Clemens Scholten has undertaken a monumental task in providing a bilingual edition with annotated German translation of Theodoret's De Graecarum affectionum curatione – usually rendered in English as ‘A cure of pagan maladies’ – that runs to some 850 pages. It provides an invaluable service to all who want to engage with this important and often neglected work by an author who has only recently begun to attract the level of attention that he deserves. Even those who find the German translation a linguistic challenge (they may wish to compare the recent English translation by Thomas Halton, A cure of pagan maladies [Ancient Christian Writers], Mahwah, NJ 2013) will benefit from the comprehensive discussion of the work in the introduction and a very full annotation that – in the best commentary tradition – discusses problems of the Greek text, questions of texts quoted or alluded to by Theodoret, as well as explanations of numerous substantive issues raised in Theodoret's work. A number of helpful indices are provided; of particular value are the comparative tables of ancient writers quoted in Theodoret, summarising the relationship of his material to that used in Clement of Alexandria's Stromateis, Eusebius’ Preparatio evangelica, Origen's Contra Celsum, Cyrill's Adversus Julianum (for which work the new GCS edition by W. Kinzig et al. is in the process of appearing and must in future be consulted), and Stobaeus’ Anthologium. The survey allows the reconstruction of almost the entire tradition of Christian apologetics in regard to these ancient writers.

Greek text and German translation are offered on facing pages. Scholten has decided to reprint the Greek text of Raeder (1904) over that of Canivet (1958/2001) – noting however the comparatively few differences – because of its full critical apparatus (which Canivet abridged). Continuing discussion of the complex manuscript tradition, which is compounded by the difficulties encountered in the textual form of quotations from ancient authors in the Curatio, requires, Scholten argues convincingly, that textual variants be laid out in detail.

Scholten's work, however, is much more than a translation; it provides the most comprehensive available discussion of this important work, of its place in the wider Christian apologetic tradition and, importantly, in the cultural transformation of late antique society, on-going at the time of writing, in the Greek-speaking east of the empire.

Scholten's discussion of the work's dating, purposes and audience not only sheds important light on all these questions, but also provides frequent and most opportune reminders of the interpretative and conceptual complexities of the assessment and historical evaluation of this work (and by extension, I would claim, of much late antique Christian literature in general). Scholten, for instance, warns against efforts to date the work chiefly by the analysis of its doctrinal vocabulary (or lack thereof). The extensive discussion of the questions surrounding sources and doxography do not stop at the level of ‘Quellenstudie’, but invite further study of the working practices of compilation and ordering of material, to which he contributes significant signposts. Most illuminating also is the discussion of the likely purposes of the work and its envisaged audience(s). Scholten identifies the intended addressees as the (former) learned urban elites (‘Bildungspublikum’), whose formal education may nevertheless fall short of the highest standards (attesting them ‘Halbbildung’). The debates over the intellectual and cultural foundations of a society in the process of transformation, having already, in the first half of the fifth century, moved some distance towards Christian cultural dominance, are very much a live issue reflected by Theodoret. He invites those former elites that find themselves pushed out of their traditional positions for acceptance of a ‘cultured’ Christianity as well as sketching the contours of a public sphere now increasingly shaped by it. At the same time, the work offers Christian readers reinforcement of their own conviction and the argumentative arsenal (and educational storehouse – having one eye to the creating of an ‘enlightened’ Christianity whose attractiveness he attempts to demonstrate) for this process. An Antiochene background for Theodoret's experience, and its likely smaller scale replication in many eastern cities at the time, suggested by Scholten, strike me as convincing. Scholten credits Theodoret with a perceptive accommodation to the historical moment and the needs and sensibilities of such an imagined, ideal audience. I find persuasive the concomitant reminder that the religious, cultural and social phenomena presented in this light by Theodoret cannot always be taken as directly descriptive of contemporary or historical practice, that scholarly analysis must seek, rather, to understand its shaping in pursuit of his aims.

Scholten's work belongs in every research library; it will be required reading for anyone interested in Theodoret, Christian apologetics and the intellectual world and culture of the late Roman East. It can, moreover, provide a model for anyone wishing to prepare a translation and commentary of ancient Christian texts to the highest methodological and hermeneutical standards.