Conversion in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages: Seeing and Believing (Studies in Comparative History)

CONVERSION IN LATE ANTIQUITY AND THE EARLY MIDDLE AGES Seeing and Believing

EDITED BY

KENNETH MILLS AND

ANTHONY GRAFTON

-m

u niversity

of Rochester Press

STUDIES IN COMPARATIVE HISTORY ESSAYS FROM THE

SHELBY CULLOM DAVIS CENTER FOR HISTORICAL STUDIES

Animals in Human Histories: The Mirror 0/ Nature and Culture Edited by Mary J. Henninger-Voss The Animal/Human Boundary: Historical Perspectives Edited by Angela N. H. Creager and William Chester Jordan Conversion: Old Worlds and New Edi ted by Kenneth Mills and Anthony Grafton Conversion in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages Seeing and Believing Edited by Kenneth Mills and Anthony Grafton

A Publication of the Shelby Cullom Davis Center for Historical Studies Princeton U niversity Directors Lawrence Stone (1974-1988) Natalie Zemon Davis (1988-1994) William Chester Jordan (1994-1999) Anthony T. Grafton (1999- )

Copyright © 2003 Kenneth ~ills and Anthony Grafton All Rights Reserved. Except as permitted under current legislation, no part of this work may be photocopied, stored in a retrieval system, published, performed in public, adapted, broadcast, transmitted, recorded, oe reproduced in any form or by any means, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. University of Rochester Press 668 Mt. Hope Avenue Rochester, New York, 14620, USA Boydell & Brewer, Ltd. P.O. Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk IIP12 3DF, UK www.urpress.com ISSN 1539-4905 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Conversion in late antiquity and the Middle Ages : seeing and believing / edited by Kenneth Mills and Anthony Grafton p. cm. -

(Studies in comparative history, ISSN 1539-4905)

HA publication of the Shelby Cullom Davis Center for Historical Studies, Princeton University." Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1-58°46-125-5 (alk. paper) 1.

Conversion-Christianity-History-To 1500-Congresses. Kenneth, 1964-

H. Grafton, Anthony.

ct001

1. Mills,

IU. Series.

I /T200'~b

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library This publication is printed on acid-free paper Printed in the United States of America Designed and typeset by Straight Creek Bookmakers

2°°3°°4 110

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

i ntroductitm

vu ix

KENNETH MILLS AND ANTHONY GRAFTON

1.

Inscriptions and Conversions: Gregory of Nazianzus on Baptism (Gr. 38-4°) I SUSANNA ELM

2.

The Politics of Passing: ]ustin Martyr's Conversion as a Problem of "Hellenization" 36 REBECCA LYMAN

3. Conversion and Burial in the Late Roman Empire

6I

ERIC RE BILLARD

4. Converting the Un-Christianizable: The Baptism of Stage Performers in Late Antiquity 84 RICHARD LIM

5. The Many Conversions of the Emperor Constantine

127

RAYMOND VAN DAM

6. "Delivered from Their Ancient Customs": Christianity and the Question of Cultural Change in Early Byzantine Ethnography 152 MICHAEL MAAS

7. "Emending Evil Ways and Praising God's Omnipotence": Einhard and the U ses of Roman Martyrs 189 ]ULIA M.

H.

v

SMITH

VI

CONTENTS

8. Seeing and Believing: Aspects of Conversion from Antoninus Pius to Louis the Pious NEIL McLYNN

Notes on Contributors Index

273

27 I

224

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book began from a set of papers presented at a symposium on conversion in late antiquity at Princeton's Davis Center for Historical Studies in the fall semester of 1999, and it' gathered a complementary essay Oulia M. H. Smith's) the following spring. Thus the editors wish first to thank the organizers, Susanna Elm and Peter Brown, and the contributors to the symposium, as weIl as the many participants'in,discussions both on that day and throughout the Davis Center's concentration upon the theme of conversion between 1999 and 2001. We are also grateful to Kari Hoover for facilitating the Center's events and to Timothy Madigan and Molly Cort at the U niversity of Rochester Press for their interest and for shepherding the project into print. And finally we thank Gavin Lewis, who has copy-edited each of the contributions with sensitivity and skill.

Vll

INTRODUCTION KENNETH

MILLS AND

ANTHONY GRAFTON

Religious conversion, though much evoked in late antique and early medieval times and written about ever since, was not often publicly observable. While conversion was commonly represented by ancient and early medieval writers as a singular and personally momentous mental event, gradual and incomplete social processes lurk behind their words. Susanna Elm, a contributor to this volume, contends that in describing the shift of affiliation that was religious conversion, ancient authors allowed apparently competing vocabularies of change to merge. In their understanding, a measured process of illumination is joined by images of impression and inscription, with the latter conceptual pair capturing neatly the role of texts and exegesis in these thinkers' spiritual and intellectuallives. Complete conversionstrictly defined and lived--is a chimera, something to be imagined, constituted, preached, and pleaded for. Time and again, officially prescribed Christianity comes uJ? against the limits of its ability to steer converts and dictate the terms of their belief and practice. This book is one of two collections of essays on religious conversion drawn from the activities of the Shelby Cullom Davis Center for Historical Studies at Princeton University between 1999 and 2001. Both collections focus upon conversion to, within, and around forms of Western Christianity. While the other volume treats cases of religious conversion across a broad temporal and geographie expanse, this one concentrates upon late antique and early medieval Europe, long one of this theme's most celebrated playing fields. All but one of the book's essays Qulia Smith's, which was presented before the Davis Center seminar as an individual paper in the spring of 2000) began as contributions to a memorable symposium organized by Susanna Elm and Peter Brown in the autumn of 1999. 1 The essays follow a basically chronological sequence, but with an eye also to preparing the reader for the thematic pairings and comparisons proposed by Neil McLynn's concluding discussion. Thus Susanna Elm's study of three orations on baptism by Gregory of Nazianzus in the late fourth century as clues towards an ancient understanding of religious conversion accompanies 1X

x

INTRODUCTION

Rebecca Lyman's interpretation of the conversion of Justin Martyr within the religious and cultural atmosphere of Roman Hellenism in the second century. Eric Rebillard's investigation of the meaning behind the funerary inscriptions and burial places of converts to new cults (such as Christianity) in the fourth and fifth centuries precedes a piece by Richard Lim exploring the baptism of stage performers and Christian narratives of their conversion in these late Roman times. Raymond Van Dam's contemplation of the life of Constantine through the ambiguous and changing meanings of the bronze statue of the emperor in the centuries after its placement as the triumphant center of his eastern capital of Constantinople in 330 comes next. The focus of the book remains in the Greek East with Michael Maas's study of the Christianization of different kinds of early Byzantine ethnographie writing. The final essay by Julia Smith makes a leap from Maas's sixth- and seventh-century East back to the Latin West and on to the ninth century. Through her reading of a transfer of early Christian relics from Rome to a newly constructed church in Germany, Smith shows how the skillful appropriation of a sacred Roman past fired the Carolingian programs of religious and moral correction which followed baptism and continued conversion. Converts "retain their room for maneuver." These words are among the summarizing remarks of Neil McLynn in an afterword that renders much in the way of introductory words to this book unnecessary. McLynn's contribution would have become the book's introduction were it not for the fact that it began as an oral commentary and retains the nature of a concluding set of thoughts. McLynn's afterword is in fact a contribution of its own, an eighth chapter that not only thinks through and across what he characterizes as the volume's "seven experiments along the line of the 'Rise of Christianity,'" but also suggests further lines of inquiry for students of religious conversion and related processes of cultural interaction, diffusion, and change far beyond the fields of Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages.

NOTES I. The full tide of the Davis Center's two-year theme was "Conversion: Sacred and Profane." The other collection of essays is Kenneth Mills and Anthony Grafton , eds., Conversion: Old Worlds and New (Rochester, N.Y, 2°°3)·

CONVERSION IN LATE ANTIQUITY AND THE EARLY MIDDLE AGES: SEEING AND BE,LIEVING

I INSCRIPTIONS AND CONVERSIONS GREGORY OF NAZIANZUS ON BAPTISM

SUSANNA

(Gr. 38-4°)

ELM

lt is today that we must write in you and impress you (wJrw(}fjvar) towards per/ection. Let us enter . . . give me the tablets (JrAaICaq)

0/ your heart,

1 am /or you Moses . . . and 1 write in

)lou with God's fingers a new Decalogue. 1 write in you the synopsis (enlv't'o,uov)

0/ salvation.

-Gr. Naz. Or. 40.45

This paper will focus on three orations on baptism by the late fourthcentury C.E. Cappadocian "Church Father" Gregory of Nazianzus to argue three interrelated points. First, contrary to "modern" notions of conversion, which are frequently shaped by a narrow concept of it as a "flash of illumination" signaling the moment of intense personal rejection of a previously held belief in favor of another one (or at least the narrative representation of such an intense personal experience),l many ancient authors told a very different story when describing a shift in religious affiliation. Ancient authors who wrote personal accounts of such a shift, like Gregory of Nazianzus or Augustine, did, of course, employ the terminology of illumination. However, their illumination language carried a different meaning than that implied by many of their post-Enlightenment interpreters. 2 The ancient authors used the terminology of illumination to describe a process, which resulted over time in something one might characterize as "conversion"; the possibility of salvation through continuous adherence to a new "religious" VlSlOn.

