Readers familiar with Markus Vinzent's work will not be surprised to learn of his publication of further significant studies on second- and early third-century texts, including those ascribed to Ignatius of Antioch (cf. for example, his contribution to Reinhard Hübner's important book on Antignostischer Monarchianismus im Zweiten Jahrhundert, Leiden 1999), and on Hippolytus of Rome and the famous Abercius inscription (cf. for example, his identification of Hippolytus’ statue in the Apostolic library with that of an ancient Ἀμαζών in 2004, or indeed his collaboration with the Hippolytus scholar Allen Brent in the British Academy's iconography project). A further study on the reliability of one of the (supposedly) earliest surviving significant Christian apologies could have been expected before too long (cf. his pupil William A. Simpson's doctoral thesis, published as Aristides’ Apology and the Novel Barlaam and Ioasaph (Leuven 2017), but also Vinzent's extensive work on the transmission of second-century texts, including Marcion's gospel). This substantial volume contains four such studies, and a lot of what is contained in them will sound familiar to Vinzent's regular readers. The most important one, in my view, consists in the 200 pages on the seventeen [sic] Ignatian letters. Back in 1999 Vinzent discussed evidence suggesting that the anti-Marcionite κήρυγμα Πέτρου represented a Vorlage for the Ignatian writings, or more precisely for the commonly accepted texts of the letters to Polycarp, the Ephesians and especially to the Smyraeans. This supported his teacher Hübner's view of a dating of the Ignatian material to the 170s, thus veering away by over thirty years from Adolf von Harnack's dating of Ignatius’ martyrdom to the time of the emperor Traianus Hadrianus (117–38; cf. Eusebius, Historia ecclesiastica iii.36). Some, of course, believe Ignatius to have been a pupil of the Apostle John and defend even earlier dates for these texts. The fierce discussion of the correct dates for the ‘authentic’ Ignatian letters is a model example of the access that these texts provide for many to the history of early Christianity (worth reading, for example, is the overview by Timothy D. Barnes, ‘The date of Ignatius’, Expository Times cxx [2008], 119–30). Strangely, the many books and essays written on Ignatian theology often really seem to deal with quite different authors. For some, Ignatius seems to be an anti-Marcionite, for some an anti-Gnostic, for some an armchair episcopalist, for some a cynic philosopher and for others yet a pioneer of Nicean Christology. Vinzent lists eleven/sixteen ‘early Christian phenomena’ which, for protagonists of an early dating, firstly and exclusively/almost exclusively appear in these writings. It seems peculiar that Vinzent does not make much of denominational divisions in their reception – John Calvin's fierce demotion of the worth of Ignatius’ writings being just one of many examples which do not come into view here. Had the Ignatian corpus, however, not been attached to the name of an actual bishop and martyr, but had been, say, a collection of creeds, most scholars would take it for granted that both the collection of letters, and its sometimes quite anachronistic (if an early dating for the entire corpus were to be followed) content is the result of a longer process of growth and formation. The fierce fights for an early dating and Ignatian ‘authenticity’ are clearly the result of the need to write the history of early Christianity from the beginning. There is a desire in all of us to find out how it really was in the early second century, and for this one needs reliable primary sources. The loss of ten or so of the epistles, and substantial parts of the remaining seven by the ‘middle recension’-hypothesis accepted by many modern scholars (and irreversibly put into effect by modern editors and translators), is but collateral damage due to this approach to history writing, even though not even this can shake off semantic and other inconsistencies altogether. Predictably, Vinzent rejects this hypothesis as oversimplifying matters, and calls upon the scholarly community to produce a critical edition of the entire tradition as soon as possible. However, this is the starting point – he calls it a ‘case study’ – for a far wider-reaching appeal to scholars in the field, namely, to ‘write history backwards’ and thereby to take into account the always complicated tradition of textual and other sources. The other studies on the life of Abercius and his epitaph (pp. 77–161), on Hippolytus of Rome (pp. 162–95), and on Aristides of Athens (pp. 196–265) argue along similar lines. Both the amazon statue representing Rome, chastity, courage and featuring the writings associated with Hippolytus, and the Abercius inscription with its many undertones, are being portrayed as ‘ars polivalente’ (Elena Malaspina), ambivalent art that escapes one-directional interpretations. One cannot but agree with Vinzent that, in an ideal world, Aristides should not be read without the textual context in which his apology survived (the Barlaam and Josaphat traditions). Yet at the same time, by elaborating on ‘the historical setting: the aftermath of Bar Kokhba’, this chapter proves that a leopard cannot change its spots, and a modern historian cannot but ask ‘wie es eigentlich gewesen’ (Leopold von Ranke). As with previous publications, a lot in this book is going to provoke protest and opposition, but the prejudiced reader is also in for some surprises: for example, Vinzent does not shy away from reactivating the hypothesis of Hippolytus’ authorship of the Traditio apostolica (cf. the opposing view in Wolfram Kinzig, Christoph Markschies and Markus Vinzent, Tauffragen und Bekenntnis, Berlin 1999, suggesting only a later ‘Hippolytisizing’). He shows his magnanimity by letting his pupil Simpson change his view so that the ‘four races of humanity’ in the Syriac tradition precedes Aristides’ ‘three classes’ in the B & I tradition. Many more surprising and inspiring turns, twists and insights can be found in this volume which is able to inflame enthusiasm for the study of patristic texts. Is the way ‘from reception to retrospection’ advocated herein a revolutionary new approach? I am not sure, but it certainly is worthwhile being reminded of both the complexity of the history that the sources themselves have experienced until they show up in our textbooks, and of all the prejudices that one cannot strip oneself of easily.