From Death to Rebirth: Ritual and Conversion in Antiquity [Paperback]

Thomas M. Finn (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Paulist Press (March 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0809136899
• ISBN-13: 978-0809136896
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,962,768 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Social Dimension of Conversion in Late Antiquity, January 5, 2007

By 

Michael (MARION, Argentina) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: From Death to Rebirth: Ritual and Conversion in Antiquity (Paperback)

Written in the wake of his two volumes on Christian baptism and the catechumenate in the East and West, this volume treats the broader subject of religious conversion in antiquity. Methodologically, Finn is guided by two questions: "What constituted conversion?" and "What was the process?" He does not limit himself to the study of Christianity in this work, but treats the phenomenon in postexilic Judaism and in the religions of the Greco-Roman world. The consistent picture that emerges is one where conversion is only rarely a sudden and dramatic change. Rather, in most cases conversions are normally complex and extended social, psychological, and religious processes that lead to personal transformation.

Finn is aware of the dangers of time and distance and so makes use of modern studies in history, ritual, sociology, psychology, and anthropology. He cites in particular his indebtedness to Peter Berger, a social psychologist of religion, and Victor Turner, a symbolic anthropologist. Finn concludes that Late Antiquity has bequeathed to us an understanding of conversion with two identifiable senses. There is the Greco-Roman sense of conversion as primarily a cognitive act and the biblical or Judaic sense of conversion as a personalist affair implying a change in one's being and manner of life. The latter is rooted in a personal encounter with God and directed toward a personal conformity with God's will. The result is a view of conversion that involves "a change in the way one (1) understands and values God and his world, (2) lives in it according to his will, and (3) experiences repentance, return, and reconciliation in the process" (240).

Regarding the catechumenate in particular, Finn spends the second half of his volume considering the processes of conversion from the first through the fourth centuries. Rather than adopting an analytical distanciation, as was his method in treating Judaism and Greco-Roman paganism, Finn contents himself with the description of real and fictitious converts from Christianity in Late Antiquity. Description of the institutional catechumenate takes up significant portions of chapter seven (third century Rome, Alexandria, North Africa, West Syria, East Syria), chapter eight (fourth century Jerusalem), and chapter nine (fourth century Milan).

Readers wanting to get a bite-sized feel for Finn's broader contribution can also peruse his "It Happened One Saturday Night: Ritual and Conversion in Augustine's North Africa" Journal of the American Academy of Religion 58 (1990): 589-616. This essay makes use of the same cultural-anthropological and ritual studies that inform his later work, but with regard to the much narrower forum of fourth century North Africa and Milan.