The Church in Ancient Society From Galilee to Gregory the Great
HENRY CHADWICK
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Great Clarendon Street, Oxford ox dp Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford New York Athens Auckland Bangkok Bogotá Buenos Aires Cape Town Chennai Dar es Salaam Delhi Florence Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kolkata Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Mumbai Nairobi Paris São Paulo Shanghai Singapore Taipei Tokyo Toronto Warsaw and associated companies in Berlin Ibadan Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and certain other countries Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York © Henry Chadwick The moral rights of the author have been asserted Database right Oxford University Press (maker) First published All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose the same condition on any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Data applied for ISBN ––– Typeset in Bembo by Jayvee, Trivandrum, India Printed in Great Britain on acid-free paper by Biddles Ltd., Guildford and King’s Lynn
PREFATORY NOTE Special thanks are due to support from officers of Oxford University Press, especially Hilary O’Shea, Jenny Wagstaffe, Lucy Qureshi, and Dr Leofranc Holford-Strevens and to many patient librarians in both Oxford and Cambridge. H.C.
CONTENTS Abbreviations Introduction . The First Followers of Jesus . The Jewish Matrix . Jews and Christians Survive Rome’s Crushing of Revolts . The Hebrew Scriptures in the Church . Interpreting Scripture: Philo and Paul . Apostles and Evangelists . Women among Jesus’ Followers . ‘Barnabas’, Jewish Christianity, Trouble at Corinth . Ignatius of Antioch . Didache . Marcion . Justin . Irenaeus of Lyon . The New Testament Text . Celsus: A Platonist Attack . Montanism: Perpetua . Tertullian, Minucius Felix . Clement of Alexandria . Julius Africanus . Hippolytus and Liturgy . Origen . Cyprian of Carthage . Dionysius of Alexandria . Paul of Samosata . Mani . Plotinus, Porphyry . Diocletian and the Great Persecution; Rise of Constantine . Constantine: Lactantius, Eusebius of Caesarea, Arius, and The Council of Nicaea . The Seeds of Reaction . The Church at Prayer
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Contents Athanasius, Marcellus, and the Gathering Storm A Fiasco at Serdica Religious Division: A Note on Intolerance Athanasius’ Return: A Wind of Change Constantius’ Double Council of Unity Julian and the Church Damasus, Siricius, Papal Authority, Synesius of Cyrene Basil of Caesarea (Cappadocia) Ambrose Ambrosiaster Donatism Monks: The Ascetic Life Messalians: The Macarian Homilies Schism at Antioch: The Council of Constantinople () Jerome and Rufinus: Controversy about Origen Pelagius, Caelestius, and the Roman See in Gaul and North Africa Julian of Eclanum: Augustine’s Critics in Gaul and North Africa Augustine John Chrysostom Innocent I and John Chrysostom’s Honour: Alaric and the Fall of Rome The Christological Debate, I: To the First Council of Ephesus () The Christological Debate, II: From Reunion () to a Breakdown of Unity () The Christological Debate, III: From the Second Council of Ephesus () to Chalcedon () The Aftermath of the Council of Chalcedon: Zeno’s Henotikon Justinian: Origen and the ‘Three Chapters’ The Ancient Oriental Churches The Church and the Barbarian Invasions in the West: Salvian, Sidonius, Caesarius Pope Gregory the Great (–) Worship after Constantine Pilgrims Penance
Further Reading Dates of Roman Emperors List of Bishops of Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, Constantinople, and Jerusalem Index
ABBREVIATIONS ACO CCSL CIL CLA CSEL CTh EOMIA ILCV ILS JbAC JTS MGH PWK PG PL PLRE PO RAC SB SC TU ZNW
Acta Conciliorum Oecumenicorum (ff. in progress) Corpus Christianorum series latina Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum Codices Latini Antiquiores Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum (Vienna Academy) Codex Theodosianus Ecclesiae Occidentalis Monumenta luris Antiquissima, ed. C. H. Turner Inscriptiones Latinae Christianae Veteres, ed. C. Diehl ( vols.) Inscriptiones Latinae selectae, ed. H. Dessau Jahrbuch f ür Antike und Christentum Journal of Theological Studies (Oxford) Monumenta Germaniae Historica Pauly–Wissowa–Kroll: Real-Encyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft Migne, Patrologia Graeca Migne, Patrologia Latina Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire Patrologia Orientalis Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum Sitzungsberichte Sources Chrétiennes Texte und Untersuchungen (Berlin Academy) Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft
INTRODUCTION During the first six hundred years of the Christian Church’s existence many changes occurred. Of these the most dramatic and remarkable was the shift from being a persecuted sect which, in order to fulfil its destiny as a universal faith not tied to a particular race, had to sever the umbilical cord to Judaism, and so to capture society and the Roman empire. From embodying a counter-culture to being seen as a mainly (not invariably) conservative social force was an extraordinary step. The number of martyrs did not need to be very large for their ‘witness’ to be public and ‘newsworthy’. Remarkably soon the Church had recruits in high society, and as early as the middle of the second century was dreaming of a day when the emperor himself would be converted. The Christians changed the dominant form of religion in the Roman empire and thereby imprinted the most important difference between ancient and medieval society. Not that the Christians had a wholly different culture from that of ‘antiquity’. They came out of a society which to educated Greeks and Romans could be labelled ‘barbarian’. Defenders of Christianity devoted pages to arguing for the superiority of barbarian ethics and religious ideas. By the late third and fourth centuries the Christians were supporters of the good order and law of the Roman empire. In his commentary on Paul’s epistle to the Romans Origen could say that the task of magistrates was to restrain overt and public delinquencies, whereas sins (which could be highly anti-social) had to be corrected by bishops with ecclesiastical discipline. The latter, of course, were successful only with church members acknowledging the right of the community’s representative leaders to admonish and speak in the Lord’s name. Initially belonging to the ancient world, Christianity remains the faith of a high proportion of this planet’s population. Its characteristic teachings and ideals still speak universally to mind and conscience in individuals, and still bond together communities across chasms of differences in education and race. To study the ancient Church is to watch the Christian society forming structures and social attitudes that have remained lasting and in the main stream permanent. The aspiration to be universal is rooted in monotheism. There is always a tendency for religions to become tribal; that is, each tribe looks to its own protecting god with whom sacrifices maintain friendly
Introduction
relations, and cults are mainly local. The universalizing of faith became a powerful attraction for the ideology of the Roman empire, which also claimed to be world ruler. This bequeathed the now old assumption that Christianity is the religion of Europe—old and outmoded in a twenty-first century when the core of Christian membership is in other continents. From Constantine onwards we shall see emperors wanting all their subjects to share their faith and not finding it easy to tolerate those who openly rejected it. Paganism was far from being moribund when the Christian mission went out in the world. It reconquered the centre of power with the emperor Julian but for less than two years. Julian’s paganism was unsuccessful in its aspirations to be tolerant. Like the other monotheistic religions Judaism and Islam, Christian history is beset by controversy about the interpretation of tradition, especially as enshrined in sacred texts of venerable antiquity. Between church and synagogue the hermeneutic question became central. But interpretative principles were also a matter of debate within the Christian society. Monotheism affirms that the one God alone can make himself known and that he is beyond human searching (e.g. Job : ; Isa. : ). The idea of revelation is integral to the whole. The problems may lie in the interpretation of the word of God, especially if that word is mediated through a diversity of texts written from differing standpoints. Both Jews and Christians were negative towards polytheism, and regarded belief in numerous gods as a hallmark of the Gentile or ‘pagan’ religion round them. Greek philosophers had long been moving towards belief in only one god. In Xenophon (Memorabilia . , . ) Socrates argued for the most high deity being a conclusion from the coherence and order of the cosmos. Cicero records the Cynic Antisthenes saying that human beings have numerous gods but nature has only one (De natura deorum . ). An orator of the second century ad, Maximus of Tyre (. ), observed that despite vast disagreements over religion, all agree that there is one god, Father of everything and supreme over lesser gods. Apollonius of Tyana, sage and magician of the late first century, said that one can approach the supreme being only through mind, not material words (Eusebius, Praep. Evang. . ). Tracts produced in Egypt during the early centuries of the empire ascribed to Thrice-Greatest Hermes a clear monotheism which, at some points, betrays influence from the book of Genesis.1 In general terms, the Christians were negative to pagan cult but not to philosophy or to literature unless it was pornographic, in which case many pagans were repelled too. (The poet Archilochus had a bad name for errors of taste.) Their strength in society lay in their welfare for the very poor, of whom not 1
C. H. Dodd, The Bible and the Greeks (London, ).
Introduction
a few were destitute. Food shortages were common in antiquity. Bishops of major cities found themselves performing a necessary function in gathering and distributing food (like Joseph in Egypt). During persecution, which tended especially to target people with reasonable resources and land, the poorest members of a congregation might suffer because the church chest was not being supplied with the means to buy food to distribute. Ancient society was awash with magic and astrology, and this affected some people in all classes of society. Ancient medicine was always hazardous, but more so when physicians normally consulted astrologers and almanacs before prescribing. The quest for restoration of health dominated many lives. Some were converted to Christianity in the hope that baptism might bring a cure; if and when it failed to do so, the family might relapse to pagan cults. Amulets were widespread and could be Christianized in the form of a tiny gospel-book. In short there was much continuity with what had gone before, but always some discontinuity.
THE FIRST FOLLOWERS OF JESUS
Jesus of Nazareth, a charismatic prophet from Galilee, gathered to himself a community of disciples to help in a reform of the Jewish religious tradition, which looked back to the Hebrew prophets and their expectation of divine intervention. The religious authorities of the time were not pleased by the reform element in his teaching, much concerned for the poor and social outcasts, critical of double standards among some Pharisees known for their punctilious observance of the finer points of the Law in separation from ‘the people of the land’. He spoke of the need to repent and of the coming kingdom of God, which alarmed the ruling class. The Roman prefect or procurator could be stirred to think him a possible source of civil disorder. Under the prefect’s authority he was crucified. But his disciples became rapidly convinced that his mission transcended death. He was a living Lord present to them in their prayers and fellowship. As they broke bread, their hearts burned within them. His tomb, surprisingly provided by a wealthy member of the Council or Sanhedrin, was found empty. Visions of the risen Master reinforced conviction that he had entrusted them with a permanent mission and by his Spirit was with them to carry it out. He had asked them to love one another. There were initial bonds: all were Jews sharing a common set of scriptures and a sense of belonging to God’s elect with an ethic of mutual aid and purity in conscious contrast with surrounding Gentile society. They shared the passionate hope that not only through past prophets but even in the present God was intervening for the vindication and salvation of his people. So their Lord was God’s anointed or Messiah, in Greek ‘Christos’. The Christians, as Gentile outsiders came to call them at Antioch, or Nazarenes as Jews entitled them, found themselves surrounded by a society unfriendly both from the side of conservative observant Judaism and then later from Gentiles whose gods they scorned as observant Jews did. The various cults of polytheism were not mutually exclusive. A Gentile could offer incense to both Apollo and Isis and indeed to the emperor without raising an eyebrow. So people were baffled by a religion which was addressed to all nations and tribes and, nevertheless, was marked by a specificity and exclusive particularity that set believers apart from others.
The First Followers of Jesus
Aversion towards them manifested by ‘outsiders’ was a factor in encouraging close bonding. In this respect they already had the experience of a degree of ostracism by virtue of being Jews in the Roman Empire, who were not socially integrated and were often not much liked.1 But some of the most severe problems for Christians were internal. They did not always find it easy to love one another, as Jesus commanded them. Because from a very early stage of development they understood their faith to carry universal significance for all, whatever their ethnic origin, they could not be content to remain as they began, an energetic group within a Judaism which already had several distinct religious associations—Sadducees, Pharisees, Essenes, or even groups encouraging the maximum of assimilation to the surrounding customs of Gentile society, highly cultivated individuals like Philo of Alexandria or Josephus who made their own the literature and philosophy of Hellenistic society but at the same time wanted to remain loyal and practising Jews. There was a problem of a special kind in relation to such groups of orthodox Jews, namely that ‘Nazarenes’ (Acts : ) were distinctive in their faith that Jesus of Nazareth was God’s Anointed, the fulfilment of prophecy that the Messiah would come and establish the Kingdom of God on earth. Messianic belief carried with it revolutionary implications for society. Believers in Jesus had a fervent expectation of the possibility of change. When at Thessalonica the mission of Paul encountered opposition from conservatives in the synagogue, the accusation against the apostle was that by proclaiming Jesus to be Messiah ‘these men have turned the world upside down’ (Acts : ). There had been other claimants to messiahship recorded by Josephus, Pharisee and historian, and their activities had been disturbingly seditious. Jews who wanted a quiet life whether in the study of the law of Moses or in commerce could not be enthusiastic about excited movements, especially if they were thought to involve hostile action against Roman authorities in Judaea or Galilee or against members of the Herod family put in as puppet governors. In the year the Zealot faction finally began war against the Romans, and at first was successful. But Vespasian and then Titus mobilized larger forces against them, and the Jewish cause suffered catastrophic damage ending in the sack of Jerusalem in the year .2 The reverberations of this disaster can be discerned at points in the gospels. Josephus, who deplored the revolt, lamented the city’s ruin in language often close to that used by Jesus foreseeing the probable outcome. The followers of Jesus dissociated themselves from the Zealot struggle. They were not the only Jews to do so. In retrospect the Nazarenes interpreted 1 Observant Jews did not wish to be assimilated in the pagan society around them, and the degree of contempt towards them can be judged from the historian Tacitus’ portrait in his Histories (below, p. ). 2 See Martin Goodman, The Ruling Class of Judaea: The Origins of the Jewish Revolt (Cambridge, ).
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the fall of Jerusalem as divine wrath for the crucifixion of the Messiah. Pharisees interpreted the disaster as divine punishment for too much lax observance of the Mosaic law and the traditions. Among the lax observers were those Nazarenes who concluded from the call to take the gospel of Jesus to the Gentile world that this universal faith did not require of Gentile believers that they be circumcised, keep the sabbath and Jewish feasts, and observe the food laws. In hostile eyes Jewish abstinence from pork was odd, circumcision repulsive, sabbath observance an excuse for idleness. Gentiles, however, could also be impressed by the ethical quality of Jewish lives and the coherence of their families. Their monotheism had strong appeal, and their ancient sacred books commanded respect. In reply to the anti-Semitic Apion Josephus proudly reports that in every town, both Greek and barbarian, there were people who shared the custom of not working on the seventh day, kept Jewish fasts and even their food laws (. ). People respected Jewish rejection of abortion and sodomy (, ). Many inscriptions in Asia Minor record non-Jewish monotheists, worshippers of ‘the most high god’.3 Messiah By the title ‘Messiah’ Jews, especially Zealots, often (not necessarily always) expected a military, nationalist leader who was to ‘restore sovereignty to Israel’ and to establish a theocracy. The Messiah was to be ‘the Son of David’. Among the first Christian generation several voices took the Son of David title to refer to Jesus, and this usage was familar to the apostle Paul (Rom. : ) as well as being taken for granted in the genealogies in Matthew and Luke or Luke’s infancy narrative attached to Bethlehem as ‘the city of David’. At Jesus’ entry to Jerusalem ‘Hosanna to the Son of David’ caused excitement alarming to authority. Yet Mark : – preserves an anecdote about Jesus which reads like a disowning of this title. Jesus was called the ‘Nazarene’ (Mark : ), and Nazareth was not a town where Jews expected something good to come from ( John : ; : ). Messiah was not a title of great precision. The name ‘Jesus’, the Greek form of Joshua, ‘Saviour’, was common and in itself carried no necessarily messianic significance, though Matt. : shows that it was capable of being so understood. Jesus and the Pharisees The first disciples of Jesus were not socially influential and would be classified as ‘people of the land’. Jesus drew only a few individuals from the Sadducee 3
See Stephen Mitchell in P. Athanassiadi (ed.), Pagan Monotheism (Oxford, ), –.
The First Followers of Jesus
ruling class in Jewish society, a conservative group known for not accepting belief in resurrection to describe the life to come. The impassioned seriousness of his teaching impressed some Pharisees, believers in resurrection but primarily marked out by their dedication to precise strictness in observance of the Jewish law, and also some ‘scribes’ professionally concerned with the correct exegesis of the Law’s prescriptions. That relations between Jesus and the Pharisees were or could be close and friendly may be deduced from Luke : , where Pharisees warn Jesus of hostile intent in Herod Antipas. Several other sentences in Luke imply good relations with Pharisees. Mark : – records scribes who positively welcomed what Jesus said about the Law. The majority of Jesus’ first followers are described as Galilean fishermen and tax-collectors who collaborated with the government and were unloved by most Jews. On the opposite side, one was a former Zealot (ultranationalist) named Simon. In Jesus’ teaching there was a defiant bias towards the poor and despised, to harlots and men with haunted consciences, all called to repentance and faith. The Anointed of God had brought forgiveness of sins and healing to the brokenhearted. This was inherent in the process of realizing the kingdom of God. Something greater than Jonah’s preaching, greater even than King Solomon, was now here (Matt. : –). Rabbinic sages used to say that where ten were together engaged in the study of the Torah, the glory of God was with them (Mishnah, Aboth . ). For believers in Jesus, where two or three were gathered in his name, he was present in their midst (Matt. : ). Son of Man A problematic self-designation in the sayings of Jesus is the title ‘Son of man’. The phrase was evidently being used with overtones of meaning that the disciples were expected to grasp. On the one hand it could stress the reality and spontaneity of his humanity. On the other hand in the apocalyptic vision of Daniel , ‘the son of man’, a human figure contrasted with animal figures earlier in the vision, represents the people of God being vindicated despite all their oppression and suffering, and ascends to be seated at God’s right hand and to share in the office of Judge. The phrase therefore expressed faith that present suffering would be the path to future glory. There are rabbinic and other Jewish texts in which Daniel’s ‘Son of man’ is taken to refer to Messiah.4
4 See W. Horbury, JTS, ns (), –. Concerning the variety of roles attributed to Messiah in Jewish texts see J. Klausner, The Messianic Idea in Israel (London, ).
The First Followers of Jesus
Reform Judaism or a Gentile Mission? One stream of the traditions about Jesus preserved in the written gospels, which became for the community standard sources for his life and teaching, records that he interpreted his mission as being limited to the Jewish people, the elect race, and hardly envisaged any extension to the Gentile world. Yet Old Testament prophets, especially Isaiah (e.g. : ), had positively interpreted the Babylonian captivity to be a providential instrument to bring the light of God’s holy law to enlighten the Gentile world. More than one ancient Hebrew writer had warned against the assumption that Yahweh’s choice of Israel implied indifference to other races. So it would be natural for some of the missionaries sent out by Jesus (and therefore called the ‘sent’, ‘apostles’) to understand the message as needing to be carried beyond Israel to the Samaritans and beyond them to the Gentile peoples. Had this not seemed natural, there would have been no necessity for sayings such as Matt. : – expressly directing that those now sent out should (initially?) confine their labours to ‘the lost sheep of the house of Israel’. The choice of twelve disciples, called to judge the tribes of Israel (Matt. : ), presupposed a mission for the renewal of true religion within Judaism. The two contrasting standpoints reflect a disagreement within the earliest Christian community. The congregations or house-churches for whom Matthew wrote his gospel clearly consisted mainly of Jews but with Gentile adherents. Among the Christian Jews some felt unable to support the mission to the Gentiles unless the converts submitted to the laws of the Torah in the manner of synagogue-proselytes, accepted circumcision, and observed sabbaths, feasts, and food laws. They were against the more liberal position associated with a one-time zealot in opposing the followers of the Nazarene, Saul or Paul of Tarsus, one of a number of Pharisees who adhered to the community but who was convinced that the Mosaic law could not be imposed upon Gentile converts if the Church of Jesus was to become universal. He even supplied the community with a rationale for a breach with the observant synagogue by developing a radical doctrine of ‘justification by faith’; that is to say, the way of salvation is not through ethical achievement in observing the law and the traditions, constituting a right or merit before the Lord, but through faith in the mercy and love of God manifested in the sacrifice of Jesus’ crucifixion, then vindicated by God raising him from the dead. Notwithstanding the divisive social consequences of this certainly profound way of putting things, Paul insisted that his missionary strategy included being ‘as a Jew to Jews’ as well as Gentile to the Gentiles ( Cor. : ). Five times he had preferred to accept severe synagogue discipline rather than be excluded ( Cor. : ). The structure of his thinking about God and salvation was often strikingly similar to that found in rabbinic texts.
The First Followers of Jesus
In religious faith those with whom it is usually hardest to achieve rapport are those whose position is nearest. One would suppose that Matthew’s Jewish Christians could have had friendly relations with Pharisees, with whom they shared much. Matthew shows that relations were tense. This may reflect the situation after the Roman sack of Jerusalem and destruction of the Temple when the Pharisees emerged as the leading group within the synagogues of observant Judaism and regarded the Christian believers as rivals for the soul of the elect nation. The Christian Jews found themselves severely harassed by observant fellow-countrymen, and offence caused by the Gentile mission was considerable ( Thess. : –).5 The supreme issue was whether or not it was true that Messiah had come. That he had was an axiom for the followers of Jesus, whether Jew or Gentile. That this lay in the future was axiomatic for most adherents of the synagogue. Yet there long remained Christians who worshipped with the synagogue on Saturday and with the Church on Sunday and ignored admonitions that they should make a choice. The practice distressed Ignatius of Antioch in Syria, and was still being debated late in the fourth century. In Paul’s Gentile congregations it was a leading issue (Gal. : ; Col. : ). Towards the end of the first century the rabbis adopted a formula of exclusion to keep Christian Jews out of observant synagogues. To believe Jesus to be Messiah was already to be deemed an outsider, even if one’s blood was wholly Hebrew. We have the paradox that strict rabbis wanted to expel Christian Jews ( John : ), and Gentile Christian bishops wanted to expel believers too sympathetic to the Synagogue; both were finding this task difficult. In Matthew’s gospel there is a surprising absence of reference to circumcision. Jesus is the new Moses whose sermon on the mount does not so much replace the commandments from Sinai as become superimposed. The prominence given by Matthew to the leading role assigned to Peter may readily suggest a tradition in which Paul was almost marginalized (cf. Cor. : ). In both Matthew and Paul there is no denial that Israel remains an elect people. Paul (Romans –) interprets the Gentile mission as fulfilling Isaiah’s prophecies and as a parenthetic moment in the divine plan for human history designed to provoke the Jewish people into realizing the truth of Jesus’s message and authentic messiahship as he increasingly wins converts in the wider world. Antithetical as both writers appear in the spectrum of primitive Christianity, they were unanimous that without the traditions of Judaism Jesus cannot be correctly understood. The admission of Gentiles The disagreement whether Gentile converts should be required to observe the Torah of Moses was not for ever settled by the conference between Paul 5
Observant Jews were stern to those who undermined the Law (Philo, De spec. leg. . ).
The First Followers of Jesus
and the ‘pillar apostles’, Peter, James, and John, described in Galatians from a Pauline standpoint and with a later retrospect in Acts . Central was the question whether or not Jewish and Gentile believers could constitute a single Church and, if they could, on what terms. The account in Acts describes the apostolic conference as reaching a generous conclusion, that Gentile converts were not required to keep the observances of strict Judaism, but must keep clear of idolatry, unchastity, and major breaches of the food laws (which would make common meals with Jewish believers difficult). Paul’s first letter to the Corinthian church shows that these were indeed prominent issues for him and for them; but while in practice his instructions to the Corinthians come to much the same thing as the Apostolic Decree of the Jerusalem conference, there is no reference to the authority of that decision, and the reasons given for abstaining from eating meat offered in sacrifice to idols or for chastity could have astonished and alarmed Jewish believers at Jerusalem under the aegis of James, ‘the Lord’s brother’. Jerusalem’s centrality Nevertheless, Paul would have lost much for his missionary congregations of Gentiles if he had not come into line with the requirements of the Jerusalem church and their leaders. Had his work failed to gain their recognition (‘the right hand of fellowship’), he would have ‘run in vain’. That saying implied that Paul, no less than Matthew, understood the Jewish believers at Jerusalem to be a necessary touchstone of communion in the one Church of Jesus, and that for him as much as for anyone else in the community Jews and Gentiles were alike constituent members in a single society. A similar assumption continues in later writings of the New Testament, most obviously in the Acts and in Romans – and in the epistle to the Ephesians, at least in part postPauline. In the apostle’s lifetime it had concrete expression in the collection for the saints, money contributed by the Gentile congregations to sustain the poor believers of Jerusalem, perhaps because an experiment in communism failed. The first-century aspiration to keep Jewish and uncircumcised Gentile believers within one single community was difficult to maintain. The epistle to the Ephesians already presupposes that the problems were severe. In the middle years of the second century Justin Martyr (Dialogue –) knew of Jewish Christian communities who believed Jesus to be Messiah and observed the prescriptions of the Torah, perhaps also the traditions of the elders, and did not expect Gentile Christians to be circumcised or to observe the sabbath and food laws. He also knew of other Jewish groups whose only point of difference from the synagogue was belief in Jesus the Messiah. Justin was sad that Jewish and Gentile believers had ceased to be able to worship
The First Followers of Jesus
together, and that the numerous Gentile Christians were in many cases failing to grant full recognition to their Jewish brethren. John Baptist Second-century evidence shows that a sect long survived attached to John the Baptist as leader. John’s following at the time of Jesus was very considerable, when his washing in Jordan offered purification to a people who evidently felt stained by the Herods. But it seems evident that a large proportion of the disciples of Jesus were recruited from those who, like Jesus himself, had received baptism in Jordan from John. Like Jesus, John was executed. The gospels are probably correct in representing him as disowning the title of Messiah and his death as a result of Herodias’ anger. A second-century sect called Mandeans claimed to continue the sect.
THE JEWISH MATRIX
Essenes, Therapeutae, Qumran A community of ascetic Jews in Egypt is described by Philo of Alexandria in his work ‘On the contemplative life’. He called them Therapeutae, worshippers of God devoted to the healing of the soul. Their name and life-style links them in part to a group called Essenes, the Hebrew etymology of whose title also indicates a concern for healing. To later Christian writers the Therapeutae seemed to anticipate monasticism: they avoided cities, had communal meals on a restricted diet, practised celibacy and mastery of the passions, and were devout observers of the Mosaic precepts. They interpreted the scriptures allegorically, faced sunrise for prayers, and found peace in silence. In the time of Jesus ten miles south of Jericho near the Dead Sea at Qumran there lived a similar community of Jews consciously distinct and independent of other Jewish groups such as Pharisees and Sadducees. Their priests called themselves Sons of Zadok; perhaps (it is far from certain) they may be at least akin to, perhaps identified with, the group of Essenes described by Philo, Josephus, and the elder Pliny, who died in the eruption of Vesuvius, ad . The origin of this group is unclear. Possibly they had reacted to Greek ideals of piety infiltrating Palestine after Alexander the Great, especially in the time of Antiochus Epiphanes in the second century bc with his conscious programme of Hellenization. Close by the community at Qumran in caves in the hillside texts almost certainly belonging to this community were found during the decade from onwards. The collection was scattered among eleven caves, and contained all biblical texts except Esther which had disputed status (Genesis Rabbah . ), copies of the Psalms and Isaiah being particularly prominent. Included were copies of Ben Sira (Ecclesiasticus), Tobit, and the Epistle of Jeremiah. Also included were works ascribed to ancient heroes, including the book(s) of Enoch, one of these being the Book of Giants with a strongly dualistic myth of cosmic conflict. That is to say that the literature of the community had a text akin to later gnosticism on the margins of the Church. The community possessed a Rule, expositions of some of the
The Jewish Matrix
Hebrew prophets, and a work about war between the forces of light and those of darkness. Among the texts in the collection some show a critical stance not to the Temple at Jerusalem but to the priests responsible for its worship. One text implies a cool opinion of exegetes providing smooth glosses on the Mosaic Torah reducing its demands. The majority of the documents are non-biblical Jewish literature, but fragments of almost all the books in the Hebrew Bible have been found. Not all the texts are in Hebrew or Aramaic; some are in Greek. The finds have recovered the Hebrew original texts of some hitherto known only in Greek translation such as The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs. While some of the texts were evidently written within and by the community, some of the texts may have been brought to Qumran after being written elsewhere, in some cases up to two or even three hundred years before the community’s life ended with the Zealot war with Rome from ad onwards. The Qumran society venerated a ‘teacher of righteousness’ who had taught his followers an esoteric manner of interpreting the scriptures and had suffered harassment from a wicked priest ruling over Israel. He was a founding figure for the community, but cannot be identified. Among them some refused to bear arms, but the majority took an active part in the revolt of and suffered accordingly. Their communal life had resemblances to that of the disciples of Jesus. They were punctilious about correct observance of the sabbath and daily ritual washings, and that would obviously have been a difference from at least some of the disciples. Laws about ceremonial purity were intensely important to them. They had their own distinctive calendar of festivals differing from that of the Jewish authorities at Jerusalem, and preferred a solar year of days to orthodox Judaism’s lunar calendar of days adding a month every third year or so. They forbade divorce and remarriage, disliked oaths, practised sharing of resources in a way probably close to that described in Acts : ff. Characteristically they interpreted ancient prophecies to refer specifically to their own community. Keen readers of apocalyptic texts, they nursed fervent messianic hopes for the coming of the Prophet promised to Moses in Deut. : (cf. John : ) and looked for the coming of two Messiahs—a priestly Messiah of Aaron and a political Messiah of Moses. The Messiah would be of the seed of David, and was prefigured in the star of Num. : . No text suggests that the ‘teacher of righteousness’ would become Messiah. The contrast between a Messiah of Aaron and a political Messiah of Moses who would be a Davidic leader may suggest that at least some devout Jews were conscious of tension between a military and a religious saviour, and that perhaps Jesus of Nazareth was not the only figure of his time to think there could be a Messiah whose ‘nationalism’ would not involve military combat. It would be instructive for early Christian beginnings if the Qumran texts
The Jewish Matrix
produced a clear and certain instance of a suffering Messiah; claims for such a text have not carried conviction for the learned. What is evident is that some Old Testament texts taken by early Christian writers to refer to the Messiah were also interpreted at Qumran in a messianic sense. It is also certain that the Qumran community understood itself to be living in the final age of this world and that they expected persecution. Not unnaturally the Dead Sea scrolls cast more light on contemporary Judaism than on primitive Christianity. But there are a few striking parallels to New Testament themes which raise the question whether possibly some of Jesus’ followers had at one time in their lives had contact with the Qumran ascetics. Josephus’ autobiography tells us that for a time he tried out the Essene way of life (Life –). Had John the Baptist done something of the kind? Son of God (not Son of Man) is a title in Qumran texts. In one document a speculative exegesis of Melchizedek (Genesis ) makes him a heavenly figure, which is close to the epistle to the Hebrews. A text from cave offers a list of Beatitudes, showing that Matt. : ff. was cast in a form familiar at that time. The parallels between the New Testament texts and Dead Sea Scrolls are valuable to the historian. The closer the Qumran texts stand to the language and thought of early Christian texts, the more evident it becomes that the traditions in the canonical gospels, perhaps also some in the Gospel of Thomas transmitted in Coptic, provide a broadly reliable portrait of firstcentury Christianity and are not anachronistic inventions. Anachronisms and other misfits are the primary indication that a text does not belong to the alleged time and place. Similarly a high proportion of matter in the synoptic gospels is illuminated by parallels in rabbinic documents, which, although written down substantially later in time, belong to a closed society much attached to the tradition of the elders. Rabbis were saying the kind of thing preserved in the Mishnah, Midrash, and Talmud long before those collections were compiled. Parallels with sayings of Jesus can sometimes be striking. It also speaks for the value of the traditions in the synoptic gospels that although Galatians and Acts attest impassioned controversy about the terms of admission for Gentile believers, the gospels do not contain sayings given to Jesus which look designed to settle the question e.g. of circumcision, which is what one would expect if someone had wanted to create an authoritative decision. The Dead Sea texts include papyrus texts in Greek. Some of these belong to the second century . Two small fragmentary pieces from Qumran cave have been claimed to provide texts of Mark : – and Tim. : –: . The surviving damaged letters are not incompatible with this hypothesis, but may also be capable of other reconstructions. The probability of this conjecture interlocks with other hypotheses about the likely date when such Christian documents came to circulate.
The Jewish Matrix
Gospel traditions For the transmission of traditions about Jesus the gospels, especially Mark, Luke, and Matthew, are of basic importance. Their concerns were not those of a detached historian, but were reflections of the believing communities which the evangelists represented. That does not mean that they did not have a biographical interest. The story of Jesus, his sayings and doings, above all his passion and resurrection, lay at the heart of what they wanted to say. The authors of the gospels we know only from the reflection of their face seen in their selection and discernible themes. The term ‘gospel’ was the message, and only by derivation came to be applied to books, probably as a result of the liturgical practice of reading passages from these books at the early Christian eucharist where the people of God wanted to hear the words of the Lord. The community by the Dead Sea did not possess any collections of sayings from a particular teacher analogous with the gospels. By contrast virtually every section of the story of Jesus in the gospels presupposes his supreme authority for the community and indeed for the human race. ‘He spoke with authority, not as one of the scribes.’ ‘Even the winds and the waves obey him.’ The healings, apparently almost marginal to the central point, serve to reinforce the authority theme, which then becomes explicit in the rising crescendo of confrontation with the conservative religious authorities and expositors of the Law in Mark . In what decade the four canonical gospels were written can only be a matter of conjecture. The impetus to gather material would naturally have come as the twelve apostles began to die or otherwise disappear from the scene, but also as Gentile converts wanted to know what Jesus had said and done. The sixties and seventies of the first century ad provide one possible context for the gospels of Mark, Matthew, and Luke. Although John’s gospel has material with affinities to that of the first three, it is so rich in symbolist writing that one can formulate a rule that if anything can mean more than one thing it does; this presupposes mature reflection and a date probably in the eighties or nineties. Recognition of John’s authority by churches in the second century came more slowly than that of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. The terminology of the group by the Dead Sea has parallels with New Testament language, and there are other analogies. They had officers in their community, not only presbyters but an ‘overseer’ who was the society’s ‘shepherd’ for teaching and administration. In Greek this overseer’s title would have been epískopos, bishop. In language and in the searching of prophecy for messianic hopes, the Dead Sea group offer striking analogies to the primitive Christians, but also notable differences.
The Jewish Matrix
Mark’s messianic secret In Mark’s gospel the theme of Jesus’ authority is intimately connected with an emphasis on the mystery of his status as Messiah, with an insistently repeated thesis that discernment of this truth was at the time, and is now at the time of Mark’s writing, a supernatural gift not granted to all. Jewish traditions said that the identity of Messiah would be a secret that not all could penetrate, indeed that Messiah himself would not know. In Mark this notion is extended to answer the question how the elect people of God, to whom had been entrusted the oracles of God in ancient prophecy, could by a substantial majority fail to recognize their expected saviour when he came. (The fear of a loss of national identity in a universal communion is not a question raised, but Jesus in Mark appears as a sharp critic of ceremonial customs and of exegeses of the Torah conflicting with natural morality.) Mark even allowed the paradoxical notion that the reason why Jesus taught through parables was an intention to enfold divine truths in obscurity; it was not the divine will that those outside the believing community should understand. Some did not have ears to hear. At an early date observant Jews were contending that the crucifixion of Jesus could only be a sign of divine cursing in accord with Deut. : ‘a hanged man is accursed by God’, significantly cited by Paul in Gal. : . (A Qumran text applies this Deuteronomy verse to Crucifixion.) Paul had to warn the Corinthians ( Cor. : ) that no one could be speaking under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit if he was declaring Jesus to be anathema. He was much aware that to Jews the cross was a stumbling-block ( Cor. : ), not one of the miraculous signs by which they understood a Messiah to be accompanied. They had not seen lions lying down with lambs as the prophets suggested. Sabbath Although in Mark Jesus comes with an unrecognized messianic authority, he offers no challenge to the keeping of the Law of Moses. Disagreements with scribal exegetes are not whether the sabbath has to be observed but concern the manner of observance and whether this obligation overrides other duties of a more general humanity. In the age of the Second Temple leading authorities in Judaea asked for the utmost strictness in sabbath observance, a degree of strictness which later rabbinic authorities would relax in the light of circumstance and natural humanity. Jesus anticipated the view that impracticality and inhumanity can result from excessively legalistic interpretation of the Decalogue’s precept. This is expressed in the memorable principle: ‘The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath’ (Mark : ), words which
The Jewish Matrix
presuppose that the divine gift of the sabbath is not to be scorned. The large following for this Galilean teacher aroused envy (Mark : ). To some scribes he appeared as an unwelcome alternative authority. ‘The people of the land’ Substantial evidence in the Babylonian Talmud shows that in both Judaea and Galilee ordinary Jews, described by the very devout or by the religious authorities as ‘the people of the land’, did not feel bound to adhere with absolute strictness to rules about tithes and about ceremonial purity in the manner of the Pharisees and scribal interpreters of the Law. One defined oneself as belonging to the people of the land by failures to observe ritual purity before eating, to recite the Shema‘ of Deut. : morning and evening, to put fringes and phylacteries on garments, and to be punctilious about instructing sons in the Torah. Pharisees characteristically wished to be sure of being unpolluted, and therefore avoided contact with the people of the land, whether by trade or by accepting their hospitality. Better to cross the road than to have to salute a person not scrupulous about purity rules or tithing. In the age of the Second Temple the number of prohibitions was increased to a burdensome extent. Any contact with leprosy or with a dead body involved serious defilement (as some Gentiles would also have thought, notably the Pythagoreans). In Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan the priest and the Levite were consistent in judging the purity rules to override wider obligations of humanity and compassion (Luke : f.). Express witness to the social divisiveness of this code appears in the Letter of Aristeas (). Naturally not all people of the land were equally careless about the rules; nor were all Pharisees or rabbis equally negative about social contacts with them. Josephus once claimed that Jews are unanimous (c. Apion. . ). A Pharisee might hope so. In actuality rabbis were not unanimous. The school of Shammai was stricter about defilement than that of Hillel, which was more liberal. Among those who found their society shunned there was natural resentment. The Sages could hardly avoid being aware of the dislike with which they could be regarded by people who were passionately loyal Jews, ready to lay down their lives during the revolts of –, –, and –. People of the land did not feel obliged to wear phylacteries broad or narrow or fringes long or short. It could be a burden to tithe produce to support temple clergy at Jerusalem and to give alms for the city poor. Mostly engaged in farming and trade, their daily round did not make it easy to observe ceremonial washings before food as Pharisees did. There was rapport between the practice of less strict Jews and the criticisms of Jesus against some of the dangers of Pharisaic precisianism. The points on which criticisms by Jesus are recorded correspond more or less
The Jewish Matrix
exactly to matters mentioned in the Talmud. People of the land could well share Jesus’ judgement that to place ritual purity above a general humanity and compassion was a form of hypocrisy. Judaism after the fall of Jerusalem After the fall of Jerusalem in the Pharisees became prominent in the reconstruction of Jewish society, and the form in which Jesus’ criticisms have come to be expressed in Matthew evidently represents the sense of rivalry between Pharisees and Christian Jews about the need for precise observances of the Law. With the Temple destroyed the prescribed sacrifices could not be offered unless ‘sacrifice’ was redefined to include prayer and Bible study. There was a sad general conviction that true prophecies had come to an end (bSot. b and elsewhere). There might still be false prophets. The Christian notion that a second Moses could come to replace the original Torah was abhorrent to the conservative rabbis (Deut. Rabbah . ). So Temple cultus was now to be succeeded by disciplined study of the Torah and of the oral tradition, which was hardly less respected as given on Sinai. The Sayings of Rabbi Nathan (. b) declare that ‘the study of the Torah is dearer to God than burnt offerings’. Good works make as good an atonement as sacrifices. Justin in the second century reports that for at least some Jews the destruction of the Temple and the impossibility of sacrifices after Hadrian’s paganization of Jerusalem were accepted as a providential liberation for a religion of the spirit based on the study of the Torah and the traditions with synagogue prayers (Dial. . ). In principle such Jews shared the judgement stated by Jesus (Mark : ) that if the Temple were to be destroyed, satisfactory alternative arrangements could be made within a mere three days, a saying which, in combination with the cleansing of the Temple traders, provoked deep anger among the Temple authorities, becoming an occasion for trial and handing over to Pilate. Nevertheless, in a Judaism without sacrifices or pilgrimages to the holy city it would become difficult for a less strictly observant synagogue to be distinct from a Christian group, or to exclude secret believers in Jesus the Messiah ( John : ). The feeling of polarity is evident in Paul’s letter to the Christian Jews in Rome asking for their prayers that in his imminent visit to Jerusalem he may be delivered from ‘unbelievers’ (: ) who, at any rate temporarily, have become ‘God’s enemies’ (: ). The report in Suetonius of Jews in Rome rioting ‘at the instigation of Chrestus’ implies that anger was running high. The crucifixion of Jesus In the tradition represented in St John’s gospel the tension between Church and Synagogue has become a contrast between light and darkness, between those
The Jewish Matrix
obeying the word of God and those now so hostile to this word that their father can only be the Devil ( John : ). In other words, the problematic unbelief of conservative Jews refusing to recognize the divine presence in the Messiah is explained by holding that they have been spiritually blinded, unable to see the light of the world. John’s gospel was aware that in the eyes of these conservative observant Jews Jesus was accused of being sent by a devil and of making the claims of a madman ( John : ). The high priest Caiaphas judged that it was in the political interest of Israel that Jesus should be eliminated, since Roman prefects did not like messianic leaders, and it was better that one man should die than that there should be a general assault on the people ( John : , : ). Caiaphas’ actions are presented as more political than religious in their motivation. The execution of Jesus by the Roman soldiers is seen as the result of an accidental misjudgement by a small coterie of religious and national leaders who influenced Pontius Pilate. As in Matthew, John’s gospel lays a weight of responsibility on the Jewish authorities. For Josephus, Pilate made the decision but on accusations brought by Jewish leaders. Crucifixion was a peculiarly cruel form of execution in that the torture preceding death was prolonged as long as possible, and the Romans used it especially for slaves committing murder or dangerous rebels. To Jesus’ disciples it was a shattering blow, but only for a short time. It was not the end. He continued to live in a new and divine mode, anticipating the resurrection which many Jews, particularly Pharisees, believed to be the final destiny of God’s elect. The disciples studied the ancient prophecies, notably Isaiah, where the servant of God suffers and is humiliated in the process of bringing salvation to Israel, or Daniel’s vision of the son of man placed at God’s right hand to judge the world. His dereliction on the cross and other humiliating circumstances could be found foreshadowed in Psalm . So the disciples concluded that Jesus was indeed the saviour not in spite of the crucifixion but because of it. The passion was a sacrifice for the sins of the world, and Jesus was the passover lamb. They continued a memorial offering of consecrated bread and wine representing the sacrifice of ‘Christ our passover’. Their theology was exegesis of the Old Testament (Luke : –). Accordingly, Jesus who proclaimed the gospel of the kingdom is himself the gospel. The redemption is that in and by him God has visited his people, and by his life and self-sacrifice he embodied the love of God. ‘The Son of man came to give his life a ransom for many’ (Mark : ). So in John’s gospel the cross of Golgotha is no defeat but a supreme symbol of triumphant victory over the forces of evil. In the Pauline letters the theme of the cross as a sign of triumph over evil is also prominent (Col. : ; cf. Eph. : –). In the prose-poem of the Apocalypse of John ‘the Lamb’ is a title of conquest over diabolical adversaries. This Lamb was slain from the foundation of the world, but has become the vindicator of persecuted martyrs.
JEWS AND CHRISTIANS SURVIVE ROME’S CRUSHING OF REVOLTS
Hadrian founds Aelia Just as the eminent Rabbi Johanan ben Zakkai escaped from the Roman siege of Jerusalem in a coffin to establish his school at Yavneh near Jaffa, so also the Christian Jewish community got out of Jerusalem and is reported by Eusebius of Caesarea to have moved across the Jordan to Pella. There is no good reason to doubt the veracity of these reports. Jewish anger against Roman imperial authority continued, with a second ferocious rebellion in Egypt and Cyrene in – and then a major revolt in Hadrian’s reign, –, led by Bar Cocheba ‘son of a star’ (in rabbinic texts called Ben Koziba, ‘son of a lie’, no doubt because the outcome was catastrophic). Bar Cocheba was strong for observing the prescriptions of the Torah and the traditions. Christian Jews, therefore, who had a Messiah already, felt unable to participate and are reported by Justin and Jerome to have suffered accordingly. The initially successful revolt seems to have been sparked off by Hadrian’s wish to legislate against circumcision and also to rebuild the ruined city of Jerusalem, mainly inhabited by a camp of Roman soldiers. Some of Bar Cocheba’s coins celebrate ‘the liberation of Jerusalem’ and evidence, admittedly uncertain, suggests that plans to rebuild the Temple were initiated. The early Christian letter of ‘Barnabas’ shows that this aspiration had not died. Hadrian’s builders replanned the old city, incidentally confirming the bringing of the hill of Golgotha inside the new town wall (a fact implicit in a Good Friday sermon ‘On the Pascha’ by Melito bishop of Sardis about thirty years later). On this site, already venerated by Christians, Hadrian erected a shrine to Aphrodite. Hadrian called the new city after his own family name, Aelia Capitolina, which remained its official name until crusading times. It was to be strictly pagan in its cults. No Jew was to enter the city. The main temple dedicated to Jupiter Capitolinus was put on the site of the old Jewish temple with an equestrian statue of the emperor where the Holy of Holies had been.
Jews and Christians Survive
The survival of the Jewish people and their old religion was thereafter dependent on the rabbis and on the tenacious conservatism of an unassimilated and unassimilable Judaism. This tight society was unsympathetic to Hellenized Judaism. The Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures called the Septuagint, made at Alexandria in the third and second centuries bc, came to be distrusted. The writings of Philo and Josephus were copied by Christian scribes. Prayers of Greek synagogue liturgy survive when they became incorporated in Christian collections. Josephus on Jesus Two texts in the Antiquities of Josephus refer to Christianity: one (AJ ... ) speaks of James ‘brother of Jesus entitled Christ’. The other, earlier paragraph (AJ ... –) raises many problems. On the one hand it describes Jesus in terms unlikely to be used by a Christian, namely that Jesus was a wise man who achieved surprising feats and whose teaching was well received by those who are pleased by the truth; on accusations brought by leading Jews Pilate condemned him to crucifixion, but those attached to him did not cease to exist and the Christian tribe has not disappeared even today. On the other hand there are phrases unlikely to be used except by a Christian interpolator, namely ‘He was the Messiah . . . On the third day he appeared restored to life as foretold by the prophets.’ The probability is that these words replaced something originally more neutral,1 perhaps descriptive of popular disturbance in Jerusalem (a suggestion supported by the context in which the passage occurs), and that Josephus used words deploring the events. Liberal Synagogues and the Church As the Christian mission in the Gentile world gathered momentum, the synagogues of the Jewish Dispersion often provided the springboard, partly because Greek synagogues possessed the Septuagint translation of the Hebrew scriptures, partly because Gentile ‘God-fearers’ gathered round the community for worship, though rarely becoming proselytes. In synagogues of the Dispersion the prophet Malachi’s contrast between the rejected sacrifices of Jerusalem and those of the Dispersion being accepted (.–) could be applied to the situation after ad ( Justin, Dialogue ). Christians took the prophecy to justify the Gentile mission. Probably there were instances where a local church originated in the conversion en bloc of a 1 An Arabic version, to which S. Pines drew attention (Israel Academy, Jerusalem ), found in Agapius of Mabbog (tenth century) [PO .], is neutral as the Greek is not, and may well preserve what Josephus wrote.
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synagogue with some liberal inclination. At Rome, where there were at least nine or ten synagogues, that is likely to have been the case. Converted Jews brought with them their Septuagint Bible but also traditions of exegesis. At Qumran Bible students sought to discern fulfilment of prophecy in their own situation. Debate about the meaning of scripture when set in a situation of controversy demanded precision about the identity of books held to be sacred and authoritative. The Old Testament canon Josephus near the end of the first century ad provides the earliest evidence for a known canon of the Old Testament in books (which he does not specify). The number probably originated in a wish to have a list of books corresponding to the number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet. Since the book of Daniel was the latest book to find a place in the Hebrew canon, it is a reasonable hypothesis that the synagogue canon found its familiar shape during the second century bc. Contemporary with Josephus Rabbis in debate at Yavneh (where after ad learned rabbis assembled, in effect replacing the Sanhedrin) had doubts about the Song of Solomon and the book Qoheleth (Ecclesiastes), so that the question was not then regarded as finally closed. However, disputations with Christians would have provided a stimulus for definition, notably because Greek-speaking believers, whether Jew or Gentile, were using the Septuagint as their Old Testament and this version, held (e.g. by Philo and many others) to have been inspired, included books not in the Hebrew canon. On this overplus of the Gentile Christian Old Testament over against the Rabbis’ canon, see below, p. . Mishnah and Talmud The destruction of the Temple at Jerusalem reinforced the rabbis’ attachment to the books of the Bible, especially the Torah or ‘Teaching’ (i.e. the Pentateuch) and to the oral tradition which came to be called ‘Mishnah’, a collection of authoritative judgements on the interpretation of the biblical laws which itself became a canon needing commentary, the ‘Talmud’. The Talmud was needed because the judgements recorded in the Mishnah were not unanimous, but in time the Talmud itself became a normative exegesis and a primary subject of rabbinic studies. The fact that so many disagreements were recorded added to the zeal with which the studies were pursued. There were to be ultra-conservative rabbis who did not concede authority to Mishnah or Talmud, and adhered exclusively to the Hebrew Bible as divinely given. In addition there were those who sought mystical experiences, of
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which the apostle Paul’s ecstatic elevation to the third heaven to hear ineffable words ( Cor. : –) is the oldest instance. In time some among the latter could become fascinated by the occult and the Kabbalah with number mysticism and other ways of treating the Bible as a divine cryptogram. Through the writings of Philo elements of this passed into the Christian stream. The possession of sacred written records of the divine Law naturally imparted to Jewish society a powerful sense of being set apart with distinct social customs and a desire not to be submerged or assimilated in the ethnic ‘scrambled eggs’ of the Graeco-Roman world. This distinctiveness was enforced by circumcision, abstinence from pork, not working on Saturdays, and other such customs which were the object of not very friendly comment in Gentile society. When the historian Tacitus came to write something about the Jewish war of –, he prefaced his story with a bitingly malicious caricature of a race which was notorious for not acknowledging the gods of the empire. Spiritualizing Temple and ritual The synagogues of the Jewish Dispersion circumcised and baptized proselytes on their admission to full membership of the community. Such total converts were rare. The Christians of the Gentile mission easily adopted a spiritualizing understanding of Temple, ritual, circumcision, sabbath. The theme that circumcision should be of the heart was already in Deut. : and Jer. : , : f. In Paul’s first letter to Corinth, the temple of God is either the believer’s body (: ) or the believing community (: ). In the epistle to the Hebrews (: ) the sacrifice to embrace and supersede all sacrifices is the self-offering of Jesus whereby as eternal high priest after the order of Melchizedek (superior to the Levitical line) he has entered the holy of holies in heaven. God’s house, as in Paul, is the community of the Church (: ). The destiny of the wandering people of God is a sabbath rest analogous to God’s rest on the seventh day of creation week. Baptism and Eucharist By dropping circumcision and keeping proselyte baptism the Gentile missionary churches formed their universal rite of initiation, fortified by the awareness that Jesus himself had been baptized in Jordan by John Baptist. Although Jesus himself had not given baptism, the apostles had done so ( John : —a sentence which may be a retort to argument on the subject), and he had surely wished his disciples to continue the rite (Matt. : ). The Passover memorial of deliverances from bondage in Egypt, a solemn meal
Rome’s Crushing of Revolts
with bread and wine, had been faithfully observed by Jesus and the twelve disciples on the night before the crucifixion. The memorial offering of bread and wine was continued in ‘thanksgiving’ (eucharistia) for the gift of redemption by his self-offering, his body and blood, so that the bread and wine set apart by the church by a blessing or rite of consecration was not to be received as a common meal such as one could have at home ( Cor. : ). It was a proclamation or setting forth of the Lord’s death, to be continued to the end of time. Those who came to share in this act of communion were not, in Paul’s exhortation, to be unworthy of receiving this bread and cup by failing to discern the sacredness of a rite not intended to satisfy hunger. ‘The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a participation in Christ’s blood? The bread which we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?’ ( Cor. : ). Already in Justin a century later eucharistia is an established name of the rite. It is one thing to explain and describe how a social movement began; it is quite another to account for its survival. Believers understood the Lord to have commanded them to continue the commemoration of his self-sacrifice. Other Messianic movements of the age, reported by Josephus and by Acts : –, did not survive. The community’s continued observance of the eucharist was a factor in ensuring the Church’s lasting life. For the apostle Paul it was ‘the tradition’ which he had received and passed on. Easter The depth of Christian continuity with the Church’s Jewish roots is exemplified by the annual celebration of the Lord’s resurrection at the time of the Jewish Passover. ‘Christ our passover is sacrificed for us’, wrote St Paul to the Corinthians. The Christian Jews continued to celebrate the Passover but with additional meaning in that the redemption or Exodus from the bondage of Egypt was now a salvation brought by Messiah who was also the new Moses, giver of a new law, founder of a new covenant as prophesied by Jeremiah. Passover always fell at the full moon in the month Nisan. Gradually the Christians split between those who continued to celebrate the passion and resurrection at the same time as the synagogue’s Passover, on the fourteenth day of the month, and those who wanted to celebrate it on the first day of the week, when they normally met for worship ( Cor. : ). Therefore they wanted to celebrate the Christian feast on the Sunday following the first full moon after the spring equinox. That was to become the eventual norm. There could still, however, be disagreement in calculating the spring equinox. In the third century an eminent mathematician of Alexandria, Anatolius, who became bishop of Laodicea in Syria (Latakia), worked out a nineteen-year cycle for Easter. He regarded it as axiomatic that as the Jewish
Jews and Christians Survive
Passover fell after the spring equinox, the Christian Easter must also (Eusebius HE . . ff.).2 Likewise the Jewish festival of Pentecost was continued in the Church but now with the commemoration of the gift of the Holy Spirit to the apostles. The Christians were keeping the main structure of the Synagogue calendar, but giving the great feasts an entirely Christian significance. 2 By the early fourth century Alexandria had a modified form of the cycle. In time Constantinople had its own version, in the sixth century harmonized with Alexandria. The bishops of Old Rome, conscious of authority, tried to settle disagreements case by case, but as late as the fifth century found the Alexandrian cycle awkward, in contrast with Milan, which (if a letter of Ambrose about the celebration of Easter is authentic) accepted it by .
THE HEBREW SCRIPTURES IN THE CHURCH
The Septuagint To meet the religious needs of Greek-speaking Jews of the Dispersion no longer comfortably familiar with Hebrew, a Greek version of the Pentateuch or five books of Moses was made at Alexandria in the third century bc during the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus (–). Ptolemy ruled not only over Egypt but also over Judaea and had numerous Jews in his army; Egypt had a substantial Jewish population. It was claimed with probability that Ptolemy granted his patronage to the project of translation. The Greek Pentateuch became diffused beyond Alexandria among the synagogues of the Mediterranean world. In time the prophets and other writings of synagogue usage were added to the translation. The Pentateuch retained pride of place. Probably late in the second century bc a propagandist on behalf of Judaism composed a fictitious panegyric on the origins of the Greek Pentateuch entitled the Letter of Aristeas. This claimed sacrosanct status for the version, produced in seventy-two days by seventy-two translators, so that it was superior to rival versions and in no need of correction or improvement. That just such a corrected text was made is certain from a Greek manuscript of the Twelve ‘minor’ Prophets found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, and from the use of the same form of text in Justin. Probably Aristeas had in view not only correctors of the Septuagint but also ultra-conservatives who thought no sacred text translatable without dangerous loss. Some said the Septuagint was a sin like the worship of the golden calf. Alexandrian Jews liked to assert their presence in the city and the supremacy of monotheism against polytheism, though the Septuagint was careful to warn against scorning the religions of others (Exod. : ; Deut. : ). The Jews of Alexandria had an annual festival to celebrate the achievement of translation. Philo regarded the translators as divinely inspired, and this estimate became transmitted to many early Christian writers. This was the Christian Bible for both Greeks and Latins, the Bible of
The Hebrew Scriptures in the Church
the apostles. It would need a Hebraist like Jerome to observe that some citations in Matthew’s gospel presupposed the Hebrew, not the Septuagint text. Augustine regarded both Hebrew and Septuagint version as equally inspired and valid. As the prophets and the writings had become added to the Septuagint version of the Pentateuch, the title ‘the Law’ became a loose designation for the entire corpus of sacred Jewish books ( John . ; Rom. . ; Cor. . ). For the synagogues, naturally enough, as for Philo the Pentateuch was supreme; the prophets and the writings did not enjoy the same degree of sanctity. For the Christians, however, the prophets were supreme, and the laws of the Pentateuch were interpreted as prophecy, the Levitical directions about sacrifice and the story of Abraham and Isaac in Genesis prefiguring the sacrifice of Jesus the Messiah. Debate between observant Jews and Jewish Christians produced disagreement about the precise books that could be cited as authoritative. Greekspeaking Christians read the story of Susanna and thought it showed up synagogue elders in an unhappy light (below, p. ). Since the text contained a Greek pun not reproducible in Hebrew, the story was unlikely to have a Hebrew original. But there it was in the Septuagint collection. The wisdom of Ben Sira became so popular among the Christians that in the West it acquired the title ‘Ecclesiasticus’, and a famous saying of Jesus in Matt. : directly quotes Sir. : .2 More problematic was the presence of a quotation from the book of Enoch in the epistle of Jude, some thinking that this guaranteed Enoch’s place in the Christian canon, while others disagreed because the book was not included in the Septuagint. To a thoughtful Gentile it was bound to seem strange to claim that the Hebrew Bible, in a language not understood even by all Jews, could be God’s universal word for all, which ought to be in a widely understood tongue such as Greek. Belief in the inspired and authoritative quality of the Septuagint version made it possible to cite God’s word in translation without a nagging anxiety that in some places the Hebrew original could be of higher authority and might mean something different. So Christian Jews could find in the Greek version of Isa. : a prophecy of the virginal conception of Jesus (Matt. : ), thereby answering objection that the Hebrew spoke not of a virgin but of a young woman. In the fifties of the second century Justin from Nablus was meeting critical questions about the reliability of the Septuagint in this passage, and had to argue that Isaiah described the birth as a wonderful ‘sign’, which could hardly be affirmed of a young woman. He complained that 1
1 2
Greek was widely understood in first-century Palestine. With Matt. : compare Sir. : .
The Hebrew Scriptures in the Church
representatives of the Synagogue challenged the Septuagint only where they disliked Christian appeals to prophecies. Nevertheless he himself used a corrected Septuagint text for the Twelve minor Prophets. Aquila Disputations between Church and Synagogue moved Origen in the third century to a vast undertaking, his Hexapla, juxtaposing the Hebrew in transliteration, the Septuagint, and three or more other versions, among which special value was attached to that by Aquila. Aquila was a Gentile who, after a time as a Christian, was converted to orthodox Judaism and about produced a translation of the Old Testament characterized by extreme literalness. His version was especially valued by Christian exegetes ignorant of Hebrew, since he enabled readers to see more or less exactly what the Hebrew original said without the trouble of learning the language. If his version was intended to undermine the argument from fulfilled prophecy, he was unsuccessful. Justin records that Gentile proselytes adhering to the Synagogue were much more hostile to Christians than were native Jews (Dial. . ). Argument about prophecy The Christian move into the Gentile world was bound to modify the character of the appeal to ancient Hebrew prophecy. To declare Jesus to be ‘Messiah’, that is God’s Anointed, was technical Jewish language which among Gentiles was hardly comprehensible. The title in Greek was ‘Christos’, meaning a person anointed with oil. A Gentile convert, unless a synagogue proselyte, had no background to make that a numinous concept. It suggested an athlete. Therefore ‘Christ’ rapidly became more a proper name than a title. Luke tells us that the community of the Way was first given the nickname ‘Christians’ in the city of Antioch, no doubt by the pagan population. Antioch was also the city from which we first meet the noun Christianismós (Ignatius, Rom. . ). ‘Christian’ was at first no self-designation, and believers, whether Jew or Gentile, did not for some time know that that was what they were. By antithesis the Christians’ name for the religion of orthodox Jews was ‘Judaism’ (Gal. : f.). Although for Jews the term ‘Messiah’ had various meanings (dependent on the kind of deliverance, whether religious or secular, being expected), there was widespread hope and searching of the prophets. Once the language was used in a Gentile milieu, the argument from prophecy became a demonstration that the events of Jesus’ life and passion had been predicted centuries earlier. Justin noted the circularity of the argument: that miraculous events
The Hebrew Scriptures in the Church
occurred was proved by the prophecies, and the inspiration of the prophets was proved by the events which they foretold. Critics questioned whether the prophecies were as clear as the argument needed. There could be more than one exegesis. Pagan critics soon began to accuse Christians of having adjusted the ancient prophecies to make them fit better, but this contention fell before the reply that the prophecies were transmitted by orthodox Jews unlikely to make changes for the convenience of the Church. Belief that Jesus was Messiah lay at the foundation of the veneration of him as a divine figure. Justin’s Dialogue with Trypho attests disagreement bearing on this point. Trypho met Justin’s argument that texts in the Old Testament, such as the plural ‘Let us make man . . .’ in Genesis , presupposed address by the Father to the pre-existent divine Son. Trypho contended that such language was all right for Gentiles but not for strict Jewish monotheists (Dial. . ). Trypho was also baffled by the proposition that Christ was born of a virgin. Justin concedes that messiahship is more fundamental than preexistence or virgin birth (. ), and knows of Christian Jews who acknowledge Jesus to be Messiah without affirming his virgin birth (: ), a position which Trypho himself allows to be tenable (: ). The canon Disputations between Church and Synagogue prompted discussion concerning the identity of the books accepted as authoritative. Within the Church there long continued differences of usage about the precise content of the Old Testament. There was agreement that the scriptures included Judith, Tobit, Sirach (Ecclesiasticus), and Wisdom of Solomon, disagreement about the books of Maccabees, Baruch, the epistle of Jeremiah. As late as Justin in the mid-second century ‘the scriptures’ are the Old Testament. He knows Christian writings but has no fixed canon, no New Testament that might be copied in a single codex. Irenaeus a generation later is much more conscious of the need to establish which Christian books have authority, and his ‘canon’ (or rule) is close to that familiar to modern readers. There long remained local and regional differences. The assumption that in the Old Testament the Hebrew retained primacy obscured a point, namely that the Septuagint was based on good Hebrew manuscripts of the third century bc, and could attest a form of text superior to that available in a manuscript roll at a nearby synagogue. A similar misunderstanding led critics in the sixteenth century to put a higher value on late Byzantine manuscripts than on Jerome’s Latin version made in the fourth century and gradually becoming in the West the generally accepted version or Vulgata. Jerome insisted on the primacy of the Hebrew over the Greek translations. He was not concerned about the inspiration of either text, but
The Hebrew Scriptures in the Church
rather on the historical witness to the apostolic tradition and its acceptance by the Church. On the books not in the synagogue canon, his formula made history: these books should continue to be read in the lectionary for guidance on ethical matters but could not safely be cited in a dispute to establish doctrine. The formula said less than might appear since there were virtually no points of dogma on which appeal would be made to these books. Jerome classified the overplus of the Septuagint over the Hebrew under the disparaging and misleading title ‘Apocrypha’.
INTERPRETING SCRIPTURE: PHILO AND PAUL
Letter and spirit, allegory in Philo More complex and controversial than the canon was the question of the right principle for interpretation of scripture. Very early the Christians claimed that the redemptive work of God in Jesus the Christ was the key for a correct understanding of the law and the prophets. In controversy they could say that if leading observant Jewish authorities were rejecting their exegesis, that was of a piece with the non-recognition of Messiah and his divine authority. The stone which the builders rejected had become the chief cornerstone of God’s building, and that was his Church. It was no new step to affirm that an ancient sacred text did not necessarily mean just what its literal or external meaning seemed to say. The rabbis themselves liked meticulous literal exegesis but in the case of the Song of Songs felt bound to grant that it ought to be interpreted allegorically of God’s love for Israel. At Alexandria the observant Jew Philo, insistent that understanding the symbolic meaning of the text in no way dispensed one from a literal observance of the letter, freely employed allegory on a vast scale to discover Platonic philosophy and Stoic ethics, sometimes even radical Scepticism, hidden in the less evident texts of the Pentateuch. In classical Greece there had long been a tradition of discovering in Homer (especially in passages where the gods did not behave well) profound truths of natural philosophy and science. It had the merit of making the poet edifying for the young. Methods that Stoics applied to Homer, Philo could apply to Moses. In a code which Philo could decipher, Genesis contained a cosmogony exactly like that of Plato’s dialogue the Timaeus. The goal and purpose of Philo’s allegorizing of the Mosaic Law derived impetus from his desire to reduce to nearly zero the particularism of Jewish tradition. By allegory the Law could be shown to be universal, indeed cosmic in its scope. The claim is explicit in his Life of Moses (. ). To obey it was for him the mark of being a citizen of the cosmos (De opificio mundi ). Therefore there could be no conflict between Moses and the best moral philosophers of
Philo and Paul
classical Greece. Philo was confident that Plato derived his best ideas from the study of a copy of the Pentateuch itself. These were not new themes with Philo. Jewish allegorists before him disturbed him by their opinion that for anyone who had penetrated to the symbolic sense of Moses’ precepts, the precepts themselves were no longer obligatory. Philo preferred to say that, although the Levitical commands concerned the body and the world of sense, nevertheless the body serves the soul and through obedience to the physical precepts of the Law one discerns more clearly the higher truths of which they are symbols (De migratione Abrahae –). Body and soul correspond to the literal and spiritual senses of scripture. Philo, being a monotheist, was conscious of the polytheistic society around him at Alexandria. He answered pagan criticism that Judaism had customs which walled it off from the rest of society by the affirmation that the Jewish people were priests for the rest of the world. While pagan priests served essentially local cults and represented no more than their own people, the Jewish high priest offered for all the human race and for the natural order as well, not merely for the peace of Israel (De spec. leg. . ). Philo interpreted monotheism to presuppose a transcendent Creator whose will is pure goodness and whose creating is an ungrudging overflow of benevolent giving, in which the divine giver remains undiminished like a spring of water or sun emitting light or a torch lighting other torches. Between this supreme first cause and this lower material world there are intermediate powers, entities whose diversity is held together by the immanent power of the divine reason or Logos. The Logos is ‘the idea of ideas’, first-begotten Son of the Father and even ‘second God’, mediator between the supreme Father and the created order. He is life, light, shepherd, manna, way, high priest, and advocate (parákletos). The supreme Father being too transcendent to have direct contact with this lower world, the Logos appeared in the theophanies e.g. at the burning bush to Moses. By the indwelling of the inspiring Logos, Moses was virtually elevated to a divine status. It is sometimes thought that no monotheistic Jew could imaginably have attributed to a human being divine qualities. Philo’s Life of Moses has to qualify any such judgement. There Moses is prophet, priest, and king. The text of Exod. . ‘I make you as a God to Pharaoh’ is interpreted to mean that Moses is God’s viceroy mediating between God and man. The language is comparable to that which Philo uses of the Logos as a bridge between the uncreated and created order. The mapping of a frontier between divine and human in Philo is often a foggy area. His debt to Platonism inclined him to treat Mind as that by virtue of which the Logos is inherently divine (cf. De opificio Mundi ). To the contemplative soul (Philo held) God may also appear to be triad, his goodness and his power existing beside his essential being. At the heart of religion is faith, of which Abraham is the biblical symbol. The soul toils in the
Interpreting Scripture
ascent towards divine perfection, but suddenly realizes that it has to cease from all striving and acknowledge that every virtue is achieved exclusively by God’s gift. Abraham is here the model, for at the summit of human knowing, he utterly despaired of himself, and thereby opened his soul to an exact knowledge of the God who is. Without grace none can know God. ‘The mind draws near to the one by whom it has been drawn.’ ‘The vision of God is both a seeing and a being seen.’ Philo’s mystical language about the individual soul’s ascent to God does not exclude the sharing of God’s gifts with others; for that is the ‘becoming like God’ of which Plato wrote in his Theaetetus. True circumcision is that of the heart (De spec. leg. . ). Yet the Temple at Jerusalem will surely endure as long as the cosmos itself. If several phrases in Philo’s allegories anticipate language in the letters of Paul, who like Philo had roots in the Greek synagogue, there are also ideas in Philo that are more dualistic and anticipate gnostic notions. Adam and Eve first acquired bodies after their fall and their bodies are referred to as their ‘coats of skins.’ The soul dwells in the body as if in a tomb and carries it about as a corpse. The soul has fallen into matter, and God is redeeming it from this disaster. Unlike the gnostic sects Philo was not haunted by the problem of evil, and offered virtually no mythology about fallen angelic powers. He anticipated Origen in suggesting that souls fell as a result of satiety with the wonders of the celestial world, and suffered decline in varying degrees, some not falling so far as to be imprisoned in bodies. A few passages explain the evil in the world by the speculation that some parts of the work of creation were delegated to angels who were incompetent. The idea is reminiscent of Paul in the epistle to the Galatians (. –) where the inferior status of the Torah is deduced from the role which, by Jewish tradition, angels had played in giving it to Moses. But Philo did not like the idea that the seven planets were prisons for fallen powers. Seven was a holy number for a Jew, with the sabbath and the seven-branched candlestick or Menorah. New Testament allegory Philo may have influenced the author of the epistle to the Hebrews, where the sacrificial worship of the Old Testament is allegorically interpreted of the one perfect sacrifice of Jesus. His influence on the Johannine circle was no doubt more indirect. Although the apostle Paul shared some themes with Philo, the differences are more striking than the similarities. Nevertheless, the presupposition that behind the literal sense of scripture there lay a spiritual meaning allowed the apostle to see the Christian meaning as the divinely intended sense. To fail to allow it seemed to Paul the consequence of prejudice or indeed a spiritual blindness ( Cor. : ; compare Luke : ).
Philo and Paul
Passages in the Hebrew prophets arraigning the people of Israel for failing to discern God’s will gave controversialists the opening to assert that such failures were a lasting characteristic of a stiffnecked race. Particularly unconciliatory language is found in a speech by the deacon Stephen reported in Acts . Here the Jews who have failed to recognize Jesus to be Messiah are but one further instance in a long catalogue of national apostasy. Stephen voiced a negative opinion about the Temple also expressed by some Jews of the Dispersion. The opposition to him significantly came from Greek-speaking Jews of Cyrene, Alexandria, Cilicia, and Ephesus, for whom the orthodoxy of synagogues of the Dispersion was evidently fundamental. Stephen’s speech forms part of a book ending with an emphatic thesis that the main body of Jews are not merely failing now to recognize the Messiah, but are never going to do so in the future (Acts : –).
Paul’s programme That was not the unanimous judgement of the first Christian generation. The apostle Paul wrote to the Roman Christians (a community which he had not founded) that the Gentile mission was a divine parenthesis in the long providential order of history, intended to rouse the Jews to recover their sense of having a universal destiny for serving all humanity in that far-off event to which the creation moves, when ‘all Israel will be saved’. Later in the immediate post-Pauline generation the Epistle to the Ephesians enunciated a programmatic vision of a universal Church in which Jewish and Gentile believers, even if with differing disciplines of practice, would be enabled to worship the one God in one unbroken fellowship. Nevertheless, the principal figure to provide a theoretical or theological justification for the separating of the Church from its Jewish matrix was the apostle of the Gentiles, Paul. And the surviving evidence shows that he was in broad terms, if not in detail, supported by Peter. The misgivings were associated with James the Lord’s brother, for whom the break with the worship of Temple and synagogue was a serious mistake. In that judgement he was certainly not in a minority of one. For centuries to come there were to be Christians, often of Gentile descent, who participated in the feasts and life of the local synagogues. The Martyrdom of Pionius shows that at Smyrna in the mid-third century Christian refugees were offered hospitality by orthodox Jews, admittedly to the displeasure of the more zealous Church members. John Chrysostom at Antioch late in the fourth century was appalled to discover that a proportion of his congregation had been worshipping at the synagogue on the previous day.
Interpreting Scripture
All things to all men Paul had no desire to cause offence to observant Jews (above p. ). He was willing to compromise by consenting to the circumcision of his Gentile helper Titus (Gal. : ), as he also did in the case of Timothy (Acts : ). Luke reports that on James’s suggestion Paul purified himself and met the expenses of four Jewish Christians in the Temple, with the motive of reassuring his many Jewish critics that he did not propose the abolition of the Mosaic Law (Acts : –). A riot was provoked, but Paul at least showed that, with observant Jews, he wished to conform. To the Corinthians he explained that his principle was to be as a Jew to the Jews that he might win them over; to those under the Law as if under the Law, though not actually under the Law; and to those not under the Law, that is the Gentiles, as one not under law ( Cor. : –). The statement could have been used by enemies to prove his lack of integrity, and that this charge was being brought against him from both sides is clear from the epistles. Gal. : shows that someone was accusing him of inconsistency in ‘still preaching circumcision’ (a deduction perhaps from the cases of Timothy and Titus, but possibly this complaint came from radically anti-Jewish or rather anti-Judaistic controversialists, who thought Paul was failing to teach the total discontinuity of the gospel with the Old Testament). Some of the vehemence of the epistle to the Galatians can be understood in the light of the charge that he changed his message in accordance with the prejudices of his hearers, and was merely concerned to please them rather than to be true to Christ (Gal. : ). At Corinth Paul was confronted by critics who maliciously complained of his changes of mind, even about so minor a matter as his travel plans, and who unkindly grumbled that a characteristic of the apostle was to say Yes when he meant No and vice versa ( Cor. : –). Paul’s difficulty lay in the tension between the Jewish Christians of Jerusalem, not unsuccessful in presenting the case for Jesus’ messiahship to their fellow-Jews, and the advocates of admitting Gentiles to Church membership without obligations to keep the Torah, an advocacy which inevitably undermined the work in Jerusalem. It was not easy to run with both sides, as he felt it his duty before God to try to do. If it was going to be necessary to emancipate the Church from the Synagogue, at least Paul was determined to maintain a close link between his dispersed Gentile churches and the mother community at Jerusalem under the presidency of James, the size of which, according to Acts : , numbered ‘many thousands’. Synagogues of the Dispersion used to collect money to send each year to Jerusalem for the support of the Temple and its priests and for their distributions to the poor of the city (cf. Tobit : –). It was not an obligation but a
Philo and Paul
charitable act. The Mishnah (H . allah) records conflicting opinions on the subject of the acceptance of gifts from the Dispersion especially cases where they were not accepted, but provides clear evidence that they were frequent. In Caesar’s time the proconsul of Asia had to command the city of Miletus to allow the Jews to follow their customs in tithing their produce ( Josephus, AJ . . . –). Philo of Alexandria was censorious of Jews who failed in this regard (De spec. leg. . –).1 After the fall of Jerusalem in , all Jews, not only those still in Judaea, had to pay the equivalent of their Temple tax to the Roman fisc. On the analogy of these contributions Paul agreed with the leaders of the Church at Jerusalem that he would arrange for contributions to be raised among the Gentile churches, for transmission to the Jerusalem Church for the maintenance of ‘the poor’ (Gal. . ). The Christian community in Jerusalem was in a competitive situation in relation to observant Jews who did not acknowledge the messiahship of Jesus. Contributions from synagogues in the Dispersion would be under the control of the Temple priests, unlikely to be generous with their alms for those who had affiliated with James and the Church. Generous gifts from Gentile Christians would enable the Jerusalem leaders to keep the support of the proportion of the city poor who looked to them for help. Paul’s collection for the saints was a serious matter, not an optional extra. The survival of the Church in Jerusalem was bound up with the success of the operation. Even when relations with the church at Corinth had become strained (apparent in the syntax of Corinthians –), he had to persist in calling for financial aid. Moreover, he did not feel confident that the church of Jerusalem would accept the money at his hands (Rom. : ), a fact which betrays the degree of distrust expected. The mission to the Gentile world met with rapid success and precipitated urgent questions. The apostle Paul never concerned himself with issues prominent in the gospels about tithe, ceremonial impurity, fringes, and phylacteries. He had to form the mind and ethic of Gentile communities for which specifically Jewish customs were remote. In any event his problem lay deeper than questions about the right interpretation of the Levitical laws. Convinced that the coming of Messiah inaugurated a new age which made the Law of Moses a stage in the education of the human race but not God’s final word for all races, by what authority, he needed to say, were his converts going to order their lives? To conservative Jewish Christians he sounded dangerously like an antinomian anarchist and in one passage where he denied this to be a true account of his work, he spoke of Christ as now the source of law 1 On gifts from dispersion synagogues to Jerusalem see Aharon Oppenheimer, The ‘Am HaAretz (Leiden, ), –.
Interpreting Scripture
for himself and believers ( Cor. : ). ‘The law of the Spirit of life liberated from the law of sin and death’ (Rom. : ). The oral tradition of Jesus’ sayings had provided him with some principles, but those which Paul quotes are few—concerned with remarriage after divorce and the right of missionaries to be financially supported by their converts. His Gentile churches will have had far less access to oral traditions about Jesus than he. At Corinth some converts took the gospel preached by Paul to teach a freedom which granted complete liberation from social conventions in regard to sex. They were asserting that in this new age of the Spirit anything goes—‘all things are lawful.’ In reply the apostle gladly conceded that in the new society of the Church the coming of Christ had ended the dispensation of the Law; but sexual licence was inexpedient and injured the reputation of Christians in pagan society (which at Corinth was notorious for being a hotbed of licentiousness). Despite the apostle’s opposition, there long continued to be underground groups in the Church which made bold to claim the authority of Jesus himself for antinomian attitudes to sexual convention. Paul’s problem lay in the fact that while his recommended practice was no departure from the norms of good Jewish morality, his theory put an axe to the notion that the will of God for his people in the messianic age could be formulated in a legal code at all. His Gentile converts in Galatia or at Thessalonica, Philippi, and Corinth, were not circumcised and were warned not to listen to ‘Judaizers’ telling them that even now they were obliged (or at least would be wise) to keep Moses’ rules. At Jerusalem alarmed Jewish Christians, who looked to James the Lord’s brother to be their spokesman, were asking the crucial question whether there were any rules by which Gentile converts thought themselves bound. The conference or council at Jerusalem described in Acts formulated a modest statement of guidelines, the so-called Apostolic Decree—a document with echoes elsewhere in the New Testament (Rev. : , and ). The Decree declared that Gentile Christians should not eat meat previously offered in pagan sacrifice and then sold in the market, nor meat where the animal had been slaughtered by strangulation so as to retain the blood. Men must also have no extramarital intercourse, e.g. with their slave-girls. In Paul’s letters, especially in Corinthians, the actuality and relevance of these prohibitions on fornication and on the eating of meat sacrificed to idols are writ large. The ethic of the gospel depended not on rules externally imposed but on a judgement of the informed conscience. But its hallmark was a dissent from the heathen life of ordinary Gentile society. Christians were called to live as citizens of heaven (Phil. : ). The Pauline ethical theory was intimately bound up with his understanding of ‘justification by faith’, a doctrine with immediate relevance to the
Philo and Paul
practical question whether the Church was now to be emancipated from that Law which the apostle himself confessed to be holy, just, and good. The apostle could contrast, to the disadvantage of the Law of Moses, the writtenness of the law with the inward life of the Spirit (Rom. : ). In the third century Origen knew of Christians who took this principle to necessitate the view that what mattered was charismatic experience, not written scriptures or dominical sacraments, which both belonged to the external and material world. The Gentile mission The apostle Paul moved to the radical position first stated in an impassioned letter to his churches in Galatia in Asia Minor, and then more moderately affirmed in his careful letter to Rome. Both Jew and Gentile alike have fallen short. All are equally sinners and guilty before God. Whether they have the full Torah or no more than the natural guidance of conscience and natural law, they stand under the same condemnation. Indeed the Jew, having been granted greater light, has greater responsibility. But by faith in Jesus the Christ and his reconciling, atoning death, both Gentile and Jewish believers are to be granted equal access to God’s forgiveness and inner renewal. Therefore to assert that after this manifestation of the mercy and universal love of God it is still necessary for faith to be supplemented by the Law and especially by circumcision (as expressive of Jewish particularism over against the Gentile society) is to derogate from the sovereignty of God’s act in redemption. The one God affirmed by Hebrew monotheism is not God of the Jews only. Monotheism is incompatible with tribal particularism except insofar as that is a stage towards something universal. So those who are true descendants of Abraham are they who share his faith, not necessarily his circumcision or his ethnicity. Religion, not race, is that which defines a person before God. The Pauline programme for the Gentile mission implied an ultimate if not immediate breach between Church and Synagogue. At the same time the mission was constructed round the Gentile cities of the empire. With a speed which can only seem astounding, the early Church moved outside its original birthplace in Jerusalem and Galilee, and the apostle of the Gentiles, as he knew himself to be, was able to forge a universal society with representation in the imperial cities. No doubt there were also a few congregations in rural districts but in ancient society it was usual for peasants to follow in religion the landowner for whom they laboured. A group of rural labourers would become Christian if their landlord was converted. The hostility in the synagogue towards the Church, which produced a riot in Rome in the reign of Claudius about ad recorded by Suetonius, was not
Interpreting Scripture
allayed by the Gentile mission ( Thess. : –). Anger from the Church’s side is apparent in John’s Gospel where the Jews’ incomprehension of Jesus is attributed to Satan: ‘You cannot bear to hear my word, you are of your father the devil’ (: –). The charge becomes mutual (: –). Church– Synagogue relations at Ephesus were bad. Nevertheless Paul understood himself called to be apostle to the Gentile world, of which the capital city was Rome. If Jerusalem was a focus for the tradition of Jewish Christians, might not Rome be the focus for Gentile believers? The apostle’s letter to the Roman Christians presupposes that the Church there had its roots in the conversion of a liberal synagogue, which nevertheless needed reassurance that the Pauline gospel did not mean a break with the Old Testament prophets. Gentile Christianity is presented as a parenthetic protestant movement to recall a universal catholic Judaism to its true vocation in recognizing Jesus the Messiah. Finally ‘all Israel will be saved’. Not for nothing were they entrusted with the oracles of God. While, since the apostolic council (Acts ), Jewish Christians had in principle granted generous recognition to Gentile believers, Gentile Christians increasingly failed to return the compliment. Justin Martyr regretted this awkward fact. Once the Gentile believers regarded themselves as more authentic than their Jewish brothers and sisters, it would be no great step to regarding the capital of the Gentile world as the hub of the entire Christian world, not merely of the western half. This tendency would be taken further once the Christians of Rome and their bishops became Latin-speaking during the third century, having been Greek-speaking previously. So to Pope Leo I in the mid-fifth century Peter and Paul were the founders of a Christian city, replacing those unsatisfactory characters Romulus and Remus. Paul and Rome In the letter to the Roman church (. ) Paul announces his further travel plan, asking the church to speed him on his way to further missionary work in Spain if he is able to reach Rome as he hopes. His aspiration is therefore to take the gospel from the eastern end of the Mediterranean to the furthest West. There is also a reassurance to the Roman community that his stay with them will therefore only be brief. The latent implication is that they may feel a touch of alarm at the arrival of so controversial a figure, but he will minimize embarrassment. The surviving letters of Paul reveal nothing of the way in which he eventually reached Rome. But the last chapters of Acts show that he was taken to Rome under arrest effected at Jerusalem and that before the governor at Caesarea he appealed to the emperor, in consequence of which the governor had no option but to send him under guard, an action which happily
Philo and Paul
eliminated a difficulty for the governor. The journey turned out to be hazardous. A succession of divinely inspired situations made it possible for Paul to circumvent all obstacles finally to arrive at the capital, conducted there by Christians from Puteoli (Pozzuoli by Naples), and that in the great city he was allowed to preach the gospel initially without restriction. In Acts a major Mediterranean storm and shipwreck on the shores of Malta are vividly described, underlining the author’s judgement that nothing could have been less probable than the apostle’s arrival in Rome. When land had nearly been reached, only the centurion’s authority stopped the soldiers from killing their prisoners. When amazingly they all got safely to land, there was a snake to bite Paul. He survived. For the author of Acts the preaching of the apostle of the Gentiles in the capital of the Gentile world was a providential fact. Christ in creation The calling to be apostle to the Gentiles led Paul to recast the primitive apocalyptic hope of many early Christians, which he himself initially shared (as Thessalonians shows). He reinterpreted the Christ who is the coming end and ultimate judge of the world to be the wisdom of God in the creation. He was thereby preparing the way for the incorporation of the Logos theology of the Hellenistic synagogue, exemplified in the writings of Philo. The doctrine of the last things was modified so that in Corinthians Christ and the Church are identified: the Church is his body, and therefore the last times are already being realized in the life of the community of the Spirit. This realized eschatology extends a line already present in the gospels, where Jesus is the strong man who has bound Satan. Debate about Paul The reception of Paul by the Church in the century after his time was cautious and hesitant. Jewish Christian communities could think with pride of his missionary achievements, but felt qualms about his more radical positions. Marcion in the s was to take some of Paul’s arguments to an extreme conclusion and declared the Old Testament to be the unrelenting law of justice, contrasted with the loving Father first declared to the world in Jesus Christ. The orthodox ‘centre’ rejected Marcion and refused to jettison the Hebrew Bible used in the Septuagint version. After all, Paul had helped them to see how it should be given an exclusively Christian meaning: the Church had now expropriated it. Moreover, the affirmation that the Creator and Father to whom Jesus taught believers to pray is one God became critical in the conflict with gnostic dualism.
Interpreting Scripture
But Paul’s low estimate of the very principle of law as an ethical code was to require modification if it was not to be dangerous. The early Gentile churches were beset by too much antinomianism to be comfortable with a subjectivism which left moral judgement entirely to the individual conscience. The suggestion that one could safely eat meat offered to idols as long as no one’s conscience was offended thereby ( Corinthians ) seemed to churches of the second and third century very startling. A distinction was therefore made, that Jesus Christ had abrogated the universal validity of the ceremonial law; what remained fully valid for all believers, Jewish or Gentile, was the Decalogue, with the single exception of the sabbath, which was classified with those particularist Jewish observances not now binding on Gentile believers. Paul himself had done something to prepare the ground for this distinction by pointing out, with evident force, that the Ten Commandments were simply expressions of love to God and one’s neighbour. Moreover, as if in a kind of anticipatory reply to the direct criticism of his doctrine of justification by faith in the epistle ‘to the twelve tribes of the Dispersion’ composed in the name of James, Paul himself declared to the Corinthians that without love faith is valueless before God. The Pauline letters, gathered into a corpus by an unknown disciple and admirer, remained a source of trouble. Gnostics could find many sentences in them to support their dualism and predestinarianism. One Christian writer early in the second century, invoking the mantle of St Peter for his pronouncements and warnings and certainly familiar with St Matthew’s gospel, admonished his readers to beware of those who were twisting Paul’s writings in the interest of dangerous causes. He had to concede that the letters contained many things hard to understand, but he was firm for Paul’s authority ( Pet. : ). In the third century Origen would take Paul’s ironic sentence in Cor. : ‘although I may be uneducated in words, yet I am not so in knowledge’, and see in this an explanation of infelicitous language exploited by heretics. There was a problem when the texts to which deviationists particularly appealed were those held up as normative for the community. The letters of Ignatius of Antioch early in the second century do not cite texts to settle disputes, though he evidently knew some of the apostolic epistles and may have taken them as a model for his own.
APOSTLES AND EVANGELISTS
The gospels Only a minority in ancient society were capable of reading. The Church had to appoint Readers, to whom the congregation listened. Books other than the Hebrew Bible or its Septuagint version played a negligible part in the initial propagation of the faith that Jesus is the Christ. Probably after the fall of Jerusalem, which was a profound shock to the Church as well as appalling for the Synagogue, perhaps at about the time when letters of Paul were being collected to provide a point of reference, hitherto oral traditions transmitting the teaching and actions of Jesus were being put in writing and gathered. ‘Gospel’ meant first the message. In consequence of Mark’s bold originality the word was to become the theme-title of a new genre of book, with a narrative charged with impassioned feeling reaching a climax in a long account of the Passion and ending in an extraordinary and numinous story of the empty tomb without any account of the appearances of the risen Lord. Luke’s preface explains that he has drawn on first-hand witnesses, and imposed on the material an order not found in several predecessors who have composed narratives about Jesus. Luke’s ‘order’ is no doubt more theological than merely chronological. His infancy narrative is there to show above all how, from birth, Jesus fulfilled God’s ancient promises to his people. For Matthew Jesus was a new Moses who gives a new Torah for his community of disciples. And that community is the embodiment of ‘the kingdom of God’, a society already distinct from the Synagogue and entitled ‘the Church’. As memory began to become hazy, even though oral proclamation of the gospel would long remain preferable to books, these evangelists provided a kind of permanence in times that were mountingly precarious. They thought of themselves as more than mere reporters. Not only were they providing a support to the remembered tradition, but they were interpreting that for the needs of their own generation. In St John’s gospel the needs of the time had made the theological interpretation of the significance of Jesus so overwhelmingly primary that the historical narrative was there for its symbolic value. This method did not
Apostles and Evangelists
prevent this gospel drawing on the stock of authentic narrative material in the oral tradition, then to be moulded to a higher purpose. Already when the fourth gospel was composed, gnostic ideas were current to the effect that a divine incarnation must be incompatible with a fully real and spontaneously human Jesus. The fourth gospel is startlingly emphatic about the human frailties of the Lord. The gospels of Mark, Matthew, and Luke were also Christological statements, never mere chronicles, and by implication their record of what the man of Nazareth said and did answered those anxious to deny both that Jesus was the Messiah of Old Testament expectation, and that he could have come ‘in the flesh’ (see John . , . , and . ). St John’s gospel ended with the observation (. ) that what could be recorded in books was no more than a small part of the record about Jesus. In the oral tradition there long continued to be many sayings of Jesus (technically called agrapha) which were not included in the gospels which the Church accepted for reading in the lectionary for worship. The dry sands of Egypt have preserved a ‘Gospel of Thomas’ in a Coptic version; a number of the sayings of Jesus in this Gospel occur in Greek in quotations made by ancient Christian writers, some of them in gnostic texts. The ‘Gospel of Thomas’ is remarkable for having no narrative framework, only a sayingscollection. The form and wording of some sayings in this collection have led to the suggestion that its tradition may well include versions of what Jesus said quite as likely to be authentic as material in the canonical gospels. In the nature of things, however, this cannot be other than speculation. Several of the sayings have passed through a gnostic milieu. Not all are of gnostic origin. Luke–Acts The author of the third gospel continued the story of the Church after the appearances of the risen Lord had ceased. He narrated the spreading of the gospel from Jerusalem first to Samaria, then on to Athens the citadel of Greek philosophy, and finally to Rome, capital of the Roman Empire. He saw symbolic significance in these four centres. The story divided into two main sections. In the first the Jerusalem community dominates, under the joint leadership of Peter and James the Lord’s brother; it looks as if there was a harmonious agreement reached between the apostles commissioned by Jesus and the holy family, but while James remained in Jerusalem, Peter the apostle moved about from place to place. In the second half of the book the main figure is Paul the missionary who, in face of the most serious opposition, was enabled to carry the gospel to Rome itself and to preach there ‘without anyone hindering him’. The portrait of the Jerusalem community in the early chapters of the Acts is in some respects idealized, but in detail it can often be supported from information in the letters of Paul. For instance, Paul recalls that when he went
Apostles and Evangelists
to Jerusalem soon after his conversion, the Church there was led by Peter and by James the Lord’s brother (Gal. : –). Paul supports Acts in the portrayal of the Jerusalem community as the authoritative leader. Later that was where he had to go to submit to the principal apostles the terms of the gospel he was preaching among the Gentiles; and had the ‘pillar’ apostles not given him the right hand of fellowship, then his labours would have been in vain. The portrait of James the Lord’s brother in Acts is that of a Torahobserving Jew convinced that Jesus is Messiah and broadly sympathizing with those believing Pharisees who thought Gentile converts obliged to keep the Mosaic law, including circumcision. That portrait is in line with the epistle to the Galatians (: –). The second-century Christian writer Hegesippus relates that James was held in high respect by Jews in Jerusalem for his holiness and austerity of life, marked by daily intercessions for Israel at prayers in the Temple, but so influential in his advocacy of the recognition of Jesus as Messiah that a riot was provoked in which he was stoned to death. His authoritative position in the Church is confirmed by Paul’s catalogue of the Lord’s resurrection appearances ( Cor. : ) where an appearance to James is integral to the tradition. In the second half of Acts the story has moved out of Judaea into the wider world of the eastern half of the Roman Empire. Again in detail, Acts turns out to be astonishingly accurate, e.g. taking trouble to give the correct titles to city officials, and perhaps the historian of the Roman Empire has no other source which gives so vivid a picture of life in the provinces at this period. The value of Acts is therefore not to be disparaged. The author had a thesis to present. He saw the hand of providence in the extension of the Church from its cradle in Jerusalem to the great world of Rome. A surprising point in the account of Paul is that the text of Acts betrays no knowledge of any letters written by the apostle. That suggests that the author did not write later than the eighties of the first century. He could have been writing in the late sixties. The Pauline Corpus had not come his way. Anti-Pauline feelings current in the Church at Jerusalem were no doubt an oblique target in the work. Among Jewish Christian communities such feelings continue to be attested well into the second century. The second chapter of the Acts recounts the founding of the Church on the day of Pentecost with the astonished realization that this outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the apostles is destined to reach all peoples. A long catalogue is given of different provinces of the empire (possibly based on some astrological list), all of whose representatives hear in their own tongues the wonderful works of God (Acts : –). Apparently Luke transmuted the eschatological expectation of the return of the glorified risen Lord into a hope of the extension of God’s kingdom to the entire inhabited world. ‘Jesus preached the kingdom of God, and what arrived was the Church’
Apostles and Evangelists
(Loisy’s famous dictum succinctly expressed Luke’s intention). For the achievement of this high purpose the apostolic capture of the empire’s capital in Italy would be seen as a crucial preparation. By a series of events in which human volition played no part the apostle to the Gentile world ended in the Gentile capital. Jewish Christians looked to Jerusalem and to the holy family of which ‘James the Lord’s brother’ was the leading figure. Paul’s Gentile converts could look to their metropolis in Italy. Missionaries other than Paul Acts records that Paul was welcomed at the port of Puteoli by Christian believers, so that evidently missionaries had already come to Italy. The community at Rome was not one founded by Paul himself, and his letters (in particular Cor. : – and Rom. : –) betray much sensitivity about the candidly admitted fact that, while God had called him to be apostle of the Gentiles, several Gentile churches had been founded by the labours of other unnamed missionaries. He hoped to pass on to Spain and to preach there. A generation later the Roman community understood that intention to have been fulfilled. But it was also known that he had returned to Rome, and there during the persecution of Nero (ad ) was executed; his grave was on the road to Ostia. From Cor. : – it is certain that already in the fifties of the first century the Gentile mission was beset by factions. At Corinth some looked to Peter for authority, others to Paul, and a third party to the obscure figure of Apollos—described in Acts (: ) as being a learned Alexandrian Jew ‘mighty in the scriptures’ who taught accurately about Jesus; yet he had been baptized only with the baptism of John the Baptist. This last surprising phrase strongly suggests that there continued in being a society of the Baptist’s disciples which, like the Gentile mission of the followers of Jesus, had now extended its activities into the world of the Jewish Dispersion and was not yet persuaded that Jesus was the Messiah of prophecy. Apollos was soon convinced of the messiahship of Jesus and evidently played an important part as a Christian teacher in Corinth. To look to a founding apostle for the source of authoritative decisions was not easy or quick when apostles were not static or resident. Paul exercised authority more effectively by letter than by personal visits, since his physical presence was less formidable than his pen ( Cor. : ) . His conviction that his calling to be an apostle put him on the same level of authority as the Twelve (whose special position he unhesitatingly acknowledged: Cor. : ) was far from being universally conceded. Peter had the first place in the list of those to whom the risen Lord appeared ( Cor. : ), and in the oral tradition there circulated the story of Peter’s confession at Caesarea Philippi with the first
Apostles and Evangelists
recognition of the Messiah, and of his leading role among the inner circle of disciples. Paul’s emphatic insistence in his first letter to Corinth, that Jesus Christ alone is the one foundation of the Church, on which others, such as Peter, Apollos, and Paul himself, built only superstructures ( Cor. : ), naturally suggests that he was opposing alternative opinions about foundation figures, but allowing diversity otherwise. Paul’s long letter to the Roman community reflects the care with which he felt he had to write to win their confidence. The Church there was certainly familiar with the scriptures of the Old Testament (Rom. : ). It is evident that they wished to hear from Paul a positive statement that God’s purpose included the salvation of the Jews and that the Old Testament indeed contained ‘the oracles of God’. At Rome there could well be a group of Christian Jews for whom Peter ranked higher than Paul in their estimation of apostolic authority. Be that as it may, the community at Rome retained the memory of Peter coming to Rome and suffering martyrdom there, and that Paul too had similarly suffered, perhaps in the gruesome persecution of the Roman Christians under the emperor Nero. The martyrdom of Peter was known to the editors of St John’s gospel (: ). In the year the Roman community erected memorials to Peter and Paul, to Peter in a necropolis on the Vatican hill evidently where (perhaps rightly) he was believed to be buried, to Paul at the site of his grave on the road to Ostia. There about a Roman author named Gaius could rejoice in their monuments of triumph. The church in Jerusalem Successive Jewish revolts against Roman power in –, –, and – profoundly affected the ‘Nazarenes’ of Jerusalem. But after Roman authority had excluded Jews from entering Hadrian’s city of Aelia Capitolina, the Gentile Christian congregation retained a potent awareness of inheriting the most sacred traditions where the gospel had been acted out. In the third century they were claiming to possess the very throne on which St James had sat to preach. Their little meeting place was located in an undamaged part of the old city on the site, they believed, of the upper room where the Spirit had been poured out on the apostles at Pentecost. The traditions of the Jerusalem Christians were regarded elsewhere as authoritative. About – Bishop Melito of Sardis, who presided over a small community juxtaposed with a large and opulent synagogue, found himself in some degree of controversy with the rabbis,1 and visited the 1 Melito’s church, with other communities in Asia Minor, observed the paschal celebration of Christ’s Passion on the date of the Jewish passover on the fourteenth day of the first month after the spring equinox, not necessarily on the Lord’s day, Sunday. That this did not presuppose specially
Apostles and Evangelists
church at Jerusalem to discover the limits of the Old Testament canon. During the baptismal controversy of the year between Carthage and Rome, Firmilian bishop of Cappadocian Caesarea criticized the Romans’ assumption that their traditional liturgical practices were of apostolic origin by remarking that the customs of Jerusalem were different. Origen had particular interest in identifying the sacred site of the gospels, already visited by pilgrims, such as the cave of the Nativity at Bethlehem. It was taken for granted that here was ‘the mother of all churches’. Shrines of the apostles There was not always unanimity about the precise site of apostolic tombs. At Ephesus the Church treasured the memory of St John, the son of Zebedee, who died there in advanced old age. In the third century there were two alternative tombs in the city, perhaps at one time belonging to rival house-churches each claiming to have the authentic grave with the bones of the apostle. At Rome also not everyone seems to have been convinced that the official locations for the two apostolic ‘founder-apostles’ were correct, and a community with a rival site for both apostles buried together had celebrations on the south side of the city at the third milestone on the Appian Way. There funerary meals were consumed to honour the apostles, and devout pilgrims inscribed graffiti with their invocations, e.g. ‘Paul and Peter, pray for Victor.’ This shrine flourished in the middle of the third century, and may have started life in consequence of a vision giving guidance about the site to be venerated. Pilgrims who met on the Appian Way celebrated both Peter and Paul on June. In the fourth century the bishops of Rome were able to reconcile the divergent traditions with a procession on June which began at Constantine’s church of St Peter on the Vatican hill, went on to the church of St Paul erected on the road to Ostia, and finally (at the end of what was an exhausting day) to the shrine for both apostles on the Appian Way. Harmonizing legend related that the Appian Way was the original burial place, and that in time of persecution the relics had been transferred to the separate sites which now had them (below, p. ). In time the visit to the Appian Way was dropped, and the site became associated with the martyr St Sebastian. In the fifth century the visit to St Paul’s was deferred to June, and frequented more by pilgrim visitors to Rome than by citizens of the city. The twenty-ninth of June was a date associated with the legend of Romulus, and probably the celebration implied belief that the apostles, ‘founders’ (as Irenaeus boldly said) of the Roman Church, were friendly relations to the local synagogue is evident from a sermon on the Pasch by Melito preserved among the Chester Beatty and Bodmer papyri, which includes an impassioned denunciation of the people who killed the Messiah. The sermon’s high rhetoric brought translations or adaptations in Latin and Coptic. See the edition by S. G. Hall.
