The commendations from Anthony Kenny and John Magee printed on the cover of this book are deserved. This book is erudite, informative, stimulating and interesting to read. Its scope and content are explained and indeed are only explicable by its origin as a series of Trinity College lectures, not Cambridge English Faculty lectures (an ill-advised rebuff, later repented of, which understandably still rankles with Marenbon). Their theme was ‘paganism’, a special topic prescribed for undergraduate study and examination. He clarifies that ‘the problem of paganism’ in the title ‘picks out a set of closely connected issues … which reveal a central tension within the culture of Western Europe in the period from c. 200 to c. 1700, the “Long Middle Ages” … given sustained attention by a number of the most remarkable thinkers and writers of the period’. I fancy that the ‘Long Middle Ages’ for which Marenbon's modest advocacy is less than cogent (how much to be preferred, how much more rational the short ‘Middle Ages’ of the French reckoning from the Oaths of Strasburg to the accession of the Valois, 842–1328) owes more to the purview of the English Faculty at Cambridge than to historical science. If philosophers are in the title, the sense is broad; the writers, so tellingly selected here for discussion, are mostly theologians, poets, essayists and cultured observers of one kind or another. Some of them choose themselves (Aquinas could scarcely be omitted, for example), others are there as examples of special features. Shakespeare is not here but will have his lecture course elsewhere on the Faculty list. Marenbon calls his general approach one of ‘historical synthesis’. He draws out the arguments and pre-conceptions of his authors, setting them in chronological succession and mutual comparison. Similar arguments and apparently the same conclusions on problematic issues debated in all periods of ecclesiastical history recur. Marenbon demonstrates that their contexts render them never quite the same but also that his chronological limits to the problem are arbitrary. He has written an admirable contribution to historical theology whether he would call it that or not.
The ‘problem’ is three-fold. I put it vulgarly: can non-Christians be morally good, do they know anything worth knowing and can they go to heaven when they die? The crude answers allowing for possible permutations are ‘yes’, ‘no’ and ‘perhaps sometimes’. There is, of course, a pre-history of the problem in the Bible and early Judaeo-Christian exposition of Genesis vi.2ff where it is primal angelic rebellion which led to the invention of false religion and false values. The New Testament and the second-century Apologists are conscious of it and varyingly suggest answers. Marenbon's concern being with the Western Church he fittingly starts detailed exposition with Augustine and Boethius, its two widest read and seminal writers. Augustine's view of the classic intellectual culture of his time was broadly positive. On pagan virtue he was negative. His basic position was bequeathed to Article xviii of the Thirty-Nine Articles: ‘Works done before the grace of Christ … have the nature of sin.’ As for the ‘virtuous’ heroes and heroines of ancient Rome they had never, as it were, been the subjects of critical biography. However, Marenbon notes also an ‘element of grudging relativism’, a ‘perhaps sometimes’ of the merits of ancient political theory. This was to be echoed in the generations following when Augustine's words were essential points of reference. Boethius is convincingly presented as, in his Consolation, a Christian philosopher for whom philosophy is the natural precursor of Christian faith and so of the ‘yes’ camp potentially at least. Part ii, ‘From Alcuin to Langland’, I found in some ways the richest section of a rich book. For Alcuin there was no problem; he saw no disharmony between Christian faith and classical philosophy. With Abelard we meet ‘the first thinker, since Augustine and Boethius, for whom the Problem of Paganism was a central concern’. His answers to my vulgar questionnaire would be a series of yeses. A chapter on John of Salisbury is followed by an excursion into the awareness of paganism in the new form of Arabians, Mongolians and the world of the Far East. But it was the acceptance of Aristotle as pre-eminent master of knowledge which raised the problem acutely: the better his thought was understood the less compatible with the Bible and Christian tradition it was seen to be. A particular difficulty was, as it had been in the sixth century, Aristotle's view of the eternity of the world. Aquinas and the Schoolmen are discussed and their distinctive contributions noted. Importantly there was a division of interest between theologians and arts men which encouraged mutual recognition of validity. As for virtue and the salvation of the heathen, there was much discussion. Special providences, implicit faith and bogus testimonies were appealed to by some and rejected by others. Dante and Boccaccio then receive valuable discussion followed by Langland and Chaucer. Part iii, 1400–1700, brings the period to a close. The issues and the arguments repeat but now with experience from missions to the Far East and of South American empire offering a new perspective on the ancient problem.
I found much to learn and ponder on in this book. An amusing and instructive detail that I should never have known: look at Galeotto Marzio di Narnia (d.1492) discussed on pp. 282f. There was a much used exemplum. It involved the salvation of the Emperor Trajan's soul, heathen though he was, by the prayers of Gregory the Great who had been moved to tears by an account of an act of charity on Trajan's part. No, said Galeotto. Trajan was a persecutor. He was saved because God requires only faith in him. Gregory's intercession and his baptising tears were irrelevant. It was out of faithful performance of his perceived religious duty to persecute Christians that the pagan emperor was saved and secured entry into heaven. Would that do for an IS terrorist?
