Review of Robert Luis Wilcken's "The Spirit of Early Christian Thought"

Anyone who has ever tried to dip their toes into the waters of medieval theology can quickly be overwhelmed by its complexities and occasional rank obscurantism. Wilken, much to his credit, knows his subjects so well that he can distill their most important ideas in historical context (especially important as this book covers a period where much of the known world begins as Roman and pagan and ends several centuries later, when both the Empire and its paganism were gone) and explain how they were important in the development of Christian intellectual history – all while remaining extraordinarily accessible for the reader with no formal knowledge of patristic theology. 

At the heart of the book are two major messages. First, to separate evidence and sensory knowledge from pure faith – very much a temptation for those of us who have been born since the Enlightenment – would have made no sense to the early Church fathers. From the time of Origen and Tertullian, earthly evidence and divine faith were both seen as necessary, and even to feed into one another. Thinking is part of believing, and vice versa. Second, the series of practices that we recognize as early Christianity are undoubtedly social and communal in nature. Wilken stresses over and over again that even the monks would lived in desert confinement for decade after decade, still saw Christianity, at its root, as love for fellow man and community.

The thinkers that he covers are all very important, and range in time from its first couple of centuries to approximately the eighth century, covering the entire harvest of early Christian thought. The most important among them include Justin Martyr, Origen, Clement (and Cyril) of Alexandria, Athanasius, Basil of Caesarea, Ambrose, John Chrysostom, Gregory of Nyssa, Maximus the Confessor – and perhaps the greatest mind the Church has ever known, Saint Augustine. To assist the reader who has minimal familiarity with this rich history of thought, Wilken arranges his discussions topically, with chapter names drawn from an appropriate epigram which opens each chapter. “Founded on the Cross of Christ” discusses how we come to know God, “An Awesome and Unbloody Sacrifice” references worship and the sacraments, and “Seek His Face Always” picks up Trinitarian themes (Trinitarian discussions, as fundamental as they were to early Christology, are not relegated to this one chapter alone). For me, the most fascinating chapters were on a couple of the first Christian poets, and another on importance of the Bible and how the shape and texture of its writing so differed from Greek and Roman literature that it profoundly refigured the ideas of the early fathers. 

While the author covers a wide range of topics that are often considered dry, the overall effect of the book comes across as the passionate history of a fascination with the people Wilken writes about. His vim and vigor for the fathers of the early Church is clear and unmistakable, so much so that the historical figures he presents almost seem whitewashed – pure and almost superhuman. His orthodoxy perhaps results in a lack of thorough criticism on some points where it would have been welcome. However, if you’re looking for critical responses to the fathers, these should not be difficult to find. However, as pure contemporary apology for a centuries-old intellectual tradition, this book stands above many others I have read.

Review of Quentin Skinner's "The Foundations of Modern Political Thought: The Age of Reformation"

[The above video is mostly a reading of the text below, with an occasional aside thrown in for good measure as they strike me as relevant.  I welcome questions, comments, or concerns about the material contained in this video.]

How did the modern concept of the State develop, concomitant with its peculiar accoutrements of sovereignty and power? One of the aims of Skinner’s hook is to answer this question in the fullest, broadest, and most meticulous way possible.

Ever since Augustine’s De Civitate Dei, the Christian was urged not to pay any attention to this earthly world, but rather to focus on the everlasting blessings of the City of God. Understandably, this is hardly an exhortation for active engagement in the political sphere. It was not until William of Moerbeke’s 1250s translation of Aristotle’s “Politics” nearly a millennium later that the formal study of the communicatio politica saw a formal recrudescence. Brunetto Latini, Dante’s much-vaunted teacher and William’s contemporary, wrote one of the first important political treatises of the post-Roman era, the “Books of Treasure.” Latini’s intellectual heirs, however, were the humanists of the sixteenth century, with whom Skinner’s book is almost wholly concerned. 

Another prerequisite for the development of the modern State is its asserted independence from any external or coequal powers, which was done when Bartolus and his students broke away from Justinian legist traditions to claim that the State was an “independent association not recognizing any superior.” But perhaps the most important formulation is the notion of sovereignty, which was completely foreign to medieval legal assumptions which emphasized feudal organization and the Church’s ability to assert itself as an equal power to that of the State. Marsiglio of Padua’s “Defensor Pacis,” which construed all power, even that of the Church, as secular, was one of the first death knells rung against this now-foreign complicity. Especially interesting is Skinner’s careful historical analysis of the world “State” from the condition in which a ruler finds himself (status principis) or the general “state of the nation” (status regni) to the wholly modern idea of the State as a sort of abstract, rarefied power apart from both ruler and ruled, constituting ultimate political authority within a geographically defined region.

For those readers whose groundings in Lutheran and Calvinist theology might not be the strongest, Professor Skinner provides a lush history of these ideas, as a knowledge of them is completely inseparable from broader cultural and political trends. A bit of warning, however: as the material might suggest, this is not a breezy apercu – or even just a moderately difficult one. Unless the reader is wholly interested in the subject, I would not recommend this book as something to read through systematically. However, even considering its age (it was originally published in 1975), the humbly named “The Foundations of Modern Political Thought” belies the massiveness of its achievement. It is nothing less than the best intellectual synthesis of sixteenth century theology, Reformation ideology, and political theory ever written.