JOURNAL OF ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY

Defenders and enemies of the true cross. The Sasanian conquest of Jerusalem in and
Byzantine ideology of anti-Persian warfare. By Yuri Stoyanov. (PhilosophischHistorische Klasse. Sitzungsberichte, . Verffentlichungen zur Iranistik,
.) Pp. . Vienna: sterreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, .
E. (paper).
JEH () ; doi:./S
Defenders and enemies of the True Cross examines two events in the Roman-Persian war
of the early seventh century and their use in propaganda. These events, the Persian
sack of Jerusalem in and the restoration of the True Cross in c. , have
produced a wealth of different reports and sit at the heart of the anti-Persian and
anti-Jewish stereotypes maintained by the Christian Roman Empire in this period.
Stoyanov begins by rejecting any notion that reports of a massacre of Christians by
Persians and Jews in represent the unadorned truth. Invoking recent
archaeology, he points out how frequently the sources speak of the destruction of
buildings that is untraceable on the ground (pp. ). Instead, these sources
must be read in terms of Heraclius deliberate escalation of the religious aspects of
the war with Persia. Chapter ii sets this escalation into the context of older Christian
millenarianism and just war theory. Chapter iii is the heart of the book, and charts
the representation of Heraclius as a new Constantine, who appeals to God to
provide his soldiers with crowns of martyrdom to avenge the damage done by the
demonic Persians and their Jewish allies (pp. ). Stoyanov usefully points to the
Near Eastern dimensions of this propaganda. It may have been aimed at
Heraclius Caucasian allies, as much as at the citizens of Constantinople (p. ),
and it would fuel later apocalyptic writing in the Levant, such as the work of pseudoMethodius (p. ). The author eschews any attempt to force the ideas of seventhcentury Byzantium into a paradigm of Western crusading, and he is careful to
treat his sources on their own terms. This slim monograph represents a useful
introduction to the role of religious stereotype in the last war of Rome and Persia.
SIDNEY SUSSEX COLLEGE,
CAMBRIDGE

PHILIP WOOD

The Christocentric cosmology of St Maximus the Confessor. By Torstein Theodor

Tollefsen. (Oxford Early Christian Studies.) Pp. x + . New YorkOxford:
Oxford University Press, . .
JEH () ; doi:./S
This eminently thorough monograph provides a ne account of the cosmology
of St Maximus, rightly christening it Christocentric yet remaining alive to its
Trinitarian dimensions. We are treated to a detailed discussion of the
philosophical genealogy of Maximus system showing both continuities and
divergences from various classical conceptions of exemplarism the world, that
is, as somehow rooted in and reecting the divine. Tollefsen offers a searching
account of Gods activity or energeia and also delves into the nature of cosmic and
human participation in God, commendably attempting a precise denition of such
participation. This book does a great service in deepening and expanding our
understanding of Maximus well-known doctrine of the logoi. These principles of