Apostles and Evangelists
guardians of the city. There appeared a minor disagreement whether both apostles were martyred on the same day or on the same date a year apart. For the liturgical calendar that was a matter of indifference. A vacuum in authority Despite the lack of information after the ending of Luke’s apostolic history, something can be deduced from the later writings that came to be included in the New Testament. The generation after the deaths of Peter and Paul felt a bewildering absence of authority, and to be listened to it became necessary to write to the Gentile churches in Paul’s name. At Colossae in the Lycus valley in Asia Minor the Church was being taught a theosophy which worshipped cosmic powers and required rigorous asceticism together with observance of some Jewish ceremonies. A letter was needed to explain the supremacy of Christ over all hostile cosmic forces, and to make it clear that the mortifications required of Christian believers were abstinence from sexual licence, anger, malice, smutty talk, lyings, and not merely physical abstinences and neglect to care for the body. Already in Paul’s lifetime his churches began to have resident officers. Philippi had bishops and deacons, whose duties are unspecified but from the content of Paul’s letter asking for financial support appear to be responsibility for the church chest and distribution to the needy. After the apostle’s death reliable pastors to guide the communities were an urgent necessity. Pastoral letters in Paul’s name to his assistant Timothy and Titus provided for the installation of virtuous and respectable pastors. Late in the second century Clement of Alexandria records dispute about their authenticity (Strom. . . ). Over-ambitious and prominent women were told in these letters not to aspire to pastoral office, as some were evidently doing. God’s purpose for them was fulfilled in having a family ( Tim. : ); they ensured the survival of the community. The letters show concern about the good opinion of Christians among pagan neighbours. Established pastors already existed at the time of writing, since hospitality duties had led some of them to overindulgence in alcohol. The author or editor wrote as if Paul was creating a pastorate, but the letters presuppose that a ministry was already in place and was in need of correction. Tim. : – has the tone of an ordination charge. More serious were deviations from the tradition in both doctrine and ethics. Some deviationist teachers were propagating the opinion that all true Christians have a duty to be ascetic, vegetarian, and abstaining from marriage ( Tim. : –). It is, however, conceded that the Christian is called to live an austere and frugal life like a soldier in the army2 with no wife or comforts 2
Before the third century Roman soldiers were not allowed to marry.
Apostles and Evangelists
( Tim. : –), and that second marriages display a carnal spirit. Gossipy young widows too lively in their search for a second husband are disapproved ( Tim. : –). Rich members of the Church are warned what snares and temptations wealth brings ( Tim. : , ). But among low-income members there are some who neglect to provide for their families and expect the church chest to do it all ( Tim. : ; Cf. Thess. : –; Didache : –). Many dissensions in the Church are merely about words and are futile ( Tim. : ; Tim. : , ; Titus : ). But there are also doctrines invading the communities which are indeed diabolical ( Tim. : ). There are teachers propagating a pretentious ‘knowledge’ or gnosis. The propositions of these teachers are more hinted at than specified in detail. They include the belief that resurrection is not a future experience but ‘past already’, probably meaning that it should be interpreted as an exalted mystical experience in this life (an opinion found in some second-century gnostic texts). The emphasis on Jesus as the one mediator between God and man may be taken to imply that the gnostic teachers knew about other intermediaries who might need to be specially propitiated by hesitant and uncertain souls. The heretics are described as creeping into houses to lead astray foolish women apparently ready to believe almost anything. Evidently it was not their method to confront the assembly as a whole with their doctrines. For the Pastoral Epistles the foundation of all true doctrine lies first in the ancient scriptures of the Old Testament, all of which are to be accepted in the Church as inspired; that is, they are not to be valued selectively and subjectively according to the private judgement of the reader. Secondly, one must also keep undeviating adherence to authentic apostolic tradition both in the content of teaching ( Tim. : , : ; Tim. : ) and in the due succession of pastors appointed by the solemn laying on of hands ( Tim. : ; Tim. : ). An important and surprising text in Tim. : carries the information that churches in the province of Asia (not specified by name) had come to turn away from the tradition of Paul and his doctrine. The reference may be to the flood of gnostic ideas, against which the letter to Colossae and the encyclical to the Ephesian Church constructed a bulwark. Ephesus was the location of one of the apostle’s principal missionary foundations. The Apocalypse of John (: ) and the letters of Ignatius of Antioch record the coming of false teachers to Ephesus, but suggest that resistance had been reasonably successful. The text in Tim. : might, however, be a witness to high tension in the province of Asia between the old believers prizing the Pauline tradition and the more recently imposed Johannine tradition. The Apocalypse of John the seer of Patmos, whose visions saw a heavenly Jerusalem with gates bearing the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb, begins with the letters to the seven churches of Asia. At Ephesus there was a fierce struggle against ‘false apostles’.
Apostles and Evangelists
An immoralist group called Nicolaitans had been successfully rejected. At Pergamum, where the Christians lived under the shadow of the great altar of Zeus, there were contentious moral issues. There were not only Nicolaitans but also teachers declaring that the eating of meat which had been offered in sacrifice to idols was morally a matter of indifference. Their teaching was a fair representation of what the apostle Paul had told the Corinthians in Corinthians , and the Apocalypse may therefore represent polemic against the Pauline view. The same teachers at Pergamum held a similarly indifferentist view of fornication. It is not easy to know whether this is a reference to the same view of sacrificed meat—since fornication is a common Old Testament term for idolatrous worship—or if the Pergamum moralists were content to tolerate the everyday customs whereby young men of student age (like Augustine in fourth-century Carthage) took temporary concubines until ready to marry and produce a family, or whereby converts owning domestic slaves saw no reason why they should not behave as pagan owners did and sleep with girls who were in law their private property (below, pp. , ). The indifference of ‘fornication’ and of eating sacrificed meat was also taught at Thyatira by a woman, called Jezebel by John the seer, who taught with a claim to prophetic inspiration. In the judgement of John the seer her doctrines were ‘the deep things of Satan’, no doubt because she believed them to be ‘the deep things of God’ of which the apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians ( Cor. : ). Or was her doctrine that for the most advanced believers it was valuable experience to plumb the very depths of evil, so that divine mercy would visibly abound and the limitless reaches of divine forgiveness would be demonstrated? At Laodicea a lukewarm complacent spirit had resulted from economic prosperity, probably from the adherence of well-to-do converts able to give generous support to the Church chest and so to provide good love-feasts for the poor members. Prosperity had eroded their spiritual zeal. A cross-section of society Writing to the Corinthians, Paul encountered converts who possessed sufficient education and enough of this world’s goods to feel less than completely comfortable in a society which included ‘not many wise, not many powerful people, not many of noble birth’ ( Cor. : ).3 He told them they must learn to appreciate the divine humility of the Crucifixion—the crucified Messiah so different from what the Jews expected and alien to clever Greeks whose principal love was for a well-turned argument expressed in effective 3 I have not felt able to follow J. J. Meggitt’s view in his learned Paul, Poverty and Survival (Edinburgh, ) that ‘not many’ means ‘none’.
Apostles and Evangelists
rhetoric. The passage presupposes that the Corinthian converts included at least some who were persons of substance and education. Pagan critics like Celsus in the second century displayed an aristocratic scorn of the Church as the refuge of slaves, women, and the ignorant. Origen would reply to this sneer that in his observation the make-up of the Christian community corresponded to that of a cross-section of society at large; the Church had the same proportion of poor people that the empire as a whole had. The presence of the poor and deprived in the Church was in part a consequence of the welfare services provided from the offerings made to the church chest by converts who had the resources to contribute. The early generations of converts did not define themselves in terms of social class, and there are in any event objections of principle to the application of social theories derived from modern historical situations to ancient society on the assumption that the facts have to conform to the modern theories. It is always a prior question whether the facts can be so ascertained as to invite that kind of theory to explain them. The Christians are not easily explicable as the product of existing and discernible tensions in the framework of contemporary society. Their ethical commitment led them to create an alternative society which, to the surprise of contemporary observers, was capable of including people of diverse classes, different educational attainments, various ethnic origins, and both sexes. In consequence preachers and teachers are found operating at two levels in their language, which the simple took literally and the educated understood more symbolically. Christians as a third race Once the Gentile mission had separated the infant churches from the Jewish synagogues, Gentile society was puzzled and angered. Religious toleration was justified by ancient tribal custom. The second-century critic Celsus did not admire Jewish religious customs, but they were at least venerable tradition. Sceptical philosophers had long deployed argument and mockery against the myths of the gods and their temples, but atheists were few and normally reticent. Christian disbelief in the old gods, hissing disapproval as they passed a temple, aroused anger and brought persecution. Persecution, however, brought publicity and increased converts. To officials it was baffling that the Christians were not a single tribe in one locality, and had no peculiar customs or language. ‘To people whose true citizenship is in heaven, everywhere they dwell is a foreign land’ (Epistle to Diognetus ). Neither Jews nor pagans, they were ‘a third race’.
WOMEN AMONG JESUS’ FOLLOWERS 1
The Gospels record that among the disciples of Jesus women were a constant element, though none of the twelve apostles was female. The same presence of women appears in the Acts and in the personal greetings appended to Pauline letters. Rom. : mentions with Andronicus a woman named Junias, ‘distinguished among the apostles’. Women could be inspired prophets with charismatic gifts, like the daughters of Philip (Acts : ). At Corinth they spoke with tongues as much as any ( Cor. : ). The injunction that ‘women should keep silence in the assembly’ ( Cor. : ) suggests that some Corinthian women had become a noisy presence which needed checking. A sharper suppression seemed necessary to the author of Tim. : –, for whom the role of women was to be quiet, to stay at home, and not to teach church members with official authority. Widows as a class were vulnerable in ancient society, and special charitable action was needed to protect them, Tim. : – shows that some widows were too merry for social comfort, while others were the heart and soul of the praying community. Ignatius (Sm. . ) has a surprising greeting to ‘the virgins who are called widows’. So there were groups of ascetic widows who included unmarried ladies in their society. Tertullian regarded an excessively prominent and public role for women as a characteristic of heretical communities, where they were found to teach, exorcize, promise healings, and ‘perhaps even give baptism’ (Praescr. haer. . ). In the romance of Paul and Thecla, Thecla baptizes herself, which for Tertullian was an additional ground for disparaging the story. His shift towards Montanist sympathies no doubt altered this perspective. Admission to the order of widows was the kind of act for which the local bishop would be invited to bless and perhaps to lay on hands. Hippolytus’ Apostolic Tradition () insists that this was an appointment but not an ordination to liturgical functions. In Syria feminine society was withdrawn. From Syria come the first certain prescriptions for an order of deaconesses 1 Scholarly treatments are Anne Jensen, Gottes selbstbewußte Töchter (Freiburg i. B., ) = God’s Self-Confident Daughters (Kampen, ), and Ute E. Eisen, Amtsträgerinnen im frühen Christentum (Göttingen, ).
Women among Jesus’ Followers
appointed to assist the bishop, especially at catechism and baptism. They were also important in visiting sick women in the congregation. At first they bore the simple title ‘deacon’; the feminine ‘deaconess’ (diakónissa) is a later form. During the third century there were churches where the women deacons evidently had had some part to play in the liturgy, since in the Council of Nicaea had to rule that they are to be ranked with the laity. The need for such a canon implies that some churches held the opposite view. In ancient society women who wrote books were rare, and in the Christian community almost all the surviving records were written by men. The most influential women in the life of the ancient Church were to be the ascetics, especially if they were heads of their communities, and also highborn ladies with financial resources. The latter largely contributed to the church chest and therefore to the welfare for the poor and indigent. Among the poor, widows were a fairly high proportion. At the time of the great persecution of Diocletian the state authorities visited the church at Cirta in north Africa and demanded to investigate their property. The church library had already been removed for safety, but the officials were able to remove eight chalices, two being of gold, six of silver, numerous torches, and candles. There was a refectory with casks and vessels. In addition there was a large collection of shoes and clothing, eighty-two dresses for women and thirty-eight cloaks, all of which were evidently provided by the well-to-do members of the congregation to keep the poor warm during the cold north African winters. The pagan Platonist Porphyry once sneered at the powerful role played by rich women in the choice of bishops. There could be occasions when a bishop was chosen and consecrated against the wishes of a wealthy lady. This happened at Carthage in with a resulting schism led by a lady named Lucilla. She had once been insulted (as she felt) by the bishop when he was archdeacon; she waved the bone of her favourite martyr during the commemoration of the saints at the eucharist in rebuke to the Church for failing to recognize either its authenticity or the sanctity of the martyr. The archdeacon thought this brawling in church and rebuked her; she went off in a huff (irata discessit). Schism resulted (Optatus . ). In ancient society women did not play a public role with high visibility. At the eastern end of the Mediterranean upper class women wore a veil, ancestor of the yashmak, when appearing in public. In Augustine’s time in north Africa we have the earliest evidence for the custom observed in the Arab world today, by which a husband walks in front as protector, the wife a few yards behind with children and baggage. Augustine recommended that Christian couples should walk side by side (De bono coniugali ). The most widely practised form of population control in antiquity was the exposure of infants. Women, especially groups of ascetic women, played a
Women among Jesus’ Followers
notable role in gathering up foundlings. It has to be admitted that no evidence survives of the subsequent fortunes of the children they rescued, which in some cases may well have been wretched. Married women often had serious problems with their husbands, and would then confide in their bishop to beg advice. Difficulty could arise if the women came in such distress that the bishop or presbyter comforting her became the object of an emotional attachment. A childless woman might turn to a holy man to ask his intercessions that God would grant her a child. When her prayers were answered, malicious whispers could suggest that the saint had contributed more than his prayers.
‘BARNABAS’, JEWISH CHRISTIANITY, TROUBLE AT CORINTH
Luke ended the Acts by delivering Paul to Rome, but then a curtain descends. A long time passed before another well-informed Christian realized that there was an important story to tell, and that a connected narrative of the Church’s development would contribute to self-understanding. Nevertheless, sources exist from which deductions can be made about principal features of Church life and the problems besetting the early communities. ‘Barnabas’ Debate between Church and Synagogue long continued. A letter in the name of Barnabas, one-time missionary colleague of Paul, set out to deter believers from thinking the Mosaic law obligatory for believers in Jesus, or that observant Jews and Christians shared a common covenant. At the same time the author of the letter was aware of the risks of antinomianism. The letter ended by adapting a Jewish catechism, The Two Ways, a copy of which was known at Qumran in Cave (Q).1 ‘Barnabas’ warns against sodomy, abortion, malicious gossip, avarice, loquacity, going to pray with unconfessed sin on the conscience. ‘Barnabas’ takes to extreme lengths the thesis that Christians have an exclusive proprietary right to the Old Testament. The observant Jews of the Synagogue, he contends, are singularly unintelligent to suppose that Moses could have intended his laws literally. A command not to eat pigmeat means a warning to avoid human beings resembling pigs in behaviour. The circumcision intended by the Law is that of the heart; and the fact that it is also practised among Arabs, Syrians, and Egyptians proves that there is no divine command uniquely for all the people of God in the physical ceremony. Abraham, to whom the rite was first prescribed, was really looking forward to Jesus, for he had servants and the Greek for is SIG, shorthand for the cross of Jesus (IG being already a scribal abbreviation for IGCOTC). Entry to the true promised land of milk and honey is by baptism. The 1
Discoveries in the Judaean Desert, xxii (Oxford, ), .
‘Barnabas’, Jewish Christianity
atoning death of Jesus is foreshadowed in the Levitical scapegoat, in Moses’ outstretched arms bringing victory, and in the graven serpent. The true sabbath is the final rest in heaven, the seventh age that follows the six thousand years of this world; for a day with the Lord is a thousand years (). Here ‘Barnabas’ recycles matter from the book of Jubilees and Jewish millenarianism. ‘Barnabas’ knew of Jews in the Synagogue who, probably from meditating on Daniel , were dreaming of an early rebuilding of the Temple at Jerusalem with support from the Romans themselves (: ), as in fact would be proposed under the emperor Julian in . Evidently the letter of ‘Barnabas’ was written well before the revolt of Bar Cocheba, and probably before the revolt of . Barnabas’ letter was in the lectionary at Alexandria during the second and third centuries, and was treated as canonical. Jewish Christians A wholly different estimate of the Old Testament continued among the Jewish believers. For them the catastrophic failures of Zealot rebellion against Rome were no less disastrous than for other Jews. They too were excluded from Hadrian’s city of Aelia Capitolina, and communities of Christian Jews became scattered in the towns of Syria. Only a diminishing handful of Gentile Christians took interest in their fate. In Gentile Christian eyes they were an oddity: they believed in Jesus the Christ but saw no reason to abandon those historic Mosaic customs which imparted distinctiveness to Jewish people. Their self-designation, almost certainly taken over from that of the original church of Jerusalem in the time of James and attested in Paul’s letters (above, p. ), was ‘the Poor’ (Ebionim). Others called them ‘Nazarenes’, a term that had at one time been in general use to describe all Christians and in Arabic remained so. Important information about these Christians comes from Justin Martyr in the middle of the second century. Justin was much concerned with the dialogue between Church and Synagogue; having been born of Gentile parents at Nablus (Neapolis) in Samaria, he had a background to encourage interest in Jewish Christians. Between the Jewish and the Gentile believers of his time, he was unaware of doctrinal differences; but he knew that Christian Jews were distinctive in their practices, keeping circumcision, sabbath, dietary rules, and Jewish festivals as Gentiles did not. With candid regret Justin recorded that among Gentile churches the Christian Jews were widely regarded as sectarian on the ground of their practices, not their beliefs, and therefore were to be rejected as self-excluded from the universal Church. Justin thought this Gentile judgement mistaken and deficient in charity (Dialogue –). Presumably, however, there were at least some vocal members of these Jewish communities who thought that
‘Barnabas’, Jewish Christianity
non-observance of the Mosaic Law marked an inferior, second-class species of Christian, and thereby challenged the entire notion of one universal covenant of salvation as taught by the apostle Paul. The Christian Jews were credited, in part correctly, with holding sharply critical attitudes to Paul. They wanted to claim the authority of Peter for a doctrine of the Church more tolerant towards diversity of national customs. A century earlier the Christian Jews had been called to sit in judgement on the new Gentile converts and to decide on what terms these distant adherents could be admitted to be citizens in the commonwealth of God. A hundred years later they found themselves facing a future in which they would become a marginalized minority, under anathema at the synagogue of their fellow Jews, and by the Gentile Christians no longer seen to be linear descendants of the destroyed Jerusalem community but regarded as bizarre deviationists, half compromising with the Synagogue and making themselves sectarian by being behind the times. Origen reports that the ‘Ebionites’ or Jewish Christians were united in their rejection of canonical status for Paul and his letters, but were divided on the question of the virginal conception of Jesus, which some of them denied while others affirmed. The group which accepted the virginal conception did not, according to Eusebius of Caesarea, go on to affirm the pre-existence of the divine Son. However, Jerome, whose wanderings in Syria had brought him into direct contact with Jewish Christian communities, was in no hesitation or doubt that they were orthodox in all doctrinal respects, and did not deny the virginal conception. The agreement between Justin and Jerome weighs more in the scales than the diverse opinions of the anti-heretical writers dependent on Irenaeus. Jerome and Justin disagreed with each other on one issue: their observance of the Mosaic law led Jerome to deny that they were authentic Christians, but Justin thought that they were indeed true believers. ‘The Preaching of Peter’ Echoes of Jewish-Christian opinions can be heard in an early secondcentury piece entitled ‘The Preaching of Peter’, an imaginative work incorporating some speculative theology, and attacking Pauline ideas about the Mosaic Law by attributing them to the heretic Simon Magus (Acts : –). In particular it must be a gross error to see the destruction of the Temple as God’s sign that the Mosaic Law should no longer be kept. On the other hand, the Synagogue was at fault in allowing the worship of angels and in such veneration for the moon as to allow all festivals to be determined by a lunar calendar. That the religion of the ‘Greeks’ (‘Hellenes’ in Christian usage was already becoming the term for ‘pagans’) must be rejected is evident; they
Trouble at Corinth
worship merely stocks and stones. The error of the adherents of Judaism is to suppose that the Synagogue has a monopoly of the knowledge of God. The author also needed to include polemic against followers of John the Baptist, and proposed to see providence as creating things and people in pairs, with the better regularly succeeding the inferior, as Abel to Cain, or Jesus to John the Baptist. (This notion of pairs was to be attractive to the semi-gnostic school of Valentinus.) Trouble at Corinth While adventurous speculations were capturing the imagination of eastern Christians, the West was facing an awkward problem of order. The earliest churches were not identifiable public buildings, but private houses owned by wealthy Christians who could accommodate a congregation. A substantial city would include more than one house-church, and there was always the possibility of centrifugal forces making different congregations travel along different paths unless they could be held together by loyalty to one presiding presbyter-bishop. During the later years of the first century (a precise date is hard to determine but perhaps three decades after Paul’s martyrdom), the Christians at Corinth by a majority decision ejected the presbyter-bishops in post and installed pastors perhaps endowed with more exciting charismatic gifts. The ejected pastors, however, retained a small following and sought to bolster their weak position by inviting the support of other churches nearby, including above all the much larger community at Rome not more than two weeks’ travel distant. Unhappily the contentious split became widely known in the city, and pagans found the whole affair a rich laughing matter. For other churches in the province of Achaea it was no joke. Corinth was a major port through which many passed on their way to Asia Minor or the Black Sea if they were to avoid the long often stormy sail round the Peloponnese. Visiting Christians found themselves seriously embarrassed, perhaps even subjected to rough handling with the danger of provoking suppression by the civic authorities, if they accepted hospitality from what was deemed to be the wrong faction or if they attended a Sunday eucharist celebrated by the wrong lot of pastors. In consequence the past reputation of the Corinthian church for generous hospitality to travelling Christians was severely impaired. The community at Rome took time to react to the Corinthian cry for help. They were being subjected to unpleasant attentions from the Roman government with ‘sudden and repeated disasters and misfortunes’. They had a strong consciousness of being a martyr Church since the day when, perhaps under Nero, their women had been dressed up as daughters of Danaus to be prizes for winners in an athletic contest or as Dirke who suffered a horrible
Trouble at Corinth
death by being attached to a bull. Nero liked tragicomic mythological pantomimes. But Roman custom particularly enjoyed dressing up prisoners in finery as preface to hellish humiliations and death. Of this the best-known instance is the soldiers’ mockery of Jesus, dressing him in a purple robe with a crown of thorns imitating the radiate crown of divine rulers.2 Plutarch describes how criminals were dressed in purple and gold wearing crowns and forced to dance, then being suddenly stripped, flogged, and incinerated.3 Tertullian records how criminals condemned to fight beasts in the amphitheatre were often garbed as mythological figures, then castrated like Attis or burnt alive on a pyre like Hercules.4 There was no sparing of women unless pregnant. A woman tied to a bull might suffer the smearing of her genitals with the secretions of a cow in season; Martial had seen a woman cast in the role of Pasiphae mated with a bull.5 It is hard to imagine a Roman mob being much entertained by women appearing as Danaus’ daughters who in myth murdered their bridegrooms and were condemned to endless pouring of water into bottomless buckets, but no doubt the Romans readily devised other more spectacularly brutal horrors for them to perform as prelude to their killing. Because of these distractions the Roman church apologized for being late in sending a letter of regret and exhortation, written in high rhetorical style and persuasive remonstrance. They did not apologize for intervening. The delay enabled them to be sure of their facts. The central theme of the Roman letter is the need for proper order in the Church of God. In the wonders of creation God has established order, in the heavenly bodies, in the limits kept by the ocean, in the singular providence (of which Virgil wrote) that winds only blow one at a time—what chaos would result if they were all to blow simultaneously! Even in the smallest things the harmony and design of nature is visible, and all this demonstrates the transcendent will of the Creator on which everything is dependent and to which it is obedient. To this transcendent God the Corinthians must one day answer for their actions. Dissension in his Church is offensive, and those who cause it must plead with tears that their Judge will be propitious. The end will certainly come, and no one should suppose that because the end is delayed, it is never going to happen. There is no justification for doubt about the resurrection at the last day, for Christ has risen, the first-fruits of those who have fallen H. St. J. Hart in JTS, ns (), –. De sera numinis vindicta . b. Cf. Ammianus Marcellinus .., on ‘nobles in silk robes as if led to execution.’ 4 Apol. . –. 5 Liber spectaculorum . , written to honour the emperor Titus in ad for the celebration of the recently completed Colosseum. Martial implies that this particular form of ferocity was unusual, and it is obviously conceivable that his epigram refers to the same occasion as the first epistle of Clement. Discussion by K. M. Coleman in Journal of Roman Studies, (), –. 2 3
Trouble at Corinth
asleep. Moreover, it is analogous to the sequence in the natural order where night follows day, crops follow sowing the seed, and, in the animal order, that unique bird the phoenix dies so that its offspring may be engendered from its rotting corpse. There is also the motive of self-respect. The Corinthians need to know themselves and their high calling as God’s elect, not presuming on the grace given at their baptism but strenuously seeking what is right. In zeal and unity they should imitate the vast angelic chorus who, although numbering ten thousand times ten thousand, nevertheless chant in absolute unison: ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Sabaoth, the whole creation is full of his glory.’ There are more earthly analogies. In the Roman army everything is ordered with military precision, each officer in his rank and the common soldiers obeying orders. An officerless army would be as useless as an officercorps with no troops to command. In the human body, the head and feet are mutually necessary. (Both analogies implicitly stress obedience.) The need for humility comes from the recognition of human frailty and mortality, familiar to old Job. At this point the argument of the letter suddenly becomes less general and more specific. In the Mosaic law precise directions are given for rites and ceremonies. There is a clear hierarchy of high priest, priest, and Levite, and the duty of laity is precisely laid down. Moreover, the place of sacrifices is given; they must be at Jerusalem, not anywhere and everywhere, and even at Jerusalem only on the Temple mount. Only authorized priests may offer, and their duties require some training and expert knowledge. The ancient penalty for breaking the rules was death. How much more careful must we Christians be! The argument, with its echo of the epistle to the Hebrews (: ), does not presuppose that the Old Testament legislates for the Church (though that view was encountered by Ignatius of Antioch at Philadelphia), but rather that it provides a divinely given typological correspondence. The point is the precise care with which the ministry of the people of God needs to be handled. The title of ‘bishop’ had sadly become a matter of dispute—perhaps not merely at Corinth ( Clement : ). Possibly there was already a degree of tension whether a minister with the title of ‘bishop’ had wider powers and responsibilities than those entitled ‘presbyter’. Tactfully there is no suggestion of ‘high priest’. Old Testament precedent is not taken beyond the requirement of discipline. The worship of the Church requires decency and respect for order, and the ministers are in their pastoral office because they have received an apostolic commission. God sent Christ who sent the apostles who appointed their first converts, after testing, to be bishops and deacons of believers, thereby fulfilling the prophecy adapted from Isa. : , ‘I will appoint their bishops in
Trouble at Corinth
righteousness and their deacons in faith.’ Furthermore, the apostles had foresight of the situation which has now arisen, just as Moses had in Numbers when the budding of Aaron’s rod vindicated the priestly tribe and disorder was quelled. Foreseeing trouble, the apostles provided for a proper succession of ministers; that is, they not only provided the first bishops and deacons but directed that, when those first appointed died, ‘other tested men should succeed to their service (leitourgia)’. The hammer-blow of the conclusion follows: ‘Ministers appointed by the apostles or subsequently by others of due standing with the consent of the entire congregation, who have faultlessly ministered to Christ’s flock in humility of mind, in peace, and with all modesty, and who have long been well spoken of by all—these men we consider wrongly ejected from their ministerial service.’ They ‘blamelessly offered the gifts’.6 At Corinth near the end of the first century the controversy turns, therefore, on the permanent tenure of pastors standing at one remove from the apostles. Ministers appointed by apostles enjoyed tenure. But was it not an ‘innovation’ if the same status was granted to those whom these ministers appointed? They had not had apostles to pray and lay hands on them in blessing, and an essential part in their ordination had been the assent of the people. Luke is the earliest writer to imply some assimilation of episcopal oversight to the office of apostle (Acts : ). But evidently there could be a question whether a bishop or presbyter-bishop in the post-apostolic generation enjoyed the degree of dominical commission that the Twelve had received. The Corinthians evidently supposed that if their ministers were appointed by the assent of the people, the congregation was empowered to remove them from office and to replace them by others. In the judgement of their sister church at Rome that was an error. The people gave assent, but the commission to minister was received from those who had themselves received such a commission—that being derived from the commission transmitted in the community continuous with the apostles. The Roman letter does not identify by name or office the ‘men of due standing’ to whom the ejected ministers owed their pastoral commission, but the likelihood is that they were leading ministers from neighbouring cities whose presence assured the community of their membership in the universal body and therefore of the universality of recognition enjoyed by their ministers. The Roman letter does not first assert or first establish succession at Corinth. Continuity of ministry is taken for granted as common ground in the debate. It is simply assumed that while apostolic authority was unique to 6 Clement . Two possible corruptions in the transmitted text occur, but the general sense or intention of the passage is not affected.
Trouble at Corinth
those commissioned by Jesus, the apostles in turn realized that the world was not ending and the community would need pastors after they were gone. These pastors would do for the Church in their time much, if not all, of what the apostles had done for the first generation of believers. The assumption of continuity was natural. The ancient world thought of authority in office, e.g. in that of head of a philosophical school, as assured by due succession. This function of ministers has to be in the one Church where unity is of its very being and those who cause splits have forsaken something at the heart of the apostolic tradition. Therefore the Roman Church asks the newly installed clergy at Corinth humbly to stand down; they can move to another city, for ‘any place would be happy to receive them’. Of selfless withdrawal there were examples in Moses, Judith, and Esther, in Roman Christians who lately sold themselves into slavery to raise the money to ransom fellowbelievers, and in kings who accepted voluntary exile for the good of their people, or some willing to die to avert pestilence. It emerges, however, that the sedition at Corinth has been led by the new ministers. They are urged to be penitents for whom the entire Church will intercede as they meekly kneel before the presbyters they wrongly supplanted. It is better to be in lay status within the Church’s communion than to be a presbyter and excommunicate. (It is presupposed that if an ordained minister has so sinned as to become a formal penitent, he can be restored only to lay status, not to his pastoral office). The peroration of the Roman letter moves to an impressive conclusion by invoking the authority of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit for the advice given to the Corinthians, and then imparts an intense solemnity to the whole document by a form of liturgical prayer. The prayer intercedes for the sick and needy and for ‘our prisoners’, prayers for peace and concord in both the Church and the world, and emphatically asks for wisdom to be given to the empire’s rulers, much as a synagogue of the Jewish Dispersion would pray. The letter assumes throughout that the Corinthian community is responsible for making the decision which in Roman eyes is necessary. The Corinthians are not receiving commands. But the Roman Christians will be delighted if they ‘submit obediently to the letter written by us in the Holy Spirit’. A recurrent refrain is that the Romans are doing no more than remind the Corinthians of what they already know, of truths they have for the moment forgotten. The Romans’ earnest prayer is that the Corinthians will ‘submit not to us but to God’s will’. But they will put their souls in danger if they are disobedient ‘to the words spoken by Christ through us’. The letter to Corinth was composed in the name of the Roman Church, not of a named author. But second-century evidence names the author Clement. The early episcopal lists of bishops of Rome name Clement as
Trouble at Corinth
third or sometimes fourth bishop at about the end of the first century. There is no good reason to question this attribution of the letter. He was evidently in a leading position among the senior clergy of Rome; but there is no evidence that at this date there was one presbyter-bishop exercising monarchical authority in the city. Probably there were several ‘house-churches’ each with its presbyter in charge, and among these perhaps Clement had a position of seniority. In the Roman document the Shepherd of Hermas, Clement is mentioned as the person responsible for correspondence with other churches. Clement, therefore, did not write with an awareness that he possessed a primacy by virtue of his office as presiding bishop and successor in jurisdiction to Peter and Paul. The letter was an admonition from one community to another in the universal Church, fulfilling a duty arising from the universality in which sister churches share. Clement wrote the letter in good Greek with occasional reminiscences of Sophocles and Euripides. His panegyric on the heroism of the apostle Paul has echoes of the language used by Stoics about the courage of Heracles, enduring vast labours, exile, and death to earn immortal glory and to bring beneficent teaching as far as the pillars of Heracles (Straits of Gibraltar) at the boundary of the west. His exhortations to the intruded presbyters to accept voluntary withdrawal are similarly rich with ethical clichés found also in Seneca and Epictetus. In short, the author of the letter was well educated as well as being familiar with the Old Testament, and his writing presupposes that at Corinth also the recipients of the letter would appreciate the kind of arguments he uses. Of Christian writings, Clement knew not only the epistle to the Hebrews but most of the Pauline corpus, probably Acts, Peter, and James, and some of the traditions about Jesus which passed into the synoptic gospels. He shows no sign of knowing any of the Johannine writings. But sayings of Jesus rank on a par with citations from the Old Testament (: ). The writings of apostles have not yet achieved that exalted status. His biblical quotations are often from memory and inexact, but otherwise he quotes a recension of the Septuagint adjusted to be closer to the Hebrew. He was sure that the ancient scriptures were about Jesus. Rahab’s scarlet thread ( Josh. : ) is a type of the redeeming blood of Christ as well as a reminder of the duty of hospitality. The significance of the death of Christ is shown by a full quotation of the rd chapter of the prophet Isaiah. The Corinthians followed Roman advice; they used to read Clement’s letter in their lectionary, and since the letter was a statement of universal principles not peculiar to the Corinthian situation, many other churches also read it liturgically. They were grateful that the Roman community gave a strong lead.
IGNATIUS OF ANTIOCH
Ignatius’ letters and date1 Eusebius of Caesarea, a careful if not inerrant historian, reports that during Trajan’s reign (–), indeed according to his Chronicle precisely in the year , the Church of the great city of Antioch-on-the-Orontes in Syria suffered persecution and lost its bishop Ignatius. Letters under Ignatius’ name survive in three editions, a middle recension of seven letters, an expanded edition with six additional letters stressing the primacy of the see of Antioch, and an abbreviated edition of three letters extant in a Syriac version. Most of the letters insist on the authority of bishops. Fourth-century squabbles between bishops competing for power made the documents popular in that age, as Eusebius expressly remarked (HE . . ). The texts would have been especially congenial to a bishop of Antioch in the s and s, at a time when he had to assert his position in competition with three rivals in a divided city. The recension known to Eusebius had seven letters in which Ignatius, under arrest, communicated with churches in Asia Minor at Philadelphia, Smyrna, Tralles, Magnesia, and Ephesus. In addition the Roman church was addressed without mention of a bishop, and also Polycarp bishop of Smyrna. This collection of seven letters was known to Irenaeus and Origen and is therefore earlier than –. It is a disputed question whether they are as early as Eusebius says. A collection of Ignatius’ letters was known to Polycarp, his own letter to the Philippians being a covering letter for the set. That suggests that the letters should be assigned, if not necessarily to the first decade of the second century, at least not later than the third or fourth decade. Accordingly the question of dating turns on whether enough is known of the development of the second-century Church for a confident judgement to be possible that the seven letters are somehow anachronistic in the first or second decade, but entirely possible ten or twenty years later. Dispute on this last question cannot readily be settled. At least it is safe to say that not enough is known about the Church early in the second century 1
Besides Lightfoot a good commentary on Ignatius is by W. R. Schoedel (Philadelphia, ).
Ignatius of Antioch
to allow even a probability that Eusebius’ dating is out of the question. Although Paul and Peter rank as authoritative figures in the letters, they contain no quotation from any document destined to form part of the New Testament. The late decades of the second century see the institution of a single bishop presiding over each local congregation as a general and accepted arrangement. If Ignatius is credited with responsibility for the ‘monarchical’ episcopate, the later the date ascribed to his letters, the less believable becomes this crediting. The polemic in the letters against those who expressed their faith in the divine nature of Christ by affirming that he did not really assume human flesh in the incarnation, and that his body was an optical illusion experienced by persons of immature faith, is in no way anachronistic in the first years of the second century. There is also no force in the contention that the wealth of Roman Christians presupposed in Ignatius’ letter to Rome is more plausible later rather than earlier. The Shepherd of Hermas provides express testimony for the existence of influence and social standing among rich believers in the capital. Nothing in the letters manifests serious affinity with Justin or other apologists concerned to meet philosophical criticism. In short, if there is hesitation about assigning the martyrdom to the time of Trajan, a date later than Hadrian is unlikely to a degree. For many centuries the text of Ignatian letters copied by medieval scribes was the longer version expanded late in the fourth century with an enhanced stress on the necessity of the bishop to impart validity to ecclesial action. The first printing of a Greek text of this long recension was in . A Latin text appeared as early as . But Ignatius on bishops was bound to irritate those left of centre in the Reformation. For John Calvin nothing seemed ‘more disgusting than the fairy tales published under the name of Ignatius’ (Institutio, i. . ). Matters began to change in the mid-seventeenth century. In the deeply erudite Irish archbishop Ussher published at Oxford (from a manuscript in the library of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, cod. , and another owned by Bishop Richard Montague but lost with the destruction of his papers) a Latin version made by Robert Grosseteste, enabling him to identify the original corpus of seven letters known to Eusebius. Two years later Isaac Vossius printed from a Medici manuscript at Florence (Laur. pl. lvii, cod. , s. xi) the Greek text of six of the original letters. This codex originally contained the letter to the Romans, but that had been lost. Soon, in , however, the Maurist Thierry Ruinart, assistant to Mabillon in Paris, was able to publish the letter to the Romans from a Colbert manuscript (Paris. gr. , s. x), so that the original form of text was complete in Greek. That the original corpus of letters had been rediscovered was evident to Ussher. He accompanied his edition with annotation of wide erudition. He knew of the existence of the Medici manuscript, but had been unable to obtain a copy.
Ignatius of Antioch
A fifth-century papyrus fragment at Berlin has preserved an uninterpolated text of part of Ignatius’ letter to Smyrna. In the Calvinist Jean Daillé (–) published a book attacking the authenticity not only of Dionysius the Areopagite (the spuriousness of which, argued by Lorenzo Valla in the fifteenth century, was slow to become universally accepted) but also all letters of Ignatius. Daillé on Ignatius provoked major refutation from John Pearson. Since the massive studies of Zahn and especially J. B. Lightfoot (nd edn. ), the weight of opinion has been to favour the genuineness of the seven-letter recension, and while there have been learned arguments from scholars reluctant to believe in an earlysecond-century date, the case for accepting Zahn’s and Lightfoot’s main thesis has commanded a majority among scholars. The content of the letters concerns matters more important than bishops. They are written in a highly personal and idiosyncratic style, with poetic images, unusual vocabulary, and a pervading passionate fervour. Ignatius was writing in haste under difficult circumstances, and his language did not always convey precisely what he wanted to say. The language used would be surprising at any decade of the second century. The confrontation with imminent martyrdom profoundly affected him, and the impression can be given that a proper willingness to die in union with Christ has passed into a neurotic will to die. Voluntary provocative martyrs were easily engendered by promises of celestial joy. In the s Clement of Alexandria deeply disapproved of aggressive voluntary martyrs. Their attitude seemed to the emperor Marcus Aurelius, a Stoic defender of suicide, ‘theatricality’ in poor taste. Cyprian of Carthage under persecution in – also united idealized language about the martyr’s crown with express disapproval of voluntary self-destruction. If there were evidence of the date by which a threefold ministry of bishops, presbyters, and deacons became normal in Syria and Asia Minor, one could reason from that to Ignatius’ date. But Ignatius gives the primary evidence and the argument is circular. Let it simply be observed that in Ignatius’ theology there is nothing anachronistic in the early decades of the second century. Johannine themes appear,2 but of the canonical gospels his nearest affinity is with Matthew or oral traditions close to Matthew. There is no express quotation. Ignatius’ religion had its norms in a community tradition; books were secondary, and the ‘gospel’ was not yet a book. 2 The Gospel of John was ascribed to John the son of Zebedee in Irenaeus (AH . . , . . ), Clement of Alexandria (Eus. HE . . ), and an Armenian fragment of Papias. Probability favours the opinion that this was so from the time editors (responsible for ch. at least) released it for circulation. The Gospel was integral to Tatian’s Diatessaron. Heracleon wrote the first commentary.
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Martyrdom In Ignatius’ letters we have the first light on the Church at Antioch since the disagreement between Peter and Paul about table-fellowship between Jew and Gentile (Gal. : ff.)—in which it is unlikely that the apostle of the Gentiles emerged victorious. Nevertheless Paul’s Gentile mission had its springboard there. Ignatius came of a Gentile background. He may even have owed his election as bishop to a desire on the part of a group of Christians in the city to widen the gulf between the house-churches and the city synagogues, especially because, as Ignatius’ letters make clear, there were at Antioch Christian believers of Gentile birth who saw no good reason to think separation from the synagogue community right or necessary and observed their festivals. There could hardly be a more suitable time to remember the passion of Christ than Passover. If the disagreements led to some public disorder, the attention of the Roman authorities would be drawn; Ignatius was arrested. Action on his part may have precipitated that, for he was fervent in his conviction that to die for the name of Christ was to be assured of bliss. The apostle Paul had so held (Phil. : ). With other Syrian Christians sent on ahead of him, he was to be transported to Rome (which suggests that these prisoners had Roman citizenship), there to provide entertainment for the populace and satisfaction for justice by being thrown to hungry beasts in the amphitheatre. His escort was a detachment of ten soldiers—a number which could imply that they had other prisoners as well. He found them unfriendly; they bound him in chains, which probably means that they expected a substantial bribe (cf. Acts : ) or that they had heard stories of Christians miraculously liberated and hoped to forestall angelic or magical escape. However, on reaching Philadelphia in the province of Asia they allowed the bishop an astonishing freedom to meet the local church (cf. Acts : ). It seems safe to assume that some rich Philadelphian Christian had greased their palms. A large bribe obtained the release from prison of a Montanist Christian named Themiso in the s; Tertullian judged bribery destructive of a martyr’s integrity. The martyrdom of Pionios of Smyrna in the third century mentions bribes as ‘the usuals’.3 Unbribed guards were hostile. On Ignatius’ route there were stops at towns in Asia Minor with substantial Christian communities, notably at Philadelphia, Smyrna, Troas, and then in Europe at Cavalla (Neapolis). At Smyrna access was granted to bishops and other visitors from nearby churches. It was expected that those incarcerated in Roman prisons would be fed by family and friends. To prisoners 3
Eus. HE . . ; Tertullian, De fuga , ; Mart. Pionii . –; Libanius, Orat. . .
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confessing their faith reverence was intense. Along the route Christians were alerted to Ignatius’ coming, and in his mind the journey became a triumphal progress, no doubt to the amazement of his guards. The ancient Church held the integrity of martyrs and confessors in the highest admiration and reverence. At the cities along Ignatius’ route the Christian communities were able to receive him with extreme manifestations of pride and joy. Ignatius told Polycarp of Smyrna that his letter of greeting was ‘kissing my chains’. The devout actually present to Ignatius in the flesh did their kissing literally. Tertullian (Ad uxorem . ) records that this was usual. At Antioch Ignatius had faced sharp challenges to his authority, especially to his endeavours to unite the Christians scattered through his large city by centralizing control of baptisms and eucharistic celebrations. This policy seems to have been unwelcome at some of the house-churches in the city, where it is likely enough that some believers broke bread without the presence of a presbyter to preside, preferring the excitements of itinerant charismatics. Ignatius found the resulting fissiparousness of his Church dangerous, laying it wide open to damaging infiltration by heretics and dissidents. At Smyrna he found a heretical group which stayed away from common prayer and eucharist, but had independent eucharists presided over by someone in a position of dignity, perhaps a presbyter or (more probably) a layman of substance (Sm. . ). More than one of his letters reports that at Antioch ‘peace’ had been restored. Perhaps persecution was past and gone. But one cannot exclude the possibility that the peace in question was a restored harmony among contending factions in his church at Antioch. Insofar as his own centralizing policy was in some quarters unpopular, this restoration of harmony may have been a consequence of his own enforced removal from the scene. But he could hardly have expressed satisfaction unless his own policies at Antioch had prevailed against the opposition, at least among the members of the community who acknowledged his authority. It cannot be assumed that Ignatius commanded the assent of the majority of Christians at Antioch. If internal dissension provoked a breach of public order, that would have given occasion for civil authority to demand the identity of the community’s recognized leader. Ignatius uses language suggesting he had voluntarily come forward (Sm. . , cf. Rom. . ): ‘Why have I delivered myself to death . . .?’ If so, was he a volunteer martyr of the type disapproved in the Martyrdom of Polycarp and later in Clement of Alexandria and Cyprian of Carthage (ep. . )? Language strikingly akin to that of Ignatius occurs in the Stoic Epictetus on ‘the will to die’ (. . ). In reference to the ‘Galilaeans’ Epictetus thought this will to die a form of madness. But their fearlessness before tyrants seemed admirable (. . ). Socrates did more good by death than by any word or act in his life (. . ), a model of detachment.
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A striking theme in all the letters is Ignatius’ sense of triumph at the prospect of martyrdom, which is to be both an ecstatic experience of union with the crucified Lord in his passion and at the same time a glorious witnessing to God in a theatrical death at Rome before up to , pagan spectators in the lately completed Colosseum.4 By death he will be ‘imitating the suffering of my God’ (Rom. . ). From a few phrases it seems that his arrest and imminent martyrdom were not regarded so enthusiastically by critics in the church at Antioch. But for him the experience of being crunched to death between the teeth of a wild animal in the cause of God and his Church was the path to a beatific admission to paradise. Thereby he would ‘attain to God’. The letter to Rome manifested anxiety that influential Roman Christians might intercede on his behalf and thereby be able to deprive him and his Church at Antioch of the crown of martyrdom. And, he adds, how humiliating it would be (which is to say, how disastrous in histrionic terms as public statement) if, as had already occurred in a few cases to Christians condemned to the amphitheatre, the wild beasts were to take no interest in him at all.5 Ignatius virtually stage-managed the course of his journey from Antioch to Rome and may have suspected that some in the Roman community preferred a quiet life and low profile. The Christian community in the capital certainly included citizens of considerable substance, since the Shepherd of Hermas, written by a Roman Christian close to Ignatius’ time, contains numerous admonitions for wealthy believers, and repeatedly records the respect accorded to them in pagan society. About the last thing such Christians wanted would be the adverse publicity given to their community by the very public condemnation of some Syrian fellow-believers, including the principal officer of the Church in the great city of Antioch. Heresies In some of the churches near Smyrna Ignatius encountered heresies which, though he does not say so, he may already have met at Antioch. At Smyrna and its vicinity he met a group absenting themselves from their bishop’s eucharist and denying that the flesh of Christ was real. At Philadelphia there was a confrontation with a group who were in controversy with their bishop Dedicated by Titus in June , ‘Colosseum’ was its medieval name. In the north African account of the martyrdom of Perpetua and Felicitas in , their male companion Saturus was tied to a boar which left him untouched but savaged the man who did the tying. Saturus was then tied to a scaffold to be attacked by a bear, but the bear stayed in its cage uninterested. A leopard then mauled him, but left him to be finished off with a sword. The story as told reflects the widespread ancient conviction, expressed for example in Horace’s famous Ode ‘Integer Vitae’ (. ) and in anecdotes about Desert Fathers left uninjured by hyenas or lions (e.g. Moschus Pratum , , , ), that wild beasts would not touch those of innocent and holy life. 4 5
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because they held that for Christians supreme authority lay in the Old Testament scriptures which determined the nature of the gospel. Whether they also wanted to keep sabbaths and other Judaic practices is unclear. At Magnesia on the Maeander reports said that some were ignoring their young bishop. There was also fear that they might keep Judaic customs such as the sabbath. The Decalogue itself required sabbath observance, and it was difficult to know by what authority the Churches were neglecting it and meeting for worship on Sundays in memorial of the Lord’s resurrection. For Sunday worship there was community tradition, but no precept in the Old Testament nor in the apostolic writings. It seems possible that the ‘Judaizers’ felt bound to celebrate the weekly eucharist on Saturdays, and thereby divided the community. Their separate eucharist may also have been the consequence of concern to keep Jewish dietary rules. However, Ignatius’ text clearly implies that the demand for the observance of the Mosaic law was coming from Gentile believers, and, since they were circumcised (Philad. ), they may well have had a background before conversion and baptism in which they were synagogue proselytes subsequently attracted to Christianity and were then disturbed to find that Mosaic precepts were not being kept. At the synagogue they had submitted to circumcision; it might have been tough to be told on arrival at the church that this social sacrifice had been superfluous. The fact that the Church defied Marcion’s criticisms and insisted on keeping the Hebrew scriptures in its lectionary in the Septuagint version was bound to make permanent the presence of Christians whose faith was determined by the Old Testament. In one of his sermons on Leviticus (. ) Origen complains of believers who produce in the church today what they have learnt at the synagogue yesterday. Biblical interpretation Ignatius was content to acknowledge that as a stage in God’s purpose for the world, Judaism had its valued place. But he felt certain that the Old Testament patriarchs and prophets had not actually observed the sabbath literally; already they had kept Sunday as a holy day for worship, foreseeing the day of the resurrection of Christ (Magn. . ). The grand difference is that Christianity is universal, whereas Judaism is particular to one people (Magn. ). At Philadelphia, where Ignatius enjoyed an astonishing hour of liberty to meet with the local church, there was internal dissension about the correct interpretation of the Bible, especially about the relative authority of the Gospel proclaimed in Jesus and the Old Testament scriptures. If one side in the dispute was claiming that the Old Testament provided the criterion by
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which the authenticity of the gospel message could be evaluated, the opposite point of view was upheld by the bishop of Philadelphia, who evidently thought that the criterion for assessing the various scriptures of the Old Testament now lay in ‘the gospel’. On meeting the church Ignatius was granted a sudden onset of charismatic inspiration and cried out in a loud voice ‘Do nothing without the bishop.’ Immediately the former group took offence, supposing that privately he had received some prior briefing about the terms of the debate, and therefore could not be regarded as an impartial arbiter. He was declaring agreement with the bishop without even having heard the arguments of the opposing party, for whom it was no matter of principle that on an issue such as this their bishop must be regarded as entitled to submission. The opposition was in effect asking by what right their bishop and now Ignatius were entitled to set aside the inspired scriptures of the old covenant.6 Closely reasoned discussion about hermeneutic principles not being his forte, Ignatius denied possessing any previous knowledge of the local controversy. In saying what he did about the Spirit and the bishop, he was speaking under immediate inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and ‘the Spirit knows whence it comes and whither it goes’, language with an echo of St John’s gospel (: ) or at least of Johannine tradition. When Ignatius himself declared that his own appeal was to ‘scripture’ (and it is not clear whether by that he meant the Old Testament or a written gospel such as that of Matthew or the epistle of Clement of Rome to Corinth), he was at once accused of begging the entire question. In any event, Ignatius had no New Testament canon to invoke; his reliance was on the charismatic power of the ministry representing God to his people. Of one thing he felt certain, namely that the Spirit of God can never be found among those who separate from the common worship under the aegis of the bishop with his loyal presbyters and deacons. Docetism From three of the letters it is evident that the centrifugal groups wanting to assert their independence of the bishop were open to heretical infiltration. At Ephesus, Tralles, and Smyrna the opinion was being propagated that real humanity, actual flesh, could not possibly have been united to God in Jesus Christ. Granted that God could have created a convincing optical illusion that he had assumed human flesh in Christ, the heretics urged that the 6 The Apocalypse of John of Patmos (: , : ) speaks of some at Philadelphia and Smyrna who, although not Jews, claimed to be Jews and are set aside as a ‘synagogue of Satan’. Probably these were Gentile proselytes whose relationship to the Church was fiercely acrimonious.
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conviction thus produced was no more than accommodation to human weakness. The flesh was in reality no reality, merely appearance. In short, the heretics held the doctrine commonly labelled ‘docetism’ (from dókesis, appearance). Ignatius’ reaction was vehement against a doctrine which in his eyes simply destroyed his hope of salvation. In strident terms he affirmed the utter physical reality of Christ’s human birth and death, and loved to express his faith in a powerful series of paradoxes: There is one physician, fleshly and spiritual, born yet not born, God in man, true life in death, both of Mary and of God, first capable of suffering then incapable, Jesus Christ our Lord (Eph. . ). Be deaf when anyone speaks to you apart from Jesus Christ, who was of the family of David, son of Mary, who was truly born, both ate and drank, was truly persecuted under Pontius Pilate, was truly crucified and died in the sight of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth; who was also truly raised from the dead when his Father raised him. The Father will similarly raise in Christ Jesus us who believe in him, without whom we have no true life (Trall. ).
Against the docetists of Smyrna, whose names he could not bring himself to mention (Sm. . ), Ignatius had forceful complaints. They were, he thought, ‘beasts in human shape’ (Sm. . ; cf. Eph. . ). Profound consequences followed from their denial that Christ had assumed human flesh. First, there was the fact that in their exalted otherworldly spirituality they were indifferent to the Church’s social welfare for the physical sustaining of widows, orphans, prisoners, those just released from prison needing readjustment in the community, the hungry and thirsty. Secondly, their denial of Christ’s true humanity and of the actuality of his dying robbed martyrdom of its value.7 For the meaning of martyrdom was a mystical union with the Lord in his dreadful crucifixion. The heretics were therefore depriving Ignatius of his crown. They flattered him, speaking of his noble courage. But their doctrine of Christ evacuated martyrdom of all meaning and value. Ignatius’ faith took away his dread of the amphitheatre. ‘Near the sword is near to God. With the beasts is to be with God’ (Sm. . )— a saying which recalls words in the Coptic Gospel of Thomas (): ‘He who is near me is near the fire.’ A third factor making the docetists dangerous was their implicit denial of the reality of the gift of the eucharist, the body and blood of Christ being in their view unreal. 7 Ignatius does not use the vocabulary of ‘martyr’, ‘witness’, which was not yet Christian usage as it would become for Justin. See G. W. Bowersock, Martyrdom and Rome (Cambridge, ). Origen (Comm. on John . ()) says ‘Martyr is properly Witness, but the brotherhood keeps the title for those who have died in testimony to unbelievers.’
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The heretics were therefore offering a counterfeit gospel, a manifestation of the subtlety of Satan. The seven letters have numerous references to the cosmic power of evil with diabolical snares and traps. And the urgency of the struggle against evil was given additional force by the imminence of the end. If believers asked why the end was delayed, the reasonable answer was not difficult: In his patience God was now allowing extra time for repentance (Eph. . ; Sm. . ). But in the meantime all believers are to be joined in conflict with ‘the ruler of this world’, also called the Devil or Satan. The heretics are as malodorous as the Devil himself (Eph. . ), and they will share Satan’s destiny which is hell-fire (Eph. . ). It was a widespread ancient belief that malevolent spirits could be detected by the stench (e.g. Augustine, City of God . ; Conf. . . ). Among some docetist heretics, their doctrine found its springboard in the belief that flesh and blood could not imaginably be supposed to be admitted to the kingdom of God, as Paul himself conceded ( Cor. : ), and therefore that the Redeemer did not assume parts of human nature not destined to be saved. Ignatius did not formulate the reply of later orthodox writers from Irenaeus onwards that the affirmation of the resurrection of the body, in the baptismal confession of many churches, was a coherent consequence of the faith that what the Lord had assumed was what he intended to save. Judaizers It has been a normal pattern in church history for heretics to wish to remain recognized within the Church, anxious to persuade other believers that their position is authentic or at least a legitimate option. Schismatics on the other hand are not usually heretics, or at least seldom begin that way; but they are often parting with the parent body on some moral issue and are therefore bound by their initial consciousness of protest. It is at first sight striking that Ignatius describes the Judaizers as organizing a division (merismós), whereas the docetists are a school of thought (haíresis) anxious to claim a legitimate place within the community and not inclined to have a distinct organization. Docetists held a point of view which Ignatius thought to be gravely wrong and in need of explicit confrontation. Some among them may have been slow to agree with him in his wish to centralize under his control the administration of the sacraments, but it does not appear that they were disposed to present the bishop with a direct challenge to his authority. The report that they ‘flattered’ him points rather to the opposite conclusion. They were more likely to be in the business of recruiting him to share their theological position and therefore had little wish to vex him. Defiance of his authority was not on their agenda, and many among this group may have been among his supporters when he was elected.
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By contrast the Judaizing party had a separatist programme. Their observance of the sabbath with local synagogues at Antioch appeared to Ignatius a divisive act in which the whole community did not feel able to participate. On the Day of Atonement they were not likely to want to be present at an Agape or other cheerful celebration. Probably the docetists represented a point of view that evoked sympathy in Ignatius himself, and therefore had to be disavowed with particular vehemence. In strong terms he therefore affirmed the reality of the birth and crucifixion of the Redeemer. The star of Bethlehem ‘The god of this world’ had been utterly outwitted by the incognito of the Redeemer, apparently so weak and powerless in his virginal conception, birth and crucifixion ‘three mysteries that cry aloud’. None of these events was understood by Satan until the new star of the Nativity of the Lord blazed forth to initiate the overthrow of all astrology and magic and to cause amazement in the other heavenly bodies (Eph. ).8 Related ideas about the failure of evil powers to realize what was happening at the crucifixion appear in the apostle Paul ( Cor. : ), in the Ascension of Isaiah, and in a number of early Christian texts. Among followers of Valentinus, for example, the disruption in heaven caused by the new star at the descent of the Redeemer became a favoured theme (Clement, Exc. ex Theodoto ).9 For Ignatius the birth and death of Jesus simply destroyed the power of all occult forces in the cosmos. Astrology had been a subject to which earlier in life he seems to have given some attention (Trall. ); he still felt able to take pride in his expertise on this intricate subject, though now he was a Christian, he counted it but dung. To unbelievers the crucifying of Jesus was a scandal that blocked their way towards faith (Eph. . ). That was because they failed to realize how his humility overthrew the prince of this world (Trall. . ). Unity and eucharist A characteristic of some teachers, active in communities addressed in Ignatius’ letters, was to think of salvation as liberation of the divine soul from its incarceration in the body. Ignatius thought this incompatible with the 8 Like many ancient writers, Ignatius could assume that the sun, moon, and stars have souls or resident angelic powers. 9 In his Jewish War (. ) Josephus records that a new star suspended over Jerusalem presaged the destruction of the Temple.
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incarnation and so with the truth of the body and blood of the Lord in the eucharist, the very ‘medicine of immortality’ (Eph. . ). ‘Immortality’ was the name of a well-known ancient drug in the pharmacy of medical practitioners. The phrase occurs in other writers of the period, e.g. Seneca (Prov. . ) spoke of the hemlock drunk by Socrates as the ‘medicine of immortality’. The concrete realism of Ignatius’ eucharistic belief is clear from his language, but the gift is ‘faith and love’ (Trall. . ). Above all, the eucharist is the bond which expresses and creates unity in the Church. Therefore one must not absent oneself from ‘the bread of God’ in the eucharist celebrated by the bishop, presbyters, and deacons. The devil’s masterpiece being the sowing of division and strife among believers, the united prayer of a community where there is concord destroys Satan’s power. So the bishop, with the clergy who are at one with him, is sent by God to the Church to preserve unity. There is one temple, one altar (Magn. . ). Disunity is the consequence when the bishop is ignored, when baptism is given without his knowledge, when the eucharist is celebrated in separation from him. Without the bishop, or at least the bishop’s knowledge, a eucharist lacks validity (Magn. ; Sm. ). Ignatius’ pained language here points to the conclusion that there were groups consciously asserting their independence. He also mentions some who nominally acknowledged the bishop’s title and authority, but in practice took no notice whatever of him and his clergy (Magn. ). ‘To do anything in the Church without the knowledge of the bishop is to do the Devil’s work’ (Sm. ). For Ignatius experience had shown that agreement among believers was not achieved simply by shared propositions about beliefs; it also required a common recognition of episcopal authority. Ignatius uses sacrificial language for the eucharist but, for the minister, he never uses the term hiereús, priest. On the other hand such language was not far distant. As early as the Didache, the congregation was exhorted to support its prophets ‘for they are your high priests’, and the eucharist is there declared to realize fulfilment of Malachi’s prophecy (: ) of sacrifices being offered to God by all nations from east to west. Ignatius does not use the term ‘laity’, though had he known the first epistle of Clement he might have found the term conveniently provided with precedent. The priesthood of the whole Church ‘as one person’ would be stressed by Justin in the Dialogue with Trypho (. ): they are the ‘highpriestly race’ offering pure sacrifices as prophesied by Malachi. ‘And God accepts sacrifices from no one other than his priests.’ By it was explicit, in the Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus and certainly representing the usage of the Roman community, that the bishop is the high priest, presiding over the sacrifice of the Church.
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Bishops Ignatius is the earliest writer to use the phrase ‘the catholic Church,’ in a context where he is saying that what the bishop is to a local congregation, Christ is to ‘the whole’ (Sm. . ). The term ‘catholic’ does not yet carry the sense of ‘orthodox’ or ‘universal’ in geographical extension. The point is intrinsic indivisibility. Ignatius is not the earliest writer to use the three titles for ministers, bishop, presbyter, deacon. The Pastoral Epistles to Timothy and Titus (of uncertain date, perhaps fairly close to Ignatius’ time at Antioch) have the titles; but there is an uncertainty about the relation of bishop and presbyter. On the one hand, the two titles seem to be applicable to the same people; in other words, there are two principal ministerial orders or functions, presbyter-bishops and their deacon-assistants (as in Phil. : ). On the other hand, in the Pastoral Epistles presbyters appear in the plural, the bishop in the singular. So perhaps there were churches where ‘bishop’ was becoming the title for one of the senior presbyters with a wider responsibility to be ‘overseer’ or general ‘superintendent’. In Ignatius’ letters there is not the least doubt about the situation. He assumes throughout that in Syria and Asia Minor there is but one bishop in a given city, whose position in relation to his fellow-presbyters is in some degree pre-eminent, because he is in an exceptional degree the representative of the entire local Christian community (Trall. ). Sources of information about the development of the churches in Syria and Asia Minor in the last quarter of the first century are so few as to make it impossible to say that Ignatius was recording a new or even a recent shift. It could have been the structure accepted there for a generation past, but the independent spirit which created problems for Ignatius was no doubt fed by a memory of how in some places things had at one time been done. The seven letters make it obvious that Ignatius never imagined himself to be creating a new ordering of ministry in the churches he was writing to. And at no city was he aware of the existence of more than one person exercising episcopal oversight, though this bishop was not isolated from his presbyters and deacons. The qualities which Ignatius required in a bishop included firmness, patience, and gentleness (Philad. . ). If a bishop were to be silent (presumably in contexts when his people expected utterance, perhaps of charismatic words), that silence was to be specially respected, for it has its counterpart in the divine Monarch whom he represents to his people (Eph. . ; ; Philad. . ). In God silence is part of his majesty (Magn. . ). The bishop, however, is not a lonely figure. Always he has with him presbyters and deacons. The presbyters represent the college of apostles. The deacons embody filial obedience serving the mysteries of Christ in which they are not mere ministers
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distributing food and drink (an instructive reference to the social role of clergy) but servants of the Church of God (Trall. . ). In their obedience they represent the obedience of Jesus Christ, and should be respected by all (Trall. . ). They assist the bishop in charitable disbursements. The authority of an Ignatian bishop does not depend, however, on his personal qualities so much as on his office, and to submit to his authority is to submit not to him but to the Father of Jesus Christ the bishop of all (Magn. . ). Those with him are assured of union with Christ and the Father (Eph. . ). So all bishops throughout the world are in the mind of Christ (Eph. . ). Ignatius here betrays a kind of awareness that an individual isolated bishop is no sufficient guarantee of authenticity, and that a bishop can perform his function only by sharing in the universal communion. The letters speak with such a fortissimo about the importance of episcopal oversight in securing the coherence of the Church that the mistaken impression might be received of a man consumed with self-assertion. In fact he was concerned not for himself (except to the extent that he longed to be allowed the heavenly crown of the martyrs), but for the unity which the monarchical bishop existed to maintain. ‘I do not give you orders,’ he told the church at Ephesus, ‘I speak to you as a fellow learner.’ Similarly to the Christians at Tralles, ‘I do not give you orders like an apostle.’ Rome’s dignity in the possession of commands received from Peter and Paul made it especially necessary to give that church no kind of instruction or command. In regard to himself, a lengthy catalogue of abusive and derogatory self-designations could be compiled from the seven letters. Synagogues had a body of elders, but also had one officer with the title ‘ruler of the synagogue’, archisynágogos. It would not have seemed strange if the Gentile missionary churches quickly developed a ministerial structure in which one of the presbyters had some special degree of authority. At Jerusalem in the earliest Christian generation James the Lord’s brother exercised powers of leadership. But the probability is that different regions varied in the pace at which they established a single president exercising permanent functions and superior oversight in relation to teaching, preaching, and the dispensing of the sacraments. By the second half of the second century this arrangement had become universal, but in the time of Clement of Rome and of Ignatius there are likely to have been local variations. The link explicit in Ignatius between the centralizing of authority in the bishop and the conflict with heresy offers an obvious context. But the Churches of, say, ad were not all monochrome or standardized in their catechism. In some cities it may well have been the case that the ‘monarchical’ bishop was leader of a particular group which was not the majority in the local community. (This was the experience of Augustine of Hippo when he first became bishop there in –.)
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The formation of the firm ministerial structure was regarded by Ignatius as necessary for the coherence and survival of the Churches if they were to constitute a true fellowship with mutual support and exchange of gifts. Without bishops corresponding with one another by frequent letters of encouragement, visiting each other’s congregations, especially when they came together for the installation of a new bishop, thereby sealing the assurance that the new bishop was a member of a much wider body which gave him and his people an indispensable validity, the very survival of Christianity would have been uncertain and precarious. Influential Roman Christians Nevertheless, what seemed self-evident to the ‘bishop of Syria’, as he called himself, may not have been so clear further west. In his letter to the Roman Church Ignatius names no bishop, not even a senior presbyter or body of presbyters. In striking contrast to Ignatius’ other letters, his letter to Rome is the only one of the seven documents which fails to admonish the clergy and people to hold their bishop in greater honour and awe, or indeed to suggest respects in which their faith and way of life might possibly be capable of correction and improvement. He may have felt such exhortation superfluous. No letter is so full of flattery and praise for the distinction of the community being addressed: This is the Church which ‘presides over love in the region of the Romans’, is wholly devoted to the faithful keeping of the Lord’s commandments, is determined not to betray the grace granted to them, and knows how to deal with the least taint of corruption, ‘filtering out all alien colours’ from the wine. To a church which once received commands from the apostles Peter and Paul, anything resembling an order or moral uplift from a humble bishop from Syria would be an impertinence. His one petition to this august body, so generous in giving instruction to other churches, is that they should please not use their potent influence to intercede with the effect of depriving him of his martyrdom. Ignatius is not particularly addressing Roman clergy. His fear that some distinguished Roman Christians might well provide the douceurs needed to secure his release from the beasts in the amphitheatre was not utterly unreal, and is illuminated by a law in the Digest (. . ) directing that prisoners condemned to the beasts are not to be released as a special favour to anyone—a provision which shows it had been happening. Ignatius’ plea would make no sense, however, unless there was some penetration by Christianity into the circle of senators or their wives with access to the emperor and his close advisors. There is no ground for thinking that could not have occurred by ad or . So Ignatius’ concern is that influential lay people will act with highminded motives with consequences that would take away his crown. The Roman
Ignatius of Antioch
presbyters or their bishops and deacons do not enter into consideration, not even as intercessors with the Lord on behalf of the courageous prisoner. From the silence about Roman clergy the conclusion has sometimes been drawn that at Rome before the middle of the second century there was no cleric with the title and office of bishop, and no one who under some other title exercised centralizing powers comparable to those which Ignatius was asserting for himself and his colleagues in Asia Minor. The conclusion would not be safe on the basis of Ignatius’ letter. His letter to Rome is not the only one of the seven not to name the bishop of the community being addressed. Writing to Smyrna, he exhorts the people to obey their bishop, but never mentions his identity—Polycarp. Polycarp received an entirely separate personal letter. A safer ground for the judgement that Rome had not yet acquired a concentration of authority in one man may be found in the language of the Shepherd of Hermas, a certainly Roman document, the material in which could well be assigned to the earliest years of the second century. One of several papyrus fragments containing parts of the Shepherd which are assigned to the second century by experts in ancient handwriting, is confidently ascribed to the first half of the century, perhaps early in this period.10 In the Shepherd the clergy in authority at Rome are collectively the presbyters (Vision II . ; III . –); they ‘preside over the Church’. The title ‘bishops’ is also used, significantly in the plural (Vision III . ; Similitude IX . ). Rome being a large city, there would have been different housechurches in different parts of the town, each with its own presbyter. But there is strong consciousness in Hermas that at Rome he knows of only one Church (admittedly at one point seen as a visionary lady resembling the Sibyl). That consciousness sooner or later would encourage the development of a single bishop with some oversight in relation to the other presbyters. It would also be stimulated by the struggle to define orthodoxy against gnostic heresy and Marcion, and by the controversy directly attested in Hermas between laxist teachers too indulgent (in Hermas’ opinion) to those sinning after baptism and rigorists denying any possibility of restoration after the once-for-all remission of baptism (cf. Heb. : ). Hermas himself adopted a via media between the contending factions, proclaiming a special revelation that penitence was possible but only immediately, not in the long term or for the rest of life; and the opportunity would soon pass. Consistency in the 10 An ancient list of authoritative books of the New Testament age is preserved in a seventh- or eighth-century manuscript found by L. A. Muratori () in the Ambrosian library, Milan. The list’s date is disputed. It is certain that the anonymous author was opposing the widespread secondcentury view that Hermas was inspired prophecy, claiming that Hermas’ brother was Bishop Pius of Rome (c.–c.) and therefore more recent than other books in his list. The list’s hostility to Montanists shows that its date is unlikely to be before –.
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terms of reconciliation of penitence was difficult to achieve unless there was both a consensus and a single organ of authority to see that it was implemented. Harassment by the government could not have encouraged in Ignatius an optimistic estimate of the empire and its rulers. While he could have echoed Clement of Rome’s prayer that the rulers might be granted wisdom and mercy (both rare qualities), he would probably not have felt high hopes of realization. ‘The greatness of Christianity is not plausible rhetoric but to be hated by the world’ (Rom. . ). But he was anxious that the hatred be not greater than was necessary. The source from which the Church grew was the conversion of pagans now hostile. The Ephesians should behave to pagan neighbours in a brotherly manner (Eph. . ). Polycarp of Smyrna was not to encourage slaves to suppose that the Church could rightly expend resources on the costly operation of their emancipation (Pol. . ); for emancipation entailed a tax of per cent of the slave’s value (Epictetus . . ). Such action would be regarded by non-Christian slaveowners as socially disruptive, drawing unwelcome attention to the Church as potentially undermining good order in society. Ignatius’ letters give a few indications of the social role that a bishop was expected to fulfil. For protection he was to exhort his people to trust in the protective shield of their baptism. He ought to care for the weak such as widows and slaves. General use of the common chest needed to be subject to the bishop’s authorization. Ignatius had no objection to the manumitting of slaves by individual owners, and such acts were morally meritorious. An extant deed of manumission for a female slave by her Egyptian owner, dated in the year ad (P. Kellis , ed. K. A. Worp, Oxford, ) records that the owner, a former magistrate, has set her free ‘because of his exceptional Christianity’. Synagogues used their common chest for emancipations.11 Couples marrying were to make sure of the bishop’s approval. Believers dedicating themselves to celibacy should confide in the bishop but not publicise it generally among the community, lest it appear ostentatious (Polycarp –). It was good that at Tralles even the pagans held the bishop in respect (Trall. . ). Trallian Christians should avoid actions that could give offence and even ‘cause the heathen to blaspheme’ (Trall. . ). This text from Isa. : was soon to be invoked by Christians so over-anxious not to upset pagan neighbours that they actively participated in pagan festivals, the Saturnalia 11 P. Oxy. IX , dated ad . Among studies of ancient slavery see Keith Bradley, Slavery and Society at Rome (Cambridge, ), and Peter Garnsey, Ideas of Slavery from Aristotle to Augustine (Cambridge, ).
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and New Year (Tertullian attacked them, Idol. ). For centuries to come bishops deplored the inebriation of the feast on January. Ignatius’ warning to the Trallians show that, though he himself used language about longing for martyrdom that to modern readers conveys an impression of zeal indistinguishable from irrational fanaticism, he was against suicide martyrs who used insulting gestures towards pagan temples and cult-statues. Celibacy A powerful stream of moral opinion within the earliest churches was sympathetic to the widely held ancient view that the physical sexuality of married love was a barrier to the higher spiritual life. While the Old Testament tradition was obviously positive about the good of marriage there were also texts, such as Exod. : or Sam. : , where abstinence is a requirement for access to the holy. Matthew’s Gospel (: ) preserves a tradition that Jesus spoke without criticism of those who ‘made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven’. The apostle Paul confronted a group at Corinth who judged conjugal relations incompatible with the life of the Spirit; he met their contention by arguing that while virginity is better, nevertheless marriage is no sin, and married couples had an obligation to meet each other’s sexual need; by mutual consent they could for a time abstain to give themselves to prayer; but failure to achieve abstinence would be excusable ( Cor. : –). To the apostle’s later readers it became a moot question whether such language was easily compatible with his judgement that marriage and conjugal relations are no sin. Some couples dedicated to the higher life lived together but abstained from sexual contact, thereby demonstrating the spirit’s conquest of the flesh. An anonymous sermon from the early decades of the second century preserved among the writings ascribed to Clement of Rome exhorts a congregation to keep their lives quite separate from the secular world of adultery, avarice, and deceit, to preserve the ‘seal’ of baptism undefiled, and to practise almsgiving, fasting, and prayer. Christian men should mix with women believers without being aware of their sexuality, and vice versa. The high calling is to sexual abstinence (enkráteia). The preacher was opposed to gnostic denial of the resurrection of the body, but welcomed the notion that the true Church is a wholly spiritual body which existed from the beginning of things and became manifest in the incarnate Christ, who is to be held to be God and the judge of living and dead. How generally the superiority of the celibate ideal was accepted appears again in the Apocalypse of John of Patmos (: ), whose vision of , saints following the Lamb of God included the point that all were ‘undefiled with women’.
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On the margins of the Church, where gnostic influences could be potent, it easily became a matter of principle that authentic aspirers to the spiritual life would reject marriage, and this proposition became controversial (Col. : –). Vehement opposition to it appears in Tim. : . Pliny Ignatius’ letters are rather surprisingly silent about Christians who simply lapsed and reverted to a pagan way of life and perhaps worship. In Bithynia (Asia Minor) in Ignatius’ time the governor Pliny attempted, not without success, to stem an exodus from pagan temples and festivals caused by the success of a Christian mission in his province. He knew, though aware of no legal enactment, that by precedent Christians were to be arrested and after trial executed for their profession. Those who were Roman citizens he sent to Rome. But there was a problem for him in an apparently substantial number who admitted to have been Christians in the past but who had lapsed. He therefore wrote to the emperor Trajan suggesting that the lapsed could be released, and won the emperor’s assent to this policy. Pliny was not the only provincial governor to ask his emperor for guidance on procedure in dealing with Christians. The lawyer Ulpian is recorded by Lactantius (Inst. . . ) to have compiled relevant rulings, all of which were emperors’ replies to governors’ queries. Pliny’s investigations elicited an important fact about Christians. They were very unwilling to offer sacrifice even in the apparently innocuous form of burning a little incense. That was to become the standard test of allegiance to the gods of the empire. The upshot of the correspondence between Pliny and Trajan was that Christians were to be persecuted not for what they had done but for what they now were, with the proviso that they would be acquitted if they could show themselves no longer to be adherents by offering sacrifice in honour of the emperor and/or the gods of Rome.
DIDACHE 1
‘Honour the pastor who teaches you the word of God as if he were the Lord himself.’ ‘Give high priority to the unity of the Church and to reconciling those groups which are inclined to schism.’ These sentiments are found not only in Ignatius of Antioch but in a contemporary milieu presupposed by an even more unusual early Christian document, the Didaché or ‘Teaching of the Twelve Apostles’. The full Greek text of this document was first recovered at Istanbul in and printed ten years later. The manuscript is now at the Greek patriarchate in Jerusalem. Its interpretation, date and region of origin are not simple to determine; Syria is a probable milieu, the city of Antioch not impossible. The compiler of the Didache wished to write in the name of the apostles for the Church of his own day. With the conviction that the Church of the apostolic age embodied a purity of belief and practice that was coming under threat in his own time, the Didachist put together older pieces probably originating a generation before. The compiler’s central concerns were for the proper morality of Christian behaviour, for due apostolic order in prayer, baptism, and eucharist, and for respect towards the resident local ministry now mainly being exercised by bishops and deacons but still finding rivalry in itinerant charismatics. The Didachist was much aware that among the wandering prophets and teachers there were numerous frauds battening on gullible congregations to raise funds to feather their own nests. Morality is put in the first and most urgent place. The Didache incorporates a version of the originally Jewish catechism ‘The Two Ways’, lightly christianized (more so than the version in the epistle of Barnabas). Abstention from meat that had been offered in pagan sacrifice is an unqualified requirement in all circumstances—an edict which differs from the Pauline position stated in Corinthians , of which the author may have been ignorant. Aphorisms from the Sermon on the Mount are joined with exhortations to avoid pride, lust, divination, magic, astrology, lying, theft, 1 On Didache see J. P. Audet () and K. Niederwimmer, nd edn. (Göttingen, ), Eng. tr. Minneapolis of first edn. Possibly the Didachist led a faction opposed by Ignatius: C. N. Jefford in Studia Patristica (Leuven, ), –.
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avarice, meanness in alms, abortion, sodomy, and all malice. ‘If the whole yoke of the Lord is too much, bear as much of it as possible.’ The Didachist was anxious that his people should have no compromise with idolatry. The compiler of the Didache shows no knowledge of any letters by the apostle Paul or of any characteristic theme of the apostle’s understanding of the work of God in and through Christ. His community was one of converted Jews, determined to keep the Mosaic law with the minimum of compromise, but convinced that Jesus was the Anointed of God. A tradition of the sayings of Jesus closely akin, but not wholly identical, with some of the material in St Matthew’s Gospel was known to him; he and his community had access to one of the sources that was drawn upon by Matthew. Of St Mark’s Gospel he shows no knowledge. His community was suffering harassment since he speaks of ‘those who endure in the faith’ and, in a cryptic phrase, declares that such believers ‘will be saved by the Curse itself ’—a phrase which may presuppose defiance of the thesis that, by Deut. . , a crucified person lies under a curse (above p. ). Both Paul (Gal. : ) and Justin (Dial. . ) sought to combat the thesis. The community for which the Didache was composed was certainly in a state of tension with the Synagogue, a fact which shows that the split between Church and Synagogue cannot be attributed entirely to the actions and theology of the apostle Paul and his Gentile mission, with which the Didache seems to have no contact. The Didachist used an archaic liturgical manual. He prescribes the correct procedure for baptism. The candidate first fasts for one or two days. An absolute requirement is that baptism is to be given in the name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, that is ‘into the name of the Lord’, and must use water. It is indifferent whether the water is cold or warm or whether it is applied by immersing the candidate or by pouring the water on his or her head. (A similar freedom would be later affirmed by Tertullian, On Baptism . and in the Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus, Apost. trad. .) As at the synagogue Christians should keep a fast for two days a week, but not on the synagogue’s days, Monday and Thursday. The correct fast days are Wednesday and Friday. The Lord’s Prayer is to be said three times a day. The Didache gives the form of text in Matthew’s Gospel with the doxology at the end. At the eucharistic thanksgiving only the baptized may receive the consecrated cup and bread. The blessing of the cup surprisingly precedes that of the broken bread (as in one form of text in Luke’s account of the Last Supper). Specimen forms of prayer are given for blessing the two elements, closely akin to Jewish liturgical prayers. The assembly is to meet weekly on the Lord’s Day and, after confession of sins and the reconciliation of any quarrelling members, the Thanksgiving is celebrated. This, the Church must realize, is the worldwide sacrifice
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prophesied by Malachi (: ); i.e. the assembly must not suppose that their worship of God is a local and domestic affair without essential links to a universal offering. Moreover, the assembly particularly prays that ‘as the broken bread was scattered upon the mountains but was brought together and made one, so may your Church be gathered together from the ends of the earth into your kingdom.’ The Church is to pray that the entire body may be kept from evil, be perfected in love, and be gathered in holiness ‘from the four winds’ (Matt. : ). The Coptic version of the Didache preserves an ancient prayer which the Jerusalem manuscript and dependent church orders lost, namely a thanksgiving for incense being burned at the communal meal. The language presupposes that the prayer which the Church is offering is expressing a unity not only with other congregations of living believers elsewhere in the empire, but with all Christians living and departed. To provide pastors to preside at these functions, the congregation is told to appoint bishops and deacons, and is pointedly told not to look down on them as if they must be inferior to the itinerant prophets and teachers whose role seemed more charismatic and exciting, but whose specific calling was to travel about from church to church, not to provide a continuous and permanent pastorate. The author of the Didache was clearly conscious that in the first age of the Church the Christians had not immediately developed a lasting structure for their pastors. The epistle to the Hebrews thought it necessary to tell the recipients of the letter that Christians ought to be obedient to the authority of those appointed to preside over the community and added that the pastors had a solemn responsibility and would have to give account before God (: ). Resident pastors to whose appointment the congregation had assented needed to be respected if the coherence of the community was to be maintained. The author of the Didache was clearly aware of communities where a state nearer to the kind of anarchy described by Paul as prevailing at Corinth was normal, and where charismatic excitement was valued more than the week-by-week ministry of word and sacrament. These Churches needed to be warned by the author of the Didache to be on their guard against fraudsters and confidence-men among the itinerant teachers and charismatic prophets who travelled from church to church living on the alms and food of the host community. Some of them were in the business of purveying heresy. Visiting prophets might simply be in search of free board and lodging. One could be sure that an itinerant charismatic prophet must be a fraud if he asked leave to stay more than two days or if, having ordered a meal when in a state of possession by the Spirit, he proceeded to consume it himself. Likewise a travelling ‘apostle’ who made a request for financial support could be known thereby to be a fraud. As in Paul ( Corinthians ), this was controversial.
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However, the testing of spirits, once commended by Paul ( Thess. : ), might be a matter of delicacy. So the Didache exempts from human scrutiny a prophet who ‘acts out a cosmic mystery of the Church, and then does not teach others to do what he has done.’ The sentence is obscure in its reference, but might be explained from the language used in the Didache’s eucharistic blessings about the Church being gathered from the four winds or from the ends of the earth, since that presupposes a conception of the Church which transcends the empirical gathering of little assemblies on earth. The Church in the Didache is an entity on a cosmic scale, and it might well require an inspired teacher to find words to give that proper expression. The last section of the Didache contains an apocalyptic warning of an imminent antichrist figure, followed by the second coming of the Lord on the clouds. The Didachist allows for the possibility that a true prophet may come and settle more or less permanently with a congregation. A true prophet is entitled to the support of the people, receiving the first-fruit of the vintage and the corn and even of the beasts. Such true prophets ‘are your high priests’ (: ). The prophets are also given freedom to celebrate the eucharist as they think right (: ). The Didachist, and probably his source, thought of the eucharistic president as exercising pastoral and priestly functions. In Ignatius the bishop’s action when celebrating the eucharist is described as a sacrifice, but the term hiereús, normal word for a pagan or Jewish priest, is not found used of a Christian minister in the New Testament writings, other than of Christ. In the first epistle of Peter Christ is also the one shepherd or pastor. The Christian minister, insofar as he exercises either pastoral or priestly functions, acts only as representing Christ, not independently. When with Tertullian the Church first began to speak in Latin, it was natural to use the word sacerdos to refer to the president of the assembly, the bishop. In the Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus () priestly language is found in the rite for ordaining a bishop. His people understood him to be their intercessor with God, and soon they would rely on him to be their intercessor with secular authorities who, in turn, would come to expect the bishops to teach morality, loyalty in paying taxes, stability in marriage and family life. Because the primitive Church was setting itself free from the ordered structures of the Synagogue and from the professional authority of interpreters of the Mosaic Law, and because of the emphasis on ‘freedom’ in the teaching of the apostle Paul, a tendency was apparent to rely on authorities that did not derive their standing from tradition or from ordinary forms of legitimation. It was simpler to look to personal and special gifts of the Spirit, which at Corinth (in the manner of some highly regarded pagan oracles) took the form of ‘speaking with tongues’, i.e. unintelligible ecstatic utterance which then needed to be interpreted before it could be a source of
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edification. Yet at Corinth itself a group invoked Peter, leader among the Twelve, for their direction and guidance, and implied that direct commission from the Lord in the days of his ministry before the Passion was a source of authority superior to immediate inspiration. An inherent tension lay near the historic roots of Christianity between the derivation of supreme authority from the Jesus of history and his sending out of the apostles, and, on the other hand, from the immediacy of the Holy Spirit. The importance of the Didache, apart from its antiquity and its position as the earliest surviving church order, lies in its witness to a very early attempt at reconciling this tension.
MARCION
The apostle Paul insisted on the utter newness of what God had done in Christ (e.g. Cor. : ). A reader of Galatians . – would naturally deduce that the Mosaic law was a bondage into which no Gentile Christian, perhaps not even Jewish Christians, ought to be tied. Freedom from that law was a priceless gift of Christ in response to faith. By faith Gentile believers had deliverance from the ‘elements of the world’, the planetary powers of fate which also determined when Jewish feasts, such as new moon, were celebrated. If they listened to teachers telling them now to observe circumcision, sabbaths, and Jewish feasts, they would be returning to bondage (Gal. : ). Such utterances could easily produce a radicalized Paulinism which put a negative interpretation on the Old Testament. A root-and-branch separation of old and new was proclaimed about at Rome by Marcion, a shipmaster from Pontus on the Black Sea coast, who was struck by the partly gnostic ideas of a certain Cerdo. Marcion was disturbed by the problem of evil in a world said to be created by a God wholly good, all-powerful, and possessing foreknowledge, who must have known that human nature would lapse into sin. If this fall could have been simply averted by the intervention of divine grace and that grace was withheld, does not the God who failed to give help bear ultimate responsibility? Marcion further reasoned that an environment containing scorpions and other noxious insects or poisonous plants must reflect some deficiency of goodness in its Maker. And then the sexuality of the animal and human parts of creation seemed particularly repulsive and humiliating. These shortcomings discerned in nature and in human society appeared to Marcion strikingly similar to the moral imperfections of the God of the Jews who in their scriptures is revealed to be the Creator of this unhappy world. Marcion saw the God of the old covenant as a stern judge severely punishing transgressions of the Mosaic Law even for trivial matters, contrasting with the kindness and mercy of the God revealed in Jesus. Paul had taught that love transcended law, goodness was more than strict justice. Marcion drew a drastic conclusion: the Creator-god who gave the Law is inferior to a higher, supreme God of goodness and love first revealed by and incarnate in Jesus. The Creator was indeed divine, but far from supreme. Gnostic teachers liked
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to quote Isa. : ‘I am the Lord, there is none beside me: I am the one who creates evil.’ They attributed these words to the creator Ialdabaoth who was deficient in competence and good will. Marcion called the merciful kind deity, above and unknown to this Creator, ‘the Stranger’, and Marcionite believers were to live as aliens in the dark world of law. Granted that the Creator and his people had rational natural virtues, their moral standards were well below those of the ‘strangers’, the Marcionites, who were strongly ascetic towards the physical world. They were to abhor civic entertainments, the savagery of the amphitheatre, the low eroticism of theatre and music-hall, above all polytheistic cult. Only celibates or eunuchs or dedicated widows could be admitted to Marcionite baptism. Their rejection of secular society and its gods produced martyrs. Revulsion from the physical world manifested redemption from the realm of the Creator. Marcion could see no good purpose served by the natural world with its mosquitoes and midges and gnats and snake-bites. Moreover, childbirth was painful, pregnancy nauseating, sexual intercourse undignified and revolting; it was inconceivable that Jesus could have been born of Mary. With appeals to Luke : and Rom. : (‘the likeness of sinful flesh’), Marcion declared that the body of Jesus was an optical illusion. Yet his death on the cross ‘paid our debt’ to the just Creator at the purchase price. The Stranger ‘constrains us to conquer in the region of evil and in the body of sin.’ Important for Marcion was the saying of Jesus that new wine had to be kept in new wineskins (Luke : ). He wholly rejected all claims that the Old Testament was susceptible of Christian interpretation. Prophets such as Isaiah looked forward to a Messiah, but by that they meant a national military leader which Jesus obviously was not. The prophets’ concern was for a leader who would unite the dispersed Jews. No prophet of the Creator’s tradition foretold a crucified Messiah. The Hebrew word Emmanuel, ‘God with us’, cannot be a proper title for the Redeemer. So the values of the Hebrew scriptures were to be stood on their head. The serpent in Eden, Cain, and the people of Sodom were redeemed by the Stranger in Jesus from the Creator’s condemnation, whereas for the Creator’s heroes like Enoch, Noah, the patriarchs and prophets, the Stranger could do nothing. In the natural humanity formed by the Creator there can be no divine spark, since Adam was made in his image and likeness and, at the insufflation of Gen. : , received the Creator’s bad breath into his lungs. So the human soul installed by the Creator is no less evil than the body in which it dwells. Tertullian records that, in Marcion’s writings, astrology played a part; but no specimen survives to make a judgement possible. Marcion diverged sharply from ordinary gnosticism by having no mythology about a primaeval
Marcion
cosmic conflict between good and evil angels ending in the incarceration of some element of the supreme Stranger in the Creator’s handiwork. In his radicalized Paulinism the entire human race is by nature alien from the commonwealth of God. Marcion’s strong doctrine of total depravity was abandoned by his pupil Apelles, who affirmed the soul to be of celestial origin, imprisoned in flesh. To Marcion’s thesis there was a sharp negative reaction in the Church. So Marcion developed his theme of the contradiction between old and new covenants by compiling a book entitled Antitheses (a gnostic thesis, Tim. : ). The opening paragraph enunciated the basic exegetical principle of an absolute contrast between law and gospel. Included were instances of inconsistency and infirmity of purpose in a Creator who could forbid images but then order the making of the brazen serpent; could prohibit all work on the sabbath but then order an eight days march round Jericho. He could advise the Hebrews to steal Egyptian gold and silver; as if ignorant he could ask Adam where he was, and had to send to find out what precise state of vice was prevalent at Sodom and Gomorrah. At the making of the golden calf he simply lost his temper and had to be tranquillized by Moses’ intercessions. This catalogue of contradictions was perhaps more impressive in the second century than in modern times. Leviticus (: ff.) forbids touching a woman suffering a flow of menstrual blood, whereas Jesus (Luke : –) broke this law by healing a woman in this condition. Jesus loved little children, whereas the Creator-god sent bears to avenge children’s mockery of the bald prophet Elisha. And how deeply did Jesus ‘hate’ the sabbath and break it! He forbade the calling down of fire from heaven to consume opponents, whereas that was precisely what Elijah had done. Marcion judged it unimaginable that Jesus could really have said that he had come not to destroy but to fulfil the Law. His exegesis of the Old Testament inevitably required a rewriting of substantial parts of the Christian documents which were in process of becoming treated not merely as a record of the apostolic testimony but as a normative guide to the authentic gospel. Many of these texts presupposed continuity with the old covenant and assumed that the coming of Jesus the expected Messiah was a fulfilment of aspirations in the ancient prophets; even the Law was treated already by St Paul as a charter for the universal extension of the gospel in the Gentile world. A few stories current in the gospel tradition could suggest that the Twelve had failed to understand Jesus’ intention. The apostle Paul in the letter to the Galatians complained of teachers who wanted to impose Judaistic customs on Gentile believers, and to Marcion it seemed clear that these Judaizers had interpolated the epistles. Accordingly Marcion produced a canon or list of approved texts, consisting of ten Pauline letters in the order: Galatians, and Corinthians, Romans (chs. – only),
Marcion
and Thessalonians, ‘Laodiceans’ (i.e. Ephesians), Colossians, Philippians, Philemon. A few manuscripts of the Old Latin version also give Ephesians the title Laodiceans, and there are also manuscripts which likewise attest a text of Romans which had lost the last two chapters, probably by an early accident in transmission. The form of the Pauline corpus which Marcion received did not include Hebrews or the Pastoral epistles to Timothy and Titus. For the Gospel he decided for one rather than four, and this was an expurgated edition of Luke, behind whose pen Marcionites believed to be the mind of Paul himself. Marcion did not eliminate all references to the Old Testament in early Christian writings, but he removed references to Abraham as Judaizing interpolations in Romans and Galatians, and to Christ’s flesh in Colossians and Ephesians. His method was to give Old Testament references a negative significance.
