This monograph - and its unexpected angle on the Christianization of the Roman Empire - should be of interest to a wide readership * Paul R. Kolbet, Yale Divinity School, The Journal of Religion * Enchantment and Creed is a closely argued and richly documented study. ... a study that offers a comprehensive view of a corpus that has most often been approached piecemeal or through smaller groupings. Coincidentally, Dunkle raises the stakes for assessing the influence of Ambrose on Prudentius and later poets (e.g., 210). Most significantly, he adds fundamental new textures to Ambrose's reputation as the father of Christian Latin hymnody. If we ask how
that literary and liturgical form grew out of the context of Milanese ecclesial rivalries and was shaped by the pastoral and theological concerns of Ambrose himself, Enchantment and Creed supplies a range of persuasive answers. * Dennis E. Trout, Bryn Mawr Classical Review * Dunkle's book is lucid and well researched, and his claims consistently argued. Moreover, he has interrelated the complex fields of classical hymnody, 4th-century Nicene-"Arian" debates, and Ambrose's mystagogical theology. One of the most important contributions this book makes is its close attention to the kind of theological work that hymnody did in the 4th century, and not to disregard these as mere political tools in the hands of a deceptive propagandist. Dunkle
shows that not only do these overly politicized reading miss the unique way in which Ambrose performed his clerical duties, it more importantly overlooks the way in which the cultivation of a pro-Nicene theology was instantiated in actual congregations and communities. * Alex Fogelman, Reading Religion *