Second, although in their understanding such a process was initiated in amoment, rather than describing such a moment as a "flash of light," the ancient authors studied he re employed the vocabulary of "inscription" and "imprinting" with its wide range of associated meanings to denote the moment initiating the process of shifting religious affiliation, that is, the I

2

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process of conversion. Both, the "inscription" vocabulary as weIl as that used to define "process" permitted ancient authors to describe and prescribe a great variety of "conversions" (those of individuals, of groups, those undergone voluntarily and less so), because of the density of meanings associated with "inscriptions." Further, by combining the language of inscription (denotio-g the moment) with that of illumination (denoting the process), an author like Gregory of Nazianzus made it clear that such a moment and process denoted a very specific kind of change: inscription and illumination accomplished a true transformation of cosmological significance by realigning the individual in his relationship to the imagined, unchangeable (heavenly) spheres and their corresponding material (earthly) realities capable of change (humanity); each in turn clearly defined by Platonic (celestial spheres), Aristotelian (sublunar ones), and Stoic (divine, ethereal materiality understood as intelligible light) concepts. 3 Third, the event that crystallized both moment and process and the context within which ancient authors elaborated much of the above was baptism. Baptism, its rituals, and its interpretation and representation were intrinsically related to each author's cosmology. This cosmology in turn reflected his interpretation of salvation and the human capacity to achieve it. While this might be a commonplace, the secondary literature on the topic rarely places accounts of baptism into their context, focusing instead on a more diachronic reconstruction of the ritual event. Further, even in that respect Gregory of Nazianzus's writings on baptism are frequently disregarded. Though he was an "orthodox" author of tremendous influence in the Greek-speaking part of the Roman Empire, later scholars did not consider hirn a model bishop and thus did not consider his writings on baptism as significant as, for example, those of his contemporary Basil of Caesarea. The rare secondary scholarly works utilizing his writings on the subject tend to resort to them only in support of the reconstruction of "orthodox" Constantinopolitan and Cappadocian practices at the end of the fourth century as gleaned from other sources. Gregory wrote his orations on baptism during his brief tenure as bishop of Constantinople in 38 I. However, by concentrating solelyon Constantinopolitan ritual practices, the secondary literature overlooks the fact that Gregory developed his own (later orthodox) notions of baptism and salvation in direct response to several other competing notions and practices, that is, in response to competing cosmologies. These competing cosmologies and their associated notions of baptism are weIl known under such labels as "Arian," "Eunomian," "Novatian," or "Messalian." The continuing use of such polemical labels in much of the scholarly literature obscures, however, the degree to which Gregory's views were

INSCRIPTIONS

AND

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3

those of a distinct minority. He was on the defensive and had to persuade others who were very influential in the capital and beyond of his views over and against their own. While Gregory stressed that one was baptized into Christ's incarnation, others declared that baptism was into Christ's resurrection, while others baptized into Christ's death. Yet again others, all of them present and active at Constantinople, considered baptism an act of such profound purification that subsequent sin became an unpardonable impossibility. Hence the profound significance of the act of inscribing. All the protagonists were bishops and priests, and all baptized into "the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit" (Mt. 28: 19). However, by the 380s, the precise meaning of each of these terms and their relation to each other had been under debate for at least seventy years. Moreover, in 380, the new emperor Theodosius had just reversed a twenty-year-old formula according to which Father and Son were similar in essence, declaring them now to be the same. Thus, what had to be inscribed into the soul of the newly baptized were not only the words "Father," "Son," "Holy Spirit," but their correct meaning, which could only be assured if aligned correctly within the correct cosmology. Placing the focus on the language of inscription and impression combined with that of illumination, rather than on conversion understood as a "flash of lightening," highlights the fact that for Gregory and his contemporaries "conversion" was a matter of cosmology and exegesis, that is, of the correct adaptation of Genesis and Scripture into each author's understanding of Platonic notions of cosmology. Only the "right" exegesis of Plato through the Old and New Testaments could guarantee salvation of the individual as weIl as the entire community. Such a shift in focus also highlights the degree to which Gregory shared his fundamental concepts as weIl as his idiom (inscription, illumination) with those with whom he argued, the Greek-speaking elite of the later Roman Empire. All of these men were engaged in a continuing philosophical debate of long standing, that between Middle and Neo-Platonism. At stake was the question whether or not "matter," that is, the human body, could be saved. Rather than "paganism" and "Christianity," the most profound dividing lines opposed those who thought that physical matter could ascend and hence be saved and those who doubted that very much. What made these differences so vital was the fact that man and cosmos, the "inner" and the "outer," the sacred and the secular, and hence the order and prosperity of the entire imperial realm were seen as one continuous whole. Therefore, mistakes in the understanding of the cosmos and the means by which humans were aligned within it affected everything. They precluded salvation and implied the failure ·to serve God and his subjects. 4 To rephrase my point, in writing

4

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about baptism and illumination, Gregory needed to "convert" those who believed in different cosmologies regardless of whether they were described as "pagans"or "heretics."

GREGORY OF NAZIANZUS AND HIS ÜRATIONS

38-4°

o new

mixture! 0 paradoxical fusion! -Gr. Naz. On the Nativity 38.13

{/(I attest before God and the elected angels that you will be baptized with this faith." If one has written in you something other than my sernlOn has set out, come here, so what has been written in you will be modified. I am not without talent to write that into you; I write what has been written into me.

-

Gr. Naz. On Baptism 40.44

"Write it on the memory tab/ets of your mind (aV IlVr,JlOal v 8iMolQ fjJpevmv)."

-Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound, 1. 789.

Gregory of Nazianzus's Orations 38 and 40 form part of a set of three interrelated orations Gregory held on and around the Feast of the Nativity in 380/381,5 just after his ordination as bishop of Constantinople. In these orations, Gregory combined three elements quintessential to the kind of change one might define as "conversion": first, God and the angels or the heavenly realm; secondly, baptism (initiation into a new belief system); and third, modification or change. However, in the same sentence in which he mentioned these three elements Gregory also added the fourth concept of interest, inscription: "If one has written in you something other than my sermon has set out, come here, so what has been written in you will be modified." Thus, the question arises why Gregory of Nazianzus combined these notions not only in one sermon but in one sentence. In other words, what vocabulary did a member of the Greek-speaking elite of the later Roman Empire use to describe religious change, and what did he identify as its vehicles and their location? And, as importandy, who was Gregory, what was his agenda, and against whom did he have to compete? Gregory of Nazianzus is an interesting phenomenon. 6 Given the tide "The Theologian" in 451-previously only John the Evangelist had been thus honored-Gregory was one of the most influential thinkers of the Greek Christian world. In fact, his writings (together with those of Cyril of Alexandria) were the most frequently cited in Byzantium, second only to the Scriptures. Yet, he is no Augustine, though one could easily argue that his influence in the East was more direct and equally lasting. Today, special-

INSCRIPTIONS

AND

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5

ists know hirn as part of a "triumvirate," the so-eaIled Cappadoeian Fathers of the Chureh, aIl three instrumental in formulating the eommon, "orthodox" understanding of the Trinity as one in three. While thus weIl known and weIl studied as a theologian and by theologians, Gregory of Nazianzus simultaneously has been sidelined intoa historiographical niehe. This is in large part the result of the manner in whieh Gregory wrote his own life. Gregory understood hirnself as a philosopher and man of letters and made it his life's ambition to produee a eanon of "classie" Christian literature in aIl genres available at the time: orations, inveetives, panegyries, letters, poems. Central to his program was the eonstruction and promotion of his ideal of Christian leadership as a "philosophieal" life. FoIlowing the classie paradigm, he portrayed this ideal as "torn" between the desire for retreat and eontemplation on the one hand, and the (onerous) duty to serve (as priest) on the other hand. Henee his historiographie downfall. Over time, Gregory's program, whieh had not remained uneontested even at his own time, no longer refleeted (Western medieval) notions of Christian leadership as embodied by later eoneepts of the bishop. As a result, Gregory beeame ahistoriographie oddity. While eonsidered a gifted theologian, he was seen as an eeclesiastieal failure, beeause he advertised a life eonsisting of periods of aetivity interspersed with ones of refleetion and withdrawal. Thus, modern seholars eonsider hirn an idiosyneratie "individualist," and his writings, depending on the seholar's personal and eonEessional preferenee and disposition, as the refleetions of a romantie soul repulsed by ehureh polities, or as those of a man who exeeIled at theology but was ineapable of making up his ~ind and stieking to his decisions. However, onee one takes seriously the possibility that Gregory was a produet of his time, and henee plaees his notions of the Christian leadership into their eontext, his writings take on a different weight. Programmatie, politieal, and influential, they were a far ery from the musings of an idiosyneratie individual, espeeially when Gregory wrote as bishop oE Constantinople. Orations 38-4° were held within weeks of Gregory's ordination as bishop of Constantinople at the instigation of the newly aeclaimed emperor Theodosius, against intense eompetition and in lieu of the very popular "Arian" bishop Demophilus, whom the emperor had relegated to the suburbs. 7 Orations 39 and 40 were held on eonseeutive days, probably 5 and 6 January 381, and take their eue from Christ's Baptism, whereas Oration 38, eelebrating the Theophany or birth of Christ as weIl as the adoration of the Magi, was perhaps held as early as 25 Deeember 380, with the eentral theme of Christ's Inearnation. 8 With few exeeptions-for example Claudio Moresehini-Gregory's Oration 40- has usuaIly been diseussed (though "mined" is perhaps the more

