World Christianity
Southwestern Journal of Theology
Volume 61, No. 2 – Spring 2019
Managing Editor: W. Madison Grace II
By Larry W. Hurtado. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2016. xiv + 290 pages. Paperback, $19.95
“Among both the scholarly guild and the wider public, there is a widespread presumption that all religions are basically the same, with insignificant variations of belief and practices, but essentially fitting one conceptual box” (xii). Hurtado argues that this common assumption is essentially “flawed” (xii). He explains, “I want to highlight some major features of early Christianity that made it distinctive, noteworthy, and even peculiar in the ancient Greek and Roman setting” (6).
The opening chapters discuss how outsiders referred to Christians as “different, odd, and even objectionable” (15). Hurtado surveys the views of Pliny, Galen, Marcus Aurelius, Lucian, and Celsus. The Greco-Roman world did not lack for deities—indeed, it was “a world full of gods” (44). Religion was woven into the warp and woof of society, and citizens participated in a smorgasbord of worship (47). Nonetheless, the pagan stance of eusebeia (piety) was considered asebeia (impiety) by the early Christians (50). In turn, the pagans accused the Christians of “atheism” (56). To express their disdain for the pagan gods, early Christians adopted the Jewish vocabulary of “idol” (eidōlon) and its linguistic blends (51).
In Christian belief, the one Creator God was “radically transcendent” (62), yet he redemptively loved humanity (65–66). Early Christians particularly distinguished themselves from Jewish monotheism by the “genuine novelty” and “historic innovation” of their “extraordinary” reverence and devotion directed to Jesus Christ (66, 73, 75). Furthermore, they were rather sectarian in their exclusivist claims (70).
Hurtado recognizes that “our notions of ‘religion’ do not map directly onto the concepts and practices of the ancient world” (80). Moreover, he critiques past scholars who have contrasted Christianity as “a religion of beliefs” with Judaism and paganism as religions of ritual. Christianity also emphasized practices and rites (91). In fact, claims Hurtado, for the early Christians “particular religious practices were as central as beliefs in defining them and expressing their religious identity” (91).
Chapter 3 draws attention to the self-designation of Christians as a “people,” “race,” and “nation” (101; cf. 1 Pet 2:9). This reader retained a desire for more investigation into the early Christian understanding of “race,” “ethnicity,” and “culture” vs. contemporary notions (cf. 79). The book emphasizes how early Christians transcended “ethnic” and “racial” identifications, yet the primary sources often designate Christians as a “new race” or a “third race.” A footnote briefly interacts with the work of Denise Kimber Buell (234n65), mentioning “reservations” with her Why This New Race? Ethnic Reasoning in Early Christianity, but one thirsted for more development.
Chapter 4 discusses the “bookish” nature of early Christianity. The movement was “phenomenally prolific and varied in literary output” (119) and was characterized by an essential “textuality” (126, 141). Notwithstanding, Christians were “at odds with the larger book culture of the time” due to their preference for the codex, and they exhibited this penchant “precisely for texts that they most highly valued, those that they treated as scriptures” (135–37). The chapter closes with a discussion of the nomina sacra—a topic with which readers of Hurtado’s other works will be well-acquainted (138–41).
Chapter 5 relates the distinctive social and behavioral practices of early Christians. Paganism did not underscore ethical conduct as embodied in a description of moral “dos and don’ts” (154–55). Early Christians opposed the cultural practices of abortion, infant exposure, gladiatorial combat, and porneia (which Hurtado interprets as comprising a wide spectrum of “illicit sex”). The early Christian “household codes” were distinctive as well—when these “codes” were read in congregational contexts, “those in the various subordinate social categories also heard the exhortations given to those in the corresponding dominant positions” (179).
While pagan men were “allowed great latitude in their sexual activities” (157), the Apostle Paul espoused an equality of conjugal rights and mutual marital faithfulness (164). The Pastoral Epistles emphasize being “a one-woman man,” paralleling the cultural elevation of being a “one-man woman” (166). “It seems that for early Christians what was good for the goose was also thought good for the gander!” (167). Ecclesiastical authors also condemned the sexual exploitation of children, even forming a new vocabulary (paidophthoreō and paidophthoros) to express revulsion at such abuse (181).
The appendix (191–96) succinctly critiques the religionsgeschichtliche Schule that once dominated German scholarship. The book’s endnotes are definitely worth perusing. In note 43 on page 257, Hurtado thanks Jan Bremmer for pointing him to Euripides’ Hippolytus as a Greco-Roman example of having sexual relations with “your father’s wife” (cf. 1 Cor 5:1). I would also point readers to Seneca’s version of Phaedra and its interesting parallels with Paul’s rhetorical purpose. In a minor oversight, a Latin misspelling (univria for univira) slipped by the copy-editors (260n60).
Hurtado concludes, “Early Christianity of the first three centuries was a different, even distinctive, kind of religious movement in the cafeteria of religious options of the time” (183). Today we tend to think of religion as matter of voluntary choice distinct from cultural ethnicity, we tend to assume that religions teach a system of ethics, and we tend to distinguish between those who believe that “God” exists and those who deny that “God” exists. The fact that such sentiments have become commonplace reveals just how much the distinctive nature of early Christianity has affected the modern world (187). Hurtado affirms, “I hope that we who are so very conscious of our own time will perceive better the importance and influence of this remarkable religious movement of the ancient Roman world” (p. 189).
Hurtado traces “The Particular Christian Offence” reflected in the New Testament documents (52–62), but the book does not interact with Paul’s discussion of the skandalon of the cross (1 Cor 1:18–25). This theological crux was a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, and it affected behavior as well as belief. Christian authors emphasized a cruciform ethic of self-donation and humility—a virtue not accentuated in the Greco-Roman milieu. In various instances, Hurtado tips his hat to the distinctive nature of early Christian theology (especially how devotion to Jesus modified the strict monotheism inherited from Judaism). At other times, his purposeful approach of studying Christianity like “any other historical phenomenon” limits his musings upon questions that beg theological input (5–10, 35). Nevertheless, he performs admirably, even while contending with his theological hand tied behind his back. Like early Christianity, Hurtado’s work impresses “with high distinction.”
