Here Brought Together

BOOK REVIEWS

Malcolm Choat and Maria Chiara Giorda (eds.), Writing and Communication in Early Egyptian Monasticism. Texts and Studies in Eastern Christianity 9. Leiden – Boston: Brill, 2017, xiii-239 pp. ISBN 978-9004-25465-7

The volume is in a sense a side-product of a research project entitled “Communication networks in Upper Egyptian monastic communities in the 6th to 8th centuries” that was funded by the Australian Research Council and coordinated by Malcolm Choat (Macquarie) and Heike Behlmer (Göttingen). Choat and Maria Chiara Giorda presided over a seminar session at the Tenth International Congress of Coptic Studies, held in 2012 in Rome, which saw first versions of a number of the essays that are here brought together. Some extra essays were commissioned for this volume. In total the book counts nine contributions. The editors co-authored an essay on communication chan- nels in monastic milieus through reading and writing texts which serves as an introduction. Both also contributed an essay of their own, Choat on monastic letters on papyrus, and Giorda on monastic testaments. The other essays are by Paul Dilley (on written media and authority in Shenoute’s Canons), Esther Garel and Maria Nowak (monastic wills), Jacques van der Vliet (innovations in monastic epigraphy), Fabrizio Vecoli (monastic doctrine), Jennifer Westerfeld (monastic graffiti), and Ewa Wipszycka (biblical recitations and their function in monastic piety). The selection of the topics may look a bit randomly, but they all address interesting aspects of monastic religious life as expressed through various sorts of writing and correspondence. I particularly appreciated Choat’s extensive survey of monastic letters (pp. 17-72) in which he not only presents the evidence but also discusses technical aspects of the letters themselves. Choat draws attention to the relation, at times perhaps even tension, these letters evoke between the need to travel in order to communicate and the wish not to do so. Communicating by letter avoids direct personal contact between author and addressee, but it mobilises others who are asked or required to transport the letters to their destination. “Letters allowed the creation of ‘virtual communities’, groups of monks separated by distance”, but also in time, as these letters were often collected for use and instruction by later generations (71). Chiorda studies testaments of individuals; these may be spiritual testaments, in which a monk leaves his “intellectual” or “spiritual” heritage to a later generation, or “real” testaments, in which one indicates who among the brothers will inherit his spare belongings. That such things were duly reflected upon is shown by a stipulation in an imperial constitution that in case one passes away without testament and without known relatives, his belongings fall to the monastery. A special case is the question of who will succeed the founder or head of a monastic community. If initially this was arranged by the founder/leader himself, it soon became the rule that the community as a whole had its say in this matter in consultation with the local bishop, though the role of the latter changed over time towards merely confirming the proposal made by the community. Giorda’s essay is a sort of companion to the one by Garel and Nowak who look at more 308 Book Reviews technical aspects (wills in Roman law, which continued to serve as a model well into late Antiquity, though not as a mere copy). An evident major difference is the concern for adding biblical quotations in the document. A second difference is the way the issue of witnesses is regulated, which reflects contemporary scribal and notarial rather than ancient juridical praxis. Epigraphy can have an ornamental, dedicatory, or commemorative function, all of which are attested in monastic circles, but it can also have an instructive value. J. van der Vliet studies some cases of the latter, in which inscriptions function as warnings or teachings on how correctly to understand particular practices. A nice example is found in Kellia, in which the famous and widespread ritual of praying “the Jesus prayer” is defended against such people who would claim that this prayer ignores the Trinity, a claim that can only stem from demonic inspiration according to the anonymous author (pp. 158-159).Walls truly can serve the proclamation of wisdom, as van der Vliet suggests in the title of his essay. This is a most interesting collection of essays that addresses questions of religious nature and daily-life praxis and offers a nice survey of different genres of communication that were used in monastic life and in part just copy what was customary in society. Joseph Verheyden (Leuven)

Nestor Kavvadas, Jerusalem zwischen Aachen und Bagdad. Zur Existenzkrise des byzan tinischen Christentums im Abbasidenreich. Jenaer mediävistische Vorträge 6. Stuttgart: Frans Steiner Verlag, 2017, 116 pp. ISBN 978-3-515-11879-8

This little booklet is the revised and expanded form of a lecture the author held at the University of Jena. The topic is a most interesting and also a most dramatic one. It deals with a relatively short period in the history of the Jerusalem patriarchate that would sig- nify for Christianity of the region the beginning of the turn from a majority to a minority religion, as the author formulates it in his introduction (p. 8). The bulk of the work hangs on one event and its consequences – the attack on the monastery of Mar Saba on March 13 March, 797 by Arabic plunderers from “al-Yaman”, i.e., tribes from the south of the peninsula. The region had been plundered before and even Jerusalem has been threatened, but the attack on Mar Saba was particularly vicious and left twenty monks dead. The plunderers were not only interested in material goods, but were also looking for one Thomas, a medical doctor and theologian, whom the monks refused to betray or give up. The tragedy of the event, apart from the cruelty, lies in the fact that this was a premeditated attack on a venue that was known as a centre of culture that attracted many members of the better circles and had excellent contacts with the patriarch. The search for Thomas, who would become patriarch of Jerusalem a decade or so later, shows that this was not a mere act of burglary. Mar Saba was fallen victim to a struggle of much wider dimensions. Thomas played a mediating role in the diplomatic moves that were being made between the empire-to-be of Charles the Great and the newly created empire of the Abbasids. The latter event caused the downfall of the political and military establishment of Syria-Palestine in favour of the new dynasty that was not Arabic in origin. As a consequence, important families and dynasties, such as that of the Bar- makids, lost their power base. They did not surrender at once, but went down fighting. Book Reviews 309

Kavvadas describes in detail what was happening on the world scene and how it affected local communities. The change in power had ethnic aspects. The empire ceased to be “Arabic” and was turned into an “Islamic” one, as he points out. The downfall of the “Arabic” rulers in Syria-Palestine brought with it that of the delicate balance there had been between political and ecclesiastical powers. This is a fine piece of work that gives us clear insights in the real reason for the atrocities that took place in Mar Saba in the closing years of the eighth century. A new power had taken over in the East, and a raising power in the West was trying to get its place under the sun, at the expense of old Greek Christianity which itself was slowly turning into Arabic Christianity. Joseph Verheyden (Leuven)

Najib G. Awad, Orthodoxy in Arabic Terms: A Study of Theodore Abu Qurrah’s Theology in Its Islamic Context. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam – Tension, Trans- mission, Transformation 3. Boston – Berlin: De Gruyter, 2015, xv-466 pp. ISBN 978-1-61451-567-8 (hardcover) 978-1-61451-953-9 (e-book) 978-1-61451-677-4 (paperback, 2016)