JUSTIN
Marcion’s rejection of the unity and coherence of Old and New Testaments entailed abandonment of the contention that ancient prophecies were fulfilled in Christ and his Church. That contention was important in the conversion of Justin. He was born to Gentile parents in Samaritan territory at Nablus (Neapolis), and travelled in search of philosophical education. He claimed to have sat at the feet of a Stoic, a Peripatetic who disappointed him by concern for his fee (this was a cliché about Aristotelian tutors), and a Pythagorean who expected him to have mastered arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy so as to grasp immaterial truths. It was a search for truth in the soul, and of the various schools of philosophy the Platonists had most to offer by way of a religious quest. Plato’s Phaedrus held up the goal of a celestial vision of God. But Justin was persuaded to abandon Platonism by a seashore conversation with an old man who told him about the Hebrew prophets and the fulfilment of their predictions in Jesus’ virgin birth, incarnation, passion, descent to Hades, ascension and ‘Son of God’ title. Since a substantial part of New Testament Christology was formulated in terms derived from the Old Testament, the argument had force. The old man also deployed Aristotle’s arguments against Platonism. Justin remained positive towards Platonism, ‘not radically different from Christianity but not quite the same’ (Apol. II ). He believed the thesis of earlier Jewish argument that Plato had studied the writings of Moses, especially Genesis , in composing his Timaeus. Moreover the Platonic theodicy which attributed responsibility for evil to free choices by rational beings Justin welcomed as derived from Moses (Apol. I ). Greek philosophers derived from the prophets their true ideas of the soul’s immortality and judgement hereafter, A foreshadowing of the insight that in God there is a threeness is evident in Plato’s second letter. In classical philosophical schools there are ‘seeds of truth, sent down to humanity’ (Dial. . ; Apol. II ), but not in the hedonism of Epicurus. Socrates, Heraclitus, and the Stoic Musonius Rufus exiled under Nero were martyrs for truth. Jesus’s parable of the sower could be applied to the seeds of philosophical truth scattered along the wayside by providence. Of the superiority of Christ’s ethical teaching Justin was confident,
Justin
though aware that some could think it impracticable (Dialogue ). Lustful eyes and remarriage after divorce were censored by Jesus. Numerous Christians were living celibate lives throughout their time. Justin never suggests that Christians have a monopoly of virtue. Observant Jews who keep the law of Moses live good lives (Dial. . ). They will be saved if they come to acknowledge Jesus to be Messiah before they die (. ). Justin several times mentions the pain felt by the prayer inserted late in the first century in the Eighteen Benedictions of the synagogue liturgy: ‘For apostates let there be no hope . . . and let the Nazarenes (notzrim) and the heretics (minim) perish. Let them be wiped out of the book of life . . .’. (text preserved in the Babylonian Talmud, Berakoth a). This was placing Christians, both Jewish and Gentile, under a curse. Justin probably had a book of ‘Testimonies’ or fulfilled prophecies, including texts not found in scripture which he supposed Jews had suppressed, e.g. a Christian interpolation in Psalm ‘The Lord reigns from the tree’, which had a long future to the famous hymn ‘Vexilla Regis’ of Venantius Fortunatus and much later. This and other like insertions are met in both Justin and Irenaeus. Otherwise Justin carefully avoided appealing to texts not admitted by the Synagogue to be canonical, and is a crucial witness to the notion in his time of a canon of the Hebrew scriptures. An important exception for him was Isa. : , where the Septuagint’s ‘virgin’ translated the Hebrew word for ‘young woman’. Justin judged the Septuagint version correct on the ground that the birth is said by the Hebrew prophet to be a miraculous ‘sign’ which could not be true of a woman not a virgin. Justin addressed a vindication of Christianity to the emperor Antoninus Pius and the Roman senate and a later short supplement to Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius (Apol. II , ). The two Apologies are interconnected, the shorter text containing references back to the longer piece. In addition, a few years later, he composed a Dialogue with a Jew named Trypho, a refugee from Bar Cocheba’s messianic revolt of –, which severely harassed Christian Jews and resulted in Hadrian’s decree excluding all circumcised persons from Jerusalem, replaced by Aelia Capitolina (Dial. . ; Apol. I ). The Dialogue shares many concerns apparent in the two Apologies, but is more directly concerned with the fulfilment of prophecies. It is a major source on the mid-second century relation between Church and Synagogue, and illustrates the sense in which early Gentile Christianity was stamped by its need to define itself in contrast with the observant synagogue where circumcision, sabbaths, and new moons were necessary. The Dialogue attests numerous Jews who recognized Jesus as Messiah and adhered to the observances of the Mosaic Law; to a Gentile believer such as Justin this was acceptable provided they did not insist on observance by Gentiles. Justin portrays in Trypho a benevolent inquirer, sympathetic to much that he says, and
Justin
delighted by assertions of the verbal inspiration of the Hebrew scriptures which both read in the Greek version of the Septuagint.1 With Trypho, however, are his friends who are less amenable and at moments treat Justin with mockery. Possibly they represent the standpoint of Gentiles attached to the synagogue, resentful of the Church carrying off proselytes. Justin (. ) records that Gentile proselytes attached to the synagogues were far more hostile to the Church than observant Jews. He strongly disowns heretics such as Valentinus, Basilides, Satornilus, Simon Magus dominant at Samaria, a magician at Antioch named Menander, and especially Marcion (Apol. I ; Dial. . ). He is decisively against ‘docetism’ and gnostic determinism. He puts repeated stress on freedom of choice given by the Creator’s endowment to both angels and men, the fall of angels being important to his theodicy as explaining evil. Once in defending King David’s fall with Bathsheba as being his only grave lapse, he argues that David’s restoration is a refutation of determinism (Dial. . –). An interpretation of Christ from which he distances himself is that Jesus was a human being of such perfect virtue that at baptism he was adopted as Son of God. He judged that incompatible with the adoration of the infant Christ by the Magi. Trypho could not accept a Messiah as a pre-existent being born of a Virgin. He has no difficulty about messianic hope: ‘All Jews expect Messiah, and refer to him the biblical texts cited by Justin’ (). ‘But if Messiah is or has been, he is unknown and is himself unaware of his nature until he is awakened by the coming of Elijah’ (Dial. . ; . ; cf. Matt. : ; : ; Babylonian Talmud Sanhedrin ab). A significant point new in Justin is a repeated suggestion that for correctly interpreting the Old Testament one needs to recognize that sentences have to be ascribed to different speakers, e.g. the Father and the divine Logos (Apol. I . ; . ). The theme became important for Tertullian and later writers. The terminology (prosopon) influenced elucidations of the triadic doctrine of God (Cf. Apol. I . ff.; Dial. . , . –; . ). A major theme for Justin is the demonstration that the God appearing in the theophanies of the Old Testament, as for example at the Burning Bush to Moses, cannot be the supreme Father of all, who is utterly transcendent, but must be the Son/Logos, who therefore represents divine immanence within the world and is ‘a God other in number but not in will’, yet as united as sun and sunlight (). Philo the Alexandrian Jew had felt no inhibitions when writing of the Word or Logos of God as ‘another’ or a ‘second’ God. Texts to that effect would be gratefully cited by Eusebius of Caesarea in his Preparation of the 1 Justin used a revised Septuagint for the Twelve (Minor) Prophets, also attested among the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Justin
Gospel (. ). Justin may not have read Philo directly but very probably had contact with theology in the Greek synagogue. Justin’s Platonist background helped him to show that the ‘otherness’ of the divine Logos distinct from the Father did not mean a transfer or loss of divinity from the Father. The principle of ‘undiminished giving’ applied, like a fire lit from a fire in no way reducing the parent blaze (Dial. . , . ). In the Dialogue () Justin had misgivings about the analogy of sun and sunlight, which in his judgement might not sufficiently stress the otherness of the divine Logos. The argument presupposes that on this subject there was already debate and disagreement. The short Second Apology deploys Justin’s positive evaluation of philosophy, partly by pointing to close analogies between Christian beliefs to which pagans objected and familiar positions of Stoics or Platonists. Christians were more homogeneous and united than the philosophical schools. When pagans asked if martyrs were not mere suicides (the emperor Marcus Aurelius was to think them ‘theatrical’), Justin could ask if the same was not true of the admired Socrates. Christian language about the fire of divine wrath was not far from Stoic belief that periodically the cosmos dissolves into fire. Platonists think divine retribution for wickedness is precise and just. Parallels between the Christian story and some ancient myths (e.g. virgin births) he explains as diabolical counterfeits. Pagan cults and myths are all devilish work. Worshippers of Mithras were led by demons to meet in a cave imitating the cave of Bethlehem where Jesus was born (evidently already a pilgrim shrine) and to have a sacred meal of bread and water caricaturing the Christian eucharist. The acts of demons can be discerned in magic, dreams, the Roman prohibition of the Sibyl and of the oracle of Hystaspes. Trypho was unimpressed by the theme of virginal conception for Messiah, and thought Christians ought to be ashamed of a story so close to pagan myths (Dialogue ). The different philosophical schools have fragmentary aspects of truth, whereas Christ is the divine Logos and mediates the whole truth. Whether in Abraham or in Greek sages, there were ‘Christians before Christ’. Millennium In discussion with Trypho Justin upholds with determination the notion, not shared by all Christians, that Christ would return to a renewed Jerusalem there to reign with his saints for a thousand years in accordance with the prophecy of John of Patmos. The millenarian expectation picked up older convictions about the centrality of Jerusalem in the messianic age, and the interpretation, found in the book of Jubilees (: –), that the seven days of creation in Genesis each signify a thousand years, in that with the Lord a
Justin
day is a thousand years (Ps. : ; Pet. : ). In Luke’s gospel, when on his travels Jesus came near Jerusalem, some disciples thought the kingdom of God must be imminent (: ). The epistle of ‘Barnabas’ was sure that the world is to last for , years since with the Lord a thousand years are one day (: –). A belief close to Justin’s appears in Irenaeus of Lyon a generation later. For him redemption means the restoration of what was God’s will for Adam and Eve before the Fall resulting from their youthful inexperience. Belief in a literal millennium without symbolic interpretation was useful to Justin and Irenaeus by being directly incompatible with gnostic and spiritualizing understandings of language about the end of time. It also had affinity with the motivation of incipient pilgrimage to gospel sites. Millennial expectation and pilgrimage have often been nearly akin in Christian history. According to the calendar calculated by Dionysius Exiguus in the sixth century the great division in the historical process occurred at the time of the incarnation. (Dionysius nowhere explains how he arrived at his date for the incarnation.) This created excitement at the time of the millennium of the incarnation and the passion of Christ, the latter being marked (according to the record of Rodolf Glaber) by a western pilgrimage of huge dimensions to the Holy Land. Naturally there was an alternative view to the literalism of Justin and Irenaeus, and Justin was well aware that some Christians, not heretics, understood the millennium as symbol. Tertullian in north Africa understood prophecies about a restored Jerusalem to be an allegory of Christ and his Church, yet the incarnate Lord and the Church are historical realities, so that even in this life believers may hope for a new Jerusalem coming from heaven which is a way of talking about the life of the people of God now, not hereafter. Tertullian, much influenced by Justin, understood the millennium, therefore, as a training period making ordinary believers fit for heaven. In the background of the debate lay argument with learned rabbis who contended that Jesus could not be the expected Messiah because earthly felicity had not arrived. No lions were to be seen lying with lambs and crops were not growing automatically without human agriculture. Above all the Jews’ messianic hope was one of national liberation from enemies, though the disastrous consequences of the revolt against Hadrian under Bar Cocheba, who was Messiah to his followers, suggested the contrary. Justin wrote against a background of persecution of the Christians which he attributed to harassment by the Synagogue, and he himself, a freelance lecturer in Rome, was to die a martyr’s death. At the same time martyrs gave thanks to God for their sentence (Apol. II . ) to the amazement of pagan
Justin
listeners. The accusation of ‘atheism’ meant rejection of polytheism, which was common among philosophers, and the result of persecution was to give the Church the maximum of publicity: ‘Persecutions increase the number of Christians’ (Dial. . ). ‘Every day some become disciples’ (. ). Popular rumours that Christians indulged in cannibalism and sexual orgies after the lights were turned out were believed by some, not by Trypho (), but were useful (e.g. to Nero) to justify pogroms. Christian families found that their slaves were tortured until they gave evidence of vicious acts (Apol. II . ) . Torture was similarly threatened during persecution at Lyon in . The need for such threats is evidence that popular belief in vicious practices was very limited. As governor of Bithynia the younger Pliny was surprised to find that the Christians he subjected to examination and torture did not actually indulge in cannibalism. But Fronto, a pagan contemporary of Justin, is credited (by Minucius Felix, . ) with diffusing the slander. As late as the mid-third century Origen knew virtuous pagans who shunned Christian company. Credibility would have been enhanced by the fact that Jews were commonly accused of ritual murder, a charge which the Jews themselves passed on to smear the Christians according to Origen (c. Cels. . ; Josephus, c. Ap. ii ff.). A macabre scene in a Greek romance, preserved in a papyrus codex of the second century ad at Cologne, describes a comparable ritual. Both Justin and Trypho concur in the Dialogue that the scriptures (i.e. the Old Testament) provide an inspired authority. They differ, however, in the criterion of interpretation. Justin regards rabbinic exegesis as pettifogging, too literalist, anthropomorphic in thinking of God (. ), and in effect trivial (, ). However, though the principles of exegesis are crucial to the debate between the two positions, Justin cannot achieve consistency himself since he insists that the meaning of the prophets is first made clear by divine grace (. ), yet at the same time he wants to say that the scriptures are so clear as to require no commentary (. , . ). Paradoxically ‘Jews understand the Hebrew prophets less well than Gentile believers inspired by the Spirit inspiring the prophets’ (. , . ). Justin has no New Testament in the sense that Irenaeus a generation later can be said to have one. But once (. ) sayings of Jesus are appended as of equal authority to citation from the Hebrew scriptures. He has ‘memoirs by the apostles’, the Apocalypse of John with belief in the millennium, and probably a book of Testimonies or prophecies fulfilled in the gospel records. The book of Acts was not in his library. The Gospel of John he probably knew, since he writes of the ‘Only— begotten Son’ (. ), the Logos of God. Justin’s best-known text is his description of Christian worship at baptism and the Sunday congregation (Apol. I –), designed to demonstrate that these rites are not black magic.
Justin
To the assembled people called brethren we bring the believer united to us. We pray for ourselves, for him who has been enlightened, and for all others everywhere that we may learn the truth and be found worthy by good works and keeping the commandments to receive eternal salvation. After prayers we greet each other with a kiss. Then the president of the brethren is given bread and a cup of water and diluted wine, and he takes them and offers praise and glory to the Father of the universe in the name of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and in a long prayer offers thanksgiving (eucharistia) to have been counted worthy. His prayer concludes with the people saying Amen, a Hebrew word meaning ‘So be it.’ After the president has given thanks and all the people have made response, those we call deacons give to each person present a share in the bread and wine and water over which thanksgiving has been said, and they take a share to members not present. This food called ‘eucharist’ none may share unless a believer in the truth taught by us, who has been washed for the forgiveness of sins and for regeneration, and whose life conforms to what Christ taught. We do not receive these things as common bread or common drink. Just as our Saviour Jesus Christ was made flesh through God’s word, and had flesh and blood for our salvation, so we have been taught that the food over which by prayer with a word coming from him, thanksgiving has been said, food which is changed into the constituents of our body, is the flesh and blood of Jesus who was made flesh. . . .
In Dial. . – the eucharist is now universal among all races, including nomads, and fulfils Malachi’s prophecy (Mal. : ) of sacrifice being offered to God from all peoples, never realized in the Jewish Dispersion.
IRENAEUS OF LYON
Diversity was a mark of mid-second century Christianity with different groups adopting different gospels as their supreme authority. Questions were asked such as whether the divinity of Christ was taught in the gospel according to Matthew, and whether it was not simpler and no less religious to hold Jesus to be merely the son of his father Joseph; what measure of authority attached to the letters of Paul, how one could answer Marcion’s exclusive acceptance of a text of Luke’s gospel from which references to fulfilled Old Testament prophecy had been removed as Judaistic interpolations, or his belief that Paul was the only apostle emancipated from Judaism and deserving recognition. Born probably about , Irenaeus constitutes a major link between the Church of his own time, spread throughout the Roman Empire and beyond, and the heroic age of the past with Bishop Polycarp of Smyrna who could recall St John, who had shown the heretic Marcion the door, and who had visited Bishop Anicetus of Rome to defend the tradition of Asia Minor concerning the celebration of Easter, achieving peace with the recognition of diversity. Like other Greeks from Asia Minor, Irenaeus moved to the Rhône valley. He was probably author of the moving account of the inhuman persecution inflicted by order of Marcus Aurelius on the Christians of Lyon and Vienne in , preserved in the Church History of Eusebius of Caesarea. Continuing controversy between Rome and Asia Minor about the calculation of Easter Day and the form of the preceding fast drew him in to write a conciliatory letter to Pope Victor inviting him to be tolerant of diversity. That was hard for Victor to do for the reason that at Rome there were migrant Christians from Asia Minor, and it seemed hard to tolerate differences within one city. It seemed an advertisement of disunity. Victor’s bid for uniformity was supported by several bishops in the Greek East. The disagreement was the earliest instance of tensions between Greek east and the west, the latter being still Greek-speaking. Gnosticism Irenaeus’ greatest work was a five-part argument against gnosticism, especially against the followers of Valentinus. In its original form his was the least
Irenaeus of Lyon
bizarre form of gnostic theosophy, the form most likely to capture the attention of church members. Valentinus was one of a succession of preachers or teachers who were attracted to the Roman Church, where such persons were held in respect and valued. In the capital there gathered people of different ethnic groups and cultures. Irenaeus once spoke of Rome as a microcosm of the universal Church, and thought that this enabled this Church to provide a norm of Christian truth. The principal characteristic of gnosticism in its many shapes and forms is a negative evaluation of the material world and therefore of its Creator. Dualistic language about spirit and matter, usually cast in mythological form, is common, and the distinctiveness of different sects often lies in the imaginative myths in which individual teachers expressed their dualism. They speculated about the origins of the cosmos and how the human soul came to be imprisoned in a body of flesh. The theme from St John’s gospel that the divine Logos had united human flesh to himself was difficult to grasp for anyone touched by Platonic ideas of the soul’s destiny, impossible if one thought the flesh vile. It seemed altogether easier to think of the divine Logos being united to the human soul and not to the body. Irenaeus refused to see the origin of evil as located in matter. Its root for him lay in a wrong use of free choice, initially by angelic powers corrupting women (Gen. : ). There was therefore an association between the original Fall and the erotic. Irenaeus did not think Adam and Eve experienced sexual desire before the Fall (Epideixis ). There were to be those who asked if the pure Logos of God could be one even with the soul, considering that the human mind is not characteristically pure in heart. But for most teachers the soul was a divine spark that had a longing to return to its heavenly home, and gnosis or knowledge was an explanation of the way in which it had come to be here and what knowledge was needed, e.g. of planetary powers barring the ascent to the divine realm. This conception of powers barring the soul’s ascent did not in the least need to be associated with heresy, and it is explicitly found in Justin (Dial. . ), Clement of Alexandria and Origen as well as in later writers with no gnostic tinge. But it was a picture of the soul’s earthly situation which easily lent itself to resort to magic. Astrologers could sell one an amulet which could coerce the planetary power obstructing ascent to open the great doors and allow one through to the next stage. Experts in the occult could disclose the secret barbaric names which gave power over hostile spirits. The teachers and sects were rivals to each other and not at all on friendly terms. Valentinus is no simple figure to delineate because he had pupils able to develop the teachings of their master, and because in all probability the citations from his homilies or poems or letters, mainly found in Clement of Alexandria, reached Clement through the medium of his disciples. The three
Irenaeus of Lyon
most prominent disciples, themselves independent teachers, were Ptolemy, Heracleon (author of the first commentary on St John’s gospel and the object of refutation in the exegesis by Origen), and Theodotos, of whom Clement of Alexandria gives excerpts. He is never actually described as Valentinus’ pupil but is clearly a kindred spirit. It is certain that Valentinus was uncomfortable with any idea that the physical body of Christ needed food and drink and had to dispose of body waste. Clement of Alexandria felt the force of his difficulty and answered with the doctrine that Jesus did not actually need to eat or drink but did so to forestall heretics who said that he produced an optical illusion of doing so. Irenaeus first formulated the classic orthodox reply that any part of human nature, body, soul, or spirit, which the Redeemer did not make his own is not saved. The power and attractiveness of the Valentinian school lay in its presentation of the true meaning of dark biblical symbols. Genesis and the parables of Jesus could be made rich in symbolic significance. If Jesus lived for thirty years before going public, and if the hours worked by the labourers in the vineyard add up to thirty, that number coincides with the days in most months, and signifies the thirty celestial powers or Aeons constituting the Fullness ( pléroma) of the evolving divine being. Of these thirty aeons the twelfth is obscurely referred to in Luke’s statement (: –) that the young girl raised from the dead was twelve years old. She symbolizes the heavenly Wisdom (Sophia) who suffered emotional distress by falling in love with the supreme Aeon or ‘Depth’, which was to set her cap above her station and to precipitate the pre-cosmic Fall. From the distress of Wisdom failing to recognize her ceiling in heaven there have come three natures: (a) spirit, (b) a psychic stuff, (c) matter. Humanity may be divided into (a) spiritual people sure of being the Elect predestinate to salvation, who could safely eat meats sacrificed to idols; (b) ordinary church members or psychic people who have a chance of a better lot hereafter through ascetic restraint and self-discipline; and (c) earthy clods for whom salvation is not an option. The threefold division was using a theme from Plato’s Timaeus. One teacher named Mark was the object of special horror in the mind of Irenaeus, not least because he fascinated women, using sorcery with the eucharistic wine, and charging substantial fees for the revelation of mysteries. But not all gnostics were crooks. Valentinus did not look like a heretic. Gnostics liked to explain the creation as the consequence of emanations from the supreme being. They were a natural overflow of causation percolating down to lower levels of being. Irenaeus opposed this by stressing that the creation had come about by a free and inscrutable decision of the divine will. To ask why such a decision was made or how it can have come about is inquiring into matters God has not thought fit to reveal. At the same time as
Irenaeus of Lyon
stressing the impenetrable will of God, Irenaeus could also follow the Timaeus of Plato (e) in the proposition that the creation of this world is an overflow of God’s goodness which is free from all envy (AH . ). Moreover just as the created world has come from an inscrutable decision of the divine will, so too the begetting of the divine Son is beyond all human investigation: ‘Who can declare his generation?’ (Isa. : ). But there is the difference that the material world belongs to the realm of time and temporal successiveness, while the divine Son belongs to the eternal realm transcending time. There were themes here which would become important and influential for Athanasius in the fourth century. The doctrines and myths associated with Valentinus and his pupils are clear that the central figure in the story of redemption is Jesus. That was not necessarily true of all gnostic myths. The sect which followed Simon Magus of Samaria made Simon the redeemer; the book of Genesis provided the fallen female figure, symbol of a pre-cosmic smudge in the creative process. The serpent in Genesis fascinated speculation, and one sect, the Ophites or snake-worshippers, judged that the creature through which the human race acquired its knowledge of good and evil must be beneficent. Origen (c. Cels. ) preserves substantial pieces of Ophite liturgy, known to the pagan Celsus who rightly saw that it adapted matter from Mithraic rites. Ancient magical papyri and amulets illustrate the cosmic snake with his tail in his mouth signifying eternity. Magicians liked barbarian words and names, and this liking strongly influenced some gnostic mythologies. At the time when gnostic sects were shaping their mythologies there was no fixed canon of New Testament writings, and gnostic teachers were proud to be able to produce Secret Sayings of Jesus, accounts of what Jesus had said to his disciples between the resurrection and the ascension, or other occult and cabbalistic information. Gospels, Acts, Letters, and Apocalypses widely current were not limited to those which in course of time became the New Testament, and gnostic leaders liked texts which ‘the Great Church’ was not going to recognize as authoritative and appropriate to be read in the lectionary. Irenaeus affirmed that it is of the nature of things to have four gospels, as there are four principal winds, the cherubim have four faces—a lion for John, calf for Luke, a man for Matthew, and an eagle for Mark (an allocation later altered). There long remained groups and individuals who valued apocryphal or secret texts and who thought it improbable that so profound a mystery would be in publicly accessible books. Norms of true teaching Irenaeus contended that if the apostles really had handed on secret traditions, they would have entrusted them to the clergy responsible for the
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communities of apostolic foundation. Any church founded by an apostle would prove the point, but best of all one can turn to the glorious church at Rome, founded (Irenaeus believed) by Peter and Paul the apostolic martyrs. At Rome the tradition of catechism is conscientious, and with many Christians coming there from other parts of the Roman Empire the community is subject to external control. So it is impossible to suppose that the authentic tradition is not to be found in this church which enjoys preeminence by virtue of antiquity. Here one can meet the common faith of all believers, and Irenaeus can cite the succession of bishops through which the tradition is visible. ‘Through God alone can God be known’, and therefore as revealer of the Father Christ is himself true God. God has become human so that we might become divine, which is the meaning of salvation. ‘Christ became what we are that we might become what he is’. Therefore Christ ‘recapitulates Adam’. This participation in the divine nature is given through sharing in the eucharistic gifts, the pledge of immortality, as the Word of God comes to the mixed cup and bread to become the body and blood of Christ. ‘We there offer God his own’, in the spiritual sacrifice of Christians of which the Levitical sacrifices are a prefiguration. Irenaeus repeatedly emphasizes that the one faith is shared by believers in every part of the known world, and what is universal is apostolic. So the universal Church is the repository of truth. Where the Church is, there is the Spirit, and where the Spirit is there is the Church. Therefore one must not separate from the Church. Would-be reformers want to leave the Church because of moral faults and hypocrites. If they end by splitting the Church, they do more harm than good. The marks of the Church are the Bible in which Old and New Testaments are a unity and coherent. Marcion was wrong to think them incompatible, but was at least right in thinking that there should be a canon or fixed list of books accepted. The Pauline epistles were vindicated by Luke–Acts, but Irenaeus did not regard the epistle to the Hebrews as Pauline and canonical, though he has allusions taken from it. He has no citation from Peter, John, or James. Like Justin Irenaeus declares the meaning of the Bible to be clear, so that the heretics get their private meaning by forced exegesis. Yet the Bible has hard sayings, and the necessary rule is to interpret obscure passages by the clear. The exegete needs grace. And beside the written texts of scripture he can rely on tradition in the orthodoxy of apostolic foundations. The sacramental laying on of hands in ordination endows the bishop with grace to hold and teach the truth to his people. That there are difficulties in the Old Testament is not denied. In the plagues of Egypt why did Egyptians have to suffer massacre? The hardening
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of Pharaoh’s heart? Spoiling the Egyptians of their jewels? The incest of Lot’s daughters? In each case Irenaeus is sure of an edifying typological sense. The gnostics and Marcion had a strong argument in the contention that the Christian revelation must presuppose its superiority to what went before. Irenaeus allowed revelation to be gradual and progressive, just as Adam and Eve fell at first because like children they could not always stand upright. Even the Christian revelation is not absolute, for we see through a glass darkly and do not have the full truth until the final fulfilment of God’s plan (AH . . ). The Bible is an obscure collection but as a self-disclosure of the Creator it is not more obscure than the world of nature. (This is the earliest statement of the proposition in Joseph Butler’s Analogy of Religion that there is no difficulty in revelation not paralleled in nature.) Irenaeus was well educated in philosophy and literature, with citations of Homer and Plato and others. He is well aware that the sources of the Nile remained unknown, and the causes of bird-migration, tides, thunder, and lightning belonged in the realm of mystery. Although the original Greek of Irenaeus’ great work survives only in later citations, and its survival is owed to early Latin and Armenian versions, he was certainly influential during the following two centuries. He provided the classic rebuttal of dualistic mythology, affirming the centrality of the incarnation as medium of redemption, and the goodness of the created order. ‘The glory of God is a living human being’ (AH . . ). The authentic Church is that with the ministerial succession from the apostles, though that (he added) does not sanctify proud or avaricious presbyters. Extant in Armenian is his ‘Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching’ (Epideixis), the essence of which (much indebted to Justin) is a vindication of the fulfilment of prophecy in the gospel story. Irenaeus embodies the process towards standardization, towards having a more or less fixed list of writings to be deemed authoritative in debate. The canon of the New Testament is visibly emerging out of the mist. Nevertheless this in no way signified the destruction of alternative or ‘apocryphal’ Gospels, Acts, Letters, and Apocalypses, which continued to be produced and read. Many of these bore the names of Old as well as of New Testament authors. Some were being produced during the same decades in which books received into the canon were being composed. Some were written after the main shape of the New Testament canon was already formed. Their literary form is different from that of canonical books. They are not distinctive because their title ascribes them to Old or New Testament heroes, for some books admitted to the canon are not by their stated authors. Admission to the canon was inextricably linked with the orthodoxy of the doctrine contained in the text. It was not enough to bear an apostolic title. Apocryphal Gospels wanted to convey traditions about Jesus of an esoteric
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nature, or sayings of Jesus which the canonical evangelists might not have. Apocryphal Acts could recount the missionary wanderings of apostles in distant lands, such as Thomas in India, and a major theme could be the necessity of celibacy for the baptized. Letters could supplement the preserved corpus or adopt the apostolic form to correct the errors of a later time. Apocalypses could describe heaven and hell, the latter in lurid and horrendous images to which some congregations would object. Christian apocalypses could recycle older Jewish material. The Ascension of Isaiah, probably early in the second century, not only narrates how Manasseh sawed the prophet in half but describes the descent from heaven of the ‘Beloved’ to set up his kingdom on earth for a thousand years. It offers a sombre picture of the quality of church leaders ‘who love office but lack wisdom’. A supplement to biblical material is ‘the Penitence of Jannes and Jambres’, the magicians who opposed Moses, providing them with a sorceress-mother, a kind of Sycorax, and (in anticipation of the Faust legend) introducing a pact with the devil. Numerous apocryphal texts were enjoyed by gnostic sympathizers. The Acts of John describe a ‘docetic’ crucifixion; that is, while Roman soldiers on Golgotha are under the illusion that they are putting Jesus to death, the real Christ is with John looking down on the scene. These Acts are also famous for the Hymn of Jesus, perhaps to be chanted in a dance (a piece known to Augustine, ep. ). The Acts of Paul and Thecla are said by Tertullian to have been written by a presbyter in the province of Asia (i.e. near Ephesus) who resigned office because he advocated the view that women could preach and baptize. The surviving text is fragmentary, dependent on Greek and Coptic papyri. Thecla attracted high veneration, especially at a shrine in her honour at Seleucia in Cilicia (Silifke in southern Turkey). The martyrdom of Paul in Rome after a confrontation with the emperor is the last part. These Acts are cited by orthodox writers as edifying matter. Such documents have an affinity with Jewish Midrash, embroidering a sacred story either to fill in gaps or to advocate celibacy. An infancy Gospel such as the ‘Protevangelium of James’ in the second century is at pains to stress Mary’s perpetual virginity, and in time other apocryphal texts extolled the glory of the Mother of God in the communion of saints. Among the most interesting texts is the Clementine romance, written in the style of ancient love stories. This composition of the late second century survives through fourth-century adaptations, one in Greek, one in a Latin translation by Rufinus of Aquileia entitled ‘Homilies’ and ‘Recognitions’ respectively, the latter having been revised partly in a more orthodox direction, partly also by a radical Arian, but still retaining much of the original sense. The second-century original disliked the apostle Paul and put great stress on Peter. The Clementine Homilies and Recognitions include an
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influential fiction, a letter from Clement to James saying that at Rome Clement had been formally ordained and commissioned by St Peter himself entrusting him with the power to bind and loose. In short, the bishops of the Roman see have derived their Petrine office from Clement by juridical succession. That theme made this document immensely influential with medieval canonists a millennium later. The author may also have wanted to affirm Roman primacy over against the successors of James at Jerusalem. The implication is that the Second Coming has not arrived and the Church has to come to terms with a continuing existence in history with a reasonably ordered form of government. The principal purpose, however, of the Clementine romance was to utilize the novel-form to make Christian doctrine sweeter to the inquiring reader.
THE NEW TESTAMENT TEXT
Marcion had put a critical question about the integrity of transmission of texts which in and soon after his time were in process of being formed into the New Testament. A major objection to his view that these documents had been interpolated in a pro-Judaistic sense consisted in the total lack of manuscript authority for his drastically expurgated form of text. No autograph existed then (as now, of course); but autographs of ancient documents other than letters and documents of daily life preserved on papyrus are extremely rare. About the middle decades of the second century a scribe of Gospels and Acts produced a copy which came to enjoy a famous descendant in the late fourth-century Codex Bezae from Lyon, a bilingual manuscript presented by the Calvinist Beza to Cambridge University to encourage Reformed sympathies. Here there is mild enhancement of words or phrases critical of Judaism. But the principal families of ancient manuscripts, numbering several thousand, offer forms of text where differences are numerous but not often deeply significant theologically. Scribes wanted to harmonize Gospels or to clarify a sentence by paraphrase. Naturally the majority of variants were created by scribes’ mistakes. It has never been easy to transcribe a substantial text by hand without a single slip. The numerous manuscripts can be subjected to ordered classification in families, i.e. groups which share the same variants or other idiosyncrasies. These originally arose from differing local usages—Egyptian churches followed Alexandria, Jerusalem and Palestinian churches followed Caesarea the metropolis, where Origen and later Eusebius and his master Pamphilus were much interested in variant texts. A very early manuscript of the Caesarean family is preserved on papyrus in the Chester Beatty collection, containing the Pauline epistles with Hebrews but without the letters to Timothy and Titus. The handwriting is not later than ad . One scrap of St John’s Gospel at Manchester (Rylands papyrus ) is in a hand unlikely to be later than . Experts in ancient handwriting can offer decisive judgements about the approximate dating of a text on papyrus or parchment. Naturally a form of text does not enjoy superior authority because it happens to have been preserved on papyrus. It is a rule of good textual criticism of all ancient writings that an early manuscript is not necessarily superior to one written later
The New Testament Text
whose scribe could have been copying a very careful and even older model. In any event, reason is of greater authority than any manuscript in deciding on a variant reading. In the course of time there was a tendency towards standardization, and this would produce the text commonly labelled koine or ‘Byzantine’, the normal Greek text familiar to medieval writers. The vernacular versions of the sixteenth century depended on this, and sometimes western Protestants mistakenly supposed that by translating the Greek (Byzantine) text they had a Bible far closer than Jerome’s so-called Vulgate Latin (i.e. the common Bible of the medieval West) to what the apostles wrote. There was only a limited sense in which this was true, and Jerome used Greek manuscripts much earlier than, and at times superior to, those available to the vernacular translators. In the second century the Greek original of the New Testament writings was translated into the languages immediately required by the missionaries, especially Syriac and Latin. The old Syriac version began with the four gospels. Justin’s pupil Tatian, a native of Mesopotamia, made a gospel harmony in Greek, the ‘Diatessaron’, a fragment of which was found at Dura-Europos and therefore earlier than , and in Syriac translation this became the normal text used in the Syriac-speaking churches at Edessa and the contiguous region. The old Syriac gospels were also known as ‘The Gospels of the Separated’. Only two manuscripts survive. Late in the fourth century a revised version of the Syriac New Testament called the Peshitta, i.e. the ‘simple’ or ‘current’ text, was produced. The Syrian churches did not admit the Revelation to the canon. The Peshitta included the Old Testament, and probably came from a variety of translators, some perhaps Jewish. The Old Latin or Vetus Latina was produced in southern Gaul and in north Africa by various translators, and had different forms of text, one of which is well attested in Cyprian’s biblical quotations. Differing versions survive in early manuscripts. In some parts of the Old Testament the translators found their task of exceptional difficulty, and their Latinity is idiosyncratic. In the fourth century north Africa had a group which read no book other than the Old Latin Bible, and in consequence had problems in making their intentions clear to shopkeepers in the bazaar because they used biblical idioms. They spoke the equivalent of Quaker English. The Old Latin translations remained current until Jerome produced a revised version. Even then the Old Latin Bible long continued to be used in places distant from Rome and the main arteries of travel and trade. Although parts of the Bible in an Old Latin version do not survive, the text can often be reconstructed from the quotations in Christian writers. It is currently in process of being edited under the hand of R. Gryson.
CELSUS: A PLATONIST ATTACK
The first grave conflict between Church and Roman Empire after Pilate’s execution of Jesus was the accidental consequence of Nero needing to blame an unpopular scapegoat for fire at Rome in ad . But the Christian refusal to acknowledge the gods by whose favour the empire enjoyed fertile crops and wives and secure frontiers, or to take an oath by the genius of the emperor, provoked distrust and fear. The customs and institutions of society involved participation in idolatrous sacrifices. It was accepted that Jews were exempt from these; that was their ancestral religion and justifiable, even if bizarre. But Christians were being converted from all sorts of ethnic backgrounds. It could help one to lie low if one was vegetarian, as were a few philosophers mainly in the Pythagorean tradition. Little meat was eaten which had not first been offered at some altar. But soldiers could not avoid being present at polytheistic rites, which enhanced Christian reluctance to serve as army officers. A public stand would end in trial and martyrdom. The apparently suicidal, almost theatrical impression created by martyrs drew much attention to the Church, where the model of the Maccabees’ resistance to Antiochus Epiphanes was closely followed, short of military conflict. In Bithynia the governor Pliny was surprised to discover no secret vices practised at nocturnal assemblies, but reported to the emperor Trajan that the refusal to offer sacrifices was an obstinacy worthy of capital punishment. One governor, confronted by a Christian explaining that simply on ground of conscience he could not co-operate, saw further discussion as a waste of time and ordered immediate execution. In Rome Justin, soon followed by Tertullian in north Africa, recorded that martyrdoms had the effect of providing huge publicity and attracting converts, notably by offering an obvious refutation of popular accusations of nocturnal vice. In Rome a public disputation between Justin and a pagan philosopher Crescens did nothing to diminish the already substantial community in the city even if it led on to Justin’s own trial and death. In the middle years of the second century the Cynic writer Lucian of Samosata (Syria) composed a witty sketch of a confidence trickster and charlatan, Peregrinus Proteus. Having murdered his father, he deceived a Christian community into making him their leader, so that he received
A Platonist Attack
adulation and opulent gifts, suffering imprisonment for his ‘faith’ but thereby enjoying even greater veneration from widows and orphans. Bribed gaolers allowed prominent Christians to spend the night in his company in the prison. He was hailed as a new Socrates, finally dropping any Christian pretence and committing a dramatic suicide by fire in . Lucian’s Voltairean portrait shows him aware that the Christians have sacred books which are expounded at their assemblies, and that Jesus taught them universal brotherhood and sharing of property. Roughly contemporary with Irenaeus a Greek observer of the Church named Celsus became alarmed by Christianity’s rapid growth. His philosophical sympathies were those of an eclectic Platonist, and he wrote a series of critical studies, substantial fragments from one of which survive in quotations made by Origen in a reply (contra Celsum) years later. Celsus’ book was entitled Alethes Logos, the true doctrine or authentic tradition. His criterion of religious truth was adherence to ancestral customs. He understood the penumbra of gnostic sects to be part of the same phenomenon as the body which he called ‘the great Church’, and was struck by the ferocity of the disagreements among the different groups. He had first-hand information about Marcion and Ophites. A knowledge of Justin’s work is possible. Celsus understood the supreme god called Zeus to preside over a pantheon of lesser deities who guarded individual tribes or nations. He was offended by Christian scorn for polytheistic cult as worship of evil daemons, by cheap abuse of the legend of Zeus’ tomb in Crete, by provocative insults and assaults on cult-statues. It seemed extraordinary, even mad to proclaim that a crucifixion could be a victory over the devil (. , . ), and to have a longing for martyrdom as sharing in that victory (. ). To refuse to swear by the Genius (Tyche) of the emperor (. ) declared Christian alienation from the cause of the empire. It was extraordinary to suppose the exaltation of Jesus to divine honour was compatible with monotheism and incompatible with honouring the divine emperor. Yet they could dream of a day when the emperor himself would be converted and when their ‘law’ would be universal (. –). Irenaeus acknowledged the debt owed by the Christian mission to the peace and civil order of the empire (AH . . ). Justin saw the cross-symbol in the Roman army standards (Apol. I followed by Tertullian and Minucius Felix in Africa). Celsus’ portrait of the Church is of a society far from monochrome, largely artisan and uneducated in the majority, yet also including intelligent people capable of interpreting Genesis allegorically and well read in the dialogues of Plato (. , . –). At the same time he writes of good people wanting to stay aloof, repelled by the crowd of simple believers, but evidently attracted by an austere ethic of contempt for wealth, honour, and pride in high culture (. ). That the mission of the Church was pulling people in large numbers
Celsus
distressed Celsus much (. , ). Polemic led him at times to scorn the Church as an insignificant body (. , ), but had that been true he would hardly have written his book. His final appeal to Christians to accept public office and serve in the army presupposes that among them he knew some of a station in society fit to become magistrates. A few years later in north Africa Tertullian was contending against the view that, if Joseph could hold such office under Pharaoh, the people of God could do so now. Origen’s reply shows that debate within the Church concerned the appropriateness of a Christian holding any office of power and authority in society or the Church. He allowed the latter. Theological disagreements inside the Church caught Celsus’ attention, not merely dissension between the great Church and the sects. He knew of some for whom Christ was simply God; or ‘Jesus is God’ while the Father is ‘the great God’ (. ). He was aware that between Jews and Christians the contentious issue was merely whether in Jesus Messiah had come or not (. , . ), but not perhaps of the degree to which this disagreement was related to the Christian understanding of messiahship as implying divine status. He knew that Jesus was entitled ‘saviour’ (. , . ), ‘child of God’ (often) and God’s messenger or ‘angel’, this last being a common secondcentury title found in the Shepherd of Hermas and in Justin and a target in the polemic of the epistle to the Hebrews. He had met Christians who said the Son of God is the ‘Logos’ (. ), and were concerned to say that the title ‘Son of God’ is being used in a special sense. Celsus was aware that the differing gospels were like flags for rival groups, and mentions people who altered the text (perhaps a deduction Celsus made from differences of wording or perhaps a reference to Marcion’s textual alterations). The Christology of one group is presented as a doctrine that ‘since God is great and hard to perceive, he thrust his own spirit into a human body and sent it down here’ (. ). A puzzling sentence in . mentions ‘some who do not grant that God is spirit, but only the Son’. Celsus was intrigued by the tension in the Church between the differing standpoints of various theologians leading to sharp controversy and by the mutual love (agápe) which the Christians also manifested towards one another (. ). ‘Their agreement is amazing, the more so as it can be shown to rest on no trustworthy foundation.’ What in Celsus’ diagnosis holds them together is the bond created by being in revolt against their roots in Judaism and indeed Hellenic culture generally, the mutual advantage created by sticking together, and ‘the fear of outsiders’ (. ). Their problems of disunity result from their growth in numbers: ‘Since they have expanded to become a multitude, they are divided and rent asunder, and each wants to lead his own party’ (. ). Now the only thing they still have in common is the name which alone they
A Platonist Attack
are ashamed to abandon (. ). It was an ancient argument of Epicurean philosophers that the one reason why people co-operate is its necessity for survival. The affirmation that in the man Jesus, illegitimate son of Mary, a god was present was for Celsus incomprehensible. A divine being would unquestionably have visited retribution on those who tortured and crucified him, would have vanished from the cross (as Apollonius of Tyana did before the emperor Domitian), would above all have appeared after death to Pilate, to the soldiers who crucified him, and to all people everywhere. That at the resurrection he appeared only to one woman and to his own confraternity is unimaginable. After death the wounds he showed were an optical illusion, not real. (In other words, Celsus would have found a docetic Christology credible.) But a priori it is inconceivable that a god would have been born in a human body as Jesus was, could have eaten lamb (at the Last Supper), and could have spoken with an ordinary voice. A divine figure would have had an enormously loud speaking voice (. –, . –, . , , . ). The disbelief which met his teaching is evidence that he could not have been divine (. ). Celsus knows that the Christians have sacred writings, but except for Genesis these do not loom large in his attack. He has no interest, for example, in pointing to contradictions or moral difficulties, despite his attention to arguments used by Marcion about the Old Testament. He is ready to concede that Jesus did miracles, but that was by magical means. The prophecies which were claimed to be fulfilled he regards as far too ambiguous, and in any event lacking persuasiveness to Jews. What scares him is the success of the Christian mission undermining an entire cultural tradition. And the quiet mutual toleration of polytheistic cults is being replaced by fierce internal contentions recalling the conflicts of Greek philosophical schools.
MONTANISM: PERPETUA
Celsus had met extremely enthusiastic Christians given to delivering excitable prophecies ‘at the slightest excuse’, proclaiming the imminent end of the world (. ). Probably in Bishop Polycarp of Smyrna was martyred. His church wrote a moving account of his end, stressing that he was no voluntary martyr, and contrasting him with a Phrygian named Quintus who provoked the authorities. Perhaps Quintus was a Montanist. In Egypt the Coptic churches would suggest that Polycarp’s heroism compensated for St John’s dying in his bed.1 In Phrygia (Asia Minor) a major movement of ecstatic prophecy began in either or . A leading theme was a special revelation by the Holy Spirit to call the Church away from gnostics and others anxious to reinterpret symbolically the literalist eschatology of resurrection of the flesh and a physical millennium, Phrygia was a region where there had been prophetesses and charismatics especially at Hierapolis and Philadelphia, and so the new movement in Phrygian villages could answer critics by invoking the idea of a legitimating succession. The ‘New Prophecy’ as it was called by its adherents (Montanists or Kataphrygians to opponents) began with a charismatic ecstasy on the part of Montanus, whom Jerome (ep. . ) claims to have been a converted priest of Cybele (i.e. accustomed to scenes of religious frenzy) together with two women, Prisca and Maximilla, who abandoned their husbands. Critics of the ‘New Prophecy’ liked to represent it as having pagan origins as well as working with an irrational notion of inspiration as based on suspension of the rational faculty. The inspired oracles of the trio were peculiar in being direct utterances of the Paraclete using their vocal chords as his own. The content was a proclamation of the imminent end, in view of which special fasts were to be observed. The new Jerusalem was to descend from heaven, not indeed in Palestine as was normal millennial expectation e.g. in Justin or Irenaeus, but (with a touch of regional patriotism) in Phrygia. Missionaries from Phrygia spread the message through the empire, reaching Rome, Lyon, and Carthage among other towns. In that
1
F. W. Weidman, Polycarp and John (Notre Dame, ).
Montanism
extension there is a measure of the movement’s power and success. An austere puritan ethic was impressive. The New Prophecy was strictly orthodox, and claimed to be vindicated by numerous martyrdoms, a sign of being the authentic Church. However, the claim was being made that anyone who failed to recognize the movement as an authentic operation of the Spirit of God was on that ground deficient in the presence of the Spirit. The distinction made at Corinth and in Paul’s first epistle to the Corinthians between the ‘natural’ (psychic) and the spiritual (pneumatic) was crucial. Therefore the movement became extremely divisive. The claim to spiritual validity was a demand for recognition. A decisive question was to be the attitude of the great sees such as Rome. Tertullian at Carthage became a convert to Montanist sympathies, and reports that for a time the bishop of Rome, unnamed, almost decided to acknowledge its authenticity but was argued out of that by urgent representations from Asia Minor. There some bishops were horrified by the divisiveness of the Montanist claim, whereas at the town of Thyatira the entire population, bishop and clergy and laity, became Montanist. Phrygian inscriptions ‘Christians to Christians’ may well be of Montanist origin, not merely an expression of strong self-consciousness of being a society apart, ‘strangers in this world’ ( John . ), though that defiant feeling in Phrygian churches could have helped to create a seed-bed for the New Prophecy to take root. Besides regretting the divisive effect of the New Prophecy, critics pointed to the very unusual form of inspired utterance. The prophetic trio did not adopt the pattern of biblical prophets, ‘Thus saith the Lord . . .’ reporting in the third person. Their oracles were the Paraclete’s words, and the three prophets were not at the time in possession of their rational faculties. Bishops who failed to recognize the oracles of the Holy Spirit found themselves coldshouldered, in effect dismissed as godless and secular. Tertullian wrote a (lost) tract ‘On Ecstasy’ pinpointing the loss of mental control as the central issue between ‘psychics’ and ‘pneumatics’. At the back of the debate was a much older disagreement, whether inspiration is conditional on a suspension of reason or whether it brings an enhancement of it. It became necessary for bishops to affirm that the word of God in Bible and sacraments entrusted to the apostolic ministry was the locus of divine grace to believers, not emotional excitements. To assert that in the Montanist oracles the Holy Spirit was giving new revelation was not obviously compatible with the presupposition in the making of the New Testament canon that divine revelation was exhausted in these writings. It is difficult to estimate whether Montanism reinforced an already embryonic notion of a closed canon or whether it was an influential factor in creating it. The former seems more probable.
Montanism
Did Montanism have to be so divisive? In north Africa at Carthage Tertullian thought it a mighty reforming spirit in the Church, but not a mere rejection of the Church. His writings, however, attest a widening sense of alienation, and a concern to bring reform often causes splits. ‘Prophecy’ is inherently hard to control and even to define other than in the loose sense of inspired insight into the contemporary scene and the power given to speak to its condition. The New Prophecy’s rigorism answered to a mood of the time. A sharply contentious question in the second- and third-century West was whether the power of the keys to bind and loose extended to granting forgiveness to church members who confessed to adultery. Montanists were not the only people who thought not. Tertullian (De pudicitia) was appalled when about the bishop of Carthage, probably after consultation with Rome, ruled that a bishop possessed such power in the name of the Church. A hundred years earlier the Shepherd of Hermas had presented the possibility of absolution and restoration to communion as a single amnesty. That was more than enough for Montanists and other readers of the epistle to the Hebrews. Perpetua Montanist ‘oracles’ were collected, and to that degree had something in common with the oracles given at shrines of Apollo at Didyma or Claros or Hierapolis. Apart from the surviving Montanist oracles, mainly reproduced by Eusebius and Epiphanius but with some in Tertullian, the most remarkable extant Montanist text is the Martyrdom of Perpetua, the slave-girl Felicitas and some fellow Christians who about were thrown to wild beasts in an amphitheatre in north Africa. The moving document survives in two Latin lines of transmission and one Greek. The Greek tradition locates the bloody scene at Thuburbo Minus, not far from Carthage; the Latin manuscripts give no location at all. But the presence of the proconsul of Africa Hilarianus suggests Carthage.2 The Montanist author had one priceless document, Perpetua’s prison diary recording the visions which she was granted. He presents his story as a refutation of some strict biblicists who wanted to restrict the operation of the Holy Spirit to old texts in scripture. It was to remain a subject of contention for at least two centuries to come whether accounts of martyrdoms qualified beside biblical texts in the lectionary to be read during acts of worship. Perpetua is expressly described as being a lady of good family. Tertullian’s writings make it certain that by the end of the second century the church at 2 Perpetua and Felicitas were buried at Carthage in the Basilica Maiorum (Victor of Vita, Historia persecutionis Africanae provinciae . . ), which correlates with an inscription in the Mcidfa basilica recording the presence of the martyrs (ILCV = CIL VIII., ).
Perpetua
Carthage included a number of people with wealth, at least enough to bribe authorities in time of persecution (not an action approved by Montanist rigorists). They were also qualified by their social standing to serve as magistrates, and saw biblical precedent in the life of Joseph in Egypt. Tertullian composed a tract ‘On Idolatry’ setting out a detailed job description of a Roman magistrate, noting that every one of his public duties entailed compromise with some form of idolatry. Perpetua and her fellow martyrs were cared for by deacons of the local Church and she had a vision in which she achieved a happy reconciliation between the bishop Optatus and his presbyter Aspasius. Nothing is said in the text identifying possible sources of tension that required healing. However, the passage could be related to the kind of bitter feeling of alienation from the official clergy expressed in Tertullian, De pudicitia, contrasting charismatic Montanists with psychic bishops untouched by the Spirit. Such a sense of alienation reappears late in the fourth century among the Messalians of Syria and Asia Minor. But the Montanists are misrepresented if they are interpreted as protesting against order or a pastoral ministry in apostolic continuity or against church finances based on endowments. No doubt it is very possible that Phrygian villagers and peasants did not feel quite integrated in the largely urban structure of a Church with episcopal authority located in the empire’s towns. Once they had become a separate body with their own life in the hills of Phrygia, their organization was well developed and efficient. It is unusual for a charismatic body to have chaotic finances. It was true, however, that for Montanists authority depended on the ‘vertical’ gift of the Paraclete, not upon the horizontal transmission of authority from pastor to pastor in apostolic continuity, mediating a valid sacramental life.
TERTULLIAN, MINUCIUS FELIX
On July ad twelve Christians from the north African town of Scillium were sentenced to execution by the proconsul. The record of their crossexamination survives in Latin and Greek. The proconsul expected them to practise secret vices and asked what books they had in their box. ‘Books and letters of a just (innocent) man Paul’, they replied. After refusing thirty days in which to change their mind, they declined to swear by the emperor’s genius and were condemned to be beheaded, to which they answered ‘Thanks be to God.’ The sentence suggests that they possessed Roman citizenship and therefore were not Punic peasants, though one had a Punic name Nartzalus. If as is probable the Pauline letters in their box were in Latin, that is the earliest evidence for the Old Latin Bible of the second century. During the last decade of the second century Christianity successfully penetrated the educated classes of Carthage, chief town of Roman Africa and a place of high culture. Among the converts was a brilliant advocate Tertullian, master of eloquent Latin and fluent in Greek as well. Not only familiar with Latin authors, including Juvenal and Tacitus, he had also read Herodotus and Plato in Greek. A fair proportion of the population at the trading port of Carthage spoke Greek, and he published a few of his tracts in that language. Tertullian came into a Church already under sharp persecution, and the polarity in society provoked him to write tracts of superb militancy, especially his Apologeticus of ad , in which his defence of Christianity is a trenchant attack on the superstitions of polytheism. His practice as an advocate in the courts familiarized him with points of law. His skills in attacking pagans could be turned against fellow Christians from whom he dissented. He defended a ‘natural theology’ in the sense that the soul, created by God though now fallen, still has a subconscious memory of God innate within and from this can advance to truths only revealed through scripture. He shared the opinion that the Greek philosophers had derived their correct insights from the Old Testament, which made possible a positive estimate of their value. But within the Church disputed questions rested largely on whether a text in scripture could be seen to settle the point. Some Christians were arguing that since scripture had no express prohibition of attending public shows such as beast fights in the amphitheatre, they were
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free to go. Artisans working in factories making idols for pagan cult pleaded that no scripture forbade this occupation. Military service was particularly delicate. John Baptist had not required soldiers to abandon the Roman army. People argued that at least a soldier converted could remain in the army as a catechumen, even if he deferred baptism until retirement. Some even contended that a baptized believer was free to join the colours. One Christian soldier caused a storm of debate by refusing to wear the regulation laurel wreath at a distribution of largesse to his military unit by a visiting grandee. This took him to prison. Other Christians in his unit thought the wreath a matter of moral indifference, so that he had achieved nothing except giving the Christians a bad name. At Carthage many, including clergy, thought the man had been stupid, exhibitionist and provocative. What scripture forbade a laurel crown? Tertullian (De corona) defended the soldier on the ground that scripture is not the sole authority to be invoked. There is also tradition, going back to the apostolic beginnings of the Church. None would question traditions not mentioned in scripture, such as the baptismal renunciation of the devil and his angels, threefold immersion, the baptismal formula now more elaborate than that prescribed by the Lord, the neophyte being given milk and honey symbolic of entry to the promised land, and the customary abstention from a bath for seven days. Similarly universal custom was to receive the eucharist before dawn from the bishop’s hands, not at a meal, to remember martyrs on the anniversary of their death, not to kneel between Easter and Pentecost, to make the sign of the cross at grace before meat or when lighting the evening lamp. In short, liturgical usage does not require a biblical text. If the Bible were reckoned to be the exclusive source of divine truth and there were no clue other than individual judgement to its correct interpretation, then the Church would be defenceless against theosophical exegesis by gnostic sects. To that problem Tertullian addressed a brilliant tract arguing that there is (as Irenaeus had said) a rule of faith inherited from the apostles that there is one God creator of the world by his mediating Word; that this Word manifested in Old Testament theophanies has become incarnate by the Virgin Mary; and that the incarnate Lord taught the new law, was crucified, risen, ascended, is seated at God’s right hand, and has sent the Holy Spirit as his deputy; he will return to take the saints to heaven and to send the wicked to hell after resurrection of the flesh. Gnostics claim that their teachings only reinterpret the scriptural story. Tertullian replies that orthodoxy does not appeal to scripture at all but only to the apostolic rule of faith. Heresy is later than orthodoxy and on the test of priority fails. Orthodoxy is attested universally, and is unanimous. An awkward text for unanimity was Galatians : ff. on the disagreement between Peter and Paul. That is mitigated by reflecting that it occurred soon after Paul’s conversion when he was still a
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neophyte, and it was on food, not dogma. Christ installed the apostles on his own teaching chair (De monogamia ; Praescr. ). That teaching has been faithfully transmitted by local churches, especially at Rome. The apostolic succession lies in the communities. Gnostics being outside the Church are not entitled to cite or interpret the Bible, the Church’s books. Moreover, though there had been some diversity of custom in Africa in regard to the acceptability of baptism given by heretics, Tertullian himself thought it impossible outside the Church, and his view was confirmed by an African council under Agrippinus bishop of Carthage. The decision was to be crucial for Cyprian. Tertullian received an understanding of the Church where high importance attached to the body of laity. Lay believers are priests. In Tertullian’s time there was argument about the standing of the clergy or ordo on the one hand and the lay congregation or plebs on the other. ‘In case of necessity when the clergy are absent you as a lay Christian can offer the eucharistic sacrifices and may baptize’ (Exh. cast. ). Earlier, writing on Baptism, Tertullian had warned laity not to usurp clerical functions and on no account to allow a woman to baptize or to offer the eucharist (Bapt. ). The normal giver of baptism is the bishop, the ‘high priest’. Presbyters and deacons may do so only with the bishop’s leave. Likewise the bishop’s responsibility is to reconcile and absolve the penitent. Tertullian was aware that those who compromised their faith in persecution could turn to martyrs for absolution if they were refused by the bishop (Mart. ). Yet the power to bind and loose is vested in the community, not in the bishop apart from the Church. The north African church had not yet finally made up its mind that the administration of baptism and eucharist should rest with ministers authorised to perform those crucial functions. The Montanist tract ‘On Modesty’ (De pudicitia) vehemently denies the power of the Church to absolve any sinner. The Church may intercede, but not remit. ‘The Shepherd of Hermas is not now recognized as authoritative, even at Rome’ (De pudic. ). The Church’s authority to remit sins has been revoked by the Paraclete through the New Prophecy. Inconsistently Tertullian adds that the power to absolve, not entrusted to the apostles’ successors, is granted only to spiritual men. The true Church is constituted by the Spirit, not the collective of bishops. This final thrust was to provoke a negative response from Cyprian bishop of Carthage half a century later and an admirer of much in Tertullian. During the second century it had become established custom in the Greek churches for ascetic women to take or to be invested with a veil. In north Africa veiled virgins were living side by side with Latins who thought the veil a matter of indifference and private choice. But the New Prophecy had ruled that all virgins must be veiled. ‘Christ did not say, I am custom, but I am the truth.’ Paradoxically Tertullian declares that while the rule of faith is
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unchangeable, that implies that anything else can be altered, which is what the New Prophecy has done. Revelation is a story of growth and is not static. Revelation is the education of the human race and a process of intellectual advance. Tertullian hovers on the brink of the progressivist ideas of Joachim of Fiore (ad ) that the Old Testament is the age of the Father, the New Testament that of the Son, but now has come the age of the Paraclete which can supplement or amend scripture by removing options previously open. Two writings from Tertullian’s pen had marked influence on later western theology, both written when his sympathy for the New Prophecy was explicit, namely Adversus Praxean and De Anima. Justin had written of the Logos as being ‘other’ than the Father, and it was a hot question whether or not this was compatible with biblical monotheism or if it weakened Christian criticism of the plurality of polytheism. In Asia Minor some theologians wanted to say that Father and Son are one and the same, different names for one God in different aspects. At Rome factions produced sharp dissension. Tertullian as a Montanist sympathizer wished to speak of the independent being of the Holy Spirit, but without prejudice to the unity of God. The plurality was to be seen in the ‘economy’, manifest in the missions of the Son and of the Paraclete. But it remains a ‘monarchy’ just as the rule of the one emperor is not infringed by a royal family or provincial administrators. Praxeas was an opponent of Montanism in Asia Minor who was also opposed to the pluralism of the Logos theology. He came to Rome and convinced the then bishop of his cause, to the distress of Tertullian: ‘He put to flight the Paraclete and crucified the Father.’ Tertullian affirmed unity of ‘substance’ in Father and Son, and (following a suggestion already in Justin) introduced the term ‘person’ to distinguish the divine titles: ‘one substance in three persons.’ Yet the distinction implies no difference in deity. The Son is God made visible. Father, Son, and Spirit are one entity but not one person (unum, non unus), just as the Son is vine, the Father husbandman ( John : ), just as Christ, a title meaning anointed, implies one who anoints him (a point already in Irenaeus). Moreover, Christ died, but the transcendent Father is immortal and cannot suffer or die. Admittedly Christ died as man, not as divine. Tertullian’s terminology for the Trinity became decisive for the Latin West. The origin and nature of the soul was of special importance because Tertullian held to the Stoic opinion that everything real is in some sense material, and soul is a kind of invisible thinking gas. Gen. : seemed to show that the human soul was a breath from God, and indeed that God himself is a unique kind of not quite immaterial substance—an opinion which drew direct criticism in Augustine’s Literal Commentary on Genesis (. . ). Tertullian defended his view of the soul by an argument from heredity: children resemble their parents both physically and mentally, and their
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character is determined partly by that fact, partly by their free choices. The devil seizes every newborn child, so that every soul is in fallen Adam until converted and baptized in Christ. There is both evil coming from the evil spirit and evil from the fault in its origin; nevertheless, the image of God is obscured, not destroyed, and hence even in very good people there is some evil, even in very bad some touch of goodness. The sacred water of baptism brings second birth and the soul is captured by the Holy Spirit. The intimate union of body and soul explains the efficacy of the sacraments, baptismal water, anointing of chrism or laying on of hands in confirmation, the body feeding on the body and blood of Christ that the soul may fatten on God (De resurr. carnis ). The rigorism of Montanism was only a little exaggeration of a puritanism characteristic of the main Christian body. In his Apologeticus Tertullian could be censorious of the everyday morality of pagan society, e.g. decisively ruling against abortion, a condemnation repeated by Minucius Felix and Clement of Alexandria, as being in principle no different from infant exposure or murder. The Christians were glad to find support for their view in Plato’s Laws e. Similarly their hatred of pederasty had precedent in Plato, though the homosexual love of Plato’s Symposium was not so supportive. Ancient pagan moralists had much to say about the advantages and disadvantages of marriage, and anticipated arguments for asceticism which recur in Tertullian and Clement of Alexandria. Tertullian’s discerning of a link between heredity and the egocentric selfishness of the human heart bequeathed huge problems to successors. Brilliant in writing Latin prose, trenchant and at times obscene, he made his successors anxious at the same time as he fascinated them.
Minucius Felix 1 Minucius Felix, a north African Christian, who owed much to Tertullian but wanted something less aggressive, composed a charming Latin defence of his faith entitled Octavius. The scene is a sea-shore dialogue at Ostia between Octavius and a pagan Caecilius, who is converted by arguments drawn from Cicero, ‘On the Nature of the Gods.’ As they walk along the shore, they watch boys playing ducks and drakes, bouncing flat stones on the water. The sceptical contentions of Cicero are deployed against pagan cult and divination. Stoic arguments are deployed to defend divine design in the world. A central thesis is that today the Christians are the philosophers and that
1
A good annotated translation in the series Ancient Christian Writers is by Graeme Clarke.
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the old philosophers support the Christians. The pagan arguments against Christianity, in the mouth of Caecilius, were probably drawn from Fronto, twice mentioned (. , . ). The concluding defence of the Christian doctrine of the Last Things can appeal to the philosophers who also held that virtue is divinely rewarded, and wickedness punished. But Minucius is reticent about the Christian scriptures and sacraments.
CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA
At the western mouth of the Nile Alexander the Great founded a great Greek city, a citadel of high culture under his successors the Ptolemies until their last representative Cleopatra succumbed to Rome. With its double harbour, this rich mercantile centre was second city of the empire, and the Jewish quarter contained a million Jews. Here the Greek version of the Hebrew scriptures was produced, and early in the first century ad Philo wrote his allegorical commentary and other writings in defence of Jewish monotheism and belief in providence. Alexandrian Jews suffered unpleasantnesses from the empire, but most of Philo’s voluminous works survive copied by Christian scribes. The Jews of Alexandria were anxious not to be thought too liberal because many of them were well educated in Greek literature and interpreted Moses philosophically. This did not dispense them from literal observance of the Torah. Philo was hostile to Jews who so asserted freedom. Their synagogue at Jerusalem did not admire the less conservative views of Stephen (Acts : ). The apostle Paul found a mission to Gentiles parallel to his own in the work of Apollos, an Alexandrian Jew familiar with his Bible. At Corinth one group looked more to Apollos than to Peter or Paul. Second-century Christianity at Alexandria was not all by later standards orthodox. There were teachers such as Basilides who would soon seem to be deviant from the Irenaean rule of truth. The spirit of the Christians was to be open to speculations reaching out beyond simple faith. They wanted to explore a higher knowledge ( gnosis), and this word came to be associated with a certain scorn towards naïve orthodoxy. Clement candidly described some writings by Basilides and Valentinus as pretentious nonsense (Strom. . . ). He did not think naïve orthodoxy possible either. Towards the end of the second century Titus Flavius Clemens settled at Alexandria after travels to sit at the feet of Christian teachers in various places. A well read and thoughtful person, he was strongly influenced by the contemporary (Middle) Platonism which provided his bridge towards Christianity, as had happened with Justin. At Alexandria he encountered a Christian named Pantaenus who had once taught Stoicism. Clement found him excellent, and called him a ‘Sicilian bee’ (the island was famous for honey). Together they shared a programme of instruction in Christian faith
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and ethics, at first freelance but in time a more formal catechetical school under the bishop. Clement’s writings have references to his role as catechist and also to the pastoral authority of the bishop. Paid. . is a section on baptism, – on milk and honey given to neophytes, and . praises ‘one Father, one Word, one Holy Spirit, and one virgin mother the Church.’ More than once there is polemic against sects which celebrate the eucharist in bread and water, not wine (Paid. . . ; Strom. . . ). At some time during his two decades at Alexandria, Clement was ordained presbyter, but whether this was by Bishop Demetrius, with whom Origen was soon to encounter difficulties, there is no certainty. Of Clement’s career little is known, but his personal ideal is writ large in his writings. It seems unlikely that he stayed on at Alexandria to the end of his life, perhaps because of sporadic persecutions. Martyrdom was an issue for him and for contemporary Christians. He knew of trouble resulting for a believing wife with a wicked husband or a son with an unsympathetic father or a slave with a bad master (Strom. . ; on persecuting laws . ; on tortures . . ). He began with a trilogy: Exhortation (Protreptikós) inviting pagans to conversion to the gospel; the Tutor (Paidagogós) in three books on ethics and etiquette; and Miscellanies or Patchwork (Stromateis) in seven books. An eighth book consists of notes from his reading in dialectic. His stated intention was to call the third constituent of the trilogy the Teacher (Didáskalos), containing a systematic statement of doctrine. This he never wrote. He decided it would be risky to be entirely clear. The Christian story was a mystery. The Stromateis are deliberately elusive, constantly shifting ground and changing the subject, in the manner of contemporary pagan authors such as Aulus Gellius and Aelian or a modern Reader’s Digest. Rich converts were troubled by Jesus’ saying about the camel having difficulty in passing through a needle’s eye; so he wrote an exposition explaining that the ethical crux lay in use, not in possession, which was morally neutral. His prescriptions for use were extremely austere. Other writings include ‘Excerpts from the Prophetic Scriptures’, excerpts from a mildly heretical gnostic Theodotos, and ‘Outlines’ (Hypotyposeis) briefly commenting on Bible texts in eight books, unhappily extant only in fragmentary quotations and in Cassiodorus’ Latin version of the exegesis of Peter, Jude, and John. Eusebius reports that the work also expounded the epistle of Barnabas and the lurid Apocalypse of Peter with its descriptions of hell that offended congregations (so says the Muratorian canon, an ancient list of approved texts found by Muratori in the Ambrosian library at Milan). Cassiodorus did not translate these pieces. Photios in the ninth century judged the work to contain dangerous doctrines, which explains its failure to survive (Bibliotheca ). The Shepherd of Hermas and Clement of Rome to Corinth were sacred texts included in his Alexandrian canon. Eusebius had before him tracts on
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Easter mentioning Melito and Irenaeus (evidently for their part in the paschal controversy), fasting, slander, an exhortation to newly baptized on endurance, and a book against Judaising Christians. These are lost. So also is a tract on the resurrection (Paid. . . ; . . ). Clement’s library was extensive and he used it freely, so that his pages are often a mosaic of allusions or quotations from Homer, Euripides, Plato, Aristotle, Musonius Rufus, the Bible, from which he especially liked the wisdom literature (Proverbs and Ben Sira had much to commend in good education). His numerous quotations from poets are demonstrably using school anthologies; he often has the same citations in the same order as appear in Athenaeus or the large fifth-century anthology of Stobaeus, which was assembled from a number of anthologies of both prose and poetry.1 No contemporary pagan reader could have repeated Celsus’ accusation that Christians were ignorant or even illiterate. Clement’s conversation at a dinner party would have been entirely in the style of the time, indeed probably more sophisticated than that of other guests present. The Paidagogós offers advice on behaviour when a guest at dinner. The Christian guest may certainly drink wine, though not too much, and in his heart that glass will remind him of the eucharistic memorial of the Lord’s passion. Clement adds in passing that the wine should not be drunk in voracious gulps or spilt down one’s front. Wine refreshes the body, but to the spirit it is blood (Paid. . ). At dinner guests should not spit or wipe their noses as some do (. ). Ethical issues loom large in the Paidagogós, especially the therapy of the passions or emotions. There were evidently both men and women receiving Clement’s instruction, and he is assertive that men and women are equal in moral and spiritual matters (Paid. . –; especially Strom. . echoing Musonius). The identity of the Tutor oscillates between Clement himself and the divine Word. There is much advice about sex, about modest clothing and cosmetics (admissible for Christian wives if their husbands have a wandering eye), and frugal diet. He disliked homosexual practice and abortion. The Paidagogós concludes with a striking anapaestic hymn of praise to the Word of God, instructor of God’s children in the Church’s way of peace, using Homeric epithets and idioms from classical Greek poetry. Gnostic teachers closest to orthodoxy as Clement understood it, especially Basilides and Valentinus, were convinced that simple faith was insufficient and that there was a specifically Christian ‘knowledge’ (gnosis). Clement did not accept that there was no such thing as an orthodox gnosis. True gnosis was possible but only on a foundation of faith (pistis), and that faith rested on the grace of God, to which free will responded. The gnostic sects held too deterministic a view of salvation, not taking seriously the act of repentance 1
See my article in RAC s.v. Florilegium.
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indispensable to baptism (Strom. . ), losing the Pauline theme of ‘working together with God’. The sects also disparaged the order of creation, above all sex and marriage, appealing to Corinthians . The third book of the Stromateis constructs a middle path between licentious sects such as the followers of Carpocrates whose love feasts ended in the extinction of lights and general wife-swapping promiscuity (Strom. . . ), and the world-rejecting sects, followers of Marcion or Tatian for whom to be born is to die and is therefore an evil. Both types of sect were giving Christianity a bad name, which Clement resented, notably when the ascetics dissolved marriages (. ), invoked the example of Christ in demanding general celibacy (. ), and did not see marriage as co-operating with the Creator. ‘The marriage of two true lovers of wisdom is a concord bestowed by the divine Word, telling women that beauty lies in character, not appearance and men that they are not to treat their wives as sexual objects’ (Strom. . . ). Clement’s ideal, the true or orthodox gnostic, embodies both biblical and Greek ideals of perfection, like the Stoics’ wise man who is, they reckoned, prophet, priest, and king (Strom. . . ), or the Platonic ideal (Theaetetus b) of being ‘as like God as possible’. What the Old Testament law was to the Hebrews, philosophy has been to the Greeks, and now the two streams providentially have their confluence in the gospel (Strom. . . ). Accordingly the believer may adopt a positive estimate of Greek philosophical ethics but setting aside Stoic materialism and Platonic notions of reincarnation. Clement liked Plato’s Gorgias on the remedial purpose of punishment (Paid. . ), and this helped him to see divine punishment for sinners here and hereafter as therapeutic. ‘God’s anger is full of love’ (Paid. . ). Clement devotes a long section to the theme, inherited from Philo and Josephus, that the Greek philosophers and writers plagiarized the Old Testament. He could find in Plato a doctrine of the divine Triad, creation, the cross, the life to come and judgement, the evil world-soul of Plato’s Laws which is his way of speaking about the devil, the resurrection of the righteous, and Socrates’ prophecy that a truly good and just man is so unacceptable to corrupt human society that he is crucified. At the same time Clement disliked Plato’s notion that the celestial bodies are homes for divine souls, which explained the strict order of their movement. Clement here foreshadows a major controversy of the sixth century between the pagan Neoplatonist Simplicius, for whom the divinity of the sun, moon, and stars is a basic pagan principle, and the Alexandrian John Philoponos for whom they are merely natural physical objects. After Philo it was easy to find the account of creation in Plato’s Timaeus dependent on Genesis. But Clement could not accept the eternity of the world. Another sensitive point for him was Plato’s idea of the soul falling to be imprisoned in matter. He regarded as
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gnostic heresy the exegesis of Adam and Eve’s ‘coats of skins’ to mean the bodies acquired at the Fall (Strom. . . ), a view found also in Philo which implied that in paradise they had no sexual union before they fell, and therefore reflected a negative valuation of the created order (Strom. . ). In the development of the doctrine of the divine Trinity Clement (Strom. . . ) followed Justin in finding an anticipation of the Christian triad in contemporary Platonist exegesis of Plato’s second letter (e) (not today regarded as Plato’s but not doubted in antiquity): ‘All things lie round the king of all and exist for him; beings of the second rank lie round the second king, beings of the third round the third’. Plotinus (. . ) wrote that the good is ‘Father of the creator/cause, the cause itself is intelligence (nous) which produces Soul.’ Behind this was interpretation of the first two hypotheses of Plato’s Parmenides: the One cannot be an object of knowledge (a), for God is ineffable, neither whole nor parts, has no dimensions or limit, no form, no name (cd, a). The first One is above being, the second is intelligible being and the totality of ideas. Within this stream of thought Clement writes that ‘the Father transcends the Son’ (Strom. . . ). The merging of the Neoplatonic triad with the Christian concept of God was followed by Origen (c. Cels. . ) who was also credited with strongly ‘subordinationist’ ideas about the Son’s relation to the Father. Clement’s answer to the question in Celsus how monotheism can be consistent with the incarnation reads that the divine Logos is the Father’s will and energy and minister to the created order. He rejects, as Justin did, the notion that Jesus was so good a man that, like Heracles, he was raised to divine status (Paid. . ). Jesus is the embodiment of the ideal of perfection in humanity realizing, as believers cannot do, union with God in this life. For believers the knowledge of God is a growth in maturity of faith, hope, and love. This knowledge is identical with salvation. A true gnostic invited to choose between a dynamic advance in knowing God and a static possession of salvation would choose the former (Strom. . . ), a saying famously plagiarized by Lessing. The Creator has endowed all rational beings, angelic and human, with freedom, allowing that which derives being from him to turn from him and to be other. Opposition to the determinism of the sects made Clement firmly assertive about free choice. But the Creator is utterly transcendent, beyond our power to grasp, so that we can comprehend only what he is not, a negative process analogous to thinking of a geometrical point. We have to abstract all corporeal and even incorporeal ideas and images, casting ourselves upon the greatness of Christ for the final ascent (Strom. . ). Accordingly Clement was much aware of the symbolic and metaphorical nature of religious language, a characteristic not only of Christians but also of Egyptians, Greeks, and Jews. The principle he found particularly exemplified in allegorical interpretation of biblical
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texts. In theology truth is wrapped in mist, and the esoteric is to be seen in Pythagorean symbols, in Plato’s unwritten doctrines, and also in Aristotle. Celsus had attacked Christian talk of God as anthropomorphic. Clement finds far more anthropomorphism in polytheism with its temples and idols and animal sacrifices, as if a god could be hungry. True prayer is expounded in the seventh book of the Stromateis, and is ‘conversation with God’ for which vocalised words are unnecessary. Any time or place which offers the occasion for thinking of God is thereby made holy (Strom. . ). The seventh book of the Stromateis provides a theology of spirituality which anticipates the monastic aspirations of believers two hundred years later. Clement adapted for Christians a Pythagorean concept of spiritual direction. The true gnostic is not egotistically concerned with his own soul. He is to be a mediator of truth and moral leadership to less advanced believers. It is he who fills ‘the place left vacant by the apostles’ and who can therefore interpret scripture with authority (Strom. . , ). Clement could not but be aware that he belonged to a faith which was rapidly spreading (expressly Strom. . . ), but which was regarded as nonHellenic and therefore ‘barbarian’, an outsiders’ culture. Critics whom he would like to win over are ‘Greeks’ (e.g. Strom. . ). The plagiarism theme made it much easier for him to surmount this considerable obstacle. He devoted pages to an argument that all important skills accepted by the Greeks have been of barbarian origin. Nevertheless his own high culture is very Greek. His critique of pagan society where people were enslaved to the pursuit of pleasure with mistresses or in many cases young boys, ‘more licentious than animals’ (Strom. . . ), is in line with ancient classical satire. What needed changing in polytheistic society was its religion, which was idolatrous superstition. Remove the threat of active persecution and Clement comes before us as a fully paid-up member of the most cultivated class of ancient Alexandria. At the same time he is no less puritan than Tertullian in his assessment of occupations unsuitable or inappropriate for a baptized Christian or even a catechumen. He writes severely of pornographic art and literature, and is sure that beauty is no sufficient defence of artistic work which is morally corrupting. There is a potent self-consciousness of belonging to a community committed to a critical stance in regard to pagan culture and social mores.
JULIUS AFRICANUS
A comparable contemporary of Clement was another learned Christian, Sextus Julius Africanus, whose surviving writings show him to have been a rare polymath. He was capable of writing on military matters (of which he had some first-hand knowledge), on history, magic, Christianity, and architecture. He had a strikingly varied career in the army, in medicine, and law. His birthplace seems to have been Hadrian’s replacement of Jerusalem, Aelia Capitolina (P.Oxy. III ). He came to know relatives of Jesus from the Nazareth region, and knew at least some Hebrew. On a visit to Edessa he met King Abgar VIII (–) and his son and especially a Christian theologian who also wrote Syriac poetry, Bardaisan or (for Greeks) Bardesanes (below p. ), whose skill in archery he admired. Bardaisan or an immediate pupil was author of an extant tract ‘on the laws of the nations’,1 copied by both Christians and pagans. At Edessa Africanus studied the archives to grasp the history of Edessa’s kings. He compiled a pioneer chronicle in five books, providing a synchronous account of biblical or church history together with Greek and Roman history. His reputation reached the ears of the emperor Severus Alexander to whom he dedicated a kind of encyclopedia, and perhaps he influenced this emperor towards the construction of a private chapel with statues of principal heroes of the various religions of his subjects, including Abraham and Jesus. The emperor invited him to design a library for the Pantheon in Rome. For an otherwise unknown Aristides he composed an extant harmonization of the two gospel genealogies of Jesus, the differences between them being a point of negative criticism against the reliability of the records. (Late in the fourth century their diversity played a crucial role in repelling the adolescent Augustine from his mother’s faith.) In touch with the equally learned Origen, he persuasively argued that the story of Susanna should not be cited as authoritatively showing up Jewish elders in an unhappy light, since the Greek text contained a pun not 1 Edited by H. J. W. Drijvers (Assen, ), by F. Nau in Patrologia Syriaca, I. – (), discovered by W. Cureton, Spicilegium Syriacum (London, ). Professor Drijvers followed his edition with a monograph (Assen, ).
Julius Africanus
reproducible in Hebrew, demonstrating that the text was not original and authoritative. Africanus had the curiosity of a traveller. Visiting Egypt he called on Heraklas, bishop of Alexandria. He obtained a copy of the sacred Book of Cheops, ‘a great acquisition’. In old age he lived in Palestine at Emmaus (Nicopolis) and once represented his town on an embassy to Rome, successfully obtaining its elevation to the rank of municipium. From the varied evidence it is an inevitable conclusion that Julius Africanus was not regarded as an outsider to high culture, but was a distinguished man of respected and admired learning with access to the imperial court. His faith can hardly have been a secret, yet there is no evidence of anyone harassing him or threatening torture and martyrdom. The fierce persecution under the emperor Decius () was not even on the horizon.
HIPPOLYTUS AND LITURGY
During the third and fourth centuries the Christian community in Rome gradually became predominantly Latin-speaking, and memories of its Greek beginnings were lost in mist. The last ancient Christian of Rome to write in Greek was Hippolytus. The calendar of Filocalus of the year records under the year that Bishop Pontianus and Presbyter Hippolytus were exiled to Sardinia, no doubt to sweat as labourers in the mines under the usual lethal conditions. Both names occur in the list of martyrs. A number of works by Hippolytus were known to Eusebius, for example On the Pascha together with an Easter table on a -year cycle starting in ad ; a Hexaemeron expounding the six days of Genesis ; Against Marcion; On the Song of Songs, On Ezekiel; and Against all Heresies. Extant also is a commentary on Daniel, written to discourage millennial excitements (in Syria a bishop had lately led his flock out into the desert to await the second coming, and had had to be rescued by imperial authority). The work twice alludes to personal envy against the author. His colleagues may have found him difficult. Other works transmitted under his name, probably correctly, are On the universe attacking Plato for incompetence, On Christ and Antichrist, On the Benedictions of Moses. Fragments survive of a letter on the resurrection theme in Paul’s Corinthian letters addressed to the empress Mammaea. Two works attributed to him by modern scholars have been the subject of controversy, namely his Elenchos or ‘Refutation of all Heresies’, found on Mount Athos and first printed in , and a Church Order which presupposes a situation at Rome early in the third century and was composed by a passionate conservative anxious about recent innovations. In a statue on a chair was discovered in Rome, on which was a list of titles of Hippolytus’ works, including his Easter table (not the Elenchos), and recording work on spiritual charisms and the Apostolic Tradition. The Elenchos is indispensable to students of pre-Socratic Greek philosophy because of the number of quotations of otherwise lost texts; Hippolytus’ thesis is that the gnostic heresies have been plagiarized from very uninspired philosophers. The climax of the work turns into a direct and very personal assault on Bishop Callistus of Rome, who had enraged the author by denouncing his Logos theology as ditheism.
Hippolytus and Liturgy
The Church Order survives through several dependent texts in various languages, and whatever dispute there may be about authorship (attribution to Hippolytus is uncertain), the probability of an early third-century date at Rome is high. The Church is vulnerable to persecution, and is given a decision on the status of confessors who have been in prison for their faith. The community assembles for worship in a private house. The eucharistic prayer lacks a Sanctus, which was common in the Greek east but not in the west until the fifth century. The bishop is expected to use the prayer as a model, but is not required to know it by heart and is free to make his own text. The shape of the liturgy is defined: thanksgiving, reciting the Institution with Jesus’ words, the anamnesis or memorial, invocation of the Holy Spirit upon the Church’s offering and the community. There is no commemoration of saints. But at this date liturgy had not yet acquired a fixed form. The Church Order rules that the slave of a Christian master may be admitted as catechumen with the master’s consent. Certain trades and professions are banned, e.g. a pander or harlot, a sculptor who makes idols, an actor, a charioteer, a gladiator or trainer of gladiators or any official concerned in such matters, a pagan priest, a soldier or magistrate who may have to kill (a distinction is made in that a soldier may become a catechumen but a catechumen may not join the army), a magician. The process of instruction lasts three years with exceptions made for individual cases. In the assembly the sexes are segregated and the kiss of peace is to be men with men, women with women. For baptism candidates undress and women untie their hair (a rule also known to Tertullian) and put off any gold ornaments. They are anointed with consecrated oil by way of exorcism in a renunciation of Satan, his service, and all his works. Naked in the water they profess the faith with answers to interrogations: Do you believe in God the Father almighty? Do you believe in Jesus Christ the Son of God, who was born of Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, who was crucified in the days of Pontius Pilate, and died, and rose the third day from the dead, and ascended into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of the Father, and will come to judge the living and the dead? Do you believe in Holy Spirit in Holy Church, and the resurrection of the flesh?
To each question the candidate answers ‘I believe’, and is immersed in the font; after which a presbyter anoints with oil, an act which the bishop repeats laying his hand on the head with the sign of the cross on the forehead. The newly baptized are then admitted to the assembly for the eucharist, to which they may otherwise not come. The bishop says the prayer of Thanksgiving by which the bread and wine become the ‘antitypes’ of Christ’s body and blood. Entry to the promised land is symbolised by milk and honey. (A prayer
Hippolytus and Liturgy
is provided for blessing cheese which recalls the African martyr Perpetua’s dream-vision of receiving cheese in heaven.) Some water is added to the wine. As the bishop gives a fragment of bread to each communicant he is to say ‘The Bread of heaven in Christ Jesus’, and the recipient says Amen. Care is emphatically enjoined to ensure that none of the sacred bread and wine falls to the ground. An order to see that no mouse or other animal eats from the bread makes sense if it was customary to take the bread home, reserved to be consumed during the week with private prayer. The interrogations are the parent of the later so-called Apostles’ Creed, the baptismal confession of the western Church. Family prayers at home are to be at cockcrow, the third, sixth, ninth hours, before retiring to bed, and at midnight, the hour at which every creature is hushed to praise the Lord.
ORIGEN
When early in the fourth century Eusebius Bishop of Caesarea came to write his history of the Church, his sixth book offered a triumphant climax in a biography of his intellectual hero Origen. Eusebius knew Origen’s writings intimately, and felt himself to be a pupil, though Origen, born about , died in and the two men had never met. However, Origen’s library was preserved at Caesarea (Palestine), a church proud to have been the place where St Peter was granted the first conversion of a Gentile, Cornelius (Acts ). Origen was a prolific producer. Jerome, who in his early years as a biblical exegete, thought Origen ‘the greatest teacher of the Church since the apostles’, preserves in one letter () a long catalogue of Origen’s writings, with the cry ‘Which of us can read everything he has written?’ Origen was helped in producing this overflowing mass of matter by a wealthy patron named Ambrosius who provided shorthand writers to take down what he dictated and to make copies. (Publication in antiquity was by the reading of the text usually by the author to a circle of friends, who would then commission copies to be made at commercial rates. Once an author was known he might send a letter to a distant correspondent suggesting that he should pay for a copy to be made of his latest pieces.) The central task for his lifework, as Origen himself understood it, was to write biblical commentaries, to interpret the scriptures for his generation in the Church, thereby warding off gnostic exegesis and also rebutting criticism from the pagan intelligentsia. He needed to provide exegesis implicitly refuting Marcion’s rejection of the Hebrew scriptures but also disallowing rabbinic literalism. In addition to full-scale commentaries, some of remarkable length so that none survives complete, he was in demand as a preacher. Sermons on the Hexateuch, on the Song of Songs, Isaiah, and Ezekiel were translated into Latin by Rufinus or his one-time friend Jerome. Sermons on St Luke’s gospel also survive in Latin. Commentaries on some Pauline epistles, notably Ephesians, survive mainly through the work of Jerome making use of Origen for his own exegesis. The sermons belong to the second half of his life after he had migrated from Alexandria to Palestinian Caesarea, where he received ordination as presbyter, an event highly displeasing to Bishop Demetrius of Alexandria. Throughout the medieval millennium the Latin
Origen
versions of the sermons found grateful and admiring readers in the West. The Greek East was more reserved. Eusebius had before him a collection of about of Origen’s letters; of these only three survive. Origen was a precise observer of variant readings in manuscripts of scripture. A major undertaking was his ‘Hexapla’, bringing together in parallel the different Greek versions of the Hebrew Bible, including a transliteration of the Hebrew in Greek. The Hexapla had practical utility in discussions with rabbis. It also facilitated correction of the Septuagint. Origen knew of heretics who disparaged Moses as a murderer (Exod. : ), but greater injury to Moses’ reputation was, in his opinion, caused by those who refused allegory ‘who interpret the spiritual law carnally’. ‘Simple Christians believe things of God that would be incredible of the most unjust and barbaric men.’ He rejects the suggestion that he has a low estimate of the Torah, every word of which he understands to be dictated by the Holy Spirit (Hom. on Num. . –, . ). Already by the end of the second century congregations expected their bishop not only to be their spiritual pastor in an office and succession assuring them of apostolic faith and sacraments, but also to fulfil a social role. This social role could include banking their savings, lending money at normal commercial rates ( per cent a year), and where bishops had the necessary rank in society supporting individuals in trouble with tax-gatherers or magistrates. A bishop would attend an agape or love-feast at which the poor could be well fed and even, with the leave of the wealthy provider, take food away for the morrow.1 Towards the more secular aspects of being a bishop, Origen had deep reservations. He knew of at least one bishop who went about with an attendant bodyguard (Comm. on Matt. . ) as, soon after Origen’s time, Bishop Paul of Antioch is recorded to have done. The churches were crowded out (. ), but had become too concerned for financial success (. –). A church had become a piece of property which a bishop might try to bequeath to a relative or at least he would nominate his successor (Hom. on Num. . ; on Lev. . ). The necessary assent of the laity to an election was no control against abuse (on Lev. . ). Celibacy was desirable in a bishop, not required canonically. Origen expected immensely high standards of personal morality from bishops, presbyters, and deacons, with the consequence that he can be read as that familiar type in church history, an anticlerical high churchman. He can write scathingly of ‘bishops of great cities, waited on by ladies of wealth and refinement, who will not converse with ascetic Christians on equal terms.’ His exegesis of the woes of Matthew is fierce reading. Demetrius of 1 On generous gifts by ancient hosts see W. J. Slater, ‘Handouts at Dinner’, Phoenix, (), –.
Origen
Alexandria seemed to him this kind of worldly prelate. Several of the Caesarean sermons directly address catechumens. At the age of about Origen was entrusted by Demetrius with the school for catechumens, a group which he soon divided into two streams, taking the more able himself and delegating the slower minds to an assistant. Simple minds in the Church gave him problems. They were prone to understand everything in scripture as plain prose to be taken literally: ‘The stupidity of some Christians is heavier than the sand of the sea’ (Hom. on Gen. . ). Their idea of God was wholly anthropomorphic, as if he had a physical frame like an old man in the sky. Moreover, the renunciation of evil at their baptism was often not more than half-hearted, so that they continued to consult astrologers and trusted in fortune tellers to interpret their dreams (Hom. on Josh. . , . ). They went to the theatre for erotic dramas (Hom. on Lev. . ). It also troubled Origen that a substantial number attended the synagogue on Saturday and the church on Sunday, and observed Jewish feasts and fasts (Hom. on Lev. . ). (They may of course have been Jews.) Infidelity to spouses was a source of frequent difficulty (on Josh. . ). Origen asked the laity for austerely disciplined personal lives, but qualified his exhortations by saying that abstinence should never be immoderate (Hom. on Num. . ; on Judg. . ). Renunciation of the world had to be unqualified (Hom. on Lev. . ). Too many lapsed after baptism, and among those who continued, good sexual discipline was unusual (Hom. on Josh. . ). Yet secularized believers ‘bow to the priest and honour God’s servants’ [i.e. ascetics] (. ).2 It saddened Origen that many spent ‘less than two or three hours a day’ in prayer and Bible study and worship (Hom. on Num. . ). Cardinal to Origen’s exegesis is his resort to allegory. Not that the literal sense is excluded except in rare cases. Normally everything in the Bible has a good literal sense. But it is a fundamental axiom that nothing unworthy of God can be the inner meaning. And if there are difficult or apparently unedifying passages, allegory offers a solution. The size of Noah’s ark can be defended literally if one cubes the figures, but its inner meaning is what most matters: ‘Outside the Church there is no salvation’ (Hom. on Josh. . ). The hardening of Pharaoh’s heart or the inhumanity shown by Joshua to the Canaanite tribes were weapons in the arsenal of Marcion, but then he rejected allegory and should not have done so. The story of Adam and Eve was clearly symbolic of the fallen human condition. Moreover, the propriety of allegorical exegesis applied not only to the Old Testament but also to the New (Hom. on Lev. . ). That allegory was justified seemed demonstrable from the authority of the apostle (Gal. : ). Like Clement, Origen was familiar with Philo’s writings. 2 This is the earliest allusion to the custom of giving honour to clergy. Socrates, HE . . noted the custom to stand when a bishop entered the room.
Origen
In the commentary on St John he asks the significance of the fact that while the synoptists place the cleansing of the temple at Jesus’ final entry to Jerusalem, St John places it early in his ministry and is clearly incorrect at the literal historical level; but as symbol of the Church’s need for purification this is profound and right, ‘spiritual truth in historical falsehood’. And the entry to Jerusalem refers to the Lord’s ascent to the heavenly city, conquering opposing powers and purifying his people. The Septuagint Bible was the supreme source of God’s revelation, and Origen, who had an excellent memory, could recall the text by heart with only few occasional lapses. The preacher begs his congregation to pray that he may be granted a true interpretation, since his task is dangerous. But the congregations included critics with serious doubts about his allegories, which to them seemed almost like divination, subjective guesswork (e.g. Hom. on Ezek. . ; on Jer. . ; on Luke ). Or perhaps excessive allegory looked indistinguishable from gnostic methods. Origen’s commentary on St John’s gospel was undertaken to refute an earlier exegesis by the Valentinian Heracleon who found the gospel’s highly symbolist writing congenial. A major answer to Marcion and Valentinus was embodied in his fascinating work ‘On First Principles’ (De principiis), much of which survives only in a Latin paraphrase by Rufinus of Aquileia, explicitly glossing or amending passages where the Greek original seemed too speculative and risky. But there are substantial quotations of the Greek text, especially from the section on the interpretation of the Bible in the Philokalia made by Basil and Gregory of Nazianzos in the sixties of the fourth century. This work, however, provoked criticism late in the fourth century from Epiphanius and Jerome, and in the sixth century from the emperor Justinian when it was being invoked to justify speculative theology alarming more conservative minds. From Plotinus onwards the Neoplatonic philosophers disliked Gnosticism with its negative estimate of the material creation. Origen’s thought in his First Principles is akin to that of Plotinus, but is more tied to the question of the meaning of scripture. The work emphatically begins with a statement of the apostolic tradition of doctrine; that is the criterion. But what is left undefined in the rule of faith is left for investigation and free inquiry; moreover, the theologian may try to discern the reasons underlying doctrines authoritatively affirmed in the apostolic rule. Origen also expressed respect for liturgical tradition as a norm of truth. Prayer is offered to the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit, and this determines the eucharistic prayer. Origen’s reputation brought invitations to other churches and places. He was invited to meet the emperor’s mother Mamaea. A papyrus preserves the record of a visit to Arabia invited to correct the monarchian doctrine of one Heraclides. He visited Rome and met Hippolytus.
Origen
About Origen travelled to Athens invited to dispute with a Valentinian heretic named Candidus, who defended a dualism of good and evil by pointing to the orthodox assumption which had no room for the possibility of the devil’s salvation. That meant that a keystone of gnostic theology was in principle conceded by the Church. Origen answered him that the devil, a fallen angel and Lucifer, fell by will, not by nature, and remains evil by will. If so, it is not impossible for God’s power and goodness to bring even Satan to repent. Candidus published his version of the debate. At Alexandria Bishop Demetrius was perturbed at the thought of the devil being saved. A storm ensued, but Origen was invited to Caesarea in Palestine where to Demetrius’ wrath he was ordained presbyter. He astringently commented that just as the archangel Michael, contending with the devil, did not revile him ( Jude ), so he himself would not speak evil of the devil any more than of the bishop of Alexandria. Bishop Demetrius complained that Origen was under his jurisdiction; that he was advancing heretical doctrine; and in any event he was a eunuch and therefore by Leviticus : – (cf. Deut. : ), disqualified from priesthood. Eusebius reports the story (expressly from oral tradition, not from documents) that Origen in youth had sought to facilitate pastoral work in catechizing women by castrating himself. Epiphanius has a different story, that he maintained his celibacy by drugs. In his commentary on Matt. : – Origen deplores literal understanding of Jesus’ words, though aware of some who acted on them as plain prose. The council of Nicaea () ruled against ordination after self-castration but allowed it in case of loss by accident or enemy action or other involuntary cause. In later centuries a number of monks, among whom some became bishops, were eunuchs. A collection of gnomic maxims, The Sentences of Sextus, in which old Pythagorean sayings appear in a Christian setting, did not hesitate to recommend cutting away sources of temptation. Origen informs us that among Christians these maxims were widely read. Translated from Greek into Latin by Rufinus and anonymously into Syriac, they enjoyed wide reading for centuries in the West and passed into other languages as well. Ambrose of Milan liked to quote from them. One maxim is cited in the Rule of St Benedict. The principal ground for anxiety about Origen’s thinking centred on his use of allegorical method and on the inner meaning which he found in the biblical text. For example, like Clement before him he was sure that divine wrath is no emotional reaction, and that each sinner ‘treasures up for himself ’ pain at the final judgement. Simple believers were mocked for their literal belief in the fires of hell by the pagan Celsus (though Celsus was quick, as a good Platonist, to affirm his belief in judgement hereafter). Origen defends simple believers: they are right about divine punishment, but wrong about the intention which is remedial. Fire purifies. It does not merely destroy.
Origen
Origen’s ideas of creation also caused misgiving. God, he states, is wholly incorporeal, pure spirit beyond space and time, without needs, and good not in the sense that this happens to be his character, but in the sense that he is the very source of goodness. To be and to be good are in God identical, and creation is an overflow of divine goodness (as Plato said in the Timaeus). First created were pure spirits endowed with reason and freedom but bodiless. Origen sharply rejects the notion that matter was a kind of sludge as eternal as God who did the best he could with it. God himself created matter out of nothing with a pedagogic purpose. Accordingly this purpose was highly positive; it was to discipline those rational souls which exercised their freedom of choice by falling away from God, some only a modest distance who might therefore ensoul stars, others a more drastic fall into human bodies or even demonic. This was an idea Origen found in Philo of Alexandria. It followed that Origen did not have a high estimate of sexuality. For married partners there is no sin in the sexual act, but that is not to say that it is holy (Hom. on Num. . ). Restriction to procreation should control the motive (Hom. on Gen. . ). Otherwise sexual union ties the partners to the flesh and hinders their rise to the realm of spirit (a judgement shared by Platonists of Origen’s time, such as Porphyry). He disowns the view that the erotic impulse is of the devil; it is natural given by the Creator. But like anger it is hard to control by reason or will. The practice of baptizing infants is justified by the suggestion that there is some pollution to be washed away. It cannot be accidental that the only two persons recorded in scripture to have celebrated their birthday are Pharaoh and Herod. (The early Christians used natalis of the anniversary of a martyr’s death.) Gnostics took the ‘coats of skins’ assumed by Adam and Eve to symbolise material bodies. Origen was far from sure that this could be correct. There was a problem about the body assumed by the incarnate Lord. Christ had a human soul and body identical with ours. But Origen agreed with Clement that he did not need to evacuate body-waste. Nor did he experience erotic urges (Hom. on Lev. . ; on Exod. . ). Though in the flesh he suffered pain, the divine nature within did not suffer; yet in devotion Christians may say with some philosophers ‘the impassible suffers’ just as the apostle could say that he who was without sin was made sin for us (Hom. on Lev. . ). Christ’s soul was the mediator between the divine Logos and the body, and the union of soul and Logos is our example. As the believer advances in faith and love, he or she finds that the Christ who is all things to all is to each according to need. The titles of Christ in the New Testament are rungs on a ladder of mystical ascent until, like Moses, one ‘enters the darkness where God is’, a knowledge confined to few (c. Cels. . ). For God is known not by mere dialectic but by grace and purity of heart (c. Cels. . . ).
Origen
About the year Origen composed for his friend Ambrosius a treatise On Prayer. The practice depends on belief in providence, but also in freedom of will. Christian prayer differs from pagan in that it is worship in spirit and in truth, not merely asking for success in this world, for fertility of crops or spouse, success in some mercantile venture, or some worldly concern. Prayer for supernatural benefits brings the mind into acceptance and submission, in tune with the world-soul. Forgiveness of sins was still a debated issue for Origen. Writing on prayer (. ) he attacks ‘some who claim higher than priestly rank but have less than priestly knowledge, boasting that they are empowered to grant remission for murder, adultery, and apostasy’. On the other hand, he was sure that no sinner could pass beyond redemption point. He would not censure bishops who, to avert worse occurring, allowed remarriage after divorce in the lifetime of the former partner. Evidently the majority opinion was otherwise. About at the request of Ambrosius he wrote a long rebuttal of the able anti-Christian book by Celsus written almost seventy years earlier (above p. ). His refutation preserves a large part of Celsus’ work by citing it paragraph by paragraph, and is therefore a major source for the debate between pagan intellectuals and the Church especially for the antithesis between Celsus’ insistence that true religion consists in keeping ancient custom and Origen’s inference that he must think it right for barbarians to keep ferocious customs, whereas the personal conviction of Christians goes with an exalted and universal ethic. Celsus is among the earliest pagan writers to discern how dangerous to traditional society and culture the Church has become. His contempt is mingled with apprehension. Origen’s answer urges that the stories of Jesus’ miracles and the astonishing fulfilment of ancient prophecies in the life, death, and rising again of Jesus are vindicated by the equally miraculous expansion of Christianity to pervade the entire Roman empire (e.g. Hom. on Luke ). If the resurrection of Jesus had been fiction on the words of a hysterical woman, the apostles would not have risked their lives for its truth. To convince a person about a historical event unless he was there at the time is difficult. ‘To substantiate any story as historical fact even if certainly true and to produce complete confidence in it, is one of the most difficult tasks, in some cases impossible. Everyone is sure there was a Trojan War but the sole evidence is in Homer’s poem with many impossible and supernatural stories’ (c. Cels. . ). And should the story of Jesus’ birth be scorned when pilgrims go to the very cave, famous even among people alien to Christianity? Origen’s sermons to Christian congregations are less optimistic about Christian expansion: ‘Look at our crowded congregations in the churches; how many are conformed to this world, how few transformed by the renewal
Origen
of their mind’ (Comm. on Matt. . ). Devotion was far more serious when persecution was serious. Most of Origen’s sermons on the Hexateuch were delivered when there were no martyrs, which he seriously regretted. But by the time he wrote his reply to Celsus, he could sense a rising hostility to the Church, held responsible for the civil wars of the s and for natural disasters, sent by the gods in their anger at being neglected and starved of the rich smell of animal sacrifices beloved of inferior deities and daemons. Celsus did not believe that evil in this world could be diminished: its quantity was fixed. Origen affirmed the freedom of God to purify by the word of prophets, by the law taken spiritually, and above all by the incarnation, which to Celsus seemed to presuppose an unthinkable mutability in God. For a Platonist such as Celsus this body, product of a painful birth and destined to humiliating death, could not be united to God. Paul in Romans implied for Origen that the material creation was felt by souls to tie them down (De princ. . . ). Platonists such as Plotinus were unsure whether the descent of souls to inhabit bodies was a result of a mistaken free choice or some natural necessity which had to be tolerated. But they also spoke of the soul’s power to ascend, leaving behind the downward pull of matter and bodily desire for pleasure in food or sex. Platonists thought this capacity inherent in the soul. Origen thought only divine grace could make it possible. For late Platonists God or ‘the One’ makes no move towards the created order, whereas for Origen the Father loves this world he has made and all that is by nature part of it. In Plato the goal of a vision of the Good is attainable in this life, but not in Origen. The concept of resurrection was important to Christians who understood immortality of an immaterial soul as destined to lose all individuality and therefore all responsibility hereafter. In fact Platonists believed that the soul, freed from this earthly body, still needs a less material ‘vehicle’, ethereal perhaps, to shine like the stars, which ‘rejoice in their celestial bodies’. Origen pondered St Paul’s saying that ‘flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God’, and understood this to make possible a rapprochement with high-minded Platonists. His language drew fire after his death especially from Methodios bishop of Olympus in Lycia (SW Asia Minor) and from Epiphanios bishop of Salamis (Cyprus, beside Famagusta). Thoughtful believers in his time confessed great difficulty in comprehending New Testament language about Christ’s second coming and the millennium of the Apocalypse with a rebuilt Jerusalem. Origen was outspokenly critical of the literal interpretation of the millennium, advocated by Justin and Irenaeus. The second coming he understood to refer either to the universal extension of the gospel to all parts of the world or, more mystically, to the coming of the divine Logos to the soul especially in illuminating the meaning of scripture.
