Professional Documents
Culture Documents
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her child by the hand cut through the soldiers ranks in her hurry to
get to the martyr-church. Annoyed, the prefect had the woman
brought before him, and said to her, Where are you running so
helter-skelter, you wretched woman? She replied, To the same place
everybody else is running. To which he said, Havent you heard that
the prefect is going to destroy everyone he finds there? And the
woman said, I have, and that is why I am hurrying, so that I will be
found there. When the prefect asked, And where are you dragging
this little child, she replied, So that he too may be deemed worthy of
martyrdom.10
This response stopped the prefect dead in his tracks. Instead of continuing to the church, he reversed course and reported the incident to
Valens, who was wise enough to back off.
Socrates was not an unbiased source (Chesnut 1986: 175-198;
Urbainczyk 1996); his usefulness here and elsewhere in this paper is
not for the accuracy of his account or even the reality of the event, but
for the window he provides into contemporary Christian perspectives.
In this case, the episode he narrates illustrates the powerful pull of martyrdom in the early Christian community, and also the way that fear of
creating martyrs, and thereby provoking even more unrest, could stay
an emperors hand. Martyrdom was, indeed, a lever Ambrose used to
pry a pardon for Callinicums bishop out of Theodosius. Proclaiming
his readiness to accept the punishment of the bishop of Callinicum
himself, Ambrose asked Theodosius, Are you not also apprehensive at
the possibility of his [Callinicums bishop] speaking out against the
count [i.e., the governor]? For in that case the count will have to make
the bishop either an apostate or a martyr.11
The threat of martyrdom could give emperors pause, but claims to
martyrdom did not go uncontested, as another story told by Socrates
reveals.
In the year 415, some five hundred Egyptian monks swarmed into
Alexandria in support of their pugnacious bishop, Cyril, who was at
that time in conflict with the imperial prefect, Orestes. One overzealous monk named Ammonius threw a rock at the prefect, striking
him in the head with sufficient force to draw blood. Abandoned by his
guards, Orestes seemed destined to become one more name on the surprisingly large roster of imperial officials in Late Antiquity killed by
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21 Quod agebat ideo obstinate, ut dissensiones augente licentiaa non timeret unanimantem postea
plebem, nullas infestas hominibus bestias, ut sunt sibi ferales plerique Christianorum expertus.
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because they do not believe in the gods who populate these works.23
Julian says nothing about Christian students, but it would be disingenuous to minimize the impact of his law for this reason. Julians law effectively reclassified a body of literature that had always been regarded as
part of a common cultural inheritance as pagan equivalents of
Christian scripture. In doing so, he strengthened the hand of those
Christians who also believed contact with these classics should be
avoided, thereby making higher status Christians doubly vulnerable.
Julian knew exactly what he was doing. With a thorough command of
Christian scripture, he taunted the Galileans (as he insisted on calling
them) as hypocrites for coveting wealth, prestige, and power in violation
of their masters teachings.24
Inadvertently, Julian contributed to a significant re-definition of
the criteria for martyrdom that emerged in the second half of the
fourth century. His aggressive efforts to restore the traditional religions of the empire and isolate Christians in a political and cultural
backwater prompted a period of introspection and reflection that was
worked out in the language of martyrdom and persecution.25 By
steering clear of persecution, Julian put Christians in a bind.
From Nero onward, emperors hostile to their faith had always
used the stick of persecution in their attempts to force conformity,
thereby creating the martyrs whose unwavering fidelity inspired
their less heroic brethren. Discursively, Christians had developed
an elaborate repertoire to deal with such attacks, but they lacked
the tools to deal with a hostile emperor who used carrots instead
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CHRISTIAN SELF-DEFINITION
Christians responded to Julians tactics by rethinking their vocabulary, broadening the definition of persecution in a way that allowed
them to brand even non-coercive measures such as Julians with the
mark of persecution. The change is illustrated by the historian Socrates,
who explained that even though Julian had not, like Diocletian, tried to
force Christians to worship the old gods, he was still a persecutor,
because I regard any attempt to disturb the peace [tarattein tous hesuchazontos] of those who have placed their hope in Jesus Christ as persecution (HE 3.12). But this more flexible definition of persecution was
itself the result of a much more consequential rethinking of what it
meant to be a Christian. The change shows itself in the way Gregory
handled the problem of Christians who had responded positively to
Julians overtures. In his invective, Gregory aimed to construct the
opposition to Julian in such a way as to show that Christians were not
his only victims. Hence he began by extending an olive branch to heretics (ch. 9) and even to non-Christian monotheists (ch. 8). Given this
agenda, it comes as a surprise to find Gregory firmly closing the door
to one group: Christian backsliders.
