Book Reviews / Religion 40 (2010) 324-377 333

for a clear, accessible and balanced presentation of representative themes of this vibrant era of Catholic discourse will be well rewarded by perusing
the middle part of this book.
The assumption guiding this treatment is that the social encyclicals are instances of religious ‘myth’, which were appropriated by Catholic actors
in ‘ideological’ ways during the period under study. Some readers will be put off by the use in this context of the terms ‘myth’ and ‘ideology’, with their
corresponding connotations of discourse that is not literally true to fact and is shaped by material interests. In practice, the use of such categories
to explain religious truth often results in explaining it away. In this book, be assured, the author takes the texts and debates involved quite seriously,
with no apparent reductionism. If he had simply reported these categories as his own perspective for historical analysis, there would be little reason
to comment on them; but he goes much further.
The primary motivation for the history presented - we are told - is to present evidence in support of the view that the encyclicals are, in themselves,
religious myth. Indeed, this thesis follows from a comprehensive view that the categories of myth and ideology characterize the nature of religious
truth. On this theory, mythic truth claims become embodied as self-evident and authoritative, but also adaptable for ideological appropriation, in the
discourse of religious communities. The well-known creation myth of Genesis, for example, is appropriated in divergent ways corresponding to
ideological interests in contemporary debates over gender roles. Likewise, the variability of Catholic appeals to the encyclicals provides evidence
that ‘.the mythic character of Genesis and its role in contemporary society is comparable to the mythic quality of the papal encyclicals that shaped
Catholic economic thinking in the pre-Vatican II years’ (p. 12).
This thesis is overly broad, in my judgment, to the detriment of the book. It is not clear (and never explained) why all religious truth must be of a
single type or nature. This point is pertinent, as Catholics specifically distinguish a wide range of types of revealed truth. The reasoning behind the
author’s method of argument, moreover, is fraught with fallacy. To assume a text is mythic in order to analyze its use, in order to then prove that it is
mythic, appears to be an instance of assuming one’s conclusion. And if, further, one ‘discovers’ thereby that the encyclical texts are variably used,
like myths are ideologically appropriated, then is not one merely affirming the consequent? If all bachelors are males, to affirm that someone is male
does not thereby establish that he is a bachelor. There may be other explanations.
In the case in point, there is indeed another explanation, which the author never acknowledges or addresses. The Catholic Church specifically
addresses the question of the status of the religious truth of the encyclicals in question, in a way that explains both their authoritativeness and their
varied usage, and that specifically rebuts the author’s thesis. The 1987 social encyclical Sollicitudo Rei Socialis (SRS) clarifies that ‘[the Church’s
social doctrine] belongs to the field, not of ideology, but of theology and particularly of moral theology’ (Section 41; emphasis in original). In the
Catholic understanding since at least the middle ages, moral theology consists of discourse at two levels: abstract principles, which are general,
authoritative and unchanging; and concrete directives, which apply the principles to specific situations and can be quite variable depending on the
circumstances. In the case of social doctrine, SRS further asserts the operation of yet a third - middle - level of discourse consisting of criteria by
which to judge collective social arrangements or developments.
This 1987 statement was formulated specifically to address claims, such as that of this book, that the social encyclicals function as some sort of
ideology in the Church. It should be noted that the category of myth - though the social encyclicals are not judged to be such - is of value for describing
the nature of some religious truth for Catholics. Indeed, a faithful Catholic understanding of the Genesis creation account would understand it as
myth in much the manner described in this book.
My point, of course, is not that one need accept SRS’s account of the status of the social teachings as moral theology in preference to the author’s
mythic argument. My point is merely that, in order to provide a scholarly argument worth reading, the latter needs to acknowledge and respond to the
former. One would not know from this book that the religious group under study had already rebutted its thesis in specific terms.
The focus on the myth thesis, moreover, narrows the historical analysis somewhat, even as regards religion. For each of the three central
discourses analyzed, the author draws a similar conclusion: that the participants each ‘reproduced the distinctive ideology of the social encyclicals
on their own terms’ (p. 81). No attempt (that I could find) is made to expand on this bare finding in light of the extensive and suggestive historical
material that forms its basis. There is no discussion of the fact that, in each dialogue chronicled so well, the participants tend to agree on aims but
differ on strategy. Nor is there recognition of the fact that one of the participants is invariably more sect-like, rejecting existing arrangements and
advocating separation from culture in order to challenge it or find perfection, while the other is more church-like, advocating working within the system
to influence society from within ‘like leaven in the loaf. The notable fact that there were clear limits to disagreement - for example, no Catholic group,
no matter how critical of abuses of such things, ever opposed unions or private property - coterminous with the perspicacious teachings of the
encyclicals, is not noted. Nor is there any attempt to consider more general implications of the fact that the three approaches chronicled together
address three definitive elements of modern society - urbanization, industrialization and capitalism.
In sum, those interested in a well-conceived argument on the nature of religious truth claims or the Catholic social encyclicals will likely be
disappointed. But those in search of a readable, balanced history of this lively era of American Catholic life could hardly do better than this book.

