Harding, Christopher

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     Edinburgh Research Explorer                                      Book review: Christianity in India. From beginnings to thepresent. By Robert Eric FrykenbergCitation for published version:Harding, C 2010, 'Book review: Christianity in India. From beginnings to the present. By Robert EricFrykenberg', The Journal of Ecclesiastical History, vol. 61, no. 1, pp. 155-156.https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022046909991667Digital Object Identifier (DOI):10.1017/S0022046909991667Link:Link to publication record in Edinburgh Research ExplorerDocument Version:Publisher's PDF, also known as Version of recordPublished In:The Journal of Ecclesiastical HistoryPublisher Rights Statement:© Harding, C. (2010). Book review: Christianity in India. From beginnings to the present. By Robert EricFrykenberg. The Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 61(1), 155-156doi: 10.1017/S0022046909991667General rightsCopyright for the publications made accessible via the Edinburgh Research Explorer is retained by the author(s)and / or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing these publications that users recognise andabide by the legal requirements associated with these rights.Take down policyThe University of Edinburgh has made every reasonable effort to ensure that Edinburgh Research Explorercontent complies with UK legislation. If you believe that the public display of this file breaches copyright pleasecontact openaccess@ed.ac.uk providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately andinvestigate your claim.Download date: 30. Nov. 2025sources, through Christian writers, to responses to Esther in art, music, drama andliterature. This is undoubtedly a tour de force of sources in English and Englishtranslation (almost no German sources are referred to), and although the sheerquantity of information is at times overwhelming, readers will gain a rich impressionof the way in which the book of Esther has provoked responses from many anddiffering spheres over a long period of time. A small technical point is thattransliterations from Hebrew sometimes begin with an opening quotation markwhich has no corresponding closing mark. This makes it look as though the Hebrewletter ‘ayin is being transliterated, when this is not the case.J.W. ROGERSONSHEFFIELDChristianity in India. From beginnings to the present. By Robert Eric Frykenberg. (OxfordHistory of the Christian Church.) Pp. xxxi+564 incl. 8 maps and 13 ills+13plates. Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2008. £75. 978 0 19 826377 7JEH (61) 2010 ; doi :10.1017/S0022046909991667The sheer range and complexity of scholarship on various themes in Indian lifeand history places the interested non-specialist in profound need of writers who canbring together, interpret and communicate. The story of Christianity in India, onceimagined rather simply in terms of a paternalistic European enterprise linked withimperialism, has developed in the last few years into one of these complex themes,with Robert Frykenberg playing a major role both in moving the debate forward andgiving it a wider audience. His contributions to Studies in the History of Christian Missionsare a case in point. The present volume, running from the (disputed) Indian ministryof the Apostle Thomas right through to the emergence of Christian states in thenorth-east of post-colonial India, treats the Indian context as ‘one of severalmanifestations of a newly emerging world Christianity, in which Christians of a post-Christian West are a minority ’ ( p. v). The result is a study committed to providingreaders with the detailed background on India – geography, anthropology, religiousculture, caste, language – essential to understanding the ‘ transcultural interactionswithin Hindu and Muslim environments ’ ( p. v) that shaped Indian Christianity.Frykenberg’s three introductory chapters, which also include a section on Christianexpansion and historiography, make up a significant chunk of the book, but no moreso than is necessary if over-simplification later on is to be avoided. The analysismoves on through the Thomas tradition, the arrival of the Portuguese and the result-ing conflicts between two Christianities, and the avalanche of Protestant missionariesfrom Europe and north America in the modern period. Frykenberg reminds readersthroughout of the extent to which evangelism and creativity tended to reside withIndians themselves, and less so with under-resourced foreign missionaries whosecommunication skills were far from perfect and who often knew little of the com-munication networks and metaphors employed by Indians until the principal workof evangelism had been all but completed. Other major themes include empire andresistance, struggles over ecclesiastical authority, the content and institutions ofeducation, the conversion of oppressed peoples and the notion of social as well asspiritual transformation. This amounts to a fairly comprehensive treatment, if notin regional terms – the north-west of India is relatively underrepresented, and isREV I EWS 155well-served instead by John Webster’s Social history of Christianity : north-west India since1800 – then certainly in thematic terms. In addition to a broad general readership,Christianity in India would be well-suited for university courses and to postgraduatestudents embarking on studies in world or Indian Christianity.CHRISTOPHER HARDINGUNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGHDas lateinische Christentum und die antike pagane Bildung. By Peter Gemeinhardt. (Studienund Texte zu Antike und Christentum, 41.) Pp. xii+596. Tübingen, MohrSiebeck, 2007. E89 ( paper). 978 3 16 149305 8; 1436 3003JEH (61) 2010; doi :10.1017/S0022046909991692The relationship between Christianity and classical culture is by any measure a well-worked field. The main questions are well-known, the main texts notorious, themain paradoxes still paradoxical. In the near future, the most progress is perhapslikely to be made through the study of documentary texts, which reveal the detail,insofar as we can recover it, of individual Christian lives and the practices ofcommunities. Peter Gemeinhardt makes an important contribution to that projectin this learned, wide-ranging and incisive study of Christianity and ‘pagan’ culturein the (mainly) Latin-speaking west.Gemeinhardt takes as his focus those aspects of culture which are expressed andreproduced in education, specifically in enkyklios paideia, and within that, in the studyof literature, grammar and rhetoric. These, he argues, are what ‘pagan culture ’ – orat least the problematic part of it – largely meant to Christians. After summarisingcurrent trends in scholarship on Christianity and paideia, he sketches recentdevelopments in the history of education, which have tended to stress that educationwas highly socially functional, often in practical ways which have little to do withappreciating language or literature for their own sake. This view of educationforms the background to Gemeinhardt’s own argument and fits nicely with hisapproach.Gemeinhardt re-examines the evidence for the literary culture of pre-Constantinian Christian writers in the west (including those writing in Greek), andexplores the diverse ways in which they used it – as an intellectual tool, as a weaponin polemic against both non-Christians and alleged heretics, and as a basis forrapprochement between Christianity and secular culture. So far, so conventional, butGemeinhardt follows this with a detailed investigation of the documentary evidencefor Christian teachers in schools before Constantine (a period less well-investigatedthan the later fourth century). He then discusses the Christianising of the upperclasses in the fourth century, showing that there was more discussion and conflictbetween Christians and non-Christians, over a longer period, than we have realised,and exploring how culture was used in those debates. Returning to the literaryculture of Christians, he uses the evidence of epigraphy (mainly gravestones), lettersand hagiography to show how widespread literary culture was among ‘ordinaryChristians ’ (i.e. not bishops and theologians, and not necessarily the very rich).The theme of all these sections is how warmly a wide range of Christians embracedclassical culture, and how widely they advertised their cultural accomplishments.156 JOURNAL OF ECCLES IAST ICAL H I STORY