Origen
Before Origen, perhaps nearly contemporary with Celsus, a Platonist philosopher Numenius of Apamea had distinguished levels of divine being. Plotinus, junior contemporary of Origen, spoke of three divine hypostases, the One, Mind (Nous), and the World Soul, which are distinct grades in the hierarchy of being. Some similar language would be useful to Origen in explaining the doctrine of the Trinity. The Son is no creature. As philosophers said of the eternity of the cosmos, there was never a time when the Son was not (e.g. Comm. on Rom. . ). Yet he is ministerial to the Father, in that sense subordinate, mediating between the Father and the inferior created order. The Son comes into being as a distinct hypostasis by the Father’s will. Origen was opposed to the idea that Father and Son are merely names for one and the same divine being. There is indeed one God, but the Father is Father and not Son. Origen explicitly opposed the ‘monarchian’ answer that Father and Son are different titles for one God. If he then wanted to affirm monotheism, it seemed necessary to say that the Son is divine but not as fully divine as the Father. That proposition would bring a legacy of controversy in the following century. There remained a problem about the correct understanding of the Holy Spirit. St John’s gospel said of the Logos that ‘all things were made by him’. Does that include the Spirit? Origen reviewed various possible answers, but suggested that the simplest solution was to say that the Spirit is supreme at the head of the entire created order. That doctrine would be troublesome a century or more later. Basil of Caesarea, aware of many passages in Origen passionately affirming his intention to be orthodox and to believe what the Church believes, was deeply concerned to assert the equality of the Trinity as three prosopa or ‘persons’ (an inadequate translation). He therefore marked Origen down as using orthodox language but not having an orthodox heart. This impugned Origen’s integrity; it was already a common view among critics of Origen. Eusebius of Caesarea together with his mentor Pamphilus composed a Defence of Origen rebutting this attitude. So it would come about that Origen’s intention to provide a coherent biblically based theology to overcome the differences between Christians ended by generating other problems for less philosophical successors. Origen once complained that he found himself an excessively admired paragon for some, maliciously misrepresented by others. He regretted both attitudes. Despite an undercurrent of mistrust, especially from those less well educated than himself, he was occasionally invited by bishops to assist in correcting the doctrines of their episcopal colleagues. Eusebius records that Beryllus, bishop of Bostra (Syria), came to deny that Christ pre-existed his birth of Mary, and said that his deity was the Father dwelling in him. Numerous bishops in synod debated with him, but they had to call Origen in to discover what he really believed, and Origen’s cross-questioning
Origen
brought him back to orthodoxy. A papyrus find in has preserved a discussion between Origen and a bishop Heraclides, probably in Arabia, similarly concerned with the unity of God and the incarnation. The immortality of the soul was also a problem debated in Arabian churches where Origen was invited to help. Some held the soul to be blood. Origen’s Christian critics were obviously correct in thinking that his system was incorporating large elements of Plato. Merely to have entitled a work ‘On First Principles’ was to take a stand in the discussions of contemporary Platonists. At the same time, however, he was rewriting Platonism, and incurred the wrath of the pagan Neoplatonist Porphyry for whom a basic axiom was the incompatibility of pagan culture and Christianity. Among Origen’s letters Eusebius found correspondence with Fabian bishop of Rome and many other bishops on the subject of his orthodoxy (Eus. HE . . ). The matter was an issue after his exchanges with Demetrius of Alexandria. Eusebius also found correspondence between Origen and the emperor Philip the Arab and his wife Severa when the palace was friendly to the Church. Under the fierce persecution of the Church by Philip’s successor Decius (–) he was arrested and severely tortured. He died at Tyre about . His tomb in Tyre cathedral was there for Crusaders to see in the twelfth century. In his doctrines of the Trinity and the person of Christ Origen had no authoritative conciliar decrees to which he was expected to conform. Adherence to the apostolic and biblical faith was primary for him. But beyond what was affirmed in the apostolic rule he was free to speculate, and such freedom was going to alarm later generations, though Athanasius was to defend his approach. At the same time his teaching about prayer and the devout soul’s call to aspire to union with God, and his powerful exploitation of allegory to solve the problem of interpreting the Old Testament and some of the New, remained enormously influential. His powers as a teacher are directly attested in a panegyric on his method by Gregory, a pupil who became the apostle of Pontus by the Black Sea of whom such wonders were popularly reported that he acquired the sobriquet ‘the Wonderworker’ (Thaumaturgus).3 3 On Gregory of Nyssa’s largely fictitious biography of Gregory see Stephen Mitchell, in Portraits of Spiritual Authority, ed. J. W. Drijvers and J. W. Watt (Leiden, ), – with rich bibliography.
CYPRIAN OF CARTHAGE
For the story of the Church (and of much else) in the middle decades of the third century the principal sources of information are the letters and tracts of Cyprian, bishop of Carthage during the decade –, and the excerpts from the writings and letters of Dionysius of Alexandria mainly preserved in the Church History of Eusebius of Caesarea. Unfortunately sources for the secular history of the time are jejune. Cyprian and Dionysius both shed much light on the internal problems of the Church at a period when the crisis of a disintegrating Roman empire provoked passionate popular hostility to the Christians. The empire faced a series of civil wars between legitimate and less legitimate emperors. Goths poured across the lower Danube, Persians under King Shahpuhr I invaded Syria and captured the great Syrian city of Antioch-on-the-Orontes. In Asia Minor there had been earthquakes which people blamed on the Christian neglect of the traditional gods. In addition plague1 spread from Egypt reducing the population of many cities and weakening the imperial armies. Writing against Celsus about Origen noted rising attacks on Christians as responsible for these disasters (c. Cels. . ). In a celebration of Rome’s millennium provided a context for a pagan revival. At Alexandria in the mob subjected the Christians to a violent pogrom, a sign of what was to come (Eus. HE . ). The dimensions of the Christian presence in third-century north Africa are manifest in the exceptionally large number of bishoprics attested in Cyprian’s letters and councils, which record more than . Pagans could easily have felt swamped. The notorious Alexandrian mob could be roused to frenzy. Cyprian had enjoyed a successful career at Carthage as a master of Latin rhetoric. In he was converted from polytheism and idolatry to Christianity. An open letter to a friend and fellow convert Donatus provides some account of the motives underlying his conversion. He described himself as disgusted with the cruelties of contemporary society, the corruption of the judges easily bribed, the savagery of judicial tortures which left innocent people maimed if they did not die on the rack and did not confess 1 In plague struck Carthage and its province; Cyprian described it with echoes of Lucretius (. ff.) on the pest at Athens from Thucydides (De mortalitate ; ad Donatum –).
Cyprian of Carthage
to capital crimes which they had not committed merely to stop the fearful pain. He hated the inhumanity of gladiatorial combats in the amphitheatre, the violence and murder on the streets, the sexual promiscuity of the underclass, and in the empire incessant battles. It was a formidable indictment of a society coming apart at the seams. He found his own conscience washed clear in baptism. Before long he was ordained presbyter. The extant panegyric by his friend Pontius () noted that he prized celibacy as being of special value before God. At this date there were still married Latin clergy, but already celibacy was regarded as manifesting a higher moral dedication—an axiom for Platonic philosophers as well as for admirers of the apostle Paul ( Corinthians ). In a society where the emperor’s soldiers were expected to be free of marital ties (forbidden until the early third century, not encouraged thereafter), it would be natural to expect the same of front-line soldiers in the Church. After becoming bishop and primate he expected all clergy to avoid any entanglements in worldly business and to devote themselves exclusively to their spiritual responsibilities (ep. ). A prominent Christian characteristic was to manifest their abhorrence of pagan cult by turning their eyes away from temples and idols (ep. . ) and to invoke against evil powers the protection of the sign of the cross (ep. . ). Cyprian was probably of curial class, well to do, and respected in the city. Like other Christians in the vicinity of Carthage (ep. . ), he was a landowner with a country estate. Generous with money, he also took it for granted that those dependent on his bounty would take care not to dissent from policies he thought necessary. Two years after his baptism the plebs demanded of the provincial bishops his consecration to succeed the dead bishop Donatus. The choice was intransigently opposed then and thereafter by five senior presbyters, a substantial proportion of the older clergy. There was already among the clergy a feeling that those chosen to be bishops should ascend through each different grade of ministry. His consecration was by laying on of hands in traditional form by bishops of his provinces (perhaps including some from Numidia, a province he regarded as part of his primacy, and early in the fourth century Numidian bishops regarded themselves as properly concerned in the choice of a bishop of Carthage). They represented both due succession and the universal episcopate of a universal Church (epp. . ; . ). Cyprian’s upper-class and educated background appears in his familiarity with Apuleius and Seneca, and in his use of the then conventional aristocratic manner of addressing important personages as abstractions (e.g. ‘your holiness’ for bishops). The bishop was financial controller of his community. Presbyters received a monthly dividend of the people’s offerings (ep. . ). There was no system of tithe (De unitate ).
Cyprian of Carthage
It was natural for senior clergy to look askance at the promotion of a wealthy novice over their heads. But by the mid-third century the laity were coming to expect their bishop to perform a social role, not only in hospitality (ep. ) but also in advising and defending their secular interests if they were in difficulties with tax authorities or with the law or if they needed a bridging loan for their business. The church chest could be used for redeeming captives taken by barbarian tribes in southern Numidia (ep. ), or to give (frugal) help to converts, such as an actor in a disreputable profession and therefore expected to give up his job (ep. ). Since the ruling of the apostle Paul that Christians should not sue each other in the lawcourts, bishops were expected to provide an arbitration service, which might be a very delicate task. Commonly they heard such cases, flanked by their presbyters, early each Monday morning, which gave the maximum of time to achieve reconciliation of the contending parties before the eucharist on the following Sunday. Cyprian’s past social standing and public experience in secular society would have made him an attractive choice to the laity. In any event, a qualified orator could preach well. Pontius’ panegyric reports () that when plague arrived in Carthage, Cyprian mobilized the laity to render crucial help to the sick, whether Christian or not.2 The bishop was the normal minister of baptism, for which the water was consecrated. Renunciation of the devil and all his works was emphatic. Infant baptism was normal, but since Tertullian (‘why should the age of innocence hurry to the remission of sins?’) a tradition of doubt persisted. Cyprian (ep. ) defended it. People were accustomed to nudity at the baths, and nudity at the actual moment of baptism ‘occasioned no blushes’.3 The sick or dying were baptized by affusion, which some disparaged. From the start of his episcopate Cyprian made it a point of democratic principle that he would consult his clergy, especially about ordinations on which the laity would also have views. (The stated policy evidently distanced critics who thought him bossy.) To clarify his episcopal function and responsibility he took the lead from the Levitical precepts for priesthood in the Old Testament. Priests and high priests were there by divine authority, and it was no less so for ministers of the new covenant of Christ. His role was to pray for his flock and to preside in the offering of the Church’s sacrifice Similar care in Egypt: Eus., HE . . , . . . Ps.-Cyprian, De singularitate clericorum p. Hartel (probably a third- or early fourth-century text). In Ambrose’s time some covered themselves at the public baths (De officiis I. . ); but at the moment of baptism any sexual shame signified sin (in Ps. . ). Visiting baths at Thagaste the young Augustine and his father were naked (Conf. . . ). Martial regarded mixed bathing naked as normal; G. G. Fagan, Bathing in Public in the Roman World (Ann Arbor, ), –. At Jerusalem baptizands stripped (Cyril of Jerusalem, Cat. myst. . ). Loincloths were Arian custom: Barhadbeshabba on Eunomius, PO . . Augustine observed that to remain covered at the baths was barbarian (City of God . ). 2 3
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to the Father. That required clean hands and a pure heart (ep. . ). Moreover as bishop of Carthage he exercised leadership not only in the province of Africa Proconsularis but also in Numidia and Mauretania (ep. . ). The empire’s provinces had become the normal units of church organization (ep. . ). Cyprian’s relations with bishops in Mauretania became cooler and more distant during the controversy of about baptism, but Numidia followed his lead at that time. As in Tertullian’s time (De oratione , ), the church at Carthage had a daily celebration of the eucharist (epp. . , . , . ) using a movable wooden altar (altare being the Christian word, not the pagan ara), and the baptized faithful received the Lord’s body in their right hand (ep. . ). A church had only one altar, a symbol of unity. ‘The Lord’s passion is the sacrifice of the Church’ (ep. . ) and is offered in intercession for the departed. Anniversaries both of dead Christian relatives and of martyrs are commemorated by the eucharist (epp. , . ). The Lord’s command is to be kept exactly. Cyprian warns against communities where the cup contained only water and no wine (ep. . ), attested also by Clement of Alexandria. Gnostic sects such as the Manichees regarded wine as diabolical. (In ancient society wine was diluted with much water except among Scythian tribes north of the Black Sea.) The celebrating priest ‘does what Christ did’, offering his true and complete sacrifice (. ). ‘Without wine the Lord’s blood is not present.’ Africa had a noteworthy parallel with the Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus in a eucharistic blessing of oil (ep. . ). The African liturgy included the dialogue ‘Su(r)sum corda—Habemus ad dominum.’ Prayers were daily at the third, sixth, and ninth hours. It is certain that by the mid-third century in large towns the churches had begun to abandon house-churches for designated buildings, since they were confiscated in time of persecution and restored by the emperor Gallienus (Eus. HE . ). This was paralleled outside Africa, e.g. a small converted building with frescoes at Dura in Mesopotamia. Hippolytus (On Daniel . ) records attacks on church buildings during worship. At Oxyrhynchus in Egypt at the end of the third century the main church had fine bronze, confiscated during the Great Persecution. At Edessa in Syria the church had a special building as early as . For five years until the empire was ruled by Philip the Arab, who professed sympathy with Christianity. He had not solved political problems. The new emperor Decius reacted vehemently in the opposite direction. He initiated formal anti-Christian action, no doubt in hope of allaying the gods’ wrath, perhaps because he shared some of Cyprian’s diagnosis of the ills of society and looked to the cult of the old gods to bring reform and to foster loyalty. Persecutors could have high moral ideals, excluding toleration.
Cyprian of Carthage
The persecution of the emperor Decius 4 The see of Carthage turned out to be an extremely hot seat. Within two years of Cyprian’s consecration Decius startled the Church throughout the empire, which in most places had enjoyed some decades of relative peace (ep. ), by an edict later in instructing provincial governors that everyone in the empire must offer sacrifice to the gods, and everyone was to have a signed and officially countersigned certificate (libellus) attesting the act. Forty-four of these certificates have survived in the dry sand of Egypt. To offer incense or to taste of meat sacrificed on an altar of the Roman gods would surely placate the evident anger of heaven. It was universally known that, like the Jews, Christians were unwilling to have anything to do with the old gods which Ps. . taught them to consider evil powers and their cult to be sorcery. But the Christians had become numerous and therefore seemed a threat. Although the edict was of universal application, they were the community prominently in the firing line. The long peace was seen by Cyprian, as much as by Origen, to explain why Christians had become too much at ease in society, less than totally serious in remembering their baptismal renunciation of the world, the flesh, and the devil. Some bishops ‘moonlighted’ with secular jobs, or abandoned their flocks and wandered, trying to get legacies and engaging in trade (Laps. ). The number of church members who apostatized from Christ by obeying the edict was large, and it was a special shock that many clergy, including a number of bishops, were among the lapsed (ep. . , . , . , . ). To disobey entailed loss of property and exile, soon much worse. Some did as the edict commanded and directly offered sacrifice at smoking altars. But a larger proportion found an easier way, namely that of bribing officials in charge of the operation to provide them with a certificate even though they had not sacrificed. At Alexandria during the great persecution of Diocletian the bishop approved of bribes to evade moral compromise with the worse sin of idolatry. Officials expected a good tip for any service rendered; resort to bribery was regular standard procedure if one was hoping to get anything done, and those who passed money to officers of state who then took no steps to meet their requests felt a powerful sense of grievance. In the context therefore bribes to obtain libelli were not obviously corrupt morally to those who obtained them, though they could be denounced by the unsuccessful. Cyprian deeply disapproved of any bribery, above all if used to produce a paper attesting falsely that the possessor had compromised with 4 See H. A. Pohlsander, ‘The religious policy of Decius’ ANRW II . (), –. A portrait of Decius apart from religion is by A. R. Birley, ‘Decius reconsidered’, in E. Fiezouls and H. Jouffroy (eds.), Les Empereurs illyriens (Actes du colloque de Strasbourg octobre ; Association pour l’étude de la civilisation romaine, ), –.
Cyprian of Carthage
demonic powers. To people who had bought their libelli and therefore escaped imprisonment and worse without polluting their own conscience, it seemed harsh and inhuman when austere bishops such as Cyprian excluded them from eucharistic communion and regarded them as having lapsed, with no assurance of readmission until, after persecution had ceased (as past experience showed that it would), bishops could meet in synod and agree on the proper terms for penitence. Those who had bought libelli were resentful at being treated like those who had actually offered sacrifice, and at being penalized more severely than adulterers. In the past, apostasy (and that was surely what in public records it was) had been ranked with murder and adultery as sin so mortal and so injurious to the community that, in the exercise of the dominical commission to bind and loose, the Church was not clearly authorized to grant remission. It could be sure only of authority to intercede that, at the Last Judgement, the lapsed might be treated with mercy by the divine Judge of all. In time a deathbed or gravely sick application could be considered. It remained valid if one recovered. Moreover, the reconciliation of a penitent man or woman was an act before the congregation, not a private absolution, and for the eucharist celebrating restoration and Christ’s forgiveness the penitent person provided the bread and wine (ep. . ; Victor of Vita, Historia persecutionis . ). The bishop accepted the offering and placed the elements on the altar. Nevertheless for these lapsed believers there was a ray of light. Christians who refused either to sacrifice or to buy a certificate had been arrested and confined in extremely unpleasant dungeons. Their sufferings there put them under great strain, and their courage in standing firm conferred the exalted status of ‘confessors’ and ‘witnesses’ (that is martyrs), endowed with the Holy Spirit and thereby charismatic authority to hand out tickets of readmission. This claim was bound to raise embarrassing questions for bishops if it sidelined their responsibility and divine commission to be judges (ep. . ), and so to be spokesmen for the community in exercising the power of the keys after carefully considering each individual case. Some confessors injured their own dignity by being careless in handing out certificates of readmission, giving blank certificates which the applicant could fill in (ep. . ), accepting bribes too. Cyprian was informed that intoxicating liquors were reaching the confessors (possibly as anaesthetic for their pain?) and that there were quarrels among them and in some cases sexual irregularities (ep. . ff., . , . ).5 The situation was difficult for bishops, some of whom found themselves jostled and mobbed by crowds of impatient and irate people armed both with 5 How far the sexual problems went is hard to say with assurance. That men and women were thrown into prison together is clear. But among the Christians in north Africa Cyprian encountered ascetics of both sexes living together in continence, an abstinence which he thought hard to credit, ep. . Released confessors may have followed this pattern.
Cyprian of Carthage
certificates for which they had paid to escape compromising their faith and with tickets of readmission from confessors in the gaol (ep. . ). Yet it was axiomatic that the glory of martyrs was at death to be granted the Lord’s kiss with immediate admission to paradise and to share with Christ in judgement (epp. , . , . , . , . ; likewise Dionysius of Alexandria in Eus. HE . . ). For them there would be no waiting state. And if the martyred person happened to be unbaptized catechumen, provided the faith of the Church be held complete, then martyrdom was baptism of blood (ep. . ). Cyprian was most anxious to safeguard both the full honour of martyrs and the authority of bishops. From Africa a number of Christians became refugees, finding a hidingplace in the great city of Rome only a few days’ sailing distant. The wealthy church at Rome could secretly feed them. It is noteworthy that persecution brought negligible interruption to travel and the conveyance of letters in the Mediterranean. There may well have been Christian shipowners. The Lord had said: ‘If they persecute you in one city, flee to the next.’ Cyprian being well known in his city was the object of mob hatred, his name being shouted by crowds at circus or amphitheatre. A formal proscription of him by name was placarded. It seemed clear that if he stayed in the city he would bring serious trouble upon his people, who would prefer him to lie low. He therefore retired to a hiding-place near the city, communicating with his presbyters (whom he expected to stay in Carthage) and continuing to supply money to those in need. Naturally there were those who questioned his flight. The Quo Vadis legend of St Peter being sent back into Rome to be crucified like his master (upside down) was not yet current, but the attitude presupposed is found in Tertullian’s essay On Flight in Persecution. At Rome after the execution of Bishop Fabian in January the Roman church continued for several months without electing a successor, and the clergy wrote not to Cyprian but to his clergy and laity frankly regretting that their bishop had not stayed to face the music. Christ’s soldiers were expected to fight the devil on the battlefield rather than to run away, and in martyrdom Christ himself was the victor in his human servant. Cyprian obtained a copy of the Roman letter, felt it to be insulting, and returned it asking if it was authentic. After his martyrdom Pontius’ panegyric (–) still found it necessary to defend his hero from accusations of cowardice. The government did not find the initial penalty of imprisonment sufficient to achieve what they wanted, and a second edict arrived requiring severe tortures to be inflicted on prisoners who remained obstinate. Under the savagery suffered a number of confessors finally capitulated (ep. . ); they were cruelly flogged, some died in the torture chamber, their limbs torn by the rack, by hooks on a wheel lacerating their flesh, with virtual starvation. It seems that the usual resort to bribery for prison officers was made
Cyprian of Carthage
ineffective. Cyprian directed his clergy to make note of the dates of martyrdom, evidently with a view to the future church calendar. The Carthage calendar of saints in a recension of about survives, edited by Mabillon (Vetera Analecta, ), from a now lost Cluny manuscript. It includes names found in Cyprian’s record of the Decian persecution. A local church could have no greater glory than to have among its members some accorded the supreme dignity of martyrdom (ep. ). Their sufferings united them to their crucified Lord—a theme already found in the epistle to the Colossians (: ) where the apostle, or perhaps a disciple writing in his name, regards his sufferings as making good any deficiency in the redemptive cross of Christ. The theme also appears in Origen’s tract On Martyrdom (). The ancient Church understood the whole Church to include the faithful departed as well as the church militant here on earth, and among the faithful departed a special place was naturally held by the greatest saints. Just as believers were asked to intercede for each other on earth in accordance with the apostolic model (Col. . ; Eph. . ), and just as they regarded intercession as a particular responsibility of a pastoral bishop for his flock, so they could invoke the prayers of saints and martyrs in the Church triumphant. The assumption that the intercessions of a potent friend would be effective was a natural axiom. In Roman imperial society where the client/patron relationship was dominant, and where the weaker members of a group depended on the rich and powerful if they were in trouble over taxes or with the magistrates or were wanting an attractive post, it was taken for granted that an intervention by an influential friend was indispensable. Bishops were continually badgered for help of this kind in worldly terms. It was not in principle so very different invoking a martyr’s aid. And the ancient Church fervently held that martyrs were qualified for admission to heaven without further ado. The charitable duty to bury martyrs was dangerous to those who collected corpses for burial ( fossores), especially because Christians preferred Christian cemeteries (the Roman letter, ep. . ). Carthage also had Christian burial grounds (ep. . ). Such sites were well known (ep. . ). Cyprian’s strength lay in his burning conviction that the church in north Africa was a constituent member of a universal body, visibly continuous in the episcopate. On several occasions he affirmed the individual responsibility of a bishop to reach his own pastoral decisions, for which he would answer to God at the Last Judgement: ‘A bishop is responsible to God alone’ (e.g. ep. . ). Nevertheless consensus among bishops was pastorally important. Collectively bishops were responsible for ‘every act of the Church’ (ep. . ). They were ‘as essential to the Church as the Church to bishops’ (ep. ), and should be regarded as the ‘glue’ that imparts coherence
Cyprian of Carthage
(epp. . , . ). It was obviously important that the lapsed when they aspired to be restored must receive equal and just treatment. Bishops needed to reach a common mind. Cyprian issued a programmatic statement ‘On the Lapsed’ defending the position that those who bought certificates were polluted and needed to make confession before their bishop and the people. In Cyprian’s mind the unity and unicity of the Church are symbolized by St Peter on whom the Lord built his Church (epp. . , . ). Bishops are accordingly the visible earthly organs or instruments by which this Petrine unity is maintained and validated. Therefore a problem arises when there is disagreement, especially when an entire regional synod reaches decisions which are not acclaimed and accepted in other regions. Novatian and Cornelius Correspondence between Carthage and Rome initially ensured that Cyprian’s policies were not out of line with the austerity of Rome, where the leading presbyter during the vacancy in the see was Novatian, a respected theologian, author of a valued Latin treatise on the Trinity which owed much to Tertullian. However, when the Roman church came to elect a new bishop, the choice of the plebs and probably also of the consecrating bishops fell not on Novatian but on another senior presbyter named Cornelius. Cornelius favoured a more relaxed policy towards the lapsed: as persecution died down, it was a duty to restore the fallen so that by participation in the eucharist they might be spiritually strengthened if attacks were to return. Novatian was appalled at this choice of bishop, and refused to acknowledge Cornelius. Three country bishops were brought to Rome to give him consecration as rival bishop of Rome. He was recognized by prominent Roman confessors (epp. and ). Later texts say Novatian was martyred under the emperor Valerian. According to Pacian of Barcelona Cyprian heard this and said ‘My opponent has gone before me.’ An inscription found in in Rome on the Via Tiburtina records ‘Novatian a most blessed martyr’. The split at Rome was not at first centred on the terms of restoration for the lapsed. But quickly that painful issue became cardinal to the controversy. The news of the split in Rome soon reached bishops in Carthage where there was also high tension between factions; the group of five dissident presbyters found in the unrest with Cyprian’s policy about reconciliation of the lapsed a rod with which to beat him. They were led at Carthage by one of their number (confusingly named Novatus), and their candidate to be rival bishop of Carthage was named Fortunatus. Novatus’ honour was diminished when his wife had an abortion, the ancient method used for this being the husband kicking his wife in the stomach, a technique which the mother seldom survived (ep. . ); Christians regarded abortion as morally indistinguishable
Cyprian of Carthage
from infant murder. Cyprian and his supporting bishops at Carthage were at first far from clear which of the two rivals in Rome they ought to recognize. The final decision to opt for Cornelius took time and a special mission of inquiry which naturally offended Cornelius. When Cyprian’s support came, it was strong, virtually an echo of an imperial panegyric: Cornelius had been consecrated by rigorously correct procedure without any bribery and (unlike Novatian) when the see was vacant. Cornelius could name his predecessor in the see: Novatian could not. His church was ‘man-made’. As Cyprian and Cornelius came to draw together, the anti-Cyprian presbyters at Carthage opted for Novatian, a move which strengthened Cyprian’s hand. A shift in the situation occurred when Roman confessors held in high respect, who had supported Novatian, changed sides and joined Cornelius, who did not require of them a penitential reception. Their adhesion was very welcome to him. He was also glad to have support from Cyprian, in whose eyes Novatian had moved entirely outside the Church, so that no one needed now to pay the slightest attention to his words. ‘One who has lost charity has lost all’ (ep. . ). The principle stated in Tertullian’s polemic against heretics that once they have left the one Church their opinions are of no relevance or consequence became sharply reformulated by Cyprian. Cyprian used language about Novatian which Cicero had used of Catiline, the arch-conspirator against the Roman republic. As for Cornelius, ‘the tyrant Decius would have been more alarmed to hear about a new bishop in Rome than of a rival emperor’ (ep. . ). On unity The dissidents at Carthage provoked Cyprian to write the first Christian treatise on the Church, ‘On the Unity of the Catholic Church’. If the universal Church is one, the local community also has to be united. Only so is it the Church which Christ founded. ‘He cannot have God for his Father who has not the Church for his mother.’ Schisms and heresies are the devil’s invention to undermine faith, deceiving believers into supposing that there is some new way forward bringing light into their darkness. Splits result from opposition to the one bishop who is bond of unity in his church. And the community of the episcopate is a united universal body, in which each individual ‘holds his part in its totality’. The local church is a microcosm of the universal Church, the very spouse of Christ. She does not sleep around. ‘If anyone could escape who was not inside Noah’s ark, then there can be salvation outside the one Church.’ The fourth chapter of the tract on Unity has two variant forms of text in the manuscript tradition. In one form (commonly called the ‘Received Text’) stress is laid on the equal power bestowed by the Lord on all apostles,
Cyprian of Carthage
while the unity of the apostles is signified by the giving of the same power of the keys to only one, namely St Peter. The other form or ‘Primacy Text’ begins from the Lord’s commission to Peter (‘Feed my sheep’). ‘And though to all the apostles he gives equal power, yet he established a single teaching chair . . . the origin and ground of unity.’ So while other apostles were all that Peter was, yet the initial place (primatus) was given to Peter to manifest one Church and one teaching chair. It has been plausibly conjectured by Maurice Bévenot that Cyprian was responsible for both forms of text, representing a first edition directed against Carthaginian dissidents, and a second edition in the Primacy Text where the target is Novatian and the trouble in Rome. It is equally possible that the two forms of text originated in the fourth century with the Donatist schism in North Africa, the Donatist ecclesiology being conciliar with strong emphasis on apostolic succession, producing the Received Text, and that of their opponents stressing the value of communion with Rome, producing the Primacy Text. In the spring of a letter from Cyprian answered a report from Cornelius that a Carthaginian dissident Felicissimus had come to Rome, evidently to appeal for support, and with a crowd of supporters had coerced Bishop Cornelius into receiving his letters, but had not been received to communion. Cyprian replied with an outline of his autobiography in becoming bishop four years previously with a providential survival of the persecution, and recorded outrage that the African faction had had ‘the audacity to sail to Rome to Peter’s chair, the primordial church and source of unity among bishops’. Disunity was their business (ep. . ). Exalted language about the Roman church also occurs in ep. . : ‘it is the womb and root of the Catholic Church.’ Pope Stephen A year later in the time of Decius’ successor Gallus, Cornelius was arrested and exiled to Centumcellae (Civitavecchia). He died in exile and was ranked by Cyprian among martyrs. His tomb survives, the earliest papal stone to have its inscription in Latin. He was succeeded at Rome by the shortlived Lucius (–) in office less than eight months, and he by Stephen. With Stephen Cyprian found agreement difficult. His enthusiasm for harmony with Rome when he needed support in the problem of reconciling the lapsed was quite gone when he discovered Rome to be recognizing the validity of schismatic or heretical baptisms. The first tensions seem to have arisen when Bishop Faustinus of Lyon wrote to Carthage to report that Marcianus bishop of Arles was refusing all reconciliation to the lapsed, and Cyprian sent a letter telling Stephen what he ought to be doing about it ‘with the full weight of your authority’.
Cyprian of Carthage
A second source of abrasion came when two Spanish bishops named Basilides and Martialis from Legio-Asturica (León and Astorga) and Emerita (Mérida) had compromised their faith by buying libelli in the persecution. On the strict view therefore they could return only as penitent laity, and in both sees bishops had been elected to replace them. Naturally enough the two extruded bishops had their supporters. The two replacements found it difficult to exercise their episcopate, and wrote to Cyprian who upheld their view with a letter regretting ‘Stephen’s negligence’ in allowing Basilides to claim reinstatement with Rome’s support. For the Africans it was unthinkable that God could hear the prayers and heed the eucharistic sacrifice of a bishop whose hands were defiled. A report on Bishop Martialis was not only that he ignored the need for penitence but also that he habitually attended a pagan dining-club with obscene entertainments (ancient dinner parties commonly included an act by scantily dressed dancing girls) and had had members of his family interred in a pagan burial-ground. Stephen affirmed the old Roman tradition that if a person had been baptized in the name of Christ by a dissenting body, he or she should be received into the communion of the one Church not by baptism but by laying-on of hands as a penitent. His predecessor Cornelius had followed Cyprian’s sharper doctrine that to recognize the baptism given by a schismatic was a full recognition that the dissenting body was part of the true Church. One could not recognize part of the sacrament. It must be all or nothing. It is impossible to think that an enemy of Christ outside the one Church can cleanse and sanctify (ep. . ). He had learnt from Tertullian, whom he counted his ‘master’, that the Lord said not ‘I am custom’ but ‘I am the truth’. (It could not be denied that Cyprian’s position was not the old tradition; cf. ep. . .) Roman criticism of this position appeals to custom rather than reason. Moreover, appeals to Petrine authority have to meet the point that in dispute with Paul (Gal. : ff.) Peter claimed no primatus, no seniority or right to demand obedience (ep. . ). So said Cyprian to a bishop in Mauretania named Quintus. He sent a copy on to Rome with a covering letter of absolute courtesy urging Stephen to agree with the African bishops in council, whose tolerance allowed for disagreeing individuals. The Africans acknowledged that the Roman see had a special position, in that Peter was both the origin of unity and the source of episcopal authority. But it was also axiomatic that the African synod excommunicated no one, and allowed ‘some’ to adhere to past traditions (ep. . ). A difficult point for Cyprian was that at Rome Novatian did not recognize the baptisms of the rival community, which to critics seemed indistinguishable from Cyprian’s position. Between Stephen and Novatian this was a wide difference, with Stephen accepting Novatianist baptism, and Novatian refusing Stephen’s (ep. . ). Cyprian could answer only with the apparently
Cyprian of Carthage
weak reply that what Novatian might or might not do was irrelevant: he was an outsider. Stronger was an amazement that Rome was seeming to acknowledge Marcion’s baptism though the man did not believe the doctrine of the Trinity. A biblical passage against the African synod was Acts : –, where Peter and John came to Samaria and hands were laid upon those already baptized to give the Holy Spirit, but the converts were not rebaptized. However, the rock-solid position of Stephen was the appeal to tradition: ‘Nihil innovetur nisi quod traditum est.’ Those baptized outside the Church should be admitted to the one Church by laying on of hands. The sacrament of baptism must on no account be repeated, for that was a slight to the majesty of Christ’s name invoked upon the candidate. The sacred tradition to which Stephen appealed was attributed by him to Peter and Paul (ep. . ). Cyprian sought to answer this contention by appealing to scripture, pointedly asking where he could find this tradition attested in Gospels, Epistles, or Acts (ep. ). With the African doctrine of the right of an individual bishop to take a personal position and answer to God at the Judgement, Cyprian strongly resented Stephen’s threats of excommunication for the disagreement (ep. . ). A bishop’s responsibility is not only to teach, but also to be teachable (. ). Much pain was caused when Stephen refused to receive episcopal envoys from Carthage and forbade his community to offer the visitors any hospitality whatever (. ). That was the way in which Novatian’s envoys had been received at Carthage (. ). Stephen was not without some support in Africa, and a manifesto on his side entitled ‘On rebaptism’ has survived among works ascribed to Cyprian, whom the anonymous author, a bishop, disliked as ‘arrogantly correcting other churches’. In his view Stephen was correct that baptism in Jesus’ name should not be repeated, and that the gift of the Spirit came with the imposition of the bishop’s hands as reconciliation with the Church. Exorcism outside the Church was potent; so why not baptism? The apostles could hardly measure up to the demand for perfect faith in the baptizer; and what of ignorant uneducated clergy who get the baptismal questions wrong? God’s power overrules such cases. Some of Cyprian’s later letters show that probably because of the tension with Rome Cyprian had to reply to critics in Africa, discontented both with him and with his sacramental theology. In both and he presided over councils at Carthage considering the baptismal controversy. The record of September survives with judgements uttered by the bishops from Proconsularis, Numidia, and Mauretania, each assenting to Cyprian’s position. The preface by Cyprian stresses that there is no excommunication of any who may disagree. ‘None of us has set himself up as bishop of bishops.’ It is remarkable that Cyprian’s mind moved far from his earlier view that no serious Christian could suppose heretical or schismatic baptism valid, to allow at least the possibility of individual
Cyprian of Carthage
independence. (This last proposition enabled Augustine to defend Cyprian while judging him wrong on baptism.) Firmilian Cyprian appealed to the Greek East, writing to Firmilian bishop of Caesarea, metropolis of Cappadocia, who reinforced the doubts about apostolic traditions at Rome by observing that Roman liturgical practices differed from those of Jerusalem. Yet this diversity was no source of disunity in the catholic Church (. ). He regretted that the bishop of Rome wanted his own kind of uniformity, and for authority appealed to the locus of his see as successor of Peter with a resultant debate throughout the (Mediterranean) world. Firmilian also asked what Stephen would make of an ecstatic woman at Caesarea who not only baptized with the right formula but celebrated the eucharist with the usual ritual words: On the Roman view that must be valid. Stephen answered the Greek opposition by excommunicating Firmilian, the bishop of Tarsus, and all bishops in the provinces of Cappadocia, Cilicia, and Galatia. Firmilian was scandalized that Stephen had denounced Cyprian as a false Christ, a false apostle, and a crafty operator (ep. . ). Cyprian had himself described supporters of Novatian’s baptism as antichrists and traitors, fighting the Church from within (ep. . ). Stephen had given such persons a strong lead. Pope Sixtus Notwithstanding this tough language, Cyprian did not break communion with Stephen, and probably Stephen’s successor Sixtus (or Xystus) would have been able to re-establish harmony. Cyprian’s Life by Pontius expressly refers to Sixtus as a ‘man of peace’, and the news of his martyrdom was for Cyprian a very grave matter (ep. ). Both he and Cyprian suffered execution under Valerian, Sixtus in the Roman catacombs with his deacons. The theological debate so far as the West was concerned could not be resolved for a further half-century, when the consequence of the persecution of Diocletian was a major schism in north Africa. The Donatist faction followed Cyprianic sacramental theology of baptism with the refusal to grant that a lapsed priest could offer the Church’s sacrifice with hands polluted by surrendering Bibles to the secular authorities, agents of Antichrist. Any sacrament celebrated by a defiled bishop or presbyter must be deemed invalid. Cyprian would have agreed with that proposition, though he was aware that the Church contained both wheat and tares (ep. . ) and that he could claim fidelity to the gospel only for ‘most bishops’ (ep. . ), for on occasions ‘unworthy men are appointed’ (ep. . ). Tares were no sufficient reason for abandoning the Church. He would have had to add that insofar as the Donatists had
Cyprian of Carthage
renounced the universal Church, they had become of no importance. Donatist appeal to Cyprian was not unqualified. Fresh persecution In the emperor Valerian (–) with his son Gallienus abandoned an initially friendly attitude to the Christians (who may have found themselves included in a general remission of exile), and initiated a persecution in which capital punishment was a penalty to come to Cyprian, and other clergy were sent to work in the mines—a penalty estimated as being virtually death. Prisoners sent to the mines in Numidia had no bed or straw to lie on, no washing facility, little to eat. Their heads were half-shaven like slaves suffering punishment. Their legs were chained to prevent escape. They were flogged with heavy cudgels. Work had to be done in smoky underground tunnels in a fearful stench. Survival was unusual (epp. and ). Cyprian’s social standing in the city ensured that he was treated according to the dignity of his class. At first exiled to Curubis, on the coast miles from Carthage and not unpleasant, he was then allowed to return to his own rural gardens. But a new proconsul arrived. Cyprian was able to learn what the emperor had decided for him through Christians working in the palace at Rome, so that he knew the decree before the proconsul did. His biographer and panegyrist Pontius (a high official at Curubis attested in an inscription, CIL viii. , may be identical with Cyprian’s biographer) joined him in his house arrest, and the Proconsular Acts record the dialogue before the proconsul to whom he was taken on September . On September, with a huge crowd watching, Cyprian was formally cross-questioned ‘Are you Thascius, also called Cyprian?’ ‘I am’. ‘The emperors have commanded you to perform the ceremonies . . .’. The outcome was known in advance, and the examination ended with the proconsul reading his decision from a tablet: ‘Thascius Cyprianus is sentenced to die by the sword’. Bishop Cyprian said: ‘Thanks be to God.’ Uproar followed among the Christian spectators. Cyprian handed his executioner gold pieces, blindfolded himself, and went to his death. The body was taken for burial close to Carthage. He was the first north African bishop to be executed under the persecution. The anniversary of the martyrdom was to become a major popular festival in Carthage. The emperor Valerian suffered disastrous defeat fighting the Persians in Syria, and was captured, a dramatic event which the Persian king Shahpuhr celebrated with a triumphant inscription, which has survived. Cyprian was not given to inquiries into theology proper. He marked no distinction between heresy and schism (ep. . ). To be outside the Church
Cyprian of Carthage
was enough to decide the issue. Like the garden of the beloved in the Song of Songs, the Church has high walls, a hortus conclusus, in Cyprianic ecclesiology. He well knew the western baptismal creed, but produced nothing resembling the speculations of Clement of Alexandria or Origen. He owed much to Tertullian. Jerome reports that he read some of ‘the master’, as he called him, every day; and the debt is evident, especially in the tracts, but also in the basic presupposition of his stance in the baptismal debate. He believed in a divine guidance prompting him through his episcopal responsibilities, and reported the gift of dreams and visions (mocked by some, ep. . ). At a time of crisis when the church in Carthage suffered massive losses by ‘apostasy’, both among laity and among clergy, Cyprian had the strength of character to hold the fort. The African churches looked back on him as their hero. Veneration was not slow in becoming established. At Carthage three different shrines in the city were erected in addition to a small oratory by the harbour. Together with Bishop Cornelius he had later an honoured place in the Roman calendar of Saints and in the Latin canon of the mass. At the same time Stephen’s tenacious adherence to Roman tradition concerning schismatic baptism, which Cyprian slightingly regarded as mere ‘custom’, was to remain in force, and a criterion for the adverse criticism of the Donatist sacramental theology. By recognizing baptism given by ministers not in communion with the one catholic Church and with its bishops embodying visible continuity, Roman tradition implied some provisionality in the temporal element in the sacrament. It made clear that the question to be asked of a sacrament is not about the sanctity or status of the minister but rather whether what God has commanded to be done has been done; the grace bestowed in incorporation into the one Church is his, not the minister’s. Medieval schoolmen lucidly defined the difference as that between ex opere operantis and ex opere operato, with the proviso that there is intention to do what the Church does. Cyprian’s absolutist conception of the Church constructed mighty defences against schismatics and heretics with the aid of ideas already in Tertullian’s De praescriptione haereticorum. Stephen allowed the Church a penumbra extending beyond its apparent frontiers. In the cleavage between Rome and Carthage in Cyprian was supported by major Greek bishops. The issue has long remained a point of divergence between Latin west and Greek East, acutely felt when rigorist elements in the east have felt hesitant about recognizing western baptism. Stephen provided more potential for a positive approach to separated ecclesial bodies regretful of their exclusion.
DIONYSIUS OF ALEXANDRIA
Dionysius, presbyter of Alexandria, succeeded Heraklas as bishop about , shortly before the elevation of Cyprian. He was a cultivated man of good education, and in the retrospect of the fourth century was much admired and respected as ‘the great’. Within a few months of his consecration his people were the target of mob violence, perhaps especially because the city was beset by plague and civil war, and from early in Decius launched persecution. At Alexandria bishop Dionysius was target of attacks essentially similar to those suffered by Cyprian. Responsible for a number of people in his house, he decided to take flight when persecution came, was captured after a few days and arrested by soldiers, but then liberated by an onslaught from revellers at a wedding party outraged by their bishop’s capture; they forced the guards to run for their lives. Dionysius’ letters, cited by Eusebius of Caesarea, record the horrors endured by elderly Christians during the pogrom of and then, in under Decius, the sad lapse of many, and their ferocious treatment by the Alexandrian mob. He found it necessary to defend himself against sharp criticism from another Egyptian bishop Germanos who directly accused him of cowardice: ought he not to have stayed at his post and shared martyrdom with the confessors of his flock? In his Preparation of the Gospel (book ) Eusebius preserves substantial pieces of Dionysius’ treatise ‘On Nature’, defending design in the cosmos against the random chance of Epicureanism. The context is likely to have been a widespread loss of inward security and confidence in providence resulting from the chaotic state of the Roman empire in the mid-third century. Dionysius was clear that even during terrible times divine care had not ceased to operate. The political disasters of the age could easily have fostered millennialism. The interpretation of the Apocalypse of John of Patmos was no easy matter, but chapter if taken literally (as had been done by Justin and Irenaeus) offered a strong lead for belief in a thousand-year reign of Christ at a rebuilt Jerusalem. Origen, on the other hand, who deeply influenced Dionysius by his biblical exegesis, had been clear that John was writing symbolically and allegorically. Before Dionysius’ time a bishop Nepos of Arsinoe, south of Memphis, had exercised profound influence in Egypt by his spiritual qualities both in bible
Dionysius of Alexandria
studies and in writing hymns. His writings retained enthusiastic admirers, especially a work entitled ‘Refutation of the Allegorists’ devoted to a vindication of the literalism of Irenaeus in expounding the Revelation of John. Nepos’ doctrine seemed dangerous to Dionysius, and he made a pastoral visit to Arsinoe and the surrounding churches to correct what was amiss. He frankly admitted that he found large parts of the Apocalypse incomprehensible; but on faith he accepted that the author was at least one of two Johns whose tombs were held in honour at Ephesus. This was directly contrary to the opinion of an early heretic named Cerinthus who was credited by his admirers with authorship of the Gospel, Epistles, and Revelation of John. (The chances are no doubt that the two tombs at Ephesus were actually rival sites both claiming to have the bones of a single John, reckoned, since the apocryphal Acts of John in the mid-second century, to be the beloved disciple and author of the Johannine Gospel, Epistles, and Apocalypse.) However, the highly eccentric grammar of the writer of the Apocalypse could hardly be the style of the author of the Gospel, and in a percipient critique Dionysius set aside the Apocalypse as inconceivably the work of John the son of Zebedee. He accordingly wrote a book in criticism of Nepos entitled ‘Concerning the Promises’ (i.e. the last things). He did not question that the John of the Apocalypse was holy and inspired. Dionysius inherited from his master Origen a sense of the supreme importance of biblical exposition. Considerable fragments of his exegesis of Ecclesiastes (mentioned by but apparently not known to Eusebius) have survived through a catena; that is, through the work of a commentator who summarized a series of exegetes on the text, and included among them several citations from Dionysius.1 Dionysius was much perturbed by Novatian’s dissent at Rome. He was in favour of mild discipline for the lapsed, and thought Novatian very wrong to start a schism, so easy to begin, so difficult to end. The baptismal controversy into which Cyprian and Stephen had drawn Greek bishops inevitably involved Dionysius. Like Firmilian of Caesarea, he sympathized with Cyprian and wrote accordingly to Stephen of Rome. A letter he wrote to the Roman confessors who initially supported Novatian (Eus. HE . . ) would have helped to bring them back to catholic communion. Despite considerable sufferings he survived the persecution of Valerian. Gallienus’ edict of toleration and restoration of churches and cemeteries moved him to the language of panegyric on the emperor. The first bishop named in Gallienus’ edict was Dionysius, whom Eusebius took to be the Alexandrian. The Roman Dionysius is at least as probable. 1
Catena Havniensis in Ecclesiasten, ed. Antonio Labate (CCSG ; Turnhout, ).
Dionysius of Alexandria
Questions of canon law were brought before him by a bishop in the Libyan Pentapolis (Cyrenaica) named Basilides. He was asked to rule on the hour at which the Holy Week or Paschal fast should end: cockcrow, or before midnight on Holy Saturday. He drily commented that it was easier to fast rigorously for two days than moderately for six. As the precise hour of Christ’s rising cannot be determined, Dionysius thought that individual conscience was properly a deciding factor. The same held for other questions put to him, namely, whether menstruating women should abstain from communion (to which he assented—a view on which patristic writers long remained divided); whether married couples should decide for themselves when they ought to abstain from sexual union for the sake of prayer (he thought they should so decide and not be directed); and whether nocturnal emissions had some sinful character (which he thought could only be a matter for the individual conscience). These rulings later became a part of Greek canon law. They are striking for what they did not rule. He did not sympathize with the opinion that bishops should penetrate the marital bedroom and tell married people in detail just what they might or might not do. With so large a region for his oversight Dionysius realized that to inform every bishop of the correct date of Easter it was necessary for him to send round an encyclical. Festal letters announcing the date, accompanied by homiletic reflections, were accordingly issued by him. He insisted that Easter must not be celebrated before the vernal equinox. The responsibilities of the bishop of Alexandria for the churches in Libya brought Dionysius into disagreement with bishop Stephen of Rome’s successor, who bore the same name as himself, Dionysius. The bishop of Berenice, Ammonios, sent a complaint to Rome about the Alexandrian’s language concerning the subordination of the divine Logos/Son to the Father. The complaints were five in number: he separates the Father from the Son; he denies the eternity of the Son, implying that ‘there was once a time when he did not exist’; he names the Father without naming the Son and vice versa; he refuses to allow that Christ is of one being (homoousios) with God; he speaks of the Son as created by the Father and as having a distinct being (ousia), just as a vine differs from a husbandman and a boat from a boatman. Dionysius of Rome brought the matter before a synod, which endorsed a condemnation of those who were dividing the divine ‘monarchy’ into three separate hypostases. Insistence on three distinct hypostases was characteristic of Origen, who was opposed to the formulation of the doctrine of the Trinity by which Father, Son, and Spirit are three subjective ways of talking about one God, grammatically adjectival rather than substantival. The opinion opposed by Origen was associated with a presbyter at Rome named Sabellios, and later Greek theologians called it Sabellianism. In the Latin west
Dionysius of Alexandria
it was felt to imply that in the life and passion of Jesus the Father himself suffered, and this was objectionable, by Latins soon labelled Patripassianism. A major theme of Christian criticism of pagan theology was the polytheistic belief in gods vulnerable to all too human passions, as the myths illustrated. Christians such as Justin had identified the deity worshipped by Christians with the impassible transcendent needless One of Platonism. The Platonic tradition was critical of the old myths of Homer whose poetry Plato had wished to exclude from the educational curriculum. Origen judged it vital to maintain biblical monotheism; but that seemed to require a doctrine of Christ which allowed the Father to stand higher in the chain of being than the Son. The divine Logos had therefore to be what Philo of Alexandria had said: a mediator between the transcendent Creator and the creaturely realm, half-way between the two. Dionysius of Alexandria had behind him the critique of Sabellianism in the commentaries of Origen e.g. on St John’s Gospel. He composed Refutation and Defence frankly conceding in his usual irenic manner that he had used incautious language. He protested that he made no division or separation between Son and Father, who are one as light derived from light. (Dionysius did not comment on whether the analogy is of sunlight and sun or of one torch lit from another, where the latter is more emphatic about the distinction.) However, at the crucial point Dionysius refused to give ground to his Libyan or Roman critics: ‘They may say that to speak of three hypostases implies that they are separated from one another, yet they remain three, whether they like it or not; otherwise they entirely destroy the divine triad.’ Father and Son are of one nature but like seed and plant, spring and river. ‘I expand the monad into a triad without splitting it up and again unite the triad into the monad without reducing it.’ Most of these citations from the controversy are preserved through Athanasius in the mid-fourth century (De sententia Dionysii ) when he was attempting to vindicate Dionysius against the Arians’ appeal to the authority of his name. Because of this context doubts may be (and have been) raised about the complete reliability of the citations. It favours their authenticity that nothing in the texts is anachronistic in the years –, and the involvement of the bishop of Alexandria in a debate in the Libyan churches is wholly probable. Because of the destiny of the term homoousios in the creed of the council of Nicaea in , special interest naturally attaches to the complaint that Dionysius denied that this assertion of identity of being could properly denote the relation of Son to the Father. The term was in regular philosophical use at the time, often in the context of discussion about the divine nature of the soul. It would have been a word to occur to anyone involved in this debate, and its presence in the report on Dionysius is no argument for thinking the language has to be post-Nicene Arian fiction.
Dionysius of Alexandria
In view of what was to come, it is highly significant that the western bishop at Rome was primarily concerned to protect the affirmation of monotheism: there is but one God, and no statement about the divine triad can be allowed to prejudice that. The eastern bishop at Alexandria was concerned to protect the threeness of the Christian understanding of God, and felt it to be important to state the plurality first and then to explain that the three are one. The exchanges between Alexandria and Rome illuminate a broad difference of approach to the Christian doctrine of God as between the Latin west and the Greek east. The contrast is not absolute in antiquity. One can find Greek theologians using language close to that of Dionysius of Rome, Marcellus of Ankyra in the s being a striking example. There were Latin theologians who found Dionysius of Alexandria congenial; they, however, were severely criticized for Arianism. A second respect in which the third-century controversies anticipate what was to come may be seen in the different approaches of east and west towards the baptismal controversy. Writing to Cyprian, Firmilian of Caesarea referred at one point to the attack on the eastern tradition in regard to the celebration of Easter by Victor of Rome in the time of Irenaeus. Firmilian evidently felt that the disagreement about baptism, in which he and Dionysius of Alexandria agreed with Cyprian and the Africans, marked an incipient divergence between east and west. Stephen’s insistence that baptism outside the Church should be deemed valid and on no account repeated offered irenic or, as one might say in modern terms, ‘ecumenical’ possibilities that the eastern negative view excluded. Down to the twenty-first century the Orthodox tradition of the Greek and Russian churches has found it easier to agree with Cyprian than with Stephen. Eusebius of Caesarea records that Dionysius of Alexandria2 wrote a letter to the Armenian Christians on the subject of repentance. They had a bishop named Meruzanes (HE . ). This notice is the earliest evidence of Christianity among the Armenian people, though it is very possible that the ‘Armenians’ addressed were Greek-speaking inhabitants of the Roman province of Armenia rather than Armenians of the independent kingdom, which became officially Christian with the conversion of the king in the next generation. That conversion, however, is more likely to have occurred if there was a previous movement among his people. By the year the Armenians were devotedly Christian (Eus. . . ). 2 Most of the extant remains of Dionysius are gathered by C. L. Feltoe (Cambridge, ), to be supplemented by Armenian matter edited by F. C. Conybeare in English Historical Review, (), – (cf. Conybeare in Journal of Theological Studies, (), –) and by M. van Esbroeck in Orientalia Christiana Periodica, (), –. Good discussion by W. A. Bienert, Dionysius von Alexandrien (Berlin, ).
PAUL OF SAMOSATA
The Persian capture of the Roman emperor Valerian and his great city of Antioch in / resulted from the constant weakness of an eastern frontier without natural barriers and in any event ill defined and fluctuating. Roman collapse made possible for a decade in the s the emergence of an autonomous kingdom under Queen Zenobia based on the largely Arab city of Palmyra in the Syrian desert. The political independence was contemporaneous with a controversy about the style and teaching of the bishop of Antioch on the Orontes, Paul from Samosata on the Euphrates, whose doctrines of Christ and flamboyance in general delighted some of his people and alarmed others. Paul was sharply critical of the interpretation of scripture generally current in the Greek churches. ‘He spoke disparagingly of dead exegetes’, said his critics, and the reference is probably to the lately dead Origen, whose commentaries and sermons were still influential. It is a measure of their influence and of the opposition aroused that about ad Eusebius and his master Pamphilus undertook a considerable Defence of Origen in six books; the first of the six survives in a Latin version by Rufinus of Aquileia. Greek culture had come to pervade Syria and most of the Semitic world, but not so much as to suppress the languages, Aramaic, Nabataean, Syriac, Arabic. Most people spoke Greek, which was the medium of cultured communication. Paul may well have had Aramaic as his mother’s-knee tongue, but was certainly fluent in Greek. Critical as he evidently was of the way in which Origen and his admirers spoke of the incarnate Lord, there is no sufficient reason to think him a conscious vehicle of nationalist Syrian culture over against a Hellenic Christian society. Greek was the dominant Christian language for worship and theology. In the second century a Greek harmony of the four Gospels made by Justin’s pupil Tatian and called ‘Diatessaron’ became a standard text translated for Syriac-speaking churches. At Edessa in Bardaisan was bilingual in Syriac and Greek. The Palmyra court under Queen Zenobia became host to the excellent scholar Longinus, who tried to persuade the polymath Porphyry to come and join him (Life of Plotinus ). The name Iamblichus, borne by the famous Neoplatonist, is that of a princely Phoenician family fluent in Greek but whose first language was Aramaic (Photius, Bibliotheca ).
Paul of Samosata
From Palmyra Zenobia’s kingdom expanded for a short time to fill a vacuum of power northwards and southwards in Asia Minor and in Egypt until her rule was ended in by the emperor Aurelian, ‘restitutor orbis’ as his coins proclaimed. Paul of Samosata was appointed bishop of Antioch in . The plebs admired his flair for making the church noticed in the city, and the Syrian bishops consented to consecrate. But very soon he was causing alarm, which in led to a synod of bishops remonstrating and asking for amendments. Dionysius of Alexandria was invited to the synod and declined on health grounds; he was already sinking to his death, but wrote a letter to the synod on the corrections in theology for which he hoped. Paul assured the synod that he intended improvement. That, however, did not occur and the growing rumbles of misgiving led to a second synod at Antioch in autumn which addressed its formal letter to Bishop Dionysius of Rome (died in December ) and to Maximus of Alexandria. Eusebius quotes at some length the part of the synod’s encyclical criticizing Paul’s worldly life-style, modelling himself on high officers of the empire (ducenarius or procurator), having a tribunal and elevated throne (evidently an even higher throne than most bishops already had) and a secretarium like a provincial governor. So great was his pressure of business that he dictated letters to secretaries in the streets. On Easter Day his adherents sang hymns in his praise (much as occurred among the schismatic Donatists in fourthcentury north Africa). They were invited to contribute on a generous scale to his stipend and expenses. He evoked deep fixations in women, and had relationships with them which shocked the bishops by their openness, though they conceded that sexual contact did not occur. The bishops were outraged by the applause and waving of handkerchiefs, as if in a theatre. More problematic was his criticism of the Origenist notion that Son and Father in the Trinity are distinct hypostases. To the bishops’ pain he wished to affirm that they are homoousios, identical in being. He disliked the pluralist language of the Apologists from Justin to Origen. The bishops feared his doctrine of Christ was indistinguishable from what could be acceptable at the synagogue. The synod’s method was to send him a letter (in effect an ultimatum) signed by six bishops. The letter’s theme was that the pre-existence of the Son of God is proved by the exegesis of the theophanies of the Old Testament on the line worked out by Justin Martyr, namely that since the transcendent Father cannot be the one seen by Moses at the burning bush or by Abraham at the oak of Mamre, the Son must be the God encountered on earth. ‘If anyone refuses to confess that the Son of God is God before the foundation of the world, and says that it is preaching two Gods if we say that the Son of God is God, we declare him to be alien to the rule of the Church; and all Catholic
Paul of Samosata
Churches agree with us.’ The pre-existent Son took the body from Mary and deified it, they added. Much as Origen had been called in to help synods with problems of orthodoxy, so in the bishops assembled at Antioch invited the help of Malchion, a presbyter who was also head of a secular school of philosophy in the city. Fragmentary citations from dialogue between Malchion and Paul occur in anthologies of dogmatic excerpts compiled during the Christological controversies of the fifth and sixth centuries. Because of the milieu from which these citations come, there has been inevitably a degree of hesitation about authenticity. Nevertheless, if the citations were created after the time of the council of Chalcedon in , the forger was extremely ingenious. It is impossible to avoid subjective judgement but many citations have a ring of genuineness. The one ground for doubt is that for Malchion as mouthpiece of the synod’s orthodoxy ‘the divine Logos was in Christ what the inner man is in us’. That suggests doctrine associated with the late fourthcentury heretic Apollinaris of Laodicea, whose admirers were never short of ingenuity. The possibility cannot be excluded that Apollinarian hands either created or at least shaped some of the matter. Nevertheless there are texts in Origen where ‘the inner man’ is the Soul (e.g. c. Cels. . ). An Apollinarian forger is not needed.1 The synod understood Paul to be teaching that Christ was a man assumed into union with God, but by inspiration rather than by incarnation. This way of thinking about the person of the Lord had been current in the second century, since in the Dialogue with Trypho Justin opposed it, but during the third century was increasingly being sidelined. So far as the surviving fragments go, his Christology taught that Jesus was indwelt by the divine Logos. The gift of the Holy Spirit he associated only with the apostles at Pentecost; so at least it was reported in the sixth century by Leontius of Byzantium. His name long remained a bogey word to engender alarm among Greek theologians, especially of the tradition of Athanasius and Cyril of Alexandria. In the West similar ideas were not unknown but not prominent until the Adoptianists of Spain in the age of Charlemagne. The resolution of the synod that Paul be removed from office failed to persuade him to vacate the church building. His supporters at Antioch remained enthusiastic. The fall of Zenobia—and the near-independence of Palmyra— before the forces of the emperor Aurelian altered the political situation. If 1 Marcel Richard, Opera minora (Turnhout, –), ii, no. , doubted the authenticity of the fragments. But see argument in favour of authenticity in papers by M. Simonetti, ‘Per la rivalutazione di alcune testimonianze su Paolo di Samosata’, in Rivista di storia e letteratura religiosa, (), –; G. C. Stead, ‘Marcel Richard on Malchion and Paul of Samosata’, in Logos; FS Luise Abramowski (Berlin, ), reprinted in Doctrine and Philosophy in early Christianity (Aldershot, ), no. ; U. M. Lang in JTS, ns (), –.
Paul of Samosata
Paul was receiving any support from Palmyra, that would help to explain how the aggrieved bishops were able successfully to appeal to imperial authority. On being petitioned, Aurelian ruled that ‘the church-building should be assigned to those with whom the bishops of the doctrine in Italy and Rome should communicate in writing.’ This initial benevolence of Aurelian towards the Christians did not last long; soon it was rumoured that persecution would come again, but Aurelian died after six years and his successors were short-lived until in Diocletian took power.
MANI
In the middle years of the third century gnostic dualism found a fresh and vigorous embodiment in Mani (–). He was brought up in Mesopotamia among a Jewish Christian baptist sect, followers of Elchasai, but left them at the age of to found his own group. Like other sects since, he intended to supersede all the separate religious societies and to embrace all major religions of the time. He understood himself to be an inspired prophet, identical with the promised Paraclete, and therefore one of the line of prophets not only from the Old Testament to Jesus but also including Buddha and Zoroaster. He declared that his religion was not confined to one region or linguistic area but was to be taken by missionaries to all lands. Previous founders of religions had written next to nothing and failed to ensure a stable coherent future; Mani’s writings would rectify that. Well within his lifetime his missionaries established communities in the Nile and Oxus valleys and had soon reached Chinese Turkestan and Spain. For over nine years the young Augustine was an adherent in north Africa, and after his conversion in his anti-Manichee writings offer much information. In the twentieth century major finds of Manichee documents have been made in Egypt (Coptic probably translated from Syriac) and Turkestan. In the Persian empire the mission had success, and from there successfully infiltrated the Roman empire, soon to cause anxiety to the imperial authorities and also to bishops. In Persia Mani himself fell foul of authority and was executed in . His followers had an annual spring festival, called the Bema, for a memorial of his death and for confession of sins. Central to his thinking was the problem of evil, the permanence and ineradicability of which showed that if the supreme God was good, he was not also omnipotent. What his angels could do was to contain evil and prevent a complete takeover. Cosmic conflict between powers of light and darkness, spirit and matter, had resulted in a mixture felt in human nature’s awareness of tension between physical appetites and higher aspirations of the soul. Mani divided followers into a celibate Elect and a lower order of Hearers who cooked selected food for the Elect and were allowed sexual relations at safe periods of the monthly cycle. They were discouraged from having children since this incarcerated sparks of divine light in soggy matter. Wine was strictly forbidden as an invention of the devil.
Mani
The crucifixion of Jesus and the wretched wanderings of his apostles described in apocryphal Acts were themes of Manichee literature and preaching, only the cross was not a particular instrument of divine redemption so much as a symbol of the horrible human situation in a tormented world. Christian language was used in Manichee hymns, some of which had a chorus-like refrain ‘Glory to the soul of Mary’. The missionaries found church members a profitable recruiting ground. Clergy detected Manichee influence when communicants at the eucharist accepted the consecrated bread but not the cup of wine. An attraction also was the splendid calligraphy and fine binding of Manichee liturgical books and the high solemnity of their chants. But for church members much of the drawing power of the Manichee conventicle lay in its gospel of asceticism, closely akin to much in the New Testament and in incipient embryonic monasticism. The Elect ate no meat, drank no wine, never washed at the baths, slept on rough mats, were forbidden to own land or practise agriculture. Because of the part played by an apple in the Fall of Adam, no Elect person could pick an apple or eat one. Compromise made it possible for the Hearers to do much that was out of bounds to the Elect (though not all Elect kept the rules). The higher aspirations were (it was claimed) in line with Plato. Some Manichees held high office in the State, but that was not very welcome to emperors. About the end of the third century Diocletian issued an edict suppressing them; they were deemed a dangerous infiltration from his enemies in Persia. The earliest anti-Manichee document extant is a pastoral letter by a bishop of Alexandria shortly before ad preserved on a papyrus in Manchester (P. Rylands III ). The bishop objected to their disapproval of marriage, to their veneration of the sun, sun and moon being staging-posts on the Manichee soul’s ascent to heaven, and to the use of menstrual blood in their ceremonies. There were well-educated Manichees. Teaching in Rome Plotinus (. ) had found to his distress that some of his pupils were deeply attracted by gnostic sects. An Egyptian Neoplatonist about ad , Alexander of Lycopolis, who wrote a tract against Manichaism, conceded that some among them ‘are not ignorant of Greek traditions’, and pupils from his lecture-room had become Manichees. A standard claim was that Mani had solved every problem in the interpretation of the Bible. That is, he followed Marcion in the thesis that the New Testament writings had been interpolated in the interest of asserting the continuing validity of the Old Testament for believers in Jesus, which Mani rejected. He entirely set aside any idea that Adam and Eve were both created by God; they were the offspring of princes of darkness, Saklas and Nebroel. To the orthodox Church the Manichees, like all gnostic sects, seemed a diabolical parody of authentic faith, infiltrating the Church, scorning the
Mani
Church’s stress on faith and authority. Insidiously the missionaries concealed the Manichee myths about the making of this world and the cosmic wars in heavenly places and began by criticizing embarrassing texts of the Old Testament, moving on from there to the contradictory genealogies of Jesus in Matthew’s and Luke’s gospels. At a late stage they would raise the problem of evil and the weakness of orthodox approaches to it.1
1 Important texts with bibliography are collected by Alfred Adam, Texte zum Manichäismus, nd edn. (Berlin, ). A bibliography with more recent finds and monographs in Cambridge Ancient History, xiii (); see especially the monograph by S. Lieu.
PLOTINUS, PORPHYRY 1
In the middle years of the third century a modern version of Platonism was taught by Plotinus, a philosopher born in Egypt in – who studied in Alexandria under a teacher of whom all too little is certain, Ammonios Sakkas, whose lectures had also been attended by the Christian Origen. Plotinus was fascinated by Ammonios and adhered to his lectures for eleven years. Between Origen and Plotinus parallel interests can be detected. Plotinus moved to Rome to teach, and acquired a considerable following in the Latin West. He had rapport with the writings of Numenius of Apamea (c. ), who had probably read some tracts by Philo of Alexandria; he understood Moses to be a kindred spirit to Plato. On the other hand, it embarrassed Plotinus when Gnostic sectaries of dualistic and pessimistic opinions about the cosmos attended his lectures. The obscurity of some pieces in Plotinus’ tracts, then and later made him a magnet for those inclined towards theosophy. Several streams of thought had a confluence in him. Plotinus’ most notable pupil was Porphyry, a Phoenician from Tyre and a polymath, who edited Plotinus’ lectures in six sections, each of which had nine chapters (hence given the title Enneads). To accompany his edition Porphyry wrote a biography of his hero, describing the awe in which Plotinus was held by pupils, male and female, notably for his aspiration to ascend to the experience of mystical union with the One. Plotinus achieved this four times in his life, Porphyry only once. Plotinus lived a disciplined ascetic life with the minimum of food and sleep, no meat and no baths. ‘He always seemed ashamed of being in the body.’ Like the Christian Origen, he did not think one should celebrate the anniversary of one’s birth. By introspection Plotinus analysed the process of human thought and decided that this mental process contained the key to reality, rather than the empirical observation of the material world. His philosophy was therefore concerned with things of the spirit, with the great chain of being ascending through the World-Soul, through Mind (nous) to the ultimate reality of the One. The lowest level of this chain of being is formless matter which first acquires any Plotinus is edited and translated by A. H. Armstrong (Loeb Classical Library, vols.). Fragments of Porphyry are gathered by A. D. Smith (Teubner). 1
Plotinus, Porphyry
semblance of goodness as it receives form from Soul. Accordingly evil is a deficiency of goodness and of being; it is non-being. At the same time erroneous choices in the will engender evil, as the human soul (or that of midway daemonic powers) is seduced by material attractions. Following Plato, Plotinus was sure that God is not responsible for the evils in the cosmos. Nevertheless the power of providence overrules evils to transform them into agents of good. Plotinus used ecstatic, erotic analogies for his mystical ascent to the divine beauty. He was sure that the soul, if purged from all physical images, has the capacity for union with God which is an experience of identity (. . ). The soul is elevated above the successiveness of temporal events to reach the simultaneity of eternity. But the distractions and multiplicity of events in time (notably the role of words in speech) make the experience rare and shortlived (. . ). Late in the second century a collection of pagan oracles was produced under the name ‘Chaldaean Oracles’. They became influential among pagan theosophists and were valued by Porphyry, who was especially interested in the oracles of Apollo and Hecate delivered at their shrines. Porphyry disliked animal sacrifices, a leading characteristic of pagan cult, and was a fervent vegetarian. In a treatise about vegetarianism he regretted that animal sacrifices were needed to placate malevolent daemonic spirits who could injure those who neglected to worship them by their offerings. The highest God would not desire them. True worship for Porphyry as for Plotinus is quiet meditation and introspective contemplation. Thereby the soul returns to its ground of being and is to ‘enjoy God’. Language of this kind offered a religious version of Platonism which could be adapted to include a more positive estimate of polytheistic cult, and therefore would come to provide an alternative to Christianity for conservative pagans who regarded Christianity as dangerously revolutionary and unauthorized abandonment of ancestral custom. Some ancient writers affirm that in his youth Porphyry had been attracted to Christianity (below, p. ). This could be correct. In the second half of his life he wrote pieces remarkably close to Christian spirituality. But he also became a vehement critic of Christian beliefs, and especially of the Bible. The work he wrote against the Christians was naturally not copied by Christian scribes, and its content is largely conjectural. Augustine’s City of God and Harmony of the Evangelists together with Eusebius’ Preparation for the Gospel are the principal sources for any reconstruction. Porphyry wrote a short ‘Introduction’ to philosophy, especially to the logic of Aristotle, entitled Isagoge. A masterpiece of clarity, it remained a standard textbook for more than a millennium, and later Neoplatonists wrote explanatory commentaries on it. Theologians such as Cyril of Alexandria early in the fifth century found it indispensable. Augustine of Hippo
Plotinus, Porphyry
found much that Porphyry had to say deeply congenial. Pagans, however, anxious to maintain polytheistic cults (e.g. Iamblichus early in the fourth century) were uncomfortable with his writings. Porphyry could easily seem to have surrendered too much to Christian critics. This opinion of him was held by Iamblichus (c.–) and Proclus of Athens (d. ), both being fervent believers in theurgy or the high value of traditional ritual forms. Both Plotinus and Porphyry wrote of the supreme triad of the One, Mind, and Soul as three hypostases. Porphyry once suggested that the three constituted a single ousia or being. The Christians had been speaking of God in triadic terms long before they encountered late Platonism’s exegesis of obscure texts in Plato; but the Neoplatonic interpretation of Plato’s Parmenides showed that the best respected school of philosophy had closely comparable ideas, and that disarmed pagan critics who found the Christian language about God as Trinity incomprehensible. Pagans such as Julian the Apostate are found using Neoplatonist triadic language to give rationality to the worship of the sungod as possessing three meanings, namely, a supreme sun of the world of intelligence, a second sun which mediates between intelligible and sensible, and a third sun which is that which gives the earth heat and light. Some Christian influence may reasonably be discerned here. Solar monotheism in the fifth century pagan Macrobius (Saturnalia . ff.) proclaimed each god’s name to be a title of the Sun-god. With the Christian feast of Christ’s nativity popularly established on December, it would be easy for Pope Leo I’s congregation at the entrance to St Peter’s to turn east and venerate the sun before facing west in Constantine’s basilica (PL . –). A classic discussion in F. J. Dölger, Sol Salutis (nd edn., Münster, ).
DIOCLETIAN AND THE GREAT PERSECUTION; RISE OF CONSTANTINE
Eusebius of Caesarea prefaces his account of Diocletian by describing the Church’s prosperity in the decades before the coming of sharp persecution. Even in the time of Origen there were individual governors and highly placed officials who, though not believers, did everything in their power to help the Christians, and Christians believed that there could be mercy hereafter for them (Origen, In Matt. ser. ). Eusebius records that more recently there had been provincial governors who were Christians and had even been allowed by authority not to participate in pagan sacrifices; moreover, bishops had been treated with honour by governors. Since the emperor Gallienus had enacted that Christians could legitimately own and assemble for worship in their church buildings and could have their cemeteries (Eus. HE . ), the numbers of Christians had swelled, and larger buildings had to be erected to contain the overflowing congregations. Prosperity and success weakened the morale of believers, and there were some painful contentions between bishops (. . ). To Eusebius this justified a divine judgement. Diocletian’s reorganization In November the empire acquired an energetic new emperor, Valerius Diocles who expanded his name to Diocletianus. He eliminated rivals and set about reorganizing the empire better to defend frontiers, improve administration, check inflation by (vainly) controlling prices by edict. His legislation was remarkably successful, much of it surviving to be included in Justinian’s Code more than two hundred years later. In to make civil wars less likely many provinces were divided. This increased the cost of bureaucracy and therefore raised taxes, bankrupting farmers, but smaller provinces made it harder for a military commander to revolt. Estate duty on the dead helped funding. High officials were given grand titles with distinctions in the epithets applying to their rank, the grades being distinguished by the number of curtains one passed before being admitted to an audience. (There would be a succession of guarded rooms through which a petitioner would move, a
Diocletian and the Great Persecution
procedure familiar today to those granted a private audience at the Vatican.) Provinces were grouped into twelve ‘Dioceses’, each administered by a deputy (vicarius) for the praetorian prefect. At the top the territory was divided among four, two with the rank of Augustus (himself and a colleague Maximian), two entitled Caesar, the title used since Hadrian’s time for the nominated successor to the Augustus, but confusingly used by Germanic tribes for the Augustus (as Jerome records, in Soph. . –, –; cf. in Hiez. . . –). All four members of the Tetrarchy wore purple, forbidden to everyone else. Diocletian called himself Jovius, Maximian Herculius. To enhance imperial honour ceremony characteristic of the Persian court was enjoined. Not that Diocletian was pro-Persia. He was shocked by endogamous brother–sister marriages in Roman Mesopotamia, a Persian custom not unknown in the Nile valley. War on the eastern frontier was a continuing problem, and the infiltration of Mani’s missionaries from Mesopotamia, refugees from persecution in Persia, provoked a severe edict of suppression. Diocletian was conservative, wanting the gods’ help to preserve the empire. A new religion was the last thing he needed. The Augustus was an absolute autocrat. Rome with its opulent aristocratic families became largely ornamental in government, though the office of city prefect remained prestigious and senators were natural candidates for the office of provincial governor or even praetorian prefect. (The senate at Rome had lost any power to nominate an emperor since the third century, when this effectively passed into the army’s hands.) Diocletian’s palace was at Nicomedia in Bithynia, Maximian’s at Milan. Sirmium, metropolis of Illyricum, and Trier became residences of the Caesars.
Church expansion Before the middle years of the third century Origen could observe that church buildings were packed with worshippers. The expansion continued in the later part of the third century, moving beyond the empire with the conversion, led by the king, of the Armenians and at about the same time or soon afterwards the Georgians to the north-east of the Black Sea. The Christian heartlands lay in the Greek east, some towns in Asia Minor being wholly inhabited by believers. Growth in numbers brought problems. Bishoprics attracted ambitious, power-hungry candidates, and among laity there were factions in a war of words. Eusebius regarded the insults and tortures suffered by bishops in Palestine a well-deserved divine judgement for their unlawful ordinations and for continual innovations (Martyrs of Palestine ; HE . . ).
Diocletian and the Great Persecution
Porphyry The success of third-century Christianity produced an embattled defensiveness in those called by the Christians of ‘pagani’, a term meaning either bucolic peasants (towns being more Christianized than rural areas attached to them) or, more probably, ‘civilians’ not enrolled in Christ’s army by baptism. Porphyry produced an intellectual attack on the Christians—regarded by pagans as apostates from the traditional gods and therefore atheists, enthusiasts for Jewish myths but refusing the prescribed Jewish ceremonies, insistent in proclaiming faith in disregard of reasoned argument. Porphyry directed attack on the Bible, on the veracity of the evangelists, on the to him dishonest employment of allegory to rescue the Old Testament, on the book of Daniel, which Porphyry saw to be no prophecy of the age of the captivity in Babylon but to belong to the time of Antiochus Epiphanes in the second century bc. He also observed that bishops owed their election to prominent women (cited by Jerome, in Esai. . , p. Vallarsi). Like Celsus before him, Porphyry rejected the exclusive claim to offer the one path to salvation. He had himself searched for a universally valid way, and failed to find it (Augustine, City of God . ), a sentence which gives some colour to the statement in the historian Socrates (. . ) that at one time Porphyry had been a Christian. He knew his Bible well. Writing on oracles he cited one praising Jesus, a holy man rightly elevated to heaven, while mocking believers who deified him (Eus. Dem. Evang. . ; Aug. City of God . ). An open letter written to Marcella the wife of his old age, much being a mosaic of Neopythagorean and Epicurean maxims, illustrates how close his moral and spiritual ideals stood to Christianity. Many of the same maxims had been incorporated a century earlier in a Christian collection by an otherwise unknown (or at least uncertainly identifiable) Sextus (p. ). The Christians regarded the pagan gods as evil spirits—paradoxically an opinion for which Porphyry himself provided support exploited by Eusebius of Caesarea (Praep. Evang. . and . ; also in Porphyry’s work on vegetarianism, De abstinentia . –). It followed that Christian officers in the Roman legions were even more unlikely to think sacrifices helpful in battle, and would make the sign of the cross to avert malevolent powers widely believed to cause catastrophes. Eusebius (Praep. Evang. . ) comments that down to his own time oracles had misled rulers into waging damaging wars, and cites Porphyry that inferior daemonic powers delight in erotic pleasures and in battles (. ). Christian intellectuals, Arnobius Until Diocletian’s nineteenth year as emperor Christians were largely unmolested. In Alexandria Christian teachers, Theognostos and Pierius, could
Diocletian and the Great Persecution
continue Origen’s themes and command respect among the city’s educated society. Unfortunately for the historian, in the period before Constantine’s victory of the archaeologist’s spade and even the papyrologist’s documents and letters are reticent about Christians. In the province of Numidia in north Africa a well-educated critic of Christianity named Arnobius, familiar with the writings of Porphyry, felt led by a dream to convert to the faith he had been criticizing. To persuade the local bishop of Sicca that his change was genuine, he wrote a defence of Christianity in seven books. He had read some Tertullian and Cyprian, but was largely unfamiliar with the Bible. On the other hand he discerned in the Neoplatonism of Porphyry an intended rival to Christianity, offering a philosophic salvation for the soul, attacking the true saviour Christ as ‘destroyer of religion and author of impiety’ (. ), claiming that the immortality of the soul is incompatible with a Christian doctrine of judgement hereafter and that because of the soul’s innate divine quality it needs no redeemer. The advent of Diocletian’s persecution convinced Arnobius that Rome’s domination of the world had become catastrophic for the human race (. ) because of the insistence on the old polytheism. Persecution The long peace for the Church was suddenly ended. The wars of Diocletian had not all gone smoothly for the legions. Before a campaign sacrifice was offered to win the favour of the gods, and Christian army officers made the sign of the cross, a trophy of victory over the evil demons to which the sacrifices were being offered. Might that cause heaven’s displeasure? Might the old gods prefer a religiously united empire from which sceptical dissent was excluded? Moreover, although there were Christians serving in the army, some stricter believers were still refusing to serve, as is shown by the Acts of the conscript and martyr Maximilian in north Africa, executed in . At least it seemed right to the Augusti to eliminate Christians from the legions, and in a policy of purging the army was carried through. Lactantius, living in Nicomedia at the time, treats the eastern Caesar Galerius as prime mover in the persecution; it is uncertain that this was actually so. Both Christians and pagans (as the rhetor Libanios, or. . shows) looked back on Diocletian as the embodiment of irrational ferocity in liquidating anyone who failed to conform. In February Diocletian acquiesced in the verdict that it was time to act against the Christians. The oracle of Apollo at Didyma by Miletus endorsed the decision. In a dawn raid the church at Nicomedia, visible from the palace, was dismantled and destroyed; Bibles were burnt. Next day an edict was published removing privileges from upper-class Christians including the
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conventional immunity from torture, which equated Christian loyalty with high treason. At roughly the same time Christians were harassed in Roman Armenia and northern Syria (Eus. HE . . ), possibly because the conversion of the Armenian king to Christianity and the easy movement of traders across the frontier aroused fear that Christian citizens and soldiers in that region were being influenced to feel more attachment to Armenia than to Rome. The bishop of Nicomedia was executed together with other clergy and lay people. Worse was to come when two fires broke out in the palace for which Christians were thought probably responsible. Diocletian’s wrath knew no bounds. At Antioch in Syria the magistrates prided themselves on refined and hitherto unpractised methods of horrendous torture (Eus. Mart. Pal. ). All who refused to offer sacrifice to the gods were to be killed. In practice the number of martyrs appears not to have been large, at least in the first year, unless one includes ‘voluntary’ martyrs who had provoked the authorities. More numerous, it seems, were those maimed for life by the rack or scorched on gridirons. In Spain and Italy Maximian enforced the measures; Constantius Chlorus, the Caesar ruling Britain and Gaul, did not do more than demolish some churches. In Africa persecution was sharp, and forty-nine Christians who had gathered to celebrate the eucharist at Carthage were all executed under the judgement of the proconsul. Ladies of wealth and refinement were not exempted from the death penalty as the laity came to be included in the imperial bloodbath. The churches in Spain were proud to commemorate the courage of Vincent, deacon of Saragossa, whose veneration also entered north African calendars. Both the poet Prudentius and Augustine of Hippo possessed the record of his trial and martyrdom. His bishop Valerius came of a prominent family at Saragossa which supplied a succession of bishops to their city; Valerius was not much affected. Ossius bishop of Corduba is recorded by Athanasios (Hist. Ar. ) to have been a ‘confessor’. The Acts of Vincent’s martyrdom record that the persecution in Spain was directed by a praeses named Datianus; this probably represents good memory at Saragossa. In Egypt Bishop Peter of Alexandria was in time able to issue canons to regulate the treatment of the lapsed. The Alexandrian church could gratefully recall the way in which pagan friends hid Christians from the searching authorities with their instruments of torture at the ready. Pierios at Alexandria was noted for yielding to the authorities, but was able to migrate to Rome where the great city could hide him. His colleague Phileas was martyred after his declaration that it was for him a matter of conscience. A papyrus letter illustrates how some Christians lived through the dangerous years. A certain Copres went down to Alexandria to present his suit in a magistrate’s court concerning some property. When he arrived, he found to his surprise that the lawcourt now had an altar at which he was expected to
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offer incense at the start of the case. This as a Christian he did not wish to do, so he arranged to confer the power of attorney on a pagan friend to stand in for him, for whose conscience it would not be a problem. For Copres the persecution appeared as a minor inconvenience to his plans.1 In Egypt at least two bishops were so loved by their people that they could offer sacrifice without any loss of honour or office.2 Diocletian retires. Galerius and Constantius I. Constantine During the persecution was worse, no doubt because, after visiting Rome late in to celebrate his twentieth anniversary of accession, Diocletian fell ill, and it would have been easy to blame Christian prayers for that. His illness persisted, and he was persuaded by the ambitious Caesar Galerius to retire to his palace at Split. He insisted that Maximian in the West should also relinquish office as Augustus. At Nicomedia on May the two Augusti solemnly handed over supreme power to Galerius and to Constantius Chlorus. The two new Caesars were boorish roughnecks, Severus in the West, Maximin Daia in the East. Maximian’s son Maxentius and Constantius’ son Constantine were given nothing, but they wanted power too. Constantine, initially kept virtually as a hostage at Galerius’ court, escaped to join Constantius in Gaul, then in York,where Constantius died. The legions at once proclaimed the young son successor as Augustus ( July ). At Nicomedia Galerius acknowledged Constantine only as Caesar and promoted Severus Augustus over him. But in Severus committed suicide. At Rome Maxentius was similarly acclaimed—but to his father Maximian’s displeasure, perhaps because he foresaw that the break-up of the Tetrarchy was leading to the civil wars which Diocletian wished to avert, but also because he had resigned power unwillingly. His daughter Fausta had married Constantine. Her father Maximian invested Constantine with the title Augustus. The young Constantine nursed aspirations to become supreme and sole ruler of the empire. Maximian failed in an attempt to murder Constantine so as to recover power, and committed suicide in or . Council of Elvira The aftermath of persecution in Spain can be deduced from the Acts of a substantial council of bishops at Elvira (Illiberis) by Granada. The council’s date cannot be determined but is likely to have been about rather than ‘at P.Oxy. XXXI ; for altars being installed in lawcourts, Lactantius, De mort. . . E. A. E. Reymond and J. W. B. Barns, Four Martyrdoms from the Pierpont Morgan Coptic Codices (Oxford, ), . 1 2
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the time of the council of Nicaea’ as claimed by the Escorial manuscript. Ossius of Corduba was among those present. The canons reflect a situation when Christians were again free for worship in their churches. The council was against pictures on church walls (), excommunicated those who did not attend worship for three consecutive Sundays (), while those who did not appear ‘per infinita tempora’ are ranked as apostates readmissible only after ten years’ penance (). Women are warned not to keep vigils at cemeteries because of the risk of immoral goings-on ().3 Bishops, presbyters, and deacons are required to live with their wives without begetting children (). Among bishops there is one who has ‘the first see’ (), presumably the senior by date of consecration, as in north Africa apart from Carthage and the Proconsular province. Some laity are magistrates (), and a mistress who beats her slave-girl to death is excommunicate for seven years if it was intentional, five years if it was unintentional (). Several canons show that prominent laymen are combining their faith with pagan priesthoods (–), while rich ladies are providing decorative garments and drapes for pagan processions (). Mixed marriages are a problem because there are more Christian girls than boys (). It was not easy to avoid all concessions to pagan tradition. Masters of households are asked ‘as far as possible’ not to allow their slaves to have idols in their houses (). Christians who provoked authority by smashing idols are not ranked as martyrs (). Some canons seek to rule against remarriage after divorce (), gambling (), clergy who fail to expel their adulterous wives (), clergy who lend money at interest (), pantomime actors and jockeys who on conversion continue in their jobs (). Former prostitutes, however, are to be received without hesitation if they are married (). Pimps are rejected (). Clergy may not live with women to whom they are not related (), and should not neglect their duties because of business interests (). Stress is laid on keeping the fasts, including Saturday () as at Rome, and on the high importance of Pentecost (), a feast from which some stay away apparently with some separatist intention. It is clear that some church members were drawn to Judaism or to return to paganism (–. ).
3 Jerome had trouble with a deacon at Bethlehem who used to visit the Cave of the Nativity to make assignations with women, and had a substantial record of all too successful seductions (ep. . ). At Carthage Bishop Aurelius had to order separate entrances to the church for the sexes, because women were jostled by some of the men. See the recently discovered sermons from Mainz city library found and edited by F. Dolbeau, Vingt-six sermons (Paris, ), specifically Mainz = Dolbeau . Jerome, ep. . to Eustochium, mentions lonely hearts who wanted to be presbyters or deacons to gain easier access to the opposite sex, and has a portrait of a cleric who spent every day in attendance on women. The records imply such cases were uncommon.
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Death of Galerius. Licinius. Daia Both Constantine and Maxentius established freedom of worship. In the West persecution ended, and Maxentius at Rome found it wise to have friendly relations with the substantial Christian populace. He was, however, an obstacle to Constantine’s ambitions, and the picture of Maxentius as a debauchee in the pro-Constantine sources, Eusebius and Lactantius, is hostile. There was little relief for Christians in the East until Galerius died in May , having published an edict on April declaring toleration for the Christians, exhorting them to pray for his and the empire’s welfare. The edict is preserved by both Lactantius (De mort. –) and Eusebius (HE . ). To the vexation of the Caesar Maximin Daia, Galerius had named one of his army commanders, Licinius, Augustus in . He also was born a peasant. Daia answered the elevation of Licinius by proclaiming himself Augustus too. Not a man of moderation, less than six months after Galerius’ edict Daia resumed the harassment of Christians in the East, and the martyrs included Bishop Peter of Alexandria, the learned scholar Pamphilus at Caesarea (teacher and patron of Eusebius the historian), and another learned man named Lucian at Nicomedia. Many were maimed by torturers. Cities were encouraged to submit petitions that the Christians be suppressed. Daia realized the weakness of old polytheism, and produced a kind of blueprint for the emperor Julian’s pagan revival half a century later. He created a highpriest for each city and in each province a central high priest in charge of all religion. (One could ask if Daia the persecutor suggested the authority given to the bishop of a provincial metropolis by the canons of the council of Nicaea in .) A duty of each city-priest was to offer daily sacrifices to all gods worshipped there and to prevent the Christians either building churches or holding rival assemblies in public or in private. If they refused to sacrifice to the gods, they must be taken to court. However, even Daia found the policy of suppression impracticable. He changed course, issued an edict of toleration including the right to build churches, but soon afterwards suffered a fatal stroke. His colleagues in the Tetrarchy immediately denounced him as a usurper, so that his pictures and statues were destroyed; and his children, close relatives, and principal officers of state were executed. It is hardly possible to read the extant records of those martyred in the Great Persecution without horror at the degree of violence let loose upon good people and without sympathy for those maimed by grisly methods of inflicting sustained agonies. It was not necessary for their numbers to be very large for their honour and integrity to be long remembered by the Church. Eusebius recorded the sufferings of his own province, Palestine, with fortythree martyrs (who, however, included no bishops). Some of them were provocative of the authorities. Tertullian had declared that ‘Christ is in the
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martyr’ (De pudic. ). The Acts of Saturninus observe the ‘stupidity’ of a proconsul who failed to realize that in the martyrs he was fighting not men but God. Nevertheless, Cyprian had already found problems with the pride of confessors, who had been in prison and in chains but disregarded the need for any reference to the bishop. They had a kind of martyrdom of desire. There could be debate whether a confessor needed ordination to act as a presbyter (Apostolic Constitutions . . ). He already possessed the charism. Schisms The persecution of Diocletian precipitated two serious and long-lived schisms, the Donatists at Carthage and North Africa and the followers of Melitius bishop of Lycopolis in Egypt. In both cases the argument turned on the question whether, when the state forbade Christian meetings for worship and required the surrender of Bibles and sacred vessels, one could quietly cooperate with the authorities, or if one was obliged in conscience to resist them as agents of Satan. The bishop of Carthage, Mensurius, surrendered medical treatises, accepted by the searchers without scrutiny. But one zealot Numidian bishop who found himself in prison with his young nephews thought it right to kill the boys to prevent them from apostasy. (The story, however, comes from a hostile source.) Mensurius and his archdeacon Caecilian pursued a policy of lying low; the persecution would not last long. Caecilian even picketed the Carthage prison to prevent food being supplied to defiant church members who, in his view, had been needlessly provocative. On Mensurius’ death Caecilian was hastily consecrated to succeed him. The bishops of Numidia expected to be well represented at the ordination of a bishop of Carthage; they sympathized with the zealots and believed a rumour that Caecilian’s principal consecrator Felix bishop of Apthugni had surrendered the scriptures to the authorities. In short, if so, Caecilian had been made a bishop by polluted hands guilty of apostasy. Caecilian was supported by the bishop of Rome. Since, however, Bishop Marcellinus of Rome had also compromised his faith under the persecution, to the Numidians he represented a polluted Church lacking authority in the matter. It became a zealot presupposition that pollution could be transmitted by the fault in the succession of ordinations. That assumption would be utterly denied by Augustine, for whom even if Caecilian had been ordained by a bishop who surrendered the sacred books, it could in no way compromise his successors or those in communion with that line of bishops. The Carthaginian group hostile to Caecilian were soon led by Donatus, who was to give his name to the party. The Donatists appealed to Constantine, especially when they were not included in substantial funding
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from the imperial treasury. The emperor referred the dispute to the bishop of Rome who in turn called a synod to consider the issue. The synod met in Fausta’s palace on the Lateran and decided for Caecilian, a factor being his readiness to abandon Cyprianic baptismal theology and accept the old custom defended by Pope Stephen. The Donatists appealed to Constantine against the synod’s verdict, and their appeal was sent on to a Gallic synod meeting at Arles on August . As the persecution had not affected the Gallic churches, the Africans could not claim that they would be prejudiced. Naturally at Arles the Roman verdict was upheld. The Gallic bishops held the first of western sees in great respect. Eventually Constantine left the Donatists ‘to the judgement of God’, a decision which a century later Augustine was to describe as most ignominious. The outcome was a schism which left a substantial proportion of the African churches out of communion with those north of the Mediterranean. It was the more formidable because full support was given to the Donatist cause by Numidian bands of peasants armed with clubs. Before the persecution they had perfected an unstoppable charge against the musicians playing at pagan festivals, which brought to some the crown of martyrdom. They were now able to turn their militancy on catholic clergy and their congregations by maiming, blinding, and even murder. The mutual hatred engendered drove at least some recent converts back to the polytheism they had left. In Egypt Bishop Melitius of Lycopolis was shocked to find that at Alexandria Bishop Peter had gone into hiding, perhaps had left Egypt, and that the presbyters were not providing pastoral care and teaching for the people. He concluded that Peter had ceased to be recognizable as bishop, and established a rival episcopate both at Alexandria and south into the Thebaid where his strength was to lie. At the council of Nicaea () a major concern was to achieve reconciliation with the Melitian faction, and to the later chagrin of Athanasius they were offered easy terms. Rise of Constantine In the West the rise of Constantine was secured by his famous victory over Maxentius at the battle of the Milvian Bridge or Ponte Molle on October , when Maxentius was drowned. The senate honoured Constantine in with a triumphal arch by the Colosseum, the inscription (ILS ) declaring that he had won the battle not only ‘by the greatness of his mind’ but also ‘by the prompting of divinity’, the relief portraying Maxentius’ forces drowning in the Tiber. The motifs of the representation are solar symbols. Panegyrists acclaimed divine aid, indeed the support of his father Constantius with a heavenly host. Constantine had been inspired to attack defying the omens of the augurs. To Eusebius of Caesarea the victory was prefigured by Moses’
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victory over Pharaoh’s army, drowned in the crossing of the Red Sea. A statue was erected in Rome showing Constantine with a cross in his hand and an inscription to explain that this was the saving sign by which he had delivered the city from the tyrant-usurper. God vindicated his legitimacy. Pagans invoked only inferior deities, Constantine the most high. So declared a pagan panegyrist of . It is hard to know whether the victory at the Milvian Bridge was crucial in deciding his allegiance to the God of the Christians who had signally granted military success against larger forces, or whether there was some Christianity present in his family much earlier and that he was in practice associating himself with the Church as early as his elevation by the troops in . What is clear is that from Christians in his realm had liberty. Until reluctantly recognized as a Caesar by Galerius he was actually a usurper without proper title to the authority claimed. In those circumstances it would have seemed desirable at least to have divine sanction, and not merely that of his legions. It is also ambiguous whether or not the ‘vision’ and the direction to put a Christian symbol on his soldiers’ shields were actually connected. The language of Eusebius implies that the vision was granted when he was campaigning against barbarians, presumably in Gaul; and this may be linked with a statement in a panegyric of the year that at Autun Constantine had had a vision of the god Apollo (also the Sun-god). Solar theology could, of course, be merged with the veneration of ‘the sun of righteousness’. In Tertullian’s time there were pagans who deduced from Christians meeting for worship on Sunday that they worshipped the Sun-god (Adv. nat. . ). If from the emperor was leaning towards Christianity, there could well have been some element of syncretism. Most of the capable administrators on whom he had to rely were certainly still pagan. That could have encouraged caution in negatives on polytheism, at least for a considerable time. A ruthless soldier could be capable of political concession. Lactantius (De mort. ) records that before the battle in Constantine had directed the cross to be depicted on the soldiers’ shields in the form of X with a vertical line through it rounded at the top, the Chi-Rho symbol of Christ. It was an adaptation of a mark for ‘NB’ or Nota Bene. The story receives a different and developed treatment in the funerary panegyric by Eusebius of Caesarea of or , more than quarter of a century later, namely, that a parhelion, with a cross athwart the midday sun, had the inscription ‘By this conquer’. The following night in a dream Christ appeared to Constantine and told him to make the monogram his standard. It was called labarum. The shape was capable of being interpreted as the double axe of Zeus, but was certainly taken to be a sign that Christ was giver of military victory, since during Julian’s pagan revival it was abolished. Any who might question whether the defeated Maxentius was not just as friendly
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to the Church as Constantine were answered by Constantine’s publication of letters showing a close secret alliance between Maxentius and the avowed persecutor Daia in the East. At Rome Constantine’s identification with the Christians was further publicized later by the gift of his wife Fausta’s palace, once home of the Laterani family, to be the house of the bishops of Rome. (Perhaps he hoped it might help with propitiation for his wife’s murder?) Soon a basilica was constructed beside it and a baptistery. More difficult to build was a basilica on the slope of the Vatican hill with its focal point above the memoria constructed in ad in honour of St Peter. Other churches and shrines were built in Rome by Constantine or his mother Helena or his daughter Constantina. This was the beginning of Christian conquest of urban space in the first city of the empire. At Aquileia a wealthy Christian Theodorus gave the church an exquisite mosaic floor which survives. The benefaction may have been in celebration of the peace brought to the Church by Constantine. Constantine’s agreement with Licinius () Just as Maxentius had sought alliance with Daia, so also Constantine had protected his flank by an alliance with the Augustus, Licinius. In Milan he joined Licinius there to enter into an alliance by marriage and to draft a protocol of agreement on freedom of worship for all religions, so that ‘whatever god may be in heaven, he may be propitious to us and those over whom we rule’. Property confiscated from the Christians was to be returned, private buyers being indemnified by the state treasury. The text surviving is in the form of Licinius’ edict to the praetorian prefect of the Diocese Oriens at Antioch. The consequence of the agreement at Milan was to make possible Constantine’s programme, making it clear to the empire that this emperor venerated the God of the Christians and this was going to affect his policies. Death of Daia From Milan Licinius moved east and encountered Daia’s forces at Adrianople in April . Daia was defeated, retreated through Asia Minor, and finally committed suicide by poison at Tarsus. The empire was now divided between Constantine and Licinius. Licinius killed off all close relatives of Galerius, Severus, and Daia to eliminate any rivals. From the start relations with Constantine were tense, and in a war ended in Licinius’ surrender of Illyricum to Constantine, a province destined to become a source of pain between East and West, since while largely Latin-speaking, it was close to the eastern centre of imperial power.
