Alongside Ambrose, several prominent figures exemplify other forms of knowledge-shaping practices in catechesis. Zeno of Verona and Gaudentius of Brescia taught new Christians to re-imagine time and the natural world guided by Christian principles. Rufinus of Aquileia and Peter Chrysologus stressed the apophatic reserve necessary for initial inquiries into the nature of God.

The catechumenate emerged in the late second century during the period when Christianity was transitioning from a loose collection of school churches to a more unified monepiscopate. Irenaeus’s writings bear witness to the aesthetic character of knowledge in early Christian catechetical teaching during this time. For Irenaeus, the rule of truth serves as a pedagogical tool enabling new Christians to perceive the unity of creation and Scripture. This chapter looks at catechetical terminology and appeals to the Rule of Truth in Aduersus haereses and the Demonstratio.

Chapter 2 presents a theory of why members choose to collaborate – often with unlikely allies – in a polarized and conflict-prone legislature. Drawing on organizational theory, collaboration is clearly defined as members of Congress working together toward a shared policy goal. This behavior is then placed in the context of social exchange theory, in which social interactions are viewed as interpersonal exchanges of both tangible and intangible goods. Applying social exchange theory to the US House of Representatives predicts that members of Congress will collaborate when all involved have a common goal and expect that they will be better off working together than going alone. The expected costs and benefits of collaboration are informed by previous experiences and interactions, as well the rules and norms of Congress. The social exchange perspective emphasizes collaboration as a function of both self-interest and interdependence. As long as it improves the likelihood of achieving their goals, members will seek to collaborate. Their ability to do so depends on whether they can find a colleague with whom they can reach an agreement for mutual gain. 

Chapter 6 focuses on relationships in Congress, examining why some members are more likely to work together than others. As collaboration is an inherently relational activity that requires agreement between two or more actors, social network analysis is used to account for the interdependence of members. This chapter demonstrates that the relationships among members of Congress are a function of strategic considerations, personal relationships, and shared policy goals. Most notably, almost half of the relationships in the collaborative Congress are bipartisan, as members expect that working across the aisle will broaden the appeal of a policy and significantly increase the likelihood it will be successful. Even in a polarized environment, members are clearly motivated to try and find common ground with members of the opposite party. Members are also more likely to collaborate when they have mutual friends, are from the same state, or sit on the same committee, reflecting how the existing interpersonal and institutional relationships in Congress can lower the costs of collaboration.

The book concludes by examining reformers’ visions for political integration between metropole and colony, which required both the Indianization of the exclusive Indian Civil Service and parliamentary representation for taxed Indian subjects. These proposals, however, generated conflict within the East India Association and exposed fractures between the radical agitators and the retired officials who had begun to swamp the organization. Gesturing to the afterlife of India reformism, the epilogue further identifies the factors that led to the decay of East India Association’s intra-imperial network and offers a reexamination of the 1908 sedition trial of Indian nationalist B. G. Tilak in which the accused copiously referenced reformist polemic to legitimize his agitation.

While Ambrose of Milan was a major actor on the ecclesiastical and political stage of late antiquity, he was also a devoted catechist and theologian. This chapter focuses on how Ambrose trained the spiritual senses of catechumens throughout Lenten and Eastern catechesis. In Lenten sermons on the patriarchs, Ambrose focused on baptism as a death to physical ways of seeing. In Holy Week sermons (On the Hexameron and Explanatio symboli), he sought to restructure catechetical knowledge by offering pro-Nicene accounts of God and creation. In mystagogical sermons (De mysteriis and De sacramentis), he gave neophytes instruction on how to perceive the spiritual meaning of the Christian rites.

Tertullian provides evidence in several writings addressed to catechumens of the ways in which Christian contestations about ritual related to knowledge of God. Against what he describes as the obfuscations of heretical and pagan ritual, Tertullian emphasizes the simplicity of Christian ritual as a fitting mode for expressing true divine power. This chapter focuses on De spectaculis, De oratione, De baptismo, and Tertullian’s appeals to the Rule of Faith.