Book review: Christianity in India. From beginnings to the present. By Robert Eric Frykenberg

Christopher Harding

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Christianity in India. From beginnings to the present. By Robert Eric Frykenberg. (Oxford History of the Christian Church.) Pp. xxxi+564 incl. 8 maps and 13 ills+13 plates. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. £75. 978 0 19 826377 7

     Edinburgh Research Explorer                                      Book review: Christianity in India. From beginnings to thepresent. By Robert Eric FrykenbergCitation for published version:Harding, C 2010, 'Book review: Christianity in India. From beginnings to the present. By Robert EricFrykenberg' The Journal of Ecclesiastical History, vol 61, no. 1, pp. 155-156., 10.1017/S0022046909991667Digital Object Identifier (DOI):10.1017/S0022046909991667Link:Link to publication record in Edinburgh Research ExplorerDocument Version:Publisher final version (usually the publisher pdf)Published In:The Journal of Ecclesiastical HistoryPublisher Rights Statement:© Harding, C. (2010). Book review: Christianity in India. From beginnings to the present. By Robert EricFrykenberg. The Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 61(1), 155-156doi: 10.1017/S0022046909991667General rightsCopyright for the publications made accessible via the Edinburgh Research Explorer is retained by the author(s)and / or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing these publications that users recognise andabide by the legal requirements associated with these rights.Take down policyThe University of Edinburgh has made every reasonable effort to ensure that Edinburgh Research Explorercontent complies with UK legislation. If you believe that the public display of this file breaches copyright pleasecontact openaccess@ed.ac.uk providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately andinvestigate your claim.Download date: 20. Feb. 2015sources, through Christian writers, to responses to Esther in art, music, drama andliterature. This is undoubtedly a tour de force of sources in English and Englishtranslation (almost no German sources are referred to), and although the sheerquantity of information is at times overwhelming, readers will gain a rich impressionof the way in which the book of Esther has provoked responses from many anddiﬀering spheres over a long period of time. A small technical point is thattransliterations from Hebrew sometimes begin with an opening quotation markwhich has no corresponding closing mark. This makes it look as though the Hebrewletter ‘ayin is being transliterated, when this is not the case.J.W. ROGERSONSHEFFIELDChristianity in India. From beginnings to the present. By Robert Eric Frykenberg. (OxfordHistory of the Christian Church.) Pp. xxxi+564 incl. 8 maps and 13 ills+13plates. Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2008. £75. 978 0 19 826377 7JEH (61) 2010 ; doi :10.1017/S0022046909991667The sheer range and complexity of scholarship on various themes in Indian lifeand history places the interested non-specialist in profound need of writers who canbring together, interpret and communicate. The story of Christianity in India, onceimagined rather simply in terms of a paternalistic European enterprise linked withimperialism, has developed in the last few years into one of these complex themes,with Robert Frykenberg playing a major role both in moving the debate forward andgiving it a wider audience. His contributions to Studies in the History of Christian Missionsare a case in point. The present volume, running from the (disputed) Indian ministryof the Apostle Thomas right through to the emergence of Christian states in thenorth-east of post-colonial India, treats the Indian context as ‘one of severalmanifestations of a newly emerging world Christianity, in which Christians of a post-Christian West are a minority ’ ( p. v). The result is a study committed to providingreaders with the detailed background on India – geography, anthropology, religiousculture, caste, language – essential to understanding the ‘ transcultural interactionswithin Hindu and Muslim environments ’ ( p. v) that shaped Indian Christianity.Frykenberg’s three introductory chapters, which also include a section on Christianexpansion and historiography, make up a signiﬁcant chunk of the book, but no moreso than is necessary if over-simpliﬁcation later on is to be avoided. The analysismoves on through the Thomas