Paul Sullins
The Catholic University of America (U.SA) E-mail address: Sullins@cua.edu doi: 10.1016/j.religion.2010.05.004

Kate Cooper and Julia Hillner, eds., Religion, Dynasty, and Patronage in Early Christian Rome, 300-900. New York, Cambridge University Press,
2007, xv + 327 pp., $99 (hardback), ISBN 978 0 521 87641 4.

In recent years, the notion that as the western Roman empire collapsed the pope inexorably and inevitably replaced the emperor as the civic
authority in the city of Rome has come under a great deal of scrutiny. This largely excellent collection of essays offers a compelling
critique of this representation of history, aptly termed ‘papal teleology’ by the editors in their superb introduction. In a clear and concise manner, the
editors not only sketch some of the key historical events from 300 to 900 CE and their place in modern scholarship, but also outline the relevant
literary evidence, underscoring the need to re-examine and re-evaluate this evidence that was increasingly produced by the papacy. The inevitable
biases of such sources highlight the pressing necessity for greater reciprocity between historians and archaeologists in order to balance the
difficulties of the textual evidence as scholars re-define late antique and early medieval Rome. Unfortunately, however, no archaeologist appears in
this volume, nor does archaeological evidence play any substantial role. The need for an updated survey of the physical city becomes clear - especially
as the still-canonical Krautheimer survey is both mired in the papal teleological narrative and out-of-date as vast amounts of new archaeological
evidence has been produced over the past 25 years. Material evidence aside, this volume laudably interrogates the literary sources for late antique
and early medieval Rome, revealing the limits and possibilities of the evidence while presenting the complex and intertwined relationships between
334 Book Reviews / Religion 40 (2010) 324-377

emperors, aristocrats and bishops - or popes, as they would eventually be known.