In times when the urge is felt among Christians to engage in theological dialogue with Muslims, it is not surprising to witness increased scholarly attention to the Christian apologists of the early ʿAbbāsid period. These authors were among the first Christians to seriously grapple with the religious challenge of Islam. Each of the three main Chris- tian communities brought forth apologists in the 9th century seeking to accommodate Christianity to a new Islamic context, not only by adopting Arabic as their literary language, but also by articulating their Christian doctrines of faith in forms reminiscent of Islamic beliefs and the developing modes of theological discourse. The most important names in this respect are those of the Chalcedonian (‘Melkite’) Theodore Abū Qurra (d. c. 830), the West Syrian (‘Jacobite’) Abū Rāʾiṭa al-Takrītī (d. c. 835), and the East Syrian (‘Nestorian’) ʿAmmār al-Baṣrī (d. c. 840). After the appearance of studies on these three authors together (Beaumont, 2005; Ricks, 2013; Husseini, 2014), and separate studies on Abū Rāʾṭa (Keating, 2006) and ʿAmmar al-Baṣrī (Mikhail, 2013; Varsányi, 2015; Maróth, 2015), Najib G. Awad now provides us with a study solely devoted to Theodore Abū Qurra. He is, however, not the first to provide such a study in recent years. In 2007, David Bertaina completed his PhD dissertation on the debate at the court of Caliph al-Maʾmūn ascribed to Abū Qurra, unfortunately absent from Awad’s bibliography. This book originated as Awad’s second PhD dissertation defended in 2014 at the University of Marburg, Germany. His first PhD was in the field of systematic theology. In the preface of the book, he describes how reading Sidney Griffith’s The Church in the Shadow of the Mosque constituted the “theophany experience” that caused a “pivotal transformation” and “paradigm shift” in his scholarly trajectory, enabling him for the first time to reconcile his “western training and scientific education” with his “personal cultural-contextual background and identity” as a native of Syria. This interesting personal notice is also helpful to elucidate the methodological stance he adopts in his study. He combines his passion for Arabic Christianity with his acquired expertise in systematic theology. Awad attempts to move beyond preoccupations with the apologetic 310 Book Reviews aspects of Abū Qurra’s theology (the “how”, as he calls it) to an investigation of his theology in se (the “what” and “whence”). To do this he assesses the (dis)continuity between Abū Qurra’s theology and that of his Greek theological predecessors, in particular John of Damascus, Maximus the Confessor, and the Cappadocians. Awad formulates this aim with a rather inquisition-like ring to it. He wants to know whether Abū Qurra remained true to ‘orthodoxy’ or if he rather ‘strayed’ from it in his efforts to appeal to the Muslim ear. This investigation is conducted with regard to Abū Qurra’s Trinitarian theology and Christology in chapters four and five, after having discussed the development of Greek and Syriac Trinitarian and Christological terminology in chapter three. Before he gets to this part, however, he first amply treats the historical and religious background to Abū Qurra’s literary career in chapters one and two. In these first chapters, Awad mainly presents a synthesis of previous scholarship on the various factors that led to the emergence of Christian Arabic apologetic literature in response to Islam. Awad of course also critically engages his sources and provides some personal reflections and insights here. An interesting point he raises, for instance, is that the two days of debate between Timothy I and Caliph al-Mahdī may represent two very different strategies on the part of the East Syrian Catholicos. Less convincing, however, is his attribution of the Disputatio Saraceni et Christiani to John of Damascus, as well as his claim that Michael the Syrian’s rendering of Dionysius of Tel-Maḥrē’s account of the Islamic conquests represents a “totally new” political interpretation. In his study of Abū Qurra’s theology, Awad provides an insightful reading of selected themes of his Trinitarian and Christological thought. However, while it is one thing to situate Abū Qurra’s theological profile through comparison with his predecessors, it is something else to reconstruct the channel(s) through which particular ideas were transmitted to him. Awad seeks to combine both approaches, but one wonders whether his study would not have been more methodologically straightforward if he had limited himself to the former systematic approach, which in the end is the basis for assessing ‘orthodoxy’. For the most part, this is what he does in a careful manner, yet at other times he makes unwarranted claims about the actual thinker on whose thought Abū Qurra is drawing. The most flagrant case is his extended, but highly speculative attempt to retrace a text-critically dubious filioque-passage to none other than Augustine. As the title of the book already suggests, Awad ultimately deems Abū Qurra’s theology to be fully ‘orthodox’. The answer to ‘Was Abū Qurra orthodox?’ depends, of course, on how one would define ‘orthodoxy’. This issue, which lingered in the background from the start, is finally taken up in the concluding postscript in which Awad discerns various meanings of the term as well as its relation to tradition and innovation. Given the pressing challenge of Islam, it appears that being faithful to tradition could no longer mean for Abū Qurra to pass on the teachings of the Fathers as literally as possible, as was the case for Maximus the Confessor. Hence Awad’s study confirms what was known for quite some time: Abū Qurra effected an “innovative acculturation” of Christianity into its new Islamic context. It is this feature which makes this 9th century thinker “an exemplary pedagogical and profoundly inspiring voice”, not only for Arabophone Christians, but for Christians all around the world today. Bert Jacobs (Leuven) Book Reviews 311

Michael R. Cosby, Creation of History. The Transformation of Barnabas from Peace maker to Warrior Saint. Foreword by Kyriacos Markides. Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2017, xxii-210 pp. ISBN 978-1-5326-1211-4

Michael Cosby, professor of New Testament at Messiah College, Grantham PA, and the author of, among others, a book on Paul and his theology, has now authored a small monograph on the figure of Barnabas, Paul’s companion and originally his “mentor”. Barnabas is intrinsically connected with the island of Cyprus, where Cosby spent part of his time researching for this project. The creation (in Acts) and reception (and further creation) of the character of Barnabas has been studied before (see the monographs by M. Öhler and B. Kollmann, both from 2003, and the much older one by O. Brauns- berger, 1876). The name of this disciple of the Lord was also used by an anonymous author (or by a scribe) of an Epistle that is well-known for its adamant anti-Jewish polemics and by an equally anonymous author of an apocryphal gospel that equals the Epistle in its harsh polemics, though now directed against Christianity itself. Cosby gives good summaries of previous research, but widens the perspective significantly by not only focusing on the Barnabas of the New Testament and his reception in the earliest Christian literature, but by also including in his survey a lot of Byzantine and post-Byzantine material. He thereby is given an opportunity to highlight a most intrigu- ing aspect of the character of Barnabas as met in that later literature, as indicated in the subtitle of the book. The mediator between Peter and Paul from the Book of Acts has been transformed into a “warrior saint”, quite the opposite then of how he originally was represented. But there is also another aspect that is perhaps even more interesting – Barnabas’ role in the battle for the island’s ecclesial autonomy. Contrary to what one might expect, Cosby does not start with the New Testament evidence, but instead immediately turns to Cyprus and the way Barnabas found his place in the history of the island. The NT material is then duly discussed in two sub- sequent chapters, before turning to the sixth-century Laudatio Barnabae apostoli that was instrumental in creating the more mythical figure. The latter work was edited in 1993 by P. Van Deun in the CC Series Graeca; Cosby now adds an English translation in the appendix to his book. The Laudatio did much to link Barnabas to Cyprus, but this is even more the case with the famous story that was first recorded by the sixth- century church historian Theodorus Anagnostes (the original is lost, but the story is cited from his work by later authors) about the discovery of Barnabas’ body under a carob tree, with on his chest a copy of the Gospel of Matthew written by the deceased himself. The miraculous finding caused the Cypriote church to maintain its independ- ence from Antioch. It did not stop there. A thousand years later, in 1560, one Florio Bustron in his chronicle of Cyprus mentions the (fictional) story that the emperor had granted the archbishop of the island the privileges of an autocephalous church. Barnabas is not directly in sight (though he obviously receives quite some attention in the Chron- icle), but the story about the imperial privileges that is not attested before the 16th century may well have been inspired by that of the miraculous discovery of the body and the effects it had on the status of the island. The story continued to interest also Western diplomats and travellers to the island, up to the 20th century, as Cosby illus- trates in chapter 6. 312 Book Reviews

The book is insightfully written and one can taste the author’s enthusiasm for his subject on almost every page. In a last short chapter, a kind of epilogue, the author briefly refers to how Barnabas is received on the island today. He especially mentions how the saint remains an attractive figure not only for Cypriots, but even for Muslims who come to venerate his tomb in the northern part of the island. One might revel about the revival of the Barnabas of the New Testament as the bridge builder, but Cosby is well aware of the current situation on the island and sufficiently realistic to warn his readers for dreaming too naively a dream. Joseph Verheyden (Leuven)

Getatchew Haile, The Ethiopian Orthodox Church’s Tradition on the Holy Cross. Texts and Studies in Eastern Christianity 10. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2018, X + 285 pp. ISBN 978-90-04-34868-4 (hardback); 978-90-04-35251-3 (e-book).