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Tension between Constantine and Licinius: War Nevertheless it was a matter of time before Constantine decided that Licinius was superfluous in the government of the empire. Licinius was a pagan monotheist. He was bound to think that synods of bishops, such as those which occurred at Ankyra and at Neocaesarea in Asia Minor (regulating reconciliation for the lapsed), were potential sources of conspiracy in favour of his western rival. By negotiating behind his back with the Christian king of Armenia, Constantine could encircle him. Licinius played into Constantine’s hands by forbidding episcopal synods, ordering churches rigorously to segregate the sexes (stories of sexual abuse were circulated, Eus. HE . . ), and harassing Christians near the Armenian frontier. In this region occurred the famous martyrdom of forty Christian prisoners from various places, exposed to freezing death on a lake near Sebaste. Several bishops were executed too. Here, then, was more persecution, and Constantine could invoke the divine giver of victory in the West to dispose of his enemies in the East. The forces met at Chrysopolis opposite Byzantium at the entrance to the Bosporus in September , and Licinius lost. At first detained at Thessalonica, he was soon to lose his head. Constantinople It was momentous that Constantine had set eyes on the strategic site of Byzantium and, guided (he said) by a vision from the Lord, decided that with its splendid harbour the Golden Horn, and control of all traffic to or from the Black Sea, that would be the ideal site for a new Rome, an eastern capital rather than Nicomedia used by Diocletian. (Troy had also been considered at the entrance to the Dardanelles.) Byzantium needed strong walls on the landward side (Constantine’s were replaced in ) and, as the population grew, better cisterns and an aqueduct. Huge land-walls made it almost impregnable. Moreover, while old Rome was dominated by the buildings of pagan classical culture and polytheism, Byzantium offered scope and space for a new and Christian foundation, decorated by the recycling of columns and other building materials from the Greek past. Here Constantine could build a church dedicated to Peace, and nearby to begin a church of Holy Wisdom, which was not completed until under his son Constantius II. But he could also reuse an image of Apollo the sungod for the large statue of himself in the Forum of his new city. The population of the city would not have been overwhelmed by signs of Christianization. That is not to say that the battle of Chrysopolis in did not mark a watershed in minds. After Egyptian papyri become reticent about recording pagan cults and associated themes.
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If Constantine had not become a Christian, his transference of the seat of government to Constantinople would still have carried huge consequences for Old Rome. He created a new senate for his new capital, including a number of Christians promoted to this status. There was to be a city prefect, and other officers of state paralleled in Italy. The erection of a parallel church authority in the Greek east imported into the political tension a difference in ecclesiology, with the Latin West thinking of the Church as a sphere or circle with Rome at its centre, the East understanding the Church of the empire as an ellipse with two foci, virtually equal in jurisdictional power, yet granting a genuflexion of supreme honour to the bishop of Old Rome who represented the Latin west. Old Rome would continue to be ceremonially visited, but it was no longer to be the western emperor’s residence. That gave a degree of freedom to bishops of Rome, while the proximity of the emperor at Constantinople to the bishop of New Rome could cause awkwardnesses. Coins of Constantinople minted during the fourth century often portray Old and New Rome sharing a throne of equal authority. See Gudrun Bühl, Constantinopolis und Roma (Zürich, ).
CONSTANTINE: LACTANTIUS, EUSEBIUS OF CAESAREA, ARIUS, AND THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA
Lactantius1 Two Christian contemporaries, one Latin, the other Greek, commented on the new situation resulting from the rise to sole power of a Christian emperor, an advent of which second-century Christians had dreamed. Tertullian (Apol. . ) was sure emperors would be believers if they were not necessary for unspiritual duties in the secular world. After the establishment of Christianity by Theodosius I, Augustine could declare (En. in Ps. . ) ‘the emperor has become a Christian, but the devil has not’. Ambrose could write that every secular office is under Satan’s power (in Luc. . ). That kind of coolness towards a Christian empire was not characteristic of Lactantius or Eusebius, for whom it seemed almost the coming of the millennium, the fulfilment of Hebrew prophecy that God’s word would spread throughout the inhabited world. It accompanied the realization that Christian missionaries of spiritual but no great intellectual power had enabled the gospel to take hold of the entire Roman empire with Persia, Armenia, Parthia, Scythia, and even Britain (Eus. Dem. Evang. . , p. d). Celsus had met Christians who looked forward to a Christian empire in which all the diversities of religion and morals would give way to a single law appropriate for the recognition of monotheism. Could empire and church together establish a global ethic? Eusebius (Dem. Evang. . , p. a) hailed Constantine’s rise to sole power as happily ending all civil wars. Diocletian’s restructuring and reorganization of the empire reflected a sharp awareness of the huge problems of controlling a Mediterranean society, half of which spoke Greek, the other half Latin, besides tribal tongues which politically did not count. The civil wars among the members of his Tetrarchy will have enhanced this consciousness. Eusebius of Caesarea (Vita Const. . ) observed that by his elimination of all rival emperors (‘tyrants’) 1 See E. D. Digeser, The Making of a Christian Empire: Lactantius and Rome (Ithaca, NY, Cornell Univ. Press, ).
Lactantius
Constantine had united east and west under a single monarchy. That the impact of the Great Persecution was to sow a seed of separation between Latins and Greeks is not discernible, though the far western provinces suffered much less than those in the east or in Latin north Africa and Italy. The early Syriac martyrology of the year records that in Phrygia the persecution united the Novatianist community with the orthodox churches, and therefore diminished the schismatic urge for ecclesial divorce. It would be more persuasive to say that, by liberating the churches from the threats of hostile government, Constantine set them free to indulge in uninhibited internal conflict without feeling a need to stay together bonded in brotherhood to ensure survival. The Christian writers of the time regarded polemic against polytheism as a primary task. Both in Lactantius and in Eusebius this was a main preoccupation. The relief from state persecution did not end verbal pagan attacks calling for reply (Dem. Evang. . , p. c). Lactantius from north Africa had a secular career teaching Latin literature and rhetoric after studying under Arnobius, and was invited by Diocletian to teach at Nicomedia. At what precise stage of his career he decided to be a Christian, and whether during the persecution of Diocletian he resigned office at Nicomedia, is unclear. There he found only few pupils keen to learn Latin and in due course used his powers of good Ciceronian prose to write books of Christian exposition and vindication, at first cautiously but in time explicitly. At Nicomedia Lactantius was eyewitness of the initial act of persecution—the demolition of the city church. He wrote on divine creation, on the notion of divine wrath, and drafted an introduction to his Christian faith, dedicated to Constantine. The text transmitted was composed after Lactantius had left Nicomedia, probably in his old age when he was invited to Gaul to teach Constantine’s son Crispus. He called his book Divine Institutes, a title modelled on lawyers’ textbooks. Much of the matter is fairly conventional. He attacks polytheistic superstitions and the mutual contradictions of philosophers. In the fifth book his subject is the justice that goes with faith in God being the Father of all, who desires that we injure no one and keep an open door for the stranger. The fifth book is a passionate engagement with the pagan mind that could think persecution justified. To end persecution, what is needed is education since it is rooted in ignorance. All the religions and cults of polytheism were regarded by the people as equally true and by philosophers as equally false (. ) as Cicero’s Academic scepticism illustrated. Only fear and timidity prevented Cicero from recognizing monotheism to be true. Some ask why, if monotheism is true, so many people have a diversity of cults with different gods. The answer given is that virtue is only discerned when there is evil opposed to it. ‘There cannot be good without evil’ (. . ), a sentence which is only one of several dualist formulations. Lactantius
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dissents from those who say that no one is just, but is sure that on earth justice is incompatible with polytheism which of itself breeds diversity and contradiction. Latent here is the Platonic antithesis of the one (good) and the many (evil). If all worshipped the one God alone, that would end quarrels, wars, conspiracies, robberies, adulteries, harlotry. Sexual union is intended only for procreation. In a society where males restrained their lusts and the rich supported the destitute with alms, there would be no prostitutes. (Lactantius recognized that desperate poverty drove women into brothels.) In short, if everyone observed God’s laws in the way we Christians do, there would be no such social evils, and we should then have no need for prisons and capital punishment. Lactantius thought one should never bring a charge where the penalty for the convicted was death. But the Christians have been subjected to mindless tortures for no other reason than that they are just and good. Why is there such profound hatred? Perhaps people resent anyone witnessing their crimes, and feel put to shame. Why are those who apostatize praised and honoured except to encourage others to yield? Why tear apart the bodies of those whom everyone knows to be innocent? Christians do not attack travellers by land or sea, are not poisoners, do not strangle or expose infants, practise no incest, do not conspire against the empire, do not rob temples, do not hunt for legacies and forge wills. If they are provincial governors or magistrates called to judge, they do not accept bribes to send the innocent to their deaths or to acquit the guilty. And what ghoulish delight officials have taken in the tortures inflicted, sometimes supposing it might bring them promotion, some being merely cruel by nature! ‘In Bithynia I saw the governor (praeses) overjoyed as if a barbarian tribe had been conquered because a Christian who held out for two years was at last yielding’ (. . ). The policy was to torture with such care that the victims did not die but were allowed respite to provide the pleasure of inflicting at intervals yet further cruelties, a relentless method likely to cause surrender in the end. Intermittent onslaughts on a victim’s genital organs induced fear of agonies to come which could win the psychological battle. Christians were deprived of eyes and limbs or had their noses slit, then after a protest from Constantine to Daia were surreptitiously drowned. A (lost) collection of imperial rescripts directing how Christians should be punished, compiled by the famous lawyer Ulpian, became a handbook of guidelines. From this summary of Lactantius it is evident that the memory of the persecution was vivid to him and its ending was close in time. His work was a protreptic to conversion addressed to the educated critics in the Latin West, unfamiliar with the high ethic of the community admired by Constantine. He deployed his extensive knowledge of Cicero, Virgil, and Seneca, and supported his faith by citations from Thrice-greatest Hermes (Trismegistus) and
Lactantius
the oracles of the Sibyl, authors external to the biblical tradition at least in form. (Sibylline Oracles, which in the second century Celsus censured as interpolated by Christians and in any event were largely of Jewish composition, were positively appreciated by Constantine as also by Lactantius, both of whom were aware of pagan suspicions of authenticity. Origen never cites them or the Hermetica.) Constantine himself thought his providential mission to bring Christianity to the empire was prefigured in Virgil’s fourth Eclogue. The exposition of Christian ethics follows in book . Primary is ‘humanity’; that is, support for the weak, widows and orphans, prisoners, sick, burial of the poor and strangers, self-denial in pleasures, and the right directing of the emotions. Concubinage, sexual comedies on stage, and exciting spectacles under polytheist auspices are wrong. The seventh book expounds the Christian understanding of the end of history. The world is not eternal and will end. In two hundred years’ time Christ will return to establish the millennium of God’s kingdom, the golden age of which Latin poets have sung; then will come a final struggle to eliminate evil and the redemption of humanity, which is the goal of providence. (Like other forecasters of the end of the world Lactantius did not make the date fall in his lifetime.) The conversion of Constantine and his imperium are decisive steps towards this ultimate objective. And while in the providential plan, the Roman empire is to come to an end, nevertheless it will continue as long as the city of Rome stands (. , ). The myth of the phoenix was a regular symbol for the ‘regeneration’ or a new world after the end of the old. Lactantius wrote a poem about the bird dying to be at once replaced by its offspring. The fourth book of the Institutes has a statement about God as Father and Son (. ), who are one spirit and have one mind, one substance, but distinct as the sun and sunlight, or the spring and the flowing stream, or the vocal chords and speech. Jerome’s commentary on Galatians observed that on the Holy Spirit Lactantius was modalist, insufficiently distinguishing differences in the Trinity. Late in the year Lactantius wrote De mortibus persecutorum, a special book of great candour and historical value in which he saw providence vindicating the persecuted martyrs by the extremely painful deaths suffered by the emperors responsible, especially Galerius and Daia. This theme of poetic justice also came to expression in Eusebius (Dem. Evang. . , p. d) and in Constantine’s letter to the inhabitants of the eastern provinces, cited by Eusebius (Vita Const. . –), in which the emperor repeatedly declared himself to be the chosen instrument of providence to remove all evils. Lactantius dedicated his book to a heroic confessor Donatus who had undergone torture with nine successive treatments before being left to moulder in prison until released under Galerius’ edict of toleration.
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Eusebius of Caesarea Eusebius had contact with the emperor Constantine at various points in his life. A presbyter of Caesarea in Palestine, bishop from about until his death in , he had learnt to be a scholar under the guidance of the learned martyr Pamphilus, who familiarized him with the extensive library left at Caesarea by Origen, including both biblical manuscripts and Origen’s own works. Copies of manuscripts written by Pamphilus survive. Caesarea, being the metropolis of the province of Palaestina, was bound to be important to an emperor who held the Holy Land in great veneration and after his defeat of Licinius had nursed an ambition to be baptized in the river Jordan. The persecution had destroyed many Bibles. Constantine turned to Eusebius to ask him to arrange for scribes to provide replacements. It is probable that the two great biblical manuscripts of the fourth century, one in the Vatican, the other from Sinai via St Petersburg now in the British Library (acquired by sale from the Soviet Union when Stalin needed foreign exchange) originated in the scriptorium at Caesarea.2 In building Aelia Capitolina Hadrian had placed not only a statue of Zeus on the site of the holy sepulchre but also a statue of Aphrodite on Golgotha. Eusebius (Dem. Evang. . , p. d) was saddened to see the stones taken from the ruined Temple reused for pagan temples housing idols and for theatres to entertain the Gentile population; Mount Sion had become a farm. At Jerusalem Constantine financed the erection of the church of the Anastasis or Resurrection beside Golgotha which, since the replanning of the city, was now well inside the new city wall. Remnants of Constantine’s building survive today under the Crusaders’ church of the Holy Sepulchre. At Bethlehem over the cave of the Nativity, already being visited by pilgrims in the second and third centuries (in competition with pagan veneration of Adonis installed by Hadrian), he also funded the building of a basilica. In the construction of the church of the Resurrection (for the Crusaders the Holy Sepulchre) was completed in time to be the setting for an episcopal council to celebrate Constantine’s thirtieth anniversary of accession. Naturally it became a pilgrims’ shrine. There remained voices critical whether of the veneration of the Holy Sepulchre in particular (attested by Jerome, ep. . ) or of pilgrimage in general. Eusebius had visited Jerusalem to work in the library of Bishop Alexander (HE . . ). He also enjoyed friendship with Bishop Paulinus of Tyre, where it is likely that he would have found other manuscripts. From his travels and manuscript researches he laid the foundation for a pioneer work, 2 See T. C. Skeat, ‘The Codex Sinaiticus, the Codex Vaticanus, and Constantine’, JTS, ns (), –.
Eusebius
his History of the orthodox Church down to his time, characterized by the invaluable habit of citing substantial extracts from the original documents. Successive revisions took account of events during his lifetime. In his mind the story was in itself a vindication of the divine preservation of the true faith. The continuity of the Church was assured to him by the succession of bishops in the great sees, which he conscientiously listed. The main weight of the history falls on the Greek East. The biography of Origen in book represents a climax. Origen’s commentaries and his vindication of Christianity against pagan criticism fascinated Eusebius. During the persecution of Diocletian he composed a reply to the attack of Hierocles, governor of Bithynia, owing much to Origen’s contra Celsum. He compiled lists of parallel passages in the gospels, and wrote a special book about contradictions which was known to Jerome. Probably he followed the thesis of Origen that contradictions at the level of historical fact were a providential sign of deeper spiritual truth. His two massive works of Christian defence were the Preparation for the Gospel, again with numerous excerpts from authors, many being otherwise lost, and the Demonstration of the Gospel restating the argument from the fulfilment of prophecy. Eusebius’ method was to leave judgement to his readers. His Demonstration of the Gospel does not survive complete. His memorial panegyric, ‘On the Life of Constantine’,3 has been treated with some reserve; it was an ancient commonplace that panegyrists were not writing on oath and offered what their audience wished to hear (Plotinus . . . ; Augustine, Conf. . . ). Nevertheless good narrative history can be extracted from Eusebius’ work and documents cited are demonstrably genuine. He also had apologetic aims, his Constantine being explicitly Christian and regarding the sun as the visible symbol of the one God whose deputy on earth he was (). Other works by Eusebius include his Chronicle to show the superior antiquity of biblical religion to paganism. It survives through an Armenian translation and a Latin version continued by Jerome to . Also extant are an Onomasticon on the topography of the Holy Land, commentaries on Psalms and Isaiah, and a work on Easter (fragmentary but informative on his view of the eucharist). Arius Eusebius and Pamphilus co-operated in writing a defence of Origen against his critics, with an arsenal of orthodox citations. The first of the six books survives in a Latin version by Rufinus of Aquileia. From Origen and no 3 The Vita Constantini, the most important single source for Constantine, has received a masterly translation and commentary by Averil Cameron and Stuart Hall (Oxford, ).
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doubt from Pamphilus, Eusebius understood the doctrine of Father, Son, and Spirit to exclude what the Greeks called Sabellianism, the Latins Patripassianism (or the notion that God the Father suffered on the cross, being identical with the Son). He was therefore alarmed when Bishop Alexander of Alexandria excommunicated his popular dockland presbyter Arius for opinions which to Eusebius seemed close to Origen’s. He took Alexander’s action to be that of a pastor unfamiliar with advanced theology and scholarship. His Demonstration of the Gospel restates Origenism with a strongly subordinationist Christology. To ensure external support, Alexander of Alexandria kept Bishop Silvester of Rome informed. Arius invoked highcalibre help in the bishop of Nicomedia, another Eusebius, who was not only living next to the emperor’s eastern residence but also related to the emperor’s family; he had been used by Constantine as envoy to Licinius (the first occasion when a bishop was used by an emperor as ambassador, a role in which neutrality between the parties could be dangerous; Constantine found Eusebius of Nicomedia too neutral). For unclear reasons he was not on good terms with Alexander, possibly because the bishop of the second city of the empire resented the influence of the highly political Eusebius on the emperor. The west was receiving a strongly anti-Arius picture, and that was passed on to the Spanish bishop Ossius of Corduba who had accompanied Constantine on his move to the East. Appalled by a report about the dispute, Constantine sent Ossius to Antioch and wrote to Alexandria telling the bishop and his presbyter to stop arguing about trivialities (see the letter in Eusebius, Vita Const. . –.) At a Council in Antioch early in Eusebius of Caesarea with two other bishops supported Arius and was himself provisionally excommunicated, this decision to be reviewed at a forthcoming synod at Ankyra. To Ossius’ ear the issues did not sound trivial. The bishops at Antioch produced an anti-Arian statement of faith, not using the term homoousios (identical in being) to the amazement of the scribe of the manuscript. The document is strident that the Son or Logos transcends the created order and is not made out of nothing, so that he is not morally mutable. Since the apologist Athenagoras in the second century, theologians knew that they should distinguish between the derivation of the Son from the Father and the derivation of the created order. Athenagoras had said ‘begotten, not made’. Nevertheless a consensus among pre-Constantinian theologians would have found no difficulty in saying that the Son was begotten in dependence on the Father’s will. Arius stressed this dependence on the will of the Father and reiterated the phrase already current in Alexandrian thought in the time of Origen that ‘there was when the Son was not’. Arius did not say ‘there was a time when he was not’; in fact he said that the Son
Arius
was begotten ‘before all times’, ‘created by the will of God before times’. That was to say that the ‘creation’ from God’s will was before the world was made when there was no time. However, Arius made no apology for the use of terms implying time such as ‘before’. By contrast Athanasius at Alexandria wanted to avoid the notion of dependence on the Father’s will, while granting that the phrase had been used in an acceptable sense by writers with an orthodox intention lacking to Arius (Or. c. Ar. . ). He preferred to say that the Son is from the Father’s being or nature, from the Father’s ousia. To avoid the ambiguous implications of saying the Father and Son are one and the same ousia, he would write that they are ‘like in ousia’, though this did not escape ambiguity. ‘Like’ implies a degree of difference. The issue raised by Arius affected the Christian doctrine of God: no less. At the same time the controversy included large elements of a power struggle between bishops of important sees, so that to the church historian Socrates of Constantinople writing about in conscious succession to Eusebius of Caesarea, all theological disputes were to be treated as a mere figleaf for contentions about power and authority. (A similar opinion of Jerome, before his breach with Rufinus, held that the censure of Origen at Rome was merely envy of his eloquence, not really doctrinal: ep. ). Like Origen, Arius did not see how an assertion of the divine presence in Christ the redeemer could be made by a monotheist without some qualification, viz. that the Son is subordinate to the Father from whom he derives his divinity. Indeed since he is the mediator, his metaphysical position is best seen as halfway between Creator and creature, at the summit of the created order, yet not in the same category as the creation generally. Arius was convinced from the gospels that the temptations of Jesus were real; that is to say, as a fully human being, he might not have conquered them and was morally mutable, as a fully divine nature cannot be. God is inherently immutable and cannot err without ceasing to be what we mean by the one supreme God. The Lord who ‘grew in wisdom’, who wept, who did not know the hour of the end, who cried in dereliction on the cross, must belong to a lower order of being than that of the Father of all. Exegetes were agreed that Proverbs was an utterance of the divine Wisdom, that is of Christ; and in the Septuagint version it said ‘The Lord created me the beginning of his ways with a view to his works.’ Arius defended his position with biblical texts. His subordinationist doctrine ran head-on into the principle stated by Irenaeus that only God can make God known, only the Creator can also be our redeemer, and one who is himself a part of the world needing salvation cannot by definition save the world. In Athanasius of Alexandria the principles of Irenaeus would be reaffirmed; and any kind of Arian doctrine was treated not as a tolerable
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mistake but as heresy for which toleration was impossible, since it cut the lifeline of salvation. Arius had a tradition behind him, as Origen shows. Rufinus of Aquileia’s epilogue to his translation of Pamphilus’ Apology for Origen comments that the entirely orthodox Clement of Alexandria could sometimes speak of the divine Son as ‘created’ by the Father. But behind Athanasius stood Irenaeus and the theology of Asia Minor in the second century. The Council of Nicaea The Council of Antioch in with Ossius presiding referred the dispute to the forthcoming assembly to be held at Ankyra, evidently already summoned. This assembly was primarily intended to celebrate Constantine’s victory over Licinius. It had as a principal item on the agenda the question of agreement on the date of Easter. It was transferred to Nicaea by the authority of Constantine himself, on the ground that bishops were coming from the West for whom the city would be more accessible, that Nicaea had a lovely climate, and that (since he had a palace there) he himself would take part in the proceedings. The western presence was small but important. It particularly included two presbyters sent by Silvester bishop of Rome, the bishop of Carthage, and most influential of all Bishop Ossius of Corduba, who, after being sent by the emperor to the Council of Antioch to preside there, had learnt a lot about the theology and politics of the controversy. The emperor was determined to stop any one narrow faction imposing its will. An attraction of the word homoousios (probably agreed in advance by anti-Arian leaders because Arius had mocked the word) was its ambiguity: it was not clear whether it meant specific or generic identity, and that enabled bishops of differing standpoints to agree to it. The original list of signatures shows that about bishops attended; Constantine claimed ‘ or more’. Thirty years later someone saw that if the total was , that would be the sacred number of the servants of Abraham (Gen. : ) and in the Greek letters for SIG the emblem of the cross of Jesus, thereby affirming the unique authority of Nicaea against rivals. The Council met at Nicaea in Bithynia in May–June . Eusebius submitted his baptismal creed of Caesarea and found himself vindicated by the emperor himself, who declared that he agreed with it and advised everyone present to agree also. Eusebius was reinstated in his see. Eustathius of Antioch was appalled by Constantine’s inclusiveness and his friends’ silence; in his eyes the text produced by ‘Eusebius’ (probably of Caesarea not Nicomedia—the point is disputed) was blatant heresy (Theodoret, HE . ). The creed of Caesarea did not exclude Arius. The irritation of Eustathius at the silence of his friends must mean that he himself voiced dissent from the emperor’s
The Council of Nicaea
vindication and thereby annoyed Constantine, which helps to explain why he did not last long in his see after the council. But to lose the scholarly Eusebius of Ceasarea would not have been compatible with Constantine’s endeavours at comprehensiveness. His earlier letter to Bishop Alexander and Arius had expressly stated that he did not expect them to reach precise agreement in detail, but surely they could share the essentials. The remarkable success of that policy and of Constantine’s decision to be present can be judged from the fact that when the creed and canons were taken round by a highranking civil servant for signature, all the bishops except two from Libya signed, and the two dissenters (who were exiled by the emperor) probably objected less to the creed than to canon subjecting them to the jurisdiction of Alexandria. Eusebius of Nicomedia signed. He and the likeminded bishop of Nicaea offended by admitting Arius to communion after he had refused to sign, but were allowed to recover favour. The crucial word in the creed was the philosophical term homoousios, suggested perhaps because in a rash letter prior to the council Arius had ridiculed his bishop, Alexander, whose view would end in the opinion that the Son was identical in being with the Father (i.e. Sabellianism). The word had not surfaced at the council of Antioch a few months earlier, but had certainly been agreed by a caucus of anti-Arians before the Nicene assembly. Constantine insisted on its insertion into the creed. That was to combine a term congenial to Alexandria and the West with a formula which the Origenist camp could, with only a little difficulty, swallow. Nevertheless the word homoousios aroused remarkably little interest in the subsequent controversy until the fifties, and in the aftermath of the council the anathema attracted more attention. This condemned propositions that the Son once had no existence, was not incapable of moral error, and was of a different ousia or hypostasis from the Father. Eusebius of Nicomedia and the bishop of Nicaea, Theognis, expressed reservations about this anathema, and were temporarily exiled by Constantine who would tolerate no dissent. They were reinstated on affirming that with the creed they had no difficulty, and their question was only whether the anathema was a fair representation of Arius. Eusebius of Caesarea signed the Nicene creed and canons but published an open letter to his church at Caesarea explaining in what sense he understood the term homoousios (of one being), which as a scholar he knew to have some orthodox tradition behind it. He had difficulty with the Nicene clause which condemned those who said the Son is ‘of a different ousia or hypostasis’ from the Father, since he wanted to preserve Origen’s language that Father and Son are two hypostases; but a subtle replacement of ‘or’ by ‘and’ mitigated the problem. The council of Nicaea was far the largest assembly of bishops hitherto. It initiated a pattern common to most later ecumenical assemblies in that the
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interpretation of its decisions, especially those intended to make for peace, was divisive at least in the East. The West was initially not much interested in the subtleties but would be sucked in. Unanimity was axiomatic for a council’s authority. Dissenters had to be excluded from the Church. They had no minority rights. Despite the emperor’s dominance, the decisions were made by the bishops which Constantine then confirmed and enforced. It long remained the rule that a general council of many provinces had to be called by the emperor. It is remarkable that Ossius of Corduba signed the Acts before the Roman legates.
THE SEEDS OF REACTION
The terms of the Nicene creed and appended anathema were not altogether familiar vocabulary to numerous Greek bishops. Alexander of Alexandria (accompanied at Nicaea by his young deacon Athanasius who succeeded as bishop in ), Eustathius bishop of Antioch, and Marcellus of Ankyra were wholehearted supporters, but were therefore likely to be the target of a backlash from bishops who (correctly, as must be conceded) did not see in the creed any defence against their bogey, Sabellianism. That last question engendered decades of controversy. Eustathius and Marcellus both regarded the Nicene formula as insufficient to exclude heresy in that the creed could be accepted by men such as Eusebius of Caesarea. Constantine did not remove their difficulties when, in pursuit of his policy of maximal inclusion, Arius himself signed the creed (probably not the anathema) and Athanasius was asked to receive him back to communion—which was out of the question. In about Arius, living with friends in Libya, submitted an emotional appeal to Constantine for restoration. His old friends, like Eusebius of Nicomedia, had found him an embarrassment and dropped his cause. The emperor answered in a high theatrical style with no encouragement. The Alexandrian presbyter was now hardly even marginal. Nevertheless, Athanasius relates that Arius made his way to Constantinople and, on his way to being readmitted to communion by the then bishop there, died in disgusting circumstances in a public lavatory. Gibbon thought the story left the historian a choice between miracle and poison. Athanasius thought it providential. Eustathius, Athanasius In the decade following the council the first prominent anti-Arian to fall was Eustathius of Antioch, an overt critic of Origen’s exegesis, who gave vent to sharp criticism of the emperor’s mother Helena on her pilgrimage to the Holy Land in –, during which it was later said that she recovered the True Cross. His exile left behind a small intransigent congregation firm for the Nicene creed and especially the anathema with its ‘one hypostasis’. A proposal that Eusebius be translated to Antioch from Caesarea was vetoed
The Seeds of Reaction
by Constantine. In Egypt the Melitian schismatics were troublesome. In Alexander of Alexandria died and was succeeded, controversially, by the deacon Athanasius, already known for his unbending aversion to Arius and to the Melitian party. Soon the Melitians were accusing him of violence, and the survival of a papyrus find with the letter-file of a Melitian priest proves that there was truth in the charge (H. I. Bell, Jews and Christians in Egypt (London, ), – at p. .1 A council at Caesarea in Palestine summoned him, but after many hesitations, having his baggage put on the ship and then taken off again, he refused to attend. The following year his irritated opponents tried again at a synod at Tyre, and this time he had to go and present a vigorous defence, his main argument being that his opponents were sympathizers with Arius and therefore disqualified as heretics from judging. He was declared deposed, not for erroneous doctrine but for acts of violence unfitting in a bishop. He escaped from Tyre and appealed to Constantine at his new capital on the Bosporos. His opponents, however, reported a damaging story from Alexandria, likely to be true, that Athanasius had threatened a dock-strike cutting off the Egyptian supply of grain to Constantinople if the emperor did not support him.2 Constantine, enraged, exiled him to Trier. There he was well received by the bishop. The emperor had thereby set the controversy on the way to becoming a confrontation between East and West. Marcellus There were other Greek bishops who were deposed from their sees on reports that they were opposed to the prominent bishops sympathetic to Arius. The most distinguished of these was Marcellus of Ankyra, an outspoken critic of Origen. He thought it essential to stress the unity of God, affirming that the proceeding of the Holy Spirit from the Father also included the Son, and expounding Cor. . to signify this unity by the delivering up of the kingdom to the Father. His opponents would reply with 1 This is explicable after Constantine had invested bishops with the powers of magistrates, which would have entitled Athanasius to secular assistance in restraining or suppressing delinquency. At the council of Constantinople in Syrian monks submitted to the patriarch Menas an accusation partly against Severus of Antioch, who had put Chalcedonians in prison with bonds and beatings (ACO III – = PO . –). That some bishops used prisons for delinquent clergy appears in Moschos, Pratum spirituale (PG . d). 2 At Tyre Athanasius sufficiently defeated the opposition to compel them to send six of their number to Alexandria and Mareotis (Lake Mariut) to gather evidence against him. This commission of inquiry obtained the story of the bishop’s threat to the corn supply. Two of their number were Valens of Mursa (Osijek) and Ursacius of Singidunum (Belgrade), who became lifelong opponents of Athanasius and convinced many of their fellow bishops in Illyricum of the dangers of the Nicene formula.
The Seeds of Reaction
Luke . (‘of his kingdom there shall be no end’). He had a running pamphlet war with Eusebius of Caesarea, and was synodically deposed in . He lived on for long years in the vicinity of his old city, and kept in touch by correspondence with the intransigent little congregation at Antioch loyal to the memory of Eustathius, who were led by a presbyter, Paulinus. They had the use of Antioch’s ‘old church’, and in time acquired a mounting but divisive importance in church politics, recognized by Alexandria and Rome but not elsewhere. The canons of Nicaea The council approved of twenty disciplinary canons. Self-mutilation is to be a bar to ordination; so too being a neophyte, or to have lapsed in the persecution. Clergy must not have women living with them in ascetic cohabitation. Usury is forbidden to clergy (acting as bankers and money-lenders for their congregations and especially for the poor, who would find it hard to repay the interest, normally in antiquity per cent a year). It troubles the council that in some cities deacons are giving the eucharist, not only the chalice, to presbyters; their commission includes no authority to offer the oblation of the body of Christ. Deacons are also forbidden to sit on the bench with the presbyters. Canons rule on the reception of clergy converting from Novatianism, whose baptism and orders are valid, and from the followers of Paul of Samosata, whose baptism and orders are invalid, no doubt because of his unitarian doctrine of God. Paul’s group included women deacons (‘deaconesses’ is a variant reading reflecting post-Nicene usage). Women deacons were potentially controversial; in the s Epiphanius of Salamis (Cyprus), always fierce for orthodoxy and sure that only heretical sects would have women priests, was glad to say that he had never ordained even a woman deacon (in Jerome, ep. ). The council ruled that, although hands are laid upon them, this does not constitute ordination with liturgical functions, which probably they had been exercising previously and, despite the canon, no doubt continued to do in out-of-the-way-places. The most important canon is numbered . This rules that, despite Diocletian’s dividing of provinces, the ancient customs are to remain in force whereby the bishop of Alexandria has jurisdiction in Egypt, Libya, and the Pentapolis (the region of modern Benghazi). This is justified by the extraprovincial jurisdiction belonging to the bishop of Rome, i.e. the suburbicarian churches of Italy (not the whole of the West), and by the similar but again undefined authority of the bishop of Antioch. The three cities named are those which were held to be the three senior cities of the empire. In at the council of Chalcedon a Roman legate cited this sixth canon with a text
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revised in Rome to say ‘the Roman church has always had primacy’. In reply Greek bishops produced the original text of . Canon rules that on the basis of old custom the bishop of Aelia ( Jerusalem) has appropriate honour, but Caesarea retains the dignity and rights of the metropolis. The canon is evidently the first evidence of the process ending in the erection in of a patriarchate of Jerusalem, which in effect submerged the rights of Caesarea. Canon legislates for the choice of bishops, which is to be subject to a veto by the bishop of the provincial metropolis and for consecration requires all the bishops of the province if possible, or at least three (not necessarily the metropolitan). The concern was evidently to avert partisan elections. There is no denial of the voice of the laity, which the Council took for granted. The th and last canon forbids kneeling for worship either on the Lord’s day or in the period from Easter to Pentecost. Kneeling being a sign of servility is inappropriate at a time of joy at the victory of the risen Lord. Easter An original cause for the calling of the council was to discuss the date of Easter (above p. ). In the second century there had been unresolved disagreement between Rome and Asia Minor, each keeping to its own tradition which in Asia Minor implied adhering to the date of the Jewish Passover. In the west, at Alexandria, and in Syria the celebration of Easter was commemorating the Lord’s resurrection, still taking note of the full moon, as with the Passover, but on the Sunday following the full moon after the spring equinox. Even so unison was not easily obtained. In Syria and Cilicia the date of the relevant full moon was still discovered by inquiry of the Jewish synagogue. Rome and Alexandria used different systems of computus to calculate. Alexandria used the old Greek observation by Meton that the relationship between sun and moon is roughly constant every nineteen years. A nineteen-year cycle was worked out. Rome, however, abandoned Hippolytus’ cycle and had an -year cycle. In Syria and Cilicia the Jewish Passover was, for many, decisive as the time of the Lord’s Passion. The Jews, we are told, mocked the Christians for being unable to determine the time of their principal festival without asking the neighbouring synagogue for the correct date. But this calculation was not unanimous and in consequence there could be two celebrations of Easter at a great city like Antioch with different uses in different congregations. Perhaps they were amicable, but perhaps not entirely brotherly. At least they were agreed in keeping a Sunday for the celebration, but not necessarily the same Sunday.
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In the mid-third century Dionysius of Alexandria began the custom of issuing a paschal letter to every bishop in his jurisdiction (i.e. including Libya and Thebais); he stressed that Easter must not fall before the spring equinox. At Alexandria this was reckoned to fall on March. At Rome since the time of Julius Caesar the equinox was customarily reckoned to fall on March; this difference would cause friction. Moreover Alexandria had no objection to Easter falling as late as April. It was long custom in Rome for April to be a secular feast with horse-races celebrating the foundation of the city on this day. Therefore bishops of Rome were unhappy if Easter was as late as April. Only after they had acquired high social standing in the city could they successfully ask for the city’s foundation to be celebrated without races. It would have been an embarrassing demand. Constantine thought it dreadful to depend on the synagogue for discovering the correct date. He demanded and no doubt obtained agreement from the bishops that all churches ought to celebrate the feast on the same Sunday. It is unlikely that during the council more was achieved than a commission to the church of Alexandria to notify a date to the other great sees. Roman inhibitions about April soon made their bishops unwilling to accept this date when that was notified from Alexandria. That at Nicaea a full cycle was worked out is unlikely for the reason that in at Serdica the two synods both thought it necessary to produce an Easter table, which they would not have done if the work had already been decided in . The eastern council of Serdica produced a table not only for Easter but also for the Jewish Passover, which the computering experts of Antioch evidently had in front of them (below p. ). The title ‘ecumenical council’ In the late thirties Eusebius of Caesarea and Athanasius are both found applying to the council of Nicaea the epithet ‘ecumenical’, that is to say of authority coextensive with the universal Church or at least with the Roman empire. The word oikoumene meaning the inhabited world was often used in this age simply to mean the Roman empire from Hadrian’s wall to Mesopotamia, from the Danube to the Sahara. Was it the presence of Constantine which gave the council’s decisions universal authority, as some Greeks held? or the representation of all, East and West, North and South, in the deliberations? or the assent of Roman legates and the subsequent ratification of the council by Silvester (Pope Damasus’ view)? The actual formula ‘ecumenical synod’ can be shown to be borrowed from a worldwide association of professional actors and athletes who in the third century succeeded in obtaining tax exemption. The survival of tax
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exemption certificates on papyrus is decisive.3 No doubt since the Nicene council asked and obtained from the emperor tax exemption for the churches, one must allow the possibility that in popular usage someone applied the actors’ title to the assembly of bishops, and it was then taken up as soon as there began to be debate about the authority of the Nicene council after Constantine’s death, especially if (as some held) its worldwide authority depended on his presence and sanction for its decisions. Eusebius of Caesarea’s theology was in conflict with that of bishop Marcellus of Ankyra, whose Trinity was an expansion of the unity of one God, and in the mid-s Eusebius wrote two books against him. Marcellus felt such antipathy to everything that Eusebius and his friends represented that he refused to come to Jerusalem with them to greet the emperor and to celebrate the dedication of his new church of the Resurrection. Marcellus’ endeavour to keep his hands clean was construed as insulting to Constantine, and was a factor in his deposition and exile. In Eusebius was honoured by being invited to deliver an oration in praise of Constantine’s thirtieth anniversary of elevation to the purple. The Christian Constantine of Eusebius After the emperor died at Pentecost, May , Eusebius was responsible for the important Panegyric, ‘On the Life of Constantine’, in which there is no doubt about the dead emperor’s faith. To this end Eusebius recycled much matter already used in his Church History and a panegyric of Constantine in . Encomia were statements of what the emperor being praised, or his successor(s), wanted to be understood and as a matter of respect accepted. They were a species of propaganda. Interpretation of the religion of Constantine much depends on the evaluation of Eusebius’ panegyric, which includes good historical narrative. Naturally one cannot make windows into the soul of a man so long dead, and there is no utility in debate to what precise degree or sense he was a believer. That his self-association with the Church was a public fact is certain, and he understood the main shape of Christian doctrines. Lactantius reports that on his acclamation to be Augustus in he decreed toleration for Christian worship in his part of the empire. He made no secret of his belief that the God of the Christians inspired his victory over Maxentius in . His military standard, the labarum with the Chi-Rho monogram for Chr(ist), was generally understood to be a Christian statement or Julian would not have abolished it. The pagans thought he had changed everything they held dear. If any Christians felt qualms of uncertainty about his faith, pagans did not. 3
The evidence is collected in my History and Thought in the early Church (London, ).
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Naturally Constantine seemed to pagans to be overthrowing hallowed traditions of the imperial past in law and custom, a verdict which Ammianus cites as the view of the emperor Julian (. . ). At the same time he was in fact a continuator of Diocletian’s reforms and in striking respects resembled his Illyrian predecessor. To build his ‘queen city’ of New Rome, the city of Constantine at Byzantium, he needed a great deal of money, and the captured estates of Licinius would hardly have sufficed for so huge a project. Taxes were sharply raised. If wealthy people fell foul of the administration, they would find their property confiscated for higher purposes. When the pagan orator Libanius delivered a panegyric (or. ) on Constantine’s sons Constantius II and Constans, he heaped praises on Constantius Chlorus for not soaking the rich, with the implication that Constantine had done so to their lasting anger. The probability is that the rich who suffered confiscation of their estates had been supporters of Maxentius, Licinius, or Daia. Senators who had been deprived of property by Maxentius at Rome had their wealth returned to them (Eus. VC . ; Nazarius Panegyric . ). Reluctant toleration of the old cults Constantine’s declared policy towards pagan cult was tolerant, but (according to Eusebius) in the sense that he did not hide his conviction that it was wrong and should be discouraged, not forbidden. The tone of his edict on haruspicy (CTh . . ) bears out Eusebius’ view. His toleration was not indifferentism. Some endowments of old temples were diverted to other uses. The initially sixth-century Liber Pontificalis with biographies of bishops of Rome included under Silvester an impressive catalogue of Constantine’s endowments of the Roman churches, evidently taken from Roman archives. He enacted by edict that ‘the day of the sun’ should be a day of rest (CTh. . . of ). To the amazement of high pagan officials Constantine invested bishops with the authority of magistrates, and more, since he ruled that from their decisions there could be no appeal. Bishops were already accustomed to holding a court with their presbyters, at which disputes among members of their congregation could receive arbitration. The apostle Paul ( Cor. : –) forbade Christians to take disputes against other believers before a pagan court. The consequence was to lay a heavy burden on bishops. Naturally unsuccessful parties were left with angry resentment and there could be counter-claims that the other side used bribery. Bribery of secular magistrates was almost universal. Ambrose found the property disputes among members of a family were extremely painful to adjudicate. The emperor Julian deprived bishops of the powers given by Constantine,
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but they were restored and the ‘episcopalis audientia’ was the subject of imperial legislation under Justinian (CJ . ).4 Constantine’s eldest son by his first wife Minervina was Crispus, proclaimed Caesar in . But report of an affair between Crispus and his stepmother Fausta precipitated a storm of anger in Constantine, and the two were murdered early in , Fausta in a scalding hot bath. It is possible that Helena’s pilgrimage to the Holy Land in that year was in part motivated by a desire to make propitiation for a ghastly tragedy. Pagans put into circulation the story that Constantine had turned to Christianity to seek forgiveness for the murders. No doubt that was in a sense true, but not that he was first moved towards trust in the God of the Christians by this crime. Pagan reactions Constantine’s pro-Christian policy provoked some hostile reactions. Eusebius (Vita Const. . ) reveals that there were some riots and places where the emperor’s statues were damaged. There was bound to be anger at the prohibition of pagan sacrifices (CTh . . ). In he forbade gladiatorial combats (Eus. Vita Const. . . ), the bloody cruelty of which provided a magnetic attraction for city mobs. These shows did not stop either for Constantine or, at the end of the century, for Theodosius. An early edict, later repealed (CTh . . ; Sirm. ), forbade any Jew to have a Christian slave. No one was to resort to magic or private haruspicy, public use being allowed (CTh . . –). Divination was strongly frowned upon since it normally required a sacrifice and some astrology. Even the aggressively pagan Porphyry had to concede that ‘daemons are often mistaken in their astrology’ (cited by Eusebius, Praep. Evang. . , p. c). Confidence in oracles had suffered grave doubts. Plutarch (Mor. e) told a story of a man in the time of the emperor Tiberius sailing across the Adriatic who by the island of Paxi heard a voice declaring ‘Great Pan is dead.’ A Cynic writer of about ad , Oenomaus of Gadara, wrote a sustained invective against belief in oracles and divination. Nevertheless people remained attached to oracles and might continue to guide their life by soothsayers and fortune-tellers even if they did not confidently believe in them. One could not be too careful. The elder Pliny (NH . ) remarks on the way in which ancient physicians would not treat a patient without consulting sundry astrological almanacs. Roman aristocrats in the time of Ammianus (. . ), though ‘lacking all belief in gods’, did not go out of doors or eat a meal or take a bath if the stars were unfavourable. From the pagan historian Eunapius, Zosimus (. ff.) preserves a catalogue of adverse comments on Constantine as a disaster for the empire, 4
See Jill Harries, Law and Empire in Late Antiquity (Cambridge, ), –.
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e.g. moving army garrisons away from frontier forts into nearby cities where the soldiers were a pest to the inhabitants and spent their leisure in enervating entertainment. There was therefore no frontier control on barbarian entry. In , Constantine recruited Germanic tribesmen to defend the frontier (Themistius . c; date in Mommsen, Chronica Minora, . ). In time some barbarians rose to be generals and powerful in affairs of state. Themistius interpreted Constantine’s universalist ideology to entail the conclusion that frontier fighting was a mistake: barbarians should be peacefully settled and educated under the civilizing influence of Roman law and Christianity (Themistius ; also . c). It could be a disastrous model for Valeus in . It was resented by those who wanted barbarians to be merely helots. Marriage legislation An intricate problem is the question of Christian influence on Constantine’s marriage legislation. He repealed old penalties for celibacy. But in contrast to a number of Christian writers (not unanimous anyway), he allowed divorce on grounds other than a wife’s infidelity, even including consent between separating spouses. He did not enact the widely accepted judgement of Christians that wives had as much right as husbands to demand fidelity. Here ‘the laws of Caesar and Christ differ’ ( Jerome, ep. . ; Ambrose, in Luc. . ; Augustine, Nupt. . ). Perhaps he anticipated Augustine’s estimate that trivial infidelities are a common male disease (Adult. coniug. . ). It was as difficult in the fourth as in later centuries to harmonize high moral aspiration with practical legislation. Legal marriage was little used by persons of modest means, who preferred to buy a slave-girl as partner and mother for their children ( Jerome, ep. . ; Justinian, Novel ). The Church asked for a monogamous relation with one sexual partner, not necessarily for a legal marriage recognized by state law, which, for reasons of property inheritance, was required of persons of substance. Eusebius’ oration for celebrating the thirtieth anniversary of Constantine’s accession states a political theory for a Christian empire. Constantine’s monarchy as supreme ruler is a mirror image of the divine Monarch in heaven; he is earthly representative of God. Such ideas were known in pagan panegyrics. Plutarch (Mor. ef) wrote of the wise king, model and image of the divine Logos or Reason. Pagans wrote of emperors as a god present among men. Christians could adapt this to declare their emperor ruler by divine grace, by his legislation enacting the divine will. This would entail a link between legitimacy and orthodoxy. In choosing his most senior administrators Constantine often liked to select Christians, even for such offices as
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consul or prefect of Rome, though he was careful not to alienate powerful pagan aristocrats by leaving them on the sidelines. Remarkably, as early as the consul Gallicanus turns out to have bestowed a substantial benefaction on the church at Ostia (Liber Pontificalis . , p. Duchesne; ILCV ). He was evidently a Christian or had become one after holding office. If the identification is correct, a policy of favouring Christians for major posts began after the war with Licinius in , and may have been partly motivated by a determination to deepen the religious divide between himself and his eastern colleague. This divide was an explicit factor in the subsequent war culminating in Licinius’ defeat of . In May Constantine fell ill. He was about years old and realized death was approaching. He moved from Constantinople to Helenopolis, once Drepanum in Bithynia renamed after his mother, then to the palace at Nicomedia, where he received laying-on of hands and became a catechumen. Bishops gathered to be greeted by him as ‘brothers’ with the memorable remark that he was ‘bishop of those outside’ (the Church). He now needed purification of his sins by baptism, which he had once hoped to be given in Jordan. Now there was to be no more ambivalence or uncertainty. Baptized by Eusebius of Nicomedia in a church dedicated to the martyrs, he put on a shining white robe, no longer secular purple. Senior army officers came to wish him recovery. About noon on May, the day of Pentecost, he died at a modest country villa near Nicomedia. The body was to be buried with full military honours. Eusebius of Nicomedia was prominent for his support of Arius before the council of Nicaea; afterwards Arius was grieved to have been abandoned by him. Eusebius of Caesarea called him ‘the great Eusebius’, and he was certainly a brilliant fixer. Later legend originating in Rome in the mid-fifth century found his name embarrassing for so important a sacramental function, and preferred to give the honour of baptizing the emperor to Pope Silvester. Much later legend in the late eighth century explained that Constantine’s reason for making New Rome the centre of his government was so that he could leave Silvester and future bishops of Rome a free hand in coping with the universal jurisdiction, even over eastern patriarchs, that went with their office. On the highest hill of his city by the Golden Horn he had constructed his mausoleum alongside a five-aisled martyrion of the Twelve Apostles, each being accorded an empty sarcophagus with a thirteenth in the middle of the row intended for his own mortal remains. At first the building’s purpose was secret. It was an ambiguous version of the kind of mausoleum that Diocletian made for himself at Split (now the cathedral). Some Roman emperors had been buried in mausolea with statues of the twelve gods of Olympus. Clement of Alexandria (Protr. . ) and John Chrysostom (Hom. in II Cor. . ) say the
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Roman senate held Alexander the Great to be thirteenth god. Probability favours the view that Constantine’s mausoleum was ambivalent, with pagans and the army taking its symbolism to be analogous to that of Alexander and with Christians like Eusebius, anxious to claim Constantine for their cause, interpreting its thirteen sarcophagi very differently. By the fifth century Constantine was hailed in hymns as ‘the apostles’ equal’ (isapóstolos). About the church historian Nikephoros Kallistos Xanthopoulos (HE . ) says that on the site of Constantine’s tomb there had been an altar dedicated to the twelve gods; his source is unknown. The funeral ceremonies were entirely for the army chiefs with Constantius II, second of the three surviving sons, not for the bishops, who were allowed in only after the state’s obsequies were complete. The customary funerary pyre was impossible; but there was a ceremony of consecratio signifying the emperor’s deification. From late in the third century emperors were made by the army alone, and the army chiefs could assume that the funeral was theirs. No doubt, beside a requiem, bishops gave thanks for this greatest benefactor of the Church. The sharp separation of state funeral from Christian memorial reflected awareness that Constantine identified himself with two distinct entities still unsure of their mutual relation. The Church did not yet think it was bound to the particularity of the empire. A coin was minted showing Constantine ascending to heaven in a chariot drawn by four horses, that is with the ancient symbol of the Sungod (cf. Kings : ). According to Eusebius of Caesarea Constantine had decreed that imperial power should be inherited by his three sons, Constantine II (illegitimate), Constantius II, and Constans, his sons by Fausta, and by no one else. This was also the choice of the army generals. The reality was less simple. That decision was actually taken during the ensuing summer and given Constantine’s posthumous sanction. Just as Diocletian and Licinius had liquidated possible rivals for power, so the senior army officers murdered Constantine’s near relatives, his nephew, Hannibalianus and Dalmatius (proclaimed Caesar in ), his half-brother Julius Constantius, whose young sons by his two wives, Gallus and Julian, were spared because of their tender age. While the three brothers negotiated about dividing the territories, for six months the empire was governed in the name of their dead father. It was significant of the extraordinary authority of this tough soldier that this could be. Long after he was gone people appealed to his authority, and no greater salute could be made to a new emperor than to call him a new Constantine, a formula first used in by Themistius (or. . d) in greeting Jovian as an emperor not born into the Constantinian dynasty. Philostorgius (. ) reports that in Constantinople a porphyry column bearing a statue of Constantine with a radiate crown like the sungod was popularly venerated with propitiatory sacrifices and lights and incense.
THE CHURCH AT PRAYER
Most of the history of the Church concerns its institutions with its canon law, social and political operations, the degree of subjection to forces such as regional or national patriotism, the struggles to be independent of the secular forces to which the Church is often bound. Yet the point of the Church in its own self-understanding lies in faith in God who became and is present to believers in Christ and through the experience of the Holy Spirit. This is not very visible in the meetings of synods or the decisions of primates, but is pre-eminently the case when Christians in a particular place assemble together to worship, to give thanks for their creation and redemption, to pray for forgiveness, renewal, courage, and humility, but especially to hear the word of God and to celebrate the covenant signs in water, bread, and wine as means of divine grace and as ordered rites which provide both form and vitality to the disorder of human life. Characteristic of Christian worship is a dialogue between God and the people of God. The forms which this takes are called liturgy, which is not so much a precise and prescribed pattern of sentences as a pattern of symbolic words and actions through which the presence of the Lord is realized. At the same time liturgy is expressive of the Christian story, that is, a narrative commonly formulated in a creed or confession of faith. Therefore liturgy is often intimately associated with belief or doctrine, though not with its more technical formulation. Normally the vocabulary of liturgy is severely limited; certain words and turns of phrase become characteristic vehicles of prayer and aspiration and, because of the spiritual desire which motivates them, tend towards verbal beauty, lost when the meaning is translated into more everyday and less poetic terms. Liturgy is an act of a community. But often human beings do not find it the easiest thing to be trying to pray if too much is going on around them, and they long for silence and solitude. A consequence of this in the past has been the feeling among the clergy that so sacred a text as the central eucharistic prayer of consecration and offering, in Latin the ‘canon of the mass’, in Greek ‘anaphora’, should be mumbled, not said aloud, because it has mystery at its heart. Nevertheless it is obvious to any student of ancient eucharistic
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prayers that they are expressing the longing of the community rather than only that of an individual, and this is particularly the case with the ancient Latin canon of the mass. The first followers of Jesus, being Jews, were accustomed to meet on the sabbath for worship at temple or synagogue, as their Master had done. But to commemorate the Lord’s resurrection in the breaking of bread they also met on the first day of the week, or Sunday. The breaking of bread was from the earliest time a central act of the apostolic community. It was also called the Thanksgiving; in the Didache, Ignatius, and Justin this word is already technical: eucharistia. Like almost all the other technical terms of Christian vocabulary, this Greek word passed into Latin transliterated and so into modern European languages. This thanksgiving was an offering of the gifts ( Clement) or a sacrifice (Ignatius). To be qualified to share in the eucharist it was necessary to have been baptized, requiring a renunciation of evil and an affirmation of faith. The solemnity of baptism was soon marked by stripping at the actual moment of being immersed in the water and immediately on emerging being robed in white and in many places being given to drink milk and honey, symbols of entry to the promised land beyond Jordan. The presiding bishop then anointed and laid hands on each candidate. Baptism was one of the normal ceremonies of the synagogue at the admission of a proselyte, from which the Christians dropped circumcision. In the reform proclaimed by John the Baptist it signified repentance. So for the believers in Jesus the Messiah, baptism signified forgiveness of all past sins and inward renewal by the coming of the Holy Spirit. The Lord himself identified himself with the penitent in the baptism of John in Jordan. To be baptized in Messiah’s name was identical with being baptized in the name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (Matt. : ). The trinitarian formula took the form of three questions requiring the answer ‘I believe.’ ‘Do you believe in God the Father? Do you believe in Jesus Christ, Son of God, born of Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, who was crucified in the time of Pontius Pilate, died, rose on the third day alive from the dead, and ascended into heaven, and sat at the right hand of the Father, who will come to judge the living and the dead? Do you believe in the Holy Spirit in holy Church and the resurrection of the flesh?’ At each answer the candidate was immersed in the font. So says the Apostolic Tradition of ‘Hippolytus’, a Church Order from Rome early in the third century. (That it is the work of Hippolytus or the author of the Refutation of Heresies is possible but uncertain.) It is noteworthy that the earliest baptismal confession is not a simple affirmative creed but an answer to interrogations, as is implicit in Pet. : . 1
1 A convenient collection is Prex Eucharistica, ed. A. Hänggi and I. Pahl (Spicilegium Friburgense, ; Fribourg, ).
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In this, there were no doubt regional variations. A laying-on of the bishop’s hands in blessing could be before or after the water-rite, and an anointing symbolizing the Spirit’s gift could vary in position. However, the anointing and laying-on of hands were not regarded as merely marginal and decorative ceremonies beside the one essential water-rite. Christians bear the name of Christ, said Theophilus of Antioch in the second century, because they are anointed with the oil of God (ad Autol. . ). Cyprian’s famous letter to Jubaianus (ep. . ) comments on Acts : – that the Samaritans did not need to be baptized again; Peter and John completed what was lacking, namely that by prayer over them and the laying-on of hands they invoked the Holy Spirit which was poured out upon them. ‘That also occurs with us: those who are baptized in the Church are brought before the bishop of the church and, by our prayer and imposition of hands, they receive the Spirit and by the Lord’s seal are perfected.’ Tertullian (Bapt. . ) reports: ‘As we come out of the water, we are anointed, then hands are imposed’; the purifying water prepares for the Spirit’s coming. Heb. : shows that this was very early practice and regarded as a foundation rite. Clement of Alexandria (Paid. . ) thought the water-rite alone incomplete. For Cyril of Jerusalem the ‘seal’ was baptism with anointing (Cat. myst. . ). Cornelius objected to Novatian that his clinical baptism had not been completed by ‘sealing’ by the bishop (Eus. HE . ). In Ambrose (Sacr. . . ) the seal of the Spirit followed baptism ‘to bring completeness’. Already in the apostle Paul triadic language shapes his words ( Cor. : –; Cor. : ). Believers offered their prayers to God in the Holy Spirit, not on their own merits, but through the grace of Jesus the Christ the mediator. But in the first generation it is unlikely that there would have been a prescribed form of words for baptism. Of the Greek churches John Chrysostom (Hom. in Act. . ) reports that the bishop or presbyter does not say, ‘I baptize you in the Holy Spirit’, but ‘You are to be baptized’. Theodore of Mopsuestia a few years later says that the words make clear that it is Christ who is baptizing. The Coptic church has the more western form, ‘I baptize you . . .’. The words used were obviously no less important than the immersion in the water, since the words imparted significance to the act. At Carthage in Tertullian’s time the rite was preceded by fasts and all-night vigils; then exorcism, the water-rite with the triadic interrogation (Tertullian noted that this included belief in the Church), anointing with invocation of the Holy Spirit, the sign of the cross, and laying-on of hands by the bishop. The normal minister of baptism was the bishop, but he could delegate to presbyters and deacons, or in urgent necessity at sickbed even laymen, but not women, despite Thecla (in the Acts of Paul) having given baptism. In the west the bishop came to give the laying-on of hands himself when the waterrite had been ministered by a presbyter or deacon. The regular times for
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baptisms were Easter and Pentecost, but in emergency it could be at any time. Unlike Jewish lustrations, baptism is unrepeatable; it applies to the believer the once-for-all redemption of Christ. Tertullian answers questions which were being put: if baptism is necessary, as John : – (and Hermas, Sim. . . ), why is there no record that the apostles were baptized? The answer (characteristic of Tertullian) could be the splashes in the storm on the lake (affusion) or St Peter’s total immersion. How did Christian baptism differ from the water in cults of Mithras and Isis reckoned to be for expiation and regeneration? The answer is that they are correct in using water but have the wrong god, the devil’s counterfeit. How can bodily washing cleanse the conscience? The answer is that the candidate and the Church have faith. Latent questions about the relation of baptism to conversion were first debated in depth by St Augustine of Hippo (De baptismo). Prayer for the sanctification of the water in the font became fairly common. Solemnity surrounded the renunciation of the devil and his works and his angels, often in this or a similar triadic form. The essence of the matter was the impossibility of serving God and Mammon. Tertullian (De anima . ) was sure that if the baptized person went back on the vow, the devil resumed his rights. At baptism women untied their hair, no doubt with the intention of warding off the devil who might think it a place of beauty in which to hide. Undressing for the act of baptism would prevent the devil from getting into the water too (Clement of Alexandria found this in the gnostic Theodotus: Exc. Theod. ). Stripping at the moment of baptism presupposed that the devil could be in the detail of clothing. The baptismal renunciation, dramatically reinforced by exorcism, affected people’s jobs. Certain kinds of employment were incompatible with Christian ethics. A married man who also had a concubine or mistress or slept with his slave-girls had to change his ways. A priest serving idols could not so continue. (It is instructive that there were applications from people employed in this way.) Actors and actresses, who in antiquity were mostly slaves, or professional gladiators had to find different work, raising inevitable questions about trying to finance emancipation, perhaps with help from the church chest. In general the public entertainments industry was looked on with aversion. Considerable qualms attached to those whose duty, as soldiers or as prison gaolers, involved them in taking human life, and the same held good for provincial governors, whose duties constantly required attendance at idolatrous ceremonies, not to mention ordering torture and execution of criminals. Sufficient evidence of the bribery of judges survives to make it certain that this was a widespread problem, and especially offensive when used to bring about a death sentence. (Capital punishment was not approved by Christians.) The list of those before whom the Church erected barriers is not only a sign of the Christians’ determination to be a society of purged saints
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rather than a school for sinners continuing in unacceptable positions but also a testimony to the wide cross-section of society attracted by the gospel. School teachers who were expected to teach Homer and his gods, and artists whose commissions could also ask them to portray idolatrous or erotic themes (even if allegorical), were regarded with anxiety and unanimity was not easily attained. There were thorny problems in the case of those who were divorced and remarried: does baptismal remission wipe out the past completely? or since marriage is no sin, is it a state that survives the washing of regeneration? Because baptism marked regeneration and adoption into God’s family, the person baptized could fittingly receive a new name. He or she now bore ‘the name of the Son of God’, and so might bear a name with Christian and scriptural associations. Candidates for baptism were called ‘catechumenoi’, people under instruction. Admission began with a ceremony foreshadowing baptism: sign of the cross, prayer invoking divine aid and guardian angel, laying-on of hands and, as an act of exorcism, salt placed upon the tongue. The length of catechumenate varied with individuals, but could last up to three years. Anxiety about the consequences of possible sins after baptism could make a considerable number content to remain catechumens for several years. A variation between east and west becomes visible, in that western catechumens were being reformed morally, and the creed or doctrinal instruction was brought in at a very late stage; in the east instruction took a more theological form with the moral issues being sorted out later, perhaps even after baptism. Wisdom literature of the Old Testament was suitable to give moral education. So too, but very surprisingly, the books of Judith and Tobit were to be read. It became customary for instruction to be given by the bishop in the weeks preceding Easter, baptism being conferred on the evening before ‘the day of resurrection’. A catechumen was counted to be Christian, but not a full believer, fidelis. At the synaxis or assembly he or she left after the readings and sermon before the eucharist proper. Catechumens were not present at the exchange of the kiss of peace, reserved only for those whose kiss2 was purified by baptism and who were not in heresy or schism. Schismatics being in protest against the Church were not going to be present anyway. By contrast many heretics wished to be acknowledged as members. Tertullian once sharply observed that heretics seek to subvert the orthodox, not to convert the heathen, and are easy-going in discipline, careless about order, offering 2 In ancient society the kiss was common for greeting distinguished persons, especially emperors, and did not necessarily have the partly erotic association common in the modern west. The Apostolic Tradition forbids a kiss of peace between the sexes. There will have been places and cases where this kind of rule was not observed.
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communion to anybody and everybody, casual about ordinations, many of their clergy being apostates from the Church (De praescr. –). Baptism’s unbreakable character soon gave it the name ‘seal’ (sphragis), a term not only for the seal of a letter or signet ring but also becoming a synonym for a formal contract, or for the tattoo marking a slave or a herd or a soldier. Devout pagans might bear the ‘seal’ of their god, and carry on travels a wooden image or idol commonly called seal, sigillum (Apuleius, Apol. –; Tertullian, orat. ). Among Christian texts the most striking example is the inscription written about for his own epitaph by Aberkios bishop of Hieropolis in Phrygia. Much travelled, he had visited the church at Rome ‘a queen in golden robe and golden sandals, and there saw a people having a shining seal’. He journeyed through Syria as far as Nisibis in Mesopotamia, crossing the Euphrates and finding Christian brethren everywhere. He followed with a codex of Pauline letters. ‘Everywhere faith led the way and everywhere served food, the Fish from the font, vast, pure, which the pure virgin caught and gave to her friends to eat for ever, with good wine giving the cup together with the loaf.’3 The inscription is a very early instance of the fish symbol for Christ. The Greek word IVHTC forms an acrostic for ‘Jesus Christ Son of God Saviour’, the earliest instance in full being in the Sibylline Oracles (. ). Catacomb art provides examples of fish as symbols of Christ. The baptismal seal was for some like an amulet protecting against the planetary powers of fate or other evil forces. Origen cites a gnostic dialogue called ‘The Seal’ (c. Cels. . ). Ignatius wrote to Polycarp ‘May your baptism abide as weapons of defence’ (Pol. . ). Here was the word of God, the sword of the Spirit. Gregory of Nazianzos (orat. . ) tells catechumens that once they have received the seal, they will need none of the devil’s amulets and magic spells. A sermon by Basil (. ) reminds his hearers that the destroying angel at the exodus passed over houses that were sealed. The homiletic language was clearly designed to encourage perseverance to the end of life and, in a stern writer such as Tertullian, becomes the threat that to break the seal of one’s baptism is to condemn oneself to the fire (Bapt. ). Experience soon showed that the baptized could lapse into various sins. The Shepherd of Hermas mitigated the absoluteness of the epistle to the Hebrews (. –) offering, by unique revelation, a possibility of penance and restoration for one occasion only. His argument, however, presupposed that some renewed absolution would be needed, and in the third century terms for the restoration of the lapsed in persecution created the earliest attempts at an ordered canon law. A description of Christian penitential discipline in the pagan Celsus (in Origen, c. Cels. . ) as ‘disgraceful and undignified’, with a 3 See J. B. Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers, ii/i, ff.; H. Leclercq in DACL i. –; text and full commentary in F. J. Dölger, Ichthys, ii. (Münster, ), –.
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closely similar account in Tertullian (Paenit. . ), shows that public penance was felt to be shameful and disgusting by Christians as well as pagans. As late as Augustine (sermo ) pagans were insulting Christians for the laxity of the system. Pagans declared that Constantine’s conversion was motivated because the Church offered cheap grace to remove his guilt over the deaths of Crispus and Fausta. But in fact the ancient system was both embarrassingly public and severe. It was also judgemental rather than therapeutic. Eucharist The principal act of the eucharist was sharing in consecrated bread and wine, at first as part of a solemn and sacred memorial meal. Corinthians shows that for some at Corinth the food and drink was primary and the sacred ritual of the act secondary. It was not more than a fellowship meal of a brotherhood of love or agape. (There was tension between the poor who could not afford to bring good food and the rich who brought fine fare. But as wealthy people were converted, the agape became a way of providing the poor with a square meal.) The apostle was disturbed that they were failing to ‘discern the body of Christ’. He tells the Corinthians that they can eat and drink at home; but this act of obedience to Jesus’ command is a sacred act re-enacting through ritual symbolism the breaking of the Lord’s body and the pouring out of his blood for the redemption of humanity. The act is a proclamation of the Lord’s death and uses bread and wine which at the Last Supper he had for ever associated with his redemptive self-offering. The use of bread and wine was part of the Passover ritual. The canonical gospels are not agreed whether the Last Supper was the Passover meal or not. (Probably their differences reflect the traditions of different communities.) Paul earlier told the Corinthians ‘Christ our passover is sacrificed for us’ ( Cor. : ), which may imply that Passover fell on the day of crucifixion. Redemption was foreshadowed in the exodus of the children of Israel from the bondage of Egypt (an underlying theme in the epistle to the Hebrews), annually recalled in the Passover by every devout Jew. Early Christian paschal liturgical prayers have direct relation to Passover prayers of the synagogue with verbal echoes. Fixed forms of prayer were slow to develop. What was expected was a pattern of themes, but in expressing these themes the presiding presbyter/bishop was free. Justin says the president offered ‘the best of which he is capable’. After that prayer the people answered with the Hebrew word, ‘Amen’, immediately preceding the distribution and sharing of the bread and wine (water being added to the wine, as was almost universal in antiquity); deacons took the food to the absent. Justin is emphatic that these gifts are not received as ordinary bread and wine. Evidently by the prayer and the sacred ritual of
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breaking bread and pouring out wine in analogy to the death of Christ they have a unique dignity.There was also an offering of money to help the needy and destitute. There were local and regional varieties. The eucharistic prayer in the Didache lacks the redemption theme that a reader of Corinthians would expect, which the apostle evidently regarded as central. In the period from the fourth to the sixth century forms of prayer were becoming regular and fixed in east and west, but in different ways. Western liturgy was shorter, while in the east it was altogether more extended. The eucharistic ‘president’ ( Justin’s word) composed his own eucharistic prayer, but there soon came to be a generally used and very ancient dialogue between president and congregation, each praying for the other and the president bidding the people to concentrate for the great prayer to come: ‘The Lord be with you’ ‘And with your spirit’ ‘Lift up your hearts’ ‘We lift them to the Lord’ ‘Let us give thanks to the Lord . . .’ ‘It is fitting and right.’
From this point the president says the ‘Preface’, a kind of panegyric of the majesty of God in creation and the glory of nature ( Justin, Apol. . ; Origen, c. Cels. . ),4 before the actual commemoration invoking the blessing of the Holy Spirit on the congregation and the consecrated gifts and the offering of broken bread and poured out wine. In the Apostolic Tradition the commemoration is emphatically Christological, praising the Lord who has conquered the devil and trodden down hell and brought light to the righteous, going on to the words of institution and the ‘anamnesis’ or memorial of Christ’s death and resurrection in which the bread and cup are offered. The prayer concludes with an invocation of the Holy Spirit on the oblation of the holy Church, that all may be united, their faith confirmed in the truth. Here it is noteworthy that the text has both the institution narrative and an invocation or epíklesis. Later the east would stress the latter, the west the former, and much later there could even be argument which of the two constituted the moment of consecration. The bedrock essentials consisted of the prayer, the bread and wine, and the explicit association with the Last Supper and Christ’s death and resurrection. 4 How natural it was to employ the language of imperial panegyric can be judged from the occurrence in an ancient Latin panegyric of the formula that expressing gratitude to the emperor would be right at all times and all places but particularly so in the present context; e.g. the beginning of Mamertinus’ panegyric on Maximian delivered on Apr. (Paneg. lat. (). ). See below p. .
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In Justin the first part of the service consists of readings and prayers. In short, the eucharist had two rather distinct sections, and that remained characteristic for the future. In the west the dismissal of the catechumens after the readings and the homily gave its name to the service as a whole, missa or mass. But the word could mean an act of worship where the congregation was sent away with a bishop’s blessing. Tertullian (De corona ) tells us that the communicant received the sacred elements in the hands. For many centuries that was to remain standard practice. Some communicants could take the consecrated bread home, but needed to ensure that a mouse did not eat it. Origen mentions the distress caused to communicants if with bread or cup there was a spill. In antiquity to receive the sacrament in only one kind was not approved. But there were problems with peasants who gulped rather than sipped on being offered the chalice or with very young children. Ministry Tertullian (Exh. cast. . ) once observed that the Church has marked a distinction between the ‘order’, i.e. the clergy, and the laity (plebs). Christian writers found it natural to regard the appointed church officers with pastoral and priestly responsibilities as people received into an existing collective order. No surviving text from the very early period provides a form of ordination other than possibly Tim. : –. But prayer and the laying-on of hands emerged as the basic actions, with the pastoral commission being handed on from pastor to pastor, which required the ordaining bishop to have received this power from his predecessors. A bishop was called to do for his people some of the essential caring once done by the apostles. His responsibility was not only to his own people but to the whole Church and the episcopate collectively. The episcopal order became the most evident and visible element in the continuity of the entire community. Correspondence with other churches was conducted through bishops, and at the ordination of another bishop in the same province all bishops of the province were expected to be present. The council of Nicaea prescribed a minimum of three, but there were unusual instances where only two had to be taken to suffice. The Apostolic Tradition, the fourth-century Apostolic Constitutions, and the fourth-century sacramentary of Serapion of Thmuis all provide for the consecration of oil for anointings, including that of the sick ( Jas. : –). But what liturgy was used for funerals is not attested. While by the third century there were many places where the eucharist was celebrated everyday, that was not the practice everywhere. The regular daily services were the ‘hours’. Paul had exhorted the Thessalonians to
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‘pray without ceasing’, and Clement of Alexandria wrote that this unceasing prayer was characteristic of the entire life of the higher spiritual or ‘gnostic’ Christian (Strom. . . ). Origen’s careful treatise on prayer () suggested that this way of speaking was the only possible way of understanding Paul’s command. At least the devout will pray three times a day, like the prophet Daniel. Ps. : speaks of prayer each evening and morning. Psalm : speaks of prayer at midnight. At Philippi Paul and Silas sang a hymn and prayed in the middle of the night. Origen took all these as models to be followed. A characteristic of the ‘hours’ was to use the Psalter in sections. The Christian writers of the second century had prepared the ground for a Christological reading of the psalms. This, combined with the emotional range of these ancient poems, made the Psalter, with some exceptions where they are cursing, remarkably suitable for daily use. The Christological interpretation prepared the way for the Trinitarian doxology (‘Glory be to the Father . . .’) at the end, the form of which became a controversial subject in the middle years of the fourth century; it was still being debated in the s in Basil’s time. Tertullian similarly attests regular prayers at the third, sixth, and ninth hours of which the very rough equivalences would be , , and hours. The early morning and evening prayers were not merely optional extras, but obligations, and in practice these two were those most commonly observed by devout laity. Lastly a prayer and a short hymn were customary at the lighting of the evening lamp. An old extant hymn of the ancient Church praises the cheerful light which God brings—the Phos Hilaron,5 cited as an ancient tradition by Basil the Great of Caesarea (De Spir. S. ) and probably dating from the third century. A third-century papyrus (P.Oxy. XV ) preserves an anapaestic hymn with signs (neums) for the music of the chant: ‘While we hymn Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, let all creation sing Amen, Amen. Praise, power to the sole giver of all good things. Amen, Amen.’ Church buildings The first generations of Christians did not have special purpose-built buildings for their worship, but met in private houses with a large room. For them ‘the Church’ was the community (‘God’s temple,’ Cor. : ; Cor. : ), not a physical structure. God does not live in a house made by human hands (Acts : –; : ). The discernment of the Church as God’s temple is an act of faith, not of the eyes. But by the first years of the third century they 5 A version of this occurs in modern English hymnbooks, e.g. Hymns Ancient & Modern New Standard edition , or New English Hymnal , or the American Hymnbook , . Technical discussion in F. J. Dölger, Antike und Christentum, (), –.
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were beginning to have special houses of prayer, as the Synagogue had. One at Edessa in is expressly attested as destroyed by a flood. After the persecutions by Decius and Valerian the emperor Gallienus restored church buildings which had been confiscated. A ‘house of the church’ which Paul of Samosata declined to vacate is attested for Antioch in . Excavation of the Roman fort at Dura Europos on the Euphrates, destroyed by the Persians in , revealed a synagogue finely decorated with biblical figures and nearby a small house-church with a baptistery (likely to be in demand among soldiers in an isolated stronghold whose last hour was imminent). The walls had paintings of the Good Shepherd, Adam and Eve, Christ healing the paralytic and walking on water, the Samaritaness at the well, David and Goliath. There were still house-churches well into the fourth century. At Cirta in north Africa early in the fourth century the substantial but far from enormous congregation was meeting in a private house and had no special place necessitated by the growth of the congregation. But growth in numbers required bigger places of assembly (Eus. HE : ). Rome about had over forty basilicas (Optatus . ). At Nicomedia in the imperial palace looked across to the main church building in the city. Constantine funded the replacement of churches destroyed under the persecution. Eusebius’ panegyric on the new church building at Tyre (HE . ) presents it as modelled on Solomon’s temple with the decorations from Isaiah . Nevertheless, the reticence of early Christianity means that many buildings used by Christians are not identifiable as such. That changed with Constantine. He told Macarius bishop of Jerusalem that the new church of the Resurrection was to be the noblest basilica yet seen (Vita . ). Today it is no longer necessary to deny the romantic notion that early Christians celebrated their mysteries underground in catacombs. But the popular art on the walls of Roman catacombs heralded an extraordinary efflorescence of brilliant and beautiful Christian art in the age of the Christian empire. Although it occurred, it was not a Christian characteristic to erect church buildings, like pagan temples, in locations already held in reverence for their numinous associations, e.g. because of a spring. Late in the fourth century when under Theodosius I pagan temples were being closed down, some of these old and beautiful buildings could be adapted for Christian worship. Christians valued places as holy not in themselves but because of what holy people had said or done there. This at least was the verdict of Pope Gregory the Great. Naturally this pre-eminently marked the sites in Jerusalem or Galilee where the gospel had been acted out by Jesus and the apostles. In the second century Melito of Sardis journeyed to Jerusalem sure that the (now Gentile) community there would have preserved the authoritative and authentic canon of the Old Testament. Origen reports on pilgrims to the
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cave of the Nativity at Bethlehem (c. Cels. . , known to Justin, Dialogue ), and says that he himself had travelled round the Holy Land following the traces of places where Jesus had been (Comm. in Joh. . () ). In the Jordan valley he had even made a discovery closely analogous to the Dead Sea Scrolls (Eus. HE . . ). Because the great majority of Christians at first were Jews, it was utterly natural for Jewish festivals to be selectively continued. Passover merged imperceptibly into Easter, and continued with the name Pascha. Pentecost, fifty days later, was also continued, though now as a feast commemorating the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the apostolic company. The account of this in Acts is astonishingly close to language used by Philo when he expounded the story of Noah’s inebriation (De ebrietate ff.). Ascension Day seems not to have been a special day in the calendar before the fourth century. One rather contentious matter was the length of the fast before Easter. At first this was only a few days, and Dionysius of Alexandria would timelessly observe that a short fast was taken far more seriously than a long one. But the fast in the Greek east was soon lengthened to the seven days of Holy Week. When Athanasius was exiled to the west, he made the disconcerting and shaming discovery that churches in the west were keeping a prepaschal fast of forty days, which he immediately sought to establish in his own jurisdiction. Evidence of special vestments for clergy is first found in fourth-century texts. But the custom whereby the newly baptized wore white (giving English speakers the name Whitsunday for Pentecost) is well attested for the second century. In Latin books the Sunday after Easter is ‘Dominica in albis’ with the same meaning. All these matters are the accidental features of liturgy. For the substance it would be hard to come closer than words of Augustine commenting on Psalm : that God’s supreme gift to human beings is himself through the Son of God and Son of man. ‘Addressing God in prayer we do not separate God from his Son. . . . He prays for us as our priest, he prays for us as our head, we pray to him as our God. Let us recognize our words in him and his words in ourselves.’ Christian Art before Constantine In the pre-Constantinian period Christians had to tread carefully. They had no public status or privileges. The surviving monuments of their art are mainly underground in the catacombs. Nevertheless, we know a little. Clement of Alexandria (Paid. . ) gives readers advice on their choice of signet ring—in ancient society an indispensable means of assuring the recipient of a letter that it was authentic. A Christian would avoid representations
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with idolatrous or too carnal associations. But it would be suitable to have a fisherman with a fish caught on his line, or a portrait of a good shepherd with his lamb on his shoulder, or a dove or a ship or a lyre, like Polycrates of Samos in Herodotus’ famous story, or an anchor, like King Seleucus I, but nothing suggesting drink or sex. Such themes as these had the merit that they were ambiguous. They were in no way specifically Christian. Moreover, Neopythagoreans disapproved of signet rings with a seal representing a god (Iamblichus, V. Pyth. ). The shepherd carrying his sheep was a common symbol of philanthropía or humanity, hospitality, generosity. The symbolic figures might also be engraved on an amulet hung round the neck. When a memorial monument had been erected to St Peter on the Vatican hill, a roof mosaic was painted close by showing Christ as a sungod driving his chariot across the sky. It again had the merit of being capable of a Christian interpretation but of appearing neutral to a non-Christian observer. Another favoured theme was the figure at prayer with arms raised, the orant, again a neutral symbol of piety towards the divine, but for Christians easily capable of being an allegory of divine blessing. Philosophers and teachers were represented holding a book-roll, and this could be utilised to signify the teaching Christ with the written word of God in his hand. Naturally portraits of human figures were invaluable. What overcurious pagan investigator could guess that this head was St Peter and that St Paul if he was unaware of the evolving iconographic conventions of the artists? There was not a serious problem in having a portrait of the Virgin Mary, since no one by this age knew what she looked like. In any event a portrait of Christ performing a miracle was not in the least significant for its actual resemblance to his face. One did not need to be able to look at a representation of the twelve apostles and be sure just which was which. On sarcophagi portrayals of harvest scenes or bunches of grapes were popular themes in pagan culture, but obviously suitable for a Christian funeral. Loaves of bread and grapes also symbolized the eucharist. Elijah’s ascent to heaven in a chariot of fire invited exploitation of the chariot theme from contemporary conventions; emperors ascending to heaven in a chariot were part of the stock-in-trade. The mother and child could be acquired from the regular themes on sale at the stonemason’s yard or artist’s studio. Funerary art portraying the transitoriness of human life could use symbols from plants, and peacocks for immortality. In the fourth century we hear of contention about the decoration of church walls with frescoes and, since there is an echo of the debate in the canons of the council of Elvira, perhaps about , it is certain that some of these pictures antedate Constantine. Celsus knew about Jonah and his gourd and about Daniel and the lions (c. Cels. . ), who may have come to his attention because they were favourite subjects for Christian artists. The rich
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decoration of the Dura synagogue (now in Damascus museum) proves that there was precedent for pictures of biblical scenes in Jewish symbols.6 In the second decade of the fourth century Theodorus of Aquileia decorated his church with a magnificent floor mosaic, vividly portraying Jonah being swallowed and then vigorously ejected as indigestible by the seamonster. The boats portrayed are strikingly similar to those visible today on the Venetian lagoon. 6 See the classic discussions by E. R. Goodenough, Jewish Symbols in the Greco-Roman Period, vols. (New York, –); C. H. Kraeling, The Synagogue: The Excavations at Dura-Europos final report VIII, (Yale, ).
ATHANASIUS, MARCELLUS, AND THE GATHERING STORM
Fourth-century church history is simultaneously the history of the emperors, Christian with most of the Constantinian dynasty, briefly pagan in Julian; but Julian’s disastrous campaign against Persia in was taken to be a sign that his old polytheism offered no security to the cause of Roman power and imperial domination. His failure and death provided a contributory cause of Christian success in the conflict with paganism. In this age it was almost axiomatic that military victory was a providential gift not granted to people whose religious rites or moral conduct failed to propitiate heaven. Prayers win battles, wrote the pagan Libanius (or. . ). Yet from onwards the barbarian influx in the west transformed the operations of both state and church. The intermingling of church controversy with imperial politics sometimes solved problems for both church and state, but could also create them. The Christian dissensions of the fourth and fifth centuries are misread if they are naïvely interpreted as mere struggles for power. What most mattered to the contending bishops was the theological teaching of their tradition. At Nicaea in Constantine the Great was determined to achieve harmony and consensus, and largely succeeded. The authority of his great council would have been weakened if rival factions had been allowed to create a split with a substantial minority opposed to the central decisions. Wise bishops also wanted consensus and unity in accord with the tradition of scriptural understanding which they had received. There were enemies to combat: pagan critics who read Celsus and Porphyry, schismatics who, while in essentials orthodox, vehemently dissented (like Donatists on moral grounds) to the point of rigid separation from the main Christian body, and heretics who longed for their version of the faith to be accepted as at least a valid option, best of all as the more authentic form of divine truth. In Christian history, however, the most passionate disputes have been, and were in the fourth century, between those who stood very close to one another. The issues were too often logomachies, a feature already troubling as early as Tim. : , .
The Gathering Storm
Reconciling Melitians and perhaps Arius? The church in Egypt remained beset by problems even after the decisions at Nicaea that the Melitian schismatics should be reconciled with full recognition of their orders (with the proviso of communion with and obedience to the bishop of Alexandria), a ruling to which Alexander of Alexandria must have assented, but which to his deacon Athanasius was most regrettable. A second issue was the rehabilitation of Arius and his episcopal supporters, Eusebius of Nicomedia and Theognis of Nicaea, suspended for their reservations about the Nicene anathema as a misrepresentation of Arius’ position. About the end of or early in Constantine had summoned a synod of leading bishops to implement the reconciliation of the Melitian clergy and congregations, but also to reinstate Arius, who could accept the Nicene creed with the explanations being given by Eusebius of Caesarea and Eusebius of Nicomedia. Receiving Arius (who had been sent to exile in Illyricum) could not be very welcome to Alexander of Alexandria, especially when Arius claimed to say only what he had heard his bishop saying. Perhaps Alexander was already failing in health, for he died on April . Athanasius The Egyptian clergy assembled to choose his successor had the difficult choice of electing as bishop of Alexandria the Melitian candidate or an alternative deeply unsympathetic to this reunion. A small group, no doubt themselves apprehensive about the reconciliation of dissident Melitians, presented their colleagues with a fait accompli by consecrating Athanasius. That ensured that the Melitians would remain a separate body (which was the case for a long time to come) and that, at least as long as Athanasius was bishop, Arius could not be received at Alexandria. He would have to find asylum with his friends in Libya such as Secundus of Ptolemais. Arius made his way to Constantinople where, before his intended rehabilitation by the bishop Alexander, he met his end in a public latrine (above p. ). Alexander of Constantinople died early in and was replaced by Paul, of whom in time Athanasius came to approve because they shared common enemies. At the council of Tyre () Paul signed the deposition of Athanasius, but changed his mind. Constantius disapproved of Paul, removed him from office and authorized the translation of Eusebius from Nicomedia to the capital. The canonical legitimacy of Athanasius’ consecration in was questioned by his less intransigent colleagues, especially of course by Melitians and by sympathizers with Arius and the tradition which he represented. He was under age. In combating the Melitian separatists Athanasius’ clergy used
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an unfortunate degree of physical violence which was to hand means to opponents with which they could attack him. In the Mareotis immediately south of Alexandria a dissident priest named Ischyras, whose ordination had been at the hand of a dissenting presbyter named Colluthus, was celebrating the liturgy when Athanasius’ agent Macarius arrived to smash the chalice and overturn the altar. That did not help Athanasius’ cause, though witnesses could be persuaded to testify that at the time in question Ischyras had been lying ill and could not have celebrated. Eusebius of Nicomedia and other bishops of his group who wanted Arius reinstated at Alexandria were easily able to produce witnesses with evidence of inappropriate behaviour. There was no doctrinal charge against Athanasius, but he was able to retort that his accusers were foot-faulted by their adherence to Arian heresy. After the council of Tyre in , where Athanasius skilfully defended himself and his opponents made the mistake of accusing him of injury or even murder of a man he could produce alive and well, he made a clandestine escape and appealed to Constantine. But the threat to stop the grain supply from Egypt to Constantinople if Constantine failed to support was disastrous. Unfortunately it was certain that he had a close relationship with the seacaptains at the harbour; he would imply that himself (ep. Encycl. ). The charge was all too plausible. The fourth century was an age of violence. The discourses and letters of Libanius,1 pagan sophist of Antioch (–c.), show that peasants were flogged into forced labour, that soldiers were almost always brutal to civilians and if billeted in towns were dreaded; they organised protection rackets to exploit farmers in the countryside. The authorities maintaining law and order resorted to torture, not only for slaves, who regularly suffered punishment with their body and under cross-examination had to be put to ‘the question’ but for members of city councils who failed to collect sufficient tax. A hypocritical pride led some provincial governors to claim that they had not executed anyone, when with fire and rack their torturers had either maimed the victims for life or left them half-dead. Libanius thought capital punishment a necessary deterrent but hated bloodshed and corporal scourging. Athanasius theologian Athanasius’ exile to Trier, however, brought him into good contact not only with a sympathetic bishop of the imperial city but also with the eldest of Constantine’s three sons, Constantine II. It may also have provided him with the leisure for the composition of his twin works ‘Against the heathen’ 1 A. F. Norman, ‘Libanius, the Teacher in an Age of Violence’, in G. Fatouros and T. Krischer (eds.), Libanius (Wege der Forschung, ; Darmstadt, ), –.
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(contra Gentes) and ‘On the incarnation’. On hearing the news of his father’s death one of Constantine II’s first acts was to give Athanasius liberty to return to Alexandria at his discretion, declaring probably correctly that this had been his father’s intention. Since the empire for some months was governed in the name of the dead emperor the declaration was no doubt necessary. Athanasius’ tract contra Gentes shows the extent of his sympathy with the kind of reply to pagan critics that Origen had offered in his contra Celsum, which Athanasius probably drew from the Theophany and the Preparation for the Gospel written by Eusebius of Caesarea. Nevertheless there is no allusion to his exile other than a note that he has no copies of his teachers’ books by him, and the Arian controversy is never mentioned. In essentials the work presents Christianity as less materialistic than the crudity and superstition of paganism and therefore able to occupy common ground with Platonic notions of the soul as the higher element in human nature. Soul is immortal but needs gospel purification. The tract will have had more Christian than pagan readers.2 The tract on the Incarnation is similarly directed against pagan criticism. A proposition declared to be superfluous, impossible, and unworthy of God is actually both necessary for salvation of our lost race and also in line with the highest affirmations about the Creator. Every Platonist agreed to the overflow of divine goodness as ground of creation; this providence continues in redemption. Adam, rational and immortal before his Fall, fell into precarious impermanence and mortality and the image of God in him was gradually destroyed. God’s creative goodness cannot be frustrated, but the penalty for sin, for despising the wonder of divine contemplation, must be paid. Hence human repentance is insufficient, and does not answer the problem of our perishing finitude, sinking into nothingness. The incarnate Lord brought incorruption to human nature by rising from the dead; he met divine justice by death. Only God can redeem. His redemption brings eternal life which is to participate in the divine nature and is communicated by sacramental incorporation in his Church. Athanasius’ theology owed much to Irenaeus, for whom it was axiomatic that God alone can make himself known as an inferior mediator cannot do. Although he had imbibed much from the tradition of Origen, it was offensive to him when Arius wanted to keep monotheism by the thesis that the Son of God is at the summit of the created order, ‘a creature though not as one of the creatures’. One who is part of this finite transitory world cannot have the power to bring immortality and incorruption to morally precarious 2 See E. P. Meijering, Athanasius contra Gentes (Leiden, ); Athanasius de Incarnatione (Amsterdam, ).
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souls. The Logos or Word of God took a human body and made it his own to demonstrate divine glory to fallen, mortal mankind, and to make possible purification, directing the soul to be united with nous, mind. Athanasius left it unclear whether or not the Logos assumed a human nous. That was a problem for the future. The tract ‘On the incarnation’ is not always self-consistent; but it makes clear why Athanasius felt threatened by Arius’ ideas. Arius by contrast was pleading for the utter otherness and transcendence of God the creator and for pure monotheism. However, Athanasius did not make the Nicene creed the standard for a polemical campaign until the forties and fifties. Division of the empire: a dynastic massacre It is certain that Constantine intended the empire to continue being ruled by members of his dynasty. That meant rule by his three sons: Constantine II the eldest, a bastard, already holding the Rhine frontier from Trier, and the two sons by Fausta, Constantius II in the East, the only son to be present at his father’s funeral (but not at his deathbed), and Constans, still hardly sixteen years old but as ambitious as any; together with them there were two nephews, Dalmatius already nominated Caesar, and his brother Hannibalianus. Five was only one more than Diocletian’s tetrarchy, and the empire was huge. The three sons thought the two nephews superfluous, likely to be an obstacle to the aspirations of each. Hannibalianus was popular in Roman Armenia. The story was put out that the army would tolerate only the sons, and at Constantinople in the summer of there was a bloodbath of the kind customary in that age, the soldiers eliminating all members of the dynasty who might reasonably bid for power and several high officers of state who had been close to Constantine the Great. Emperors were deposed by no democratic vote, but by assassination. John Chrysostom, commenting on the epistle to the Philippians, observes that the pavements of imperial palaces are always soaked in blood of the emperor’s own kindred, and that almost all stage tragedies concern kings (Hom. in Phil. . )). Two young boys, Gallus and Julian, grandsons of Constantius I by two different partners, were too young to seem a threat, were protected by Bishop Eusebius of Nicomedia and Mark, who later became bishop of Arethusa in Syria, and so by Constantius’ intervention (Greg. Naz. or. . ) were allowed to live. It was taken for granted, by Athanasius (Hist. Ar. ), by the emperor Julian in his letter to the Athenians (c), and by the pagan historian Zosimus (. ), all being hostile witnesses, that the decision for the killings was taken by Constantius, but it is unlikely that he alone was responsible. At least he had no objection. The three brothers and the army had reason to think the coherence of empire was at stake. Julian believed that Constantius suffered
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from remorse, and attributed to this guilt his childlessness and lack of success in the Persian wars.3 Constantius and the eastern frontier By mutual agreement Constantine II took Spain, Gaul and Britain, Constans I had Italy, Africa and the (civil) ‘diocese’ of Macedonia. Constantius II had Asia Minor, Egypt, and the East based on Antioch in Syria. He drew the short straw since, unlike his brothers, whose frontiers were subjected only to illorganized raids by barbarian tribesmen, he had to face the considerable might of a Persia determined to recover Mesopotamian provinces captured for Rome by Galerius in . Julian (c) recalls that Constans and Constantine II did nothing to make it easy for Constantius to cope with a Persian war. Constantine the Great had written a letter to the Persian king Shahpuhr II, preserved by Eusebius of Caesarea (Vita Const. . –), expressing pleasure at some kindness he had showed to his numerous Christian subjects; that he would surely not harass them (an evidently possible threat) he might deduce from the capture of the emperor Valerian in , which was manifestly divine punishment for his persecution of believers. Unfortunately the letter evidently implied that Christians in Persia should be considered to be under the protective advocacy of a Roman emperor who shared their faith, and in whose eyes they were almost honorary Romans.4 In consequence, after Constantine’s death the young churches in Persia were subjected to persecution by their government which deemed them to be allies of the Roman emperor, required to pay double taxation to finance the war against Constantius and to suffer death if they could not pay. A passage in the Syriac homilies of Aphrahat (. . ) about shows that there were indeed proRoman Christians in Persia, sure that Jesus was with Constantius. Probably Constantius himself shared this confidence. Persian persecution was, of course, the more likely to make Christians look towards the Christian empire for support.5 3 R. Klein, ‘Die Kämpfe um die Nachfolge nach dem Tode Constantins des Großen’, Byz. Forsch. (), –. 4 An analogy is the claim of imperial Russia to be protector of the Ottoman Sultan’s Christian subjects. 5 See the still classic discussion in J. Labourt, Le Christianisme dans l’empire perse sous la dynastie sassanide (Paris, ); J. M. Fiey, Jalons pour une histoire de l’Église en Iraq (Louvain, ) following his Assyrie chrétienne, vols. (Beirut, , ); W. Hage, ‘Die oströmische Staatskirche und die Christenheit des Perserreiches’, Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte, (), –; especially S. P. Brock in JTS, ns (), –, and his illuminating paper ‘Christians in the Sasanian Empire: A case of divided loyalties’, in Studies in Church History, (), – with bibliographical references. On the empire’s conflict with Persia see P. A. Barceló, Roms auswärtige Beziehungen unter der Constantinischen Dynastie (–), Eichstätter Beiträge, Abteilung Geschichte, (Regensburg, ), –.