6

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appropriate expression) to gain insights into specific liturgical questions, such as the precise order in which baptism was celebrated in the Constantinopolitan church in the 380s;9 whether or not confirmation and baptism were one or two separate ceremonies; what precise developments regarding penirential regulations might be gleaned from Gregory; 10 how catechumens were instructed;l1 to what degree Gregory's descriptions are representative of Syrian or Cappadocian practices; 12 and whether or not the Roman festival calendar had already been adopted in Constantinople. 13 Though much can and should be said about these and other questions, I will consider the three sermons as a unit to argue, first, that Gregory uses the vocabulary of "inscription" and "imprinting" ("marking," "impressing," "sealing," "writing into"-xapaKTIlP, cr<\>payts, 'tU7tOS, ypa~~a'ta, 7tAaKat, crKtaypa<\>ot) to describe a historically defined "moment" of change in cosmological affiliation, which initiates a lifelong process of transformation; and secondly, that he uses the language of illumination to describe that lifelong process of metanoia, a term frequently translated and interpreted as "conversion" (and/or penitence).14 Baptism, according to Gregory, was both: the moment as well as the process it initiated. Gregory's understanding of "illumination" is the red thread that holds inscription, baptism, change, moment, and process together. In classic Platonic manner, illumination in Gregory's writing is "code" for cosmology. Thus, baptism as illumination actualized and made personal for each individual two singular yet eternal cosmological events: 'tou 7tapa86~ou KpacrtS, the fusion (~t~tS) of two paradoxa, two utterly incommensurable essences, that of the unknown realm of the immaterial, intelligible, unchanging, illuminated, and divine with that of the material or human that is capable of change. 15 Gregory's cosmology is deeply Platonic yet marshaled to explain something utterly non-Platonic, namely the fusion of the transcendental divine essence with its ontological opposite, matter. 16 According to Gregory, such a "paradoxical fusion" occurred twice, for the first time when God decided to create the sensible world and man, and a second time when the Logos became flesh to save man from the consequences of his disobedience. In Gregory's understanding, baptism is the actualization of the second fusion in each human, the marker aligning the individual within this cosmological process. Hence, baptism into Christ's Incarnation. Correspondingly, baptism, too, is both a one-time historie event as well as an ongoing process intended to res tore man to his original dignity, to his prelapsarian state as Adam. The act of inscription symbolized and made vivid the act of the fusion of two incommensurable notions: an inscription, to~, is the act of a moment yet at the same time a la langue dude. Christ's Incarnation is thus

INSCRIPTIONS

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7

for Gregory the model event through which the underlying Platonic structure is personalized and transcended. As mentioned above, Gregory's concept of baptism as the actualization of the Incarnation was highly controversial, not least because it was an innovation. But before plunging more deeply into Gregory's texts describing baptism and illumination, and before attempting to reconstruct some of the context that apparently prompted hirn to "divulge as much ab out our mysteries as is not forbidden to the ears of the many" (Or. 4°-45), let me step back to discuss briefly notions of "conversion" and "inscriptions" and their relevance to Gregory's orations on baptism.

CONVERSIONS AND INSCRIPTIONS: INSCRIPTION AS (TRANS)FORMATION

"By conversion we me an the reorientation of the soul of an individual, his deliberate turning from indifference or from an earlier form of piety to another, a turning which implies a consciousness that a great change is involved, that the old was wrong and the new is right."17 Arthur Derby Nock's classic definition, formulated in 1933, is still the paradigmatic understanding of "conversion." Though informed by a number of pre-Christian sourees, primarily relating to the so-called mystery cults (Isis, Attis and Cybele, Mithras), Nock's definition of conversion as a dramatic turning point is most strongly indebted to the two paradigmatic sources traditionally called upon to support the notion of conversion as decisive turning point, that of Luke in the Acts of the Apostles describing the "conversion" of Paul and, more importantly, Augustine's later adaptation of the Lukan Paul-motive in his own conversion narrative, the Confessions. 18 However, as Peter Brown has recently demonstrated, Nock's concept of conversion as a dramatic moment of recognition in which the old darkness is consciously rejected in favor of the new light, owes more to Nock's own Sitz im Leben, namely his own historiographie position vis-a-vis David Hume, Max Weber, and William James, than to the actual Christian sources. 19 As shown by recent studies, in particular those of Peter Brown, Paula Fredriksen, and Karl Morrison, the Lukan narrative of Paul's conversion and Augustine's Confessions stress instead notions of process. 20 According to Morrison, Augustine used the term "conversion" (conversio) sparingly in his Confessions, "to denote a sequence of action and response . . . at times stretched out over years." He argued that for Augustine conversion signified "the unfolding of a supernatural process, initiated and sustained by God ... and distinct from

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its formal signs . (which include baptism). "21 In fact, much the same is true for Gregory of Nazianzus. In his writings, too, the most important aspect of "conversion" is that of a process. Gregory, however, signaled the "initiation" of that "process" through language that relates only tangentially to scriptural precepts. Illumination does not occur through the Lukan flash of light, nor does he stress the concept of rebirth. 22 His signifiers are the entire concept of inscription and imprint. On first glance, this might seem astrange choice since inscriptions appear by their very nature to represent the opposite of change: fixation, status qua, and stability. However, "writing" and "inscribing" does precisely what Gregory,-peeded it to dO. 23 An inscription marked a historically specific moment, that of writing something into stone, a tablet, a forehead, or a soul with the intention of making the writing known and last, ideally, for eternity.24 Inscriptions are exceedingly important sources for the study of the ancient world. Not only are they, together with visual remains such as sarcophagi and portraits, virtually the only nonliterary indicators of the way in wh ich individuals sought to present themselves, but, more importantly, they were the most ubiquitous me ans of communication available for a fairly broad spectrum of society (even though the elite produced the lion's share).25 Inscriptions took shape and appear in numerous different settings and for a wide variety of purposes, ranging from the individual to the imperial. Given the broad spectrum of the material, the following is a rather condensed overview, seeking primarily to illustrate the weight and density of connotation of words such as "inscribing," "writing," "impressing," "marking," as well as those that denoted the surfaces upon which these operations were performed. Prominent among inscriptions of private individuals were epitaphs, which declared to the immediate community how a person defined himself or herself, and how he or she wished to order posterity. Therefore, they employed well-regulated sets of standard formulae assembled and reassembled with relatively few but revealing variations. 26 Most epitaphs recorded a person's genealogy, family status (number of children, slaves, etc.), education, public offices held, acts of benevolence performed, and so on. 27 They also sought to order posterity in a number of different ways, most frequently by exhorting the reader to preserve the inscription-stressing that inscriptions and tombstones (anlAut) will last long after the corpse itself has gone 28-and by appealing to the gods to ensure the longevity of the inscription by punishing all who dare to modify or destroy it. 29 The frequency of these exhortations suggests that the authors of these inscriptions hoped for lasting memorials, but were all too aware of the fact that even things written in stone could be altered and destroyed. By erasing a small part, the content could become an entirely different one, even though much of the

INSCRIPTIONS

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9

general structure remained the same. Equally to the point, a clean slate was preferable, but a palimpsest could also do; a modified writing was as effective as one that had been carved into a completely new surface. A second kind of inscriptions placed on public buildings, including statues and temples, proclaimed both the virtues of the donor as weIl as that of the city, deity, or community in whose honor the building was erected. Such inscriptions heralded the ways in which a public person represented her social status within a community. Shrines and temples carried, furthermore, personal inscriptions honoring the divinity, begging for eures, and thanking the divinity for favors rendered; wealthy persons might even write entire odes to a god on stone slabs affixed to shrines (or the walls of their own house).30 An entire class of inscriptions publicized rrespasses. against the gods and begged for forgiveness. Such "confession" inscriptions list cases of perjury; stealing from the sanctuary and its estate; masturbating while on the premises; visiting the temple in rags or in astate of defilement, and so on. They also "confess" failure to "write down" (Ka'ta'Ypa~Elv) or enroll slaves into the sanctuary's roster, that is, to actually deliver to the sanctuary, and hence to the god, a slave dedicated/recruited to his service as hierodottlos. 31 Writings to the gods were also inscribed on other, less durable materials. Papyrus slips (libelli) and lead, wooden, and wax tablets were inscribed with oaths, curses, and countercurses (tabttlae defixionttm)J magie formulae, and pleas to the god, whereby the act of writing itself was part of the ritual and its powerY The sanctuaries, of course, wrote back: long inscriptions list, for example, how one ought to approach the shrines, what one was expected to do there, and how much the sanctuary's services would cost. 33 Another type of private inscriptions on buildings, particularly on baths and gymnasia, were graffiti, doing much the same then as today: Glaukos was here; Lucius loves Aurelia; x proposes to do y to a certain slave boy; prostitute so and so is fabulous; the tavern of x stinks; may the Gods curse z; long live the gladiator Maximus. 34 However, walls of buildings also displayed the official acts of the city and the empire. Special walls displayed imperial letters as weIl as imperial edicts, both of which had, by the fourth century, the force of law. In relatively rare cases such laws were engraved in bronze. The inscription of official documents into bronze tablets (MA:tOl, cr't1lAat, in aes incisa) and their display were of fundamental imperial and religious significance. 35 Rather than providing the master copy of special laws, as scholars have long assumed, it is now clear that the primary function of bronze tablets was their visual-religious impact. Polished and gleaming, affixed to temple walls, bronze tables suggested the eternity (aes perennittm) both of the laws and the

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Roman Empire. The tablets themselves were considered sacrosanct, objects belonging to and protected by the gods, and they "create symbolic displays of Roman law and government, ... of Roman presence" wherever they were displayed. Conversely, they also advertised a city's special relationship with the imperial power. 36 Thus, official documents inscribed in bronze tablets or stelai were primarily treatises, diplomas of military discharge, registers of citizenship, privileges such as exemptions from compulsory public services, and honors granted. Also inscribed (steliteuein) were persons who had fled capital punishment, and who were thus marked and shamed forever and for all to see as if they were present. 37 Such bronze tablets also contained some of the most crucial inscriptions of the late antique world, those by which all inhabitants were "inscribed" into their social status, and thus their very humanitas. 38 Inscription into the census list or roster of citizenship (politographos) , regulated by many of the laws inscribed into bronze tablets, not only defined a person's status but also that of his offspring in subsequent generations, and this (hereditary) status, the precise place inscribed into the roster, governed virtually every aspect of a person's life. It determined fiscal and other obligations; taxation levels; professions; whom one was permitted to marry; access to privileges; levels and kinds of punishment; whether a person was "worthy," "worthier," or "truly worthy," or not worthy of participation in society at all as a debtor, freedman, foreigner, or infamous person, or stood outside humanity entirely as a slave. 39 Thus inscribed into bronze, stone, or wooden tablets, all inhabitants of the Roman Empire were ordered in a finely tuned hierarchy, and the difference between a worthy person and an infamous one was conceived and represented as being as irreducible as, for example, the nineteenthcentury category of race. Accordingly, laws also required all persons to inscribe their outward appearance in a manner consistent with their status, so that their bodies and physical appearance maintained and enhanced the social order and the prosperity of the imperial realm. 40 This was done through habitus acquired from birth, through dress, hair style, speaking voice, and gestures. But in particular, with those persons who belonged to parts of society where social mobility was subject to especially stringent mechanisms of control, social status was also inscribed into the person himself: slaves, soldiers, gladiators, prostitutes, and other stage performers were frequently tattooed or branded with symbols of their status. 41 Laws and imperial edicts, especially when written in bronze, were thus inscriptions prescribing and enforcing a social status quo, seemingly for eternity. By the same token, they were immensely powerful agents of change. With one imperial edict or letter, the emperor could overwrite what had been written into bronze or stone. A person's lifelong and hereditary