This volume offers a wonderful collection of texts illuminating the significance of the theme of Christ’s cross in the Ethiopian Orthodox tradition. The texts represent different genres; they are in prose and in poetry; most texts are in the classical Ethiopic language (Geʿez), while one long prose narrative is in Amharic. The original texts, often previously unpublished, are provided in critical editions along with English translations on facing pages. The author’s intimate familiarity with all aspects of Ethiopian Christi- anity as well as with the scholarly field of Ethiopian studies distinctly enhances the quality of the volume. The book may be seen as a most welcome side product of the author’s decades long work as the lead cataloguer of Ethiopic manuscripts at the Hill Museum & Manuscript Library in Collegeville, Minnesota (USA). Even though we are dealing here with the literary tradition, the material presence of the cross is given due attention as well, both the small wooden crosses in the hands of all Ethiopian priests and – even more importantly – the arrival in Ethiopia under Emperor Dawit (1382-1411) of a piece of the true cross. This event boosted the creation of texts related to the cross and gave the cross an even more important place in the liturgy, in particular at the various annual feasts dedicated to it. The texts are distributed over four chapters. The introductory chapter (pp. 1-101) opens with an account of the arrival of a piece of the true cross in Ethiopia – an echo of which is also preserved in the Copto-Arabic History of the Patriarchs of Alexandria. The rest of the chapter consists of: (1) excerpts from the traditional Geʿez commentary on the crucifixion and resurrection in the Gospel of Matthew, chapters 27 and 28; (2) a short passage (attributed to Severus of Ashmunain) on the origin of the wood of the cross, which is traced back to the Old Testament kings Saul and Solomon and even further down to the Tree of Life in Paradise; (3) a historical text relating Emperor Constantine’s victory through the cross and his mother Helena’s finding of the cross; (4) two long poems belonging to the genre of Mälkǝʾ (‘image’), in which each stanza takes the form of a greeting (sälam) and singles out for praise a body part or quality of the suffering Christ. Chapter 2 has a promising title, ‘The Cross in the Life of the Faithful: Samples from the Literature’, but it is disappointingly short (pp. 102-105). Only three passages are selected, taken from the writings of Arägawi Mänfäsawi, ‘the spiritual elder’ (who in his Book Reviews 313 original incarnation is the East-Syriac mystical author Yoḥannan of Dalyatha – both in this extract and in some of his Syriac work he shows a special interest in the kissing of the cross) and from hagiographic texts related to the Ethiopian saints Abunä Libanos and Abba Akalä Krǝstos. Chapter 3 offers a very rich collection of ‘Homilies on the Holy Cross by Ancient Fathers’ (pp. 106-249). Of the eleven texts included, only eight can be regarded as ‘homilies’ (sg. dersan). Interestingly, the text of seven of these homilies is based primar- ily on the same manuscript, EMML 1763, from the 14th century, which has the homilies in two clusters, nos. 1-4 (ff. 10r-27r) and nos. 5-7 (ff. 164r-171r). Some of the homilies in this manuscript may have been copied, as the author argues, from a manuscript of the Aksumite period (i.e., prior to the eighth century), and at least two homilies (nos. 3 and 4) appear to be direct translations from Greek originals (see p. 106). Within chapter 3, no. 1 is attributed to Minas, metropolitan of Aksum. No. 2 has the name of the Syriac author Jacob of Serugh (d. AD 521). Nos. 3 and 4 are anonymous and are Ethiopic renderings of the Judas-Kyriakos legend on the finding of the cross by Helena. No. 5 is another anonymous homily presenting a variant story of Helena’s finding of the cross. No. 6 is attributed to John Chrysostom; it is more theological in nature and also includes a section on the sin in Paradise. The short homily no. 7 also discusses the sin of Paradise. Homily no. 8 is taken from the Lectionary of the Passion Week services and is the Ethiopic version of a homily by John Chrysostom, ‘On the Fig Tree’. No. 9 is not a homily but an Amharic narrative on Helena, detailing in a rather grotesque way her earlier marriage with the merchant Tärbinos from Edessa. The chapter concludes with two poetic compositions, one entitled ‘Glorification of the Cross’ (Sǝbḥatä Mäsqäl) probably by Abba Baḥrǝy and an anonymous hymn known as ‘Mystery of the Cross’ (Mǝsṭirä Mäsqäl ). Chapter 4 includes ‘Short Hymns on the Cross’ (pp. 250-263), composed to be sung in the liturgy. Several belong to the Nägś genre, some of which are attributed to Emperor Zärʾa Yaʿǝqob (1434-1468). The Horologion provides another beautiful poem of the Sälam type (‘Peace to you … king of trees and wood’). The chapter and the whole volume concludes with a hymn commemorating the arrival of a piece of the cross under Emperor Dawit, ‘when the cross was planted in Ethiopia’. We should be grateful to the author for this impressive source book, which gives insight into a great number of Ethiopian beliefs and devotions related to the cross. The author shows his unique skills in conveying so much of his personal engagement with the texts to a wider readership, thus making the texts available for future scholarship. An area which – by the author’s own admission (p. 106, note 4) – does not receive much attention is the larger historical and literary contextualization of the texts. One of the fascinating aspects of Ethiopic literature is that it coexists and interacts, in multiple ways, with other literatures of the Christian East. Several of the texts presented in chapter 3 have a remarkable pedigree, linking the Ethiopic witnesses to the earliest layers of Christian Antiquity as well as to later manifestations of Christianity in the East. Hom- ilies nos. 3 and 4, for example, need to be studied within the larger context of editions and scholarship related to the Judas-Kyriakos legend – among which H.J.W. Drijvers and J.W. Drijvers, The Finding of the True Cross. The Judas Kyriakos Legend in Syriac (CSCO 365/Subs. 93; Louvain, 1997) deserves to be singled out. The short homily no. 2, attributed to Jacob of Serugh, cannot be complete as it is. It does, however, have 314 Book Reviews a ring of authenticity: it shows affinity with the opening section of a recently published homily by Jacob (‘On the Finding of the Cross and on Empress Helena’, in R. Akhrass and I. Syryany, 160 Unpublished Homilies of Jacob of Serugh, vol. I [Damascus, 2017], pp. 200-208) and it shares with Jacob the typical phrase ‘cross of light’ (mäsqälä bǝrhan = ṣlib nuhrā); one wonders whether an Arabic model may have existed. For Chrysos- tom’s homily on the cross (no. 6) recent editions and studies are available on the Syriac, Arabic, and Nubian versions, see M. Geerard and J. Noret, Clavis Patrum Graecorum. Supplementum (Turnhout, 1998), no. 4525. The larger movement of transmission and transformation of early Christian traditions by way of Syriac and Arabic into Ethiopic also has received renewed scholarly attention, see, e.g., A.M. Butts, ‘Embellished with Gold. The Ethiopic Reception of Syriac Biblical Exegesis’, Oriens Christianus 97 (2013/2014), pp. 137-159. In addition to giving students and scholars a wealth of new texts, this volume, therefore, also stands out as an open invitation and as a strong encouragement for further study and exploration of the religious literature and traditions of Ethiopian Christians. Lucas Van Rompay (’s-Hertogenbosch)

Sergij Bulgakov, Aus meinem Leben; autobiographische Zeugnisse. Werke Bd. 2, Bar- bara Hallensleben and Regula Zwahlen (eds.). Münster, Aschendorff Verlag, 2017, 280 pp. ISBN 978-3-402-12036-1; hardcover € 42.