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Ulfilas and Frumentius Constantius’ embassies to Persia were not very successful in fostering sympathy for Christianity. The emperor also looked elsewhere outside the empire for Christian missionary work which could help in spreading Roman authority. A Cappadocian taken prisoner in a Gothic raid and named by Goths ‘little wolf ’, Wulfila or Ulfila(s), came to Constantinople with a Gothic embassy about – (below p. f.). Eusebius of Constantinople was to consecrate him bishop in charge of a mission to the Goths north of the Danube. Hostility to this mission pushed him back into the empire south of the Danube where Gothic residents were numerous. He devised a Gothic alphabet and translated the Bible, omitting the books of Kings as too warlike. His sympathies were not with the Nicene creed. Gothic Christians were long considered ‘Arians’. Constantius knew that Athanasius had consecrated a bishop Frumentius for the tribes south of Egypt at Axum. He wrote asking the princes at Axum to send Frumentius to Alexandria so that his too Athanasian theology could be corrected (Athan. Apol. ad Const. ). A similar pattern of missionary concern appeared in Constantius’ use of an Indian bishop Theophilos to serve as ambassador to peoples south of the Red Sea and to Arabs to keep them friendly towards the Roman empire. Athanasius returns from exile at Trier: Constantine II dies All three sons of Constantine had been brought up as professing Christians. They inherited from their father the conviction that by special providence they had a divine mission. Their father had been convinced that he was destined to establish a universal faith and a global ethic intended to bring a worldwide unity to the human race reaching beyond the frontiers from Hadrian’s wall to the Tigris. It was going to affect the Church, however, that each of the three brothers shared their father’s belief that the unity of their empire was best achieved by only one emperor; in short, each considered his two fraternal colleagues less than necessary. Constantine II assumed that the adolescent Constans must be under his guidance and authority. This led him to underestimate his youngest brother in a military move to be rid of him, and near Aquileia in he met his death. That gave Constans control of two-thirds of the empire’s resources, and high tension in the Church created a fusion of political and ecclesiastical interests which enabled him to put threatening pressure on Constantius in the east for a decade to come. When Athanasius left Trier, he did not immediately return to Alexandria, where a friend of Arius named Pistos had already been put in as bishop; he travelled to the Danube region to have an interview with Constantius going
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to a meeting of the three sons of Constantine at Viminacium, in Moesia Superior, near the border (Serbian Kostolac) with Pannonia. The agenda was no doubt to petition for support from the civil authorities at Alexandria. After a considerable tour to enlist support he reentered the city to much enthusiasm from his people on November (so the ancient index to his Festal Letters). He had returned to his see without a synodical decision cancelling the deposition at the council of Tyre. He therefore held a synod of bishops at Alexandria at which the bishops under his jurisdiction declared him innocent, objected to the uncanonical translation of Eusebius from Nicomedia to Constantinople, and attacked Athanasius’ accusers as compromised by Arianism and by schismatic Melitian support in Egypt. Their encyclical was a valuable juridical weapon for him. Meanwhile his opponents, whom he calls ‘the Eusebians’, were writing to the three emperors and to Julius bishop of Rome, reiterating the grounds for the deposition of Athanasius by the council of Tyre, especially his responsibility for violence and even murder. At the time Constantius had war on his hands in Armenia; his two western brothers were unlikely to be sympathetic. The Roman see turned out to be friendly to Athanasius. The influence of Constans is no doubt to be discerned there. Under severe pressure a proposal had come from the Eusebians themselves that Pope Julius should call a revising synod and preside in person. But the story (Ath. Apol. c. Ar. . ) may be slanted. In Hist. Ar. . it appears that the Greek legates initially asked Julius to write a letter of communion to Pistos of Alexandria, thereby implying recognition of the council of Tyre’s verdict against Athanasius. They could urge that the Greeks recognized Latin synods, and expected the West to respect eastern councils. Athanasius’ friends warned Julius that Pistos was associated with those who disliked the Nicene creed, whom Athanasius would label as ‘Arians’. His Egyptian council addressed their plea to all churches, not only to Rome, but naturally they wanted the leading Western see to give support. The legates sent by the Eusebians assumed that if there was to be a council to reopen the issue, that would be held in the east where people were well informed, not in the ignorant west. The prefect of Egypt forced Athanasius’ withdrawal. Pistos was soon replaced by a more effective bishop, though not enjoying good health, named Gregory, whom Constantius, at Antioch during winter , supported. After a brief stay in hiding Athanasius wisely withdrew and went to Rome, there to seek reinforcement from Bishop Julius in his ‘apostolic see’. Athanasius and Marcellus in Rome as refugees It was momentous that after a few months at Rome Athanasius was joined by another exile enjoying Constantine II’s amnesty, Marcellus of Ankyra. After
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Nicaea Marcellus had had a running pamphlet war with Eusebius of Caesarea and a clever layman Asterios, who had misgivings about the Nicene homoousios and preferred to use a formula associated with the martyred scholar, Lucian of Antioch, that ‘the Son is an indistinguishable image of the Father’. Marcellus addressed Constantine the Great with a text designed to prove Eusebius of Nicomedia and Eusebius of Caesarea to be heretics. It turned out differently from his hopes. Opposition to Marcellus was theological and strong. The bishops, offended by his refusal to attend at the dedication of the new church of the Resurrection at Jerusalem in , rejected his doctrines and at a council in Constantinople declared him out of their communion. Marcellus liked the formula of Neopythagorean mathematicians that the Monad contains the potential to engender the dyad and the triad, but is primary. To preserve immutability, he said that in the generation of the Son, the Godhead ‘expands’. Marcellus, who could be critical of Origen but also may have owed him something, did not feel able to stomach the Origenist formula (c. Cels. . ) that Father and Son are separate hypostases. Marcellus was enthusiastic for the Nicene creed and anathema. Differing in names, God is one in ousia and hypostasis. To suggest that the unity of the Father and the Son consists in harmony of will seemed refuted by Christ’s words in Gethsemane. He understood the unity of God to be clear from Cor. . –: at the end Christ delivers up the kingdom to the Father. Critics took this to mean that the Son would eventually be merged into the Father. He was sure that if God is a monad, the Son participates in the proceeding of the Spirit from the Father. Yet if the Father and the Logos are one hypostasis, indistinguishable in being, is Jesus more than a mere man? To critics he seemed to combine Sabellius with Paul of Samosata. They thought that to affirm the incarnate Lord to be God entailed his distinctness from the transcendent Father, and Marcellus seemed to prejudice both propositions. Eusebius of Caesarea felt impelled to write two works in explicit refutation of Marcellus, with plentiful and carefully selected citations, suggesting that even in the Greek east not everyone (Constantine in particular) was convinced that he was heretical. In fact, language used by Marcellus was remarkably close to that used by or at least familiar to Constantine himself.6 To Greeks of the Origenist tradition Marcellus was Sabellian; he did not believe Father, Son, and Spirit to be essentially three. Western support 6 See Klaus Seibt, Die Theologie des Markell von Ankyra (Berlin, ); a differing perspective in Markus Vinzent, Markell von Ankyra, die Fragmenten, der Brief an Julius von Rom (Leiden, ). Vinzent has also published an annotated German translation of Eusebius’ tracts against Marcellus (Fontes Christiani; Freiburg i. B., ). M. Tetz, Athanasiana: zu Leben und Lehre des Athanasius (Berlin, ) –, edits and examines Eugenius’ document. Eugenius is probably identical with the deacon Hyginos of the Marcellan text in Epiphanius, Panarion . . , .
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for him inevitably confirmed Greek fears for Latin competence in high theology. Marcellus, however, had his supporters in Greece and Macedonia, and after his condemnation at Constantinople in continued to have a congregation in Galatia into the s. In a letter by Basil of Caesarea () to persuade Athanasius to pronounce him heretical, as a step towards his goal of detaching Athanasius from Paulinus of Antioch with whom Marcellus was in friendly correspondence, was rebutted by a deacon named Eugenius. He was well aware of conciliatory language used at Athanasius’ council of Alexandria in , his statement being very orthodox; but he avoided any concession to ‘three hypostases’ in God. Probably after the Dedication Council of Antioch in January Marcellus submitted to Julius a careful statement of his orthodoxy strikingly akin to the Roman baptismal confession of faith, also attested in Rufinus’ Exposition of the Creed. This form of words did not answer any of the questions put by his Greek critics, and stressed that Father, Son, and Spirit are a single hypostasis. Pope Julius was rapidly convinced that grave injustice had been done by Greek synods to his refugees. That was certainly what Constans hoped he would think. The refugees successfully persuaded him to invite Eusebius now of Constantinople and his colleagues to a synod in Rome with authority to revise the unjust synods of the East at Tyre () for Athanasius and at Constantinople () for Marcellus. At Rome Athanasius’ ascetic life found powerful friends and admirers, including Constantine the Great’s sister Eutropia. He was treated with deep respect by Constans, to a degree which gave high plausibility to Constantius’ later charge that Athanasius was the cause of Constans’ rising hostility to his brother. It is likely enough that Constans was not sorry to be able to use the ecclesiastical stand-off as a ground for political pressure. That Athanasius’ sympathetic reception in Rome marked a point of high tension between much of the Greek East outside Egypt and the Latin West is obvious. Pope Julius was easily persuaded to write to the Eusebian group at Antioch; his letter was brought to Antioch early in by a count (symbolic of Constans’ support) and by two presbyters, who had to wait until January for an answer. The Dedication Council of Antioch In January the great new Church at Antioch (mosaics of which, unearthed by the American excavators, can be seen at the museum in Antakya) was to be dedicated. Constantius was present and ninety-seven bishops came. The occasion gave the opportunity for a synodical decision on the representations coming from Rome; the greatest anxiety was caused by the Roman reception of Marcellus. Pope Julius’ letter had given far more space to Athanasius
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than to Marcellus, whose case was theologically intricate and in Greek eyes far harder to defend. On the Dedication Council of Antioch information would be exiguous had its main creed not become prominent in discussions about –. At that time Hilary of Poitiers and Athanasius record various statements of faith produced at the council. The historians Socrates and Sozomen mainly depend on Athanasius. Athanasius lists four creeds (produced, misleadingly it must be said, to illustrate his tendentious theme that in contrast to the one Nicene formula ‘Arians’ were almost annually rewriting their faith and were incapable of continuing in one stay). His first is cited from the council’s letter to Rome. The second is the crux. Sozomen found a tradition, of which he felt uncertain, that this text was the work of the learned biblical scholar, Lucian of Antioch, who won his martyr’s crown under Maximin Daia in (Soz. . . ). The Eusebians evidently regarded the text as safeguarding their old rule of faith. They had no intention of suppressing the Nicene creed, which enjoyed the nimbus of Constantine the Great’s support. They did not suppose they were offering an Arian confession of faith. They declared the only begotten Son of God to be immutable, the indistinguishable image of the Father’s Godhead in hypostasis, will, power, and glory, mediating between God and humanity by the incarnation, the firstborn of all creation. (It was a question whether this last Pauline phrase from Col. : referred to the humanity of the incarnate Lord or to the preexistent divine Son; in the latter case it could be interpreted to justify Arius’ thesis that the divine Logos stands at the apex of the created order.) So Father, Son, and Spirit stand in an ordered ranking and are ‘three in hypostasis, one in agreement of will’, positions highly offensive to Marcellus. Anathema is pronounced on the propositions that time could exist before the Son’s eternal generation, that the Son is a creature as one of the creatures. (Arius had said ‘a creature but not as one of the creatures’.) In their synodical letter they correctly disowned any suggestion that they were followers of Arius; for bishops could not be followers of a presbyter (Athan. Syn. –). Athanasius did not fail to notice that the anathemas were milder than those of Nicaea, though they cover much of the same ground. One striking feature of the text is the amount of scriptural citation. Besides and probably prior to their main text, the synod received a vindication of his faith from the bishop of Tyana (Cappadocia) named Theophronius, who needed to disown and anathematize Marcellus of Ankyra, whose doctrines were coupled with those of Sabellius and Paul of Samosata.7 Evidently he was not admitted to sit 7 At this point the text of the manuscript tradition (Athan. Syn. . ) has a corruption, brilliantly and simply rectified by M. Tetz (Athanasiana ).
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as a member of the synod until he had broken communion with Marcellus, a procedure similar to that followed at Nicaea in the case of Eusebius of Caesarea. A theme, pointed against what Marcellus was being taken to say, insists on the endlessness of Christ’s kingdom (from Luke : ). Theophronios included one formula on the incarnation directly echoing the Nicene creed, and was cleverly ambiguous on the question of one hypostasis or three, with the formula that the Logos is ‘with the Father in hypostasis’ (language which Marcellus himself could have used and which occurs in the statement of by the deacon Eugenius). This personal statement of faith is the only explicit condemnation of Marcellus in the admittedly meagre records of the Dedication Council. The Greek letter to Rome and Pope Julius’ reply The Eusebians’ letter to Pope Julius, brought back by the Roman legates from Antioch, was emphatic about the honour in which they held the Roman church as a ‘school of apostles and metropolis of orthodox piety’, but expressed deep pain at the insult to the eastern churches in the rejection of their synods. They expressed regret that the bishop of Rome preferred communion with two deposed and censured bishops to that of themselves and the Greek east generally. Decisions of synods were not advisory but final. It seemed forgotten in the west that the gospel had come to Rome from the Greek east. The Greeks had never questioned the western censure of Novatian (whose connection had several groups in Asia Minor). Moreover, it distressed the Greeks to note that Julius’ letter had not been sent in the name and with the authority of an episcopal synod, but only under his own title. To this Julius replied that he had written after consulting a synod. To him the flattering language used by the Eusebians about Roman orthodoxy seemed ironical. The drafting hand of Eusebius of Constantinople is no doubt detectable in this. He would have been conscious of being bishop of New Rome, where power now lay. Accordingly, as soon as his legates returned to Rome Julius held a synod of about fifty Italian bishops to agree on policy. Athanasius (Apol. c. Ar. –) cites Julius’ reply to the Eusebians’ letter, from which the main points of their letter can be deduced. He addressed D(i)anius of Cappadocian Caesarea, Flacillus of Antioch, Narcissus of Neronias (Cilicia), Eusebius of Constantinople, Maris of Chalcedon, Macedonius of Mopsuestia (Cilicia), Theodorus of Heraclea, ‘and their friends’. He was offended by the lack of charity and the arrogance of the Greek letter. The Pope claimed that the bishops at Nicaea had enacted that the decisions of one council could be reviewed by another. Apparently canon is here in mind, where a member of the clergy or laity excommunicated by the diocesan bishop may appeal to a council, but the possibility of appeal
Athanasius, Marcellus
against an entire council is not considered. Moreover, when the Eusebians had earlier written to Julius, their legates had been argued into a corner and had had to concede that the quarrel could be revised by another council. They did not envisage judgement being given to a single primate, and that was an issue in the exchanges. If Julius had begun to regard his own office as analogous to that of (at least) a provincial governor or praetorian prefect, he could reasonably have supposed that other bishops were his assessors and counsellors and that he made the ultimate decision. The Eusebians had complained that the reception of Athanasius and Marcellus to communion was a breach of canon law. Julius’ rejoinder was that the consecration at Antioch of Gregory, a Cappadocian, for the see of Alexandria without the least consultation with local clergy and people was uncanonical; his arrival at Alexandria with a military escort to coerce the people into accepting him was deplorable and gave the lie to the Eusebian claim that at Alexandria all was now peaceful and the churches unanimous. It was appalling that bishops had suffered exile, with bishops present and not dissenting at the verdict. Julius had forgotten that precisely this had occurred at the council of Nicaea to two Libyan friends of Arius. Marcellus had satisfied the Roman synod of his catholic faith and was testified to be opposed to Arianism by the Roman legates present at Nicaea. Epiphanius of Salamis about was puzzled by the ambiguity over Marcellus’ orthodoxy, and cites his confession of faith submitted to Julius. It is emphatic that in God there is but one hypostasis (Panar. . . ). Epiphanius adds that he once asked Athanasius for his opinion of Marcellus’ doctrine. ‘He neither defended nor criticized him, but only smiled, indicating that he was not far from wicked error but could be defended’ (. . ). Primate versus council Pope Julius concluded by claiming that by custom decisions concerning the Alexandrian church were taken at Rome. Probably he had in mind the correction of Dionysius of Alexandria by his namesake of Rome in the midthird century. Julius felt himself to be standing by the tradition inherited from St Peter, resisting innovations. The church of St Mark had a special filial relationship to the see of St Peter. He had a right to hear any appeal from this church in particular. Alexandria was a special case. Julius was here reacting to a Eusebian insinuation that Julius was asserting authority on the ground of the secular importance of his city in defiance of their principle that all bishops are canonically equal (Athan. Apol. c. Ar. ). Since the Eusebians were refusing to come to a large council at Rome, there was no alternative to the exercise and assertion of primatial dignity. At the same time the disagreement
The Gathering Storm
between Rome and the leading Greek bishops of the time marked the first confrontation between a conciliar ecclesiology in the east and a primatial ecclesiology beginning to become dominant in the west. At the council of Serdica the emperors’ concern to prevent a collision between two indeflectible bodies was wrecked on this rock.
A FIASCO AT SERDICA
Tension between east and west Some months after the Dedication Council of Antioch the Eusebians sent a delegation of four bishops to Constans at Trier bringing a statement of faith carefully disowning any touch of Arianism and at the same time insisting, against Marcellus, that Christ’s kingdom will have no end (Luke . ). The concluding anathema condemns ‘any who say that the Son is out of nothing or of a different hypostasis and not of God, and that there was once a time or an aeon when he was not’. One could not find more careful words to distance the Eusebians from the doctrines associated with Arius, and to rebut the accusations of Julius of Rome. The pro-Athanasian bishop of Trier, Maximin, refused to receive them. The legates were Narcissus of Neronias, Maris of Chalcedon, Theodorus of Heraclea, and Mark of Arethusa (Syria). Unsurprisingly they did not include Rome in their itinerary. The first three names were known for their opposition to Athanasius on the ground of his violence in Egypt. Their creed was labelled by Athanasius the fourth creed of Antioch, which is evidently the title he had received for it. Since the eastern bishops were very conscious of authority lying in synodical decisions, it is probable that this document was considered at the Dedication Council as a text more likely to be amenable to the West while still safeguarding themes dear to the Eusebians. It said nothing about three hypostases, slew Marcellus with an unchallengeable biblical text, and had anathemas reinforcing the disowning of Arian propositions. The document was to become programmatic and much repeated. Eusebius of Constantinople, master-mind and leader of the group, took no part. Probably late in he died. The portrait of him in Athanasius is deeply unsympathetic; he was certainly a formidable opponent of the bishop of Alexandria. His successive translations from the see of Berytos (Beirut) to Nicomedia and thence to Constantinople seemed ambitious hunger for influence. At Constantinople Bishop Paul, expelled by Constantius, returned from exile in the west, but found himself competing for the see with a friend of Eusebius named Macedonius. After a riot in which the army chief Hermogenes, magister militum, lost his life, Macedonius was preferred by the
A Fiasco at Serdica
prefect and Paul was exiled to Mesopotamia, then to Syria, finally to Cappadocia, where the prefect had him strangled. At many of the towns to which exiled bishops returned under Constantine II’s amnesty there were riots; at Ankyra the advent of Marcellus was the occasion of street-fighting. He could not remain there. Confrontation at Serdica The abrasive exchanges of – threatened to divide the Greek East from the Latin West, but the yawning ravine between the principal parties was politically congenial to the western emperor Constans who wanted a good excuse to bring military pressure on his elder brother Constantius II. On the other hand Constans also wanted a Church united in accordance with his policy and dominated by the West. Since no one could question the propriety of seeking church unity, it was not immediately obvious that for Constans and Rome this meant western supremacy over the East. Constans and Constantius concurred that a full synod had to be held with representatives of both east and west as Pope Julius had originally proposed at Rome. The place chosen was Serdica (in Greek Sardike, in Bulgarian Sredéc, modern Sofia) in Illyricum, chief town of Dacia Mediterranea, but close to the Greekspeaking provinces and largely bilingual.1 It was intended to be an ecumenical council, a title which about is found used of the council of Nicaea (above p. ), and the assembly is so described in the next century by the historian Socrates (. . ). 1 The council is dated in by the historian Socrates, which is certainly wrong. The Index to the Festal Letters of Athanasius has –. A Latin collection of documents made in north Africa in the sixth century by a deacon Theodosius and preserved in a contemporary Verona manuscript (LX, fo. b) has a corrupt entry that the synod was assembled (congregata) at Sardica ‘consolatu Constantini et Constantini’ which invites easy emendation to ‘Constantii III et Constantis II’, consuls for the year . The choice is therefore between a date in the autumn of or in . The argument favouring hangs partly on the degree of urgency which the two emperors will certainly have attached to the critical situation following the exchanges of January . They cannot have allowed the grass to grow under their feet with open schism imminent. On the other hand, Socrates (. . ) may preserve an authentic note in the observation that eighteen months elapsed between the issue of the imperial summons to the synod and its actual meeting. This is compatible with the summons going out in spring and the synod meeting in September/October . Although autumn is the date better attested in the ancient sources, the case for is strong and either year is possible. has been preferred by a majority of French scholars, especially Annick Martin (SC edition of the Historia acephala) and Charles Pietri (Roma Christiana (Rome, ), ), supported by L. W. Barnard (The Council of Serdica, Sofia, Synodal Publishing House, —a monograph of particular utility) and T. D. Barnes, Athanasius and Constantius (Cambridge, Mass., ), ; by most German historians since E. Schwartz Göttinger Nachrichten , = Gesammelte Schriften, iii (Berlin, ), –; J. Ulrich, Die Anfänge der abendländischen Rezeption des Nizänums (Berlin, ), –. So also the major study of Marcellus by K. Seibt (Berlin, ). F. Loofs was for : Patristica (Berlin, ), . Something hangs on whether the question concerns when the Council began or when it ended.
A Fiasco at Serdica
To facilitate attendance the emperors authorized the bishops to use the government postal service or cursus publicus, an authorization commonly given for important persons. This put the service under considerable strain laying the bishops open to secular criticism with which the eastern bishops warmly concurred; they came with the utmost reluctance especially as they sweated up the long hill from Philippopolis (Plovdiv) to Serdica (which cost the lives of some elderly and sick bishops). Serdica was days’ travel from Constantinople for an unladen traveller (Priscus frg. . p. Blockley). On arrival they found the western bishops there before them with Athanasius, Marcellus, and other deposed Greeks already received to communion, a decision anticipated at Rome by Julius and a synod of more than bishops (Athan. Apol. c. Ar. ). The eastern bishops naturally regarded that as a deliberate and scandalous fait accompli, prejudging a central question which the council had been called to determine. Writing to Alexandria, the western bishops at Serdica claim that the decision to admit Athanasius to communion was taken only after the eastern bishops had withdrawn from the council: Ath. Apol. c. Ar. –. They and Athanasius himself were sensitive to the accusation, which was almost certainly fair. The emperors’ summons had set out the agenda, recorded in the western bishops’ letter to Bishop Julius of Rome. First, the council was to decide the question of belief and ‘the integrity of the truth’ which had been violated; second, the cases of persons who had been unjustly ejected; third, the council was to consider the outrages and intolerable insults to the churches. Constans had evidently had a controlling hand in the wording.2 Julius sent two presbyters and a deacon. The western president was Ossius of Corduba; the bishops led by him numbered ninety, of whom perhaps over a half were Greek-speaking. The eastern bishops, led by Stephen of Antioch, numbered about seventy-five, and included two Latin-speaking Pannonian bishops, Valens of Mursa and Ursacius of Singidunum. Ischyras of the Mareotis was with them, and a brave Egyptian bishop Callinicos of Pelusium, likely to have a rough ride if and when Athanasius was reinstated. Athanasius mentions his pro-Melitian sympathies.3 The emperors’ plan for a council of reconciliation was destroyed from the start by the western fait accompli and the eastern refusal to hold communion with Athanasius and Marcellus. The western bishops approved of the confession of faith which Marcellus had submitted to Julius; what sufficed for a Pope was enough (Athan. Hist. Ar. ). The two contingents never formally met, since the eastern bishops retired in some anger to another building in 2 Hilary of Poitiers, CSEL . , –; Eng. tr. by L. R. Wickham, Conflicts of Conscience and Law in the Fourth-Century Church (Liverpool, ), . 3 Fest. Ep. for ; his successor Pancratios was present at Sirmium in for drafting the Dated Creed of which Athanasius disapproved, CSEL , , .
A Fiasco at Serdica
Serdica and then down the hill to Philippolis (but dating their encyclical from Serdica), to reaffirm their creed, the so-called fourth creed of Antioch, originally designed to please the west. They significantly reinforced the anathema, condemning not only Arian notions of a time when the Son did not exist but also belief in three Gods, or that Father, Son and Spirit are one and the same, or that the Son is not begotten, or that the Father’s generation of the Son was not an act of will. The force of these anti-western propositions becomes more apparent when the western statement of faith is considered. They drafted an incendiary encyclical letter stating their case in powerful terms, preserved by Hilary (CSEL . –). Their creed is in the Verona codex LX, fo. a (ed. EOMIA i. –)4, as well as Hilary, De synodis . The eastern refusal to meet with the western synod was taken by the latter to betray the weakness of their case, perhaps a bad conscience about their unjust synods. The eastern synod’s complaints To the eastern synod it seemed monstrous that Protogenes bishop of Serdica5 was sharing communion with Marcellus whose condemnation he had signed at Constantinople in ; that the same Protogenes who had denounced Bishop Aetius of Thessalonica for living with concubines was now content that Aetius joined in the western assembly; that good evidence of Athanasius’ resorting to coercion by prison and fierce beatings was ignored; that Paul exiled from Constantinople was supported by the western bishops and Athanasius though he had signed against Athanasius at the council of Tyre; that these Westerners, led by Julius, were claiming domination over the Church like a usurping tyrant; that the proceedings abandoned ‘the old custom of the Church’. The eastern bishops made a gesture of concession: of the six bishops sent by the council of Tyre to the Mareotis to investigate the charges of violence, five were still living and present (Theognis of Nicaea had died and at Serdica his deacons gave evidence against him to the western assembly (Ath. Apol. c. Ar. ). They offered to send a joint commission with representatives from both councils to check the facts. The offer was declined by the western bishops, who regarded the findings of the original commission as flawed by their having taken evidence from pagans and catechumens (Athan. Apol. c. Ar. ). The impression given was that they feared the outcome of such an investigation. Moreover, the west was committed by Julius 4 On the Verona codex LX see W. Telfer, Harvard Theological Review, (), –. It is a major source for the story. 5 Subject of a prosopographical note by Stanislava Stoytcheva in Byzantinoslavica, (), –.
A Fiasco at Serdica
to the vindication of Athanasius, and without massive loss of face could not accept a proposal implying that his reinstatement was still an open question. Rome had dictated a verdict in advance. Naturally the eastern synod felt unable to consider any compromise for Marcellus. Before his death (about –) Eusebius of Caesarea had convincingly shown up the dangers of his doctrines, and Eusebius’s successor Acacius, present at Serdica, had further written an attack, cited by Epiphanius (Panar. . –), using the language of Asterios and the Dedication Council of Antioch about the Son as ‘indistinguishable image of the Father’s will and being and glory’, differing only in that he is begotten. The western synod further upset the opposition by producing threatening letters from Constans with the acquiescence of his brother. Constans had threatened his brother with war if he did not make his bishops yield. There was already war on the Mesopotamian front, so that menacing words were not only alarming but in eastern eyes politically irresponsible. The eastern bishops addressed their furious letter to Gregory of Alexandria, Donatus of Carthage, and to some bishops close to Rome such as Campania, Naples, Rimini, and Salona in Dalmatia. (Were these Italian bishops known to be disputing anything with Julius?). They wanted to build up support for their stand. It is surprising if they aspired to change Julius’ mind that they looked towards the schismatic Donatus. Later Augustine could argue against Donatists that they had been in alliance with ‘Arians’. The western synod For the western synod several texts survive through a variety of transmitters. Hilary of Poitiers (CSEL . –) preserves the western synod’s encyclical without signatories; also in Athanasius, Apol. c. Ar. – with seventyeight signatories and in Theodoret, HE . without signatories but with a crucial doctrinal statement attached of which, with the encyclical, a defective Latin version, probably translated from Greek, is in the Theodosian collection of Verona cod. LX (EOMIA i. –). Hilary alone gives the synod’s letter to Pope Julius (CSEL . –; tr. Wickham –); but the Verona codex (fo. b) preserves a text of another important letter to Pope Julius (addressed as ‘bonitas tua, frater dilectissime’), from Ossius and Protogenes of Serdica; though defective and lacunose, the general sense is not obscure, and clearly refers to the statement of faith preserved in Theodoret and the Verona manuscript, vindicating its authenticity.6 6 Ballerini text in PL . ; Turner, EOMIA i. , edits with an unnecessary transposition. Both editions mark a lacuna. An improved edition is by M. Tetz, ZNW (), – with good discussion. Ulrich, Anfänge, , ff. draws attention to Phoebadius of Agen (Aquitaine), who in wrote against Arians, defending the Nicene creed and a single hypostasis and admiring
A Fiasco at Serdica
The authors are anxious to offer reassurance to Julius that there is no intention to replace the Nicene creed, the sanctity and unique authority of which was evidently affirmed by some bishops in the western synod, perhaps with a fervour which Ossius himself did not quite share. (It is important to recall that this synod did not have a majority of Latin speakers.) Sozomen . . – neatly summarizes the purport of the letter. But new questions have been raised about the Son: for example, if truly ‘begotten’, must he not be posterior to and dependent on the will of the Father, even if time is not involved? To be begotten implies a beginning. It is axiomatic that anything which has a beginning must at some point find an end. The thesis the western synod has to answer is therefore that the differentiation between ‘begotten’ and ‘made’ is merely verbal, and to rebut this requires some supplement to or clarification of the Nicene formula on which Rome is determined to stand.7 The western synod’s theology The western statement of faith attempts to analyse this problem. The argument needing to be met is that, since time comes into being with the creation of the world, both the generation of the Son and the creation are protemporal acts of God, but nevertheless whatever is derived is not on the level of its cause. Valens and Ursacius, the Pannonian bishops, are ‘two vipers born from an Arian asp’, who make claim to be Christians and yet maintain that the Logos and the Spirit suffered in the crucifixion. Since they are singled out as disciples of Arius, it is probable that they issued some doctrinal document justifying their objectionable association with the eastern bishops: they argued that it is axiomatic that the Father is impassible, Son and Spirit are separate hypostases, passible and so at a lower level. The western bishops disclaim belief that the Father is Son, or the Son Father; the Son is the power of the Father. He is both the Only-begotten as divine and the Firstborn of all creation as man (an echo of Marcellus). ‘We do not deny that the Father is greater than the Son ( John : ), yet not because the Son is a different hypostasis but because the name of Father is greater than that of Son.’ Direct attack rejects the affirmation of the Dedication Council of Antioch that the unity of the three hypostases (‘I and my Father are one’) lies in agreement of Ossius for his intransigence for Nicaea at Serdica, though not holding the Nicene formula to be the exclusive necessary criterion of orthodoxy. 7 The issues are well clarified by S. G. Hall, ‘The Creed of Sardica’, Studia Patristica, (), –. See also the important paper by M. Tetz in ZNW (), –, and the substantial consideration in Ulrich, Anfänge, –. It is perhaps food for thought that Basil of Caesarea, who was reluctantly pushed into affirming that a supplement on the Holy Spirit was a necessary addition to the Nicene creed, never appeals to the precedent of the Serdican text. But that can be explained by recalling that western Serdica was for one hypostasis while Basil was for three.
A Fiasco at Serdica
will. To the west that seems blasphemy. So also is the idea that the Holy Spirit in Christ suffered; the mortal man suffered, not God. He rose the third day ‘not God in the man but the man in God.’ This statement of faith defends Marcellus. In western eyes the eastern bishops too hastily condemn what he merely suggested as questions for consideration; and he never said that Christ’s kingdom will come to an end (a proposition of which readers of Marcellus must feel hesitant). More of a problem lay in Marcellus’ thesis that scriptural language about Christ’s birth refers not to a pre-existent generation before all ages but to the incarnation of Mary. In eastern eyes that was to deny that the Son is ‘begotten’ before all ages. One hypostasis or three? The western bishops insist, with an unambiguous fortissimo, that Father, Son, and Spirit are a single hypostasis, with the gloss: ‘which the heretics themselves call ousia’. If this is correctly transmitted, this cannot be the earliest attestation of the use of ousia to describe the unity of Godhead side by side with three hypostases for the Trinity. More probably the western bishops are deducing from the treatment of ousia and hypostasis as simple synonyms, as in the Nicene anathema, that the ‘Arians’ would be teaching three ousiai or essences. Marcellus had found this language in Narcissos of Neronias (Eus. c. Marc. . . ). But the clause might be a marginal gloss that has crept into the text at an early stage. In at the council of Alexandria representatives of Paulinos of Antioch, presiding over the ultra-Nicene congregation loyal to the memory of Bishop Eustathius of Antioch, defended their insistence on ‘one hypostasis’ of both Father and Son by appealing to the council of Serdica. Athanasius denied that the council had ruled to this effect. He may have left Serdica before the western statement of faith was finalized. His assertion is wholly insufficient ground for denying the authenticity of the statement of , though that opinion has enjoyed support from eminent scholars such as H. M. Gwatkin, Gustave Bardy, and H. J. Sieben. It is also an unlikely possibility that the statement of faith did not constitute a formal part of the synodical letter. By ‘one hypostasis’ was disastrously embarrassing to Athanasius’ ecumenism. At the council of Serdica in the western synod had to disavow the Sabellianism for which their language provided obvious cover, and which had been a central accusation against Marcellus in the work of Eusebius of Caesarea. The weakest point in their statement is the proposition that Father and Son are distinct insofar as their names differ. That again was Marcellus’ terminology. It is impossible to determine the relative contributions of Greek and Latin speakers to the composition of the Serdican manifesto. A principal concern had to be the justification of their vindication of Marcellus whose
A Fiasco at Serdica
influence on the text is obvious, and if one recalls the fact that this council was effectively the first occasion on which Latin-speaking bishops in any numbers had been confronted by the problems of Trinitarian theology, perhaps the imprudences should not be too censoriously treated. Their learning curve must have been steep. Excommunications The eastern bishops declared in their encyclical that they could no longer hold communion with Pope Julius, Ossius of Corduba, Protogenes of Serdica, Gaudentius of Naissus (Nisˇ) with whom Athanasius had stayed on his circuitous route back to Alexandria in , and Maximin of Trier, all of whom had accepted Athanasius and Marcellus to fellowship, thereby grossly insulting eastern councils. Ossius was held in the deepest admiration by the western bishops, and therefore had to be the target of a vehement attack, notably for being a close friend of a Bishop Paulinus; the text says he was a bishop of Dacia, but since his magic books were burnt by a bishop of Mopsuestia, Macedonius, an emendation of Dacia to nearby Adana is tempting though perhaps not necessary. Paulinus is described as now living in open apostasy with a bunch of concubines and harlots, an inappropriate intimate friend for the western president of the synod. The western council addressed important letters to Julius of Rome and to the eastern emperor Constantius. Pope Julius is assured that his reasons for absenting himself are honourable; evidently some criticism of his nonattendance had been voiced. Greeks could have thought it arrogant. The bishops think it fitting and right that every province can report to the head (caput), ‘that is to the see of the apostle Peter’ (CSEL . . ), a sentence which anticipates terms next met in Pope Innocent I (–) and foreshadows their canonical proposal for Rome to have a role in appeals against unsatisfactory synodical decisions (below). Special attention is paid to the ‘irreligious immature Valens and Ursacius’. Valens of Mursa in particular had caused disorder by attempting to oust Bishop Viator of Aquileia, who was trampled to death by a mob. Aquileia was a far more important city than Mursa, and the mosaic floor of the main church (still extant) was an exquisite masterpiece. The see was desirable and central. The western council declared excommunicate not only Valens and Ursacius but also Theodore of Heraclea, Narcissus of Neronias, Acacius of Caesarea (Eusebius’ successor and admirer), Stephen of Antioch, Menophantos of Ephesus, and George of Laodicea who, it was alleged, was too scared to attend and had long ago been degraded by Alexander of Alexandria with Arius. The replacements of Athanasius and Marcellus, Gregory at Alexandria and Basil at Ankyra, were pronounced not to be valid bishops at all.
A Fiasco at Serdica
Constantius is begged to stop the afflicting of catholic orthodox churches, and to enact that provincial governors should not have any part in cases against clergy. All in his realm will enjoy ‘sweet liberty’ when governors cease to favour heretics and exiled bishops are reinstated. The letter concludes by listing the Arian heretics excommunicated by the western council. The plea for exempting clergy from courts under the aegis of provincial governors is an early step on the path to the establishment of special ecclesiastical courts to hear such cases. Western canons The western synod agreed on a series of canons determined by the historical context of the controversy. These are transmitted in Greek and Latin, and probably the diffusion at Serdica was bilingual. Although the Greek text of the canons can be proved to be translated from a Latin original, nevertheless the Greek text preserves more of the directness of the discussion than the Latin, which has undergone some subsequent revision. The bishops are against translating bishops from see to see, for ‘none is known to move from a major city to a minor place, and it is obviously mere avarice and ambition’. Censure is passed on those who accept excommunicate clergy, but those persecuted for their true faith are an exception. Ossius was much against the elevation of baptized laymen to be bishops without manifesting their proved worth by their service as presbyters and deacons. A canon deplores the habit of north African bishops badgering the court with petitions for secular causes. In view of the eastern breach with Julius and the refusal of the Eusebians to acknowledge his authority as successor of St Peter, an important canon brings the Roman see into the appeals process. Ossius proposed that in the case of one bishop having a grievance against another, his appeal should first go to the bishops of his province. If he then appeals against them, the see of Peter is to determine if the provincial verdict is to be upheld. If not, the Roman bishop is to appoint judges to sit with the bishops in a neighbouring province. (Perhaps if that verdict remains unsatisfactory, the aggrieved bishop can go to Rome and the bishop of Rome can nominate presbyters as legates to join the judges; but that is uncertain.) The canons reflect different stages of discussion at the synod with Ossius and Gaudentius of Naissus making varied suggestions. The canons about the appeal procedure are remarkable both for their introduction of the Roman see in exceptional circumstances and for their maintenance of the provincial council as the normal court to which appellants are to go. Moreover, it is assumed that the bishop of Rome first becomes involved when the appellant goes to him; apparently he is not expected to take the initiative. That is analogous to the procedure in civil
A Fiasco at Serdica
cases with a provincial governor. However, Julius had invited Athanasius to come to him (Athan. Apol. c. Ar. , insists on the point, suggesting that some controversy attached to it). Some of the language in the appeal canons shows that the bishops were influenced, as one would expect, by secular legal procedure, illustrated in CTh . . Two canons (– Greek; – Latin, Turner –) record a schism at Thessalonica. Gaudentius asks Bishop Aetius to recognize the validity of orders bestowed by Musaeus and Eutychianus, but this is inconsistently qualified by Ossius urging that neither of these two can be recognized as bishops and that they may be admitted only to lay communion. The church’s problems in the city are not explicitly connected with Protogenes’ accusations against Aetius’ too colourful private life, of which the Oriental synod’s letter made some capital. But it would be easy to suppose that Musaeus and Eutychianus were rivals who had owed their followings to local indignation with Aetius and his too devoted women adherents. It may be instructive that when Aetius speaks in the synod, he makes no reference to the schism, but only to the difficulty that too many presbyters and deacons from other churches migrate to Thessalonica and wish to stay there (canon Latin, Greek, Turner ). Evidently the popularity of the city gave the bishop financial problems. In the Roman chancery the canons of Serdica were transcribed in a codex following the canons of Nicaea. Later they were cited by popes as having Nicene authority, which led to embarrassment, especially when popes of the fifth century were insistent that the only canons Rome recognized were those of Nicaea. Innocent I (ep. . ) could declare that he absolutely rejected the canons of Serdica. In the ninth century Pope Nicolas I and his legates to Constantinople claimed the Serdican canon on Rome’s appellate jurisdiction to be unlimited and to justify a papal initiative in deciding who was legitimate patriarch of New Rome. The Greek version of the Serdican canons first entered eastern canon law in the mid-sixth century with the canonist John Scholasticus. Thereafter they were treated with respect, and enjoyed credit in the canons of the council in Trullo of . However, they were still regarded as the work of a western council without binding authority for the Greek churches, which were free to cite them when helpful.8 Both the rival councils produced Paschal cycles for the dates of Easter. The eastern table for the years – is preserved by the Verona codex LX, edited by Turner, EOMIA i. –. The dates suggest that it had been prepared soon after to implement the negative decision at Nicaea in . 8 See Hamilton Hess, The Canons of the Council of Sardica (Oxford, ); a revised edition is forthcoming. Corrections to the edition are noted by K. Schaeferdiek in Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte, (), –. The western canons in Greek and Latin in Turner, EOMIA i. –; episcopal signatories –. The canons say nothing about Easter.
A Fiasco at Serdica
The cycle also has the dates of the Jewish passover for years to . This Jewish material relates to Antioch. It was first edited by E. Schwartz in .9 The dates given are those for full moons in March or April, not Easter Day which would have fallen on the following Sunday. The western table covered fifty years (so the Athanasian Festal Index) and was motivated by desire to bind Rome and Alexandria to a common date for Easter; this had not always occurred, but now the two churches had need to agree. In practice they differed about the spring equinox before which Easter was ruled out; at Alexandria this was dated on March, at Rome (ideally) on March. Moreover, at Rome desire was strong to avoid Easter on or later than April which already had a longstanding civic celebration of the city’s foundation, the Parilia, unsuitable competitor for people’s attention at a time holy for Christians10 At the time of the council of Serdica Alexandria still had Gregory, a bishop with no desire to compromise with Julius of Rome. In and Athanasius compromised with Rome; he needed unity there. The council of Serdica was spectacularly unsuccessful in its intended purpose of reconciling the alienated east and west; the western statement of faith was not without problematic influence during the next two decades. Disagreements on the doctrine of the Trinity and on Roman jurisdiction had become dangerously exacerbated. Athanasius had needed a large council of ecumenical standing which could agree on the cancellation of the negative decision at Tyre seven years earlier. The profound split between east and west together with the continued survival of the sick bishop of Alexandria, Gregory, deprived Athanasius of any chance of untroubled return to his see at least for the time being. For the emperor Constans the outcome was not bad since it reinforced his determination to put even stronger pressure on his colleague and brother Constantius, whose submissiveness to western power in both church and state during the next few years became striking. For the Illyrians Valens and Ursacius the polarization at Serdica had disastrous consequences. At Milan they submitted a disavowal of ‘Arian’ notions of a time when there was no Son or that he was created out of nothing. Soon () they had to sign for Julius an abject apology to the effect that their accusations against Athanasius were false, that they willingly accepted communion with Athanasius in return for Julius’ pardon, and that if any eastern bishops, or Athanasius himself, brought a legal action against them, they would not appear in court without Julius’ consent. Constantine and his successors enacted severe penalties for defamation (CTh . ; CSEL . ; tr. Wickham ). 9 Jüdische und christliche Ostertafeln (Abhandl. Akad. Göttingen). See Sacha Stern, Calendar and Community (Oxford, ). 10 CIL I (ed. ) p. ‘Roma cond(ita) coronatis omnibus.’ In Prosper’s chronicle records that under pope Leo I Rome celebrated its birthday (natalis), i.e. on April, without the customary circuses (Mommsen, Chronica Minora, i. ), Easter being on the rd.
A Fiasco at Serdica
Scandal at Antioch After the shock of Serdica there was an ominous quiet while the two sides wondered how peace could be achieved. In Constans sent legates to Constantius at Antioch: Vincent of Capua, Euphratas of Cologne, and, significantly, a very senior army officer, a Christian named Salia (PLRE i ). No doubt Salia was there to make a point about Constans’ military readiness. A stupid scandal shamed the church of Antioch. Bishop Stephen had a presbyter who set out to discredit the western bishops by a method then common in local politics, namely he introduced a prostitute into the lodging of Bishop Euphratas. Stephen was held responsible for the outrage and was replaced as bishop by Leontius. The scandal weakened the eastern stand of offended moral rectitude upheld at Serdica (Athanasius, Hist. Ar. –; Theodoret, HE . –; Sozo. . ). The eastern bishops returning from Serdica had adopted a stern line towards any in Constantius’ realm who expressed opposition to their stand. Athanasius (Hist. Ar. ) tells of ten lay workers in an imperial armaments factory at Adrianople who refused to hold communion with them and suffered for their opposition by being beheaded. Other bishops in Thrace also suffered exile and execution on false charges. Two priests and three deacons were exiled from Alexandria to Armenia, and measures were taken to prevent Athanasius reentering his city. Such actions were no way to allay the hostility of Constans towards his brother in the East. Synod of Milan In at a synod in Milan legates from the east (Eudoxius of Germanicia (Cilicia), Martyrius, Demophilus of Beroea, Macedonius of Mopsuestia) came with a long exposition of the so-called fourth creed of Antioch and its important anathema intended to reassure the west of eastern orthodoxy while safeguarding their stance against Marcellus and Arius. The lengthy statement denies the attribution to the Greeks of opinions attributed to Arius, who is not named: that the Son is created out of nothing, or is of a different hypostasis from the Father. Nor was there a time before the Son came to be, for he is begotten timelessly, yet not without a beginning from the Father. The Father’s higher position is clear from Cor. : ‘The head of Christ is God’. Eastern theology does not believe in three Gods when it affirms three entities (pragmata) or three prosopa. Marcellus had vehemently rejected this pluralist terminology (Eus. Eccl. theol. . . ; c. Marc. . . ). It is important to affirm that as God Christ pre-existed his earthly birth or we end with Paul of Samosata. Christ is ‘perfect and true God by nature’, not a man promoted to be divine. A frontal attack, therefore, inveighs against
A Fiasco at Serdica
Marcellus of Ankyra and his former deacon Photinus (who had lately become bishop of Sirmium, metropolis of Pannonia, an election probably consequential on the Roman defence of Marcellus and approved by Constans); they deny Christ’s pre-existence, his deity, and his endless kingdom. A polemic against terms found in Marcellus (Eus. Eccl. theol. . . ) attacks the view that the Logos of God is merely the immanent reason or expressed speech of the Father; he is the living divine Logos who exists in himself, i.e. is distinct. To him the Father addressed the words ‘Let us make man in our image and likeness’. They believe him to be in every respect like the Father (kata panta homoion, a phrase found in Athanasius). Accordingly, they hold no communion with (a) those called Patripassians by the west and Sabellians by the east who say that the Trinity are the same and a single entity (pragma) and prosopon, since they make the impassible Father to become passible by the incarnation; (b) those who deny the Son to be begotten by the Father’s will, attributing to God involuntary necessity, which is contrary to both natural theology and scripture. The east does not understand ‘begotten’ to mean the same as ‘created’. When they say that the Son exists in himself, as the Father does, they are not separating him from the Father, putting physical distance between their conjunction (synapheia, a term used of the Trinity by Eusebius of Caesarea); nor do they believe in two Gods but in one with an exact agreement (probably directed against the western Serdican attack on this theme). At the same time the Son is subordinate to the Father. The statement ends by a disavowal of superfluity or ambition; they have written to clear the minds of those who have suspicions of their language, and to assure all in the west of their scriptural faith. (Ath. Syn. ; Socrates . ; summary in Soz. . .) The statement is remarkable for its deliberate, careful avoidance of ‘three hypostases’. The authors will have become aware that in Latin this would appear as ‘tres substantiae’ and seem radically tritheistic. Probability lies with the opinion that this omission was motivated by their express wish to make peace with the west. A letter from Julius’ successor Pope Liberius addressed to Constantius about – includes the information that at Milan the bishops from the east were directly asked if they would condemn the heretical opinion of Arius, and refused, walking out in anger (Letter Obsecro, CSEL . ; tr. Wickham ). Perhaps there was suspicion that while they had denounced Marcellus, they had said no word aganst Arius. Or had some theologian at Milan objected to their statement’s clever defence of the anathema against the opinion that there was a time when the Son was not, justified on the ground that time first came into being with the creation of the world, yet maintaining that the begottenness of the Son presupposes his beginning to be? And their explanation of the unity of Father and Son as ‘agreement’, as in the second creed of
A Fiasco at Serdica
the Dedication Council of Antioch and expressly rejected by western Serdica, is likely to have been given hostile scrutiny. Moreover, the Nicene creed had been given no enthusiastic acclaim, and for Rome and the west this creed had become the crucial litmus paper for the presence of orthodoxy or heresy. To be critical of its openness to Sabellian interpretation, of which Marcellus was a living demonstration, was to be labelled as ‘Arian’.
RELIGIOUS DIVISION: A NOTE ON INTOLERANCE
The language of mutual condemnation used by the two rival synods at Serdica was strong. There was no inclination on either side to make concessions or to plead for mutual toleration on some such ground as the transcendent mysteriousness of the matters on which east and west were expressing disagreement. Moreover, the western bishops were in a substantial degree the instruments of Constans’ ambitions to be rid of his brother Constantius II and to rule the entire empire in the manner of his father, not merely twothirds of it. Underlying the dispute was an emperor’s aspiration to control the east as he was already master of the west. At the same time there was a looming tension between the Roman claim that the bishop of Rome had a unique authority to decide dogmatic and indeed any church questions without needing to be respectful towards synods of the eastern churches and, on the other hand, the Greek assumption that the Roman see was certainly to be respected but should never overrule the customary procedures and synodical authority of Greek assemblies. Naturally it was non-controversial that in questions of fundamental doctrine the eastern and western churches were and at all times needed to be in complete agreement. There might, of course, be room for discussion on the question of defining ‘fundamental’. That issue once surfaces in Origen, but did not become prominent until the Pelagian controversy of the fifth century and then only briefly. The internal dissensions of the Christians offered strong contrast with the peaceful rapprochement of Church and Empire that the Constantinian dynasty (other than Julian) wanted to encourage. That programme of reconciliation derived impetus and drive from the Christian aspiration to be the one faith of every nation and tribe under heaven. A missionary determination to make proselytes underlay the Church’s gospel. Constantine the Great had thought this a profoundly congenial imperial theme, since he could use monotheism to justify his own supreme rule (as in Eusebius’ panegyric On the Life of Constantine). He liked to be told that he was the representative on earth of the unique supreme Deity. When people commonly called the empire by the name oikoumene, the inhabited world, it could seem natural to
A Note on Intolerance
the emperor, though no longer a god, to believe himself the plenipotentiary of the supreme being. Constantine’s relationship with the Persian emperor illustrates the attitude. The penalties for dissent, which have appeared painfully intolerant to post-Enlightenment historians, were imposed as a consequence of this imperial ideology. Bishops had no power to exile anybody; that was a decision which lay with the emperor and, under him, with praetorian prefects. The political rapprochement was probably facilitated by the intellectual harmonization of Christianity and Platonism that had enjoyed its most powerful statements from Justin, Clement of Alexandria, and Origen, and which was soon to be freshly articulated by Augustine. Platonism, especially in its new Plotinian dress, became the dominant philosophy not only in the Greek world but also in the Latin west. Of course there were reservations insofar as Platonic philosophers used monotheistic terms but did not suppose that this excluded them from offering a cock to Asclepios in gratitude for a cure (as in the probably ironic statement of Socrates at the end of the Phaedo) or from taking part in a popular pagan festival because that identified them with the rest of society. Numerous philosophers were sceptical about the value of temple sacrifices and cultic rituals, but did not want to initiate a social revolution by proposing alternatives. Porphyry had a theology with close affinities to the Christian faith that he deplored and to which earlier in life he may have felt strong attraction. In his eyes the animal sacrifices that lay at the heart of most pagan cult could only be welcome to inferior powers. Despite the affinity between Porphyry’s religious position and Christianity, he warmly supported the great persecution of . The paganism of the old empire was in no sense tolerant. It was not experienced as such. In the bazaar of cults and creeds in ancient society the Christians stood apart by virtue of their gospel being addressed to anyone and everyone irrespective of their class or ethnic origin or education. They took monotheism, as a Jew like Philo of Alexandria did, as necessarily involving a negative judgement on the veneration of other deities, though Philo explicitly qualified his stand by warning his Jewish readers against insulting heathen gods. We meet comparable cautions in Augustine, who would admonish his people that they could never cure their neighbours of pagan attachments merely by smashing their idols (sermo . ); first they must change a mental attitude. To destroy pagan shrines was simply to leave a legacy of sullen hatred and occasional outbreaks of ferocious anti-Christian rioting, the penalty and costs for which fell on the members of the town council who had failed to maintain order. It was to be another matter when near the end of the fourth century the emperor Theodosius I gave authority for the dismantling of pagan temples and the withdrawal of temple endowments, which were to be
Religious Division
applied to the building of Christian basilicas. Augustine was well aware that Jews and pagans resented the emperor’s edicts, but justified them as being like the severity with benevolent intention shown by a schoolmaster with erring pupils (sermo . ). In his time paganism had a greater stronghold in hearts than in temples (En. in Ps. . ), though the gods venerated in temples were mocked at the theatres (c. Faustum . ). By the end of the fourth century dismantled pagan temples were being refitted as Christian basilicas. Until Theodosius’ legislation against pagan sacrifice, pagan cultic acts continued. In any event it was impracticable to suppress private veneration of household deities or to stop people burning incense before a statue or picture of their patron god or to wean peasants from old agrarian rites. At Carthage the great temple of the goddess Caelestis (a lady with an appetite for human sacrifice) continued to be operational for a time even after Theodosius’ ban, but from was used, with minimal alterations to the building, as a church, an adaptation which caused such profound offence and wrath to pagans attached to the old polytheistic cult that after about thirteen years Christians ceased to use the building. Public pagan worship became a target, especially late in the fourth century, for violent attacks on temples and statues by mobs of excited Christians. In Libanius pleaded for the survival of temples after a riot at Beroea in Syria (Aleppo) in which a cult statue was smashed. In brief, the interpretation of monotheism that was becoming general under the emperors of the Constantinian dynasty involved a belief that the cultic rites of the old temples were actually a dangerous offence to the one true God, whose Decalogue in Exodus had laid down that there must be no compromise with the gods of the heathen. Therefore there was a moral indignation motivating a degree of intolerance at least towards the central pagan act of offering sacrifices. Among the pagans the consequence was a dangerous hatred and anger. Their tradition had regarded Christianity as ‘superstitio’, and they could not be delighted to find that Christians were describing their acts of worship by this derogatory term. No doubt there were physically strong Christians who regarded their spiritual duty as properly expressed in destructive assaults on statues of pagan deities, and whose intolerance was little underpinned by reasoned argument which would look like weakness. It would not have appeared proper obedience to conscience to treat pagan cults and symbols as matters of indifference or taste. The observant Jews of the synagogue experienced a gradual increase in the volume of imperial restrictions on their customs. At Nicaea in Constantine himself had already used immoderate language about the need for the date of Easter to be wholly emancipated from the Jews, who were held (not by all but by enough people) to be responsible for murdering the
A Note on Intolerance
universal Messiah. There is, however, no evidence that Constantine imposed legal disabilities on his Jewish subjects. The late fourth and early fifth centuries after the legislation of Theodosius I saw the foundation laid for the marginalization of observant Jewish life in the medieval period. The Jews and the Christians read the same scriptures. Jesus was a Jew as were the apostles and all the first Christian believers. But this did not make for peace and harmony. There were two rival bodies with different interpretative principles for the same body of sacred writings. An unpleasant heightening of tension resulted from the decision of the emperor Julian to annoy the Christians by agreeing to encourage (not it seems to fund from his treasury) the rebuilding of the Temple at Jerusalem. During his brief rule over the entire empire without a partner in authority the Jews were not discouraged from assaults on Christian basilicas, which the churches could not answer safely under this emperor. Human nature being what it is, after Julian’s death in Mesopotamia in the mood of toleration was strikingly absent, perhaps as part of the psychological reaction to humiliating defeat for the legions and a deeply discreditable peace surrendering much territory. (Themistius was to tell the next emperor Jovian that it had all been a great victory for the empire, which no one believed.) Yet both Justin and Tertullian had insisted that Jews and Christians were worshipping the same God; they differed in their interpretation of the scriptures. That was no minor matter. In his reply to the Platonist Celsus, Origen had granted that there could be much sharp disagreement between different Christian groups, but for Origen that was a symptom of the seriousness of the matters at stake in the argument. Moreover, there was no profound and serious subject on which human beings found it easy to be unanimous. Respected philosophers were notorious for their dissensions. For the church historians naturally there could be no regrets about the controversies of the age which provided the meat for their books. Socrates in the middle years of the fifth century put it frankly: ‘I should have no story to tell if the Church had remained free of division’ (. . ). He agreed with the opinion of a Paphlagonian bishop that too many bishops wanted their personal and private agenda for the Church’s teaching incorporated in the creeds approved by the synods which they attended (. . ). For obvious social and political reasons the emperors consistently wanted unity and harmony, and combined a conviction that adherence to orthodoxy was important to avert celestial anger with a policy of strong measures to impose the maximum of coherence and unity in the Church of both east and west. They were in search of a majority view and therefore would send into exile bishops who endangered a more general consensus. To say that Christ closely resembled the Father but personally was not wholly identical with the Father would seem to Constantius II and to Valens a doctrine more likely to
Religious Division
command the allegiance of a majority than the narrow terms of tough Nicene advocates like Athanasius, who in any event had still a blighted reputation for being a man of violence. Bad trouble in the churches produced civic disorders in which people were hurt and buildings torched. The philosopher Themistius delivered a (lost) speech before the emperor Valens in which he advised the emperor not to be astonished by Christian disagreements, and to remember that pagans have ‘more than three hundred distinct dogmas’, i.e. opinions (Socrates . . ). The sentence is perhaps an echo of some philosophical catalogue of opinions resembling a lengthy list which in the City of God Augustine was able to quote from Varro. Ancient doxographers were more interested in differences than in points of consensus. Themistius also delivered extant orations before the emperor Jovian and ten years later before his successor Valens, in which he commended toleration on the ground that the human mind had no capacity to penetrate the mystery of the divine realm. He told them that in religion coercion is useless, that they must respect freedom of conscience, and that there are ‘many paths to God’ (or. . a) who likes diversity. For just as differences in religion are pleasing to God, so also are different Christian sects.1 The argument was reminiscent of Symmachus’ appeal to Gratian to restore the Altar of Victory in the Senate House (below, p. ). Socrates observed that assemblies at which the different parties debated their disagreements did not normally lead to solutions of the cause of schism, and made the divisions yet more contentious than before (. . ). Worst of all, sects not only disagreed with other groups, but experienced disputes within their own party (. . ; . . ). Nevertheless, with his overt sympathies for the Novatianists Socrates found it heartwarming that, when a respected Novatianist bishop died, ‘all groups were represented at his funeral’ (. . ). Socrates was therefore particularly interested in the considerable differences of liturgical custom between the different churches of the Catholic and Orthodox great Church, differences which could happily continue without the least inclination to break off communion. Where he found consensus, he understood that to be a miraculous divine gift (. . and ). At the same time he thought the emperor Theodosius I right not to be tolerant of the extreme Arian Eunomius (. . ). The emperors needed persons of ‘quality’ to serve in major public offices. Such people had the right background and tradition of public service and therefore knew how to be good administrators of provinces, great cities like Rome and Constantinople, or the powerful offices of praetorian prefecture. And the fact that they owned considerable property made them more 1 L. J. Daly, ‘Themistius’ Plea for Religious Toleration’, Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, (), –.
A Note on Intolerance
vulnerable to disciplinary action if they turned out to have been unacceptably corrupt. It followed that the imperial court did not cease to make use of unconverted pagans as governors and prefects until well into the fifth and sixth centuries. By Justinian’s time it had become an incentive to accept baptism, or at least to become a catechumen probably only intermittently attending church services, that thereby one ceased to be disqualified for high office.
ATHANASIUS’ RETURN: A WIND OF CHANGE
Dropping the cause of Marcellus At Milan in the eastern legates achieved material progress for their cause in that the western bishops assented to reject the opinions of Photinus of Sirmium. That considerably qualified the western Serdican defence of Marcellus of Ankyra, his former bishop, with which it was obviously incompatible. The legates could hardly feel able to accept the Serdican manifesto in favour of one hypostasis, which, for them, was closely associated with Marcellus’ denial of Christ’s divine pre-existence. There is no evidence surviving that the legates were asked to accept Athanasius back into their communion. But this was the demand put to Valens and Ursacius, and it is significant that, since there was no specific doctrinal accusation against Athanasius, the two Illyrians could concede this without any dogmatic surrender on their part. They simply apologized for not telling the truth. That was bound to appear more difficult for legates from Antioch; Athanasius had come to embody the role of the great divider of the empire and of the emperors’ church, because of his refusal to share communion with those whom he called ‘Arians’. He was well aware that they did not profess the doctrines condemned in the Nicene anathema. And before he cannot be seen to be zealous for the Nicene term homoousios. Surprisingly he was well content to say ‘like in essence’ (e.g. ep. ad episc. Aeg. ). His opponents did not attack the council of Nicaea (ibid. ). Nor did they utter a word in defence of Arius (ibid. ). But Athanasius characterized them as having no respect for ‘the apostolic see of Rome, the metropolis of Romania’ (Hist. Ar. ), by which he had been acquitted. They were wrong to make charges against his conduct prior to the question of faith, echoing here the imperial agenda for the council of Serdica, a council which had bishops ‘from all parts of the world’; and its western half had declared Athanasius innocent (). Unfortunately it had also approved of Marcellus; and the installing of his disciple Photinus at the major see of Sirmium, seat of the prefecture of Illyricum, can only have been a source of sharp irritation at Antioch. That was taking the western synod of
A Wind of Change
Serdica seriously, and giving Constans his head. Photinus was well qualified and educated, fluent in Latin as well as in Greek. Probably like numerous other bishops in this age, he had been trained in rhetoric and law, and for all law schools Latin remained the primary language (much to the regret of the sophist Libanius, who lost pupils in consequence). Socrates (. . ) knew treatises by Photinus in both languages. Athanasius given leave to return Pressure from Constans, who cared generously for the churches (Athan. Apol. ad Constantium ), helped Athanasius to return to Alexandria in . The rival bishop Gregory died in . Constantius wrote several letters inviting Athanasius to return, promising safe conduct. At first Athanasius was reluctant, fearing a trap. But eventually he decided to accept, and had an interview with Constantius, who assured him that an imperial decision, in the eyes of Syrian bishops, made it superfluous to require a conciliar appeal. In another context Constantius is quoted by Athanasius as saying ‘Whatever I will, that is to be deemed a canon’ (Hist. Ar. ), which is illuminated by Ammianus’ observation (. . ) that an emperor’s privilege is that his will is law.1 Accordingly, his return to his see would be ecclesiastically legitimate, but with the qualification that if the emperor alone could reinstate him, he could also remove him without a synod. Constantius declared that it had been decided ‘by God and myself ’ (Apol. c. Ar. –). In practice that was a pious circumlocution for Constans. Among Athanasius’ opponents it would become a weapon that no eastern synod had reversed the verdict of Tyre (), and once Constantius had become sole emperor he found it prudent to use episcopal synods to condemn Athanasius and not to act solely on imperial authority. Hilary of Poitiers was to write a book ‘Against Valens and Ursacius’ in which he interpreted Jesus’ saying ‘Render to Caesar . . .’ (Luke : ) to mean that while great reverence was due to emperors, nevertheless bishops must judge of ecclesiastical matters and it was wrong in principle for the emperor to appoint bishops (CSEL . , also ff.). Usurpation of Magnentius The western emperor Constans encouraged high culture, inviting the Christian rhetor Prohaeresius to court (Eunapius, Vi. Soph. . . ). Libanius (ep. ) recalled his excellent education. Like Libanius, Constans 1 The same axiom occurs in Dio Chrysostom . ; Libanius, or. . , written in , maintains that an emperor has no power to do what is not morally right. Julian d holds that while emperors are above the law, it is wise for them to act as if subject to it.
Athanasius’ Return
failed to conceal his lack of admiration for various senior army commanders, many of whom were now coming to be Germanic soldiers, and they came to think that they would do better without him. Catamites lost him respect. On January at Autun, army chiefs supported a bid for power by Magnentius, who was acclaimed by the troops as Augustus. Constans fled south towards the Pyrenees, but was overtaken and killed. He was hardly more than years old. He had been a princely benefactor of the Church and a bulwark of papal honour. Magnus Magnentius was of Germanic birth, and had risen to the rank of count, in command of substantial forces. He received unreserved support from the praetorian prefect in Gaul. In Mesopotamia Constantius’ army had suffered a serious check from the Persians in at Singara, though it was claimed as a victory, and probably Magnentius nursed hopes of getting rid of the other brother as well. He needed to move rapidly into Italy and take control of Danube provinces before Constantius could prevent that. He reckoned without the sense of family solidarity in surviving members of Constantine’s dynasty (e.g. Julian a). Constans’ elder sister Constantina encouraged an army commander Vetranio in Pannonia to rebel and be proclaimed as Augustus. Constantius recognized Vetranio; he could then prevent Magnentius moving into his area. Meanwhile a second bid was made in Rome by Nepotianus, son of Constantius’ half-sister Eutropia, acclaimed there as Augustus in June . His rule lasted a month before he was killed with his mother and other aristocratic friends, whose confiscated estates helped Magnentius to acquire the sinews of war. Magnentius endeavoured to persuade Constantius to grant him recognition. He used bishops as ambassadors (Athan. Apol. ad Const. ). He also sent a message to Athanasius at Alexandria hoping to enlist his support. It is also very possible that, after the death of Constans, Athanasius perceived that he might need Magnentius’ protection against Constantius, and took the initiative of writing benevolently to the new sovereign of the west. This correspondence did not please Constantius, who regarded it as treasonable. Athanasius had to deny its genuineness. Perhaps the messages were discreetly oral. Whether written or oral, genuine or forged, what mattered in harsh reality was simply that Constantius believed the approach was authentic, and Athanasius’ protestations were disbelieved. Initially hesitating whether to accept Magnentius out of fear of defeat, Constantius finally decided that the spirit of his father required war. With a substantial force he moved into the Balkans. Vetranio saw that he should not side with Magnentius after his troops made clear their allegiance to Constantius, and by persuasion he was removed from all office. The mystique attaching to Constantine the Great’s progeny was an asset.
A Wind of Change
Synod at Sirmium () The undermining of Photinus was renewed at Milan in and then in by a synod at Sirmium, where Photinus’ heresy—in short the provocative opinions of Marcellus—was anathematized and he was declared deposed. The task of refuting Photinus’ heresy was entrusted to Marcellus’ replacement at Ankyra, Bishop Basil. Arbitration was entrusted to eight senior officials of the court, including Constantius’ principal counsellor Datianus. The disputation is recorded by Epiphanius (Panarion ) from the notes made by seven shorthand-writers producing three copies. Athanasius preserves the creed (= Antioch IV) and anathemas derived from the long commentary of –. Although Athanasius cites the text as further evidence of the inconstancy of the ‘Arians’, among whom, in oblique honour to Marcellus, he numbers Basil of Ankyra (ep. ad episc. Aeg. ), the document is actually evidence of the solid consistency of the eastern programme. The synod was at Photinus’ request while the emperor Constantius was wintering at Sirmium preparing for further battle with Magnentius. The majority of bishops present were Greeks unsympathetic to Marcellus, and no doubt the civil war made it hazardous for western bishops to travel to Sirmium to speak for Photinus had they wished to do so. Hilary of Poitiers reports that the removal of Photinus, made difficult by an enthusiastic local faction, was seen as a reversal of the Serdican acquittal of Marcellus with knock-on consequences for the Serdican judgement accepting Athanasius, at least in drawing attention to its precariousness (CSEL . ; tr. Wickham –). Photinus was replaced by Germinius from Cyzicus (Dardanelles). Meanwhile the cause of Constantius was strengthened by representations sent to Germanic tribes inviting them to occupy land west of the Rhine so as to harass Magnentius’ army in the rear, a move extremely unpopular with those already occupying the land. Fortunately for Constantius Persian attacks at that time were on no great scale and could be held without a massive defence. His young cousin Constantius Gallus was proclaimed Caesar and sent to Antioch with his wife Constantina, sister of Constantius II. A network of informers kept Constantius in touch with Gallus’ activities there. After two disastrous years of corrupt government (his wife’s erotic orgies forfeited all respect at Antioch) he was dismissed and executed. By this time Constantius had disposed of Magnentius, their first confrontation being at Mursa in where the loss of life on both sides was heavy. Magnentius consulted soothsayers. This was a godsend to Athanasius who could assure Constantius that he could not imaginably have supported a pagan usurper (Apol. ad Const. ). Magnentius also allowed pagan nocturnal sacrifices, a permission withdrawn by Constantius in (CTh . . ); Magnentius was clearly bidding for support from rich pagan aristocrats much
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given to mantic arts. He needed money to finance his war; some uncooperative senators were executed (Socrates . . ). During the battle of Mursa Constantius was being helped to pray for victory in a nearby church with Bishop Valens of Mursa. Valens and his friend Ursacius were thereafter to become influential with the emperor. So too was Basil of Ancyra. These bishops did not offer identical advice. The death of Constans led some to warn Athanasius that he could not expect from Constantius the kind of support he had been receiving from the west. Constantius even wrote to reassure him that all would be well. But when the emperor was informed that Magnentius had approached him by letter and correspondence was produced, perhaps from captured papers of Magnentius, which Athanasius boldly rejected as forged, Athanasius was disbelieved. Blacklisted for this negotiation, he was still theologically suspect for his association with Marcellus at Rome and especially at Serdica. On his return to Alexandria he had wisely broken his link with Marcellus, who had become an albatross hanging about his neck. That was an act which ultraorthodox critics did not admire (CSEL . –). It seemed incompatible with the decisions at Serdica. Nevertheless he remained the stalwart defender of the Nicene creed against all who opposed it, lumped together as ‘Arians’. To be in communion with him was the mark by which supporters of the Nicene creed were identified since he refused to be in communion with anyone who did not accept it. Magnentius and Athanasius Constantius pursued Magnentius into Gaul, where his enemy committed suicide ( August ). The poetess Proba, wife of the prefect of Rome Adelphius in office in (ILCV ), composed a verse panegyric on Magnentius’ defeat, probably designed to ensure favour for her husband if his loyalty was in doubt. Later she was to compose a Vergilian cento (extant) on the Creation and the life of Christ. The emperor’s anger with Athanasius for having anything to do with Magnentius (which Athanasius passionately denied) now spilled over into sustained hostility. He still held Athanasius responsible for Constans’ endeavour to impose western domination upon the Greek east, in which charge there was more than a grain of truth; Ammianus (. . ) records a secular influence also making for this alienation. Constantius proclaimed nominal amnesty for Magnentius’ supporters, but Ammianus (. ) tells of the severity of tortures and executions meted out by his prosecutor to any associate or supporter of Magnentius, even when the case was no more than suspicion. In at Arles Constantius celebrated the thirtieth anniversary of his imperial crown. In addition to his purge of traitors he held a council of Gallic bishops, fortified by Valens of Mursa and
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Ursacius of Singidunum. They yielded to his requirement that they condemn Athanasius. An exception was Bishop Paulinus of Trier, who was therefore declared deposed and exiled and who, with the encouragement of his neighbour the praetorian prefect at Trier, could well have favoured Magnentius. The emperor was determined to destroy Athanasius’ support in the Latin west and to use synods to this end. Athanasius (Hist. Ar. ) came to realize that the emperor was cleverly claiming the authority of episcopal councils for achieving what he himself wished. To be suspected of supporting a ‘usurper’ was to be in danger of death. Until he received a personal letter of reassurance from the emperor Theodosius I, in Libanius was suspected of supporting the western bidder for power, Magnus Maximus, and expected to lose his life for treason (or. . ; ep. ). Maximus, a baptized pro-Nicene Christian, was not likely to be supported by a polytheist, for whom Christianity was a disaster. It was the reverse of Athanasius’ exculpation. Pope Liberius Pope Julius died on April , and the deacon Liberius was consecrated in May to succeed him, an office which took him into deep waters. A letter from the eastern bishops and Egypt had come to Rome full of charges against Athanasius. The change from Julius to Liberius may have led to the assumption or at least the hope that Julius’ successor might listen better to Greek complaints. As Rome simultaneously had a letter from eighty Egyptian bishops denying the charges against Athanasius, Pope Liberius did nothing and then found himself accused of suppressing the documents, which in fact he had read both to his church and to an Italian council, then sending a reply to the eastern bishops. It is noteworthy that Liberius stresses his consultation of a synod before answering (Letter Obsecro, CSEL . , tr. Wickham ). But he had probably taken his time about replying to Antioch. His letter to Antioch explained that he had summoned Athanasius to Rome, but he had refused and on that ground Liberius was no longer in communion with him (Studens paci, CSEL . , tr. Wickham ). That was a startling departure from Julius’ position. Liberius may have thought it the only way to reconcile east and west after the split of . Or he may have heard rumour of Athanasius being approached by Magnentius, and felt that a defence of one regarded as a traitor could be imprudent. George bishop of Alexandria The eastern synod at Antioch is reported by Sozomen (. ) to have been led by old opponents of Athanasius: Narcissus of Neronias, Theodorus of
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Heraclea, Eugenius of Nicaea (present at eastern Serdica), Patrophilus of Scythopolis, Menophantus of Ephesus, and thirty others. Their encyclical complained that Athanasius’ return to Alexandria had not been authorized by a synod, which implied indirect criticism of Constantius, and also announced that a new bishop had been consecrated for the see named George. George had been a well-to-do Christian in Cappadocia with a private library of remarkable richness, from which the young lad Julian, confined to the estate of Macellum near Caesarea, had been allowed to borrow. All bishops were asked to communicate with George, not with Athanasius. There were nasty rumours that his wealth had been obtained by embezzlement. George found his see exceptionally difficult, and for a time had to leave Alexandria. This could be a consequence of Constantius’ cool attitude to the decisions of the synod at Antioch. He called Athanasius to an audience at Milan; but Athanasius was unwilling to go, probably because his opponents in his city were becoming a threat and to leave would be to make space for George. He sent five Egyptian bishops and three presbyters; to Athanasius’ deep distress, Constantius was unwilling to receive them (Historia acephala ). The Alexandrian situation could explain why his opponents accused him of celebrating the liturgy in the new church being built by Constantius, the Caesareum, before the building was completed (Apol. ad Const. , ). He wanted to prevent others using it. The Index to the Festal Letters says that there was a riot in the city and Constantius’ officer of state sent to summon Athanasius retreated without achieving his mission. At court Athanasius’ stock was in free fall, and he and others had come to realize it. Council of Arles At the council of Arles Pope Liberius had two legates who, to his distress, were content to acquiesce in a condemnation of Athanasius but asked the synod to condemn the heresy of Arius; at first welcomed, the latter proposal did not go through. Valens and Ursacius did not want an intricate theological debate in territory with which Gallic bishops could not be familiar. Hilary of Poitiers expressly says that he had been a bishop for some years and was about to go into exile when he first heard of the Nicene creed (Syn. ).2 The emperor would not have placed Arius on the council’s agenda. He mainly wanted a council to condemn on disciplinary grounds a bishop whom he suspected, perhaps with some reason, to have been all too interested in the success of Magnentius. Any who would not consent would be regarded as touched with treason and be sent into exile. 2 Phoebadius, bishop of Agen (–) wrote an anti-Arian tract in defending the Nicene creed interpreted as affirming one hypostasis with western Serdica. His writing was influential. See R. P. Hanson, The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God (Edinburgh, ), –.
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Council of Milan The elimination of Magnentius, leaving Constantius supreme ruler of the entire empire, sent a clear message to Athanasius’ opponents that the threat of western domination in the east, a factor influential in ecclesiastical policy since , was now at an end. Constantius was determined to ensure that the decisions at Arles were now extended in the west. At Milan in a majority of a council yielded assent to the emperor’s demand for excommunication of Athanasius. A handful of three brave dissenters preferred exile: Dionysius of Milan, Eusebius of Vercelli, and the Sardinian firebrand Lucifer of Cálaris (Cagliari), who eventually ended in upper Egypt. Lucifer wrote a pamphlet sent to Constantius explaining that the emperor was Antichrist, and that in the circumstances he felt sure the emperor would not take offence. He also petitioned the emperor to pardon Athanasius’ indiscretion in the affair of Magnentius. Dionysius of Milan was replaced by a Cappadocian named Auxentius who had served Gregory of Alexandria as a presbyter and disliked the Nicene creed. Constantius moves against Pope Liberius Liberius wrote the three exiles a letter of encouragement. He vainly asked Constantius for a large revisionary synod at Aquileia. The emperor had decided that this bishop of Rome above all others must be constrained to yield. Both Athanasius and Ammianus interpret the emperor’s thinking to be that this see had an aura of authority which would carry many waverers. Liberius had read the past letters in the Roman archives, and was convinced that Athanasius must be right that the faith of Nicaea and Constantine the Great was the real issue at stake. Constantius sent to Rome the eunuch high chamberlain Eusebius with rich presents for the Pope. (It was a common criticism of Constantius that he surrounded himself with eunuchs who were too powerful.) Liberius refused the gifts and was then angered to discover that they had subsequently been accepted in ignorance by clergy at St Peter’s. He was aware that the issue had come to be a challenge not only to the council of Serdica but to the authority of Peter’s see. He declared that he had done nothing to increase or diminish that authority (Letter Obsecro, CSEL . . ; tr. Wickham ). A painful interview between Liberius and the emperor, reported by Athanasius, Sozomen, and Theodoret, has the feeling of a confessor’s trial in the age of persecutions; Athanasius regarded all bishops who suffered by being in communion with him as martyrs and confessors. Theodoret and Sozomen use the same document, presented as a secretary’s minute of a dramatic dialogue. It is difficult to think the detail authentic. Theodoret himself
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thought it the composition of devoted believers. The text portrays Constantius as resenting the damage done to himself by Athanasius’ enlisting of Constans in his support—damage, he claimed, worse than the two usurpers Magnentius and Silvanus (executed in ). Ammianus (. . –) reports Liberius’ firm refusal to condemn Athanasius at Constantius’ bidding, on the strong legal ground that it was wrong to condemn someone who had not been in court to defend himself. As Liberius was popular in the city, he was kidnapped by night and exiled to Beroea in Thrace. There Bishop Demophilos, no admirer of the Nicene creed or of Athanasius, could be expected to explain to him the finer points of theology and the delinquencies of the bishop of Alexandria. Felix replaces Liberius at Rome As a replacement in the Roman see, archdeacon Felix was consecrated. He had previously shared in an oath of clergy that the see must remain vacant during Liberius’ exile; Felix exchanged letters of communion with the eastern bishops at Antioch. Many laity at Rome did not want him. He had at least the good fortune that posterity treated him as the true, lawful, and orthodox bishop of Rome, while Liberius was to be regarded as an intruder. The Liber Pontificalis of the sixth century has a muddled and largely fictitious account of the story. Another fictional account of Liberius was produced with other forgeries about during the dissensions in Rome about Pope Symmachus and his rival Laurentius (PL . –). When after three years of exile Liberius returned to Rome, Felix was expelled from the city, attempted to return, and thereby precipitated severe street-fighting between rival supporters. He had to withdraw but left a divided community. Hilary of Poitiers In Gaul in Hilary of Poitiers devoted his considerable ability to studying the theological aspects of the controversy underlying the decisions of Arles and Milan, and disliked what he learnt. He addressed a flattering but firm letter to Constantius protesting in favour of the Nicene formula and against Valens and Ursacius. With a few other Gallic bishops he withdrew communion from Saturninus bishop of Arles as the principal spokesman for the less specific theology supported by Constantius. Unfortunately for him his protest more or less coincided with a Gallic revolt led by a Frankish soldier Silvanus (Ammianus . ), voicing extreme dissatisfaction at the way in which lands in Gaul were ravaged by barbarians from the east, many being encouraged by the policy of Constantius to embarrass Magnentius. The
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revolt was suppressed with Silvanus’ execution. At a synod at Béziers (Baeterrae) in Hilary was accused, falsely he protested, perhaps on suspicion of supporting Silvanus, and was exiled to Phrygia. Meanwhile Constantius was increasingly suspicious of being surrounded by smiling treachery, and two years later intelligence about pagan high officials consulting oracles to discover who would be the next emperor led to bitterly cruel treason trials at Scythopolis in Palestine (Ammianus . ; several victims were known to Libanius). In the fourth century, people who were hostile to divination other than by dreams could nevertheless fear that an oracle might be correct in its predictions and could be serious. A horoscope composed as a practical joke might contain a forecast that turned out to be true. It should not be ignored.3 It was an age when a priest could be asked by someone to say a requiem, just as pagans would make an offering at a temple, to bring about the death of a rival or adversary (Petronius, Sat. ; Augustine, sermo . ). So Constantius was a man of his time in fearing people consulting soothsayers or oracular predictions with sinister intention. Christian conquest of witchcraft was a gradual process. Constantius at Rome The division at Rome during his exile alarmed Liberius, and naturally both he and his Roman followers desired his return for the sake of peace and unity. In April Constantius made a visit to Rome with high solemnity which Ammianus in an ironical and cutting account (. ) described as exaggerated pomposity. It was designed to celebrate his triumph over Magnentius, though his opponent’s defeated soldiers were legions of the Roman army and he himself had been nowhere near the front line of battle. He was also celebrating the twentieth anniversary of his father’s death in . Other cities sent representatives and golden crowns. The philosophic orator Themistius (or. ) spoke for New Rome, saluting the emperor in a now less distinguished old Rome which, he felt sure, had given no support to Magnentius. (One may deduce that there were stories to the contrary.) The emperor preserved an impassive countenance and at no point was seen to spit or wipe his nose and mouth. The majesty of old Rome moved him deeply. A month of games and public entertainment passed. He erected in the Circus Maximus the obelisk which today stands by St John Lateran. Strangely the inscription (ILS ), lauding Constantius as ‘lord of the world’, records that it was originally intended for Constantinople. He addressed the senate, but had the pagan 3 Anthologia Palatina . ; Augustine, Gen. ad litt. . . f.; cf. . . . See RAC, art. Horoskop. Underlying the belief that even a bogus horoscope could be true was the widespread ancient conviction of a hidden cosmic sympathy.
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Altar of Victory removed for the occasion (Ambrose, ep. Maurist edn. [M.] . ). This and his generally anti-pagan policy could not have pleased the pagan senatorial aristocrats of the city, and after the visit his relations with some of them were certainly not relaxed. The support of courtiers was obtained by simply conveying to them the emperor’s property-rights over temples (Lib. or. . ). Firmicus Maternus A vehement attack on paganism had been written in Rome about by a converted astrologer, Firmicus Maternus from Sicily. His Latin handbook on astrology called Mathesis, composed before conversion, is a major treatise on an intricate subject. His post-conversion treatise ‘On the error of profane religions’ asks the emperors to be relentless in merciless extirpation of polytheism. (Augustine was to urge that pagans could be converted only by persuasion, not by force.) The work is an important source of information about oriental mystery-cults. It could have influenced Constantius.4 The author evidently thought that the suppression of pagan cult was what the emperor wanted. During Constantius’ stay in Rome,5 eminent ladies among Liberius’ supporters submitted a petition asking for the exiled bishop’s restoration. They were assured that they would have him back ‘better than he was before’ (Libellus precum, Coll. Avell. . , CSEL , ). The following year saw Liberius back in Rome, but on awkward conditions. He was generally understood to have surrendered Rome’s authoritative endorsement of the Nicene creed. If so, this would prove consistent with his controversial policy of full acceptance of western bishops who in at Ariminum were surrendering the Nicene formula for the weaker affirmation of ‘likeness’ (below p. ). But return to his church was vital if schism was to be scotched. To the Roman ladies Constantius had suggested that both Felix and Liberius should share in the episcopate at Rome. This provoked a cry ‘One God, one Christ, one bishop’ (Theodoret, HE . . ).
4 Mathesis ed. W. Kroll and F. Skutsch, vols. (Stuttgart, ), Eng. tr. J. R. Bram (Park Ridge, NJ, ). De errore profanarum religionum, ed. K. Ziegler (Leipzig, ) or R. Turcan (Paris, ); Eng. tr. C. A. Forbes (New York, ). 5 R. O. Edbrooke, ‘The visit of Constantius to Rome’, American Journal of Philology, (), –. An exception among the Roman senators, of whom at this time few were Christians, was Junius Bassus (PLRE i ), prefect of Rome, who was baptized on his deathbed; he died in office in , and was commemorated with an exquisite sarcophagus now in the museum at St Peter’s. Pictures in W. F. Volbach, Early Christian Art (London, ) pls. –; E. Malbon, The Sarcophagus of Junius Bassus (Princeton, ).
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‘The blasphemy of Sirmium’ After leaving Rome in Constantius had gone towards the Danube where barbarian raids were causing trouble. His tour ended at Sirmium, the metropolis of Illyricum. There a small conference of important bishops met: Valens of Mursa, Ursacius of Singidunum, Germinius of Sirmium, the nonagenarian Ossius of Corduba, Potamius of Lisbon. After a lengthy and careful discussion of the disagreements about faith, they issued a statement of what seemed obvious. Everyone agreed that there is one almighty God and Father, one Son Jesus Christ our saviour begotten before the ages; but no one can or should preach two Gods for the Lord said ‘I go to my Father and to your Father, to my God and to your God’ ( John : ). So there is one God of all (Rom. : –). On the other articles of faith there was no disagreement. But no one should use the term substantia, which the Greeks call ousia; that is to put it bluntly, either Homoousion or Homoiousion of identical or similar essence. For these terms are absent from scripture; they upset people; they make assertions beyond human knowledge, for scripture says ‘Who can declare his generation?’ (Isa. : ). It is obvious that only the Father knows how he begat his Son, and only the Son knows how he was begotten by the Father. There is no ambiguity that the Father is greater ( John : ) in honour, dignity, splendour, majesty, indeed in the very name ‘Father’. No one is ignorant that it is catholic to affirm two ‘persons’ of Father and Son, the Father greater, the Son subordinate with all that the Father subordinated to him. The Father has no beginning, is invisible, immortal, impassible, whereas the Son is begotten of the Father, God from God, light from light. The Son’s generation none can know except his Father. The Son of God, our Lord and God ( John : ), took flesh and body, that is man, from the virgin Mary’s womb, as the angel foretold. All scriptures and especially the teacher of the Gentiles, the Apostle, teach that he took the man from the Virgin Mary, and that through the man he shared in suffering. That the Trinity is always to be maintained is confirmed by that summary of all the faith in the gospel: ‘Go and baptize all nations in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.’ The number of the Trinity is whole and perfect. The Spirit, the Paraclete, is through the Son (per filium). He was sent and came according to the promise to instruct, teach, sanctify the apostles and all believers. (Hilary, Syn. ; Greek in Athanasius, Syn. , Socrates . ; Sozomen summarizes . . –). The statement reads as a list of self-evident scriptural truths, with each proposition buttressed by a biblical text. It is as if Potamius of Lisbon had insisted on some Atlantic fresh air in a stuffy debate. ‘Two persons’, even the subordination of the Son, had been good Latin theology since Tertullian’s Adversus Praxean, and necessary for interpreting scripture where there appears
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to be heavenly dialogue between Father and Son. The statement is striking for not resembling a creed and for having no anathemas disavowing opinions ascribed to Arius or Marcellus. The intention of the statement is to further the cause of peace and unity in the wrangling and quarrelling churches. Like his father Constantine in his letter to Alexander and Arius, Constantius regarded the disputes as a cloudland of words of uncertain meaning. Nevertheless, the stress on the inferiority of the Son to the Father is strong. It was at once taken to be emphasizing how dissimilar the Son is from the Father, in whose transcendence he does not share. That was to pour fuel on the embers of dispute. This was the reverse of Constantius’ intention. The reception of the manifesto of Sirmium In from somewhere in hiding in Egypt Athanasius wrote for the monks a tempestuous attack on Constantius as Antichrist in person. In this incendiary and impassioned invective he tells how pressure was put on Ossius of Corbuba to agree to the condemnation of Athanasius, and how, when Ossius stood firm against this demand, he was taken to Sirmium and kept there for a year, though a hundred years old, by a new Ahab or Belshazzar, until he shared communion with Valens and Ursacius. He still declined to sign against Athanasius. Athanasius does not mention that on his return to Spain Ossius found bishops refusing to hold communion with him on the ground that he had compromised with heretics. That was also the opinion in Aquitaine. In north Africa (Hilary, c. Const. , PL . b) and Gaul the Sirmium manifesto was frowned upon. Phoebadius bishop of Agen wrote against it (PL . –), full of admiration for all that Ossius had steadfastly believed for his first ninety years, sad at his abandonment of all this in his nineties. Hilary named it the ‘blasphemy’ of Sirmium (Syn. ). He interpreted the statement to be denying the Son to be God because he cannot be said to possess the honour, dignity, splendour, and majesty of the Father, and to be affirming that the Son was born not of the Father but out of nothing. Hilary’s last point makes the statement say something which it does not say. He assumed that any theological statement in which Valens and Ursacius had a hand must mean that the Son is a ‘creature’, and that between ‘begotten’ and ‘created’ there is no real difference. Phoebadius picked on the Sirmium statement’s argument that in the humanity taken from Mary the Son of God shared in suffering, this implying that being inferior he cannot share in the Father’s impassibility. The crux at Sirmium was the attempt to achieve harmony and consensus by forbidding the current use of unscriptural words, namely homoousion and homoiousion. The second of these terms was becoming the slogan for a well-organized group of Greek bishops, led by Basil of Ankyra, who regarded ‘identical in being’ as dangerously open to
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Sabellianism but were anxious to affirm that in his very being the Son is like the Father, as it were a perfect image of his will and nature. Eusebius of Caesarea had said much the same. Athanasius’ three orations against the Arians ‘Like in essence’ was language close to that of Athanasius, who in the fifties wrote three powerful discourses against the Arians. (The fourth discourse, attacking Marcellus without naming him, is not by Athanasius but from the school of Apollinaris.) These were designed to argue that his opponents rejecting both himself and the Nicene creed are Arian heretics even if they disown any following of Arius; that Arianism is Antichrist; that Nicaea had ecumenical authority; that ‘light of light’ means that the Son is the very image of the Father and homoousios (: ); that Arianism depends on Constantius’ support, not on the mind of the faithful; that the Christian eternal Triad differs from the (Neoplatonic) philosophers’ graded triad of descending derivation; and that the Son is ‘in all respects like’ the Father (: ). Language used by Marcellus’ critic Asterius (of whom Athanasius had no high opinion) such as ‘indistinguishable image’ is too orthodox for Arian ears. The root fault in the Arian mind is anthropomorphism; they think of God as if he were human. They protest against unscriptural homoousios, but have no hesitation in using the equally unscriptural ‘unbegotten’ (agennetos) for the Father. The first two orations against the Arians offer a single argument that the scriptural texts to which critics of the Nicene creed triumphantly appeal such as Prov. : (‘The Lord created me’) should be otherwise interpreted. The third oration, probably later than the first two, is a more formidable piece of thinking. Neoplatonic philosophers were intrigued by the problem of identity and difference; to say X and Y are identical implies that they are distinct. So Athanasius explains that the Son’s identity with the Father in ousia does not mean that there is no difference. The third oration rejects the ‘low’ Christology that the Logos ‘came into a man’. He became man and was both divine and human, so that as man he could hunger, thirst, be weary, suffer, while as God he could raise the dead, restore a blind man’s sight, or cure the woman with a haemorrhage, acting however, through the body which the divine Logos had made his own. It was ‘God’s body’ (: ). So when the body suffered, the Logos was not external to it and yet remained impassible. Salvation enables the redeemed to share in that impassibility by a therapy doing away with the passions that take humanity away from the right and the good. Salvation is ‘deification’, theopoiesis. Athanasius’ sharpness in the controversy was in part a consequence of his sharing some axioms with those he opposed. So he was sure it was irreligious
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to debate how God the Father begets a Son: ‘It is better to be silent when in perplexity than to allow perplexity to erode belief ’ (Or. c. Ar. . ). But he insisted that ‘begotten’ is distinct from ‘created’ or ‘made’. Creatures have a beginning, but not the Son of God (. ). He took trouble to disavow Sabellian modalism (. , ). Arians have no sense of the broad intention (skopós) of scripture teaching that the Redeemer is both God and man so that Mary is ‘mother of God’ (theotókos). Because his body was God’s, when the flesh suffered, the Word was not external to this (. –). Yet the Word is not injured by the human weaknesses and passions, but destroys them, so that believers also are rendered free of passion and impassible (. ). Arians want to argue for the subordination of the Son by saying that he was begotten by the Father’s will and not ‘by nature’, language which could be edifying if used by other than heretics (. ). The Son is the image of the Father’s ousia, not of his will, and ousia is prior to will (. ). The third of the discourses shows Athanasius grappling with the Christological problems which with Apollinarius were soon to occupy the stage.6 Liberius’ return from exile Reports of the painful state of division in the churches of Rome alarmed Liberius in exile, and put pressure upon him. Called to Constantius at Sirmium, he was asked to sign the manifesto of Sirmium of , and almost certainly did so since that enabled him to return in triumph ( Jerome said ‘quasi victor’) to his see. Hilary (c. Constantium ) thought the conditions attaching to Liberius’ return as shameful to the emperor as to his exile. The signing did not endear him to the intransigent opponents of all compromise with Valens and Ursacius, especially to the admirers of Lucifer of Calaris. Back in Rome there was tension with Felix, but after disorders Liberius won support from the civic authorities under the city prefect and the majority of the plebs. Aetius, Eudoxius, Basil of Ankyra The Sirmium creed acquired importance as a result of a situation at Antioch in Syria. A gifted Syrian named Aetius argued that the difference between the Son and the Father was more important than any similarity; for him there was no question of identity of nature. Though the Son is a perfect image of the Father, in substance the dissimilarity is crucial. In ousia Father and Son 6 Charles Kannengiesser’s view that the third discourse against the Arians is not by Athanasius has not convinced other Athanasian experts. See E. P. Meijering, Athanasius, die dritte Rede gegen die Arianer, parts (Amsterdam, –). A new critical edition of the first two discourses appeared in (Berlin, de Gruyter); general editor Martin Tetz.
A Wind of Change
were unlike—anhomoios. The Son is created as instrument of the Father’s will. For Arius, who had told Constantine that he accepted the Nicene creed, Aetius had no respect. His disciple Eunomius from Cappadocia became an even more aggressive advocate of this Dissimilarian or Anhomoean theology. Leontius of Antioch Under Bishop Leontius Aetius was made deacon, but Leontius’ congregation protested against Aetius’ views and he left Antioch. Leontius found himself presiding over a divided church. He tried unsuccessfully to reconcile his majority with the small intransigent separatist group faithful to the memory of Eustathius of Antioch and his stand in for the Nicene creed with its implicit ‘one hypostasis’ of the Trinity. They met together for common prayers but not for the eucharistic liturgy. In addition, there were two learned presbyters at Antioch, Diodore and Flavian, who held special devotional meetings with a considerable following, and who were not in the least sympathetic to Aetius and Eunomius. Leontius used to point to his white hairs and say ‘When this snow melts, there will be much mud.’ His prophecy was correct. Late in he died. Eudoxius In Syria there was an ambitious pushing Bishop Eudoxius of Germanicia (now Maras) in Commagene who aspired to succeed Leontius. He had been fairly prominent in the Eusebian party at Serdica, and had been one of the legates who took to Milan in the long exposition of the fourth creed of Antioch. He was a very able person, whose ambitions did not make him universally admired. On Leontius’ death he took charge of the church at Antioch, initially as acting bishop of the see, and (since he did not need consecration) secured possession to the annoyance of rival aspirants, notably George of Laodicea. He had a way of expressing himself that was tasteless. Probably at the council of Seleucia in Hilary of Poitiers (c. Constantium ) heard him discussing the meaning of ‘begotten’, saying that while God always was and is, yet he was not a Father before he had a Son, for which he would need a wife with whom he had conversation and conjugal agreement and courting and lastly the natural method of begetting. Presumably Eudoxius was mocking too anthropomorphic and literalist an understanding of the notion of fatherhood, ridiculing homoiousians who were insisting that ‘begotten’ denotes an intimate relation that ‘made’ does not. The remarks would make sense if he was arguing that the less literalist the understanding of ‘begotten’, the less clear becomes the differentiation between ‘begotten’ and ‘created’. He continued by saying ‘the more the Son extends himself to
Athanasius’ Return
know the Father, the more the Father superextends himself to be unknown by the Son’. Hilary and his audience thought it merely shocking; there was a tumult. It was an aggressive means of asserting the Father’s utter transcendence and otherness, which was a theme in the teaching of Aetius. He was a man who enjoyed putting the cat among the pigeons. Eudoxius did not enjoy the confidence of the existing clergy. He brought Aetius back to Antioch to teach but without liturgical duties and ordained Eunomius deacon. He called a synod which expressed enthusiasm for the manifesto of Sirmium, for it sought to rid the west of the contentious terms homoousios and homoiousios and affirmed the Son’s subordination. George of Laodicea in Syria had once been an associate of Arius himself at Alexandria, but he was horrified by Eudoxius’ actions, and wrote in consternation to Macedonius of Constantinople, Basil of Ankyra, Cecropios of Nicomedia, and Eugenius of Nicaea begging them to save Antioch and the empire from shipwreck, resulting from Eudoxius’ promotion of Aetius’ disciples to be clergy. The homoiousian party, a reaction against Eudoxius Basil happened to be holding a small synod at Eastertide which addressed a letter to bishops in Phoenicia and other bishops who shared their standpoint, voicing horror at the ideas current not only at Antioch but in Alexandria, Lydia, and the province of Asia. (Philostorgius the Arian historian records support for Aetius and Eunomius in ‘Lydia and Ionia’, . ). The letter, preserved by Epiphanius (Panar. . –), was composed by a body selfconsciously standing in the tradition of the Dedication Council of and the creed of the eastern council of Serdica accepted by the first council of Sirmium (i.e. ‘Antioch IV’). If therefore they were enabling rapprochement with Athanasius and the pro-Nicene party, they could not have known it. Nevertheless, their favourite formula ‘like in essence’ was obviously one that Athanasius too was using. The bishops at Ankyra appended to their letter nineteen anathemas; Hilary of Poitiers (Syn. –) gives them in Latin but in a different order. The polemic is directed against opinions which they associated with Aetius, with any talk of dissimilarity between Father and Son, or merging of begetting and making. They much disliked the proposition that divine activity of Father and Son is identical whereas the ‘being’ is distinct. They liked the reverent language of church usage that there is an individuality of prosopa or ‘persons’ (Epiph. Panar. . . ). The hypostasis of Christ is from the Father (. . ). They end with an anathema on homoousios, taken to mean identical and therefore Sabellian. There was also an old fear, found in Eusebius of Caesarea and Arius, that homoousios might imply too material and physical a notion of the begetting of the Son of God.
A Wind of Change
Epiphanius (. –) gives the text of a wordy memorandum by George of Laodicea or Basil of Ankyra, perhaps both, contrasting the faith of ‘us catholics’ with the beliefs of Aetius; probably it was submitted to the emperor. Its date is unclear. It is noteworthy for insistence on ‘like in every respect’ (homoios kata panta) and also on the ‘hypostases’ of Father and Son as a term which eastern theologians use to express the individuality of the ‘persons’ ( prosopa). Admittedly some are disturbed by this word (. . ), but it does not mean three Gods or three first principles. The defence of ‘three hypostases’, about which after Serdica the eastern divines had been reticent, is significant for what was soon to come. (Greeks at the Council of Florence in – also liked this statement.) The memorandum has no mention of homoiousios. Basil of Ankyra’s representations to the emperor Constantius at Sirmium conveyed the consternation of the homoiousian group at the favour shown to Eudoxius by Constantius and at the encouragement given to Aetius. Eudoxius was fortified by appeal to the Sirmian statement which forbade the use of homoousios or homoiousios and therefore opened the gate wide for Aetius to urge that the difference between Father and Son is one of ousia, though not of will and activity (enérgeia). Constantius was impressed and withdrew all support from Eudoxius, Eunomius, and Aetius, who had to leave Antioch (Soz. . ). To uphold Basil of Ankyra was evidently to set aside the statement from Sirmium of . On the other hand the homoiousian party affirming the distinct being of the Son was not afraid of saying that the Son/Logos is subordinate to the Father. In a word, what alarmed Basil and his allies in the statement from Sirmium of was that it made space in the Church for Aetius and Eunomius, even though it did not use their language. Basil and his group anathematized any notion of a dissimilarity of ousia. The homoiousian group objected to baptism in the name of the Unbegotten and the Begotten or of the Creator and the Created. They could justify holding that the Son is ‘like’ God the Father by saying that this is analogous to the Pauline saying (Rom. : ) that Christ took the ‘likeness’ of sinful flesh (Epiph. Panar. , : –); in short, he was like God and, by his pure virginal conception, like humanity, yet without being totally one or the other. They could reinforce their rejection of the term homoousios by discovering that this description of the bond between Father and Son had been censured by the council of Antioch () which condemned Paul of Samosata. Obviously it is the case that if, on a wholly modalist position, Father and Son are only different titles for one God, adjectives not substantives, it is then natural to think of Jesus as an inspired prophet but not a union of humanity with God in metaphysical ‘substance’. This discovery caused trouble to both Athanasius and Hilary of Poitiers, who offer different explanations of what might have been intended by the bishops in .
Athanasius’ Return
Basil of Ankyra’s programme attracted support from Cyril bishop of Jerusalem. Unfortunately tension was rising between the sees of Jerusalem and of Caesarea, the provincial capital. That prickliness was of some years’ standing. At Nicaea in the seventh canon had ruled that the see of Aelia be held in honour without prejudice to the metropolitical rights of Caesarea. The fourth-century growth of pilgrimage and the fine churches founded by Constantine were making the church of Jerusalem a magnet for substantial numbers with increased resources. ‘Zion the mother of all churches’ declared the Jerusalem liturgy of St James. It was natural that the bishop of Jerusalem would begin to think of his office in the way that pilgrims in ever larger numbers also thought and felt. In the provincial metropolis at Caesarea on the coast that could not be welcome. It would not be very long before claims were made for the see of Aelia at the expense of both Caesarea and Antioch. Therefore if Cyril of Jerusalem was going to support Basil of Ankyra and the homoiousian group, that would provide sufficient reason for the bishop of Caesarea, Acacius, to side with Eudoxius of Antioch, the see which in any event under canon of Nicaea had rights of jurisdiction over the various provinces in the civil Diocese Oriens. To Constantius it was a deep disappointment to discover that his ambition for unity and harmony in the churches, which had social and political consequences, was threatened by the tension between Basil’s homoiousian party and Eudoxius of Antioch’s support for Aetius. Philostorgius (. ) records that the two old supporters of Arius, Narcissus of Neronias and Patrophilus of Scythopolis, journeyed to Singidunum to explain to the emperor that Basil of Ankyra was not the kind of theologian who could hope to bring peace to the divided Church. After all he had moved Constantius to veto the appointment of Eudoxius to be bishop of Antioch. The emperor decided that there would have to be an ecumenical synod; to prepare for this a small group of episcopal advisers was formed to prepare a creed intended to be imposed as universally acceptable. That would solve all the emperor’s problem. This group met at Sirmium in Constantius’ presence and on May approved a statement principally drafted by Bishop Mark of Arethusa. To impart solemnity and the style of an imperial edict the document was prefaced with a consular date as had been the Nicene creed of , a matter forgotten by Athanasius when he mocked giving the timeless creed of the catholic Church a date. The Dated Creed pursued the course of trying to say nothing that anyone could possibly disagree with.