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inscription into one social place could oe instantly modified, with consequences affecting himself, subsequent generations, and the entire hierarchical construct of later Roman society. Citizenship could be granted, obligations removed, infamy eradicated, and, of course, the reverse could also take place. Thus, it is not surprising that the publication of "imperial writings" (ßUO"tA1K
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of Nazianzus, and he responded in kind. After Julian's death, he composed two invectives that have shaped Julian's image to this day. Significant for our context is the Greek term Gregory used in the conduding paragraph to characterize his invective: it was astelographia (O"'t1lA.oypaia, rather than a 'V0yo<;, the traditional term denoting an invective), a writing onto a stele through which Gregory inscribed Julian as a criminal, in public view for all eternity: "Here is a pillar (stele) for you from me, higher and more visible than the Pillars (stelai) of Herades ... which will inevitably become known everywhere by everyone as it (contrary to Herades' stelai} moves about ... pillaring/pillorying (O"'t1lA.t'teuetV) you and your deeds; and alerting all men not to have the audacity to ferment such arevolt (stasis) against God for fear of exposing themselves to this same punishment by committing such a crime."51 Much more could be said concerning the exchange of philosophical treatises and invectives, but with this we have arrived at yet another central set of meanings associated with writing, namely those derived from the context of pedagogy: schooling, education, philosophy, and intellectual-personal formation. Here, to~, we find the same complex array of meanings touched upon in the public and private writings on stone and bronze mentioned above: religious, sacred, lang duration, commemorative, capable of forming and inscribing individuals as well as communities seemingly forever, and, therefore, at the same time possessing the power of instant transformation. "The enduring legacy of Roman education is not the seven liberal arts ... but ahabit of mind and training-the insistence that texts and tests, through competitive displays of reading, writing and reciting, are essential to the socialization of the young"-the young of the elite, that iS. 52 Essential for this conceptualization of "writing" were two related aspects, namely the link between writing and memory and the assumption that the act of writing was itself transformative. 53 "When first the child puts pen to paper or stylus to wax, he practices a kind of social distinction. He writes himself into one dass. "54 But he could only do so because underlying cosmological and anthropological notions held that the human being, especially its sentient parts or its soul, was like a wax tablet into which social dass, ethics, morals, and their external manifestation were inscribed with each interlinked act of thought, speech, and writing, and thus the whole person formed. 55 The formation of the self and its place in the social order through writing and memory began early, with the so-called hermenettmata, bilingual memorization exercises in which schoolboys wrote and then recited their day, beginning with orders to their slaves, greetings of others in hierarchical order, lists of gods and of distinguished teachers-each act of writing and

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its correction reifying the social order. 56 The more advanced the student, the stronger the formative power of written and recited words. Once a student advanced to higher education under a rhetor, he took on the speaking role of his father, the paterfamilias, in sets of exercises called "declamations."57 Such an assumption of an adult persona lfictio personae, 1tP0O"co1to1totla) was more than "theater." In taking on his father's role, the son became, through mimesis, the father. Moreover, through his writings and his speech, he gave voice to all those who were dependent on his father and thus had to seek advocacy through his voice. 58 By being a paterfamilias, that is, his father, the son refracted as through a prism the community of all those who depended on hirn and whose well-being was determined by his prowess as writer and speaker in competition with others. Thus, the son was trained- to speak in the voice and with the emotions of his father as weH as that of his father's dependents. He learned to speak as them and for them through the "representation of character" (~e01tot"ta) of a woman (not a person under the law);59 of a soldier who had deserted; of a prostitute who wanted to be a priestess; of a freedman seeking to marry a person above his status, etc. Thus, through such performative acts of speech, the son not only spoke in his master's voice while also acting the master, he gave at the same time voice (through the master's voice and it alone) to his (father's) subordinates. Most members of the elite governing the later Roman empire had received such declamatory training in advocacy. Underscoring the necessity for such training were notions of the powerful efficacy of the spoken and written word. Both were tremendously formative acts, reifying at the same time the authority and the transformative powers of the person performing them, be he the governor or the teacher (paidagögos). Thus, to have a voicel word was the equivalent of existing as a social being; without voice/word there was no social existence. But before returning to a discussion of Gregory of Nazianzus's use of the vocabulary of inscription in light of the above, one further context needs to be mentioned, which linked the philosophical-pedagogic aspects of "writing" directly with the cosmological realm: astrology. Fundamental to most ancient concepts of astrology was the notion that the stars were alive, divine (or at least part of a sphere just beneath that of the gods), and of the same essence (ether) as the human soul, which they guided according to divine precepts. 60 Therefore, so a central tenet, the fate of each individual was determined by the precise location of the stars at the moment of birth, so that individuals required as a consequence interpretation and guidance through the wisdom of astrologers. Such implicitly fatalistic interpretations of the relationship between the stars and human destiny also found their opponents, most notably among the followers of Carneades,

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who argued instead that astral figuration did not predestine human fate. The stars did not produce (poiein) human fate; they were merely its indicators (semaiein); thus, the human soul retained free will and hence moral judgment. 61 Such antifatalistic arguments did not have to deny the value of astrology, however. Plotinus, for example, conceded that astrologers could read the stars. This was so because according to Plotinus "the stars were like letters which are written in each instance into the sky, or rather letters written once for all time which move; . . . they also have the power to signify."62 Origen argued likewise. For hirn, too, the stars were letters, written into a heavenly book. 63 Yet while those capable of reading these letters and hence the human fate they indicated correctly were human for Plotinus, Origen accorded that faculty solely to God. In both cases, the comparison of the stars to heavenly letters was a new element. In Origen's case, the comparison was all the more relevant for our subject, because of long-standing Jewish-Christian notions according to which good as well as evil deeds were recorded into a heavenly book of "deeds" or "works." Good deeds could, so Paul in Col. 2: I 2- I 5, erase bad ones as if a debt (XEtPOypa<j>ov) had been canceled. Those whose debts of bad deeds had been erased through good works would be inscribed into the roster of heavenly citizenship. For many ancient authors, baptism was the equivalent of such an enrollment because it erased prior debt by concluding a new contract. 64 Ir rewrote the heavenly letters and their notations; that is, it changed what the stars signified. With this, it is time to address Gregory and his writings on baptism in greater detail.

GREGORY OF NAZIANZUS ON BAPTISM

I ncarnation

"Christ is born, give praise, Christ has come from the heavens, go out to meet hirn, Christ is on earth, lift yourselves upward"-thus Gregory's opening, and the theme of Oration 38. The divine had become human, the Word flesh, and this event required the most exalted celebration. Such a celebration could not replicate the "material feast" as performed by "the Greeks." Instead, the celebration of the Word required words, and naturally, the most appropriately festive words were those of Gregory (Or. 38-4-6). Since the sermon was about the Logos it was according to Gregory about God. Indeed, most of the remainder of Oration 38 is devoted, first, to Gregory's interpretation of the nature of the divinity (theologia) , and, secondly and in even greater detail, to the interaction of the divine with its

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opposite, the cosmos and man (oikonomia). The unfolding and expansion of the divine and, most importantly, the mystery of its mixture with things "entirely alien to its nature" (Or. 38.10) occupy the lion's share of Oration 38. Thus, Gregory opens the entire cycle of his three orations on the Nativity, Illumination, and Baptism with his exposition and exegesis of Plato's cosmology through Genesis and Luke's account of the Nativity.65 Gregory begins by stating that "God is," i.e., that "he possesses being without beginning and end, like an ocean of being" (Or. 38.7).66 God is timeless, "without limit and hence difficult to contemplate." This aspect of the divine alone is easy to grasp for humans, namely that God is timeless and limitless. However, while this may lead one to believe that God's nature is therefore simple (a1tA:ilc;) this is not so. According to Gregory, neither simplicity nor composition completely comprise the nature of the divine; rather by "saying God, I intend to say Father, Son and Holy Spirit" (Or. 38.8-9). While the divinity does not extend beyond those three to form more divine persons, it is neither constricted into a monad nor a construct of subordinate beings. Instead, it is an infinite cohesion of three limitless beings (e.g., Or. 39.11; 40-41). However, this cohesion, despite the fact that the Son has taken his origin from the Father, must not be understood as a sequence of time or cause. The Son as weIl as the Spirit have "proceeded" from the Father (E.K1tOpe:UeO"Sm) in seamless expansion. 67 Such a "procession" leaves the divine "nature" unchanged. All that changed in the resulting formation of the Son and the Spirit were their properties (iOio'tT\'teC;). Thus, the Father is the beginning of two other beings, but they are not inferior or different in nature. The nature of all three remains one and the same, even if there are three different hypostaseis (Or. 39.11). Having made that point-which he elaborates further in each of the two subsequent sermons-Gregory focuses on the manner in which this supreme divinity, God, created the universe (Or. 38.9). Not content to contemplate itself the supreme Good, in an act of divine euergetism, expanded itself. "Thus the second splendors were created, of service to the first." The creation of the intelligible universe (1C00"110<; VOT\'to<;) led to that of the sensible one, in part because God wanted "to show not only his own nature, but also his capacity to create a nature utterly alien to his own" (Or. 38.10). This moment, according to Gregory, was the first instance of a great fusion of two incommensurable entities: the mysterious commingling of intelligible and sensible elements, which led to the creation of the sensible world and First Man, the "initiate into the visible world." This "visible world" was a second universe, itself a mixture of invisible and visible natures (Or. 38.11). At this juncture Gregory commences his exegesis of Genesis, entirely within the structure of the Platonic cosmology employed so far. "This being