Regula M. Zwahlen, Ksenija Babkova, Sergij Bulgakov, Bibliographie; Werke, Briefwechsel und Übersetzungen. Mit ausgewählter Sekundärliteratur und einem tabel larischen Lebenslauf. Werke Bd. 3. Münster, Aschendorff Verlag, 2017, 150 pp. ISBN 978-3-402-12038-5; hardcover € 32.

As part of an ongoing project to make available in German translation the works of the well-known economist, philosopher, theologian, priest and politician Sergij [Sergei] Bulgakov (1871-1944), a translation of his Avtobiograficheskie zametki along with a number of related texts, as well a bibliography of primary and secondary sources have been published by Barbara Hallensleben and Regula Zwahlen, assisted by Elke Kirsten and Ksenija Babkova, as volume 2 and 3 respectively of his Werke. Like volume 1, which consisted of a German translation of one of Bulgakov’s main texts, Filosofija khozhajstva (2014) [see my review in: JECS 2015], these volumes, too, have been edited with great scrutiny and care, making them an important resource for years to come. The almost complete lack of typos and mistakes makes it hard to be critical of the editorial work; the most serious problem, to my mind, is that it remains unclear who is the author of the interesting analysis of Mikhkail Nesterov’s well-known painting of Bulga- kov and his close friend Pavel Florensky. It is to be hoped that this edition will continue to appear in the same speed and reach completion in the foreseeable future. Why is it important to make Bulgakov’s works better available? One reason is, of course, the intrinsic interest of this great mind (and person), who is widely regarded as one of the most important Orthodox Christian theologians, but whose work, as part of the current of so-called ‘Russian Religious Philosophy’ (to which also belonged Vl. Solov’ëv, Nikolaj Berdjajev, Semen Frank, Pavel Florenskij, and others), is also of Book Reviews 315 great interest to philosophers and historians of ideas. Another reason, however, is of a more historical nature: due to Bulgakov’s forced emigration, in 1922, from the Soviet Union, and to the fact that during the Soviet period he was anathema in Rus- sia, there is to date no full, critical edition of his works, not even in Russian. There- fore, the project under way of a German translation fills a gap not only in German, but in fact in global academic literature. Because of Bulgakov’s significance as a world intellectual, it is important that his position is established not only within the context of Russian academia. What makes Bulgakov interesting and inspiring, well beyond his indisputable and well-documented importance as an Orthodox theologian, is, I would suggest, his intellectual seriousness: the fact that he consistently relates to himself and to his experience both personally and theoretically. This comes to the fore in what, to this reviewer’s mind, perhaps constitutes the highlights of this book: Bulgakov’s ‘travel stories’ about his visit to Istanbul / Constantinople / Byzantium, or, in Bulgakov’s understanding, Tsargrad, about his second visit to Dresden in 1924, and about his 1934 fund-raising trip of more than two months to the USA. In Istanbul in 1923, Bulgakov scrutinized his thoughts while visiting the Hagia Sophia. While deploring the removal of its altar and decorations when the church was transformed into a mosque, Bulgakov shows himself remarkably critical of Slavophile claims (including the claim) to reconquer the ‘Second Rome’: for him, the Hagia Sophia is ‘the universal and absolute church’ (p.100), but will regain its position only after the reunification of the Christian churches; until then, the devotion of the Muslims who pray in the mosque, and who Bulgakov qualifies as ‘placeholders [Statthalter]’ (ibid.) can only be admired. What strikes the reader most is Bulgakov’s awareness of his own changing views: ‘Wie unerträglich sind mir alle Varianten eines unverantwortlichen Slavophilentums geworden [How unbearable have all variants of irresponsible slavophilism become to me]!’ (p.105; italics mine, EvdZ). Similarly, when paying his second visit to Rafael’s Sixtine Madonna in the Zwinger gal- lery in Dresden, he analysed the contrast with his first visit in 1898 (described in Svet necechernyj and here included p.57 and p.107), when his encounter with the same painting played a crucial role in his transition from Marxist materialism and atheism to idealism and Orthodox Christianity. What then functioned as a mystical vision of Sophia, now, in this exemplar of self-deconstruction, takes the shape of a profound critique of Renaissance painting as humanistic and sinful, displaying ‘male sensuality… and desire,’ and as inappropriate: ‘Diese hier so unangemessene und schockierende Erotik macht die Seele des Bildes aus [This so inappropriate and shocking eroticism forms the soul of the painting]’ (p.111). However, rather than rejecting his earlier experience Bulgakov interprets it as part of his gradual transformation: ‘mein sicherer religiöser Instinkt erblickte hinter dem Tragischen schon das Religiöse [my confident religious instinct already perceived the religious beyond the tragic]’ (p.114). Bulgakov shows himself consistent in his ‘sophiological’ reading of his own biography. When travelling to the USA, the Atlantic Ocean and the Niagara Falls strike him as ‘a natural element before the first day of creation’ and as ‘a vision of the Divine Sophia in her powerful chaotic element’ (p.132). Fascinating is his day-to-day report of his exhausting travels in the USA and Canada, a report which shows him impressed by the grandiosity of everything American and disturbed by the childishness and naïveté of many of his interlocutionaries (p.125), but which impresses by Bulgakov’s openness and 316 Book Reviews energy as well as by the fact that he, at the age of 63 and despite his chronic insomnia, gave his lectures in English (p.123). The book also provides new material for the long-standing discussion, discussed in a lengthy footnote (p.232-234, n.14), of Bulgakov’s assumed anti-Semitism. His support of anti-Nazi resistance is beyond dispute, as is his general rejection of Nazism; also his alleged summoning anti-Jewish pogroms has been refuted (p.233). At the same time, it is shocking to see how a person who involuntarily left the USSR on a steamer in 1922 (p.96; the investigation file of the Soviet police has been very rightly included!), notes, twelve years later, on his way to the USA on a swastika-adorned German steamer, that the ‘Jewish travellers’ who surround him create the impression of ‘the matter-of-fact conquest of the world by Israel [die faktische Eroberung der Welt durch Israel]’ (p.116) – even if Bulgakov states that he will not trust his first impressions (ibid.), to suggest that Jews moving from Germany to America in 1934 on a Nazi steamer are travellers on their way to world conquest is, to say the least, a chutzpah. Already in 1933, after the Nazi government started ‘freeing’ civil service from non-Aryans, thousands of Jewish Germans decided to leave. What perhaps explains the contrast between sympathy and ignorance is Bulgakov’s rather schematic essentialism (not unlike that of his predecessor Vl. Solov’ëv): the very idea that there is such a thing as ‘the Jew’ or ‘the Russian’ to begin with. However, when looking at the collected texts as a whole, what saves Bulgakov is his permanent self-critical search for truth. This, more than anything else, makes his writings as inspiring as they are informative. Anyone who reads this book obtains a multifaceted and lasting picture of one the great intellectuals of the 20th Century, even if to qualify him as ‘the most learned man in the world’ (p.125) may have been a Yankee exaggeration. The texts span his life from his birth and his baptism in the St Sophia church in Livny (p.9) until his illness (throat cancer) in 1939. This illness appeared fatal, but he unex- pectedly recovered, even regaining his voice – thus once again showing his physical strength (p.144) which contrasts with his self-ascribed ‘weakness of character’ (p.92, among others). The texts also reflect his attempt to restore the content of the lost auto- biography that he wrote in 1918-1919 (p.1 and p.29, n.1). The second book under review is, from a scholarly point of view, just as important as the first, even if it is a less exciting read. It contains a full bibliography of editions and translations (into thirteen languages), as well as selective bibliography of secondary literature (in six languages: Russian, German, English, French, Italian, and Spanish). Surely, this outstanding bibliography, especially of secondary literature, and particularly of a thinker as prolific, diverse, and difficult to ‘situate’ as is S. Bulgakov, is in need of frequent updates. In that sense, a book like this will be outdated the moment it appears. In this case, however, it is fair to state that anybody who aims to do research on an aspect of Bulgakov’s life and thought, can use this book for the period up to 2017, and probably does not have to look any further back, as it also builds upon the two main earlier bibliographies (Naumov 1984 and Akulinin 1996). For publications from 2017 onwards, the attached website at the university of Fribourg, Switzerland, is a reliable source: http://fns.unifr.ch/sergij-bulgakov. Bibliography and website, moreover, are eas- ily accessible and usable also for those who have only a limited knowledge of German. The tabular biography (pp.137-144), identical with the one included in the other book under review (pp.190-197), facilitates the use enormously, because every single publication Book Reviews 317 by Bulgakov can immediately be connected to his life and career. Like the materials relating to his life in Aus meinem Leben (vol.2), this is a book that should be included in any serious library. Evert van der Zweerde (Nijmegen)

