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Apocalyptic Thought in Early Christianity. Edited by ROBERT J. DALY, SJ.

2010; Oxford University Press; Volume: 61; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1093/jts/flq086

1477-4607

S. G. Hall,

Biblical Studies and Interpretation

This set of essays derives from a ‘fall conference’ of the Pappas Patristic Institute of Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology, Brookline, Massachusetts. The papers, edited by the Institute’s Director, are consistently learned and well written. The book begins with a summary of the chapters by the editor, each chapter has a clear conclusion, and there are helpful indexes of subjects, modern authors, and ancient sources. If there are some problems about the unity of the book, that does not detract from the value of the individual pieces, which readers will find illuminating. The two chapters on art are especially valuable, bringing together lines of interpretation from many sources: John Herrmann and Annewies van der Hoek on early Christian monumental and minor art, and Nancy Patterson Ševčenko on images of the second coming and the fate of the soul in middle Byzantine art. Both are aptly illustrated, but unfortunately on a small scale and in a black and white reproduction, reducing most colours to an indeterminate grey. The first four chapters are studies on interpreting the Revelation of John, and their authors write as though ‘apocalyptic’ is primarily or only with reference to that book. Bernard McGinn has a useful contribution on exegesis of Revelation in the earlier Fathers. Other chapters tackle various related ideas about the end of the world, the opening of heaven to mankind in Jesus Christ, and the destiny of the soul especially after death. John A. McGuckin, once he gets past shooting torpedoes at modern New Testament scholarship, has admirable things to say about Origen’s reworking of eschatology and his diverse adaptations in Gregory of Nazianzus and Gregory of Nyssa. Although Brian E. Daley has worked around apocalyptic literature in other publications, and demonstrates helpfully the transformation of apocalyptic themes into cosmology in Irenaeus, and Christology in Hippolytus and Origen, his attempt to define apocalyptic(ism) on pp. 106–8 is not the one taken as basic by Dragos-Andrei Giulea (p. 130) or Lorenzo DiTommaso (p. 230); in both cases they quote John Collins, then show how his definition does not exactly apply. Daley’s idea of a literary genre is a good one, but should not then be complicated by matters of the content. Nor does the claim that apocalypses are ‘narrative’ or ‘pseudographic’ get us far: much of the Bible is narrative and nearly all of it pseudographic. It is no surprise therefore that individual writers in this book have many different approaches. Giulea struggles to find ‘apocalyptic’ terminology in the Ps.-Hippolytus, In sanctum pascha; but as to genre it is liturgical homily, and as to content it is about divine revelation through the paschal mystery, and has little in common with any book usually labelled ‘apocalyptic’. Similarly Georgia Frank’s chapter on Christ’s descent to the underworld is much to be praised, but not clearly ‘apocalyptic’, and the same can be said for other essays, not mentioned here. The whole collection of Byzantine Daniel apocalyptica, however, fluently described by DiTommaso, uncovers and sets in its social and political context a world of literature, numerous and complex like those of monastic stories and canon law.