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[First Man or the first fusion of two ineommensurables} God plaeed in Paradise-what was then Paradise." This half-sentenee eomprises the sum total of Gregory's diseussion of the subjeet of Paradise. Coneomitant with Plato's master narrative, Gregory eonsidered heaven a "divine sphere," a state of being rather than a geographie loeation (Gr. 38.12). First Man thus ereated as the perfeet mixture of divine and sensible elements was given free will and ageney "so that the good would be the labor of hirn who ehooses it."68 Choiee implied the possibility of disagreement and disobedienee, whieh led to the Fall and in turn eaused sin. 69 Disobedienee and sin led to a eontinuous decline, and, finally (after some failed divine attempts at prior warning) to the seeond and even more speetaeular fusion of two ineommensurable natures: the Inearnation of the Logos ("the immutable seal, the true imprint of the model") for the salvation of mankind. "God eame forth with that whieh he has assumed, unique being out of two opposites: flesh and spirit; one makes divine, the other is made divine. 0 new mixture! 0 paradoxie al fusion!" (Gr. 38 . 13). The Inearnation was the eentral event, and, aeeording to Gregory, the raison d'etre not only for all three sermons but for baptism itself: the extraordinary mixing, the formation of a unique being out of two opposites, the paradoxieal fusion of the divine splendid light wirh sensible matter. It was a historie event that was at the same time of eternal and timeless signifieanee. lt resulted from a proeess yet was erystallized in amoment; thus it was also the fusion of moment and proeess, transhistorieal. The agent that permitted this extraordinary fusion to oeeur was, aeeording the Gregory, illumination, the theme of Oration 39.

Illumination Gregory's "terminology of light" was fundamental to his entire eosmologieal eonstruet, going baek to his first orations eomposed in 362/363.70 Aeeordingly, "God is the supreme light inaeeessible and unknowable; not eomprised by the spirit and not expressed by the word. lt [the light} eontemplates and eomprehends itself' (Gr. 40.5).71 God is the first light, the angels the seeond, and man the third, aeeording to an eeonomy repeated in all three sermons. Indeed, "light" (<\lcOe;) , illumination, is Gregory's fundamental metaphor in explieating Genesis and Exodus: "The first eommandment given to the first man was also light .... The written law was a <\lcOe; 'tU7tlKOV Kat enJf.!f.!E'tpWV, providing an illusion (O"Kwypa<\lcOv; lit. "painting in shadows") of the truth and the mystery of the light" (Gr. 40.6). But even though this divine light is in essenee inaeeessible-sinee it is God-it nonetheless does not elude man entirely beeause of his original partieipation

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in it. 72 In fact, humans are linked to the divine through light, and this link between man and God (OIlOtrocrtC; 8EOO) finds expression in the sun, indicating the manner in which man may return to the divine splendor. 73 Provided the human soul is properly purified, it, to~, may be illuminated. Illumination therefore requires purification. The higher the degree of purification the greater that of illumination and the doser the link between man and the divine. The logical consequence was therefore, according to Gregory, that illumination is purification and vice versa. They are synonymous. But Gregory took yet a further step. Illumination (<j>oo'tt0"1l0C;) is not only purification, it is also baptism (also <j>oo'tt 0"110 C; , a traditional word denoting baptism).74 Illumination, purification, and baptism were mutual preconditions as weH as synonyms. 75 God demands purity but also is purity; he demands illumination and is illumination. 76 Likewise, baptism both demands purification and illumination (<j>OrttO"Il0C;) and is also both. All three are necessary first conditions to contemplate the divine; but all three also make such contemplation possible through their potential to restore man to his original dignity.77

Baptism Christians, in Gregory's opinion, thus had many reasons to celebrate baptism. It represented their passage from darkness to light, from ignorance to the knowledge of truth, from paganism to Christianity (Or. 39.3-6), and was as such a journey between two utterly incommensurable states of being. More to the point, baptism actualized in each individual the two great moments of fusion-especially, however, the second great mingling of two incommensurables, namely the Incarnation. And, like the Incarnation, a historie event of timeless consequence, baptism, to~, was a moment and a process, illumination and purification, initiating and manifesting man's restoration to his original nature, namely his salvation. Oration 40 begins by resuming the theme with which Oration 39 ended: it restates the central identity of illumination, purification, and baptism (Or. 40.5-7). Now, however, Gregory proceeds "to philosophize" about how, when and by whom baptism, now properly introduced (and hopefully understood), should be administered and who should receive it. None of these issues are obvious, not least because "Christ, who gave this gift, is called by multiple and various names, and so is his gift, baptism" (Or. 40-4).78 Historically, so Gregory, there were five types of baptism, reflecting the history of salvation (Or. 39.17). Moses had baptized, but only figuratively (-rU1ttKooc;): in water, by guiding his people through the Red Sea. J ohn the Baptist had also baptized, but no longer "in the Jewish manner," solely in water. He had already adduced a spiritual baptism by demanding metanoia, a "change of

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heart and mind," or penitence. Jesus, then, baptized purely in the SpUlt; "that was perfection." Christ hirns elf received the fourth baptism: the baptism of blood, the baptism of the martyrs. Gregory, "being human and, therefore, a changeable being of unstable nature," had received baptism in the fifth manner, namely the baptism "of tears, but it is even harder" (ar. 39.17-18). "I accept this baptism with an open heart, I venerate hirn who gave it to me, I transmit it to others" (ar. 38.18). This "baptism of tears" was the baptism for the rest of mankind, and it is the one Gregory will now transmit to his catechumens. Accordingly, he devotes the remainder of his-very long-Oration 40 to the precise mechanism according to which this "transmission" ought to unfold. Following Jesus' example, baptism should be administered around the age of thirty, while one is in the fullness of reason yet has time to lead a life of continuing purification (ar. 40.29). Therefore, one "should not postpone baptism too close to death. What kind of dignity is exhibited by a baptism where the priest has to fight with the physicians and the lawyers at the bedside?" (ar. 4°.11).79 Child baptism is permitted, but only if death seems imminent. Marking the child with the seal of baptism will be its "greatest and most beautiful talisman (tjroAaK-nlPtoV)" (ar. 4°.17, 28). Of equal significance as the time of baptism were Gregory's following points. Baptism-Gregory stressed this at least seven times in Oration 40 alone-was not a rite reserved for the elite. lt was also intended and necessary for the poor. 80 Baptism did not require the attendance of family, friends, and retinue. Nor should one ins ist on being baptized by a metropolitan bishop, or, failing hirn, at the very least a pneumatikosJ abishop who was not married (ar. 4°.25, 26). Other bishops and priests could also baptize. This was the case because in baptism "all the old xapaK'tiipe~ (letters or external markers] disappear. Christ will have been imposed on all in one form (Ilt~ Iloptjrt\ (ar. 40.27). How did such an erasure and reimpression occur in practice? In this context, Gregory likened baptism to rebirth. 81 Resorting to Platonic as well as scriptural notions, Gregory identified three types of the "elect," namely slaves, mercenaries, and sons, allegorically represented by matter, sense, and intellectllogos (ar. 4°.2, 13). Hence, all three aspects are present in each human being, and all three must be therefore be re born, that is, purified. Thus, the entire process of baptism required three stages: one of purification (exorcism and washing); one where that which had been purified was now "prepared" and protected through anointing and sealing; and one in which the new "faith" was written onto the surface thus cleansed and prepared. Expressed through this tripartite preparation was the dual nature of baptism as purification and illumination-essentially, as stated above, a single act. Thus, exorcism and washing purified while anointing,

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sealing, and especially writing illuminated. Bere, writing should ideally be performed on a clean slate; yet Gregory's inscriptions were powerful enough to modify earlier, faulty writings through erasing parts or the whole of old inscriptions (Gr. 40.2-3, 5-8, 31-38,44-45). Thus, baptism as a tripie yet single act reenacted and actualized the fusion of two incommensurable natures, and hence the Incarnation. All acts were powerful. Washing accomplished purification, sealing protected the newly purified against the continuous and even intensifying attacks of demons, now homing in on the newly cleaned space with particular ferocity (Gr. 4°.10, 35, 36).82 Yet it also marked the intimacy of fusing two opposing "essences," the seal and the flesh/soul. Finally, writing continued this process of fusion, further enhancing it through its transformative powers. By writing into the catechumen's soul the characters of the formulation of faith, God through Gregory not only erased the evil, but inscribed the good in its place . . . . Nothing has as yet been marked (-nJ7tOS) into your soul, neither a good nor a bad writing (YPu/l/lu'tos). It is today that we must write in you and impress you ('t'\.)7tcoSilvm) towards perfection. Let us enter ... give me the tablets of your heart (7tAUKUS 'tfts crils KUp8tuS), I am for you Moses .... I write into you with the fingers of God a new covenant, a summary of salvation. . . . I will baptize you in instructing you in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost .... If one has written in you something other than my sermon has set out, come here, so what has been written in you will be modified. I am not without talent to write that into you (KUAAtyPU<j>OS); I write what has been written into me; I teach what has been taught to me from my youth to my present old age. For me the risk, for me also the reward, since I am the administrator of your soul (\jfuXilS OiKOVO/lOS), who give you the perfection through baptism. If you are of the correct disposition, if it is the good text that is written into you, safeguard that which has been written and in the middle of changeable circumstances, keep it unchanged .... Imitate (/lt/lll0-at) but improve upon Pilate who wrote a defective writing-in you the good has been writtenand say to those who want to change your writing: "That which I wrote, I wrote Dohn 19:22]." (40.12, 27,44-45) Written into the tablet of the soul and the memory (like a teacher writing into those of a pupil), the writing thus made indelible completed the fusion: it signaled the assumption of the new XUPUK'tftp, the new letter of the one form in Christ.