Ioannes Andrea di Donna (ed.), Canones Pœnitentiales, Vol. I-III. Kanonika 24. Rome: Edizioni Orientalia Christiana and Valore Italiano EditoreTM/Lilamé, 2017, vol. I: 96 pp., vol. II,1: 912 pp.; vol. I,2: 336 pp., vol. III: 864 pp. € 290 ISBN 978-88-97789-38-3

The subject of ecclesiastical penal legislation is relevant for many disciplines: not only for canon law but also for liturgy, religious popular culture and ethics (crimes, magic, nutrition habits, sexual behaviour …). Hence, when a new weighty study – in three, even four volumes – on medieval penal codes appeared, it drew my attention. The author of this bulky edition, Gianandrea Di Donna (b. 1965), is a priest of the diocese of Padua and a liturgist who teaches Roman-rite worship in Padua and Byzantine-rite worship in Rome. His study is based on his doctoral dissertation defended summa cum laude at PIO in 2004, Prof. Miguel Arranz (1930-2008) having been the supervisor. An Italian bank, Intesa Sanpaolo, has borne the lion’s share of the expenses of this costly work. No trouble or expense seems to have been spared for the publication of these handsome volumes. Nevertheless, in spite of their impressive appearance and fine layout, both a first and a second reading have led me to some critical remarks. I would like to offer the following observations and reflections: The overwhelming majority of the sources published in Di Donna’s voluminous work are Latin medieval ones, most of them being already well-known to researchers, and only three texts are Greek (two) and Old Slavonic (one). So, one might ask why the Pontifical Oriental Institute (PIO), which aims to the study of the Eastern traditions across all disciplines, published this work. The author/editor provides the answer himself: his goal is a comparison between the diverse traditions, here the Latin, Greek and Slavonic ones. Such comparison will make it possible to see their differences, similarities and divergent pastoral solutions, and eventually to develop a liturgical-canonical theology based on the sources. Di Donna wishes to ground himself in the liturgia compara tiva (following Anton Baumstark’s liturgie comparée), in which PIO professors, especially the Jesuits Juan Mateos (1917-2003), Miguel Arranz and Robert Taft (b. 1932), have played such an important role. It is self-evident for such an undertaking that the sources that are to be compared with one another are well edited and that the comments are accurate. In this vital respect, unfortunately, the work in question is highly problematic. Here, I will concentrate on the three Eastern texts, which are crucial for the comparative investigations, that is, the two Greek ones and the Slavonic one: the Pro tokanonarion (vol. III, pp. 701-742), the Deuterokanonarion (III, pp. 785-810) and the Euchologion Sinaiticum (pp. 837-841), as well as their Latin translations (III, pp. 743- 783, 811-835 and 843-846 respectively). Di Donna bases his Greek texts on those published in an earlier volume in the Kanonika series: Miguel Arranz, I penititenziali bizantini: Il Protokanonarion o Kanon arion Primitivo di Giovanni Monaco o Diacono e il Deuterokanonarion o “Secondo Kanon 318 Book Reviews arion” di Basilio Monaco, Kanonika 3 (Rome, 1993). From the cornucopia of manuscripts, Arranz examines and reproduces merely one, young and deficient Greek text with an enigmatic seventeenth-century Latin translation made by Jean Morin (1591- 1659). Arranz erroneously dates the entire Greek text to the ninth century, and follows here, as in many other aspects, the conclusions drawn by Emilio Herman in his article ‘Il più antico penitenziale greco’, published in Orientalia Christiana Periodica 19 (1953), pp. 71-127. Arranz’s edition, however, has evoked severe criticism. First, in an extensive review in Byzantinische Zeitschrift 88 (1995), pp. 474-481, the liturgist Stefano Parenti demonstrates that Arranz’s introduction, editorial criteria and the edition itself suffer from fundamental shortcomings. Parenti based on his own study of relevant manuscripts and scholarly literature, meticulously lists numerous major mistakes in Arranz’s book. Point- ing beyond Arranz’s study Parenti concludes his pivotal critique by remarking that the subject in question still awaits further scholarly research. A former PIO professor and an expert in the field of first millennium Greek Chris- tian literature, especially with respect to penance, Frans van de Paverd, took up the gauntlet in another Kanonika volume, The Kanonarion by John, Monk and Deacon, and Didascalia Patrum, Kanonika 12 (Rome, 2006). In this groundbreaking study, Van de Paverd carefully describes the purpose and style of all Kanonaria manuscripts, editions and translations, as well as their liturgical particularities. He provides also an accurate English translation and extensive annotations on the exact meaning of some Greek words, on the question of when and why certain sections were written and who wrote them. According to Van de Paverd, the Protokanonarion has been written by four different authors, and the oldest layer dates to the years between 546 – ca. 630, whereas the other three layers date to the period 730 – ninth/tenth century. With respect to the Didascalia Patrum (which Arranz and, following him, Di Donna call Deuterokanonarion) Van de Paverd proposes three different authors, whom he dates to 730, beginning of the ninth century, tenth century or 1028, respectively. Grounded in careful scholarly research, Van de Paverd shows that Arranz’s edition is defective, and that especially his edition of the Didascalia Patrum is incomplete (also because Arranz had published some parts elsewhere). In addition, Van de Paverd proves that the Latin translation is misleading because Morin used a deficient Greek text. All in all, Van de Paverd discusses at length Arranz’s and Herman’s conclusions and rejects most of them. The moral theologian Basilio Petrà extensively reviews Van de Paverd’s study in PIO’s scholarly journal, Orientalia Christiana Periodica 73 (2007), pp. 507-514. Accord- ing to Petrà, this study is very important: great research and most accurate. Scholars in the field should carefully examine this study (pp. 508, 513). Petrà composed the review in Italian, thus enabling readers mainly conversant with scholarship in Italian to take notice of this seminal book. Regarding Arranz’s book, there were more warning signals. In a book review of Basilio Petrà, La penitenza nelle Chiese ortodosse: Aspetti storici e sacramentali, Nuovi saggi teologici 63 (Bologna, 2005), in Orientalia Christiana Periodica 73 (2007), pp. 297-298, the canonist and former editor of the Kanonika series, George Nedungatt, remarks that Arranz’s monograph ‘should now be studied in the light of a more recent work of Frans van de Paverd … which revises in some ways the former work.’ In an Book Reviews 319 entry in the Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Christian East, ed. Edward G. Farrugia (Rome, 22015), a PIO publication, Fr. Nedungatt cautions once more: Van de Paverd offers a ‘thorough revision’ of the book by Arranz, who had overlooked ‘frequent and patent contradictions’ (p. 1510). Another warning sign was the article by Robert Taft, ‘From Polemicists to Promot- ers: The Jesuits and the Liturgical Traditions of the Christian East’, in Orientalia Chris tiana Periodica 78 (2012), pp. 97-132. Here, he praises Arranz’s œuvre (pp. 122-123), but points also to his ‘ill-fated edition’ of the Kanonaria, thereby referring to the ‘severe but justified critique of Stefano Parenti in Byzantinische Zeitschrift’ (p. 123, note 126). So, a great master can also occasionally err. Certainly, Arranz was an excellent researcher and teacher regarding the history of the Byzantine rite. His many publications witness to his great ability. It is, however, a good horse that never stumbles, quandoque dormitat et bonus Homerus. Let us return to Van de Paverd – in later years, he continued to study Greek and Latin penal codes. In a monograph entitled Quotiescumque: Greek Origin of a Latin Confessor’s Guide (Utrecht, 2012), he investigates a penal code that was to have great impact on later Western development of penance. He dates Quotiescumque to the period between 730 and 800. He thinks that its (lost) original version was in Greek, written in an unknown Byzantine region of Italy – probably Southern Italy or Sicily. Thereafter, two other authors made interpolations and other changes. Van de Paverd offers a critical edition, an English translation, a solid text analysis, and many other data to understand the genesis, contents and impact of this primary code of penal law. Interestingly, his new investigation enables him to refine data from his afore-mentioned book, that is, the dating of two layers of the Protokanonarion and the Didascalia Patrum, which he now dates to the period before 800 – see his book on Quoties cumque, p. 113. Van de Paverd examines also a solid number of Western penitential books, ordines, manuals of canon law, and other works (pp. 115-171). All in all, this book is a fine study in the field of comparative liturgy, outlining differences and similarities between the Greek Byzantine and the Latin traditions, as well as within the Latin one itself. Furthermore, in a 2015 contribution to Orientalia Christiana Periodica, Van de Paverd revisited the issue of penance in the Greek Byzantine tradition. In a long article, ‘The Kanonikon by John the Faster’, OCP 81 (2015), pp. 83-137, he thoroughly investigates the Kanonikon, authored by a monk named John the Faster, who during the eleventh century lived in the Petra Monastery in Constantinople. The original version of this important writing on penance, that has exercised great influence on confessors, has been lost, but its text survives in a ‘synopsis’ made by the monk Matthew Blastares (flourished 1335). In a letter of the 4th of March, 2018, Van de Paverd wrote me that in 2015 he had almost completed a study on the penitential degrees in the Byzantine Church. He hopes that the results of his study will be published in Ostkirchliche Studien. A first part of that study is entitled ‘Penitential Systems in Texts Written in the Civil Diocese of Pontus in the Third and Fourth Centuries’. A second part that investigates practice from the seventh to the fourteenth centuries is called ‘Reception of the Pontic Penitential Degrees in the Byzantine Church’. Van de Paverd has prepared also an (unpublished) study on the history of confession in the Byzantine Church until Symeon of Thessalonica 320 Book Reviews

