102), which is in fact not a revival of any ‘lived religion’ but of the ‘written religion’ penned by the civil theologians. Valerius Flaccus steps into the limelight in this chapter as well as members of the elite who push back against Augustus and other emperors’ appropriation of civil theology. In Chapter 6 we shift intellectual worlds again, as M. explores how two Christian thinkers, Tertullian and Augustine, engaged with Roman civil theology (at least as represented by Varro). M.'s reading of Augustine is the most thought-provoking and appealing, arguing that Varro's bookishness made him a particularly fitting interlocutor and opponent in Augustine's eyes.
With Augustine M. has returned full circle to his opening gambit, in which he retells Augustine's anecdote about the burning of the books of Numa (CD 7.34–5) to introduce his programmatic question: ‘what was the significance of books in a religion without a sacred text?’ (p. 3). From here on M. frequently promises a final section which questions and grapples with an assumed dichotomy between scripture and literature, but when we reach this, it is disappointingly brief (pp. 139–47). More pressure needs to be placed on phrases such as ‘quasi-scriptural’ (p. 139), whilst the idea that Augustine be held responsible for creating this dichotomy demands more discussion (pp. 139–40). Much thinking remains to be done here, to take us beyond the rather bland conclusion that the texts of civil theology ‘never became the subject of devotion or canonization, yet nevertheless played and continue to play a vital role in defining what counted as Roman religion’ (p. 146).
Another disappointment of the volume is the flipside to its accessibility. M. is keen not to ‘try the patience of readers’ by digging into the textual history of every fragment he uses (p. 8), referring us instead to his notes. The rationale is laudable, but it would be informative to see far more snippets of civil theology in their textual context. Since we are so often forced to read civil theology ‘over the shoulders of the Christian apologists’ (p. 125), we would learn from observing M. doing this, and negotiating the difficulties, in action. Indeed, we meet remarkably few passages of civil theology in the book, and without thorough investigation of the notes, this may leave a reader unsure about the credentials of M.'s picture of civil theology.
To return to positives, this book makes a very valuable contribution to scholarship on Roman religion in opening up the intellectual world of the civil theologians. It encourages scholars not simply to use the snippets of civil theology at our disposal, but to understand their priorities and agenda, and be sensitive to ways in which they have shaped constructions of Roman religion, both ancient and modern. In addition, M.'s approach challenges us to think about how we study Roman religion and takes important steps towards bridging a regrettable gap between the work of Classicists and that which traditionally takes place in theology departments.