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In Gregory's interpretation, all the "actualizers" or markers of baptism demanded human choice and agency because they were all part of an ongoing process of purification. Tears had to be shed day and night because demons and sins did not cease. All thoughts, senses, and limbs had to be cleansed continually through fasting, vigils, tears, compassion towards the needy, and the sharing of one's possessions. The "impression" of baptism aided in maintaining such purity and in its recuperation if lost through negligence, but daily actualization was called for in order to restore the purity of the "first birth" (Or. 4°.31, 38); good works needed to be accrued since bad deeds also continued. The "signs" actualized and marked the potential. They initiated a process of purification, for which the signs and markers in turn provided support and strength. Thus, everything formed a coherent whole. The nature of the divine essence "caused" the "paradoxical" fusion of the divine and the material. This profound mixture was the Incarnation, which baptism actualized in each individual, and thus provided the model for and guarantor of salvation-if properly carried out. Thus, baptism was a moment and a process, where all parts, heaven, earth, change, fusion, inscription, were brought into a coherent whole: the "now" of baptism was "not a determined moment, but it is the entirety of the moment that this 'now' indicates" ('I80u vuv lWtpO<; ... oUX Eva KatpOV, UAAU mlV'ta 'tou "Nuv" 6pi~ov'to<;) (Or. 4°.13).

RIVAL COSMOLOGIES, RIVAL BAPTISMS

Why did Gregory feel it necessary to elaborate to such an extent on baptismin three sermons, one of which, Oration 40 in its present form as revised for publication, is Gregory's second longest oration?83 Why reveal these mysteries to such a degree to uninitiated ears (Or. 40-45)? The reasons are clear. Gregory's interpretation of baptism was neither the only, nor necessarily the most widely favored one in Constantinople at the time; in fact, he appears to have represented the minority opinion. As his own sermons make clear, there were other ways in which Platonic cosmology could be reinterpreted, other emphases placed on divine essence and activity, resulting in seemingly similar but structurally very different ac counts of cosmology, fusion, and baptism (Or. 4°.22, 44; 39.18-19). And these competing interpretations of all aspects of baptism and its cosmological implications enjoyed great favor, especially among those who counted and whose favor Gregory, too, had to win, namely the members of the Constantinopolitan elite. 84 As Gregory hirnself implied, baptism itself, the rite that marked the "belonging to Christ," was an intensely elite event. Of course, one had to be

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baptized in the presence of one's full retinue by the person who possessed the highest power and hence could administer the powerful rite of baptism appropriately without contaminating or, even worse, misdirecting the enormous potency of the act (Or. 40.26). And there were many who presented themselves as powerful initiators. Thus, according to Gregory, Constantinopolitans preferred to be baptized by a metropolitan (Or. 4°.26), 85 or by a pneumatikos. There were "Arians," "Sabellians," and "Novatians," as weIl as the "acerbic calculators of the divinity" (Or. 38.14), those who denied the divinity of the Spirit, those who misunderstood the nature of Christ's fusion, and those who misconstrued baptism's power to purify.86 Behind Gregory's labels and allusions stood influential men. Demophilus, for example, for twenty years the "Arian" bishop of Constantinople, had only been dispatched to the suburbs on 26 November 380, just a month prior to the occasion of Gregory's sermons. There he continued to celebrate Mass. 87 Eunomius, foremost among those whom Gregory described as "calculators of divinity," was at that moment the toast of the town, drawing crowds including some court eunuchs to his estate in nearby Chalcedon. 88 A significant number of persons belonging to the creme de la creme of the Constantinopolitan ascetics denied the divinity of the Spirit, views with an illustrious pedigree since they continued the tradition of Bishop Macedonius, Demophilus's precursor, and which were supported by men of great influence at court. 89 These and other prominent ascetics like Isaac, who had just then been offered housing for himself and his followers on the suburb an estates of not one but two powerful courtiers, Saturnius and Victor, attracted vast numbers of faithful who sought them out on a daily basis. 90 Each and every single one of them promoted different interpretations of the meaning and function of baptism and its theological-cosmological significance, and Gregory's concepts had to answer to and win out over each. The so-called "Novatians," who were very popular among the elite, preferred baptism late in life, considering it a one-time act of complete purification. They rejected all notion of penitence, indeed, the possibility of sin after baptism, and punished the lapsed draconically-in diametric opposition to Gregory's view of purification as a lifelong process, requiring the accumulation of "good works" to counteract evil ones even after baptism. Gregory clearly sought to "convert" "Novatians" to his point of view by offering them inclusion into his fold without rebaptism. In their case, it sufficed to "modify what had been written into" them. Indeed, rebaptism had repeatedly been prohibited by imperial law, but "Novatians" had been excepted from that stipulation. Their baptism was in essence accepted as "right"; should they seek to renounce their heresy, a simple anointing sufficed. 91

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Controversies regarding the divinity of the Holy Spirit had been on Gregory's mind for quite some time. He had formulated his notion of the divine essence as one in three partially in response to such doubts, but when he delivered his orations on baptism the "orthodoxy" of his interpretation was by no means assured. 92 It would be accepted as such some five months later at the ecumenical council gathered in Constantinople in May 38 I, but Gregory's orations delivered in December and J anuary were still "campaign speeches. "93 In this regard, the fact that many of the city's ascetic stars doubted that the Spirit was divine presented a true challenge. These star ascetics were also known as pneumatikoi, "filled with the Spirit," in no small part because of their life-style, which celebrated charismatic poverty. Therefore, these men were also known as "the poor." A significant number of these ascetic "poor" were of the opinion that their daily regime of "tears and groaning," combined with fasting and constant prayer, made baptism entirely superfluous since their life of continuous purification provided direct access to the divine. 94 Given this background, Gregory's insistence that baptism was necessary for the "poor" takes on a dual meaning. 95 On the one hand, Gregory certainly sought to emphasize that the transformative powers of baptism were not reserved for the social elite, but encompassed nearly all strata on the social scale (he does not mention the infamous).96 Therefore, he stressed that one should not feel humiliated when baptized next to a vendor, a debtor, or even a slave: "do not refuse to be baptized with a poor person, you who are rich, or you the noble with a low-dass person, or you the master with your own slave" (Or. 4°.25, 27). Yet, the kind of transformation he envisages is not one between social registers; each person is transformed within his dass, where he becomes perfectible; a shift in "social" inscription would be miraculous. 97 On the other hand, these remarks polemicized against competing pneumatikoi, "poor" ascetics who deemed baptism superfluous. In addition, Gregory's insistence that Christ took on the form of a slave countered those who denied the complete mixture of the divine and the human in the Incarnation. In fact, according to Gregory, wrong teachings regarding the Incarnation, in particular the relationship between Father and Son and the latter's mixture with the human, that is, the "fusion of two paradoxa," abounded. The "Sabellians" erred because they unduly reduced Father and Son into one ("like the Jews"). Others separated them too rigidly, thus introducing subordination ("Arians") or, even worse, a multiplicity of divinities ("paganism"). Yet others denied Christ's complete mixture with the humble aspects of mankind ("Apollinarists") (Or. 38.8, 14-15; 39.12; 4°.11,20-21).98

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The consequences of such different notions of baptism become perhaps most clearly apparent in the thought of Eunomius. Eunomius and a significant proportion ofEastern Christians propagated a baptism neither in Christ's Incarnation, as proposed by Gregory, nor in his Resurrection, but "into the death of Christ. "99 Eunomius's interpretation of divine essence and agency, prompted by a different understanding of Aristotelian language theory, led hirn to formulate a seemingly similar, yet structurally very different Christian exegesis of Platonic cosmology.loo Following Aristotle's dictum that "essence does not admit of degree," Eunomius explained the relationship between Father and Son as one of difference in essence. lOl Thus, he maintained that God was not boundless despite being immaterial and hence without spatial limits, since essences in the infinite chain of being are differentiated by their nature--an understanding diametrically opposed to Gregory's concept of the procession of the divine essence, which resulted in the hypostasis of the Son and the Spirit. 102 Such epistemological differences had cosmological implications. Because, according to Eunomius, essence implied difference, Son and Father differed. In order for the Son to become incarnate, God had to grant an alteration of essence, a dispensation, which made the Son into a "Iesser" divinity. In Demophilus's words, the divine could only come in contact with created matter "as the servant of the intention of theFather." Otherwise, the created would have dissolved upon impact with the divine "like a crate of milk dispersed into the ocean."103 For Eunomius, the Incarnation itself was proof of the Son's essential inferiority. In his view, the Son began his saving journey at the Father's throne, carried it through the history of Israel, achieved genuine incarnation (without the mixing in of a soul), and then ascended to return. 104 The initial difference in the understanding of cosmology led to a difference in its personalization in Christ in the Incarnation. Ir is against these notions that Gregory developed his own, opposing concept of complete fusion. Eunomius's popularity among the classically trained elite of ConstantinopIe is easily explained when one considers that he maintained the inherent difference between the divine and the material in his interpretation of the incarnate Christ. After all, the inherent inferiority of matter implicit in his cosmology was much more in accord with traditional Neo-Platonic cosmologies, no friends of matter. Indeed, Gregory, too, was fully aware of the fact that matter was the complete opposite of all that is divine, and he knew that the idea of divine essence merging with matter was "laughable to the Greeks" (Or. 38.2). For hirn, however, this was precisely the precondition making the Incarnation so powerful: this was the paradox of the fusion. But

