In this compilation, the fruit of two sets of meetings and sponsored by a number of august European bodies, there are fifteen chapters, framed by an introduction by H.-C. Brennecke and a conclusion by Y. Hen. Some are by well-known names of an older generation: the first chapter, in German (with a summary in English), ‘Ulfila and the so-called “Gothic” Arianism’, is by the late K. Schäferdiek, while H. Wolfram contributes an essay on Ulfila and the ‘minor’ Goths. Brennecke himself offers a ‘deconstruction’ of ‘so-called Germanic Arianism’. R. Mathisen builds extensively on his seminal essay on ‘barbarian’ bishops with further work on ‘Arian’ clergy, church organisation and church practices. U. Heil, whose recent book has greatly enhanced our knowledge of Burgundian Homoianism, contributes ‘The Homoians’ and ‘The Homoians in Gaul’, the latter dealing with the Visigothic kingdom in southern Gaul as well as the Burgundians. There are contributions on Ostrogothic Italy by the editors; on Lombard ‘Arianism’ by P. Majocchi; ‘Arianism’ in Africa by R. Whelan; and ‘Arianism’ and ethnic identity in sixth-century Spain by M. Koch. M. Pérez Martinez links Victricius of Rouen's promotion of the cult of relics in De Laude Sanctorum with his attempts to reconcile British schismatics in the wake of the ‘Arian controversy’, suggesting the centrality of Nicene theology to Victricius' concept of martyrs as intercessors. B. Wolfe considers Germanic language and Germanic Homoianism. R. Bockmann discusses what he calls the ‘non-archaeology’ of Arianism: comparing North Africa and Ravenna, he points out that Arian and Nicene churches looked very much the same, suggesting minimal liturgical differences between the two groups. P. Parvis provides a revealing and thoughtful discussion of a key, if elliptical, text, the Martyrdom of Sabas the Goth. He demonstrates that this is a reliable account of non-Christian persecution of ‘Arians’ in a village in Gothia in the 370s, repackaged for Nicene audiences and incidentally indicating the ‘value of relics as hard currency’ for the socially and politically aspirant. S. Parvis asks whether Ulfila was really ‘homoian’: she prefers to see him as ‘self-confessedly non-Nicene’ and tries to suggest that ‘it is by no means more certain that he was drawn to the “homoian” creeds of 359 and 360 than he was to the theology of Eunomius'. Rooted firmly in the intricacies of the ‘Arian Controversy’, her argument nevertheless elides the very real differences between Arius and other ‘Arians’ and questions the distance between the various ‘Arian’ groups themselves. While the fathers of Homoianism, Ursacius of Singidunum and Valens of Mursa, were described at an early stage as ‘vipers from the Arian asp’, this should be read as polemic: their aversion to discussions of ‘substance’ differentiates them sharply both from their alleged mentor and from Eunomius. It is also questionable to suggest that Ulfila's creed contains a ‘flat denial’ of the creeds of 359 and 360, which affirm that the Son is ‘like’ the Father (sc. ‘like’ as opposed to ‘identical in substance’ or ‘like in substance’). We should understand Ulfila's reference to the Son as non habentem similem suam in the light of other creeds which (as she herself admits) proclaim that he is ‘not like’ other creatures.

Hen's conclusion seems to take issue with a number of his fellow contributors. He thinks we are all guilty to a greater or lesser degree of what he calls ‘Nicene myopia’ and we should, he suggests, concentrate less on theology. (Readers may wonder what to make of this statement, given the amount of theology in the book.) Hen takes Mathisen to task for an implicit ‘Nicene model’ of church organisation against which he measures the ‘Arian Church’. He asks: could it have been structured differently from the beginning, not just adapted to cater for the special needs of the Barbarian gentes? What happened to the ‘Roman Arians’? Were Ambrose and Augustine so successful in converting them? These comments are, to say the least, confusing. They disregard, as the title of the book seems also to disregard, the fact that ‘Homoianism’ or ‘Arianism’ was not always a Roman heresy but was, for approximately two decades, the official religion of the Roman Empire. Most ‘Roman Arians’ would have been part of the same sort of ecclesiastical organisation as ‘Nicenes’ and would have become Nicene-Constantinopolitan Christians in 381, when their bishops subscribed to the new creed and Ambrose of Milan successfully crushed prominent ‘Arian’ bishops at the Synod of Aquileia. A few years later Ambrose ostentatiously opposed a visiting Arian Emperor and his Gothic troops in the Milanese ‘basilica war’, but this was a publicity exercise designed to bolster his own position. Augustine debated with ‘Arians’ in North Africa, but his most tenacious opponent, Maximinus, had arrived there with the Gothic Count Sigisvult and Augustine's efforts were less than successful.

For some time, I have suggested that we view ‘Arianism’ differently. The cradle of Homoian Christianity was the Danube frontier and we should try to see it from the point of view of the Goths and those attempting their conversion. B. Wolfe sternly rejects E.A. Thomson's attempts to find an affinity between paganism and ‘Arianism’, but modern approaches such as the cognitive science of religion suggest a different approach. Homoianism's careful separation out of the persons of the Trinity looks like a way of addressing widespread non-Christian intuitions of divinity and creating an entry-level version of Christianity accessible to the Goths. (It also had its attractions for Constantius II, anxious to keep a peaceful Danube frontier and to provide a Symbol that would end the problems created by his father's support for the Nicene Creed.) The ‘Ulfilan’ project to translate the Bible into Gothic was presumably intended eventually to lift the Goths past entry-level. Hen does not mention the Gothic Bible, but much of the ‘Arian’ ecclesiastical literature which he castigates us for not using is notably difficult to differentiate from ‘Nicene’ texts; a more belligerent approach seems to have entered ‘Arian’ writings in Ostrogothic Italy only as Theodoric's rule began to run into serious difficulties. ‘Arianism’ is discussed at several points in this collection as a marker of ethnic identity, but what the earlier years of Theodoric's rule (and his Ravenna buildings) reveal is his desire to be a Roman and his – consequently – initially good relations with the Roman Church. The political-social history of the sixth-century European ‘Arian’ monarchies demonstrates their eagerness to control and use an episcopate to underpin their power – and the equal eagerness with which their warriors sought to inhibit this, constraining them wherever possible to use a few ‘Arian’ clerics, unconnected with Roman institutions. Theodoric's late militant ‘Arianism’ was intended to pacify opposition. In Spain Leovigild had to attempt the compromise of enticing Catholic bishops into a new ‘Arian’ hierarchy; his son Reccared took the decisive step of opting for Catholicism and facing down the inevitable revolts. Columbanus found the Lombard ruler Agilulf eager to accept baptism but, although there is, as Majocchi indicates, astonishingly thin evidence for Lombard ‘Arianism’, it nevertheless took another half century or so for a Lombard Catholic monarchy to emerge definitively. Was a range of similar manoeuvres taking place in the Vandal kingdom in North Africa when – apparently – 88 Nicene bishops opted for Homoianism, as Whelan mentions? There are many questions still to be answered, but some discussions have already gone past the stage represented by this collection. Summing up, Hen suggests that it is now time to enter what he calls the ‘next phase’ of ‘Arian studies’, concentrating more on the ‘political, social and cultural function of Arianism in Late Antiquity and the post-Roman Barbarian World’. Laudable aims – but readers should be aware that some of these ships have already set sail.