North African Christianity between 200 and 450 CE is well-trodden territory. Augustine and Tertullian penetrate the minds of most theological students, not to mention those in Classics, and Cyprian usually is not too far behind. However, new questions and new approaches continue to make revisiting these old friends fruitful. Éric Rebillard's study is a case in point. His tapping into current sociological and literary theory assists him in creating a stimulating narrative, but it also distracts.
His thesis is found late in the book: “my goal was not to show that Christians enjoyed ‘normal’ day-to-day relations with non-Christians (a point conceded by most scholars of early Christianity), but to argue that Christianness was only one of a plurality of identities available to be activated in a given situation (a point too often neglected in favor of the study of group or collective identity)” (92, emphasis added). It would have been helpful to have had this appear in the introduction as well as the conclusion. Methodologically, Rebillard proceeds with a deconstructive reading of the writings of the three luminaries mentioned above along with a selection of other relevant literature. Where he offers his own translations, he produces attractive and lucid texts (22).
One of the primary strengths of Rebillard's study is his reaching through the work of the literati to gain insight into the lives of the “masses” of contemporary Christians—“I am less interested in Tertullian's view than I am concerned with what he reveals about the different and sometimes contradictory attitudes of other Christians” (25), and “most scholars have simply adopted the criteria of the bishops . . . and have given too little consideration to the arguments used by Christians when they challenged their bishops” (70). The relationships among the “led” and the “leaders” are always symbiotic and complicated. The concerns of the people rise to decision-makers and shape their agendas, negatively or positively, and Rebillard's work makes that very clear regarding the era and the places he is studying. The people are found in the rhetoric of their superiors.
A second strength is Rebillard's foregrounding of diversity. As elsewhere, the story of Christianity at these times and places often reads flat or two-dimensional. Rebillard has found ways to provide depth. He magnifies the texture of the story. Anyone who has had anything to do with a church, or a history department for that matter, knows that the texture was rough, but that reality typically is overlooked. Rebillard argues that Emperor Decius issued an edict in 250 in an effort “to restore the pax deorum in a very troubled period” (48). Commenting on the variety of Christians' responses to the edict, he says “on the one hand the majority of Christians did not consider the sacrifice relevant to their membership [as Christians] and accordingly performed it freely and willingly; on the other, a number of Christians did not want to sacrifice because of their membership. Some of the latter pursued compromises; others endured confession and martyrdom” (53). Similar examples of diversity are highlighted throughout the book.
Unfortunately, there are several features of the book that are less attractive. First, the argots of sociology and literary theory are not particularly helpful. To illustrate, the book's thesis reads, “Christianness was only one of a plurality of identities available to be activated in a given situation.” The word “christianness,” itself is awkward even though Rebillard offers justification for using it (99n3), but the other words I have italicized are more troubling. I am not analyzing Rebillard's sources here, and it is easy to determine what the neologisms mean, but it suggests a cyborg-like, mechanized view of the human person. Rebillard succeeds in getting us to conceptualize individual persons, but then the persons sound something like Mr. Spock from Star Trek, coolly flipping switches on and off, deactivating their christianness as they leave church (90), for example. People do function in varieties of settings and alter their behavior in accordance with their situations, but they may still be reasonably well-integrated people who are socially aware, and all without “activating” or “deactivating” various “identities.”
Second, one finds gratuitous assumptions occasionally. In treating some of Tertullian's comments in Scorpiace, Rebillard says, “Tertullian also rejects the possibility of denying being Christian without denying Christ himself (chapter 9, sections 9–13), thus suggesting that some Christians thought that this was possible. These Christians meant not to abandon their membership in the Christian organization, but simply to lie about it to the authorities” (45). This is a reach into people's motivation, and it is certainly a possibility, but it is by no means as clear cut as Rebillard suggests. Later, he discusses Augustine's position on attending spectacles (73). He suggests those who disagreed probably argued that lay people like themselves had different obligations than bishops. That may have been true, but assuming probability is a step too far. A small point, but not an irrelevant one.
Third, and this may be attributable to the publisher rather than the author, placing references in endnotes in a scholarly book such as this rather than in footnotes is a mistake. When notes are so important to the argument, they need to be close to the text.
This is an important study. It offers a richer and fuller picture of Christianity in the period and the location specified than one often finds. Then Rebillard brings it to a close with an intriguing contention which points toward future research. He is sure that there was very little difference between the ways Christians lived before that the alleged watershed called the “Peace of the Church” or the “Constantinian divide” and the way Christians lived afterward (96–97).