(d. 1429), that examines confession with a bishop, confessio coram deo and confession with a (non-ordained) monk. We will now focus again on Di Donna’s edition, which is fully grounded in Arranz’s study and Morin’s work. Inter alia, the editor asserts that the Protokanonarion dates to the ninth century and the Deuterokanonarion to the twelfth. See, for instance, vol. I, pp. 27, 29, 82. There is no reference whatsoever to the seminal work of Van de Paverd. (Di Donna quotes only his two articles from 1978 and 1979 on Methodius of Olym- pus.) This is quite astonishing, also because Van de Paverd’s study from 2006 has appeared in the same PIO series. Parenti’s detailed review seems also to remain terra incognita. Consequently, Di Donna’s dating of both manuscripts is wrong. For comparative investigations on the different Latin, Greek and Slavic liturgical and canon law traditions dealt with in his book, this has serious consequences: it means that, in my opinion, various conclusions have been built on sand and do not stand serious criticism. Two examples are, first, the conclusions regarding the double penitential practice in the East (vol. I, pp. 23-34) and, second, the consequences for the Slavonic Euchologium Sinaiticum (vol. I, p. 31). As for the latter Slavonic text, Di Donna is grounded in the editions that Jan Frček and Raijko Nahtigal made: Euchologium Sinaiticum: Texte slave avec sources grecques et traduction française, 1-2, ed. J. Frček, Patrologia Orientalis 34-35 (Paris, 1933 and 1943), as well as Euchologium Sinaiticum: Starocerkvenoslovanski glagol ski spomenik, II, ed. R. Nahtigal (Ljubljana, 1942). Regrettably, he seems unaware of recent publications in this domain – see, e.g., Heinzgerd Brakmann’s bibliographical notes in Archiv für Liturgiewissenschaft 53 (2011), pp. 209-211, 227-228; 57 (2015), pp. 234-237. Cf. http://slovo-aso.cl.bas.bg/sinai.html (access on the 23rd of May, 2018). This, again, might have consequences for the Euchologium’s Latin translation made by Di Donna himself: because its point of departure is not the most recent scholarly work, the question of whether the translation is still reliable is urgent matter. Furthermore, Di Donna does not ask the key question – to what extent the three Eastern canon law collections are representative of Eastern canon law in its entirety. In contrast, Van de Paverd addresses this question and gives some relevant answers – see his 2006 book, p. 292. Interestingly, the voluminous indexes which Di Donna provides (vol. II, 1-2) – different categories of sins, tariffs, disciplinary measures, references to Holy Scripture, the Fathers and other ecclesial authors – are in Latin. He explains his reasons in vol. I, p. 61. However, because with respect to the two Greek documents these indexes are based on an enigmatic seventeenth-century Latin version of a deficient manuscript and, regarding the Slavic text, on the Latin translation of an outdated edition, one could duly ask how reliable these indexes are. In contrast, in his 2006 book, Van de Paverd includes an accurate index of Greek words (pp. 301-317) and, in his 2012 monograph, one finds a general index in English (pp. 191-202). Both indexes would have been very conveni- ent for Di Donna. It is also remarkable that Van de Paverd’s 2006 pivotal study on the two Kanonaria is not considered in several related articles in another volume of the Kanonika series: La disciplina della penitenza nelle Chiese Orientali: Atti del simposio tenuto presso il Pontificio Istituto Orientale, Roma 3-5 giugno 2011, ed. Georges Ruyssen, Kanonika 19 (Rome, 2013). In his article in that volume, ‘Il sacramento della penitenza nei sacri canones del primo millennio: Uno sguardo alle fonti con qualche breve nota in margine’ (pp. 15-27), Book Reviews 321 as for the Kanonaria, Danilo Ceccarelli Morolli grounds himself in Arranz’s study (p. 25, note 49) and does not mention Van de Paverd’s one, thus providing erroneous dating. In his article ‘Dalla penitenza pubblica alla penitenza privata tra occidente latino e oriente bizantino: Percorsi e concezioni a confronto’, in the same book (pp. 29-88), concerning the Kanonarion’s dating, Orazio Condorelli explicitly mentions Arranz’s the- sis, with a bibliographical reference, whereas he only speaks of ‘another hypothesis according to some’ without reference to Van de Paverd (pp. 46-47). Nevertheless, in a bibliographical note at the end of his article (pp. 81-88, in lower-case letters), Con- dorelli does mention the study that proposes the ‘other hypothesis’ (p. 86) but, from his explicit reference to Arranz’s study in the main part of his argument, it seems clear that he does not adopt the conclusions of that ‘other hypothesis’, without discussing pro et contra in this respect. Regarding the Latin West, I could find hardly any new bibliography in Di Donna’s volumes. Some examples of missing pivotal studies must suffice here: Mary C. Mans- field, The Humiliation of Sinners: Public Penance in Thirteenth-Century France (Ithaca NY, 1995); Sarah Hamilton, The Practice of Penance, 900-1050 (Woodbridge, 2001); A New History of Penance, ed. Abigail Firey (Leyden, 2008); Mayke de Jong, The Peni tential State: Authority and Atonement in the Age of Louis the Pious (814-840) (Cam- bridge, 2009). For the greater part, Di Donna’s point of departure are Cyrille Vogel’s studies, which he employs for his own conclusions on Western developments. However, modern liturgical and historical scholarship severely questions Vogel’s dating and description of the historical evolution of Western service books. Present-day scholars, like the historians Sarah Hamilton – an expert on medieval penance, see, e.g., her afore-mentioned book, as well as her ‘Interpreting Diversity: Excommunication Rites in the Tenth and Elev- enth Centuries’, in: Understanding Medieval Liturgy: Essays in Interpretation, eds. Helen Gittos and Sarah Hamilton (Farnham, 2016), pp. 125-158 –, Henry Parkes and Carol Symes, criticize Vogel’s highly problematic editorial policies, the ‘outdated hierarchy of manuscript sources’, the ‘artificial certainty’ and supposed harmony that in reality does not exist. In their opinion, also Michel Andrieu’s editions should be used with a high degree of caution. In a groundbreaking article by Henry Parkes, for instance, – see his ‘Questioning the Authority of Vogel and Elze’s Pontifical romano-germanique’, in Understanding Medieval Liturgy, eds. Gittos and Hamilton, pp. 75-101 – he proves that the so-called ‘milestone of liturgical history’, that is, the ‘Roman-Germanic Pontifical’, which Cyrille Vogel and Reinhard Elze edited and dated to the mid-tenth century, is an artificial construct. On the one hand, Parkes dates a significant layer of that ‘Pon- tifical’ to the late-tenth and early-eleventh centuries; on the other, he points to the ‘extraordinary scribal, ritual, intellectual and institutional divergence’ of the manuscript tradition (p. 101 of his article). Instead of a ‘sanitized synthesis’, there are arbitrariness and messy facts. Therefore, ‘a synoptic approach is fundamentally unsound’ (p. 99), and he argues in favour of a ‘historically sensitive reappraisal of the earliest sources’ (p. 98). So, because of the many flaws in previous twentieth-century editions of important medieval texts, Hamilton, Parkes and Symes underscore the necessity of a fresh evalua- tion of extant sources. In view of the heterogeneity and bewildering variety of the textual world regarding worship, other rituals and canon law, they ask also questions such as: Do the texts reflect actual practice or are they merely prescriptions? Or are they only 322 Book Reviews books for instruction and reflection? Or do they merely witness to academic interest in liturgy and canon law? In addition, Carol Symes underscores the selective survival of manuscripts: many got lost because of ‘negligence and accidents’, on the one hand, and ‘reliance on oral traditions and improvisation’, on the other. She points also to specific local initiatives to explain the bewildering textual variety – see her article ‘Liturgical Texts and Performance Practices’, in Understanding Medieval Liturgy, eds. Gittos and Hamilton, pp. 239-267 (quotation p. 251). This may apply not only to liturgical, but also to canonical texts. Let me also refer to research of two other historians in this context. Frederick Paxton argues that coupling enquiries into the history of worship with cultural historical and social anthropological studies yields far more knowledge on the way liturgy was really celebrated than merely investigating official formularies can do – see his ‘Researching Rites for the Dying and the Dead’, in Understanding Medieval Liturgy, eds. Gittos and Hamilton, pp. 39-56. His essay is an interesting personal story of a scholar’s assessment of the editions and secondary studies he has been using during his lifetime search for the structure and meaning of the rites for the dying and deceased. Further, Helen Gittos points to the great diversity and variety of medieval liturgical manuscripts, and to the multifarious reasons for composing them, such as the wish to ‘emphasize unity to delib- erately obscure regional differences’. Concurrently, she highlights the difference between a manuscript and actual performance practice: a written text as such does not warrant at all its factual enactment. Finally, she remarks, ‘it is often the case that current ideas about the dates and places of origins of key manuscripts have changed considerably since older studies were written … their conclusions [of the latter] must be handled cautiously.’ See her ‘Researching the History of Rites’, in Understanding Medieval Lit urgy, eds. Eadem and Hamilton, pp. 13-37 (quotation on p. 25). There is, however, no trace of this recent scholarship in Di Donna’s work. Certainly, it would not be fair to expect from him to know the entire state of affairs of contemporary historiographical research. Nonetheless, because of the encompassing subject he deals with, openness towards current research in the field of medieval studies is a con ditio sine qua non. Generally speaking, recent scholarly studies as a whole are a small minority in his bibliography. Even a 1963 critical edition of Irish penance books is missing, and Di Donna still grounds himself in a now very outdated nineteenth-century edition – see The Irish Penitentials, ed. Ludwig Bieler, with an appendix of D.A. Binchy, Scriptores Latini Hiberniae 5 (Dublin, 1963), and Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents Relating to Great Britain and Ireland, I-III, eds. Arthur West Haddan and William Stubbs (Oxford, 1869-1878), respectively. All of this is a pity because, as I just indicated, new historical studies and critical editions reach conclusions that may considerably differ from former scientific knowledge, which many still take for granted. Again, this has serious consequences for the dating of the Western sources that Di Donna incorporates. In a certain sense, it puts a kind of ‘bomb’ under the greater part of his work. Some reviews of Di Donna’s work are laudatory. In Gregorianum 99 (2018), pp. 413- 415, PIO professor Cesare Giraudo outlines the contents, adds some theological observations and praises the author, the series editor and the publisher. In La Civiltà Cat tolica 169 (2018) / no. 4025 (3th -17th of March), pp. 508-509, another Jesuit father, Enrico Cattaneo, briefly sketches the contents and wholeheartedly recommends Di Book Reviews 323