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where he plunged ahead and affirmed full mixture, thereby granting human matter the possibility of salvation, others like Eunomius considered such thinking dangerously reckless. 105 Baptism, of course, reflected these underlying differences, as shown by the following quote from the Apostolic Constitutions, edited in a Eunomian milieu: "Baptism, after all , is administered into the Son's death: the water is instead of burial, the seal instead of the Cross; the chrism is the confirrnation of the confession. The Father is mentioned because he is the source and the sender, the Spirit is included because he is the witness. The immersion is the dying with Christ, the ascent the rising with hirn. "106 Hence Gregory's expense of time and effort in demonstrating that baptism is both moment and process, actualization of a perfect fusion yet requiring continuous purification, application of a seal on a cleansed slate yet also an inscription that can be modified. Baptism was the initiation into a mystery, and Gregory needed to establish hirns elf as mystagögos and pneumatikos, as one who possessed the power to transform. He could write, inscribe, stamp, impress, and remodel correctly, since the appropriate words had been written into hirn. Hence, his constant re course to his exegesis of the most powerful cosmologies of the day, Plato through Scripture, and his virtuoso mixing of these two worlds. Because Gregory demonstrably understood the mysterious nature (physis) of the divine as perfectly as anyone and could prove such perfect understanding through his own physis as a xenos, a poor person, an ascetic-looking countryman without a court (Or. 38.6), he could administer the appropriate form of illumination and initiate correctly into the mystery of baptism. Because he understood cosmology correctly he could align those into whose souls he wrote the words of the baptismal faith correctly within that cosmology. Moreover, he could overwrite the false inscriptions of others, an awesome power because it realigned the "letters in heaven," the writings in the heavenly books. Such writing signified a shift in cosmological affiliation, a shift that guaranteed salvation. Hence, by initiating a process of cosmological realignment, Gregory's baptism illuminated by "converting" those thus inscribed towards God. But such conversion did not occur in a flash of light; on the contrary, it required lifelong purification. Baptism added the baptized into the citizenship of heaven, but as for any good citizen, the demand for good works continued. Otherwise, the entire economy of salvation was disrupted. Thus, while interesting for modern scholars studying notions of conversion, these concerns were vital for Gregory as bishop of Constantinople. And he proved persuasive. On 10 January 381,1°7 Theodosius issued a law banning the heretical teachings of the "Arians" and the "Eunomians," but not those of the "Novatians."

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NOTES I.

Still best encapsulated in the definition given by Arthur Derby Nock,

Conversion: The Old and the New Religion /rom Alexander the Great to Augustine 0/ Hippo (London, 1933), pp. 7, and 2-3.

2. For a detailed discussion of post-Enlightenment concepts of conversion see David Murray, "Object Lessons: Fetishism and the Hierarchies of Race and Religion," in Conversion: Old Worlds and New, ed. Kenneth Mills and Anthony Grafton (Rochester, N.Y, forthcoming). 3. Polymnia Athanassiadi and Michael Frede, eds., Pagan Monotheism in Late Antiquity (Oxford, 1999), p. 19. 4. For more detail see my forthcoming book on Gregory of Nazianzus. 5. The date is controversial. Earlier scholarship favored 379/380, i.e., prior to Gregory's nomination as bishop, but the more recent consensus is 380/381. Claudio Moreschini, ed., Paul Gallay, tr., Gregoire de Nazianze, Discours 38-4I, Sources Chretiennes 358 (Paris, 1990), pp. 16-22. 6. For specifics of the following, including bibliography, see Susanna Elm, "A Programmatic Life: Gregory of Nazianzus' Orations 42 and 43 and the Constantinopolitan Elites," Arethusa 33 (2000): 411-27. 7. John F. Matthews, Western Aristocracies and the Imperial Court, A.D. 364-425 (Oxford, 1975), pp. 120-24; Neil McLynn, "Theodosius, Spain, and the Nicene Faith," in Congreso Internacional La Hispania di Teodosio I (Segovia, 1997), pp. 17 1-7 8 . 8. Apparently two separate days of celebration emerged in ConstantinopIe around 380. The earlier one was dedicated to the birth of Christ and the adoration of the Magi, and was perhaps celebrated on 25 December (evoked in Gregory's 01. 38); and the second, later one was dedicated to Christ's Epiphany and Baptism, celebrated on 6 January. This day would have occasioned 01. 39 and 40. Moreschini, Discours 38-4I, pp. 11-17; Jean Mossay, Les /etes de NOel et d'Epiphanie d'apres les sources litteraires cappadociennes du IVe siede (Louvain, 1965), p. 34; Jean Bernardi, La predication des peres cappadociens (Paris, 1968), p. 205; Hermann Usener, Religionsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen, vol. I: Das Weihnachtsfest, 2d. ed. (Bonn, 191 I), pp. 260-69. 9. Geoffrey William Hugo Lampe, The Seal 0/ the Spirit: A Study in the Doctrine 0/ Baptism and Con/irmation in the New Testament and the Fathers (London, 1967), pp. 149-90, 237-46, 249-57; Victor Saxer, Les rites de l'initiation chretienne du IIe au VIe siede: Esquisse historique et signi/ication d'apres leurs principaux temoins (Spoleto, 1988), pp. 297-332. 10. Representative is, for example, the study by Hugh M. Riley, Christian Initiation: A Comparative Study 0/ the Interpretation 0/ the Baptismal Liturgy

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in the Mystagogical Writings 0/ Cyril 0/ Jerttsalem, John Chrysostom, Theodore 0/ Mopsttestia, and Ambrose 0/ Milan (Washington, D.C., 1974), who omits Gregory entirely. For historiographie reasons why so many authors on the subjecr of baptism skip Gregory's Oration 40 altogether, see Elm, "A Programmatie Life," pp. 411-15. Ir. Everett Ferguson, ed., Conversion, Catechttmenate, and Baptism in the Early Chttrch (New York, 1993); Michel Dujarier, A History 0/ the Catechttmenate: The First Six Centttries, tr. Edward Haasl (New York, 1979), pp. 6412 7. 12. Gabriele Winkler's study, Das armenische Initiationsritttale: Entwicklttngsgeschichtliche ttnd litttrgievergleichende U ntersttchungen der Quellen des 3. bis IO. Jahrhunderts, Orientalia Christiana Analeeta 217 (Rome, 1982), is still fundamental, esp. pp. 100-175. 13. See the overview and eritieal remarks of Paul F. Bradshaw, The Search tor the Origins 0/ Christian Worship: Sources and Methods tor the Study 0/ Early Liturgy (New York, 1992), pp. 161-74, 202-4. 14. For the use of the term metanoia to deseribe eonversion see Riehard Lim, "Converting the Unehristianizable: the Baptism of Stage Performers in Late Antiquity," in this volume. 15. Kpacru; and I-Ü~l<; are originally Stoie notions. Orig. De Princ. 2.6.3; Heinz Althaus, Die Heilslehre des heiligen Gregors von Nazianz (Münster, 1972), pp. 57-60 . 16. These issues were also debated in non-Christian Platonie theurgie eircles, e.g. those of Plotinus and Iambliehus; see John F. Finamore, "Plotinus and Iambliehus on Magie and Theurgy," Dionysitts 17 (1999): 83-94; Sarah Iles Johnston, "Rising to the Oeeasion: Theurgieal Aseent in its Cultural Milieu," in Envisioning Magic: A Princeton Seminar and Symposium, ed. Peter Schäfer and Hans G. Kippenberg (Leiden, 1997), pp. 165-94; and espeeially eadem, "Fiat Lux, fiat ritus: Divine Light and the Late Antique Defense of Ritual" (fortheoming). For Platonie illumination language see also John F. Finamore, "Iambliehus on Light and the Transparent," in The Divine lamblichus. ed. Henry J. Blumenthal and E. G. Clark (London, 1993), pp. 55-6 4. 17. Nock, Conversion, pp. 7, and 2-3. I explore the eoneepts of eonseious ehoiee and internal change assoeiated wirh "Noekian" notions of eonversion further in "Inseriptions: Marking the Self in Late Antiquity," in Stigmata: Kiirperinschri/ten, ed. Bettine Menken and Barbara Vinken (Weimar, 200 3). 18. "Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in ehambering and wantonness, not in eontention and envy; but put ye on the Lord J esus Christ . . . I had no wish to read any further, and no need. For in that instanee, with

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the veryending of the sentence, it was as though a light of utter confidence shone in all my heart, and all the darkness of uncertainty vanished away" (Con! 8.12.29). 19. Peter Brown, "Conversion and Christianization in Late Antiquity: The Case of Augustine," in The Challenge 0/ New Historiographies in Late Antiquity, ed. Richard Lim and Carole Straw (Berkeley, Calif., forthcoming), pp. 1-5. I cite from the Davis Center manuscript. 20. Paula Fredricksen, "Paul and Augustine: Conversion Narratives, Orthodox Traditions, and the Retrospective Self," Journal 0/ Theological Stttdies 37 (1986): 3-34; Karl Frederick Morrison, Understanding Conversion (Charlottesville, Va., 1992), pp. 4-27. Peter Brown, Augustine 0/ Hippo: A Biography (Berkeley, Calif., 1967), p. 113, had already described Augustine's conversion as "an astonishingly tranquil process," a crisis of will rather than a flash of insight. See now his reedition with a new epilogue (Berkeley, Calif., 2000). 21. Karl Frederick Morrison, Conversion and Text: The Cases 0/ Augustine 0/ Hippo, Herman-Judah, and Constantine Tsatsos (Charlottesville, Va., 1992), pp. viii-x. For a social scientist's view of early Christian conversion as process, heavily influenced by Shaye Cohen's work, see Nicholas H. Taylor, "The Social Nature of Conversion in the Early Christian World," in Modelling Early Christianity: Social-Scientific Studies 0/ the New Testament in Its Context, ed. Philip F. Esler (London, 1995), pp. 128-36. 22. Though Pauline baptismal language is of course present, Gregory does not make frequent use of it. See Riley, Christian Initiation, pp. 266-79, 283-324, for other roughly contemporary authors; Saxer, Les Rites, pp. 3048, 316-28, begins his section on Gregory by stating that he considered baptism a spiritual rebirth, but does not adduce citations supporting that statement. For a different context, within which such language is avoided, see Elaine Pagels, "Ritual in the Gospel 0/ Phillip," in The Nag Hatnmadi Library after Fifty Years: Proceedings 0/ the I995 Society 0/ Biblical Literature Commemoration, ed. John D. Turner and Anne McGuire (Leiden, 1997), pp. 280-91. 23. Morrison, Understanding Conversion, pp. 1-27, on conversion and metaphor. 24. Susanna Elm, "'Sklave Gottes': Stigmata, Bischöfe und anti-häretische Propaganda im vierten Jahrhundert n. C.," Historische Anthropologie 8 (1999): 345-6 3. 2 5. One form of inscription not discussed here was those on coins, the preserve of civic authorities 'and the emperors. 26. For example, "Five daughters and five sons did Bio bear to Didymon, but she got no joy from one of either. Bio herself, so excellent a mother of

