Hornung's book revolves around the thesis that, in the course of the fourth to sixth centuries, the priesthood underwent a process of “asceticization” (Asketisierung) that is related to the evolution of monastic life. This asceticization, however, did not only involve an adaptation of monastic forms of life but also the development of distinct clerical ascetic standards determined by specific clerical responsibilities of a vita activa. The thesis is certainly not new. Robert Markus coined the term “ascetic invasion” already in his work The End of Ancient Christianity (Cambridge University Press, 1990). The merit of Monachus et sacerdos consists of pointing to a broad selection of textual material supporting his thesis.
Chapter 1 provides a succinct overview of the imperatives of Christian behavior as they were phrased in the works of the apostolic fathers, Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, Origenes, and Cyprian and in the apocryphal Acts of the Apostles. Hornung focuses largely on the requirement of sexual renunciation and the praise of virginity, essentially giving a short summary of Peter Brown's The Body and Society: Men, Women, and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity (Columbia University Press, 1988).
Even though Hornung shows that each author develops a distinct rationale for the imperative of sexual abstinence—which may or may not have been ascetically motivated and which is not expressed in a unified language of asceticism—he comes to the conclusion that all of these statements can be seen as pre-monastic expressions of an evolving yet uniform ascetic ideal. Chapter 2 provides useful summaries of concepts of priesthood and its requirements based on the works of Gregory of Nazianzus (emphasizing purity, heavenly life, and apostolic life), John Chrysostom (criticizing unethical clerical life and emphasizing the priestly role as mediator), Ambrose (focusing on the dignity of the office and the imperative of restraint), Augustine (for whom the priesthood represented sainthood, integrity, and humility), and Gregory the Great (emphasizing the pastoral qualification of priest and bishops). Hornung does so on the basis of the assumption that all texts address the same, essentially stable, concept of priesthood from slightly different perspectives, even though the evidence he provides might point to the opposite.
Chapter 3 gives an overview of ecclesiastical legislation—especially acts of councils—requiring sexual continence for priests, determining their public appearance, and sanctioning their involvement in secular matters, including divinatory practices. Chapter 4 describes forms of communal life of clerics that were modeled after monastic life based on material from the works of Sozomenos, Ambrose, Augustine, Fulgentius of Ruspe, and Caesarius of Arles and the acts of episcopal councils. Chapter 5 argues that the asceticization of clerical life also faced resistance. Hornung's thesis is largely based on the anticipated counterarguments against sexual continence in the letters of Siricius and the work of the Ambrosiaster.
The merit of Hornung's book lies in giving access to a variety of important late antique texts on clerical life in a clear and well-structured manner; its weakness is that he does not make much use of the potential of his observations, utilizing them primarily to support his somewhat flat thesis on the “asceticization” of priesthood, which does not do much justice to the complexity of late antique radical religious life. Hornung might have achieved more if he had abandoned the expression “asceticism” altogether as he indiscriminately applies it to any aspect of monastic life and any form of priestly discipline regardless of its theological framing and social function.
It seems that Hornung imagines “the church” (die Großkirche) as a sort of oil tanker that slowly and sedately sails through the ocean of time, built according to unchangeable institutional models and fueled by doctrine and a “truth” that may just have been expressed in different words by its different spokesmen.
