Abstract
When historians of early Christianity refer to the ‘second century’, their use of the term may be more conceptual than chronological. It often serves as a label for a period that is typically characterized as a time of rapid evolution and significant diversity in early Christian thought and practice, when major developments of lasting significance took place. Exact dates are less important than the implicit or explicit distinction between the ‘first century’, the period when most or all of the books of the New Testament are usually dated, and the post-apostolic period that followed, even if some post-apostolic writings may in fact be earlier than or overlap with certain books attributed to apostles and now included in the canon.
These two books offer contrasting and complementary introductions and approaches to the period. Kruger’s approach is to present a map (to draw on terminology associated with Jonathan Z. Smith, and picked up by several of the authors in the second book reviewed here). Thus, in Christianity at the Crossroads, he offers a clear overview of how he understands Christianity to have developed in the period, from a perspective not unlike that of some of the ‘proto-orthodox’ authors of the time. He acknowledges the diversity of views found among those whose surviving writings (or other accounts of their beliefs, as preserved by other, sometimes hostile, writers) suggest that they saw themselves as followers of Jesus. But he argues that it is possible and desirable to distinguish clearly between the orthodox core of Christian believers, who may be judged the faithful interpreters and inheritors of the authoritative writings of the New Testament, and heretical or deviant groups around the fringes of the mainstream.
One strength of Kruger’s treatment is the breadth of his subject matter. The topics that he addresses include issues arising between Jewish and Gentile followers of Jesus, the role of women, outsiders’ critiques of Christianity and Christian responses, patterns of ministry and worship, the bookish nature of early Christianity, and the emergence of the New Testament canon. Another strength is the wide range of primary literature that Kruger introduces and discusses, with references in footnotes to secondary literature for further reading. Yet despite the often recent literature that he notes, Kruger’s account of the second century reads as if it predates many current debates, and he sometimes seems unwilling to engage with scholars who take different views; readers who pursue the references in some footnotes will find that they problematize and question some of Kruger’s claims in a way that he does not always make clear in the text.
Much that Kruger affirms is challenged by contributors to the multi-authored volume Christianity in the Second Century, although points of convergence may also be found. Here, a series of essays discuss different aspects of the territory that any map would need to try to represent, were it possible to do so. Whereas Kruger introduces much of the ancient evidence that any historian of second-century Christianity must consider, the contributors here concentrate rather more on the questions asked by recent scholarship. Thus, as the editors explain in their incisive introduction, recent scholars have argued that once widely recognized terms such as ‘heresy’, ‘orthodoxy’, ‘Gnosticism’ and even ‘Christianity’ and ‘Judaism’ are no longer self-evident, but are now recognized as constructs that mask more complicated realities in which distinctions between different groups were more fluid and complex than previously acknowledged.
Contributors pick up on these and related issues in 18 essays, arranged under four headings: ‘Contexts’ (on Judaism, and on Christianity in relation to Judaism, the Roman Empire and more broadly); ‘Discerning continuity and discontinuity in early Christianity’ (one essay on continuity and discontinuities between the writings of the New Testament and the second century, and another comparing the situation c.100
Highlights include Carleton Paget’s discussion of what it might mean to approach the second century from the perspective of the New Testament (a growth area in recent scholarship), King’s treatment of how the demise of older views about Gnosticism have impacted on more recent approaches to the study of second-century Christianity, and Löhr’s analysis of what it might mean to conceptualize Christian discourse of the period as ‘theology’ or ‘philosophy’. But other riches are also to be found, and the whole book deserves careful attention.
Both books are accessible to readers at an advanced undergraduate level, and may be recommended as different introductions to the period that they discuss. The former offers a straightforward and stable narrative about the development of second-century Christianity that reflects the sort of approach to this period that fits comfortably under the modern heading of ‘patristics’. The latter is not without elements of a similar approach, but in the main it challenges clear and stable narratives and asks the sort of questions that may be thought characteristic of ‘early Christian studies’. I learned a great deal from reading the two books alongside each other, and I think others would too.