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207
One party, one kind of souls, do I exdude from the festive assembly
[Gregory proclaimed], though I groan and am pained, and grieved for
them These be they who having come unto the Word superficially,
and through not having depth of earth, forthwith springing up and
peeping forth, upon a brief assault of the Evil One, and a slight blast
of persecution, have withered up and died away.30
Gregory was talking about Christians who succumbed to Julians temptations. Christians who broke under pressurethe lapsihad been a
problem in previous persecutions, but the rigors of those trials were
understood, and provision made for eventual reintegration into the
community, even if only on ones deathbed. Gregorys rejection of such
a possibility stands in stark contrast to this previous position. He is very
clear about the reason: it was because these lapsed Christians had suecumbed to a different kind of pressure. [F]or the sake of temporary
gain, he explained, or court favour, or brief power, these wretched
fellows bartered away their own salvation.31
It is not difficult to imagine the class from which these particular
Christians came: ambitious local elites carving out careers in the burgeoning imperial bureaucracy for themselves and their children by
securing a top-notch education in the great law schools of Rome or
Beirut, the selfsame elites who had found conversion politically advantageous in the decades following Constantine, and whom Julian targeted
with his strategy of isolating Christians educationally and culturally.
Although Christian grumbling about these opportunistic parvenus can
be heard as early as Constantines last years, there is no indication that
they were particularly discriminated against prior to Julian. In fact,
Robert Markus concluded that prior to Julian a comfortable modus
vivendi had developed between elite Christians and traditional classical
culture (Markus 1974: 4, cf. Swain 2004: 361).32 Yet as part of the
intense reflection and re-evaluation that followed Julian, these fair
weather Christians came to be regarded as a scandal. Hence Socrates,
describing how Julian induced many to sacrifice, partly by flatteries,
and partly by gifts, concludes, Immediately, as if [tested] in a furnace,
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those who were Christians in fact and those in name only became
apparent to everyone. . . (H.E. 3.13).
Thus, Julians effect was not only to expand the definition of persecution and to polarize Christians and pagans, but also to polarize Christians
themselves. By creating an environment in which aggressive and defiant
Christians now shaped the definition between real and nominal
members of the faith, his policies were at least partially responsible for
aligning the definition of Christianity more closely to militant behavior.33
This narrowed range of behaviors that could be accepted as truly
Christian has hampered our understanding of the momentous changes
that took place in the earlier part of the fourth century right down to the
present day, as evidenced by an obsessive need to separate real Christians
from semi, demi, or hemi-Christians (Armstrong 1984; Bonner 1984) and
the long and utterly superfluous debate over Constantines sincerity. That
debate was fueled almost entirely by the premise that real Christians were
intolerant: since there is abundant evidence that Constantine refused to
coerce others to convert, decriersof whom Jacob Burckhardt is perhaps
still the best known and most influentialargued that Constantines conversion was only meant to serve his political ambitions (Burckhardt 1880).
Conversely, supporters have had to find grounds to dismiss these signs as
illusory, leading to contortions that would make a yoga master proud.
Timothy Barnes, for instance, has refused to accept Constantines Edict to
the Provincials as an edict of tolerationdespite phrases such as Let those
who delight in error alike with those who believe partake in the advantages
of peace and quiet and [let all] those who wish to keep themselves away
have their temples of falsehood (VC 2.56.1)on the grounds that,
since Constantine does not mention animal sacrifice he must have banned
it, proving his intolerance, and thereby his sincerity.34 Yet, as Peter
Brown once observed, Nothing, indeed, would have been more distressing
to a member of the late Roman upper classes than the suggestion that
pagan and Christian were designations of overriding importance in their
style of life and in their choice of friends and allies.35
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This was no idle threat. Only a few years earlier, Ambrose himself
had demonstrated the control a bishop could exercise over his congregation. In 385, the empress Justina wanted to allocate one of Milans
churches to Arian Christians in her government and military. Ambrose
opposed her vigorously, leading to a tense, year-long standoff that came
to a head in the subsequent Easter season, when Ambroses flock occupied the Portian basilica to prevent the court from using it, then held
out for days against a military blockade.40 Although Ambroses fingerprints were all over this direct challenge to imperial authority, the court
lacked the means, or the will, to prosecute him, and the basilica thereby
remained safely in orthodox hands. The mastery of his congregation
that Ambrose displayed in this confrontation is the unwritten part of
his challenge to Theodosius two years later over the synagogue at
Callinicum. That confrontation, in turn, reveals a major difference
between bishops and the traditional power elites with which emperors
were accustomed to deal. Whereas the civic elite were completely
enmeshed in a network held together by the imperial center, the bishopric had developed independent of, and frequently in opposition to,
that structure. In all probability, Constantine did not grasp the significance of this difference when both faith and purpose led him to divert
resources to the clergy as an alternative infrastructure.42
Emperors were ultimately responsible for controlling these volatile
urban populations, and guaranteeing public order was the duty of the
emperor. For this reason, such situations were major tests of an emperors resolve, and even more of his skill: how he responded sent an
important signal about how much vigilantism he was willing to tolerate.
