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Athanasius and the Politics of Asceticism. By DAVID BRAKKE. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995. xviii + 356 pp. $65.00.
"Although his mind was tainted by the contagion of fanaticism, Athanasius displayed a superiority of character and abilities, which would have qualified him, far better than the degenerate sons of Constantine, for the government of a great monarchy." Gibbon, in this assessment, envisaged someone for whom "the cause of the Homoousion" was "the sole pleasure and business . . . the duty, and . . . the glory, of his life." David Brakke deals with a second focus of Athanasius's talent, recognized in his own time by Gregory of Nazianzus: his consolidation of the authority of the Alexandrian patriarchate by harnessing the potentially chaotic dynamism of Egyptian asceticism. This accomplishment actually enabled Athanasius and his successors to shape the church's doctrine. Brakke shows how, in this activity, Athanasius exhibited the same toughness and charm, the same clarity in goals and patience and flexibility...