Part I, ‘Icons of authority: pope and emperor’, investigates the continuing power and presence of the emperor in Rome and two of the most
important sources for the late antique history of the papacy. Mark Humphries, ‘From emperor to pope? Ceremonial, space, and authority at Rome from
Constantine to Gregory the Great’, confronts the standard papal teleological narratives by examining the ways in which the emperors continued to
exercise authority over the city of Rome through imperial visits, public celebrations (in particular imperial anniversaries), building projects, and the
communication of laws and images of the reigning emperor from the early-4th to the early-7th centuries; that is, from the first Christian emperor
Constantine until pope Gregory I, whose pontificate is often considered the hinge between classical and medieval Rome. In charting the vicissitudes
of public ceremonial, this fine study demonstrates that the emperor, though physically absent, was symbolically present and that the Roman
aristocracy remained powerful, even as the papacy gradually took control of civic ceremonies and thereby civic authority. Late antique and early
medieval Roman civic authority is less a linear narrative of papal ascension than a kaleidoscope of constantly re-configuring powers.
Kate Blair-Dixon, ‘Memory and authority in 6th-century Rome: the Liber Pontificalis and the Collectio Avellana’, does the great service of analyzing
the Collectio Avellana (CA), a collection of almost 250 documents from the 4th to the 6th centuries relating to the bishop of Rome. The CA, compiled
around 550, along with its near contemporary, the Liber Pontificalis (LP), a serial biography of the bishops of Rome first compiled around 530, are the
most important - and problematical - sources for late antique Rome and the early papacy. Both derive from similar sources and are equally concerned
with the schisms that rocked the church. However, the LP was often content to summarize issues from the perspective of the ultimate winner, while
the CA assembled numerous letters that provide a clearer context and sometimes a divergent history for some of these contentious moments.
Part II, ‘Lay, clerical, and ascetic contexts for the Roman gesta martyrum’, offers three studies of the often-overlooked corpus of Roman martyr
tales, the gesta martyrum, written in the 5th to the 7th centuries. Kristina Sessa, ‘Domestic conversions: households and bishops in the late antique
"papal legends”’, explores a subset of the gesta, the episcopal passions, in order to consider how the bishop ’ s authority was established in the
aristocratic household - the preeminent site of the production of social power in the Roman world. According to Sessa, the papal legends imagine two
types of interaction between bishop and aristocratic household, in which relations between the bishop and aristocracy were negotiated: one coercive,
the other more cooperative. On the one hand, a property dispute leads to the unequivocal assertion of episcopal power - as an imperial proxy - that
overrides the traditional autonomy of the household. On the other, a group of three other papal legends outlines a scenario in which bishops perform
a baptismal liturgy in an aristocratic household - a scene that recognizes the power of the bishop but also maintains the authority of the household.
Hannah Jones, ‘Agnes and Constantia: domesticity and cult patronage in the Passion of Agnes , addresses a single martyr, Agnes, and her passion.
On one side, the literary images of Agnes and Constantina (the daughter of Constantine) are conflated to produce an ideal imperial patron. On another
side, an episcopal version of Agnes emerges, while still other stories envision Agnes as upholding the rights of aristocratic families. Although this
essay could have used a stronger editorial hand, it does indicate the ways in which the story of Agnes mediated cultic authority and patronage
networks.
Conrad Leyser, ‘"A church in the house of the saints”: property and power in the Passion of John and Paul’, traces the use of the past, an imagined
pre-Constantinian domestic Christianity, in the 6th century and beyond. In particular, Leyser follows the tangled trail of transmission of one particular
version of the passio of John and Paul, first written at Rome and then compiled into a codex with an array of pointedly monastic texts. Leyser suggests
that this particular martyr tale proved to be useful by virtue of its emphasis on property rights, as, strangely, the protagonist of the passio is as much
the house of the martyrs as the martyrs themselves. In the story, the two martyrs are buried in their Esquiline home, which subsequently becomes a
shrine and later a church, so that the narrative of the burial of the martyrs within their home implies papal - and then later monastic - property rights.
In general terms, the essays of this section - in particular the contributions of Sessa and Leyser - demonstrate the ideological work that these gesta
performed for their contemporary and later audiences. Once merely mined for references to political and ecclesiastical struggles, these studies
indicate the broader horizons in which late antique martyr stories operated.
Part III, ‘Religion, Dynasty, and Patronage', also considers the themes of power and patronage, but draws upon a wider range of literary evidence.
Kate Cooper, ‘Poverty, obligation, and inheritance: Roman heiresses and the varieties of senatorial Christianity in 5th-century Rome', explores the
various ways in which wealthy Christian aristocrats patronized the church. On the one hand, there were spectacular potlatch gestures, such as that of
Melania and her husband, Pinian, who attempted to divest themselves of their fabulously extravagant wealth in one grand give-away. On the other,
Italian aristocrats built and maintained churches on their own properties, the upkeep for which was often imposed on the heirs. Wending a middle
way, a number of texts suggest that the aristocracy functioned as stewards of their own wealth on behalf of the church, as the wealthy, ascetic
aristocrat who retained her property and used it to support the church became the moral equivalent of the rich young man in Matthew 19:21, who was
urged to sell all he had in order to follow Christ. This special role for the Roman aristocracy may well help to explain the important differences between
northern European and Roman monasteries, a difference also examined by Leyser and Costambeys in the final essay of this volume.
Anne Kurdock, ‘Demetrias ancilla dei: Anicia Demetrias and the problem of the missing patron', deals with the problem of lay patronage from
another angle, focusing on Anicia Demetrias and the lengths to which various Christian authors went to cultivate her friendship and to guide the use
of her immoderate wealth. In particular, Jerome and Pelagius, two Christian ascetic authors, addressed letters of advice to young Demetrias,
ostensibly at the request of her family, in the hope of becoming her spiritual advisor and thereby gaining power and influence for themselves through
such a powerful woman. Even Augustine addressed a series of letters to the Anician family, and specifically to Demetrias. The riches of wealthy
Christian ladies could not be spent without proper guidance - or so these authors would have Demetrias believe.
Julia Hillner, ‘Families, patronage, and the titular churches of Rome, c. 300-c. 600’, considers the peculiar case of the Roman tituli, ambiguous
church endowments seemingly caught between aristocratic and ecclesiastical control. By examining the legal use of the term titulus and the disputes
concerning church property in the election of bishop Symmachus, Hillner comes to the conclusion that the tituli were not founded directly by the
aristocracy and were therefore not directly under their influence. Rather, Hillner contends that legal mechanisms to ensure ongoing maintenance of
buildings were tenuous, which meant that Roman aristocrats simply donated to a general church fund from which the bishop built and maintained the
tituli. If true - and it is worth noting that Kim Bowes (Private Worship, Public Values, and Religious Change in Late Antiquity (New York, Cambridge
University Press, 2008)) adduces a number of pertinent concerns - aristocratic oversight of these institutions was weaker than previously thought.
Marios Costambeys and Conrad Leyser, ‘To be the neighbour of St Stephen: patronage, martyr cult, and Roman monasteries, c. 600-c. 900’, begin
by noting that specific evidence related to Roman monasteries and monasticism is largely lacking, though Rome was home to hundreds of
monasteries. Costambeys and Leyser explain this, in part, by the domestic and ephemeral nature of monastic practice in Rome, which remained
largely confined within the homes of the aristocracy for a long and surprisingly vibrant period. Lay patronage of monastic institutions and the cult of
saints by monastically-minded aristocrats seems to have continued into the 9th and 10th centuries, when Roman monasticism began to develop along
the lines found elsewhere. In general, the contributions of this section make clear that late ancient bishops and other Christian authorities were still
 Book Reviews / Religion 40 (2010) 324-377 335