To relax it, as Theodosius did in the Callinicum case, sent disturbing
signals of an emperors willingness to tolerate breaches of public order
in the name of religion.
Realistically, an emperor had to tolerate quite a lot, for by modem
standards the arsenal he had at his disposal for such moments was alarmingly barren. Ordinarily, emperors relied on an elaborately constructed web of ceremony and local ties to keep the peace. When that
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penalties that included closing the citys popular leisure sites (baths,
theaters, hippodrome) and suspending its metropolitan status, which
meant the loss of significant prestige and privilege. The commissioners
identified and arrested several ringleaders, then sent their report and
recommendations to the emperor. Simultaneously, Antiochs bishop,
Flavian, hastened to the capital to plead for mercy. While the city
waited for news of the decision on which its fate hung, Flavians lieutenant, the charismatic John Chrysostom, delivered a series of sermons
that alternately stoked and calmed their fears.48
The denouement was anti-climactic, Theodosius contenting himself
with the execution of the ringleaders. Still, the importance of such theatries as played out in Antioch must not be underestimated. After centuries of empire, theorists had long abandoned discussing the traditional
categories of political analysis (monarchy, aristocracy, democracy) to
concentrate on the only form of government that still seemed viable,
monarchy.49 Accordingly, instead of debating the merits of different
kinds of rule, theorists now concentrated on the merits of the ruler,
whose virtues were analyzed with the same care formerly given to discussing the merits of the different kinds of governments. Accordingly,
an emperors most powerful asset was his prestige, bolstered by his
image as an all-powerful ruler capable of administering terrible
justice.50
This concentration on imperial character explains why prestige
became so overwhelmingly vital for emperors in Late Antiquity. Yet an
emperor put his prestige on the line every time there was a possibility
that an order he gave would not be obeyed. This was therefore an asset
best utilized from afar, through ties to local elites, who regularly burnished that image through a constant routine of rituals, ceremonies, and
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panegyrics that exalted imperial charisma while simultaneously reinforcing their own status as its local intercessors and administrators.51 For
this reason, Chrysostoms homilies and Flavians intercession need to be
seen as twin parts of a single program, with Chrysostom stoking the
fires of repentance in Antioch while Flavian soothed tempers in
Constantinople.
As Ambroses taunt to Theodosius about his peace-keeping abilities
suggests, bishops had, over the course of the fourth century, emerged as
rivals to the civic elites as brokers of imperial power and prestige.
Theodosius clearly had to take into account this potential role the
bishop could play. Still, Ambroses efforts to muddy the waters by
asserting religious principles to sanction vandalism was a clumsy ploy
that any first-year law student, then or now, would have easily seen
through. Ambrose himself evidently did not think much of it, for he
went on to make a disclaimer. Perhaps, he conceded, Theodosius was
concerned about law and order. In that case, Ambrose asked, Which is
more important: a semblance of order or the cause of religion? His
own answer Civic duties [censura] must yield to sacred ones.52
This blithe assertion of the priority of the Churchs interests even in
the face of gross violation of basic civic rights seemingly confirms the
argument for Christian intolerance. But underlying Ambroses argument are certain continuities in ancient thinking about the role of the
state that the model of tolerant pagan-intolerant Christian obscures.
