The Origins of Christian Morality: The First Two Centuries

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In a vigorous historical analysis, Meeks (Biblical Studies/Yale; The First Urban Christians, 1983) offers new perspectives on the early days of Christian morality. Conventionally, Christian morals are understood as a set of principles to which each believer must adhere, or at least struggle toward, in the depths of his or her conscience. But Meeks redefines morality in the first Christian centuries as a communal activity in which members of the new faith adopted not only a creed but a way of life with its own revolutionary language, customs, and stories. To be a Christian was to undergo a thorough conversion of moral and social dimensions--a transformation in which a new kind of human being was forged. This conversion, Meeks shows, produced an ambiguous relationship toward the world at large, ranging from gnostic rejection by Valentinus to ambiguity on the part of St. Paul and his followers. To help converts, moral directives were promulgated in the form of maxims, rules of thumb (``gnomes''), teaching tales, letters, testaments, and lists of virtues and vices. A new ``grammar'' was developed through rituals like baptism and the Eucharist, as well as through the practice of almsgiving and hospitality. Evil became personified in Satan and his demons; a hierarchy of fallen creatures warred with God's ministers for human souls. Complex views of the body evolved, leading to a ``democratized asceticism.'' Perhaps the most dramatic innovation was the struggle ``to do God's will,'' often through suffering--a radical surrender that lay at the heart of Christian morality. Learned and lucid: an important piece of sociohistorical research. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Promoting the thesis that the processes of moral and community formation are inseparable, Meeks (biblical studies, Yale Univ.) has written "an ethnography of Christian beginnings," analyzing specific aspects of the Christian community in relation to its pagan environment. An outstanding example of Meeks's argument is the development of the Christian house church, patterned after the Roman household in many respects. Meeks has good control of all available canonical and noncanonical writings over the first two centuries. However, the paucity of information and the variety of doctrine and practice in the period before canon and practice were set results in a rather preliminary and, at times, sketchy survey that often leaves one with a sense of frustrated incompleteness. Although the book presents much significant comparative data, it is recommended for advanced students only.
- Eugene O. Bowser, Univ. of Northern Colorado, Greeley
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