Donna’s book. On the other hand, Stefano Parenti finds ‘serious bibliographical, historical-critical and methodological deficiencies’ in Di Donna’s work, which make it ‘useless, even harmful’. In Parenti’s opinion, this book has made the state of the arts worse again – see his article on the historical evolution and current practice of penance in the Byzantine, Assyrian and Coptic traditions, ‘Confessione, penitenza e perdono nelle Chiese orientali’, Rivista Liturgica 104 (2017) 4, pp. 111-141, here p. 114 (text and note 12). Six years before Di Donna’s work, another book that, to a certain extent, is similar appeared, namely, Libri poenitentiales / Ksęgi pokutne: Tekst łaciński, grecki i polski, eds. Arkadiusz Baron and Henryk Pietras, Synody i kolekcje praw / Synodi et collections legum 5, Źródła Myśli Teologicznej 58 (Cracow, 2011), XXX and 1058 pp. This weighty book consists of approximately forty medieval sources of penal legislation, nearly all of them of Irish/British, French/Italian and Spanish origins, respectively. The editors incorporated also two Greek sources: firstly, a Byzantine confession ritual, including prayers and detailed instructions on which penance is to be imposed for certain categories of sins – however, several elements of this penitential service, especially detailed questions on sexual ‘deviancies’, and the texts of several orations, scripture readings and a list of feasts, are omitted (see pp. 480-481, 484) – and, secondly, canons of Pseudo-Theodore Studite. Just as is the case with Di Donna’s work, all sources had already been published, the two Greek ones in Patrologia graeca 88:1889-1917 and 99:1721-1730. Every text is followed by a Polish translation. Moreover, the editors provide a high number of annotations and footnotes regarding textual variants, com- parisons with other penal codes and their editions, as well as biblical, patristic and conciliar references. Nevertheless, one should also critically point out that more contem- poraneous academic research of the sources with respect to their dates of origin, con- texts, use and representativeness would have improved the quality of this book. It is praiseworthy that Gianandrea Di Donna has invested a great amount of energy to issue his work. The new Latin translations have been made with care and precision. The indexes are extensive and informative. The author’s wish to contribute to comparative liturgy is undoubtedly sincere. Moreover, the four tomes look attractive and their layout has been done carefully. Regrettably, however, my evidence demonstrates also that they contain various serious flaws that have to be addressed before this sub- stantial work was offered to the wider academic community for consideration. Publish- ing research results not always in new knowledge and insights, but may also bring about stagnation, even setback. The subject of ecclesiastical penal legislation in both East and West remains a field of work in progress. Bert Groen (Graz)

