‘History is a democrat. It is, or should be, respectful of all human beings alike, not only those who dominate in the report or in their art.’ So writes Ramsay MacMullen in the concluding chapter to this stimulating monograph. His essential claim, the substance of which is thus partially summarised, is that there were two Christianities, one of the 5 per cent, the elite, whose churches were led by a developed hierarchy, whose worship was orderly, amongst other things separating the sexes, and who were taken up with questions of theology, church councils and the like. The other, the religion of the 95 per cent, so often disregarded by early church historians, who often attribute too much significance to the lucubrations of the literate elite, was an almost entirely cultic affair, which was light on questions of authority or theological belief.

MacMullen's case is not an entirely novel one (the broad substance of his claim could be found in the work of an increasing number of scholars, and could in broad terms be traced back to Walter Bauer's, Rechtgläubigkeit und Ketzerei of 1934, but the manner in which he goes about proving it, namely by almost exclusive reference to archaeological evidence, is. Including in his ambit a considerable expanse of territory, both eastern and western (the book begins with a critique of what MacMullen terms a too occidental treatment of early Christian history), MacMullen takes us through a great amount of evidence. He begins with an account of the house church at Dura Europos, describing its essentially hierarchical character, and its division of the sexes. Important for MacMullen is, however, that on his estimation such a church would only have been able to house a small fraction of the Christian population of that border town. Its implied ecclesiology, its religion, was not necessarily that of the majority. This majority religion, the second Christianity, of which MacMullen speaks in the title of his book, often manifested itself outside the city walls, in ancient cemeteries, connected with ancestors or a particular martyr cult. The churches connected with these places ‘outside the walls’ (MacMullen notes that seven of the eight Roman churches, and three-quarters of the African churches known to us were located in cemeteries) did not necessarily have a clearly established clergy and often were the scenes of hearty meals. Those, like Augustine's mother, Monica, who participated in these meals, which were often connected with a martyr, who, rather than Christ, tended to take centre stage, often saw eating and drinking as worship, and appeared to carry over into their worship aspects of their pagan past. When MacMullen does use the written record as it comes down to us, he does so merely to highlight the criticisms cast upon the behaviour of this perceived majority by an Ambrose or an Augustine.

MacMullen's book, which contains further interesting discussions of the origins of the catacombs, the proportion of the population of the empire that was Christian in the period following Constantine (just 5 per cent of the population on his estimate), and the numbers who attended church (between 1 and 8 per cent of the empire's population), presents the reader with a Church which appears, at least in conventional terms, only mildly Christianised (on p. 110 MacMullen pleads for a spectrum of religious affiliation ranging from the model to deviance or total indifference). Reading his book one can only too easily understand why, for instance, John Chrysostom, a relatively frequently cited source in this book, found himself lecturing Christians at Antioch in the early 380s on the fact that they should not attend the Jewish synagogues and revel, amongst other things, in the ritual of the high holiday services. The majority of MacMullen's fourth-century Christians are members of a minority movement, and only very lightly Christianised, however we understand that term.

This is a stimulating book which in a brief space (just 114 pages of main text, supported by thirty-three pages of dense footnotes) makes a number of bold assertions on the basis of evidence not widely known. Some might question the means by which MacMullen arrives at his conclusion about the nature and distribution of the ‘second Church’, and the extent to which he seems to assume, not an absolute, but a pretty strict divide between the two Churches he describes, and wonder further how these two bodies ever managed to align so as to form a coherent religious and political entity (MacMullen assumes a gradual process whereby the wealthy and powerful gradually gained control over the cemetery churches beyond the walls). Those more knowledgeable than this reviewer concerning the sites that MacMullen seeks to describe (the book contains a very useful appendix listing all the remains of Christian churches built before 400) and from which he draws his various conclusions, may have more to say in the way of informed criticism. But such questions should not detract from the fact that this book in short order presents a clear and intriguing thesis with which church historians will need to wrestle.