Because the modem state is based (at least theoretically) on the notion
of a social contract whereby individuals give up certain rights and privileges in return for privileges and protections provided by the larger
group, it is virtually impossible today to think of The State as anything other than a secular institution. The role of The Church today
is similarly circumscribed, limited primarily to preparation for an
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amplius? disciplinae species an causa religionis? Cedat oportet censura devotioni. 4; KLe
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214
afterlife. The two spheres can, and do, overlap, particularly on questions
of moral behavior, but in general today we define catastrophes such as
famine, fire, or flood as natural disasters rather than as signs of divine
intervention.53
The ancient state was founded on an entirely different set of premises:
that divinity did actively intervene in human affairs on a day-to-day basis,
that these interventions manifested themselves not just in the bounty of
crops but also in victory or defeat on the battlefield, and that it was the
primary duty of the leaders of the state to assure that such interventions
would be beneficial. When the gods were offended, they punished the
entire community, not just the perpetrators; it was therefore incumbent
upon civic leaders to maintain the goodwill of the gods. Under such circumstances, it is misleading to classify divine service as strictly a religious function, doubly so in the case of the Roman emperor, whose
offices since the time of Augustus, the first emperor, included that of pontifex maximus, head of the state religion. This worldview explains pagan
persecution of Christians far better than the one, preferred by Gibbon
and others, that Christians brought it upon themselves by their rigid
intolerance.54 Disaster was so regularly a cause of Christian persecution in
the second century that the apologist Tertullian could mock it in an
Apology addressed to the emperor If the Tiber floods, or if the Nile
doesn't, he observed in this famous passage; if there is a drought or an
earthquake, a famine or a plague, suddenly the cry goes up Christians to
the lion!55 These persecutions serve as a reminder not to read religious
conflicts in the ancient world through clearly defined categories of
Church and State, because in the ancient world these spheres were
deeply intertwined: the ancient state was also a religious institution, a
church. It is not at all clear that the conceptual categories needed to distinguish between Church and State even existed.
Constantines Vision of the Cross changed the deity, but did not
change the landscape. This continuity is best illustrated by comparing
the language of one of the most ardent of Christianitys persecutors
early in the fourth century with an edict issued more than a century
later by the Christian emperor Theodosius II, Against Jews,
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215
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216
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217
so easily speaks volumes about the changes that were taking place in
the ancient power structure.59
Underlying the freedom of speech that Ambrose exercised on this
occasion was a significant political shift. Under the Principate, senators
occasionally were able to assert such freedom because of the central
role their institution played in confirming imperial legitimacy. With the
legalization of Christianity, and more importantly, with the role
Christianity increasingly played in confirming the emperors legitimacy,
bishopsespecially bishops like Ambrose with Senatorial backgrounds
began to assert their own corporate interests. In this particular sense,
Christian bishops had co-opted both the legitimating role and the strong
corporate identity that had characterized the Senate under the
Principate.60 What this conflict shows, therefore, is that the new situation
created by Constantine was not that religion was more important in govemment affairs than it had been before, but that the emperor now shared
with bishops the responsibility for maintaining this crucial relationship
with divinity. Since jurisdiction over sacred matters was now being
shared, the approval of bishops became central to an emperors legitimacy. As bishops jockeyed for control of sacred office with emperors,
imaginative re-use of the concepts of martyrdom and persecution became
potent weapons. In this post-Constantinian world, religious violence is
best seen as part of a larger negotiation.
NATIONAL SECURITY
The failure of emperors to control the discourse of martyrdoiii,
combined with the power of bishops to label emperors as persecutors,
goes a long way toward explaining religious violence in Late Antiquity.
Thus, even though Julian took pains to avoid the mistakes of the persecutors, he ended up in their company when Gregory Nazianzen
reshaped the emperors hostility into persecution, while others reconfigured the criteria for martyrdom to include those aggressive acts
once condemned by bishops at the Council of Elvira. The result was a
powerful new tool bishops could use to bring recalcitrant officials to
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218
heel. But as the Thaumasius incident showed, the bestowal of martyrdom still required the assent of a broader community, and aggressive
actions by themselves did not always convince that community that its
interests were being served. Officials could fend off the demands of
bishops whose aggressive instincts overstepped community bounds.
The value of thinking of the religious challenges of Late Antiquity as
threats to national security is that it helps isolate the role of intolerance
in this period. Intolerance is hardly a monopoly of Christianity, or any
other religion. Every community identifies behaviors that it believes
cannot and should not be tolerated, and this is especially true with regard
to behaviors that appear to threaten the security of that community.
Because religion plays a role in shaping community identity, religious
values frequently become the means of defining such boundaries. In this
sense, and in this sense only, can intolerance serve as a useful diagnostic
tool, albeit one that should not be limited just to Christianity, or to
monotheistic religions more generally. In every other sense, intolerance
impedes our ability to understand the process by which militants take
control of a community, because that process is basically social and political. At the start of this article, I cited Gibbon for the emphasis he gave to
Christian intolerance; now, near its end, it is time to cite his enduring
contribution to study of this issue, which was to insist that the study of
Christian success must be taken out of the hands of theologians. The
theologian may indulge the pleasing task of describing Religion as she
descended from Heaven, arrayed in her native purity, he wrote at the
start of chapter 15. A more melancholy duty is imposed on the historian.