Bert Groen, De weg omhoog en de strijd om vrijheid. Nikos Kazantzakis, zijn Ascetica en de orthodoxe traditie. Groningen, “Ta Grammata”, 2017, 214 pp. ISBN 978-90- 819370-9-2

Bert Groen, professor for intercultural and interreligious dialogue in South-East Europe at the University of Graz, takes Kazantzakis’ famous poem “Ascetica” as the starting point for an empathic presentation of the author and his oeuvre. In seven chapters, 324 Book Reviews preceded by a short Introduction and followed by a Conclusion, Groen successively offers a presentation of the contents of the poem, its sources and influences (first of all Christianity, but also classical Greek culture, several 19th century authors, including Nietzsche and Darwin, and further also Buddhism and Communism, two quite different traditions that both have inspired Kazantzakis all through his life), Kazantzakis’ debt to the Orthodox tradition, a comparison with other Greek authors who, together with authors as Tolstoy and artists as El Greco, in various exercised an influence on Kazant- zakis, major topics addressed in the poem, its reception, including the failed attempt to grant the author the Nobel price, and a short survey of opinions on Kazantzakis by contemporary Greek theologians. Among the topics lifted out as core aspects of the poem, Groen mentions the poet’s reflections on the use of violence, the importance of freedom, his dubious attitude towards asceticism, and the need for political action. Kazantzakis never was “just” an intellectual. As an intellectual he was deeply convinced of the need to proceed to action, even if he himself was not always willing or eager to make that move (but see his “exploits” with Zorbas!). But perhaps the most debatable issue, at least from a current perspective, is Kazantzakis’ struggle with what Groen calls “the gender question”. His views on women, while not absolutely negative, are often patronising to slightly naïve. Groen points out this tension, or indeed contradiction, in the work and opinion of Kazantzakis, even if his formulation is perhaps a bit too empathic. Indeed, I think it may seem to be an understatement to write that “he was not always consequent in his views on the other sex” (p. 143), which is quite puzzling for a man of his stature and convictions about the equality of people and nations. The fact that some contemporary authors ventured similar opinions hardly offers an excuse. I agree that artistic creativity may have been a way for Kazantzakis to conquer his demons, but the demons were real and maybe “psychopathologic symptoms” is indeed not a bad way to put it (p. 145). Of course, this does not disqualify Kazantzakis as a great author and poet, but it is absolutely necessary to stay aware of this more dark and complex aspect of the author in order better to understand and situate him. Groen’s book represents a good effort to do just that. Joseph Verheyden (Leuven)

Edward Rommen, Being the Church. An Eastern Orthodox Understanding of Church Growth. Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2017, xviii-212 pp. ISBN 978-1-4982- 9315-0

Edward Rommen, a former Protestant missionary in Europe who converted to Ortho- dox Christianity and is currently an adjunct professor at Duke Divinity School, has produced a fine essay aimed at a wider readership on the nature of the Church and the meaning and relevance of the four qualifications (Rommen speaks of “four transcenden- tal attributes”, p. 178) it is given in the Creed, but then (mainly) applied only to the Orthodox Churches. The Bibliography is limited, as the author clearly did not wish to burden his book with footnotes, but instead wanted to communicate his personal reflections on these fundamental aspects of the Church, founded in personal experience and reading. Book Reviews 325

The first aspect, unity, currently poses a major problem for Christianity as a whole and also for the Orthodox Churches. Rommen helpfully lists a number of what he calls “accidental indicators of ecclesial oneness”, among these, concelebration, participation in the Eucharist, and co-ministration. He also points out the necessity of “being local” while keeping an openness to “being universal”. The Church’s holiness, the second aspect, is grounded in the character and quality of God as absolute goodness and should be demonstrated in ecclesial praxis through the sacraments and the liturgy. Here again, “being” means “doing, practicing”. Somewhat surprisingly, the third quality, catholic- ity, is connected with the concept of “ecclesial beauty”. This connection may not be immediately clear to every reader, but it offers an interesting approach. Rommen trans- lates this as the effect participation in the liturgy and religious praxis of the community can realise among the faithful, as well as the effect sacred space may have on them. The fourth aspect, the Church’s apostolicity, should be reflected in its missionary work, its firm belief in the creed, and again in personal and communal praxis. The book witnesses to the strong commitment of its author in building church and community through participating in the religious praxis of the group. “… being the Church … is far more important than what many have called doing or managing church” (p. 179). That is true, of course, though one should not be blind for the more “economical” aspects of living a communal live on a larger scale, as I am sure the author is well aware of. Joseph Verheyden (Leuven)