tradition, the arrival of the Portuguese and the result-ing conﬂicts between two Christianities, and the avalanche of Protestant missionariesfrom Europe and north America in the modern period. Frykenberg reminds readersthroughout of the extent to which evangelism and creativity tended to reside withIndians themselves, and less so with under-resourced foreign missionaries whosecommunication skills were far from perfect and who often knew little of the com-munication networks and metaphors employed by Indians until the principal workof evangelism had been all but completed. Other major themes include empire andresistance, struggles over ecclesiastical authority, the content and institutions ofeducation, the conversion of oppressed peoples and the notion of social as well asspiritual transformation. This amounts to a fairly comprehensive treatment, if notin regional terms – the north-west of India is relatively underrepresented, and isREV I EWS 155well-served instead by John Webster’s Social history of Christianity : north-west India since1800 – then certainly in thematic terms. In addition to a broad general readership,Christianity in India would be well-suited for university courses and to postgraduatestudents embarking on studies in world or Indian Christianity.CHRISTOPHER HARDINGUNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGHDas lateinische Christentum und die antike pagane Bildung. By Peter Gemeinhardt. (Studienund Texte zu Antike und Christentum, 41.) Pp. xii+596. Tu¨bingen, MohrSiebeck, 2007. E89 ( paper). 978 3 16 149305 8; 1436 3003JEH (61) 2010; doi :10.1017/S0022046909991692The relationship between Christianity and classical culture is by any measure a well-worked ﬁeld. The main questions are well-known, the main texts notorious, themain paradoxes still paradoxical. In the near future, the most progress is perhapslikely to be made through the study of documentary texts, which reveal the detail,insofar as we can recover it, of individual Christian lives and the practices ofcommunities. Peter Gemeinhardt makes an important contribution to that projectin this learned, wide-ranging and incisive study of Christianity and ‘pagan’ culturein the (mainly) Latin-speaking west.Gemeinhardt takes as his focus those aspects of culture which are expressed andreproduced in education, speciﬁcally in enkyklios paideia, and within that, in the studyof literature, grammar and rhetoric. These, he argues, are what ‘pagan culture ’ – orat least the problematic part of it – largely meant to Christians. After summarisingcurrent trends in scholarship on Christianity and paideia, he sketches recentdevelopments in the history of education, which have tended to stress that educationwas highly socially functional, often in practical ways which have little to do withappreciating language or literature for their own sake. This view of educationforms the background to Gemeinhardt’s own argument and ﬁts nicely with hisapproach.Gemeinhardt re-examines the evidence for the literary culture of pre-Constantinian Christian writers in the west (including those writing in Greek), andexplores the diverse ways in which they used it – as an intellectual tool, as a weaponin polemic against both non-Christians and alleged heretics, and as a basis forrapprochement between Christianity and secular culture. So far, so conventional, butGemeinhardt follows this with a detailed investigation of the documentary evidencefor Christian teachers in schools before Constantine (a period less well-investigatedthan the later fourth century). He then discusses the Christianising of the upperclasses in the fourth century, showing that there was more discussion and conﬂictbetween Christians and non-Christians, over a longer period, than we have realised,and exploring how culture was used in those debates. Returning to the literaryculture of Christians, he uses the evidence of epigraphy (mainly gravestones), lettersand hagiography to show how widespread literary culture was among ‘ordinaryChristians ’ (i.e. not bishops and theologians, and not necessarily the very rich).The theme of all these sections is how warmly a wide range of Christians embracedclassical culture, and how widely they advertised their cultural accomplishments.156 JOURNAL OF ECCLES IAST ICAL H I STORY

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Book review: Christianity in India. From beginnings to the present. By Robert Eric Frykenberg

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