He must discover the inevitable mixture of error and corruption which
she contracted in a long residence upon earth, among a weak and degenerate race of beings (Gibbon 1909-14, II: 15). Except that he is far too
eloquent, Gibbon for this view could be called the father of social science.
Intolerance is simply too slender a reed on which to hang our
understanding of the coercive turn Christianity took in the aftermath of
Constantines conversion. Rather than take such a development for
granted, as the intolerance model encourages us to do, it is better to
look for tools that can help us understand how militants gain control of
a community. By focusing on threats to national security, by which I
mean threats to core community values, we use a more flexible tool that
can also be applied to a broader range of situations.
A brief look at an incident in the history of Romes great eastern
rival might help clarify these points.
The Persian Shah Yazdgard I (399-420) proclaimed a toleration for
Persian Christians that lasted for most of his reign, until Bishop Abdas
of Susa was emboldened to provoke an attack on one of the fire temples
219
of the dominant Mazdaen faith. At first, all Yazdgard asked was restitution, but when Abdas refused, Yazdgard sent the bishop to the gallows
and ordered the destruction of his church. Christians in Persia never
again enjoyed the license they had been given by Yazdgard.61 The situation virtually shouts for comparison with Theodosiuss handling of the
destruction of the synagogue in Callinicum. Like the bishop of
Callinicum, Abdas engaged in an act of property damage, and in both
cases a bishop spumed a demand for restitution. But whereas
Theodosius backed down in the face of Ambroses threats, Yazdgards
response was swift and unequivocal. What accounts for the difference?
The motives of the perpetrators are not the issue: Abdas and the
unnamed bishop of Callinicum might have been intolerant or simply
foolish; in either case, they merely represent the violent elements that
are at large in any society. Instead, what matters in both cases is the
rulers response. In both cases that response was determined at least in
part by pressure from influential clergy. While their aims were different
Ambrose to defend, the Mazdaeans to punish the offenderboth sueceeded not because one ruler was more or less intolerant than the other
but because in each case the clergy spoke for a religious establishment
whose role in validating the rulers legitimacy could not be ignored.
While the bishop of Callinicum benefited from the institutional role of
his religion, Abdass role in confirming Yazdgards rule was negligible
compared with that played by the Mazdaean clergy.
The Persian example shows how broadening the study of religious
violence in Late Antiquity to include social and political issues can help
us understand both the violence itself and the role of intolerance in its
occurrence. It is useless to ask whether Theodosius was more or less
intolerant than Yazdgard. The difference is not that Theodosius was
intolerant, but that he was compromised. Like the Mazdaen clergy,
Christian bishops in Late Antiquity came to play an important role in
legitimating an emperors rule. It is true that emperors learned to
burnish their credentials with this constituency by taking, or allowing
others to take, aggressive action against perceived enemies: then as now,
it was easier to fend off militants by supporting their agenda than to
offer a reasoned alternative. But rather than simply accept these actions
as the inevitable result of intolerance, it is more useful to ask how
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220
militants were able to make such demands in the first place. The answer
is complex, but one part of it certainly resides in deep-seated Christian
anxieties about a return to persecution, revived in part by Julian, but
even more by the hardening of boundaries that followed in his wake.
More elastic definitions of martyrdom and persecution allowed militants
to seize control of a discourse that had previously been deployed in
support of freedom of worship and passive suffering.62
The situation was exacerbated by the novel powers of Christian
clergy, which clashed with the traditional prerogatives of Roman emperors. In the eastern empire, very strict protocols eventually were developed that clearly delineated the rights and obligations of both emperors
and bishops in a way that maintained the emperors charismatic authority in the Christian community and blunted episcopal pretensions.
But in the west the dissolution of imperial authority prevented such a
modus vivendi from being achieved until relatively recent times, and
then only by making a radical conceptual break with the premises of
the ancient state.63 In the interim, confusion about their relative roles
made it easier for bishops to conflate civic with religious disobedience
and correspondingly more difficult for Christian emperors to punish
civic crimes performed in the name of religion.
Although it sounds chillingly clinical to say so, the religious violence
of Late Antiquity is best understood as a means of working out these
new relationships. Until that happened, imperial legitimacy too easily
became hostage to extremist criteria.
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