In The Center and the Source, Michael Svigel reassesses the question of self-definition in early Christianity. His thesis flows against the streams of Harnack and Bauer, whose contributions have influenced much of patristic scholarship in the past century. Harnack's Hellenizing thesis argued that the Christian tradition evolved late in the second century through the controlling elements of the canon, creed, and episcopate. Bauer, on the other hand, emphasized that early Christianity was characterized by radical diversity, where many Christologies and Christianities preceded the rise of a singular orthodox and catholic Christianity (11). Following these works, still other approaches to early Christian self-definition utilized a variety of sociological perspectives including describing Christianity's emergence and separation from Judaism as a messianic sect, the nature of conflict and religious identity in early Christian theological disputes, particular patterns of social structures including rites and rituals, and post-colonial perspectives that focused on authoritative discourses (12–18).
Taking a different approach, Svigel focuses on “self-definition” located in the unity of “catholic” Christianity marked by “faithfulness to the incarnational narrative” (20). He argues that “early catholic Christians identified themselves with the incarnational Christological narrative . . . in contrast with non-incarnational christologies and thus non-catholic Christian communities” and that this narrative was early and geographically widespread (23). Amid a diverse array of texts and traditions in the second century, there is a discernable unity in the narrative presentations of the life of Christ, which, according to Svigel, must have originated among catholic communities in the first century (circa 50–75 c.e.) (390).
Svigel frames his argument into twenty chapters that work through the Christological arguments of a variety of catholic and non-catholic texts of the second century. In chapters 3–9, he surveys the writings of Ignatius, whose letters to several churches and individuals in Syria, Asia Minor, and Rome serve as the organizing center for this study (48). In each letter there are various expressions of the incarnational narrative as well as theological references to the work of the Son that presuppose such a narrative. In chapter 9, he summarizes Ignatius's contribution with a synthetic account of the “six movements” of the Ignatian incarnational narrative including the Son's preexistence, incarnation, birth and life, suffering and death, resurrection, and ascension. While not all Ignatian texts contain a single summary of each of these points, none of them reject even one of them (173).
In chapters 10–15, Svigel compares the findings in the Ignatian corpus with other catholic writings of the same period around Syria, Asia Minor, Achaia and Macedonia, and Rome including: The Didache, The Gospel of Peter, the Odes of Solomon, Martyrdom of Polycarp, Epistula Apostolorum, First Clement, Aristides, the Shepherd of Hermes, Barnabus, and Second Clement. These texts support the general notion of a Christological narrative presupposed among catholic Christians and that the faithfulness to the incarnational narrative was early, widespread, and foundational (297).
Then, in chapters 16–18, Svigel considers non-catholic writings of the second century that advance non-incarnational or even anti-incarnational Christologies, including many Gnostic texts discovered at Nag Hammadi. According to Svigel, these non-incarnational narratives differ from the catholic incarnational narrative at “several points” and in “varying degrees” (308). At times they not only disagree but offer competing polemical Christologies that differ drastically from the previously confessed catholic incarnational narrative.
Finally, chapters 19–20 offer a conclusion and postscript that summarize the thesis that incarnational Christological narrative was foundational and widespread and serves as the center of catholic Christian self-definition in the early church. Ultimately, the simple notion of the historical dissemination of texts and theologies strengthens Svigel's conclusions because if there was a “plurality of equally non-authoritative Christological narratives among first and second generation Christians without clear authoritative voices to promote an incarnational christological unity, it does not seem probable that the unique incarnation narrative would have been as central, foundational, and widespread as we find it among early second century catholic Christians” (400). The Christological narrative Svigel posits presses the origins of incarnational narrative back to the apostolic period, when this theological perspective would have been articulated and received.
Accompanying his argument, Svigel provides many charts and graphs that help to visualize his points. The final diagram in the conclusion ties everything together and helps show the distribution of the incarnational narrative in both catholic and non-catholic texts (403).
In terms of evaluation, I will make only a few minor observations. Within the course of his argument, there is some tension with the use of the language “narrative,” which describes Christology in terms of an arrangement of “events” (20n54). In some instances, though, the terms “narrative,” “definition,” and “doctrine” (and related terms) are used synonymously and the latter terms imply theological propositions that are not always narrative (19, 20, 21). It is certainly true, as Svigel writes, that the articulations of the Christological narrative concern both “the metaphysical and historical realities” (58). Metaphysical accounts, while often described in “historical” events, could be articulated in non-narrative terms, though it seems that even in those cases they do presuppose some kind of “historical narrative” working in the background (74, 90, 120). Other points that might raise questions include the relationship of the Father and the Spirit to the incarnational narrative (as it will be articulated in the rule of faith later on) and any additional boundary markers of the Christological incarnational narrative within each of the “six movements,” such as competing views of, for example, soteriology or eschatology (173). But these questions press the thesis well beyond what is necessary to prove the validity of a general incarnational narrative.
In conclusion, Svigel's work offers a compelling account of the foundational role of theology in early Christian self-identify, which is marked by faithfulness to the incarnational Christological narrative. What ultimately distinguished the catholic community was not developing notions of canon, creed, or clergy or the suppression of a radical diversity of Christianity, but a unified narrative confession of the work of God in Christ arising out of the first century and spreading rapidly across the early Christian world.