dependent upon the powers and prerogatives of the classical Roman aristocracy. However, as Hillner’s essay argues, this dependence varies
according to circumstance, as the aristocracy may not have exercised as much control over the tituli as many scholars have argued.
In conclusion, although largely aimed at a specialist audience, the essays by Humphries and Cooper offer broad overviews that are accessible to
the general reader. The other essays, while dealing with specific issues, engage a set of similar themes. First, most of the essays demonstrate the
ongoing power and prestige of Roman aristocratic households and the enduring authority of the emperor even in absentia - except for Hillner’s, which
controversially re-evaluates the status of the tituli. A simplified image of late antique Roman social and political life aided the development of the
papal teleology and so this exploration of the complexities and diversity of Rome from 300 to 900 CE works to unsettle that view. The papacy certainly
became a power, but not immediately and not without competition. Second, the essays collectively interrogate much of the literary evidence for late
antique and early medieval Rome, although the lack of archaeological material is lamentable. In particular, the value and import of the gesta martyrum
in the construction of contemporary power relations and ideologies becomes clear in the contributions of Sessa, Leyser and Costambeys. The
emphasis on aristocratic authority and the reconsideration of the evidence make this collection a very valuable contribution to the study of early
Christian Rome.

Jacob Latham
University of California, Santa Barbara (U.S.A) E-
mail address: jlatham@ihc.ucsb.edu

doi: 10.1016/j.religion.2010.05.005

Jeff Wilson, Mourning the Unborn Dead: A Buddhist Ritual Comes to America. New York, Oxford University Press, 2009, viii + 260 pp., $35
(cloth), ISBN 978 0 19 537193 2.

This is a study of mizuko kuyo, the contemporary Japanese rite performed on behalf of ‘water babies’ - aborted children/beings - by some Buddhist
temples, as this rite is brought to America, performed and adapted here. The ritual has been a source of controversy in Japan, but Wilson’s story is a
very different one. Here, it has been used as fuel for both sides in the American abortion controversy. Much more interestingly, it has become a
resource of healing for both American Buddhists and non-Buddhists. It is also one mark of the renewal of interest in ritual and specific Bodhisattvas
among the former. The book is an excellent contribution to the study of Buddhism in America, and it is also relevant and important to other academic
discussions, most notably the re-discovering and reshaping of mourning in America.
Mizuko kuyo is one of several relatively new religious rituals from postwar Japan. It became popular after 1946, when abortion was legalized
there, and is aimed to placate and protect the mizuko, or ‘water baby’, who is seen as having been wreaking revenge on its family. Almost all family
troubles can be attributed to the unquiet mizuko. The rite asks Jizo, the Bodhisattva of children, to protect the mizuko, saving this poor in-between
being from the dry riverbed hell in which it is now abandoned. The Japanese family purchases a statue ofJizo - who resembles both a monk and a child
- and dresses him with a bib, cap and other adornments suitable to a very young child. The controversy in Japan is focused around the concept of
‘revenge’ and whether this is truly a Buddhist idea, as well as questions about the mercenary motives of the temples that do well in performing these
rites.
But what happens when this ritual is brought to America? Who imports it, how, and why? It is these questions that Wilson’s fascinating study
answers, although some background information about the ritual’s Japanese history and meanings is provided. The first and most straightforward
section deals with how Japanese-American Buddhist communities - often called ‘churches’ as a legacy of an era when immigrant faiths tried to adapt
to American Christian patterns - do and do not celebrate mizuko kuyo. Because most of their members are descen- dents of immigrants who came
here long before the ritual developed in Japan, there is no firm pattern of inherited practice. However, certain new Japanese residents (such as
students) want the rite performed, and some temples have accommodated this. It is clearly not a big business for these quiet and small-scale religious
communities. Wilson, like many others who write about American Buddhism, must decide which terms to use in acknowledging the basic division
between these groups and ‘convert’ Buddhism, with which the next part of the book deals.