Review of Rizzi (ed.), "Hadrian and the Christians"

BMCR REVIEW:

Marco Rizzi (ed.), Hadrian and the Christians. Millennium-Studien = Millennium studies Bd. 30. Berlin; New York: De Gruyter, 2010. Pp. vi, 186. ISBN 9783110224702. $98.00.

Reviewed by Benjamin Garstad, MacEwan University (garstadb@macewan.ca)

Table of Contents

The papers in this volume have been collected with the laudably sensible, but regrettably rare, purpose of testing an hypothesis. As the editor puts it in his introduction, the “cultural effervescence” of Hadrian’s reign and the contemporaneous diffusion and institutionalization of Christianity are to be examined “in order to figure out whether any specific factor within this broader context eased or accelerated the affirmation of Christianity in the Second century Roman world.” It is suggested that Hadrian’s reconfiguration of the Roman Empire as a polity which tolerated or even encouraged a plethora of distinct ethnic, local, cultural, religious, and philosophical identities in the interest of fostering “direct loyalty to the emperor” (rather than the institutions of Republican government or the apparatus of imperial control) opened up a space in which the Christians could engage in “self-definition and external self- definition.” This thesis is pursued by directing an often narrow spotlight on various aspects of Hadrian’s reign.

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Jews figure prominently in some of the essays as well.