彼得·布朗对基督教化问题的新认识

Peter Brown’s New Understanding of the Problem of Christianization

基督教在晚期罗马帝国的兴起,自爱德华·吉本《罗马帝国衰亡史》问世以来就一直是学术界关注的焦点。20世纪70年代,爱尔兰裔美国史家彼得·布朗系统地提出解释罗马帝国和古典文明命运的"晚期古代"理论。在晚期古代视角下,布朗通过文本证据与考古证据相结合,并借助后现代的"解释学的怀疑",以及"表象"理论,解构关于基督教化的传统叙事,并提出关于基督教化问题的新观点。他认为,基督教化是缓慢的不彻底的进程;是关于宇宙的集体表象的改变;具有多样性的特征。布朗的基督教化理论,更关注从多神教到基督教一神教转变过程的复杂性,注重两者的相互影响和作用,在对过程的把握中探讨文化的冲突与融合,历史的连续与断裂。

The rise of Christianity in the late Roman Empire has been the focus of scholars since the publication of Edward Gibbon’s The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.In the 1970 s,Peter Brown,an Irish-American historian systematically proposed a theory of"Late Antiquity"to explain the fate of the Roman Empire and classical civilization.From the perspective of Late Antiquity,Brown deconstructed the traditional narratives of the Christianization through research with a combination of textual and archaeological evidences,and with the help of postmodern"hermeneutic skepticism"and"representation"theories,and proposed a new theory on Christianization.He argues that Christianization is a slow and incomplete process and a change on the collective representation of the universe,and it has the diversified characteristics.Brown’s theory of Christianization is more concerned with the complexity in the transformation from polytheism to Christian monotheism,focusing on the interaction between the two,and he explored the conflicts and integrations of cultures,the continuity and discontinuity of history in the research on the process.