The figure of Peter in late antiquity was, as George Demacopoulos engagingly shows, an inventio in multiple senses: it was a (continually shifting) creation born of historical necessities, and it was also a saintly relic that, once “discovered,” could lend authority to a church's founding. With Demacopoulos's guidance through a variety of materials we see not only that Peter was continuously reinvented to serve the pastoral needs and jurisdictional interests of the Roman See, but also that Petrine discourse was often what popes turned to when they most needed to fortify the See's primacy.
The introduction offers a lucid account of discourse analysis and its utility, alongside historical-critical methods, for illuminating the history of the early papacy. By narrowing his inquiry to “Petrine discourse”—both in the Foucauldian sense of a “set of conditions that make possible the deployment of the Petrine figure in various ways” and in the more limited sense of “claims about Peter and his authority” (5)—Demacopoulos is able to survey one concept at the heart of papal theory and explore its use across a range of material. His central takeaway is that while Petrine discourse was always available to papal theorists from Leo I to Gregory the Great, it was most vigorously engaged when the papacy was being “threatened, challenged, or simply ignored” (2).
Chapter 1, “Petrine Legends, External Recognition, and the Cult of Peter in Rome,” establishes the “discursive horizon” that enabled late ancient mobilizations of Petrine authority. The web of texts, ideas, and artifacts developed over the centuries prior to Leo's election was by no means monolithic (as illustrated by the Petrine legends), nor was it uncontested (as illustrated by non-Roman episcopal reactions and fraught papal efforts at cultic reform). This multiform, elastic web nonetheless informed and shaped subsequent Petrine discourse.
The reader sees this multiplicity in Leo's use of the topos (chapter 2, “The Many Faces of Leo's Peter”). Leo asserted his Petrine credentials to persuade local clerics of his authority as Peter's heir, to convince western bishops to accept Roman jurisdiction, and to challenge displeasing developments at Chalcedon. In each case, Leo's needs differed; the Peter he appeals to is consequently different or differently active in the church.
In chapter 3, “Gelasius' Domestic Problems and International Posture,” Demacopoulos argues that Gelasius's exceptionally bold claims about ecclesiastical authority were occasioned by a context in which the Roman See was marginalized internationally and in need of reinforcement domestically. His key example is Gelasius's letter to the senator Faustus, which contains uniquely strident assertions about papal authority based on Petrine privilege but was, on Demacopoulos's reading, sent in a moment of panic—Faustus's incoming report on Gelasius's lack of influence in Constantinople threatened to undermine the claims the pontiff was making in Rome.
Chapter 4, “The Petrine Discourse in Theoderic's Italy and Justinian's Empire,” addresses imperial intersections with the Petrine topos. In the first half we see the importance of narrative in counterfactual claims to papal hegemony—both sides during the Laurentian schism employed it effectively against one another and against Theoderic, though the Symmachians alone seem to have employed Petrine discourse. In the latter half, Demacopoulos assesses Justinian's legal program with regard to Rome, arguing that Constantinopolitan expediency can reconcile Rome's marginalization in the Novellae with the emperor's affirmation of Petrine discourse and Roman primacy.
Chapter 5, “Restraint and Desperation in Gregory the Great's Petrine Appeal,” examines Gregory the Great's Petrine discourse. His innovations included emphasizing Peter's humility in his theological works, asking people to swear oaths at the tomb of St. Peter, and reorganizing the calendar of episcopal gatherings to commemorate Peter's feast day rather than his own election. In addition, Demacopoulos documents Gregory's intensification of Petrine discourse relative to his predecessors in his dealings with both the aristocracy and the emperor.
Demacopoulos strengthens his account of the power of the Petrine topos with a contrastive postscript on the Life of St. Gregory of Agrigentum. The vita, set during Pope Gregory's reign, tells of a bishop appointed and then betrayed by the pope. Demacopoulos shows that the author undermines the pontiff's authority using the very Petrine elements that Gregory himself employed. While the story foregrounds potential faultlines in papal claims, it also underscores the success of Petrine discourse: if the pope were to be discredited, it would have to be on Petrine terms.
In a tidy conclusion, Demacopoulos distills the themes of his project and links it to broader scholarly trends by aligning his conclusions with Averil Cameron's. Like the “rhetoric of empire,” Petrine discourse was multiform (and therefore adaptable to varying circumstances), totalizing (claiming that Peter was the root of all Christian meaning), and particularly persuasive through narrative.
The book includes two delightful appendices, translations of Gelasius's Ad Anastasium and Tract VI (“Against the Lupercalia”) by Demacopoulos's student, Matthew Briel. The translations are skilled and, especially in the case of Tract VI, strikingly vivid. They, however, should be more visibly credited to Briel, who is named only in the acknowledgements following the book.
In addition to this oversight, there are only a few disappointments. The volume contains a distracting number of typographical errors, including missing words, malapropisms (affect/effect, flaunt/flout, censored/censured), and misspellings. More substantively, there are not enough close readings within the text for Demacopoulos's own readings to be fully persuasive. Demacopoulos is clearly a sensitive reader, but summaries of his readings convey neither the full utility nor the real joy of discourse analysis.
This thought-provoking book is a valuable addition to scholarship on the early papacy and will intrigue those interested in historical applications of discourse analysis. Demacopoulos's exploration of Petrine discourse shows more than that moments of weakness prompted Petrine assertions of strength; it shows how successful those assertions were in creating the reality they claimed to report.
