226 - The Fear of Freedom: A Study of Miracles in the Roman Imperial Church

The Fear of Freedom:
A Study of Miracles in the Roman Imperial Church
By Rowan A. Greer
University Park, Pennsylvania State University. 1989. 211 pp. $24.95.

As an authority on early biblical interpretation, Rowan A. Greer serves as a highly skilled guide to the interplay between the early Christian message and the context in which it was proclaimed. In his latest book, Greer examines the relationship between Christian proclamation and the social status of the church.

In the Hellenistic church, the Christian life was primarily portrayed as a quest for virtue undertaken by persons who possessed the freedom, given in baptism, to recognize and pursue the good. The church was a by-product of this common pursuit. Following Constantine, a corporate piety emerged that did not cohere with this message. Attention shifted from the virtue of the individual to the empowerment of God's people through the imperial Roman church and its saints. Particularly in the work of Augustine, the notion of freedom came to be associated with service to a sovereign God rather than with individual moral agency.

Greer has accomplished that rare feat of enriching our historical understanding while at the same time illuminating our own situation. His explanation of the ancient dissonance

228 - The Fear of Freedom: A Study of Miracles in the Roman Imperial Church

between doctrine and institutional life provides a highly suggestive perspective for reflection on present-day tensions between the desire for selffulfillment and the need for community.

Rebecca H. Weaver
Union Theological Seminary in Virginia
Richmond, Va.