CONSTANTIUS’ DOUBLE COUNCIL OF UNITY
Hilary of Poitiers on Councils The exchanges of – inflicted some damage on Constantius’ ambitions for peace in the Church, especially by creating distrust of his policies among western bishops. This distrust was mightily fostered by the banished Hilary of Poitiers, whose exile in Phrygia did not prevent him writing letters to Gaul. Late in he wrote for the Gallic bishops a weighty tract ‘on the synods or concerning the faith of the Orientals’ (De synodis seu de fide Orientalium). His principal purpose was not merely to tell the uninformed about eastern creeds but also to urge generous western sympathy for Basil’s homoiousian group and to explain to the latter that western theology was not Sabellian. He argued that the term homoiousios is far from being incompatible with the Nicene formula. The statement of faith from Sirmium in , despite its pointed insistence on scriptural authority for each affirmation including the subordinate status of the Son, Hilary presented in lurid colours as the ‘blasphemy’ of Sirmium and in some degree caricatured by glosses to the effect that Christ is presented as created out of nothing, which the document never says. Because the extreme Arian party of Aetius and Eunomius regarded the statement as granting them citizenship rights of toleration, it was natural to attribute to the statement a radicalism which was not there. Hilary readily conceded that the Nicene homoousios provided cover for Sabellian modalism and could be understood in a way ‘as much wrong as right’ (Syn. ). A correct understanding takes Father, Son, and Spirit not to be hierarchically graded but to be equal and therefore one; but not one person with two names, and not one substance which is then split up into two halves. An erroneous view understands the one substance to be a prior substance in which the two persons Father and Son participate. But if homoousios is ambiguous, so too is homoiousios since likeness normally implies some measure of dissimilarity; a vessel may be plated with gold so as to be very similar (Syn. ). The sacredness of the Nicene homoousios is sure from the tradition
Constantius’ Double Council of Unity
that bishops, the number of Abraham’s servants in Genesis , approved it (Syn. ). This number first appears in the mid-fifties replacing an older ‘about three hundred’ (the actual certain figure being two hundred and twenty). The epistle of ‘Barnabas’ saw in the numerical value of the Greek letters SIG (= ) a symbol of the cross of Jesus (above p. ). He incidentally shows that the abbreviation IG for Jesus (in Greek letters IGCOTC) was very ancient indeed. The number was important for the further reason that Constantius’ two synods were going to add up to a much larger assembly, and there could be argument that the greater the number of bishops the more potent the authority. That contention could be trumped if Nicaea had a sacred number attending. This argument becomes explicit in with Pope Damasus and Ambrose. Marius Victorinus at Rome In his analysis Hilary was close to Marius Victorinus, a philosophically minded teacher of rhetoric to the sons of rich aristocrats at Rome whose dramatic conversion to Christianity about is vividly described in the Confessions of Augustine from the memories of Simplicianus of Milan. Victorinus had come from north Africa, which was a bond with Augustine. His oratorical performances do not survive, but treatises are extant on the liberal arts and logic. He made Latin versions not only of Aristotle’s Categories but also of selected pieces by Plotinus and Porphyry. Like many Greeks and Latins of the fourth century he was deeply impressed by Neoplatonism. But the springs of his conversion lay in the intellectual content of Christian faith; here was the way to ‘the knowledge and the vision of God.’ The Platonic ideal of liberating the soul from the illusions and imprisonment of the physical world could be realized through Christian practice. Therefore he told Simplicianus that he had no wish to be a fellow-traveller, but wanted his initiation by baptism to be in the customary public form. That would enforce an absolute break with pagan idols. The timing of his conversion was close to the drama of Liberius’ exile and the western realization that in the demand for a condemnation of Athanasius the underlying issue was the truth or falsity of ‘Arianism’. Victorinus composed a defence of the Nicene ‘consubstantiality’ of Father and Son. He was provoked by an old friend named Candidus who was convinced by the logical contentions of Aetius. These were spreading to the west, perhaps encouraged by Auxentius of Milan, and, because of the stress on the absolute otherness of the supreme being contrasted with the contingency of the realm of creation, could be fused with an agnostic mysticism. Aetius was certainly clever, but he was not irreligious. Candidus took this mysticism so far that he even denied that the supreme being is capable of
Constantius’ Double Council of Unity
‘begetting’ by act of will, since that must imply change in the Immutable. If one uses the term ‘being’ or ‘substance’, that is true only if one means the pure simplicity of being without any further predicate. Victorinus’ reply urges that Candidus ought to allow potentiality in the supreme being, and the possibility of an actuality of creation. Why cannot there be movement in the Immutable, a movement which is the Word or Logos derived from the very substance of God? Victorinus had received a copy, probably through Pope Liberius, of the homoiousian dossier produced by Basil of Ankyra at Sirmium in the summer of and was not impressed either by the negative attitude to the Nicene creed approved by ‘more than three hundred bishops’ or by the fact that Basil was now condemning bishops Valens and Ursacius with whom he had been in communion for years. Basil seemed responsible for persuading Liberius to betray orthodoxy when he accepted Basil’s position. However, Victorinus liked the formula ‘one substance, three hypostases’ and thought it corresponded to Plotinian language about being, life, and understanding. So his exchange with Candidus led him to write a major work ‘Against Arius’ which took in the contemporary controversies about homoousios and homoiousios and also a growing debate about the divine status of the Holy Spirit. He was sure that ‘like in essence’ presupposed a prior substance in which Father and Son both participate. The contention that homoousios is to be rejected because not in scripture forgets that the same is true of ‘God of God, light of light’. Moreover compound words with ousia occur in Bible and liturgy, as when in the Lord’s Prayer we pray for epiousios bread (Victorinus regrets the mistranslation ‘daily’) or in the prayer of oblation in the eucharist ‘Save the periousios people, zealous of good works’ (the citation in contra Arium . . presupposes that in liturgy at Rome was still Greek).1 The argument would be congenial to Ambrose (De fide . . ). The twin councils and the Dated Creed Constantius’ plan for a grand council was going to be costly. To reduce travelling expenses the western bishops were to meet at Ariminum (Rimini) and the Greeks in the east, at first planned for Nicaea, but then Nicomedia. An earthquake destroyed much of Nicomedia ( August ), killing among others Bishop Cecropios. Constantius decided to defer the synod until and to relocate the eastern half at Seleucia in Isauria with its large shrine of St Thecla. The Dated Creed drafted at Sirmium in to be proposed at both synods is preserved in Greek by Athanasius (Syn. ) and Socrates (. ). It 1
Victorinus was evidently struck by the unusual periousios (= ‘special’) from Titus : .
Constantius’ Double Council of Unity
was composed far into the night by Mark of Arethusa at the end of a lengthy debate. Constantius himself presided and those present included not only Valens, Ursacius, Germinius, and Basil of Ankyra but also George of Alexandria and Pancratios of Pelusium. It affirms belief in the one and only true God, almighty Father, creator of all; in one only-begotten Son of God, impassibly begotten of God before all time and before all ousia, like his begetter according to the scriptures, whose begetting no one understands except the Father. He was incarnate of the virgin Mary by the Father’s decision, was crucified, descended to the underworld so that the gates of Hades trembled (the first occasion when the descent to Hades figures in a creed). He rose from the dead. He sent the Holy Spirit the Paraclete. But the term ousia, used by the fathers in their simplicity but unfamiliar to laity, causes scandal because not in scripture, and should be entirely abolished in reference to God. ‘We say the Son is like the Father in every respect, as the scriptures say and teach.’ Nothing was said of the Son’s subordination to the Father. The prohibition of ousia naturally affected both the pro-Nicenes and Basil of Ankyra’s homoiousian party. Some of the signatures were qualified. Epiphanius (Panar. . . –) preserves the glosses. Valens’ signature reveals that the document was signed in the small hours of the morning early on the day of Pentecost. He agreed the Son is like the Father, did not want to allow ‘in every respect’ but was required to make the addition by Constantius. Basil of Ankyra signed with a gloss on ‘in every respect’, meaning ‘not only in will but in hypostasis and in existence and in being’ (a row of synonyms for the word ousia which he was not allowed to use). The argument soon began to surface that no one could want to split the Church for the sake of the unbiblical term ousia (Theodoret, HE . . ). Constantius also decided that each of the two synods should appoint ten of its members to come to the emperor and to reach agreement in his presence; that would constitute the final decision of the whole Church. Constantius was becoming very aware that achieving harmony and consensus among so many different competing factions would not be easy. He could not safely leave so momentous a matter to the bishops unsupervised, especially when each faction had its own favourite slogans. The western bishops at Ariminum The Council of Ariminum began work late in June and early in July with more than four hundred bishops required to attend. (Ancient sources give differing estimates of the number, and some bishops gave their signatures afterwards.) The Aquitanian bishops are proudly described by Sulpicius Severus as financing their own travel costs, but among the British bishops three were too poor to forgo state aid. The praetorian prefect of Italy, Taurus,
Constantius’ Double Council of Unity
was ordered to allow no bishop to leave until everyone had signed the Dated Creed. The emperor had addressed a testy letter to the western bishops (CSEL . ; tr. Wickham –), admonishing them to reach agreement on matters of faith, and forbidding them to say anything about the eastern bishops; in other words, there was to be no repetition of the disaster at Serdica, for which, it is implied, the western synod was then responsible. A rift appeared between a group of eighty bishops supportive of the prepared Dated Creed, and the majority (according to Athanasius numbering almost two hundred) who did not wish to abandon the Nicene formula which for them expressed the faith delivered to their predecessors guaranteed by the apostolic succession (successio apostolorum: CSEL . ). In the Chronicle of Sulpicius Severus a main spokesman for the Nicene formula was Phoebadius bishop of Agen, leader of a group of twenty. He was opposed by Valens of Mursa deploring language not in scripture. An Umbrian bishop of Calle successfully invited the majority to condemn the Illyrians already under censure (i.e. at Serdica), Ursacius, Valens, Germinius, and Gaius who have often changed their beliefs and replaced the Nicene creed by a heretical text. So a letter explained to Constantius that the Nicene Faith, formulated by holy confessors, also had the aura of having been approved by Constantine of famous memory, who had professed it at his baptism (by Eusebius of Nicomedia—the statement is the first indication of the hagiographical tendency which culminated in the replacing of Eusebius by Pope Silvester). The Illyrians had manifested their inconstancy by offering amendments to the Dated Creed. Any abandonment of Nicaea would cause disorder everywhere and especially at Rome. (The reference is perhaps to Pope Liberius’ wobbly adhesion to the Nicene creed; at Ariminum Potamius of Lisbon and Epictetus bishop of Centumcellae said that Liberius merited anathema: CSEL . , tr. Wickham .) To Constantius the western majority wrote to beg leave to go home, especially since many were old and poor. Then with their people they could pray for Constantius’ salvation and for the peace of the empire. A long list of signatures was appended to this letter to Constantius (Athan. Syn. ; CSEL . –). A tenth-century manuscript (Paris. lat. , fo. v) preserves a list of anti-Arian anathemas approved at Ariminum, almost certainly belonging to this drama at the first session of the council. (The text, not in Hilary, CSEL , is reprinted from Coustant in PL . –.) The bishops anathematize those who say the Son of God is out of nothing and not begotten of the Father, true God of true God; who say Father and Son are two Gods or that they are one and the same; or (against Photinus and Marcellus) that the Son of God began from Mary, or that there was a time when he was not, or that he is only human. In particular they reject the proposition that Father, Son, and Spirit are three substances (i.e. three hypostases?), or that the Son was before
Constantius’ Double Council of Unity
all ages but not before all time or that created things were made without him or before him. The bishops felt sure that they were condemning all heresies that had ever raised their head against the catholic and apostolic tradition. Already it was becoming a repeated formula that the Nicene creed was a bulwark against every deviation, not only Arianism, and therefore needed and must have no supplement. It participated in the sacredness of holy scripture to which no addition or subtraction was possible. The two separate parties could not easily meet together, and both sent delegations of ten members to Constantius at Constantinople. Meanwhile, their colleagues were detained in Ariminum. The legates found the emperor planning a campaign against Persia and unwilling to see either of them. He was busy gathering Gothic forces by the Danube, and the legations were told to wait for him at Adrianople (Edirne). Meanwhile back in Ariminum bishops were becoming extremely restive at the long delay, and pleaded by letter for release. Constantius was going to grant nothing of the kind. The two legations were told to move to the little Thracian post station of Nike (formerly called Ustodizo) and to discuss until agreement was reached. Even then there was no promise of release. Western legates at Nike Nike was probably the kind of desolate place to which exiles might be banished. It is very unlikely that anything was done to make the two delegations comfortable. When Hilary of Poitiers came to write his work ‘Against Valens and Ursacius’ he included some scraps of information and a few texts shedding a fitful light on the Nike meeting, but almost all the story is shrouded in obscurity. Afterwards it was not in the orthodox interest to provide a proper record of the proceedings. Restitutus bishop of Carthage led the western bishops to capitulate, acknowledging that the dissension at Ariminum had been the work of the Devil (CSEL . . ) and that they had been wrong to excommunicate the Illyrians. Significantly he came from a region little involved in the Greek debate, probably finding much of the debate almost incomprehensible, and convinced by experience with African Donatists that no technical disagreement in theology could be worse than the rancour of schism. The final agreed statement of faith modified the Dated Creed of Sirmium, avoiding ‘like in all respects’ and content to say ‘like according to the scriptures’—in short, the form of words for which Valens had unsuccessfully striven at Sirmium. The statement prohibited the proposition that Father, Son, and Spirit are a single hypostasis (Theodoret, HE . . ). The ghost of Western Serdica was laid. Except for unimportant concessions in wording, the western delegates suffered an unmitigated defeat, which the pro-Nicene
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sources strenuously seek to whitewash, blaming the emperor’s improper pressure or bitterly cold weather or the bishops’ age, weak health, and travel exhaustion or youthful lack of experience compared with those clever old Illyrians who deceived them with diabolically ingenious ambiguity. It seemed unthinkable that the simple-hearted Nicene west could so have betrayed the truth and led the world, in Jerome’s famous phrase, to ‘groan at finding itself Arian’. Winter was approaching, when the Balkans can be remarkably cold. The legates from Nike returned to Ariminum, where the bishops composed a letter to Constantius, preserved by Hilary (CSEL . –) who was sure it was the work of the non-Nicene leaders. The letter declares that, in consensus with the easterners, they are agreed to avoid the unscriptural terms ousia or homoousios, words unknown to God’s Church and creating scandal. Their colleagues accustomed to use such terms have accepted defeat. So now the bishops, ‘we who are in complete agreement with the Orientals’, ask leave to return home so that they no longer have to be detained with people infected by perverse doctrine. At the emperor’s command they have renounced the unworthy term ousia. So please would the emperor tell the prefect Taurus to let them go. A letter has gone to the eastern bishops to inform them of the western council’s decision. This text shows that the legates from Nike did not succeed in winning over all the pro-Nicene party at Ariminum. Yet they write to the emperor in the name of the council as a whole. The emperor’s letter to Taurus told the prefect that the bishops could not go home until they had all signed the Nike text. This forced the Nicene bishops’ hand, except for twenty led by Phoebadius of Agen and Servatius bishop of Tongres (Sulpicius Severus, Chronicle . –, probably dependent on lost parts of Hilary’s account of the council, but with a touch of Gallic regional patriotism). Phoebadius was convinced that Valens believed the Son of God to be created on a par with the rest of the created order. Under the presidency of a senior African Bishop Muzonius a confrontation followed, which ended in Phoebadius yielding. ‘Not a creature as one of the created order’? According to Jerome’s ‘Altercation between Luciferian and Orthodox’, expressly dependent on the conciliar Acts but perhaps influenced by his reading of Hilary’s work against Valens and Ursacius, which he knew (Vir. inl. ), Valens was asked directly if he believed the Son of God to be a creature, and exculpated himself with six anathemas. Valens insisted that the Son was begotten before all ages, is like the Father in accord with the scriptures, is not a creature as other creatures, is not made out of nothing, and there was no
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time before he came to be. This was received with acclamation. Subtle minds would soon ask if ‘not a creature as other creatures’ really meant that the Son of God is indeed a creature but in a different category from the rest of the created order. At the time the ambiguity was not detected. When the western legates from Ariminum came to Constantinople and met their eastern opposite numbers, they quoted Valens’ anathema; delegates of the eastern synod of Seleucia saw the point, at least according to Hilary (CSEL . . ff.; co. Aux. ; Ambrose, De fide . . ). It is difficult to be certain here whether Hilary’s comments are his own or if he had an authentic report of a dialogue at Constantinople. In any event he was misrepresenting Valens and his friends in accusing them of regarding the Son as being on the same level as the rest of creation in the hierarchy of being. The form of the Acts of Ariminum that passed into general circulation was determined by the party led by Valens. Marius Victorinus, De homousio recipiendo, attacked Valens’ party for thinking the Son could be called a creature, but had to admit that they did not actually say ‘created out of nothing’. He was aware that Valens and his friends dissociated themselves from the radical Aetius. The agreement at Ariminum was bound to be represented as compromise and therefore to be an objectionable fudge. The timeless principle common to such dialogues operated, that any proposition acceptable to the opposing group must for that reason alone be inadequate. Jerome was no admirer of the outcome, and even less was Hilary of Poitiers. But they were willing to find excuses for what had happened. An absolute rejection of communion with any bishop who had assented to or excused the agreement at Ariminum was led by Lucifer of Calaris in Sardinia, at the time still an exile in Egypt, and in Spain by Gregory bishop of Elvira: assent had been an act of sheer cowardice before the pressure of an emperor who was a forerunner of Antichrist. A central question would be the policy of Pope Liberius. Wisely he could not agree to the virtual demotion of almost all the western episcopate, and found reasons for thinking that apologetic signatories should be pardoned and remain in office. Lucifer excommunicated him. But that is to anticipate moves after Constantius’ death on November . Constantius’ driving motive was to avert the split between east and west that had occurred at Serdica. Schism had very adverse political consequences for the empire. Evidence put before him by the influential Valens or by Basil of Ankyra easily convinced him that the Nicene term homoousios engendered many disputes and in the Greek east had provoked too much misgiving because of its capacity for embracing Sabellianism, of which the still living Marcellus was the embodiment. His difficulty was to persuade the Latin west, and especially the see of Rome with its close links to Athanasius of Alexandria and its already innate feeling both that St Peter’s see must be an ultimate judge of truth in God’s Church and that all authority and coherence foundered if
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the creed accepted by Popes Silvester in and Julius in was jettisoned. At Nike and Ariminum Constantius was granted success, but at a price. Hilary’s anger. Tax concessions? The outcome at Ariminum vastly angered Hilary of Poitiers, who in wrote a tract ‘Against Constantius’. He accused the emperor of persecution as wicked as that of Nero or Decius, and worse because it was veiled in deceitfulness. It was diabolical not to employ torture, which would have given the dissenting faithful the honour of confessor status. In particular he had bought the assent of many bishops by dangling before the churches tax concessions and, like Judas to Christ, greeting bishops with a kiss, bowing his head to receive their benediction (c. Const. , PL . ). An edict in the Theodosian Code dated June (. . ) notes a discussion at the council of Ariminum about the privileges of churches and clergy. In Constantius had already granted bishops exemption from having to appear before secular courts; they could be judged only by other bishops (CTh . . ; Ambrose, ep. = M . ). The edict of grants severely limited exemption from taxes and from obligations to undertake public services, but mainly to impoverished gravediggers, not to clergy who own large estates. It is instructive that there were bishops in this last category. For an emperor in need of funds to finance his intended expedition against Persia, tax exemptions could not be very welcome. Success would need more than the bishops’ prayers, important as those would be. The council of Seleucia () Accounts of the council of Seleucia mainly depend on Sozomen’s history (. –) which drew on a detailed narrative by a strongly partisan homoiousian, Sabinos of Heraclea. Sabinos had little compunction about misrepresenting parties other than his own, but was clear on the main outline of events. The bishops at Ariminum were persuaded to assent by the consideration that agreement with the Greek east was necessary and an expression of the authority of a united Church. At Seleucia in Isauria about a hundred and fifty or sixty bishops gathered late in September . It was a significantly smaller attendance than that at Ariminum. Constantius appointed two counts, Lauricius and Leonas, to preside as his representatives. The emperor’s letter to the synod was imprecise about the agenda. The first session saw dissension about the question whether the synod should first consider the question of faith or if it should begin by considering accusations against Cyril of Jerusalem and Eustathius of Sebaste in Roman Armenia, who was advocating a radical asceticism that was the subject of much dispute.
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Cyril, bishop since , was deposed by Acacius of Caesarea in on the ground that to raise funds for the starving during famine he had sold to a dancer a golden decorated robe given to the Jerusalem church by Constantine (so Theodoret, HE . ). An alternative version in Sozomen (. ) is that a layman who had presented a fine robe was shocked to see it being worn by an actress at a local music-hall (which might raise the question how he had come to see this worldly spectacle). Eustathius had an early association with non-Nicene circles, but became accepted in Asia Minor, and then fell under discipline because of his rigorous asceticism, negative to married believers. His was not a standpoint to which Basil of Ankyra was unsympathetic; Basil was author of an extant treatise on celibacy and its medical consequences, preserved under the name of Basil of Caesarea. Basil of Ankyra had been a physician before ordination. Absentees at this opening session included Basil of Ankyra, Patrophilus of Scythopolis, and Macedonius of Constantinople (a bishop of the capital of whom the historian Socrates had the lowest opinion). Unkind opinion suspected them of staying away for fear of facing unspecified charges. The theological issue was voted for by the majority as the first question to be debated. The Council divides: Acacius of Caesarea That brought with it the problem that immediately the diverse parties closed ranks against each other. Acacius of Caesarea, Eudoxius of Antioch, George of Alexandria, Uranius of Tyre, and thirty-two others were for the Dated Creed. George of Laodicea and Eleusius of Cyzicus were homoiousians, preferring the creed of the Dedication council of Antioch, which rejected Marcellus’ Sabellianism as the Nicene creed did not; they had a substantial majority, and, no doubt foolishly, held a separate defiant meeting to endorse the Antioch creed. Acacius of Caesarea and his friends drew up an independent statement, extant in Epiphanius’ Panarion (. –), which they put before the count Leonas. Tumult greeted the reading of this document which noted that the emperor had forbidden unscriptural words in any creed, and went on to argue that the synod was invalidated by the presence in the homoiousian group of deposed bishops (Cyril of Jerusalem and Eustathius of Sebaste being instances) and others illicitly ordained; moreover in the first session some bishops had been insulted and others prevented from speaking. Acacius answered accusations of being a turncoat by saying that he did not reject the creed of Antioch (to which he had once subscribed), but the unscriptural homoousios or homoiousios must now be abandoned in view of the fact that the terms were divisive, and some wanted to stress the dissimilarity between Father and Son, an opinion which Acacius and his group wished to anathematize and which the creed of might conceivably be
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held to allow. (Sabinos here claims misleadingly that Acacius wanted a formula that did not exclude Aetius. Acacius was soon to preside at a council in Constantinople in which condemned Aetius and his Libyan supporters: Theodoret, HE . ). For Aetius’ school the similarity of Father and Son resided in will, not in ousia. But Col. : ‘image of the invisible God’ vindicated ‘like’. Acacius’ document ended with an edifyingly simple creed, a sound baptismal confession excellent for catechumens, without the least relevance to the controversial issues but declared to be in line with the Dated Creed of Sirmium. Forty-three signatures are recorded by Epiphanius (incomplete in the manuscript tradition, which has only thirty-seven names). The named sees show that Acacius had a strong following in Palestine, Syria, and Libya and, beside George of Alexandria, even a handful from Egypt (Pelusium and Thmuis). Any pro-Nicene bishops from Egypt were wholly without influence. Acacius withdrew from attending the synod, saying that the emperor had ordered him to be present only if unanimity was achieved. Count Leonas supported Acacius’ stand. The homoiousian majority declared excommunicate and deposed George of Alexandria, Acacius, Eudoxius of Antioch, and others (. . . ). A presbyter of Antioch, Annianos, consecrated to succeed Eudoxius, then found himself arrested, handed over to the two counts and their soldiers, and later sent into exile. The counts knew that the emperor was opposed to allowing the homoiousian majority to dominate and to exclude, an intolerance which would be no road to the common faith which he desired. At the same time he was no supporter of Aetius and Eunomius, whose language he found disturbing. By the first day of October the factions in the synod could no longer meet together. It was already all too clear that the count Leonas was not giving any support to the homoiousian majority which was now being led by Eleusius of Cyzicus and Silvanus of Tarsus, zealots for the creed of Antioch ; they could not be persuaded by Basil of Ankyra to agree to the Dated Creed’s modest claim that the Son is ‘like the Father according to the scriptures’. For the homoiousians the silences of the Dated Creed were unacceptable. Yet that formula was something almost nobody could reject; hence its attraction for the emperor. It excluded virtually no one, not even Aetius and Eunomius, since the assertion of likeness implies some degree of dissimilarity. Even the assertion of identity becomes interesting if and when there is a significant difference between the beings or objects compared. Epiphanius regarded the differences between the non-Nicene groups as hardly more than hairline cracks. That was fair enough so far as theology was concerned. But the divisions were exacerbated by personal animosities, at least between Acacius of Caesarea and his suffragan Cyril of Jerusalem.
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Legates and emperor at Constantinople The synod faced the imperial requirement of ten legates to confer with him and with the legates from Ariminum. The two legations met with the emperor at Constantinople. There too came Hilary of Poitiers from his nearby exile in Phrygia (Sulpicius Severus, Chronicle . ). The emperor appointed the city prefect Honoratus to take charge of the proceedings. The emperor was unimpressed by an interview with Aetius, and wished Eudoxius of Antioch to condemn him. A question arose whether he should be condemned by name or whether the anathema should state the doctrine to which objection was being taken. The homoiousian group feared that they might get only the former from the slippery Eudoxius, and wrote a letter to the western legates from Nike to warn them of a clever plot on this point. They added that they were keeping the western churches informed of everything that was going on. The homoiousian group, led by Silvanus of Tarsus, was aspiring to propose alliance with Rome and the Latin west, perhaps inspired in that direction by Hilary of Poitiers. Constantius and Hilary want a simple scriptural creed Acacius and his friends had their own delegation at the court. Although they represented a minority at Seleucia, in Acacius the group had a leader of high ability endowed with determination and persuasiveness. They told the homoiousians that the statement accepted by the western legates at Nike should now be approved. Constantius himself asked all the bishops to agree on the Nike formula which declared the Son to be like the Father, reassuring the homoiousians by observing that though the terms with ousia were not used, they were not actually condemned. What he wanted was an agreed statement of faith and he believed the best route to that end was to stick strictly to scripture as all-sufficient or to simple words such as ‘like’ which expressed the biblical intention and avoided divisive technicalities. Paradoxically that was almost identical with the advice given to the emperor by Hilary of Poitiers (ad Const., CSEL . –; tr. Wickham –). Hilary deplored the ceaseless production of competing creeds and mutual anathemas, and declared deep admiration for the emperor’s longing for a simple scriptural statement, a baptismal confession which showed true religion to be in the heart, not a written text with signatures and a philosophical debate. Nevertheless, there have been few heretics who have not claimed the authority of scripture. Peace for the church of both east and west would bring honour to Constantius’ reign. (Hilary was not so pleased with the simple text that emerged.) In his hope of an audience with the emperor Hilary was frustrated.
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After a session through the night of December the emperor finally persuaded the homoiousian legates from Seleucia to accept the Nike text, the formula already approved by the council of Ariminum. Hilary of Poitiers was deeply saddened that the legates from Ariminum had silently acquiesced in communion with Valens and Ursacius, and indeed from the first moment of their arrival in Constantinople had ignored the representations and warnings of the homoiousians and had without hesitation or delay shared the eucharist with the Illyrian heretics on the ground that being westerners, they were ‘their own people.’ It was shaming that the legates had allowed Valens to cite proof-texts from Latin fathers, ‘from your own library’, to convince them of the correctness of the Nike formula (CSEL . –; tr. Wickham –). The argument presupposed western pride in Western theology. On January the emperor could celebrate the New Year and his entering upon the office of consul for the tenth time. Eudoxius’ council of Constantinople . Homoiousian defeat. The homoiousian bishops could only retire to lick their considerable wounds. They had been betrayed by the Latin west. Acacius and his friends remained in the capital and gathered a council of seventy-two bishops, including Ulfilas of the Goths. (Was the number present chosen to give the assembly the same sacredness as the Septuagint?) The Great Church of Sophia at New Rome, begun under Constantine, was completed and in February was dedicated. The Paschal Chronicle of the sixth century preserves the names of fifty bishops present (‘with others’ PG . –). This council reaffirmed the formula of Ariminum, forbade any use of either ousia or hypostasis in reference to God, and degraded Aetius from the office of deacon. It went on to declare deposed the leading homoiousian bishops, not for their doctrine, but as disturbers of the peace: Bishop Macedonius of Constantinople (who had a turbulent record in the city and caused offence by moving Constantine’s body from the church of the Apostles to that of St Acacius to facilitate some reordering of the Apostles’ basilica), Cyril of Jerusalem, Silvanus of Tarsus, Eleusius of Cyzicus, and especially Basil of Ankyra who, intoxicated by favour shown to him by Constantius a year earlier, had acted in a violent and arrogant way violating the canons. He had used his influence with the civil authorities to have clergy from Antioch and points east, from Cilicia, Galatia, and Asia, to be arrested by provincial governors. Without trial many of them had been fettered and had had to bribe the soldiers to escape dreadful maltreatment, this being a customary necessity for those in custody. (Libanius observes that prisoners had to bribe their gaolers to escape fearful naked floggings: orat. . ; . .)
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To replace Macedonius, Eudoxius was translated from Antioch. At Constantinople he reached the summit of his ambitions, and held the see for a decade. Constantius gave the new basilica at Constantinople munificent benefactions. The building did not have an untroubled history, and ultimately was destroyed in the Nika riot in January , thereby making room for Justinian’s masterpiece that still stands today. The extant creed of Eudoxius proclaimed the secondariness of the Son to the Father whom he worships, whereas the Father worships no higher being. As the ‘only begotten’ the Son is superior to the rest of creation of which, as firstborn of creation, he is supreme. He was made flesh but not man, since he did not assume a human soul. He was not two natures since he was not completely man. God replaced the soul in the flesh. The whole is one nature and was passible only by ‘economy’ (or condescension). If either soul or body suffered, he could not save the world. It is therefore impossible to say that one who is passible and mortal can be of the same ousia (homoousios) with God who is superior to such things, transcending suffering and death. Eudoxius saw to it that the sees compulsorily vacated were now filled by friends of his party. Eunomius himself replaced Eleusius at Cyzicus, which did not please Acacius (Philostorgios . ). Eudoxius advised Eunomius to exercise careful reserve in expressing his real views. It was a grievance for Aetius that though he was exiled, he was only saying openly what others were secretly thinking (Epiphanius, Panar. . . ). Other bishops unconvinced of the case against Aetius were temporarily suspended and allowed six months in which to see the light (Theodoret, HE . . – lists them). Eunomius could not be discreet for long. He was delated to Eudoxius, then to Constantius, who demanded his removal from office. Eunomius retired much aggrieved that Eudoxius had failed to support him, and set up his own sect with bishops and clergy ordained by him to serve the congregations of his connection. He composed an Apologia submitted to Constantius; Basil of Cappadocia wrote a refutation of it, to which in Eunomius wrote a rejoinder. A more powerful attack on Eunomius was composed by Gregory of Nyssa.2 Meletius of Antioch For the vacant see of Antioch contenders were numerous. Eudoxius thought well of Meletius from Armenia, bishop of Sebaste in that province, known to be an eloquent preacher as well as a man of virtuous life. Meletius had been consecrated to the see of Sebaste after Eustathius had been deposed in or 2 See the edition of Eunomius by R. P. Vaggione (Oxford, ) and his monograph (Oxford, ). Gregory of Nyssa’s work was edited by Werner Jaeger (, nd edn. Leiden, ).
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about ; but such was the popularity of Eustathius with the congregation that Meletius, who was by nature gentle and unaggressive, found the task impossible and withdrew. So he was a bishop at a loose end, living nearby at Beroea (Aleppo) and available. At Seleucia he had assented to Acacius’ noncontroversial creed. There was nothing in his past record to alert Acacius and Eudoxius to any risks. Meletius was duly translated to the difficult see of Antioch, where there was a history of division, especially because of the small intransigent continuing congregation loyal to the Nicene creed and to the memory of Eustathius of Antioch, deposed not long after the council of Nicaea to die in Thrace. This congregation had as their pastor a presbyter named Paulinus, whose strength lay in the support received and communion enjoyed from both Alexandria and Rome. Meletius was installed in office by Acacius and his friends, all ‘Arians’ in the judgement of Paulinus. Sozomen (. ) records that at Meletius’ first discourse all parties, including Jews and pagans, crowded in to hear him. He began by ethical teaching, but soon he passed to theology. At Antioch Constantius was wintering and preparing for a campaign against Persia. He decided to hold a sermon festival in which successive discourses by different preachers were to expound the controversial text, Prov. : (LXX) ‘The Lord created me the beginning of his ways with a view to his works.’ He heard George of Laodicea, then Acacius of Caesarea, thirdly Meletius, whose exposition of the Trinity as unity alarmed disciples of Eudoxius. Perhaps he was going to defend the distrusted creed of Nicaea. The text of this discourse is preserved by Epiphanius, Panar. . –: Meletius began with a plea for unity in the church, and went on to affirm the Son of God to be God of God, ‘one of the One, begotten of the Begetter and worthy Son of him who is without beginning, interpreter of him who is beyond interpretation.’ He is not merely an utterance of the Father but is an independent hypostasis, ‘like’ the Father as accurately revealing his character. But some take Prov. : to deny that Christ is God. In scripture there is no contradiction, though it may appear so to those not sound in faith or weak in intelligence. No analogy from this world suffices to show the nature of the Only-begotten, and scripture uses many terms and titles. The Son is like the Father, for he is the ‘image’; but not a soulless image of an ensouled being, nor only a piece of activity or energy. Physical birth is no sufficient analogy. Scripture uses both ‘begotten’ and ‘created’. His nature (physis) is beyond our grasp, and quarrels about the transcendent mystery make us fall into blasphemy. We should base our words on faith, not our faith on words.
Critical ears noted that Meletius had not expressly said the Son is a created being, and had made no reference to the question whether the suffering Christ could be one with the impassible Father; there were phrases which could be taken to be critical of Eudoxius. His language was so carefully chosen that he was hard to fault on doctrinal grounds. However, he reinstated
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clergy ejected by Eudoxius, and this gave ground for anger. So the decision was made to remove him from office, to exile him to his native Armenia, and to replace him by an old colleague of Arius at Alexandria named Euzoius. However, like Paulinus, Meletius had his loyal admirers at Antioch, who preferred to continue as a separate congregation apart from Euzoius and to worship in the open air without a building. He was supported by two learned presbyters, Diodore and Flavian. Paulinus’ congregation had at least a roof over their heads within the city. They were intransigent for the Nicene formula, but as Meletius moved nearer to this position, Paulinus became defensive. The closer Meletius moved towards approving of the Nicene homoousios, the more painful became the division between him and Paulinus. This was especially true after the death of Constantius in November and Julian’s amnesty which released the fiery exiled bishop Lucifer from Sardinia. A zealot for the true Nicene faith, he went to Antioch and with two other bishops consecrated Paulinus. It was harder to reconcile rival bishops than rival creeds. The schism at Antioch became a cardinal issue during the next decades and even beyond.
JULIAN AND THE CHURCH 1
Julian Caesar After Constantius had finished his dealings with the west in , he moved to Constantinople and sent his young cousin Julian with the rank of Caesar to check possible usurpers and barbarian attacks in Gaul. In both Cologne and Trier were badly damaged. A senior army officer was deputed to keep an eye on the Caesar, and to see that he made no foolish military decisions. In the event the officer led an unwise campaign across the Rhine and was crushed, thereby leaving Julian a free hand. At Strasbourg in Julian led his troops to success, enjoyed adulation from the legions, and himself composed a panegyric on his famous victory. It was a remarkable achievement for a young man in his mid-twenties whose upbringing and education had been withdrawn and bookish. After Eusebius, successively of Nicomedia and Constantinople, had died in the winter of /, Julian and his elder brother Gallus had been confined to an imperial palace and estate at Macellum, near Caesarea in Cappadocia. He was to be there for six years during which he served as a Reader in the church at Caesarea and with his brother funded the building of a martyr’s shrine for St Mamas, a popular hero for the church at Caesarea (Basil, hom. ; Greg. Naz. or. , ). He knew his Bible well, better than his guardians, it was said (Eunapius, V. Soph. ). He studied classical Greek literature and the liberal arts under a congenial tutor named Mardonios. He was able to borrow books from the opulent library of George, who in was to be pressed into becoming Athanasius’ rival as bishop of Alexandria, where he was singularly unloved by the city populace, both Christian and pagan. The news of Constantius’ death in November provoked the mob to lynch George; Julian immediately wrote disapproving of the murder but demanding George’s library for himself, to which end torture should be used if necessary. In Gallus was moved to Constantius’ court, while Julian studied further first at Constantinople, then at Nicomedia. At that time the distinguished pagan rhetor Libanius was teaching in Nicomedia; Julian was not allowed to 1
See the article with full bibliography by A. Lippold in RAC xix (), –.
Julian and the Church
hear him, but had clandestine contact. In , when Julian was at Antioch, they became friends and allies. Gallus was promoted to the rank of Caesar in . He was to be an imperial presence at Antioch in Syria while Constantius was coping with Magnentius’ usurpation in the west. His behaviour at Antioch was deplorable; Constantius summoned him and without trial had him executed. Julian had written his brother a sympathetic letter which came to be compromising and a source of anxiety (Libanius, or. . ; . ). The execution of his brother without trial was hurtful. Conversion to polytheism The young prince’s situation was not conducive to open manifestation of convictions. Probably he was confused anyway. Ammianus (. . ) was sure that from boyhood the gods held him; ‘in adolescence he burned with longing to participate in their cult.’ Julian and Gallus used to exchange argument for and against the gods (Greg. Naz. or. . ). In a letter (ep. Wright) Gallus regretted Julian’s too evident sympathy for the old religion.2 Julian’s letter of / to Alexandria (ep. Bidez, Wright) says he ceased to be Christian aged ; but the change was not publicly known until Constantius’ death made it safe. Outwardly he conformed to Constantius’ expectations for ten years during which pagan cult was outlawed, and high offices of state were not for avowed pagans. Perhaps for a time Julian’s ideas were syncretistic. As late as January he was attending church for the Epiphany. In Julian had the chance to travel about to Pergamum, then to Ephesus where he was wholly fascinated by a theosophist and wonderworker named Maximus, who combined Neoplatonic doctrines with wonderful occult rites and solemn purifications. He discovered a coterie of Neoplatonic teachers of high culture, deeply admiring the writings of Iamblichus, and in some cases following Iamblichus in the practice of theurgy or the employment of pagan rituals to assist the soul towards purification. A letter from Julian to the philosopher Priscus of Athens asks for a copy of Iamblichus’ commentary on the Chaldaean Oracles (ep. Bidez = Wright), a late second-century work concerned about the right formulae for compelling the gods to do things.3 Priscus remained a favourite, went with him to Persia, and was with him when he died. 2 Bidez and Cumont, p. , needlessly doubt the letter’s authenticity; cf. W. den Boer, Vig. Chr. (), –. 3 A good recent discussion of the Oracles by P. Athanassiadi, Pagan Monotheism in Late Antiquity (Oxford, ), –. Extant biographies of this coterie were written by the pagan historian Eunapius (–c.); who also wrote a largely lost ‘Universal History’ bitterly polemical against
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Maximus of Ephesus could perform strange wonders, burning incense and reciting a spell which made a torch in the hand of an image of Hecate burst into flame (Eunapius, V. Soph. . . ), an act which may well have been inspired by an oracle of Hecate quoted by Porphyry in his book on Oracles (cited by Eus. Caes., Praep. Evang. , , d). One of Libanius’ letters () congratulates Maximus for purging Julian of superstition (or. . ). Julian admiringly mentions the writings of Iamblichus, notorious for their rebarbative style. What came to Julian from this source was more theosophy than the art of reasoning. He would have found congenial Iamblichus’ book ‘On the Mysteries’ with its doctrine that a philosopher achieves union with the gods not by cool thinking but through cultic action or theurgy invested with divine power. The Sun-god Solar monotheism or henotheism (one god with subordinates) was potent in the third century. Aurelian’s victory over Palmyra gave credit to the Sun-god and his temple at Emesa (Homs) in Syria. For astrologers the sun was the most powerful planet. Coins of Constantine the Great and his arch by the Colosseum show symbols of the sun. At Constantinople the statue on his porphyry column wore a radiant crown like Apollo. Devout folk put candles and flowers at the base (Philostorgius . ). Christians venerated Christ ‘the sun of righteousness’. A Christian mosaic in the necropolis under St Peter’s, probably about , portrays Christ as the sun in a chariot crossing the sky. Chariot and horses were an ancient solar symbol ( Kgs. : ). Popular piety celebrated both Christ and the sun on December, a feast which became popular in the west by about and entered the Roman church’s official calendar by .4 For Neoplatonic philosophers or astrologers no power in this cosmos was superior to the sun, king of planets and all below, believed to have a special relationship with emperors and kings. As Julian looked back on his conversion to polytheism, he felt that under the direction of Zeus, the Sun-god King Helios had healed him of a deep malady (his normal term for Christianity but perhaps it simply means that he fell ill). In his study of rhetoric he owed a debt to Hermes god of eloquence and intellectual life (–). ‘The greatest gift of Zeus and Helios is Asclepius who has often cured my ailments’ (c. Galilaeos c). ‘His oracles are everywhere.’ Christianity and panegyrical about the ‘divine’ Julian. See R. J. Penella, Greek Philosophers and Sophists in the Fourth Century A.D. (Leeds, ). 4 See F. Cumont, ‘La théologie solaire du paganisme romain, Mémoires de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, . (), –; G. H. Halsberghe, The Cult of Sol Invictus (Leiden, ); F. J. Dölger, Die Sonne der Gerechtigkeit und der Schwarze (Münster, ).
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Julian composed a prose-poem in honour of King Helios, in which he recounts how in his youth sunlight so greatly fascinated him as to become a numinous experience. ‘By this ethereal light from childhood, my mind was in a state of ecstasy’ (c). He felt that this had helped to overcome the horror over the massacre of his father and close relatives. He did not recall that his life had been saved by a Christian named Mark, who became bishop of Arethusa in Syria. Despite his dislike of Constantius, he confessed his gratitude at having been born into a dynasty destined to rule ‘the inhabited world’ (Helios b), a sentence implying a rejoinder to charges of illegitimate usurpation. But this was the work of the Sun-god intending him to be his special servant (d), language strongly reminiscent of Constantine the Great’s almost messianic self-consciousness. Helios delivered him from darkness and opinions about the divine which he was happy to have shed (a). His vocation was to undo Constantine’s handiwork. He would not have been delighted if the orator Themistius (or. . d) had greeted him in the way he welcomed Jovian, as a new Constantine. The city he always called New Rome. In at the age of twenty Julian inwardly abandoned his belief in Christianity and adhered to the gods who had made the Roman empire, above all the Greek culture and religion of the pagan Neoplatonists. Julian knew Latin but Greek was the language he admired. Libanius (or. . ), who was not interested in theurgy, hoped that Julian had been converted to the cult of the old gods by the study of philosophy. Julian was aware that he was not actually much of a philosopher (a). Influenced by the Platonic Alcibiades I, which Neoplatonists regarded as the ideal introduction to the subject, he understood philosophy as a process of self-knowledge: ‘Recognize that you are divine, concentrate on pure thinking, and utterly despise the body’ (c–d). As an adolescent he adopted an extremely frugal life style. At Antioch in his lack of interest in food, wine, and sex provoked mockery. Julian’s writings show him to have absorbed the style and precepts of the ‘sophists’ with whom he studied. He shared their values. Only a small circle realized that this was now his position, and he wisely kept his own counsel, conforming to Christian expectations at a time when Constantius’ harassment of paganism was increasing. His military success in Gaul contrasted with Constantius’ lack of success against Persia, and envy entered the emperor’s distrustful mind. The Persian war needed more troops and in Constantius demanded the transfer of substantial units from Julian’s command. Any soldier on the Rhine frontier who had fought in the summer heat of Mesopotamia in June would have been reluctant. Libanius describes Constantius’ weak military ability in or. . . The orders were sent to Paris, Julian’s headquarters, but bypassing Julian and going to his subordinates.
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Mutiny followed. The army proclaimed Julian to be Augustus. That required a delicate negotiation on Julian’s part, asking Constantius for recognition of parity. Constantius did not wish to share equal supremacy in the empire, and refused the request. If Julian was to achieve supreme power, it had to be by military force, which could not be unsuccessful if he was to stay alive. Other usurpers had met with death. He had only a small army, but that had the advantage of making rapid movement possible. In Julian had married Constantius’ sister Helena. In Gaul she suffered a miscarriage (Ammianus . . says the midwife killed the infant as part of a malicious plot to ensure Julian had no offspring to succeed him). A devout Christian, she worshipped with him at the celebration of the feast of Epiphany on January . She supported Julian when he was acclaimed by the army in Paris. But her health was failing and not long after his elevation by the troops she died, to be buried in Rome beside her less edifying sister Constantina, who had been married to Gallus and had died in . Constantina founded the church of St Agnes without the Walls at Rome. Civil war averted when Constantius dies In the coming civil war with Constantius Julian was going to need all the help available. Being unsure of the loyalty of the army he offered secret sacrifices to the fierce Cappadocian goddess of war Bellona or Ma, and then addressed the troops asking for their fidelity (Ammianus . ). A vehement affirmative met his words, but the praetorian prefect Nebridius dissented and had to be protected by Julian from a lynching; he retired peacefully to his villa in Tuscany (PLRE i. ). Julian advanced into Pannonia, sending part of his small force into Italy to create the impression that he commanded numerous units, while he himself advanced to Sirmium to take control of Illyricum. From there he made a lightning move to the narrow pass of Succi in the mountains between Illyricum and Thrace, on the eastern side a precipitous defile. Meanwhile a propaganda war denigrating Constantius was launched. From Gallic successes Julian claimed to be able to release documents showing that the unchecked infiltration of Germanic tribesmen into Gaul, to the vexation of the inhabitants, had been encouraged by Constantius himself when he wanted to harass Magnentius. A dangerous and costly siege of welldefended Aquileia, loyal to Constantius, was ended when news came that on November the formidable emperor, who was widely expected to overcome in the imminent conflict, had died of fever at Mopsucrene in Cilicia. The story was put about that on his deathbed he named Julian as his successor, which was no doubt designed to answer some tough questioning of Julian’s legitimacy. Julian had found it necessary to address numerous cities
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offering a justification of his rebellion. The letter to the Athenians survives among his writings. The Roman senate had been unenthusiastic: was he not biting the hand that had fed him? Constantius received a funeral at Constantinople with the customary imperial honours, the body being conveyed by Jovian, a member of the imperial guard, protector domesticus. Julian attended the ceremony. Constantius’ third wife Faustina, whom he had very recently married, was soon to bear a daughter Constantia who grew up to be wife to the emperor Gratian. Estimates of Constantius differed then and later. The historian Aurelius Victor regarded him as a good, fair-minded man whose advisers and subordinates were disastrous. He surrounded himself with flattering yes-men. Venal eunuchs, with whom the court seemed to be filled, were the object of cordial dislike. Ammianus thought him judicious and conscientious in promoting military commanders, and in his private personal life a model of chastity; but his suspicious nature led him to appoint merciless judges cruel to those on trial for harbouring treasonable aspirations, in contrast to his ambition to be both just and merciful. His feared prosecutor Paul the Chain too often sentenced defendants to flogging with a scourge lethally weighted with pieces of lead (e.g. Libanius, or. , ). Ammianus (. . ) agreed with ‘right-minded people’ who would have thought it better for his reputation to renounce power and abdicate than to use such methods of deterrence. At the same time he conceded that the list of rebels to be suppressed was long. ‘The simplicities of the Christian religion he bedevilled with old wives’ fancies, making it so complicated and contentious that the public transport system was ruined by crowds of bishops attending synods as they call them’ (. . ). Julian’s estimate of Constantius was naturally low, and the unpopularity of Constantius’ taxes and the harshness of his subordinate governors gave material help to the new regime. To win popular support Julian issued an edict fixing maximum prices, which was not popular with food-producing landowners, especially when in Syria the needs of the army and poor distribution created a serious food shortage. His way of encouraging loyalty was to grant reduction of or exemption from taxes. When, however, he was preparing for his campaign against Persia, there was a sharp rise in taxes, and people with resources were not convinced of the necessity for so large an operation (Ammianus . . ). Julian brooded on and could not forgive the dynastic massacre of in which he had lost his father and his eldest brother, a tragedy for which Constantius disowned responsibility (Greg. Naz. or. , ). From Athanasius, Lucifer of Calaris, and Hilary of Poitiers we hear a harmoniously orchestrated chorus of vehement denunciation of Constantius. They knew a forerunner of Antichrist when they saw one. But from Gregory of Nazianzos kinder words come; Gregory realized that the emperor was
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determined to achieve unity of creed, marked by simplicity rather than complexity. A disputatious Church seemed to be disintegrating into competing factions with rival slogans excommunicating and persecuting each other in ways prejudicial both to public order and to the credibility of the Christian mission. Gregory did not think Constantius’ ideal ignoble (or. . ). Naturally he thought the sincerely Christian Constantius, even if poorly advised, a far better monarch than Julian the apostate. For Gregory Christian faith secured the greatness of the empire (or. . ). He understood that as Constantius body was being conveyed to Constantinople, a choir of angels was heard singing (or. . ). The restoration of polytheism as religion of the empire An edict of Constantius in shows that he regarded the essential act of pagan worship to be sacrifice (an opinion which Julian, unlike Porphyry, shared); that was what the ‘Vicar’ (i.e. deputy prefect) of Italy was instructed to stop (CTh . . ). This was soon followed by enactments protecting temples associated with public entertainments, which were necessary to keep the populace quiet (CTh . . . ). At Antioch the festival of Apollo at nearby Daphne was notoriously not a moral occasion. Gallus Caesar devised a means of purging Daphne by installing there the relics of St Babylas, martyred bishop under the persecution of Decius in . Antioch retained a substantial minority attached to pagan cult, but a majority were at least conforming Christians who, on occasion, were seen at church services. John Chrysostom would record that the people of Antioch were excessively attached to theatres and dancing, a weakness already noted in the second century by Lucian of Samosata (De saltatione ). On October the temple of Apollo was destroyed by fire, and the commission to investigate it could not find the culprit. The excitable and impulsive Julian was sure it must have been a Christian (Misopogon b), and ordered the great Church of the city to be closed. Soon after his arrival in Constantinople Julian ordered a trial of Constantius’ principal officers of state; many were executed. It is not clear that religion was a factor at this point. Among those who died was the military commander in Egypt, Artemius. He was treated as a saint and martyr by non-Nicene Christians; it is possible that he was a friend not only to Constantius and his anti-pagan programme but also of Bishop George when he needed protection against the angry mob. Artemius’ name occurs in P.Oxy. VIII .5
5
See J. Dummer, ‘Fl. Artemius Dux Aegypti’, Archiv für Papyrusforschung, (), –.
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At first Julian wanted religious toleration. His declared ambition was to restore justice on earth. But the bribery and corruption endemic under Constantius was in no degree lessened under Julian, and Ammianus observed that justice was precisely what it was hard to get under this emperor. Too many verdicts seemed arbitrary (. . ), a judgement with which Gregory of Nazianzos concurred (or. . ). An amnesty was granted to exiled bishops, an act which intentionally produced shaming troubles in the cities where an alternative bishop had been installed. Athanasius returned to Alexandria, and was unmolested until he was discovered to have baptized important ladies of the city, which seemed to Julian sufficient reason to require his departure. In he was able to preside over a small but crucially important synod at Alexandria, especially concerned about the situation of competing orthodoxies at Antioch. Julian’s restoration of polytheistic worship demanded the rebuilding of shrines. All Christians who had participated in dismantling temples and shrines were required to pay for restoration. A layman who had used building materials from a temple for his own house had to surrender them (Libanius, ep. ). At Cyzicus Bishop Eleusius was given two months in which to reinstate a Novatianist church destroyed under his predecessor (Socrates . . ). The use of state tax revenue to bolster church welfare was cancelled (Sozomen . . ). The military standard of Constantine the Great, the labarum, was abolished because its shape, the Chi-Rho (VQ), was understood to be a monogram of Christ (Greg. Naz. or. . ). At Paneas (Caesarea Philippi) a statue of a woman erected to symbolize Hadrian’s visit to the province in had been reinterpreted as the woman with a menstrual haemorrhage healed by Jesus; so Julian had it replaced by a statue of himself which was, to Christian satisfaction, then struck by lightning (Sozomen . ). Christian reaction to Julian was unfriendly. In the army a few soldiers preferred martyrdom to participation in pagan rites (Theodoret, HE . ). John Chrysostom commemorated two martyred soldiers, Juventinus and Maximin (PG . ). Libanius knew of some military units being bribed to offer sacrifice (or. . ). Zealots smashed newly restored altars ( Julian, Misopogon b). In Phrygia new images of gods were destroyed (Socrates . ). At Antioch Bishop Euzoius was commanded to remove the bones of St Babylas from Daphne (Misopogon bc; Libanius, or. . ; Ammianus . . ). Perhaps their presence in the immediate vicinity explained why the oracle of Apollo was silent. The congregation turned the occasion into a massive demonstration with a defiant procession carrying the sacred relics, singing and chanting Psalm to denounce the demonic gods of the heathen. Nisibis had many Christians and the reinstated temples remained ostentatiously empty (Soz. . . ), though Ephrem (Carmina Nisibena ) tells of some sun-worshippers and idolaters. In Caesarea in Cappadocia the
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temple of Fortune (Tyche), the presiding genius of the city, was destroyed by hotheads who suffered for their act (Greg. Naz. or. . –: ‘not unjustly’). Julian’s harassment of the Church began mildly but became severe (Greg. Naz. or. . ). Christians were not promoted in the army, and were not appointed provincial governors or magistrates, on the ground that they disapproved of capital punishment and torture. There was no change in the system whereby governorships were for sale (Libanius, or. . ). Julian was ready to order execution of soldiers who retreated before enemy forces, which embarrassed Libanius. On June an edict laid down the requirement that teachers of classical literature should be in sympathy with the religion of the texts (CTh . . ). In effect this excluded Christians from the teaching profession. Thereafter Julian’s attempts at toleration ceased, and his hatred of Christianity was given full rein. The sophist, and master orator Prohaeresius resigned his position at Athens, his sympathies being Christian.6 So also did Marius Victorinus in Rome. The standpoint that culture and religion are indissoluble was not alien to Christian thinking. Nevertheless, it meant that children of zealous Christian families could not go to school. Other than monasteries there were no church schools in this age. Libanius (or. . ) judged Julian’s edict a praiseworthy deed, as Ammianus did not (. . ; . . ). To Gregory of Nazianzos (or. . –) it was a barbaric act. The edict gave occasion for the Apollinarioi, father and son of the same name, at Laodicea in Syria to compose versions of biblical books in the forms of Greek epic or tragedy or, for the gospels, Platonic dialogue (Socrates . . –). A learned writer might suggest that Julian’s reason for forbidding Christians to teach Homer and classical Greek literature was to prevent people discovering how ridiculous the myths of the gods were (Socrates . . ). Libanius warmly supported Julian’s religious policy. At the same time he maintained amicable relations with Christians of the educated class. Being in need of pupils for financial reasons, he could hardly afford to alienate Christian parents who might send him their sons; he could not make his school an embattled pagan citadel. A count of his known pupils suggests that almost per cent were Christians. The upper classes were tenacious of the old gods. It is striking that in his ‘Beard-hater’, Misopogon, Julian set out to win the hearts of the proletariat. He may have learnt from the Church that the common people were of the first importance, and for bishops a major power-base. In the time of Augustine in north Africa great landowners were particularly difficult to convert to Christianity, saying they wanted to ‘associate with Pythagoras and Plato rather than with their domestic servants’, whose obedience they ensured by severe floggings; they would be 6
This is mistakenly doubted by R. Goulet in Antiquité tardive, (), –.
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embarrassed to be handing out alms to tenants whom previously they had been rapaciously oppressing. Another intellectual who provided important support to Julian was Sallustius, who had served in Gaul as praetorian prefect –. He wisely warned Julian against invading Persia; at least he ought to be sure that the gods were propitious, a matter of which Sallustius felt very uncertain (Ammianus . . ). Probably he was the author of a pagan catechism, ‘On the gods and the cosmos’.7 Against the Galileans 8 Naturally the Christians were hurt and offended by the emperor’s abandonment of his childhood faith, and puzzled by the reasons for the decision. There were critics for whom his accession remained illegitimate, and the two causes could coalesce. We have documents in which Julian defends legitimacy, but no text directly explaining his change of religious allegiance unless it be his treatise against the Galileans. Gregory of Nazianzos reports that an edict directed everyone to call Christians by the name ‘Galileans’, which could have been suggested to him by reading Epictetus (. . ). The title would convey their insignificance as ‘little people’ and their lack of any kind of universality such as the empire possessed. During the winter months of /, while preparing for his coming campaign against Persia, Julian wrote ‘Against the Galileans’ in three (?) books, justifying his apostasy. (The title ‘Apostate’ is met in Malalas in the sixth century.) This work does not survive intact, though it was known in medieval Byzantium. Substantial quotations, however, occur in the refutations written in the early fifth century by Theodore of Mopsuestia and especially Cyril of Alexandria, a well-educated man of wide knowledge. Alexandria remained a pagan citadel, where Julian’s work was valued. The historian Eunapius wrote a panegyric on him. At what stage Cyril wrote is unclear, except that he sent a copy to John bishop of Antioch (–), probably in (Theodoret, ep. ). A few pieces have survived elsewhere.9 7 Edited by A. D. Nock (Cambridge, ), less well by G. de Rochefort (Paris, ), setting out a positive programme of pagan theology, owing much to Iamblichus. 8 Sarcasm entered into Julian’s anti-Christian arsenal. When the church at Edessa was deprived of its treasures and endowments to finance the Persian war, Julian mockingly offered the consolation that the Christians could now practise apostolic poverty and get to heaven (ep. Bidez, Wright). 9 A collection of the fragments was published by K. J. Neumann (Leipzig, ), and this is reproduced in the third volume of the edition of Julian in the Loeb Classical Library by Professor W. C. Wright of Bryn Mawr. These editions are now superseded by E. Masaracchia’s (Rome, ), to which additional pieces from catenae (i.e. commentaries on scripture with summaries of a succession of commentators in the margins) are edited from Theodore of Mopsuestia by Augusto
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‘Jesus lived only years ago’ For ancient society the oldest known seers and peoples possessed insights not granted to later people. Julian liked to contrast the antiquity of polytheism with the modernity of Christianity. Jesus was embarrassingly recent. Polytheism allowed for a supreme deity, Zeus being the correct name which one must get right (d). For some pagan monotheists the highest is nameless; under him are lower deities and daemons. It is axiomatic that the supreme power works through provincial governors or satraps. So each nation and tribe has its own god, and this explains the diversities of national character. Hence Celts and Germans are fierce fighters (a; Misopogon b). Greeks and Romans are humane and alert to political problems. Egyptians are intelligent and skilled craftsmen. Syrians are not warlike but hot-tempered, vain but quick to learn. Western nations have no aptitude for philosophy or geometry, but the Roman world delights in oratory and debate. Persians, Parthians, and all barbarians in east and south are content to live under despotism (b). Such differences reflect the character of the god responsible for each. Admittedly climate is also a factor explaining differences, but is taken into account by the gods in charge. If Jewish–Christian monotheism were true, every race would be the same. For defenders of Christian belief in the Bible, the argument from the fulfilment of ancient prophecy, both in the life of Jesus and in the coming of the universal Church, enjoyed some potency. Origen (contra Celsum) allowed that in its popular form it was not cogent, and attached greater force to the astonishing expansion of the Church. Julian astringently rejects the argument from prophecy. True, some prophets of the Old Testament had looked forward to the coming of a son of David, a national liberator from foreign occupation; but that is very different from finding fulfilment of such predictions in a crucified Jesus. Moreover, the Christians attach high value to the Hebrew scriptures as divinely inspired, but then abandon observance of the laws given through Moses. Moses legislated for the sacrificing of animals in Guido (see Further Reading, IV). A valuable commentary on Gregory of Nazianzos’ first oration (or. ) against Julian has come from Alois Kurmann (Basel, ). Gregory’s brother was court physician and he had good access to facts, which he presented as if he were prosecuting counsel, treating Julian’s successes in government as baits for his diabolical traps. However, the fifth-century church historians Socrates and after him Sozomen got more from the Julianic orations of Libanius, well discussed by H. U. Wiemer, Libanios und Julian (Munich, ), and Reinhold Scholl, Historische Beiträge zu den Julianischen Reden des Libanios (Stuttgart, ). The reference system for c. Galilaeos to the pagination of Cyril in Aubert’s edition (= PG) differs from Julian’s other works (Spanheim). On a planned new edition of Cyril see G. Huber-Rebenich and M. Chronz in J. van Oort and D. Wyrwa (eds.), Heiden und Christen im . Jahrhundert (Leuven, ). A good discussion of the philosophical arguments used by Julian in this work by C. Riedweg in T. Fuhrer and M. Ehler (eds.), Zur Rezeption der hellenistischen Philosophie in der Spätantike (Stuttgart, (), –.
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worship; he was right, for sacrifices are the essential rituals which unite us with the gods. The Christians sacrifice no animals; they say that (in the eucharist) they have a new kind of sacrifice (f), but no one would think that their worship contained a sacrifice of any sort. And why have they abandoned circumcision, claiming that circumcised hearts fulfil the lawgiver’s intention? Why no passover, no unleavened bread? They reply by citing that dishonest and inconsistent charlatan Paul, and say Christ is their passover. They simply adjust divine laws given to Moses to suit ‘shopkeepers, taxmen, dancers, and pimps’ (e). So Julian dismisses Christianity as mere human folly (ep. = ), which is evident in the extreme austerities of monks or in the ceaseless invocation of Mary under the title of the ‘mother of God’ (theotókos, d). The ‘suicidal mortifications’ of Christian ascetics are provoked by evil daemons (ep. b, ab). The derivation of Christianity from Judaism is a further argument against it. Though Julian respected the antiquity of Judaism, he was unambiguously hostile. Both Jews and Christians hold the same books to be authoritative, but the only thing they have in common is rejection of the Hellenic gods. It was a big mistake of Hebrew prophets to disparage idols and sacrifices. And there is problematic implausibility about the notion that books written in Hebrew, a language not understood even by all Jews, can have been intended by the universal Father of all to be his revealed teaching for the entire human race. Hebrew prophecy is now no less silent than the oracles of the Greeks and Egyptians (c). But we have been granted by Zeus fellowship with the gods through theurgy. Admittedly divine inspiration comes rarely and to very few (b). (For Julian divination was important evidence of the truth of his religion.) Moreover, the penalties under the law of Moses are harsh, whereas our penal code is ‘gentle and humane’ (e). This last argument is reminiscent of the ‘Comparison between the law of Moses and that of the Romans’, the Collatio familiar to Roman lawyers, composed probably soon after Julian’s time, where the argument is that the superiority of Moses is discerned in the greater seriousness and graver penalties which he attached to transgressions. Julian attacks Judaism and the Hebrew scriptures with the kind of antiSemitic zest last found in Apion of Alexandria, to whom Josephus replied. He thinks the most brutal Greek and Roman military commanders were not as brutal as Moses (b). The God of the Decalogue is confessedly a jealous god, and jealousy is no admirable state of mind. Adam and Eve were forbidden to eat so as to acquire knowledge of good and evil, which had to be learnt from the serpent, a major benefactor of the human race (a). The God of the old scriptures becomes angry, swears oaths, changes his mind, as no thoughtful Greek would think possible (d). The philosophers tell us to imitate the gods as far as possible, and that this imitation consists in the
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contemplation of things which have being, which means an unmoved passionlessness or apatheia (d). As for culture, Julian asks what science or philosophy owes its origin to a Hebrew thinker. Arithmetic, geometry, music, astronomy and medicine have all been Hellenic discoveries (b). Eusebius of Caesarea wickedly tried to make out that the ancient Hebrews wrote hexameter epics (Praep. Evang. . . ), and claimed that they knew about logic (a). Surely Isocrates was wiser than Solomon. The New Testament writings are as unimpressive. Matthew and Luke do not agree on the genealogy of Jesus (e). That Jesus was divine is stated nowhere in Matthew, Mark, or Luke, but only in John (ab, a). Perhaps John had heard that the tombs of Peter and Paul were secretly being venerated (b). Some believe Jesus Christ to be quite other than the Logos proclaimed by John (b); Julian knew about Photinus of Sirmium, and wrote a letter (b) inviting Aetius to court. Julian is horrified by the cult of the martyrs, for corpses are a source of defilement (c). It is instructive to compare his view with Augustine’s apprehensiveness (Sermo . cf. ) that the veneration of martyrs may take forms hard to distinguish from pagan parentalia. His objection to the ‘deification’ of Jesus needs to be balanced against the fact that in his own lifetime altars were set up in his honour, and after his death he was invoked by pagans for intercession (Libanius, or. . ; . ). For Julian any providential intervention to rescue corrupt humanity is impossible. The divine realm is immutable, as one can deduce from the unchanging position of the stars, moving in a circle round the Creator and impelled on their way by the World Soul. We know God by nature in the conscience (b). Like John Chrysostom, Julian’s belief in God rests on the moral law within and the starry heavens above. Julian readily grants that Hellenic myths about the gods contain absurdities and impossibilities, but not more so than Hebrew myths. Julian had probably read Origen’s contra Celsum, and, though like Iamblichus he disliked his works, Porphyry. He was sure that in ancient myth absurdities are a sign of profound truths discoverable by allegory, without which the myths would be blasphemous (e). Otherwise one faces the questions, In what language did the serpent address Eve? Or where did Cain find a wife? (a). How inferior the Mosaic cosmogony is to the Timaeus of Plato can be seen in the fact that Moses records only the creation of physical matter and, unlike Plato, has nothing to say about incorporeal beings or angels ( e). If, as some claim, Solomon was expert in theurgy (and he enjoyed a high reputation among magicians as magical papyri show), he owed that to his numerous foreign wives and concubines and their gods. At least the Christians venerate the inferior powers whom we call daemons (–). In Julian’s copy of St Luke’s gospel the angel of the agony at Gethsemane was absent. One may wonder here whether he
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was discussing the contested place of angels in Christian theology, or variant forms of text (evident in Nestle–Aland’s New Testament). Julian was appalled by the mob violence which led some Christians to attack temples or polytheistic ceremonies. Perhaps he had reports of the Donatist militants (agonistici, by Catholics called circumcellions) of north Africa who, shouting ‘Laudes Deo’ and armed with clubs called Israels, specialized in an unstoppable charge destroying bands playing music at pagan festivals (Augustine, ep. . ). He noted that similar violence might be deployed against heretics, whose theology he likewise held in contempt ( a). All this was as bad as the bitterness of the Jews (e). Ep. = to Bostra, where Bishop Titus had written proudly of his successful pleas for peace and order, lists Samosata, Cyzicus, Paphlagonia, Bithynia, and Galatia as places where inter-sectarian violence had cost lives. Julian was offended that a bishop could claim responsibility for avoiding disputes. Both Athanasius (Hist. Ar. ) and Ammianus (. . ) thought Christians fighting each other more dangerous than wild beasts. Like Julian, Ammianus thought the disputes comparable to the contentions of Jews with one another. The restoration of pagan cult was popular in some places. At Emesa (Homs) in Syria there was an anti-Christian riot. At Arethusa the aged bishop Mark fled, but returned when he discovered how dreadfully his congregation was suffering. Sozomen (. . ) reports that Mark’s courage and pastoral devotion as he endured cruel indignities was much admired by the pagan prefect who thought Julian was making himself ridiculous. The city mob coated his body with honey and exposed him to wasps and bees. Gregory of Nazianzos thought his tortures gross when one recalled what he had done in to save Julian’s life (or. . ). Libanius (ep. ) wrote of the profound admiration in which Mark’s fortitude was held. In ordering the expulsion of Athanasius from Alexandria, Julian wrote that he would be ashamed if any Galilean were to be found in the city (ep. = ). His religious policy had been vindicated by the exceptionally high rise of the annual Nile flood on which the economy of the country depended (ep. = ). (This argument would be used by Christians after the attack on the temple of Serapis in .) In Cappadocia Julian despaired of finding a single pagan (ep. = ). Even where there were pagans to be found, he deplored their apathy, in strong contrast with the passionate zeal of religious Jews (ep. = Bidez). Syria was more open to his views. At Batnae he was pleased to find polytheistic cult maintained, and was embarrassed only that the vast clouds of incense greeting his presence suggested that the ritual was being overdone and seemed unprofessional (ep. = to Libanius).
Julian and the Church
The Temple at Jerusalem Because it would vex the Galileans, Julian planned the rebuilding of the Jewish Temple at Jerusalem, so that once again sacrifices could be offered. This hugely costly project, for which wealthy Jews contributed funds, was intended to leave for posterity a lasting memorial of his reign (Ammianus . . ). It would also refute prophecies to which Christians appealed. Julian was anxious to make amends for some adverse treatment of rioting Jews in Syria under his brother Gallus. However, earthquake ( May ) and a resulting fire brought the work to a stop and seemed an ominous manifestation of celestial disapproval.10 Christian influence on Julian’s revival Julian’s programme for a restored cult of the old gods was considerably indebted to the Church. He saw how important bishops were in giving coherence to the churches, and nominated high priests in different regions with responsibility for appointing local pagan priests. He wanted priests to provide a welfare agency for the destitute exactly as the churches had long done. Moreover, the personal life of priests was to be a moral model for worshippers, with no visits to taverns. In Lydia, he appointed the sophist Chrysanthius, beloved teacher of Eunapius, to be high priest for the region. Chrysanthius moved slowly. He may have had little confidence that Julian’s revival would last. He rebuilt no temples as other high priests did, and was in no way harsh to the Christians. In consequence the restoration programme in Lydia passed almost unremarked, and after Julian was dead the transition back to an easy-going tolerance was effortless. Chrysanthius was a fervent worshipper of the gods (Eunapius, V. Soph. ). But he wanted quiet coexistence between cults. Zeal embarrassed him. A comparable figure on the Christian side was the bishop of Troy, Pegasius (ep. = ). When Bishop Pegasius was called upon to give the future emperor a conducted tour of the city and its old temples, Julian was clear that he held the right views of the gods. Altars were still in use, and a statue of the hero Hector had been anointed, defended by Pegasius on the ground that he was a kind of classical martyr and should be honoured. Pegasius gratified Julian by not making the sign of the cross or hissing as many Christians did on coming near a pagan temple. This practice is attested in Tertullian (Idol. ) 10 Excavations at Scythopolis (Bet Shean) illustrate damage resulting from this tremor; see Y. Tsafrir and G. Foerster in Dumbarton Oaks Papers, (), –. An inscription from Ma‘ayan Barukh, Israel, praises Julian, ‘templorum restaurator’: A. Kofsky and G. G. Stroumsa, Sharing the Sacred ( Jerusalem, ), .
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and Theodoret (Hist. rel. ). Later Julian discovered that secretly Pegasius used to pray to the Sun-god Helius. The bishop was far from being the only Christian of the age to think Christianity and sun worship reconcilable. In the mid-fifth century Pope Leo I found that members of his congregation on coming to worship at St Peter’s, where the church is ‘orientated’ so that the altar is at the west end, used to venerate the rising sun in the east before entering the basilica. At Alexandria we hear of Christians venerating the sunrise with the prayer ‘Have mercy upon us’ (Ps. Eus., PG . . cd). Epictetus (. . ) shows that ‘Kyrie eleison’ was a common form of prayer for non-Christians. It could be (but did not have to be) associated with a prayer to the Sun-god. In the New Testament Kyrie eleison is found at Matt. : and : ; cf. : –, and similar formulas are frequent in the Psalms. A threefold Kyrie eleison was part of the liturgy at Constantinople in the time of John Chrysostom (Hom. in Matt. . ). Ammianus Marcellinus himself includes in his intelligent and indispensable history many remarks sympathetic both to the kind of Neoplatonism represented by Porphyry and to Christianity, at least in the style represented by humble country bishops. While he admired Julian for personal heroism and other qualities, he certainly thought that the pagan revival was marked by excesses such as huge sacrifices and far too much divination. A sacrifice for an emperor customarily required white cattle. After some of Julian’s hecatombs it was feared the supply was running out. The meat and drink handed out to soldiers on such occasions stupefied them so that they had to be carried to their quarters in a debauched state. These cultic acts were costly. Moreover, since the emperor highly valued divination, all manner of people set up shop as fortune-tellers and professed skill in mantic arts (Ammianus . . –). Ammianus was clear that Julian was taking religion to the point of superstition (. . ), foolishly dreaming of trumpets and battles (. . ), and excessive in his trust in omens. Though Ammianus himself was a believer in the value of omens, and in the inflexible power of fate, he disliked zeal. ‘Julian would have conquered Persia if heaven had not decided otherwise’ (. . ). ‘No human power or merit has ever prevented what the decree of destiny has ordained’ (. . ). In Ammianus there seems to be a stance somewhere between paganism and Christianity, tolerant of both provided there was no excess or violence in either cause.11
11 I have not been able to follow Professor T. D. Barnes in the judgement that Ammianus was a Christian: see his Ammianus Marcellinus and the Representation of Historical Reality (Ithaca, NY, ). I do not think he was more than a fellow traveller, at most a ‘flying buttress’ on one or two days in the week. For the pagan side of him see J. F. Matthews, The Roman Empire of Ammianus (London, ), –.
Julian and the Church
The Persian campaign There were attractions about following Alexander the Great, even if not as far as India and Afghanistan. After Constantius’ defeats at Persian hands, Julian wanted to show how war should be waged; so he would be awarded the epithet Parthicus, and he would vindicate the old gods as givers of victory. Before the war Julian was given much advice against it by critics whom he ignored, and on all sides the omens discovered by the augurers and soothsayers were uniformly unfavourable. He realized the importance of rapid military movements and also of security regarding his plans. Rumour said that before setting out he had entrusted a purple robe to his kinsman Procopius, and it would be a question whether or not he was designating his successor in the event of death. He set out from Antioch, a city which had greeted him with mockery and insult, on March and moved towards Mesopotamia. At the fortress of Callinicus near the Euphrates he celebrated the ritual of the Mother of the Gods on her day, March. This fierce Anatolian goddess was important to him since he had once visited her great temple at Pessinos, and had written a philosophical exposition of her lurid myth. His army was strengthened by Arab auxiliaries. A body of soothsayers and a group of Platonic philosophers accompanied the emperor, and the two groups disagreed. When the enemy was engaged, Julian was foolhardy in risking his life, and could ascribe his amazing survival to the gracious protection of the gods. In that respect at least he believed in the possibility of providential interventions. He reached the Tigris,12 but the courageous Persians vigorously defended Ctesiphon. Rashly Julian ordered that the boats in which his army crossed the river should be burnt, presumably intending to give resolution to the soldiers if there was no possible retreat. During a battle in a moment of excitement he forgot his breastplate, and a spear thrown by an unidentified soldier lodged in his liver. Carried to camp, his blood ebbed away. The accounts of his dying are modelled on Socrates in Plato’s Phaedo (Libanius, or. . ); probably that was in his mind as he made a last speech to his friends. In Ammianus’ report he explicitly refused to name a successor. On being told that the place was called ‘Phrygia,’ he lost hope of recovery, saying he had been told that that was where he was fated to die. During the night he died. Ephrem the Syrian has an eyewitness account of the body being carried into Nisibis. He was buried at Tarsus. The army acclaimed Jovian of the imperial bodyguard to be successor. Different accounts of Julian’s end rapidly came into circulation. Ammianus knew an unverified statement that the fatal spear was of a Roman 12 Julian may have supposed that the fast-flowing Tigris would be like the more leisurely Euphrates.
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type. If so, then it was thrown, whether deliberately or carelessly, by one of his own soldiers, either Roman or Arab auxiliary. His Arab auxiliaries had become highly dissatified with what was being done for them (Ammianus . . ). Libanius shifted, first saying a Persian did it (or. . ), then suggesting (. ) an Arab—‘but only the gods know’ (ep. ); next that it was a Christian victory (or. . ). When the news reached Jerome, then a schoolboy in the west, a pagan friend jested to him that no one could now complain of delay in the execution of divine revenge (Commentary on Habakkuk . , p. Vallarsi). Christians danced in the streets making no secret of their jubilation (Libanius, ep. ), so that in time Libanius became convinced that the spear was deliberately thrown by a Christian hand (or. . ff.). In his dying speech Julian said he was glad not to be dying by treason. Libanius came to think otherwise: ‘Julian died by treason or he would have conquered Persia’ (or. . ). Soon there were Christians declaring that, if the weapon was indeed thrown by a Christian, that was a righteous and fully justified act of tyrannicide. Sozomen (. ) believed that he had been justly struck by divine wrath, and that the act answered many Christian prayers. Of his last words various reports were put about. Philostorgius (. ) writing about , had the story that he threw blood from his wound up at the Sun(god) with the words ‘Be satisfied’. In the ritual of the Sun-god an offering of blood was normal, since Libanius once comments on the to him remarkable fact that the Manichees venerated the sun without offering blood (ep. ). Philostorgius’ story was also known to Sozomen (. . –) but in the form that he threw his blood at a vision of Christ. Theodoret (. . ), nearly twenty-five years later than Philostorgius, is the earliest writer to claim that he died with the words ‘Galilean, you have conquered’. In June that was already much about what most pagans and Christians supposed to be the case. By solemn oaths were being sworn at Julian’s tomb13 in Tarsus as a test for perjury (Libanius, or. . ). That a particular sacred figure had special power even post-mortem to reveal liars and perjurers is paralleled in Gregory the Great and in Augustine, ep. . , who knew of such cases at Milan, and sent two suspects to Nola in Italy to swear before St Felix’s shrine. Julian’s portrait was erected in temples and prayers addressed to him were being answered, which demonstrated that he had ascended to heaven (Liban. or. , ). In the tradition of old Roman religion, the emperor had been granted apotheosis. Libanius’ Julianic orations did for Julian what the memorial panegyric of Eusebius of Caesarea had done for Constantine. He left a lasting portrait of his hero which was largely exploited by the Christian 13 One Christian story of Julian’s tomb was that an earthquake ejected his corpse, a manifestation of his fate in hell (Gregory of Nazianzos, or. . ).
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historians Socrates and Sozomen. At the end Libanius was demanding from Theodosius I vengeance for the murder. Julian’s defeat and death damaged but did not extinguish pagan hopes that public sacrifices to the gods might be restored for the safety of the empire. In / Julian’s relative Procopius, last survivor of the Constantinian dynasty, led a rebellion against the emperor Valens, and was supported by both Gothic forces and pagans. He lasted only a few months. In – a conspiracy aimed at getting rid of Valens, under whose reign pagans were much harassed, so as to install a pagan emperor Theodore. The plotters were severely dealt with. Eugenius’ rising against Theodosius I in similarly enjoyed major pagan support. Nevertheless Julian’s letters and orations survived, partly because they were good models of rhetoric. Even his attack on the Galileans continued to be read. There would long be those who looked with admiration to antiChristian Neoplatonists such as Proclus in the fifth century or Damascius and Simplicius in the sixth. At the same time, however, there were well-educated and philosophically minded Christian writers of no less ability, notably John Philoponus of Alexandria anticipating some of the discoveries of Galileo and engaging in controversy against Simplicius’ view that the heavenly bodies are divine and not merely physical matter. Paradoxically the writings of Proclus, who loathed Christianity, became a major source of inspiration for the unknown and hugely influential Christian author writing under the name of St Paul’s convert Dionysius the Areopagite and, much later, for Thomas Aquinas. Dionysius’ indebtedness to Proclus was seen by the English Platonist Thomas Taylor in the s. The tenacity of both peasants and opulent landowners towards the old rituals long created problems for bishops. Had not the well-tried rites propitiated the gods to ensure plentiful crops and victorious legions? The Church had particular difficulty in persuading farmers that the gospel was better for their crops and beasts, especially if they heard someone reading St Paul’s considered doubts whether God cared for oxen. There were also parents who brought their sick children to the priest in hope that baptism would include a cure. Augustine’s beliefs both that infant disease must be a symptom of original sin and that baptism remitted original sin could have combined to assist such hopes. Disappointed parents might then resort to a clandestine pagan priest and his sacrifices to a god (Augustine, ep. . ). Use of amulets and horoscopes was widespread within the churches of the late fourth century.
DAMASUS, SIRICIUS, PAPAL AUTHORITY, SYNESIUS OF CYRENE
Election of bishops by the laity In Cyprian’s time at Carthage the laity in north African cities had a substantial voice in the election of a bishop. In the fourth century there appears a tendency for the vocabulary to be assimilated to that of electing a magistrate, which was also a privilege or right of the plebs or populus. They exercised a ‘suffrage’, choosing a candidate who had offered to stand and who conducted a campaign for success, perhaps against competition from a rival. The result easily produced faction such as Ambrose coped with at Vercelli, where he had to admonish the people that as consecrator he had the ultimate responsibility. The bishops of the province, especially the metropolitan, had the delicate task of mediating between the parties, and tactfully indicating which candidate they would be willing to consecrate. Decisions were formally recorded in ‘ecclesiastical acts’ with the acclamations and record of the numbers. Unanimity was always reckoned a sign of a divinely authorized choice; it was not always easily achieved, though at Milan Ambrose received it and the laity could put pressure on their chosen candidate, e.g. by blocking any attempt to leave the town. In the pressure from the laity was enough to force the consecration of Martin of Tours on unwilling bishops who thought him unsuitable (and in the outcome were proved wrong). Martin himself believed he had suffered a loss of charism when the hands of the bishops, in his eyes a worldly lot, were laid upon his head. In Augustine of Hippo wrote (ep. . ): ‘I know that at the death of bishops the peace of the churches is often disturbed by rivalries and ambitions.’ The laity were increasingly coming to expect their bishop to have the social influence to protect them when they were in trouble with taxmen or magistrates or when they needed a favourable reference for a job, and this capacity counted more than holiness. The office of a bishop was inevitably politicized.
Damasus, Siricius, Papal Authority
Faction at Rome in 1 During Pope Liberius’ exile the churches in Rome became sharply divided. Despite the oath of the clergy that they would recognize no successor while Liberius was alive, Bishop Felix, named by Constantius to implement his policies, succeeded in winning over many including the deacon Damasus. When Liberius returned Damasus switched his allegiance. Felix’s attempt to return to office failed. Liberius died on September . The orthodox of Constantinople early in the sixth century did not count either Liberius or Felix as authentic bishops of Rome (Marcellinus comes, ann. ). The animosity of the split at once became acute. Priests with three of the seven deacons of Rome met in the basilica of Julius in Trastevere, and elected deacon Ursinus to succeed. Paul bishop of Tibur (Tivoli) forthwith consecrated. A larger body met at the church of St Laurence (S. Lorenzo in Lucina) and elected deacon Damasus, who at once took possession of the Lateran. On Sunday, October he was consecrated by the bishop of Ostia, who by custom consecrated bishops for the Roman see. Damasus had a few friends among the powerful and rich as Ursinus did not; he won the support of the city prefect who expelled Ursinus. However, Ursinus’ supporters occupied the basilica of Liberius. Damasus decided to end this occupation by force, using circus gangs and gravediggers armed with clubs. This resulted in a three-day fight ending with corpses (the figure given by Ammianus). Ursinus claimed to be successor to Liberius, while Damasus he thought merely successor to Felix, the bishop intruded by Constantius in the ‘Arian’ interest. Roman deacons It is worthy of note that both the two rival candidates were deacons, not presbyters. It was common in the ancient history of the Roman see for the people to look for a new bishop among the seven deacons of the city. The contemporary pen of Ambrosiaster (Qu. ) records the startling degree of clout possessed by the Roman deacons, which often led them to treat the city presbyters with less than the respect due to them, seeing that presbyters could preside at the eucharist as deacons could not, and in that liturgical action were ‘vicars of Christ’ (on Tim. : ). For ‘wherever a presbyter celebrates the mysteries, there is the Church’ (on Cor. : ). Jerome (ep. to Evangelus) reveals that at Rome a presbyter was ordained only on a deacon’s
1 Major documents survive through the Avellana collection in a manuscript now in the Vatican (Vat. lat. , s. xi), edited by O. Guenther, CSEL ().
Damasus, Siricius, Papal Authority
recommendation, a custom of which he disapproved; it led deacons to take too much upon themselves, even in the absence of a bishop to take a seat among the presbyters, and to give a blessing. The stipend of Roman deacons was well above that of presbyters. ‘Ambrosiaster’ (on Cor. : ) noted that Rome had seven deacons, for each individual church two presbyters, but only one bishop over all (on Tim. : ). He also commented that deacons wore a dalmatic like bishops (Qu. : ), and did not preach (on Gal. : ). Perhaps Roman deacons felt that in the Christian city where they served, they held a position analogous to senators. In the sixth century in Gregory the Great’s correspondence the epithet ‘cardinalis’ is found applied to Roman presbyters; it was in time extended to deacons and then to bishops attached to the Lateran.2 On September of the following year Ursinus returned undeterred to the city (Avell. ) and to the basilica of Liberius. He did not last long. On November a new city prefect Praetextatus expelled Ursinus again, while his partisans moved to the Via Nomentana to occupy St Agnes. The prefect then prohibited all dissident assemblies within twenty miles of the city. Ursinus’ supporters had been holding stational prayers at martyrs’ shrines without any clergy until Damasus’s supporters disrupted these meetings (Avell. . ). The emperor Valentinian I disliked taking sides in ecclesiastical disputes. In he relaxed sanctions against Ursinus as long as he kept out of Rome (Avell. –). Ursinus then made his way to Milan, where he came to ally himself with Ambrose’s opponents. Eventually the emperor Gratian exiled him to Cologne (Avell. ). In Rome this rival faction to Damasus slowly petered out; Jerome (ep. . ) records that his friend Evagrius of Antioch, where there was schism but mutual toleration without violence, showed Damasus not only how to overcome his opponents but also how to reconcile them. Probably this was in when Evagrius came to Rome. But the road to peace was bumpy. Pope Damasus accused of homicide In an accusation of responsibility for homicide against Damasus was entered by a converted Jew named Isaac. (Since the writings of Ambrosiaster (below p. ) show extensive knowledge of synagogue practice, and since he once remarks that the ideal exegete of scripture is a converted Jew (on Tim. : ), it is possible that Isaac was his real name. He explicitly says that he writes when Damasus is ‘rector’ of the Church: on Tim. : ; ‘rector’ was Damasus’ own term for his office—it occurs for bishops in some of his
2
C. G. Fürst, Cardinalis (Munich, ).
Damasus, Siricius, Papal Authority
verse inscriptions.) Rigorist adherents of Lucifer of Calaris, numerous in Sardinia, were outraged by Damasus’ lifestyle. People were rudely calling him ‘the ladies’ ear-tickler’ (Avell. ), which at least suggests that his sermons were popular. His generous hospitality led the pagan aristocrat Praetextatus, who held priesthoods in several cults (his epitaph in ILS = CIL VI, ), to tease him by saying ‘Make me bishop of Rome and I will become a Christian’—cited by Jerome (adv. Joh. Hieros. ), who was sure that Praetextatus was ‘now in Tartarus’ (ep. . ). Evidently the bishop of Rome’s office now possessed high social standing, which for Praetextatus was of crucial importance for priesthoods. The resources of the Roman church were building up, but were not comparable with the vast opulence of men like Praetextatus, to whom the papacy would have seemed merely one more distinguished office to add to his long list. Damasus’ relations with the rich Roman senators may not have been easy. When the pagan senators urged Gratian to allow the reinstatement of the Altar of Victory, the Pope turned for help to Ambrose, sending him the text of a counterpetition by Christian senators (Ambr. ep. = M. ). City morals The period of Damasus’ pontificate was far from easy in Roman society. There was a series of crises over food. In the affair of the Altar of Victory (below p. ) Symmachus could point to famine in Africa, Rome’s main supplier of grain. Revolts in Africa by Firmus (–) and then after Damasus’ time by Gildo the Mauretanian in caused serious interruptions in the food supply. Such dramas easily led to mob rioting. The populace could also become excited on religious issues; a Luciferian presbyter died as a result of a riot (Avell. . ). The maintaining of ethical probity in Roman society in this age was not easy. Ammianus (. ) paints a sordid picture both of the upper classes and of the plebeians in the city. Some of this portrait is vindicated by Ambrosiaster, who commented that whereas in old Roman society, women did not drink alcohol (an abstinence also attested in other texts), under present custom they had ceased to drink anything else (on Col. : ; Qu. . ). Jerome portrays Rome as a society sodden with corruption and mendacity (ep. . ). The Briton Pelagius was shocked by the lack of passionate seriousness on such matters. Roman synod, The course of Damasus’ trial on the charge of homicide is hard to reconstruct; we know the outcome in the petition from a Roman synod to Gratian
Damasus, Siricius, Papal Authority
in (Et hoc gloriae, PL . , a document drafted by Ambrose, CSEL /. ) and Gratian’s reply (Avell. ). The synod took note of his acquittal. The letter also contained an allusion (a) to tortures which had been used in the cross-examination of innocent Roman clergy, an action which Rufinus (HE . ) attributed to a ferocious prefect, Maximin. The synod of asked the emperor to rule that a criminal charge against the bishop of Rome should come not before the city prefect but before either a council of bishops or the emperor; the petition also pleaded that the Roman bishop have authority over other bishops and be enabled to compel them to appear before the Pope if in Italy, or before their provincial metropolitan if outside Italy. If the accused bishops were metropolitans themselves, then their judge should be either the bishop of Rome or bishops nominated by him. Any appeal should be heard either by the bishop of Rome or by a synod of at least fifteen neighbouring bishops. This second plea was occasioned by the support given to Ursinus by ‘bad bishops’. The synod was perturbed that the bishops of Parma and Puteoli had been declared deposed and then sat tight ignoring the decisions against them. The synod also wanted Restitutus of Carthage, who had sent an ‘insolent’ refusal, to answer some unspecified charge, probably his responsibility for the creed of Nike/Ariminum (above, p. ). (One of Athanasius’ last writings was an open letter ‘to the Africans’ that Nicaea had far greater claims on their allegiance than Ariminum, with a long catalogue of provincial synods enforcing this position. The see of Carthage was wobbly on this.) The underlying and primary question for the synod was the jurisdiction of the ‘apostolic see’ (the first occurrence of this phrase for the Roman see). In Damasus’ time it was axiomatic at Rome that all authority in the Church stems from St Peter, and therefore from episcopal succession since the apostle (Ambrosiaster, Qu. . ). For the request that a criminal charge against the bishop of Rome come before the emperor the synod cited an otherwise unattested acquittal of Silvester by Constantine. Gratian was kinder to the second request than to the first. He ruled that accusations against the pope from malicious or immoral people should be excluded, but otherwise ignored the plea regarding criminal charges against a pope. He agreed that metropolitans should appear before the Pope, who should provide a court of appeal for bishops against their metropolitans. What canons or rules were thus to be enforced Gratian assumed to be evident. The canons of Nicaea were prominent in Damasus’ decretals, though the sixth canon as approved in did not help claims for Roman jurisdiction on any universal scale. If it was to do that, it would need some emendation, which in due course the Roman chancery provided by giving the Latin version the opening sentence: ‘The Roman church has always held the primacy . . .’ (EOMIA i. b; PL . a). At Chalcedon in the Roman legates cited the canon in this form. It caused difficulty to the Greeks.
Damasus, Siricius, Papal Authority
Roman liturgy: from Greek to Latin Marius Victorinus (adversus Arium . . –) and Ambrosiaster (on Cor. . and ) show that until Damasus’ time the liturgy of the Roman church was still in Greek, though Latin-speakers did not understand it, and indeed preferred the creed to be in incomprehensible Greek. At Rome it long continued to be customary for the Gospel and some lections to be read in Greek. The bilingual Codex Bezae at Cambridge of the fourth century, with the Gospels and Acts, was written for a church normally using Latin but needing a Greek text for the Gospels and Acts for at least certain occasions. Ambrosiaster (on Tim. . –) also echoes the general intercessory prayer in the eucharist—for kings, for the subjection of barbarians, for peace, and for all in trouble and necessity. Damasus appears to have been responsible for making Latin the standard liturgy; it was the vernacular of the majority of his congregation. Dissidents suppressed Damasus sought above all to impose order on a fractious body. There were Manichees in the city, so the emperor was asked to deal with them, which he did (CTh . . , March ). A small congregation of Donatists under their bishop Claudianus, probably consisting of expatriate Africans, was likewise made unwelcome. In – two priests belonging to Lucifer of Calaris’ group submitted a lengthy catalogue of Damasus’ shortcomings (Libellus Precum, Avell. ), mainly in his suppression of dissident houses of worship by violent means. Auxentius of Milan. Nicene authority No doubt the Nicene faction at Milan alerted him to the problem of Auxentius’ strict adherence to the Likeness creed of Ariminum. In Damasus presided over a synod, which asked (in vain) that Valentinian I remove Auxentius from office. Damasus asserted the universal authority of the Nicene formula, which derived this special authority from its ratification by Pope Silvester. It seems to have been his custom to invite Italian bishops to an annual gathering on the anniversary of his consecration; Augustine attests such a custom for an individual bishop who would give a substantial meal for the poor on his anniversary, called his natalis or birthday (S. Frangipane . p. Morin). In Damasus’ claim that the authority of Nicaea depended on Roman ratification, it is likely that he meant to assert less a right to speak on behalf of the entire Latin west, thereby giving the council the assent of west as well as east, than a right to be the one ecclesial organ with unique power
Damasus, Siricius, Papal Authority
to confer this status on Constantine’s or any other council. But there was a touch of ambiguity at this point. There is no evidence that Damasus influenced the choice and approval of Ambrose at Milan. It is improbable, since he was wholly opposed to making bishops of people in public service who had had responsibility for capital punishment and torture. Damasus’ council made the earliest statement that different theologies confuse laity, that all bishops must agree on the Nicene formula that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are one ousia and figura, that where disagreements appear, the judgement of the Roman bishop is prior to all others, and that none dissenting is in communion with Rome the touchstone of authenticity. Priestly celibacy 3 Damasus expected his clergy to be celibate; then they could offer the daily eucharistic sacrifice in ritual purity. He did not approve of the ordination of laity coming from other churches to Rome, and commended this rule to the churches in Gaul, who were also warned against clergy whose career had been in the army or civil service. He wanted the clergy to be marked out as separate from the laity, but distinguished more by moral probity than by their brains or social class. New churches and martyria The juxtaposition of pagan temples and Christian shrines was not at first very close. In time as Christian influence in Rome steadily increased new shrines for martyrs could be sited close to old pagan sites. At Rome, unlike the Greek east, a long time passed before disused pagan temples such as the Pantheon were recycled for Christian use. In in Liberius’ time the calligrapher Philocalus produced for an otherwise unknown Christian Valentinus a finely illustrated calendar of festivals for the city. It had lists of city prefects and consuls and then side by side, not fused, pagan feasts and days when the configuration of the planets would be dangerous, the dates of Christian festivals including December, an Easter table from to , and a list of Roman bishops enlarged from an earlier document of revised in . A further section had emperors to the death of Licinius in and a list of the Regions of the city as in the year ; it also included the chronicle of world history by Hippolytus in which biblical chronology is inserted into Greek and Roman dates. The Christian feasts are noted in a setting which reflects the calendar of old Rome. It suggests a programme for the sanctification of both places and times in the life of the city. 3
Philo regarded celibacy as a hallmark of true priesthood: V. Mosis . –.
