were trying to say the same thing, and thus one of the most perplexing his-torical questions is why so few of them realized this. Schor’s analysis of con-stantly shifting social networks provides a means of explaining the fact (if it is a fact) that so many bishops opposed each other so rancorously when they actually shared a common faith. In providing a very plausible explanation for this phenomenon, Schor has done historians of all stripes—doctrinal as well as social—a great service. Not only can we more accurately understand the way social networks functioned but also, with Schor’s help, we can see that the battle lines in the controversy often did not line up with the actual lines of theological agreement and disagreement. Armed with this recognition, we are in a better position to probe where the theological lines actually lay and whether or not there was a consensus beneath the shifting sands of doctrinal expression and clerical networking.
Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary DONALDFAIRBAIRN
Charlotte, NC
Monaci, vescovi e scuola nella Gallia tardoantica. By Roberto Alciati. [Temi e Testi, Vol. 72.] (Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura. 2009. Pp. xi, 273.
€39,00 paperback. ISBN 978-8-863-72083-9.)
In recent years the late-antique school, rightly considered a key factor to the survival and evolution of Greco-Roman civilization, has been attracting scholarly attention. The vivid interest in the Third Sophistic and the excite-ment raised by the discovery of schoolrooms at Kom el-Dikka in Alexandria are just two examples. Roberto Alciati’s book certainly is part of this devel-opment, although it does not focus on the school as institution, either monas-tic or secular. Alciati describes the subject of his interest as the relationship among teachers, pupils, and texts, or the creation of a textual and interpreta-tive community in the monastic milieu of southern and central Gaul, from the beginning of its literary history early in the fifth century to the publication of Vitae Patrum Iurensium inc. 520. However, he does not clearly explain the criteria for his choice of monks, bishops, and writers who composed this community—and this choice is not self-evident.
The construction of the book seems to reflect the order of research. Alciati is interested in such topics as the teacher-student relationship, the for-mation of monastic literary canons, and the character of teaching, but he does not present them in thematic order. Consecutive chapters are devoted to major monastic milieus and authors—the circle of St. Martin of Tours and Sulpicius Severus, Lérins and associated personages (Eucher, bishop of Lyon; Salvian of Marseille; St. Vincent of Lérins; and St. Faustus, bishop of Riez), the community of Condatisco in the Jura, Julianus Pomerius, and Claudianus Mamertus. Such a construction has the obvious advantage of permitting Alciati to fix and carefully analyze every quotation from these authors in its context, but at a price—the reader sometimes is at a loss to understand the
author’s aim. His quite convincing textual interpretations are easy to follow, but his comprehensive vision of the problem less so.
The conclusions, if not groundbreaking, are definitely interesting. First, Alciati demonstrates that the most important element that several prominent Gallic monks and bishops adopted from their school (whatever form it took) was the method—the classical method of interpreting texts and construct-ing arguments as well as a method of teachconstruct-ing, manifest especially in quaes-tiones et responsionesand dialogues. Second, he shows that the teacher-student relationship, like the links of patronage, created an important network that connected monks, bishops, and other teachers.Third, he reveals how consciously the canon of monastic “school” texts was formed and how a library could have played a founding role for a community. Fourth, Alciati shows that education in a monastic environment was not based on Christian literature alone and that philosophical training was appreciated and evi-dently found useful.
A comparison of the Gallic model with other approaches to Christian edu-cation would have been welcome. There is a chapter on the Cappadocian Fathers, but not on Latin authors from outside Gaul who were involved in teaching. Therefore, it is up to the reader to decide whether Alciati’s monas-tic Gaul is just a case study or a phenomenon apart.
University of Warsaw ROBERTWI´SNIEWSKI
Heaven’s Purge: Purgatory in Late Antiquity. By Isabel Moreira. (New York: Oxford University Press. 2010. Pp. x, 310. $65.00. ISBN 978-0-199-73604-1.) This is an important and thoughtful study of a subject plagued by the suc-cess of Jacques Le Goff’s The Birth of Purgatory (Chicago, 1984), which tried to prove that purgatory did not exist in Western consciousness until the twelfth century invented the noun. Isabel Moreira gets far beyond this over-simplification, thanks to a faithful reading of many difficult sources. Her book is a model for work in the humanities, with an interdisciplinary approach to law, theology, and visionary literature. Her conclusions are clear and succinct. However, the use of the term late antiquityfor the Western world until the 700s results in a chronological misunderstanding and confuses the reader. In addition, in the first chapters there are frequent references to other scholars without presentation of their views. A separate chapter summarizing Stand der Forschungwould have been helpful. However, the endnotes are helpful in substantiating the conclusions of the well-written text.
In a short review it is not possible to convey the rich layers of this mono-graph, but the reader can look forward to many fresh interpretations of a varied source material. The author largely rejects Peter Brown’s attractive view that the concept of purgatory arose from an Irish context. The evidence is lacking that the classical idea of amnesty was exchanged for an Irish belief