Damasus, Siricius, Papal Authority
In Rome Damasus fostered a major programme of building shrines and churches in honour of Rome’s martyrs. He recruited the services of the calligrapher Philocalus to incise the martyr’s shrines in exquisite lettering with verses which he himself composed. Most of these texts survive in later copies, but about five in their original Philocalian form. One ( in Ihm, and in Ferrua, Vatican City, ) records archives of the Roman church, which Damasus housed and brought into order. This made a valuable arsenal for him and his successors in providing precedents for the affirmation of papal jurisdiction. The inscriptions not only honour the martyrs; they include some which emphasize peace and unity in the Roman church, themes dear to Damasus’ heart. By the font at St Peter’s the words were ‘one chair of Peter, one true baptismal washing’ (Ihm , Ferrua : Una Petri sedes, unum uerumque lauacrum). The churches in Rome had a past of separate, probably financially independent congregations. It seems to have been in Damasus’ time that wealthy aristocrats were persuaded to fund church buildings, and these came to be called ‘title-churches’ associated with particular benefactors. Archaeologists have not been able to find evidence of continuity going back to the second- or third-century house-churches, though that is not impossible. Legacy hunters In Valentinian I enacted a painful decree addressed to Damasus forbidding clergy to hunt for legacies among opulent ladies (CTh . . ). That was the kind of charge Ursinus and his party were glad to bring against Damasus. Jerome concedes that there had been instances to justify the edict. Damasus and the East Damasus’ condemnation of Apollinaris’ doctrines enhanced his reputation in the Greek churches, not so his rigid adherence to Paulinus of Antioch. In this support for Paulinus Basil of Caesarea judged him to be arrogant and uncomprehending (an opinion which was mutual). His support for the Cynic philosopher Maximus to be bishop of Constantinople did not last long, probably on advice from Thessalonica. He was represented neither at the council of Constantinople in May nor at the council of Aquileia controlled by Ambrose in September of that year. The former council he deeply disliked and resented because of its canonical elevation of Constantinople on the ground of being New Rome, a title for the city in normal use well before Damasus’ time, as well as because of its decision to refuse recognition to Paulinus of Antioch. In he held a council at Rome, attended by, among others, Jerome, Paulinus of Antioch, and Epiphanius of Salamis. This issued
Damasus, Siricius, Papal Authority
a trumpet blast against the pretensions of Constantinople insisting that the only sees with multi-provincial jurisdiction were Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch—the three sees mentioned in the sixth canon of Nicaea at which time the city founded by Constantine did not exist in the form it had acquired by ; all three were ‘Petrine’. Moreover, the honour of the Roman see depended on no synodical decisions but on Jesus’ words ‘Thou art Peter . . .’ and on Peter’s martyrdom at Rome with Paul on one and the same day (‘not on different days as heresies say’). Perhaps the tradition that both were martyred on the same day was associated with the shrine to both apostles together on the Via Appia, while the separate sites on the Vatican hill and on the Via Ostiense were linked to separate dates (above p. ). There was also a current compromise which declared that the martyrdom of the two apostles occurred on the same date ( June) but a year apart, a view which involved no liturgical complications. This last view is exemplified in Prudentius, Peristephanon . , and the Verona or ‘Leonine’ Sacramentary. Jerome’s Vulgate After the council of Rome in Jerome stayed on in the capital as Damasus’ secretary until the Pope’s death in December , and the Pope encouraged him to produce a revised version of the Latin Bible, free of the numerous infelicities and specimens of ‘translationese’ which marred the Old Latin Bible, especially in the Old Testament. Very gradually Jerome’s version succeeded in supplanting the Old Latin until his translation became the standard version in the west, named by the Council of Trent the common version or Vulgata. He had studied Greek and some Hebrew and had Origen’s Hexapla to help him with versions of the Greek Old Testament other than the Septuagint. But for the future it was central that his version of the Old Testament books treated the Hebrew text as possessing an authority which the Septuagint did not have. He was also responsible for giving the misleading title Apocrypha to the overplus of the Septuagint canon over against the Hebrew. These books he judged to be good guides in ethical matters, but were not to be appealed to for settling dogmatic disagreements. Their authority was not recognized by rabbis. It was easy to say this as there was next to nothing of dogmatic importance that these books helped to resolve. In the long term the sponsoring of the Vulgate Bible was Damasus’ act with the greatest consequences of benefit to the churches. Memorials of Peter and Paul Damasus liked tidying things up, and it is reasonably likely that he was responsible for reconciling the cult at the Via Appia with the two independent
Damasus, Siricius, Papal Authority
sites (above p. ). That on June the Roman churches celebrated Peter and Paul probably with a procession round the ancient sites is very likely. Pope Silvester could not attend the council of Arles on August because of his obligations to be in his city for the festival. A procession from St Peter’s to St Paul’s and then on to the double shrine on the Via Appia in a hot June would have been remarkably exhausting, and already in Prudentius’ time the inclusion of the Via Appia was dropped. Jerome (adv. Vigilantium ) says that the bishop of Rome celebrates mass over the relics of Peter and Paul; this text could tell either way. The Gelasian sacramentary (. –) has three celebrations, one at St Peter’s, one for both apostles together, and one for St Paul; that suggests that at least a presbyter was on duty at the Via Appia. One of Paulinus of Nola’s annual visits to Rome was for the celebration on June. By the eighth century the Gregorian Sacramentary shows that the visit to St Paul’s was deferred until June. A contemporary observer regretted that the feast of St Paul was attended by more visitors and pilgrims from outside Rome than from those who lived in the city (PL . b). It is possible that Damasus sought a justification for dropping the Via Appia from the procession. In or about the Roman community had erected a memorial monument to St Peter in a necropolis on the Vatican hill outside the old city. A monument to St Paul was also erected on the road to Ostia, and these two monuments were explicitly mentioned with some pride by an antiMontanist Roman writer Gaius early in the third century cited by Eusebius (HE . . ). The calendar of Philocalus of has an entry for June which has provoked much discussion: ‘III Kal. Petri in Catacumbas et Pauli Ostense Tusco et Basso consulibus’ (= ). The omission of a reference to the memorial monument on the Vatican hill is problematic; perhaps the text has a lacuna. Or perhaps this form of text dates from the time of the Laurentian schism (–) when St Peter’s was in the possession of Laurentius’ successful rival Symmachus, while Laurentius had St Paul’s and the Lateran was under the bishop of Altinum. Laurentius’ calendar for June would certainly have omitted the Vatican. The site called Catacumbas was some hollow ground near the third milestone on the Via Appia. There by the year there was a shrine to both Peter and Paul, and the graffiti inscribed on the walls (below the church of San Sebastiano) make it certain that devout Christians believed the remains of both Peter and Paul to lie there together; e.g. ‘Petre et Paule in mente nos habeatis’ or ‘Paule et Petre petite pro Victore’. The worshippers also celebrated funerary meals, called Refreshment or refrigerium, so that one graffito has ‘ad Paulum et Petrum refrigeravi’. The historical problem is therefore that by the third milestone of the Via Appia we have a third-century shrine for both apostles, while late in the second century there were two separate shrines, for Peter in the Vatican
Damasus, Siricius, Papal Authority
necropolis, for Paul on the road to Ostia, evidently on the site of the existing church of St Paul without the Walls. There are two hypotheses to account for these facts. The first is the speculation, first proposed by John Pearson in but attested in no ancient text, that perhaps during persecution the relics were moved for safety from the Vatican and the Via Ostiense to the Via Appia, and then returned in the time of Constantine. This guess has real attractions. An epigram by Pope Damasus, however, may imply belief that both apostles had originally been buried together on the Via Appia but were subsequently translated to the Vatican and the Via Ostiense; in other words, if there was a translation, it was in the reverse direction to that of Pearson’s conjecture. The second hypothesis is that we are dealing with rival sites, and that the worshippers at the Via Appia were perhaps in origin a dissident group, of which Rome never lacked a supply. At Ephesus Eusebius records that there were two tombs dedicated to the apostle John, one of which he thought could be of a different John. It is no doubt likely that they were rival sites, one in the city near the harbour, the other on the hill at Selçuk where now stands Justinian’s basilica of the apostle John. The epigram by Pope Damasus makes it certain that in the fourth century in his time it was believed that the shrine on the Via Appia had at one time in the past possessed the remains of both apostles (Damasus, epigr. Ihm, Ferrua). The text may be rendered: Whoever you may be that seek the relics (nomina) of Peter and Paul should know that the saints dwelt here once. The East sent the disciples; that we readily admit. But on account of the merit of their blood (they have followed Christ through the stars and attained to the ethereal bosom and the realms of the holy ones) Rome has gained a superior right to claim them as her citizens. Damasus would thus tell of your praises as new stars.
The image of stars to describe the apostles may imply that Damasus was already thinking of Peter and Paul as replacing Romulus and Remus as founders of a now Christian Rome, a theme expressly formulated by Pope Leo the Great sixty years later. The argument that although Peter and Paul came from the Orient, they are now appropriated by Rome, is a Christianization of an old thesis that each tribe has its own local gods and rites, but the Romans worship all the gods of conquered nations and therefore through their patronage have acquired a world empire. (So explicitly the pagan Caecilius in the Octavius of Minucius Felix .)4 4 Damasus’ understanding that both apostles had once been on the Via Appia is repeated in Gregory the Great’s letter of to the Byzantine empress Constantina (Reg. . ); it also appears in the Martyrium Petri et Pauli of pseudo-Marcellus (in Lipsius–Bonnet, Acta Apost. Apocr. , –), in a Salzburg itinerary of the seventh century (de Rossi, Roma sotteranea, , i. ), and in the sixth-century Life of Pope Cornelius in the Liber Pontificalis (i. Duchesne).
Damasus, Siricius, Papal Authority
The language of the epigram reflects some degree of tension with the eastern churches and might therefore date from when Damasus was visibly cross with the Greek council of the previous year. The great church of St Paul’s without the Walls was constructed in Damasus’ time. He evidently did not think that the authority of Rome’s bishop depended on succession exclusively to St Peter. Siricius When Damasus died late in , his erudite but contentious secretary and sermon-writer Jerome aspired to the succession. ‘Almost everyone agreed I was worthy of high-priesthood. Damasus spoke no words but mine’ (ep. . ). He failed to gain enough support. Malicious gossip reported unkindly of the spiritual direction of devout aristocratic ladies by ‘a sorcerer and seducer’. Jerome resentfully observed that congregations prefer unscholarly bishops (in Eccles. . , p. Vallarsi). The election went in favour of Siricius, who was to hold the see for thirteen years until . After the weakness of Liberius and the embarrassing conflicts of Damasus with Ursinus, the community in Rome needed consolidation and peace to provide leadership for the west more generally. Siricius responded to the requests for guidance from other western metropolitans. In the archives he found that Liberius had sent out encyclicals addressed to several western provinces, not merely to bishops in the ‘suburbicarian’ region of Italy. He describes these encyclicals as ‘generalia decreta’, rulings of universal application concerning the way in which heretics should be reconciled to the Church. It was important that the procedures in one province should not differ from those in another. Converts from Novatian’s society should be accepted by laying-on of hands and invocation of the Spirit. Decretal to Himerius of Tarraco On February Siricius celebrated his elevation with a council of bishops, which supported him in a directive answering an enquiry from Himerius bishop of Tarraco (Tarragona) in Spain. The Pope saw a lot needing rectification. Baptisms were to be only at Pentecost and Easter unless for a sick baby or for those facing shipwreck, enemy attack, siege, or grave illness. They should not be at Christmas or Epiphany. Apostates could be reconciled with viaticum on their deathbed. It was wrong for baptized persons then to accept office in government service involving prosecutions or presiding at public spectacles. The demand for celibacy was an unbreakable rule without exceptions; bishops and deacons who had children by
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wives or even concubines, and ascetics of opposite sex who had offspring, needed discipline.5 No women were to reside in clergy houses, with the exceptions allowed under the fourth canon of Nicaea. None should invoke the Old Testament as justifying marriage for priests now. The penalty was to be ‘deposed by the apostolic see’. Siricius optimistically ruled that no bishop should be ignorant of ‘Roman decretals and canons’. A surprising rule legislated about the age of ordination: deacon if over , presbyter over , bishop over . Monks of the right age should be welcomed to ordination. To be a lay penitent was a bar to ordination. This last ruling created a problem. Guided by Augustine, the African churches wanted to offer reconciliation to schismatic Donatist bishops. But a schismatic was reconciled by laying-on of hands just as a penitent was. If Siricius meant that no reconciled schismatic in major orders could be received in his clerical rank, that was awkward for Augustinian ecumenism. A council at Carthage in asked Siricius and Ambrose’s successor Simplicianus of Milan please to reconsider this. Reform of ordinations: celibacy On January Siricius presided over another council ‘gathered by the relics of the apostle Peter from whom apostolate and episcopate originated’. The bishops agreed that in the western churches much needed to be put right, and Siricius felt it to be his responsibility to issue an edict, correcting bishops who presumed to ‘follow what their people want and do not fear God’s judgement.’ He therefore issued a general letter, written ‘in fear of hell’ if he neglected his duty. It is noteworthy that Siricius felt it necessary thus to justify his decision to write, no doubt foreseeing reaction from bishops of independent spirit. He was perturbed by the unsuitable bishops sometimes elected. ‘None may dare to ordain a bishop without consulting the apostolic see’, and no single bishop may consecrate a bishop contrary to the fourth canon of Nicaea (a ruling that touched Evagrius’ consecration by Paulinus of Antioch acting alone). Other rulings repeated the prohibition of admitting to the clergy baptized persons who had then accepted posts in the public service, the demand for priestly celibacy necessary because of the duty to celebrate the sacrifice daily or in emergencies, and the principle that a cleric ejected at one church may not be reinstated at another. Siricius concluded with a request that there be no dissent, and a warning that disagreement
5 In ancient pagan society it was an axiom that before offering a sacrifice a priest must not have sexual intercourse (Porphyry, De abstinentia . ). Soldiers before battle had the same expectation, e.g. Sam. : .
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entailed forfeiting communion with Rome. There is ‘one faith, one tradition’. A reminder was needed of the theme to Himerius in Spain: ordination is no earthly commission; priesthood is heavenly. Jovinian, Bonosus, Helvidius Reaction against clerical celibacy as a general requirement was not slow in coming, and arrived from an unexpected quarter, namely a monk. Jovinian arrived in Rome from north Italy and proclaimed the equal value before God of marriage and virginity, the ethical indifference of either fasting or eating with thanksgiving, and the equality of all the baptized who keep their vows. He expressed serious doubts about ascribing to the Blessed Virgin Mary a perpetual virginity; later she could have had other children by Joseph. Similar opinions were voiced by Helvidius, a layman at Rome, against whom Jerome wrote a sharp tract. In Ambrose condemned Jovinian’s doctrines, and Siricius concurred. Eight years later Jovinian was exiled to an island off the Dalmatian coast where he died. In Jerome composed against him one of his most controversial writings, indebted to Seneca, but to high Roman society utterly offensive (cf. below pp. –). The denial of a need to proclaim Mary to be perpetual virgin was also heard from the bishop of Naissus Bonosus, whose opinions disturbed the bishop of Thessalonica. He too encountered condemnation from Ambrose and Siricius. One faith, one tradition, one discipline for all A letter to the bishops of Gaul (sometimes ascribed to Damasus) similarly addressed problems of diversity as a threat to unity which consists in the tradition of the fathers. ‘Many bishops depart from tradition, preferring the honour of men to the glory of God.’ Gallic bishops are now asking for an authoritative statement from the apostolic see. Catholic bishops should have a single confession and apostolic discipline, so that there is ‘one faith, one tradition, one discipline for all churches.’ (ep. . . PL . a). This discipline requires clerical celibacy, since by priestly hands ‘the grace of baptism is given and the body of Christ made.’ A priest who begets children cares more for the secular world than for God. How can he with integrity counsel a widow or consecrated virgin (. )? Siricius gives rules on prohibited degrees for marriage: no marrying of an uncle’s wife or a niece. Bishops are not to be chosen from the laity, only from clergy (). Bishops should not leave one church for another, for that is like leaving a spouse (). They are not to ordain in another’s territory, which is ‘contrary to the ruling (moderatio) of the apostolic see’. As earlier, Siricius stressed that ordination is
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‘not something secular, not a worldly promotion’ (). Laity excommunicated by their bishop may not be ordained elsewhere; names of bishops who do this are to be delated to Rome ‘so that we may know who to avoid’ (). Collegiality and Primacy Damasus and Siricius both wrote their authoritative letters after holding synods. It is significant that the letters sent out are all in the name of the see of Rome,6 not of the synods, which are thereby implied to be valued counsellors giving the bishop of Rome collective advice and by their assent also enhancing the honour of the Roman see. This was not unprecedented. In Julius had upset the Greek bishops at Antioch by writing in his own name only, though he defended that by saying that he had consulted all Italian bishops (Athanasius, Apol. c. Ar. ). Yet it was not a manner of proceeding that would be easily understood in the synodically minded East. And Siricius’ repeated insistence on celibacy for presbyters and deacons was constructing a dividing wall against Greek practice. The eastern churches were beyond the horizon of his vision. It was enough for him to be bringing ordered discipline to the Latin west which in his time had little of it. Greek experience of western church policy in and and Basil’s prickly correspondence with Damasus could well have discouraged Greek bishops from looking Romewards for help with their problems. No evidence survives of Siricius continuing Damasus’ building programme, or of his responsibility for a riot destroying a Jewish synagogue in Rome, which provoked Magnus Maximus to order rebuilding at some cost to his popularity (Ambrose, ep. extra coll. a = M. ). The Avellana collection () preserves a letter from Magnus Maximus to Siricius about his suppression of Priscillianists. The Pope sought to avoid being involved in the dispute between Jerome and Rufinus about Origenism, which was splitting the aristocrats of Rome into factions but probably hardly excited the main body of the plebs. In this detachment he was more successful than his shortlived successor Anastasius I. We do not hear of him being prominent, as Ambrose was, at the time of the uprising led by Eugenius against Theodosius. His central achievement was to consolidate papal authority in the west and thereby to lay a foundation for stronger measures by Innocent I.
6 Papa, in Greek pappas, in the fourth century expresses respectful affection, in the fifth and sixth centuries gradually becoming the title of an office for bishops of Rome or Alexandria. Originally African bishops gave the title to the bishop of Carthage. In a council at Toledo used papa for Rome. But bishops in Gaul are found being so addressed until Carolingian times. The title was important for Symmachus at Rome in during the Laurentian schism. See J. Moorhead in Journal of Eccles. History (), –, below, p. .
Synesius of Cyrene
Anastasius, Innocent I Anastasius succeeded Siricius in November . The quarrel between Jerome and his old friend Rufinus about the orthodoxy of Origen led him to censure Origen’s doctrines, which pleased Jerome, but to refuse any disciplinary action against Rufinus for translating him. He died in December , succeeded a few days later by Innocent I (–), who may have been Anastasius’ son and was in political terms a major figure for the development of the idea of a universal papal jurisdiction responsible for east as well as west. Synesius of Cyrene 7 Parallel to the movement of senators towards the Church there was a comparable shift among highly educated Greek intellectuals. Among the latter the most striking is Synesius. He was born at Cyrene in and studied philosophy with Hypatia at Alexandria. His social standing in Cyrenaica led to him being sent to court to negotiate tax relief on behalf of his province (c.–). He also took a lead in mobilizing resistance to raiding nomadic tribes (ep. –). A few years later, perhaps certainly by , he accepted an invitation to become metropolitan bishop of Ptolemais and was consecrated by Theophilus of Alexandria. He was a Neoplatonist, and had to reinterpret Christian themes such as resurrection. As a bishop he asserted a right to retain his wife. Theophilus had blessed their wedding. His writings are an unusual mixture. They include a portrait of his ideal prince, delivered as an oration before the emperor Arcadius, an allegorical piece written with an eye to the Goths’ bid for power in Constantinople, a covering letter for a gift of an astrolabe, a work on dreams, a defence of the unity of the old Greek rivals philosophy and rhetoric, presented as an echo of Dio Chrysostom of Prusa three centuries earlier. A hundred and fifty-six of his letters survive attesting both his philosophic humanism and his adherence, with qualifications, to Christianity which to him represented a path of ascent for the soul to God and so a way of bringing Neoplatonic ideals into practice for the many. In addition nine hymns are preserved, deeply Neoplatonic in content, in which the Trinity is interpreted in a Plotinian framework. Synesius’ works are best edited by A. Garzya (Turin, ), the letters also (Rome, ), and by N. Terzaghi, opuscula (Rome, ), the hymns, ed. J. Gruber and H. Strohm (Heidelberg, ), monograph by J. Bregman (Berkeley, ). See too W. Liebeschuetz, Barbarians and Bishops (Oxford, ); Alan Cameron and J. Long, Barbarians and Politics (Berkeley, ); H. I. Marrou, ‘Synesius and Alexandrian Neoplatonism,’ in A. Momigliano (ed.), The Conflict between Paganism and Christianity (Oxford, ), –; W. Theiler, Forschungen zum Neuplatonismus (Berlin, ), –; S. Vollenweider, Neuplatonische und christliche Theologie bei Synesius (Göttingen, ). 7
Synesius of Cyrene
Synesius had an affinity with Themistius, a philosophic mind at the court, who pleaded before the emperor Valens for a policy of religious toleration on the ground of theology’s essential mysteriousness. Synesius liked to stress the esoteric inwardness of true religion. His experience of the practical demands put upon a bishop led at the end of his life to a degree of sad disillusion with his earlier aspirations. Moreover, he had lost his children and too many close friends.
BASIL OF CAESAREA (CAPPADOCIA)
Education. Monasticism The emperor Valens, guided by Eudoxius, was opposed by a struggle to establish bishops supporting the Nicene creed and to marginalize those dissenting. In Asia Minor central to this endeavour became Basil, bishop of Caesarea, metropolis of Cappadocia from autumn . He was born into an aristocratic landowning family with close attachment to the Church at Neocaesarea in Pontus, where his father was a successful advocate and the family included more than one bishop. At Neocaesarea the church proudly remembered the evangelization of Pontus by Origen’s pupil Gregory the Wonderworker (Thaumaturgos), and treasured his creed and liturgy with such precision that their style of worship had come to seem very oldfashioned a century later (Basil, De Spir. S. ). When Basil’s monks chanted the psalms antiphonally, people at Neocaesarea were censorious of the innovation, which seemed a defiance of authority (ep. ). Basil had a high-class education at Athens and heard Libanius lecturing at Constantinople. Letters exchanged between Basil and Libanius were known to Severus of Antioch about ad (PO II i. ); the authenticity of at least some among those transmitted has been reasonably doubted. His sister Macrina, whom he never mentions, was given a biography by his younger brother Gregory of Nyssa, which fused Neoplatonic aspirations with Christian holiness and portrayed her as an ideal saint. Basil had a past closely associated with the monastic (and homoiousian) movement in Asia Minor, where a leading figure was Eustathius bishop of Sebaste, in whose company in he went on a tour of monasteries in Mesopotamia, Palestine, and Egypt. Baptized by Bishop Dianios of Caesarea (prominent at the eastern synod of Serdica and no friend to the Nicene creed) for whom he had deep reverence, in the s he was ordained presbyter and began to compose rules for monasteries, dominated by texts from scripture. He retreated to family property with lovely scenery at Annisi not far from Caesarea, and there with his friend Gregory of Nazianzos compiled the extant Philokalia, gathering Origen’s principal discussions of biblical interpretation; this could answer some of the objections to scripture in Porphyry and Julian and at the same
Basil of Caesarea
time ward off criticism of Origen. Like Eustathius, deposed from Sebaste in –, he wanted to link ascetics with the life of the churches and vice versa, mainly in towns. It was a principle for him that monks should live a common life in community, serving those beyond the walls as well as one another. He also composed forms of liturgy and preached numerous surviving sermons. Eleven homilies on the six days of creation were vastly admired in his time and later; when they were preached cannot be determined, but they were exploited by Ambrose in his discourses on the same subject. Basil may have sent him a copy. They were early translated into Latin by one Eustathius. One theme in the homilies is a disavowal of treating all Genesis as allegory. These homilies constitute a dialogue with philosophical writing on the world of nature. Caesarea had important pagan temples of Zeus, Apollo, and the city’s Genius or Tyche. The city population included many pagans. When Bishop Dianios died in , Basil was not chosen to succeed, and the election went to an ex-civil servant named Eusebius who understood little about the pastoral office and therefore relied much on Basil. Their relations were not always easy. Homoiousians. Against Eunomius During the s in the East the homoiousian party attempted to reassemble a coherent and influential body after their virtual destruction by Eudoxius in , and by not declaring themselves on the deity of the Holy Spirit gained the support of Pope Liberius. Only the influence of the West was able to provide the East with support which could establish an orthodoxy that might persuade the emperor Valens to be tolerant and perhaps even supportive. After attending the council at Constantinople in , Basil saw the threat from radical Arianism. At this stage he had turned for theological guidance to Apollinaris at Laodicea, whose exposition of the Nicene homoousios was influential. Later when Apollinaris’ name became widely associated with error in Christology, Basil would need to disown the relationship. His past association with the homoiousian group also needed to be consigned to wise oblivion. He wrote a treatise against Eunomius, candidly attacking Eudoxius’ ‘seizure’ of the see of Constantinople and his past support for Eunomius. Appeal to ‘The Father is greater than I’ was answered from Phil. : (equality with God); so one may say either homoousios (‘identical’) or homoios kat’ousian (‘like in essence’). Basil was seeking to bring together a pro-Nicene group with the battered homoiousian party cruelly excluded at Seleucia and Constantinople , probably a party politically damaged by Athanasius’ olive branch discharged as if by a catapult. Basil understood the Nicene homoousios to be generic: all human beings share the same ousia, so also Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have a common ousia, while their individuality
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is expressed as hypostases. The third book, much briefer than the first two, begins to develop an argument about the Holy Spirit, named with Father and Son in the baptismal triadic formula; but it is embryonic in comparison with his later work on this subject. High culture in decline at Caesarea The provocation given by Julian’s decree forbidding teachers to be unbelievers in the gods may have given Basil the impetus to write a short piece to guide the young about the right way to read classical literature. The surviving texts reveal relatively little of Basil’s dialogue with pagan intellectuals. One letter () to a sophist Leontius (perhaps identical with a sophist from Armenia often mentioned in Libanius’ correspondence, whose rhetoric brought him high office under Julian; but probably only a local teacher at Caesarea) ironically apologizes for his own association with the common herd, and then sends him a copy of his work against Eunomius to show him what an educated Christian who has studied Plotinus can do. Gregory of Nazianzos records that throughout his life Basil retained a modest library (or. , , PG . c). The peasants surrounding Basil were probably demotic in their Greek and spoke the old Cappadocian dialect (De Spir. S. . implies that Basil could speak it; another reference in Greg. Nyss. c. Eunom. , PG . d). Ep. laments the decline of all high culture at Caesarea, its closed gymnasia, no street-lighting now, only the barbarous voices of Scythians and Massagetae, no market for produce. Nevertheless Caesarea had fitting accommodation for an emperor. Basil as bishop with the emperor Valens During the s Basil established a monastery at Caesarea. In at the next vacancy his political skills were deployed in canvassing for his election to be bishop; they did not forsake him thereafter. Other bishops in Cappadocia thought he had used unscrupulous methods in getting himself elected. But Basil had his theological agenda, welcome to Athanasius of Alexandria. His action was not self-seeking. The emperor Valens, advised by Eudoxius at Constantinople, after his death () by Euzoius at Antioch, was unsympathetic to the Nicene creed. Its advocates were too intolerant of other views. When he visited Caesarea in the winter of or a pro-Nicene group hoped for a grand confrontation between Basil and the emperor, but Basil did not oblige. Valens had been baptized by Eudoxius probably in when he was seriously ill. At the ‘table’ or ‘altar’ (ep. . ) he himself presented the bread for consecration. He was given communion without any question, and the emperor was impressed by Basil’s qualities. He even entrusted him with a
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commission to provide bishops for the province of Armenia, where chaos reigned. The commission made insoluble difficulties for Basil, though he was honoured and delighted to be asked. Probably Valens was anxious to recruit him in support of his ecclesiastical policies. Later Basil found himself under bitter attack at the court, and feared for his life. A military commander, Victor, spoke for him (epp. , , , , , ). Travel, usually by mule, was necessary, but to the cold hills of Armenia unpleasant and, when his health became poor which was not infrequent, hazardous or impossible. A visit to some hot springs failed to cure his ailments. Army deserters in Cappadocia as elsewhere in the empire usually became brigands infesting the highways (). Eustathius of Sebaste; Aerius Eustathius of Sebaste had advocated serious forms of asceticism, and at a council at Gangra in Paphlagonia (of uncertain date, perhaps as early as , but Socrates dates it after , and Professor T. D. Barnes has suggested ) there were condemnations of ascetics who rejected marriage or refused to accept the eucharist from a married priest or regarded vegetarianism as obligatory or told slaves that they need not obey their masters. Basil’s ascetic writings show the influence of Eustathius, notably in founding a hospice. Eustathius placed in charge of his hospice an ascetic named Aerius with whom he did not get on. Aerius led a schism teaching that presbyters and bishops are of the same order with identical power so that both may ordain, that it is Judaistic to celebrate the Easter Pasch, that prayers for the faithful departed at the eucharist do no good, and that prescribed times for fasting are needless. He had a mixed following of men and women who fasted on Sundays and ate well on Wednesdays and Fridays. Aerius was ‘still alive and still Arian’ when Epiphanius wrote his Panarion (). Basil wholly ignored Aerius. Eustathius’ and Basil’s most striking characteristics were to treat ascetic communities as preferable to hermitages and to be expected to provide a mission to the entire Church, not an exodus from it. The communities needed rules, grounded on holy scripture, and Basil set out to provide these. Canon law The gathering of rules for the churches was hardly less important; three of his letters to Amphilochios of Iconium give his collections (, , ), which became part of Greek canon law. That is a testimony to the authority later enjoyed by Basil, since the canonical letters (especially ep. . ) give the impression of being largely his personal rulings, valid in his own jurisdiction, rather than assembled from the rule-books of churches known to
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him. A letter to the country bishops (chorepiscopi ) under his jurisdiction rebukes them for departures from canon law, especially in ordaining men for payment, without scrutiny, and without consulting Basil. (Consent of the diocesan bishop was made a requirement by a canon of Antioch about .) They had been allowing existing clergy to propose relatives and friends to be subdeacons, an order popular among people avoiding military service (ep. ). When the deputy prefect of Pontus, Demosthenes (who had once been snubbed by Basil), removed Gregory of Nyssa from his office, Basil complained that depositions required a synod of the provincial bishops so that the act by merely secular authority was not legal (). When his ally Bishop Eusebius of Samosata complained that he was allowing too many episcopal elections to go to the anti-Nicene party, Basil replied that he did what was possible, but canon law gave the metropolitan no autocratic powers (). Ep. addresses sisters who were deaconesses, daughters of a friendly count Terentius near Samosata on the northern Euphrates. The canonical letters include invalidation of oaths in an improper cause, e.g. to injure someone, or to refuse ordination (. ); this last may have been necessary to prevent ascetics claiming exemption from orders on this ground.1 Ep. . forbids any oath to wreak vengeance. Influence from the synagogue is seen in Christians taking vows to abstain from swine’s flesh (ep. . ). Rules for monks and nuns Monks needed a spiritual director. On arrival novices learnt silence; they could take vows, which should be made in the presence of the clergy to impart special solemnity and public character to the decision. Renunciation is of family, social class, property, friendships. The promise must be to keep celibacy. Fasting is not to be excessive, like the Manichees, and there can be no Manichee restriction on what one may eat; but the food is to be inexpensive and only enough for need, not for pleasure and never eaten to satiety. For drink water suffices. Guests should share in the frugality. Clothing is never to be luxurious or ostentatious, but enough to keep warm; and there is no call for a change of clothing at night. Monks dress like mourners. No loud laughter is allowed,2 but one may smile. The daily liturgy consists of seven offices and the eucharist, the latter beginning with the liturgy of the word for catechumens, followed by ‘the prayer of the faithful’ (. ). Only in grave emergency may the eucharist be celebrated in a private house. Basil did not 1 Cassian, Coll. justifies breaking a solemn vow if by keeping it one abandons a higher spiritual goal. His critic Prosper dissented, c. Coll. . . 2 Plato thought laughter unseemly.
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want private masses, but welcomed customary private reservation by which the host was taken home (ep. ). Consecration is by invocation of the Holy Spirit (De Spir. S. ). Vigils are kept before Easter (hom. , PG . ) and the festivals of martyrs (PG , ). There is to be no reading, private or communal, of non-canonical books. Hymns and spiritual songs are sung at the offices and during the day at manual work. When young boys are admitted there is need to be on guard against homosexual attachments. Monks must know that to leave a monastery after making vows is to be excluded for ever. There is no way back. Monasteries may have attached a school for children of lay families. Gradually the number of nuns increased. At the same time there were dramas with lapsed virgins. The model figure was St Thecla, companion of St Paul in the Apocryphal Acts of Paul, with a popular shrine at Seleucia in Isauria. Parents might bring girls under the age of sixteen to become nuns, not because they had a true calling to the unmarried life, but to solve domestic financial problems; they should not be accepted unless over sixteen (ep. . ). The same problem would be met by Augustine (e.g. Op. Monach. ). One letter (, probably by Gregory of Nazianzos) tells of Glycerius, a deacon of mean quality, who gave himself the insignia of a patriarch and headed a community of virgins stolen from the normal convents. It is remarkable that the insignia of a patriarch could be identifiable, since at this date the title was hardly as yet in general use. The letter shows how natural it was when it came to be used for bishops with supra-provincial authority a few decades later. Basil’s summary of the Christian ideal borrows Plato’s phrase from the Theaetetus: it is ‘likeness to God as far as possible’ (Homily on the Creation of Man . ). That is to say, the imitation of Christ, denying ourselves, taking up the cross and being indifferent to danger. The ‘retirement’ pursued by a monk has to be retirement from his own will (Reg. fus. tr. . –). Love to God is not taught by human teachers, but is implanted by grace, giving the power to fulfil divine commands so that it becomes as natural as loving one’s family or beauty. The desire for goodness is instinctive (Reg. fus. tr. . bff.). Basil not only built a monastic hospice near the city which could provide support for the destitute, but used to kiss the lepers (Greg. Naz. or. . , PG . ). He was a regular visitor (ep. . ). As bishop he lived as one of the poor (ep. ; end), sleeping on the ground. Since he wanted all Christians to live ascetic lives, he had deep misgivings about opulence. Lay reaction to Basil’s monks was unfriendly. Pagans gossipped that celibacy was merely a trick to inspire trust, and that the house was a cloak for vice (ep. ). Neocaesarea in Pontus was probably not the only place where Basil’s monks were criticized (ep. ). The Caesarean house actually rebelled against him at one stage before he became their bishop (ep. ); Athanasius wrote to rebuke them (Ath. ep. ). Some of his monks had formerly been
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with Eustathius of Sebaste and could become critical if Basil’s theology deviated from that of their former spiritual director. Basil’s old friendship with Eustathius made him suspect in the eyes of Eustathius’ critics, especially Theodotus of Nicopolis. As Meletitus had replaced Eustathius at Sebaste, Basil’s friendship with Meletius made Eustathius end amicable relations. The Holy Spirit Against those who doubted Eustathius’ orthodoxy, Basil assured himself and others that his friend was wholly orthodox (ep. and ) but in consequence found himself disinvited to a council in Armenia. Eustathius caused difficulty: he did not want to state a doctrine of the Holy Spirit which went further than scripture and the laconic clause in the Nicene creed of ‘And (I believe) in the Holy Spirit.’ ‘I prefer not to call the Holy Spirit God, but I would not dare call the Spirit a creature’ (Socrates . . ). Asia Minor still had many bishops who were more than hesitant about affirming the equality of the Spirit with the Father and the Son in the Holy Trinity. Basil himself spoke and wrote with caution on this subject; moreover the question of the Spirit was associated with problems of the homoiousian group which had reservations about the Son’s equality with the Father. He thought the condemnation of homoousios in the case of Paul of Samosata was a substantial difficulty favouring the homoiousian party, which presupposed tolerance on his part towards those who had qualms about the Nicene term (ep. ). But by the pressure for a bold statement built up, especially on the equality of the Holy Spirit. He had to complain to Bishop Athanasius of Ankyra that he called Basil a heretic without so much as writing a letter (ep. ), and to the church of Neocaesarea in Pontus that their bishop Atarbios ‘hated’ him and answered no letters (). Basil may have been sending Neocaesarea too much unwelcome advice. In the third century Origen declared the Spirit to sanctify the souls of believers, to have inspired the prophets, and to be associated with Father and Son. Yet in his work ‘On first Principles’ and especially in his Commentary on St John . , at the text ‘All things were made by him’, he raised the question whether the Spirit belongs to the created order, at least in being derived through the Son and therefore at a lower order of being. Athanasius’ letters to Serapion address the position of a group which grants that the Son is no creature but believes the Spirit ranks with the created angels. Athanasius answers that the Trinity is all of similar nature and indivisible. The Spirit sanctifies, given by the Son who proceeds from the Father, and to sanctify is not within the capacity of the created order. The Spirit deifies redeemed humanity, and cannot be alien to the Father’s deity. Athanasius’ statement was taken further by the Alexandrian exegete (and
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admirer of Origen), Didymus the Blind, who wrote both on the Holy Spirit, extant in Jerome’s Latin version, and on the Trinity, extant in Greek. Jerome had attended his lectures: though the Spirit is not begotten but proceeds from the Father, all the divine characteristics are there, creating, forgiving, inspiring, touching human lives in word and sacrament. The Spirit’s operation is so united with the Father and the Son as to be evidently one ousia or nature, though also distinct in operation. The being of the Spirit is derived from the Father and the Son, ‘and the Spirit has no hypostasis [substantia in Jerome] other than that given by the Son’. In – in Cyprus Epiphanius produced his ‘Anchor’ (Ancoratus) and an enormous Panarion or ‘Medicine Chest for the cure of all heresies’. He strongly affirmed that the Father is God, the Son God, the Holy Spirit God, and that is to say homoousios. The Spirit proceeds from the Father, receives from the Son, and is the bond binding the Trinity, ‘derived from both’. The Spirit has subsistence (hypostasis) from the Father through the Son (Panar. . . ). These authors were opposing the party called by others Pneumatomachoi (fighters against the Spirit) or Semi-Arians. Their most notable leaders were Macedonius bishop of Constantinople and his protegé Marathonius bishop of Nicomedia, so that they were also called Macedonians or Marathonians. Marathonius enjoyed a better reputation than Macedonius (of whom the historian Socrates had sombre accounts); previously in high office and therefore rich, he founded monasteries and hospices for the poor. Basil found Eustathius of Sebaste keeping company with people who did not feel the Bible gave authority to affirm the Spirit to be God. This led to a breach between old friends. Basil needed to put a distance between himself and the old homoiousian group. Against this background it is intelligible that there was sharp polarity between those who denied that the Holy Spirit may be called ‘God’, and the opposing view that Athanasius, Didymus, and Epiphanius were right. Basil upset some of the latter party by fearing to call the Spirit God lest he be suspected of tritheism. His reticence, motivated also by averting anger from Valens’ advisers, aroused distrust and open criticism. In the autumn of Basil issued a substantial treatise ‘On the Holy Spirit’ which is constructed round the prepositions used in the Gloria. Should one say ‘with (meta) . . . with’ (syn) or ‘through (dia) . . . in’ (en)? Basil’s critics disliked the first pair of prepositions and accepted the second. He accepted both; they had precedent and tradition. The essence is that the opponents deny the ranking of the Spirit with the Father and the Son, and think the Spirit belongs to the created order. This is the unpardonable sin. Appeals to tradition leave the opposition unmoved; they want the Bible and the Bible only. But in revelation there is progressive education, as from Old Testament
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to New. Immemorial tradition has three immersions at baptism, the sign of the cross, turning east for prayer, chrism, renunciation of the devil and his angels, standing on Sundays, and, particularly relevant, the liturgical doxology. (The treatise is authority for the ancient evening hymn, Phos hilaron, ‘Hail gladdening light’ in Keble’s translation.) Not everything is in scripture; Genesis has no record of the creation of the angels; that they are created is non-controversial. To affirm three hypostases does not imply more than one God. Just as the emperor and the emperor’s image are not really a duality, so ‘the honour of the image passes to the archetype’ (a sentence with a major future in the iconoclastic controversy of the eighth and ninth centuries), and the Spirit completes the Trinity. Sanctification comes from the Father through the Son to the Spirit (De Spir. S. . ). The treatment of scripture plus tradition was cited by the medieval canonist Ivo of Chartres (PL . ), and so became influential in the idea of two parallel sources for revelation. Basil reinforced his argument from tradition by a momentous move, namely a florilegium or anthology of excerpts from respected Christian writers of the past. Adherence to the Nicene creed expresses the continuity of tradition. Moreover at Caesarea pro-Nicenes believed that their bishop, Hermogenes, had been responsible for drafting the Nicene creed. But its third article, so reticent about the Holy Spirit, must now be enlarged to exclude those who say the Spirit belongs to the created order. The Spirit inspired the biblical writers (‘the prophets’), is the source of life and holiness, is neither unbegotten nor begotten but ‘proceeds from the Father’, is joined with Father and Son in the doxology or Gloria, and in the formula of baptism (ep. ). Gregory of Nazianzos (or. . ) was anxious that Basil’s treatise might be taken as a complete and adequate statement of the full truth about the Holy Spirit. He himself wanted to say more. Episcopal colleagues The bishops of Asia Minor were in more or less constant disagreement with one another on theology, and Basil comments that each bishop seemed to suspect all his colleagues of heresy (ep. ). It was like a night-battle in which no one knew who was a friend and who an enemy (ep. ; de Spir. S. . ). The parties were like circus factions (ep. ). All this seemed profoundly inappropriate in a community formed by divine love. As sees fell vacant, Basil exerted pressure by letter or otherwise to get a Nicene successor. He was only sometimes successful. At Nicopolis (ep. ) he explained to the magistrates of the city, who thought the election of a new bishop was for themselves to decide, that this was a matter for the clergy, and that the laity’s role was to ratify (by acclamation?) what had been already determined. He found it hard
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to discover candidates with the capability for episcopal office; ‘mediocrity brings Christianity into discredit’ (ep. . ). Basil judged it better to have few clergy of high quality than many of low capacity. Ep. mentions an emancipated slave becoming a bishop; in such cases quality could be very variable. Regional pride emerged when a fellow Cappadocian Ascholius became bishop of Thessalonica (), a crucial city on the route from Constantinople to the Adriatic and Italy. Ascholius was shown to be sound by his enthusiasm for Athanasius (). Basil found his own clergy at Caesarea a poor lot (). A number of letters mention married bishops and clergy. When his brother Gregory had been expelled from Nyssa by secular power, he noted that the usurper succeeding him named George lived with a ‘concubine’ (perhaps an ascetic relationship, as was often the case), and this seemed typical of the low standard prevalent (. ). A presbyter Paregorius aged continued to live with a woman, perhaps his wife (?), but without conjugal relations; Basil thought the faithful were offended by her housekeeping and wrote threatening excommunication (Ep. can. . ). Basil’s episcopal court at Caesarea had to deal with minor delinquents. Ep. relates how at a large gathering the clothes of some poor people were stolen. The thieves were arrested by church officers. Unless the count wished to deal with this case, Basil would have them up before his court, and they would be corrected, no doubt by a minor flogging. ‘What civil penalties do not achieve, the fearful judgements of the Lord’ may do. Basil found himself attacked from all sides, by radical Arians as if he were Sabellian, but by ultraNicenes because of his support for three hypostases. Bishops hoping to please the emperor Valens, based at Antioch, were over-anxious to be approved by bishop Euzoios (ep. ), evidently exceptionally influential at court because of his proximity. The Nicene cause at Alexandria suffered after Athanasius’ death in , and its adherents were fiercely persecuted (). Athanasius’ successor Peter took refuge in Rome. (Basil found Peter unsympathetic: ep. ). In Syria there was similar trouble (). There Basil had a strong ally in Eusebius bishop of Samosata, who is recorded by Severus of Antioch (Select Letters . , ed. Brooks) to have travelled about disguised as a soldier, carrying out ordinations during the time of Arian domination. He suffered exile but returned after Valens’ death. Ambrose recorded apropos of the council of Ariminum in that the laity preserved the true faith better than the bishops. Basil made a similar observation. The ecclesiastical party in the saddle was discovering that the laity actually disliked ‘Arianism’, and bishops were claiming to be almost in favour of Nicene faith (). Even Demophilus at Constantinople, who in preferred to resign the see rather than sign the Nicene creed, was reported to Basil as at least affecting to be orthodox (). One bishop at Aegae thought that all the theological reasons given for suspending communion were secondary and
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ultimately indifferent (). Basil himself more than once says that talk about God is beyond the capacity of the human mind, and that in any event words are inadequate to express what mind thinks (Homily , PG . ). Frequently he repeats how desirable it is to stick to the words of scripture, and regrets that philosophical terms like homoousios, which express the sense of scripture but are not scriptural, have to be used. It was sad that private quarrels were dressed up as theological disagreements (ep. ). Apollinaris and Vitalis As an aspiring divine Basil had once corresponded with Apollinaris about God, not Christology, and respected him. Controversy with Apollinaris concerning Christology was unwelcome to him. He thought the entire subject so beset with obscurity that further definition should be avoided. He told Epiphanius in Cyprus that he was opposed to any Christological addition to the Nicene formula (ep. , cf. ). If he was going to denounce Apollinaris, then it would be more for his ‘Judaistic’ millenarianism than for his Christology where his mistake was to have disturbed people (ep. ). Basil also wholly opposed Apollinaris’ decision to ordain bishops who were planted in other churches with divisive effect; moreover they had neither clergy nor laity (). The reference is evidently to the situation at Antioch for which Apollinaris had ordained his own bishop Vitalis (a convert from following Meletius). Perhaps he infiltrated similar supporters elsewhere. He was himself in this position at Laodicea. In opposing Apollinaris’ thesis that the divine Logos replaced the human mind in Christ, Basil was content to state the Irenaean principle that what is not assumed is not saved (ep. ). This he called ‘brotherly disagreement’ at first; but in time Apollinaris ceased to be ‘one of us’. Cappadocia divided In the emperor gave authority for the province of Cappadocia to be divided into two. This was highly unwelcome to the citizens of Caesarea, which, as a metropolis, was thereby vastly reduced in standing. Cappadocia II had a new metropolis at Tyana to the south-west. There Bishop Anthimos, with whom Basil had no cause for theological disagreement (ep. ), competed with Basil for control of the pilgrim offerings at the shrine of St Orestes in the foothills of the Taurus mountains. Gregory of Nazianzos’ panegyric on Basil says that there were rough exchanges at the site (orat. . , on Orestes, see Acta Sanctorum Nov. IV. ). Basil’s campaign against the division of the province earned him the hostility of the praetorian prefect and the high chamberlain (ep. ).
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The splitting of the province affected Basil’s plan to fill as many sees as possible with sound Nicene bishops. He put his younger brother Gregory into Nyssa and sent his friend Gregory of Nazianzos to a miserable posting station named Sasima at a dusty road-junction, both in the new province. Gregory never visited Sasima (to Basil’s annoyance, Greg. Naz. ep. ), and evidently thought Basil’s policy mistaken. Ecclesiastical jurisdiction for Basil would cease to correspond with the boundaries of the civil provinces. Although Valens may have thought it an additional argument for division that it reduced Basil’s sphere of influence, his motive was almost certainly secular, to separate the imperial lands round Caesarea, which became the only city of Cappadocia I, from the more urbanized western region.3 Finding good bishops; Armenia Finding suitable candidates for bishoprics was far from easy. They needed to be of good education, and the economic level of many clergy and laity was low. Basil founded a number of hospices for the poor, for which he was usually able to gain tax exemption (; ; ). His sermons voiced the cause of the very poor; he invited the wealthy to bequeath a third of their estate not only for charity but for the sake of their own soul (Hom. . ; . ; ep. ; Greg. Naz. or. . ). When charged with finding bishops for the troubled province of Roman Armenia, he faced the difficulty that a good bishop must know the language of the people (ep. ), and this required considerable consultation. The election of a bishop needed a choice by the bishops of the province, and the magistrates representing the laity were expected to assent to that choice (ep. ). A bishop was to care for all, not merely for those of his own party or faction, not only for believers but for all Cappadocians (ep. ). In this role of spiritual father to everyone in his territory Basil was continually badgered to write supporting letters to obtain relief from taxes or from curial duties on town councils (ep. ). (A social problem of the time was the extreme reluctance of the curial class to serve on town councils, since they had to raise taxes and maintain order, and could be flogged severely if they failed in such duties.) Basil’s episcopal duties could include gathering a levy to pay for army equipment (ep. ), trying to negotiate tax relief for clergy (ep. ) or monks (epp. –) and for iron workers in the Taurus mountains (ep. ). Arbitrations fell to him (epp. –, ). To litigate in court was expensive and, even if one recovered costs, one was out of pocket, so that it was better to go to arbitration (ep. ). Silvanus of Troas in the s is the first bishop known to have employed a legally qualified lay adviser for 3 A. H. M. Jones, The Cities of the Eastern Roman Provinces, nd edn. (Oxford, ), ff. Theodosius I reunited the provinces in , but in the division became fixed.
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the bishop’s court or audientia episcopalis (Socr. HE . . ). By a transparent convention those for whom Basil writes supporting references are fictionally ‘close relatives.’ Ep. observes that his letters to officials pleading for special consideration are unanswered. A fair proportion of letters from Basil and Gregory of Nazianzos were, like those of Libanius, written on behalf of someone if not to gain financial relief for clergy or monks. Often these letters were composed in the then fashionable rhetoric, with treacly flattery and wrapped in obscurity. Some moral problems Slavery was problematic. ‘None is slave by nature; but it happens to prisoners of war and provides for the poor’ (De Spir. S. ). Their labour being reluctant, slaves had to be chastised (epp. –). Another problem was abortion, which was not morally distinct from homicide (epp. . . . ). Unwanted infants were often exposed (ep. . ). Military service was compatible with a Christian life (ep. ); but while killing in war was not murder, it needed three years’ purification (ep. . ). Liturgical life The sacredness of the episcopal or presbyteral office is strongly stressed: with priestly functions (ep. ) they minister the liturgy of the altar (epp. . ), ‘entrusted with Christ’s body and blood’ (ep. ). Basil’s personal rule was to celebrate the liturgy on Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday (ep. ). So clergy are prominent at the memorials of martyrs to which bishops from beyond the boundaries of Cappadocia were invited; e.g. for St Eupsychios, who was executed under Julian, remembered on September, or St Eutyches, taken prisoner by Gothic raiders among whom he became an evangelist before being put to death (ep. on the translation of the relics). Pontus celebrated with pride the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste, but they were also commemorated at Caesarea (Hom. ). The florilegium in De Spiritu Sancto cites a hymn of the martyr Athenogenes (De Spir. S. ). The high feasts are Easter, after a forty-day Lenten fast, Pentecost, and the Nativity (unclear if this was December or January). Sects Asia Minor had its share of dissenters: Encratites who did not recognize married people as Christian; wearers of sackcloth; Renouncers (Apotactitae) who rejected marriage and private property; Novatianists (the validity of whose baptism was judged differently in different regions); Marcionites and
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Montanists whose baptism was certainly invalid. Ep. . says that two former Encratites have been accepted to be bishops. Epiphanius in Cyprus wrote to ask for information about Persian Magi or Magusians; ep. explains that in Cappadocia such immigrants are numerous, that they will not kill animals and get someone else to do that for them; their marriages are unlawful, they believe in fire as divine, they claim to be descended from ‘Zarnonas’ (evidently Zervan). The emperor Valens was aware that after Julian’s proposal to rebuild the temple at Jerusalem, the Jews had become unpopular. Jerome (adv. Jovinianum . ) records a strange edict issued by Valens to prohibit the eating of veal. Since observant Jews did not eat pork, they liked veal (cf. Luke : ). The lack of cattle or belief that cows were sacred animals meant that beef was not to be had in Egypt and Palestine. The edict was probably an anti-Judaic pinprick. Festivals and relics of martyrs Basil felt it to be tragic that ‘Arians’ persecuted other Christians, but several times insisted that victims of such harassment should be included in the calendar of martyrs (ep. ). He disapproved of martyrs’ feasts being occasions for bazaars (Reg. fus. tr. ). Basil puts this precept into his Longer Rule for monks, but he cannot have been successful in trying to stop a universal custom. He did not want the commemoration of a martyr secularized. But traders were not going to miss so large a gathering. Relics of martyrs were good for sending to the barbarians in the Danube region (ep. ). Among the Goths Christians were suffering persecution; ep. thanks Ascholius of Thessalonica for the gift of relics of a martyr who lately suffered death at Gothic hands (perhaps St Sabas?). Ep. replies to a request from Ambrose of Milan for the relics of Dionysius of Milan; Basil stridently insists on their authenticity. He was sure that the individual Christian needs the community of other believers (Reg. fus. tr. ). He was no less sure that particular churches need the universal Church. The wreckage of past conflicts needed to be cleared away if this ‘brotherhood’ or ‘fellowship of the Spirit’ imparting unity in diversity (in Ps. . , PG . c), was to be realized. His ideal for the Church is found in the Song of Songs. Searching for unity at Antioch Basil’s supreme quest for church unity with the Nicene creed as its banner of truth was shipwrecked on the schism at Antioch with the two Nicene groups under Paulinus and Meletius unable to worship together. He was clear that
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only Meletius could command the confidence of the Greek bishops, and that Paulinus’ association with Marcellus of Ankyra, who died about in old age, was disastrous. Letters to Athanasius flattered the Alexandrian bishop’s incomparable virtue and honour, but failed to move him to abandon support for Paulinus. After some initial friendly exchanges Basil began to raise the question of Antioch and sent to Alexandria Meletius’ deacon Dorotheos, asking Athanasius to speed him on his journey to Rome, if possible with someone familiar with the Roman situation (ep. ). In an oblique sentence Paulinus is the target when Basil observes that Marcellus of Ankyra, once received to communion by the west, had never been disowned, and (despite Athanasius’ support for his friends) that is now necessary. Noteworthy is a remark that travel to and from Rome should be by sea to avoid interference by hostile bands (ep. ). By the Gothic invasion of the Balkans propelled by the Huns made the Via Egnatia unsafe. The western reaction was to send Sabinus, Ambrose’s deacon at Milan. Basil’s answers by his hand were letters to the Illyrians () and to Gaul and Italy, actually to Pope Damasus (), telling him that he and the bishops concerned profess the Nicene faith and agree with all that Damasus has done under canon law. The outcome was painful. Damasus abrasively returned Basil’s letter to him as unacceptable and, by the hand of Paulinus’ presbyter at Antioch Evagrius, sent a list of propositions to which Basil’s signature was demanded (). This list is likely to have included recognition of Paulinus. The deacon Dorotheus called on Evagrius and invited him to be present when Dorotheus was assisting at the eucharist; Evagrius refused, and Basil wrote to Evagrius to express his regrets and to tell him that he was no longer intending to send a representative to Rome (ep. ). Meanwhile Basil was under mounting pressure from Eustathius of Sebaste’s friends, from Pneumatomachoi, and from supporters of the ‘likeness’ formula, who were lobbying the court to have Basil exiled. He had enough highly placed friends at court to avert this end to all his endeavours, but could not stop Anthimos of Tyana, metropolitan of Cappadocia II, from ordaining a bishop for Armenia, in his sphere of responsibility. Basil came near to despair. If the Nicene cause in Asia Minor was to be rescued, help was needed from the west. A renewed attempt was made to persuade Pope Damasus to change his mind. Meletius (Basil, ep. ) wrote to Rome, sad that private and personal quarrels were disguised as disagreement in faith. Basil felt that Damasus became more arrogant and scornful the more courteous the letters to him were (ep. ). There was additional difficulty in that after Athanasius’ death in , his successor Peter could not safely live at Alexandria, under Arian control again, and was in Rome, no friend to the recognition of Meletius, whose envoy Dorotheus became angry with him. It was time to discard the
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velvet glove and to be frank. Rome was in effect lifting no finger to help the pro-Nicene bishops in Asia Minor who were being harassed and persecuted. That was not good Roman tradition. A heartening letter came from Epiphanius of Salamis supporting ‘three hypostases’. His Panarion (. ) explained his view. Finally Basil sent a tough letter (ep. ) ironically thanking the western bishops, i.e. Damasus and perhaps Ambrose, for negligible sympathy, and reporting that the churches of Asia Minor were beset by Arian wolves in sheep’s clothing, by Eustathius of Sebaste’s heresy in Armenia Minor, by Apollinaris’ millenarianism and Christology, and last but far from least, by Paulinus of Antioch, whose consecration by Lucifer of Calaris had not been recognized as canonical, and whose theology was hopelessly tainted by association with Marcellus of Ankyra’s Sabellianism. The letter was stern stuff. But he was asking Rome to condemn individuals unheard. The Tome of Damasus of conceded a condemnation in abstract terms of Sabellianism, Photinus, Eunomius, any who preach two Sons or who hold that the divine Logos replaced the rational soul in Christ (Apollinaris not named) and of those who say the Holy Spirit is created. Censure is also pronounced on clergy who move from one church to another, a sentence which reads as an attack on Meletius. The document was much less than Basil had wanted.4 Basil died probably in ; Gregory of Nazianzos says he held the see for eight years. Already in his lifetime he would be awarded the rare title, ‘the Great’, by his admirers. Gregory of Nazianzos (or. . ) remarked that people modelled their gait and their speech, thoughtful, hesitant, and melancholic, on his. The total failure of Basil’s endeavours to restore pro-Nicene consensus and authority in Asia Minor sprang from the unsolved issue at Antioch. Had he lived to see the council of Constantinople under Theodosius in , Basil would have been glad that in doctrinal terms the view he advocated had broadly won the day. The article concerning the Holy Spirit exactly reflected his position; and the creed included no complicated matter on the issue of Christology, which Basil foresaw to be a question of unending intricacy (ep. ). But the bishops knew enough of the unhappy way in which Rome had treated him and Meletius to be very unco-operative to the plea made by Gregory of Nazianzos after Meletius’ death that Paulinus should be recognized to gratify the west. Gregory thought it a price worth paying to have west and east in harmony, but did not command support. Greek voices disputed Roman assumptions of jurisdiction, saying that the east was where the Lord was born.5 At least Meletius ended canonized in the Roman EOMIA i. –. Two texts are here united. Gregory Nazianzen’s verse autobiography, ff., ed. C. White (Cambridge, ), ; PG . . 4 5
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Martyrology, though never at any time in his life in communion with the see of Rome. The golden age of Constantine’s favour to the Church had long passed. The Arian controversy had split east and west apart; to Rome it bequeathed an ineffaceable impression that the Greek east had too many heretics to be trusted so that even bishops persecuted by Arians could be called Arians by uninformed people at Rome (Basil, epp. . ). The Greek orthodox had a deep impression of Rome’s incomprehension and perhaps even the beginnings of a feeling that there were separate traditions of ecclesiology. Constantius and Valens saw the Nicene creed, affirmed by most of the Latin west, as divisive and therefore productive of disorder. Basil saw that the reconciliation of east and west could be attained only on the basis of the Nicene formula, and in all essentials of faith there was no dissension between him and Ambrose or Damasus. Ascetic communities could be instruments of general reform in the Church, and would attract less attention from the imperial government than urban churches and their bishops. Laity and monks could carry a torch that among some of the bishops flickered uncertainly. He did not live to witness success in church politics. But he could see that his programme was in line with what many of the laity hoped and prayed for. No one contributed more to the making of the Constantinopolitan creed long shared by east and west. The healing of the schism at Antioch did not come for many further decades, but its importance steadily receded. What Basil pleaded for eventually came about. In his lifetime there can only have seemed ground for despair.6 6 Basil’s works (not all authentic) are in PG –. There are separate editions of his book On the Holy Spirit by C. F. H. Johnston (Oxford, ) and B. Pruche (Paris, ). Letters: text and translation by R. J. Deferrari (Loeb Classical Library, –); text and French translation by Y. Courtonne (Paris, Belles Lettres –); German translation with good notes by W. D. Hauschild (Stuttgart, –). Hexaemeron: text and French translation by S. Giet (Paris, ); a distinguished annotated edition by E. A. de Mendieta and S. K. Rudberg (GCS ). On Greek literature, text and notes by N. G. Wilson (London, ). Ascetical works, English translation by W. K. L. Clarke (London, ). The series Sources Chrétiennes also includes editions and French translations of Contra Eunomium, on Baptism, and on the Creation of Man. Major secondary works are by W. K. L. Clarke, P. J. Fedwick, B. Gain, J. Gribomont, F. Loofs, Philip Rousseau, and R. Teja (see Further Reading, IV). On the churches in Asia Minor, see S. Mitchell, Anatolia, II (Oxford, ). On Basil’s doctrine of God the old study of Karl Holl, Amphilochius von Ikonium (Leipzig, ) remains valuable.
AMBROSE 1
In Ambrose of Milan the Latin west acquired a major figure, a Roman aristocrat deeply attached to tradition, not disposed to think the Greek east a superior guide to right faith. Yet he derived his grasp of the Christian faith from Origen’s sermons and other Greek Christians. He once remarked how superior Origen was on the Old Testament compared with his work on the New (ep. = M, ). He admired Basil’s Hexaemeron. In polemic against Arianism he exploited Didymus the Blind and Athanasius. His high posthumous reputation in the east was admittedly assisted by pseudonymous texts created in anti-monophysite interest (cited in Theodoret, PG . f. pp. – Ettlinger). The fact that a Chalcedonian supporter had the idea of inventing texts to be ascribed to Ambrose shows that for Greeks his name stood high. The Latin west owed much to him both in the general establishment of orthodoxy as defined by the Nicene creed and in the conversion of society from polytheism. He saw the Church steadily increasing in numbers (Exameron . . ) while pagan priests were daily diminishing (in Ps. . ). For his biography his own writings and especially the letters are a mine of information. The Life composed by Paulinus deacon of Milan at the suggestion of Augustine in is mainly concerned to stress the miraculous in the expulsion of demons, healings, and even resuscitation of the dead. As City of God . shows, Augustine was at this stage of his life interested in answering a pagan objection. Miracles still happen now and could therefore happen in the time of Jesus. Towards Christian capture of society With Julian’s death the external underpinning of pagan cult by public authority collapsed. But that did not mean the conversion of hearts and minds to the Christian gospel. The last quarter of the fourth century saw a strenuous effort by the churches to evangelize, using a gradual method of persuasion for the educated and asking landowners to erect churches on their 1 Ambrose’s letters are cited from the CSEL edition by O. Faller and M. Zelzer but with the addition of the Maurist numbering (M).
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property and to bring their labourers, often under some coercion, to worship there. There was tough resistance to the abandonment of venerable peasant superstitions, and there were some bishops who thought it best to compromise. In Spain at Ávila in the s Priscillian admitted to allowing sorcery and magic, e.g. anointing sacred stones with oil to ensure good crops (Priscillian, Tract , p. . ff. ed. Schepss). But in the sixth century Martin of Braga tried to wean the rustics from their ancient rites (De correctione rusticorum). There were also merely nominal adherents coming to church services because it might help them to some higher post, or to gain the hand in marriage of a Christian girl (Ambr. in Ps. . . –). The earliest surviving catechetical lectures, by Cyril of Jerusalem, begin by observing that the young men attending have come to see their girls but now they are going to listen to the bishop. Before Ambrose’s time Zeno of Verona writes of nominal Christians who in a still predominantly pagan milieu secretly preserved shrines of the old gods on their land (Zeno . . ). Refugees Germanic tribal incursions in and after the s removed from imperial control substantial tracts of territory south of the Danube, and in northern Italy the flood of impoverished and homeless refugees created many social problems which impacted on the churches, whose care for the poor and destitute was well understood. Even in the Po valley rich families were hiding their gold and silver in the ground (Zeno of Verona . ). The billeting of soldiers in towns, always dreaded by the inhabitants, led to frictions which bishops were expected to sort out. In a decree of the emperor Honorius placed formal responsibility for refugees in the hands of bishops (CTh . . ). This extended the principle inherent in a decision by Constantine the Great to give bishops the powers of magistrates, and to make astonished secular authority implement the bishop’s verdicts (Const. Sirmond. ). Since there were occasional cases where hesitation about a bishop’s decision was referred to the emperor, Ambrose preferred to act as arbitrator in cases where both parties agreed to abide by his verdict (ep. = M. ). It irritated him to judge disputes ‘about money, estates, and beasts’. Holy men could discern guilt and innocence as others could not (an ancient axiom, e.g. in Porphyry’s Life of Plotinus and his Life of Pythagoras . , and a charism spectacularly claimed by the Roman synod of defending Pope Damasus). The original donors could be offended when bishops sold church plate and furnishings to redeem prisoners captured by the barbarians (Ambr. off. . ). On the eastern front with Persia, Acacius bishop of Amida (Dyarbakir) caused a sensation by selling church treasures to pay for the release of Persian prisoners
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captured by the Romans (Socrates . ). The axiom that charitable aid to the poor must not discriminate in favour of Christians was formulated by Atticus of Constantinople (Socr. . ). Ambrose would be clear about the correctness of the judgement that humanity had first claim (off. . –). In a law of Justinian prohibited sales of church plate for any other purpose than ransoming prisoners of war (CJ . . ). Capital punishment. Almsgiving In defiance of the emperors’ laws (but obeying Prov. : ) Ambrose defended the right of Christians to try to rescue condemned criminals being carried off to execution, provided it could be done without an affray (off. . . ). Symmachus when prefect of Rome once complained that people under arrest were kidnapped on their way to court (Relatio . ); so this kind of interference with law and order was common. Asylum and kidnapping of criminals naturally gave plausibility to the charge that the Church was overthrowing justice and legality. Edicts in and tried to stop it (CTh . . –). After all, Christians did not disagree that penalties should be incurred by those who did wrong. Ambrose disapproved of capital punishment (which pagan governors hated also), though not accepting the Novatianist excommunication of Christian governors imposing this sentence (ep. = M). He was critical of the rule that in capital cases judges had no discretion about sentence (in Ps. . ). An acute problem for the poor (not the destitute) was debt. A good custom at Milan was to release debtors from prison in Holy Week (ep. = M. ). Ambrose would have much to say about almsgiving. ‘Honour the poor as images of Christ’ (in Ps. . . ). They were the basis of his power in the city. From provincial governor to bishop Aurelius Ambrosius (full name, ILCV ) unexpectedly became bishop of Milan in succession to Auxentius in . The son of a praetorian prefect in Gaul who died about (perhaps at the time of Constantine II’s death), he had been educated in Rome, learning Greek as well as Latin literature, and had a career as a civil servant at Sirmium, metropolis of Pannonia II, then as governor (consularis) of Liguria. Bishop Auxentius, a Greek from Alexandria who had perhaps trained in law and if so knew some Latin (more than Athanasius thought, Hist. Ar. ), had enjoyed long tenure, strongly supporting the creed of Ariminum that the Son is ‘like’ the Father. Thanks to Valentinian I’s policy of detached toleration he had retained his position after Hilary of Poitiers in had unsuccessfully attacked him and even after Gallic
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synods in Julian’s time declared him unacceptable and Athanasius had badgered Pope Damasus into a synodal demand for his removal. Probably a few years later Evagrius of Antioch is said by Jerome (ep. . ) to have ‘almost buried Auxentius before death’; perhaps he persuaded Valentinian to take Nicene opposition seriously and to restrict Auxentius’ action against it. At least Valentinian ordered a legal inquiry by a quaestor and a magister, Hilary being supported by about ten bishops. Auxentius argued that Hilary had been condemned by Saturninus of Arles and was disqualified, but conceded that Christ is ‘of one divinity and substance’ with the Father. The lay investigators held this to be a matter of faith and outside their remit. But he would not disavow the council of Ariminum, and his biblicist profession of faith (contained in some, not all manuscripts of Hilary’s contra Auxentium) utterly denies any knowledge of or link with Arius, such as an Alexandrian ordained by bishop Gregory might be expected to have. Hilary was required to stay out of Milan.2 On the death of Auxentius, whose supporters had evidently done little to ensure a likeminded successor, there was disorder among the plebs, as was not infrequently the case in an age when the lay congregation played a part in the choice of their bishop and candidates hired claques to shout for them. Auxentius had faced a pro-Nicene group at Milan who refused to accept any sacraments from him (Hilary, c. Aux. , PL . b), a group which was encouraged from outside first by Hilary of Poitiers, then by Filaster bishop of Brixia (Brescia), who organized a riot. At the election the pro-Nicene party had their candidate, probably Filaster; those who wanted to continue Auxentius’ rock-solid adherence to the ambiguous ‘like’ formula of Ariminum had theirs. Eight years earlier the election of two rival bishops at Rome, Damasus and Ursinus, had resulted in a ferocious riot costing lives among Ursinus’ supporters (above p. ). It would be bad for both church and state if that occurred at Milan. Ambrose as governor was brought down to quell the civil disorder (it is unlikely but not wholly impossible that he was directly offering himself for election), and found himself shouted for to be bishop. Perhaps each of the contending parties regarded their impartial governor as so ignorant of theology that each hoped to win him for their cause. During his time as civil servant at Sirmium he had no confrontation with Bishop Germinius, who held no brief for the Nicene creed. There would be advantage for everyone in having a bishop who had influence with taxmen or magistrates or experience at getting dependents good posts. Ambrose knew his way along the corridors of power. Rufinus (HE . ) says that Ambrose alone could unite the parties. 2 Auxentius’ creed is critically edited by M. Durst in Jahrbuch für Antike und Christentum, (), –.
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That the Milan plebs petitioned the emperor for his appointment is certain from his own statement (ep. = M. ). Probably there were critical voices who shared the view of Pope Damasus and his successor Siricius that former officers of state should not be made bishops. Ambrose himself disarmed critics by declarations of his utter unworthiness to be bishop (Paenit. . . ). His previous career had been in ‘the vanities of this world’ (. ). The story in Paulinus’ Life (not known to Rufinus of Aquileia and treated with hesitation by Paulinus) said that the suggestion first came from a small child. As the voice of children enjoyed oracular status in antiquity, this may well be true. The story does not assume that the child knew what it was saying. On the other hand, a divine oracle may also have been a later hagiographical fiction to justify the exceptional and uncanonical procedure. The proposal was welcomed by Petronius Probus, praetorian prefect of Illyricum, Italy, and Africa; Probus was Christian (buried at St Peter’s, , in a mausoleum behind the apse, ILCV ). It was then agreed by the emperor Valentinian I, who may have thought that Ambrose could bring peace to Milan and that his lay background could promote the emperor’s well-known neutrality in church controversies (Ammian. . . ). A bishopric was not what Ambrose himself could have wished, but he came of a Christian family and accepted the duty. ‘The call to the sacerdotium cannot be refused’ (off. . . ). Moreover, his education in Rome no doubt instilled in him a sense of loyalty to the Roman see; but in his youth that meant the flexible position of Liberius. Augustine (Conf. . ) reports that Ambrose was baptized by Simplicianus, a priest who had been at Rome and could have met the young Ambrose there. Which side Simplicianus was on during the dissensions under Auxentius we do not know, but a presbyter from Rome (if already ordained there) would be more likely to be of the Nicene party. It is therefore possible that his migration to Milan was by Ambrose’s invitation. Auxentius would hardly have asked him, but he played a prominent role in the conversion of Marius Victorinus, favourite tutor for Roman aristocrats, and had high intellectual qualifications sympathetic to Christian Platonism. Gradual establishment of Nicene orthodoxy We do not know which bishops consecrated Ambrose to the episcopate. Ambrose devoted himself to his pastoral office. Close friendship with senators was ended (Exameron . . ), but friends in high places leaked intelligence to him. He adopted Damasus’ policy of regarding the Nicene creed as a criterion of catholic communion. That would become easier after the death of Valentinian I in . Nevertheless an early indication of his inclination was his informing Basil of Caesarea (ep. ) in Cappadocia of his election; to Basil’s reply a disputed, possibly inauthentic addition (above p. )
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suggests that he asked for help in recovering the bones of Dionysius, bishop of Milan, exiled in by Constantius for his intransigence for Nicaea and Athanasius. His early work On Paradise warns against letting a heathen convert, on becoming a catechumen, learn his doctrine from ‘Photinus or Arius or Sabellius’, all of whom appealed to scripture (. ). That he wrote On Paradise soon after becoming bishop is expressly said (ep. =M). However, it is necessary to bear in mind that though the pro-Nicene party accused advocates of Ariminum like Auxentius of being ‘Arian’, the latter did not accept any link to Arius and disowned the title. The emperor Gratian, aged , ‘Augustus’ since but taking over from his father Valentinian I after his death in November , was at first cautious and only hesitantly sympathetic to Ambrose. The more open became Ambrose’s hostility to Ariminum and the ‘likeness’ formula, the sharper became the antagonism in Milan from those who preferred the more broad church term, supported at the palace by Valentinian I’s widow, Justina (at one time married to Magnentius). Her aversion to the Nicene party first became explicit after Valentinian’s death. Soon Milan had a rival bishop who came from the Danube delta or the province of Scythia Minor, ‘a Scythian’, who adopted the name of Auxentius in admiration for Ambrose’s predecessor and lived in the city providing a focus of dissidence for Ambrose’s opponents. Crucial for Ambrose was not only support from Damasus in Rome but also the approval of his election by Valentinian I and Probus. With imperial support he was impregnable. After November it was not always self-evident that Gratian, influenced by Justina, would provide that. Ambrose set out to convince Gratian by writing ‘on Faith’, the first two books in , the last three in replying to an attack on books – by Palladius bishop of Ratiaria. The sacredness of Nicaea’s bishops was proved for him by the scriptural number (SIG in Greek, and so the cross of Jesus); and the provinces where opponents flourished were those overwhelmed by barbarian Goths, the Gog of prophecy (De fide . . –). Rome the touchstone A sermon on Psalm . cites the Petrine text from Matthew and adds ‘Where Peter is, there is the Church’. Similarly in Ps. . The bishop of Rome is source of the ‘iura communionis’ (ep. extra coll. = M. ). Membership of the catholic Church is defined as communion with the Roman see (Satyrus . ). So the Novatianists, by not accepting communion with Rome, have lost the inheritance of Peter (Paenit. . ). At the same time Ambrose did not think local customs of the church in Rome ought to be observed by other churches with their own independent tradition. When Monnica came to join her son Augustine in Milan, she followed African and
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Roman custom in bringing food and wine to martyrs’ shrines, and was shocked to be told by the guardians that Ambrose had forbidden this (Aug. Conf. . ; Ambr. Hel. . and in Luc. . ). Augustine commented that she accepted the ruling because she admired Ambrose, but would have found the prohibition hurtful from someone else. When she was asking if she should keep the Roman custom of fasting on Saturdays, Ambrose told Monnica to fall in with local church custom, meaning that as she was not in Rome now, she should not be doing that in Milan (Aug. ep. . ; . ). The maxim echoes the Delphic oracle’s reply to one who asked how to please the various gods, in Xenophon (Memorabilia . . ), and known by Augustine as a Socratic saying (De consensu evangelistarum . . and S. Dolbeau = S , , p. . ). Ambrose evidently did not share the view that this fast was ordered by St Peter himself. By contrast, Ambrose was confident that the baptismal creed used at both Milan and Rome was the apostles’ creation and Rome had faithfully preserved it (ep. extra coll. = M. ). This creed did not take sides between Nicaea and Ariminum, but to catechumens Ambrose could gloss it in a Nicene sense. No doubt Auxentius before him had done that in his sense. When in a council in Rome directed a plea to Gratian and Valentinian II on behalf of the embattled Pope Damasus, Ambrose drafted the letter for the council (ep. extra coll. , CSEL /. ); above p. . The majority of Christians and clergy in Milan had had seventeen years of Auxentius, and were not conditioned to think well of either Damasus or the Nicene council. Ambrose was an unbaptized layman rapidly promoted to be bishop, directly contrary to a canon of the western council of Serdica. It is possible but far from certain that after baptism he passed through the orders of deacon and presbyter during eight days before being consecrated bishop. The ambiguity of the text in Paulinus’ biography suggests that he did not. There would be those who disliked such disregard of the Serdican canon and questioned Ambrose’s legitimacy. But a consensus of bishops recognized validity. The approval of the election by the emperor and the praetorian prefect will have helped to that end. Moreover, he recognized Damasus as ‘elected by God’s judgement’ (ep. = M. ), not his rival Ursinus, who rashly came to Milan to join Ambrose’s opponents. Martyrs Ambrose opened tombs to encourage the veneration of martyrs, valuing annual festivals and writing hymns in their honour, e.g. for Agnes, Nazarius, Laurence, Victor, Nabor and Felix. He took special pleasure in Sebastian, a native of Milan (in Ps. . . ) and in the discovery of bones believed to be of two gremial martyrs of Milan, Gervasius and Protasius. They seemed a
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vindication against his opponents and a source for civic pride (‘my bodyguards’, ep. = M. ). ‘Arians’ accused him of fraud but the relics brought healings. He buried his brother Satyrus, saved in shipwreck by invoking St Laurence, beside the martyr Victor (ILCV ), and believed in the advantage hereafter of being buried ‘ad sanctos’ (Satyrus . ), an opinion with which Augustine was to disagree. He was sure the intercession of martyrs would help at the Last Judgement (Vid. . ). He supplied relics to other churches, to nearby Brescia and to distant Rouen, where bishop Victricius, a friend of Paulinus of Nola, celebrated his return from trying to reconcile factions among bishops in Britain with a solemn arrival of relics enabling him to build a new church round them. In the relics the saints were present in his city, almost a divine presence, and Victricius replied to objectors who asked what bits of bone could do by a logical ploy about the whole present in the parts. In Ambrose’s oration on the death of Theodosius I in , he mentioned that Constantine’s mother Helena had used a nail from the cross of Jesus for the bridle of her horse and had put another nail in her crown; but there were people who thought this bizarre, ‘insolentia’ (Ob. Theod. –; Jerome was one, in Zach. . . , p. ). Milan celebrated the feast of SS. Peter and Paul (in Ps. . . ), no doubt on June. At Turin Bishop Maximus at this time complained that his people neglected the feast on June (hom. . ). Gentle persuasion Auxentius and his clergy had refused to recognize the validity of baptism conferred by Nicene clergy. Ambrose declared that he would accept Auxentius’ clergy on condition that they did not refuse to receive the sacraments from him. Evidently most were moderates. That decision must have baffled the pro-Nicene party if they were hoping for an uncompromising confrontation. Paulinus’ biography (. ) records one critic. To a bishop Constantius, Ambrose advised a gentle line with suspected ‘Arians’ but disowned actual compromise (ep. = M). But almost all Milan clergy submitted. A related problem, however, would be presented by bishops in Illyricum and along the Danube to Moesia (modern Bulgaria) whose allegiance was shaped in favour of the creed of Ariminum. Admittedly Germinius of Sirmium, the metropolitan of Illyricum, had moved away from the Likeness formula of Valens of Mursa and had come to associate himself with ‘like in essence’ or homoiousios. He was still reserved towards ‘identity of essence’. Theodoret (HE . ) records that in Illyricum a synod (surprisingly) supported homoousion, and Valentinian deplored a suggestion that this doctrine was being accepted merely as the emperor’s will.
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Ambrose was meeting a phalanx of bishops both in northern Italy and in Illyricum who regarded his Nicene inclinations with foreboding. It would become important for him to fill as many sees as possible with bishops who shared his view that only the Nicene creed could be the universal faith of East and West, ‘fides ecclesiae’ (Exameron . . ). This was high on his agenda, and there was fury when he went outside his own province to consecrate a sound bishop Anemius for Sirmium, metropolis of Illyricum and therefore influential in the choice of bishops. The opposition could not block it.3 Jerome’s estimate of Ambrose Jerome had little respect for Ambrose’s exegetical writings, which he correctly regarded as plagiarized from Philo, Origen, Basil, and Didymus the Blind. He failed to spot the copying of Origen and Eusebius of Caesarea (Quaest. Evang.) in the uneven commentary on Luke. He did not notice how much Ambrose could recycle matter from Plotinus and Porphyry, especially when, as the sermons expressly note, his congregation at Milan included pagans (e.g. in Ps. . ). Augustine cites a lost commentary on Isaiah (de grat. et pecc. orig. . ). Jerome reserved for Ambrose’s efforts at exegesis some of the more scathing phrases taken from his little book of insults. His exegesis of Habakkuk (PL . b) hits at Ambrose on the prophet’s ‘scarabaeus in ligno’ (Christ a worm on the cross). Ambrose, for whom it was a repeated principle not to answer an insult, never retorted. (Ep. = M. has a robust reply to a threat from the eunuch chamberlain Calligonus.) He could have replied that Jerome’s scorn had not prevented him from borrowing language and ideas from Ambrose’s writings (e.g. his consolation on his brother’s death, De excessu fratris I).4 Nevertheless, in his Chronicle Jerome was not in doubt that the ideological conquest of northern Italy for the Nicene faith was Ambrose’s great achievement which he admired. It called for aggressive methods and senatorial clout. A Christian ethic In ethics Ambrose especially admired the Sentences of Sextus, popular in Greek. (Soon Rufinus would translate the maxims into Latin.) His treatise On Duties, addressed to clergy, assumes the gospel to complete and sometimes rectify Cicero’s book under the same title, a debt expressly acknowledged. Just as 3 Did the bishop of Sirmium have powers? It is unclear that in North Italy this degree of organization was in force. See Mark Humphries, Communities of the Blessed; Social Environment and Religious Change in northern Italy (Oxford, ). 4 Jerome’s notorious ep. used matter from Ambrose, De virginibus; N. Adkin in Symbolae Osloenses, (), ff.
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Cicero had plagiarized the Hellenistic philosopher Panaitius of Rhodes, so Ambrose restates Cicero’s treatise on Duties which was a current educational handbook directed to the public service. In the bishop’s responsibilities, service of the community was carried out by his clergy. On such familiar themes as the four cardinal virtues of justice, courage, prudence, and self-control, no major amendment of Cicero was required. Just as Cicero illustrated them from old heroic precedents, so Ambrose provides biblical examples. Only for Ambrose ‘justice’ requires putting God and the community before any private interests, which stands in contrast to Cicero’s concern for private property. Moreover for Ambrose faith ( fides) in a Christian sense is not merely keeping contracts but a trust and commitment to God which is the foundation making ‘justice’ possible (De off. . ). Ambrose’s treatise could be naturally read as a reassurance to educated Romans that to become a Christian meant no huge break with the ethical principles articulated by Cicero, but it also presupposed that corrections and modifications were necessary in a society acknowledging a Christian way. Ambrose had difficulty in persuading owners of slave-girls that they ought not to sleep with them, and had to use the argument that sexual indulgence ended in disgraceful servitude to the girl, who lost respect both for her lord (ep. = M. –; Abrah. . and ), and for his wife if the slave was more successful in producing children (cf. Gen. : ). The copulation of male with male is forbidden (Noe . ). The discussion of virtue is both Ciceronian and Christian with justice becoming indistinguishable from altruism, benevolence, and an expression of love. His debt to Cicero may well have been influential on Augustine, for whom Cicero’s philosophical tracts were central. Like Augustine, Ambrose adventurously conceded that in highly exceptional circumstances adultery was not damnable (Apol. David altera ), but stressed chastity as a basic principle (. ). A model for his people was the phoenix, reproducing itself every years at the price of its life (in Ps. . . ). His homilies on Tobit took matter on usury from Basil. In north Italy there were serious social consequences when poor people took out loans which then could not be repaid, so that a man might have to sell his son into slavery or a widow lose all her furniture or even her house (Maximus of Turin, hom. ). Ambrose remarks that during the menstrual period women should not participate in eucharistic communion (Apol. David )—an opinion with which Augustine would disagree since for him no natural function could be a source of defilement. Ascetic discipline. Jovinian. Bonosus Virginity enhanced standing and authority. Pagans could point to the Vestal Virgins, but as they were not lifelong virgins this failed to impress. In an age
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when adolescent girls were virtually put up for auction in a marriage market, there were attractions in taking the veil (Virg. . ). One girl fled from her mother’s pressures and found asylum at a church altar ‘where the sacrifice is offered’ (. ). Virgins could be tempted by pride; Augustine (de sancta virginitate) much stresses humility. In Ambrose wrote with Virgilian allusions and examples on the virgin ideal in St Agnes, St Thecla, and his own sister Marcellina, dedicated by Pope Liberius (in whose mouth Ambrose puts some clearly Nicene sentiments). He owed much to Athanasius. Ambrose as bishop had the advantage of being unmarried. Celibacy was not a canonical requirement, but it was deemed desirable in a bishop. The ascetic movement was producing monks severely critical of married secular clergy living in the Babylon of the urban environment, attending dinner parties at which conversation could be risqué and where half-clad dancing flute-girls were an expected entertainment (ep. = M. ), participating in contentions about the dangerous subject of biblical exegesis. As Augustine was astonished to discover, in the suburbs of Milan Ambrose had a monastic house. His enemies maligned his chastity and at one stage even tried to kill him (in Ps. . ).5 Controversy came when the ex-monk Jovinian urged that married Christians were not spiritually or morally inferior to professed celibates, and accused Ambrose of holding a Manichee attitude to sexuality. Ambrose reacted when two monks left their monastery and told the church at Vercelli that celibacy was not superior, sexuality being God’s good gift to be enjoyed (ep. extra coll. = M. –). Ambrose wanted to encourage young women to belong to religious communities. Constantinople in John Chrysostom’s time had virgins and widows (Hom. in Matt. . ). It was grievous to find that Milan produced fewer novices than Bologna, Florence, or even refugees from Gildo’s revolt in Mauretania (Virg. . –). The supreme model for them was the Blessed Perpetual Virgin, mother of God (Exameron . . ; Virg. . ). Only one must remember that ‘Mary was God’s temple, not God of the temple’; that is, she is to be held in high honour but not worshipped as divine (De Spir. S. . ). That the warning was needed is instructive. He defended Mary’s perpetual virginity against Bonosus bishop of Naissus, who thought that she had other children after Jesus. Ambrose shared the fear (also found in Epiphanius of Salamis, Panar. . ) that there might be thought some impropriety in the Blessed Virgin going off to share a house with St John (in Luc. . ; was this text being used to justify the disputed ascetic practice of both sexes living together in continence? North Italy had examples: Maximus of Turin, Hom. . . 5 An edition of Ambrose On Virginity and on Widows with learned notes has come from D. Ramos-Lissón (Madrid, ).
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Or to justify divorce? Siricius, ep. ). The wealthy aristocrat from Bordeaux, Paulinus, who became bishop of Nola and with his wife gave away most of his substance, was criticized by many, but defended by Ambrose for ‘wise folly’ (ep. = M; in Ps. . . ). Paulinus (ep. . ) had visited Milan when Alypius was there, as described in Augustine’s Confessions . Class divisions Ambrose the senator identified himself with the common people now that he was their bishop. Echoing Alexander the Great on his wealth being his friends, and perhaps the reply of St Lawrence when the prefect of Rome demanded surrender of the Church’s wealth, he claimed the poor of Milan as his strength and treasure (ep. = M, : ‘all I have belongs to the poor’). When high officials expected him to stop the plebs from rioting, he replied that calming them was in God’s power. Private property he thought unjustifiable, but tolerable if used for communal benefit (off. . . ). He was aware that as a bishop he was no longer regarded by old senatorial friends as one of their society. But they knew that he retained influence. When in Rome was short of food and foreigners were expelled by Symmachus, his voice was critical of the decision and was glad this had not been done at Milan (off. . . –). At the same time, however, he did not think it good for bishops recruited from plebeian stock to be the object of snide class mockery from persons higher in the social scale. One letter (ep. = M) expresses the hope that, whatever their origins, bishops should maintain the honour and standing of their office by not behaving in a vulgar way (ep. = M. ). Their walk in the streets should never be pompous or arrogant (off. . ), never hurried (). They should learn to avoid a rustic accent (). A bishop of Pettau (Poetovio), whose constituency was transformed by the arrival of numerous Goths, shocked Ambrose by adopting Gothic styles in wearing a necklace and bracelets (Gesta Aquil. ). A bishop should be seen to belong to the church of the Roman empire. God’s priests, he wrote (Exh. virg. . ), have a calling higher than prefects and consuls. He expected clergy, especially bishops, to be celibate; married men could be made bishops but should not have conjugal relations with their wives. He once comments (off. . . ) that it is rare for sons of clergy to seek ordination. The expectation of celibacy he saw as a cause for this reluctance. Ambrose judged it an extravagant waste of money to provide popular entertainment at the circus, theatre, or amphitheatre with gladiatorial shows and fights with wild animals (off. . . ). In any event ‘beastfights are cruel to the animals’ (in Ps. . . ), an observation unique in antiquity.
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Barbarians within the empire To Ambrose barbarians were dangerous enemies of the empire (ep. = M), not to be relied on to defend the frontier (De fide . ). The correct course for the state is to buy them off (Tobias . ), a policy which got Stilicho into trouble with rich aristocrats required to find the cash. Let them keep their own customs (ep. = M. ). Boethius in the sixth century had to work with Goths at Theoderic’s court, but was distressed by Gothic liking for hairgrease, Lederhosen, and ghastly music. There was a problem for Ambrose in that the army of defence largely consisted of barbarians, especially Goths, among whom a proportion were Christians of ‘Arian’ allegiance. Liturgy and hymns 6 Another act by Ambrose to identify with the values of the plebs was his popularization of the congregational hymn. Hymns involved both sexes, both the plebs and the grandees. Singing a hymn helped to impart a sense of unity to a congregation. Even the emperor could and did join in (in Ps. . ). At Easter special efforts were made by a choir (in Ps. . ). The hymns he himself wrote combined religious and poetic feeling and were chanted responsorially (in Ps. . ). Faith is incomplete without baptism and eucharist (ep. = M. ). At baptism Psalm () was chanted (in Ps. . ), and at the vigil before Easter Day a large crowd would be initiated; in April this included Augustine. The rite included the sign of the cross on the forehead (ep. = M). While baptism is complete cleansing, candidates must understand the meaning of the two necessary sacraments, and therefore a newly baptized person ‘does not offer the sacrifice until the eighth day’ (in Ps. , prologue). The catechetical lectures ‘on the Sacraments’ and ‘On the Mysteries’ are shot through with awe at the word of Christ in the institution of the ‘daily sacrifice’ bringing divine ‘transfiguration’ of ordinary leavened bread and 6 Shortly after Ambrose’s time the church in Spain produced a notable poet, Prudentius, who wrote lyric verses in Latin on Christian themes with Greek titles: the Daily Round (Cathemerinon), Martyrs’ crowns (Peristephanon), the Trinity and the deity of Christ (Apotheosis), the soul’s struggles against temptations (Psychomachia), a sustained restatement of Ambrose’s reply to Symmachus’ defence of the Altar of Victory, and some brief verses to accompany pictorial biblical scenes. Prudentius illuminates the contemporary conflict between Christianity and paganism, especially by the paradoxical thesis of the Peristephanon that the martyrs condemned to death by the authority of Rome are the city’s and the empire’s supreme pride and glory. The repulsiveness of pagan cult is exemplified by a macabre and vivid description of a taurobolium, in which the initiate stood underneath as the blood of a newly killed bull poured over him. It was an initiation that only the opulent were likely to afford.
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wine to be in faith Christ’s body and blood. Consecration ‘changes nature’ (Myst. ). ‘Daily feed on Jesus’ (in Ps. . ). At the beginning of the liturgy, which was celebrated before dawn, the celebrant kisses the altar (first attested in ep. = M. ). Ambrose provides the earliest attestation of ‘missa’ for the mass (ep. extra coll. = M. ). In his time the creed, the Lord’s Prayer, and the eucharistic prayer of consecration were first known to candidates for baptism by oral instruction, and were not written down. But the six lectures ‘On the sacraments’ preserved by a shorthand writer (with a biblical text identical with that of Ambrose and to be confidently accepted as authentic) go so far as to preserve the core of the eucharistic canon, concluding with the Lord’s Prayer and a doxology.7 He had problems with his congregation, who could be turbulent (Virg. . . ; off. . . ). The liturgy of medieval Milan included a demand for quiet: ‘silentium habete’ (Beroldus recording Milan usages in the twelfth century).8 Church attendance was not good; some preferred rural walks (in Ps. . . ). While people loved singing psalms and hymns, during the readings they chatted (in Ps. . . ). Once he needed to admonish communicants that a gulp does not bring more grace than a sip from the chalice (ep. = M. ). He wanted his flock to realize that the entire body of believers has a priesthood (in Luc. . ; . ; Sacr. . ; Myst. ). Augustine would be grateful for his statements about the transmission of sinfulness from Adam (e.g. in Ps. . . ; Myst. ). Some came to church but lived unregenerate lives with sex, drink, and contentiousness (in Ps. . . ). Sadly there were apostates even under Christian emperors (ep. = M. ). Evil powers are not prominent in Ambrose’s thinking; but it is worth noting that he provides a very early witness to the belief that Satan has horns (in Ps. . ).9 The conquest of urban space was achieved by building Christian shrines, usually installing the relics of a martyr beneath the altar (Revelation . ). He sent relics to Florence for a new church (Exh. Virg. . . ). Literary culture. Sermons Ambrose had been well educated, and besides an evident debt to Plotinus and Porphyry his writings have quotations and reminiscences of Sallust, Cicero, Virgil, Quintilian, less often of Terence, Lucan, Ovid, and Horace. He knew Pliny’s Natural History. Augustine mistakenly supposed Ambrose to think 7 Liturgical material in Ambrose is well gathered by J. Schmitz, Gottesdienst im altchristlichen Mailand (Theophaneia, ; Cologne, ). 8 Ed. M. Magistretti (Milan, ), . –, or in L. A. Muratori, Antiquitates italicae medii aevi (Milan, –), iv. –. 9 M. P. McHugh, ‘Satan and St Ambrose’, Classical Folia, – (), – collects texts. The existence of evil powers was evident to the pagan Porphyry from the disgusting nature of animal sacrifices with which they needed to be placated.
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Plato met Jeremiah (Doctr. Chr. . . ), later correcting himself (City of God . ; Retr. . ). Ambrose accepted the view that Plato in Egypt had studied Moses and the prophets (in Ps. . . ; Noe . ) enabling him to make a positive evaluation. He could quote Homer (Noe . ; . ). Greek theology from Philo, Origen, Didymus, Athanasius, and Basil was freely recycled. Jerome translated Didymus on the Holy Spirit so as to show up the plagiarism. The educated people at Milan were impressed by the oratorical skill of Ambrose’s sermons. The new professor of Latin literature and rhetoric, Augustine from Africa, initially came to the cathedral in admiration for his power with words, and only gradually came to realize how good the content was. The first chapter of Augustine’s Confessions proclaims the importance of the Milan sermons in moving him towards conversion. In north Africa he would never have heard anything like them. Educated people had difficulties with the Latinity of the Old Latin Bible. He needed to explain to his people that the Latin was a translation from Greek, and was often not as clear (e.g. in Ps. . ). Ambrose wanted his people to realize that scripture was the divinely inspired book (in Ps. . ; . ) on which they ought to meditate every day (in Ps. . . ). ‘I do not ask Christ for rational argument; if I am convinced by reason, I am denying faith’ (Satyrus . ). 10
Jews in Italy The cities of northern Italy had a strong Jewish population. An author not long after the time of Ambrose, Maximus of Turin (. ), noted how very influential Jews were ‘in palaces and with provincial governors’. An edict of (CTh . . ) encouraged Jews to practise as advocates in lawcourts; probably this was not new. Ambrose (Ob. Val. –) contrasts Christian poverty with Jewish opulence. He was aware that at synagogues Bible study was serious; some rabbis knew the Torah by heart (in Ps. . . ). ‘While you, a Christian, sleep on, Jews are studying the Bible night and day’ (in Ps. . . ). Especially under Julian there had been sharp tensions between church and synagogue; a number of Christian basilicas were torched (ep. = M. ), and Jews were blamed; whether rightly or not cannot be decided. Some Christians were keeping Jewish festivals (in Ps. . . ). Sharply anti-Judaic matter occurs in ep. = M. The anonymous Roman author known as Ambrosiaster (because his commentary on the Pauline epistles was transmitted under Ambrose’s name) writing in the s was probably of Jewish birth, and certainly wrote many times of synagogue practice with 10
Dr Holford-Strevens suggests misinterpretation of Greek enétuchen as ‘encountered’ instead of ‘read.’
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deep respect. He may be in mind in ep. extra coll. = M. , of a Jew with deep admiration for Christian teaching. Functions of bishops At ordinations Christ presides (extra coll. = M. ). The grace given never fails (ibid. ). Priesthood is shared by bishops and presbyters. Bishops perform apostolic functions in absolution (Paenit. . . ff.), especially on Maundy Thursday (in Ps. . . ); but they are not on a par with those directly chosen by Christ (off. . . ). In matters of basic doctrine they cannot be judged by laity (ep. = M. ). Some dishonour the office by using it for gain (in Ps. . . ). Episcopal insignia include a ring ( Joseph . ). For bishops Bible study was a fundamental need (in Ps. . . ). Not submitting to scripture was a cause of heresy (De fide . . ). ‘In the prophetic scriptures there is much obscurity’ (in Ps. . . ). Some Italian bishops and clergy used to get help from Ambrose with problems of biblical interpretation. With his knowledge of the Greek text, he was qualified to assist. Throughout he wrote with ‘sober intoxication’ (a phrase borrowed from Philo) that the exposition of scripture is to proclaim redemption in Christ bringing forgiveness of sins and eternal life. The objection to the subordinate Arian Christ is his insufficiency to redeem. Like others of his time, Ambrose was moved by Paul’s epistles, though he found them obscure, and a sombre diagnosis of the human condition. Yet King David offered a model of penitence for adultery and no sinner should despair (in Ps. . . ). Ambrose once mentions philosophical critics who thought absolution merely encouraged sinning (in Ps. . . ). He himself feared facile indulgence creating more delinquency (in Ps. . . ). Influence on Augustine In view of Augustine’s enthusiasm for his sermons, one might expect the personal contact between the two men to have been frequent and fruitful. This was not so. At one time in his distress and puzzlement Augustine found his way to Ambrose, but found him reading silently and did not dare to interrupt his intense concentration. Nevertheless, the reader of Ambrose’s sermons on the Psalms or his commentary on the six days of creation or on the story of Isaac (in which Porphyry is an evident influence) cannot escape being aware that many themes particularly characteristic of Augustine are there. The interpretation of ‘the letter kills, the spirit gives life’ of Old Testament allegory liberated Augustine (ep. = M. ), who only discovered years later that the text meant something else (De spiritu et littera). Ambrose insisted that before God only grace, not human merit, can avail for salvation (in Ps. . . ).
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The essence of religion is not in ceremonies but is inward in the soul (ibid. . ), a ‘fire in the heart’ (. ), ‘ordinata caritas’ (in Luc. . ). All descendants of Adam and Eve are bound by the succession of social cupidity (ep. = M. ). Yet the fall was a happy event (‘felix’) giving occasion for redemption (in Ps. . ; in Ps. . . ). This theme became familiar through the Easter ‘Exultet’ hymn. Baptism derives its validity not from the quality of the bishop conferring it but only from God’s gift (De Spir. S. . ; Myst. ), a theme of the first importance in Augustine’s argument against Donatism. As in the Confessions (. ), Ambrose observed that something we possess is not much valued if it is easily and cheaply acquired (Exameron . ). For Ambrose the Church is the ‘City of God’ (in Ps. . . ). Neoplatonic elements in his language occur and, like Augustine, he quoted from Plotinus ‘Flee not by ship, chariot or horse . . .’ (Isaac . ). Isaac . –, uses much from Plotinus . . Matter from Plotinus . appears in ep. = M. Platonizing influence cannot be detected in his language about God as Trinity, nor in his Christology. But he is emphatic on the unity of God: Father, Son, and Spirit are one God (De Spir. S. . . ff.). The nearest theology comes to Platonism is to say (. ) that God cannot be a plurality because there are no numbers in God. He is ‘the One to whom all things return’ (ep. = M). Divine giving leaves God undiminished (De Spir. S. . . ff.). Plato was the prince of ancient philosophers (in Ps. . ). Towards the logic of Aristotle Ambrose was more reserved: ‘God has not been pleased to save his people by dialectic’ (De fide . . ). Profane logic was a tool of radical Arians. A reference to a devout mother pouring out tears in prayers for her son (in Ps. . . ) might be about Monnica. A striking passage (in Ps. . . ) ‘I sought you, but I could not find you unless you willed to be found’ could come from Augustine’s Confessions. So too in Ps. . . (and . ) ‘the conflict is within you yourself ’; or the citation of Romans . –, at in Ps. . . , close to the garden scene of Conf. . . . However, in the Pelagian controversy Augustine first invokes Ambrose’s authority for orthodoxy, not earlier. Bishop Ulfilas A Cappadocian family captured as prisoners in a Gothic raid of the mid-third century had a fourth-century descendant brought up as a Goth with the name Wulfilas or Ulfilas (p. ). As a young boy he was sent to Constantinople as a hostage at a time when the prevailing Christianity of the capital was inclined to the non-Nicene position. He became a reader in the Church and in time Eusebius of Nicomedia, translated to Constantinople, consecrated him to go as a missionary bishop in Gothia. His mission was remarkably successful, but provoked hostility from Gothic leaders. He
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therefore took his converts back into the empire to settle in Moesia south of the Danube. He created an alphabet partly Greek, partly runic, and translated the Bible. He disliked the Nicene faith (above p. ). For Ambrose’s critic Palladius of Ratiaria, Ulfilas was a great witness to truth. To the disaster at Adrianople The Goths north of