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such fine babes, was not buried by her children, but by strange hands" (Ant. Gr. 7A84). Elizabeth A. Meyer, "Explaining the Epigraphic Habit in the Roman Empire: The Evidence of Epitaphs," Journal of Roman Studies 80 (1990): 74-96; Cf. John Ma, "The Epigraphy of Hellenistic Asia Minor," American Journal of Archaeology 104 (2000): 95-12 1. 27. William V Harris, Ancient Literacy (Cambridge, Mass., 1989), pp. 221-22. 28. "The tomb is that of Samian Philaenis; but be not ashamed, Sir, to speak to me and to approach the stone," (Ant. Gr. 7:450); "I, the stone coffin that contain the head of Heraclitus, was once a rounded and unworn cylinder, but Time has worn me like a shingle" (ibid., p. 479); Helmut Häusle, Das Denkmal als Garant des Nachruhms: Beitrage zur Geschichte und Thematik eines Motivs in lateinischen Inschriften} Zetemata 75 (Munich, 1980), pp. 4 1 -91. 29. The literature and body of evidence are vast; I am focusing here on Asia Minor in late antiquity. Stephen Mitchell, Anatolia: Land} Men} and Gods in Asia Minor, vol. I (Oxford, 1993), pp. 187-97; A. Hoelder, F. Pichler, and G. Tempsky, eds., Tituli Asiae Minoris} 5 vols. (Vienna, 190178), 2, nos. 1296, 1299; or the following: "whosoever lays his heavy hands on this stele, may he leave behind his children as orphans, his wife a widow, and his household a desert" (TAM I, no. 608); "so that no one offends against this stele or the memorial, here stands the staff of the god ofAxiotta and of Anaeitis" (TAM I, no. 172); "we call upon the great divinity that no one offend against the stele" (TAM I, no. 434). See also J. Strubbe, "Cursed Be He That Moves My Bones," in Magika Hiera: Ancient Greek Magic and Religion} ed. Christopher A. Faraone and Dirk Obbink (New York, 1991), pp. 33-59· 30. Mitchell, Anatolia} 1:2°7-17. 3 I. Georg Petzl} Die Beichtinschriften im römischen Kleinasien und der Fromme und Gerechte Gott (Opladen, 1998); Susanna Elm, "'Pierced by Bronze Needles': Anti-Montanist Charges of Ritual Stigmatization in Their FourthCentury Context," Journal of Early Christian Studies 4 (1996): 418-20. 32. For example, curses that bind ("weigh down") the victim or dissolve hirn; see Fritz Graf, Gottesna'he und Schadenzauber: Die Magie in der griechischrömischen Antike (Munich, 1996), pp. 108-83; Augustus Audollent, ed., Defixionum tabellae: Quotquot innotuerunt tam in Graecis Orientis quam in totius Occidentis partibus praeter Atticas in Corpore inscriptionum Atticarum (1904; reprint ed., Frankfurt/Main, 1967); Harris, Ancient Literacy} pp. 218-19. 33. Hipp. Re! 5.20.5-7; Philostr. V. ApolI. 4.30; M. F. Smith, "Fifty-five New Fragments of Diogenes of Oenoanda," Anatolian Studies 28 (197 8): 44.

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34. Harris, Ancient Literacy! pp. 260-61 ; note his argument that graffiti need not correlate to low social status. 35. For an overview of the terminology see Alfred Wilhelm, Beitrage zur griechischen Inschriftenkunde mit einem Anhange über die öffentliche Au/zeichung von Urkunden (Vienna, 19°9), pp. 239-49. 36. Callie Williamson, "Monuments of Bronze: Roman Legal Documents on Bronze Tablets," Classical Antiquity 6 (1987): 180-81. 37. John F. Matthews, Laying Down the Law: A Study 0/ the Theodosian Code (New Haven, Conn., 2000), pp. 195-99. For the inscribing of convicts see PS.-Plut. V decem Gr. 838b; Philo, Quis rer. div. haer 30; Jos. Ant. 16.6.2; Philochoros! Fr. Gr. Rist. 328 F 134; Iambl. V Pyth. 252. Examples of laws explicidy cut into bronze include a Constantinian law from 336/337 exempting municipal officeholders from "compulsory services of an inferior kind"; another one, also from Constantine, exempts officials associated with the court (palatini) from menial public services; a Valentinian law specified that those registered as citizens of Rome and therefore entided to free bread distributions should be engraved and their names displayed at the distribution site; CTh 12.5. 2 ; 6·35-4; 14.7.5. 38. Catherine Virlouvet, Tessera /rumentaria: Les procidures de distribution du bte public a Rome a la /in de la Republique et au dibut de tEmpire (Rome, 1995), pp. 243-3 08 . 39. The literature on this subject is vast; see e.g. A. H. M. Jones's classic "The Caste System in the Later Roman Empire," Eirene 6 (1970): 79-96; or now Peter Garnsey and Caroline Humfress, The Evolution 0/ the Late Antique World (Cambridge, 2000), pp. 81-103. For a different methodological angle see Louis Dumont, Homo hierarchicus: An Essay on the Caste System! tr. Mark Sainsbury (Chicago, 1970). 40. Peter Brown's tide, The Body and Society! really says it all. 41. Elm, "Stigmata/' pp. 345-63; eadem, "Pierced by Bronze Needles," pp. 409-39; W. Mark Gustafson, "Inscripta in fronte: Penal Tattooing in Late Antiquity," Classical Antiquity 16 (1997): 79-105; Constantine Zuckerman, "The Hapless Recruit Psois and the Mighty Anchorite, Apa John," Bulletin 0/ the American Society 0/ Papyrologists 32 (1995): 183-94, I thank Peter Brown for the reference to this excellent article. 42. A distinctive type of writing: Matthews, Laying Down the Law! p. 188. 43. R. Isaac, time of Diocletian; Saul Lieberman, "Roman Legal Insdtudons in Early Rabbinics and in the Acta Martyrum!" ] ewish Quarterly Review! n.s. 35 (1944-45): 6-10. 44. J. Chrys. Homily on Genesis! PG 53:112.

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45. Lieberman, "Roman Legal Institutions," p. 8. 46. Matthews, Laying Down the Law, pp. 187-91; Clifford Ando, Imperial Ideology and Provincial Loyalty in the Roman Empire (Berkeley, Calif., 2000), pp. 73-117; S. R. F. Price, Rituals and Power. The Roman Imperial Cult in Asia Minor (Cambridge, 1984), pp. 87-100, and pp. 170-206 on the identity of imperial image and person; Margareta Benner, The Emperor Says: Studies in the Rhetorical Style in Edicts 0/ the Early Empire (Göteborg, 1975). 47. Matthews, Laying Down the Law, pp. 188-91. 48. Maud Gleason, "Festive Satire: Julian's Misopogon and the New Year at Antioch," Journal 0/ Roman Studies 76 (1986): 106-19. Eunap. Frag. 29.1 (Blockley) 401; CTh 9.34.1; Opt. Mil. 1.17 CSEL 26, 19; Bas. Ep. 289; Eus. HE 9.5.1-2. 49. Gleason, "Festive Satire," pp. 106-19; Jaqueline Long, "Structures of Irony in Julian's Misopogon," Ancient World 24 (1993): 15-23. 50. Thomas M. Banchieh, "Julian's School Laws: Cod. Theod. 13.3.5 and Ep. 42," Ancient World 24 (1993): 5- 14. 51. Gr. Naz. Or. 5-42 (Bernardi). 52. W. Martin Bloomer, "Schooling in Persona: Imagination and Subordination in Roman Education," Classical Antiquity 16 (1997): 58. 53. For discussions of memory, writing, magie, and social order see, e.g., J acqueline de Romilly, lVIagic and Rhetoric in Ancient Greece (Cambridge, Mass., 1975), pp. 69-88; Derek Krueger, "Writing and the Liturgy of Memory in Gregory of Nyssa's Life 0/ Macrina, " Journal 0/ Early Christian Studies 8 (2000): 483-510; Mary Carruthers, The Cra/t 0/ Thought: Meditation, Rhetoric, and the Making 0/ Images, 400-I200 (New York, 1998). See also Paul J. Thibault, Re-reading Saussure: The Dynamics 0/ Signs in Social Life (London, 1997). 54. Bloomer, "Schooling," p. 60. 55. Jocelyn Penny Small, Wax Tablets 0/ the Mind: Cognitive Studies 0/ Memory and Literacy in Classical Antiquity (New York, 1997), pp. 72-159 and passim, combines a discussion of the technical aspects of writing and archiving and ancient and modern theories of memory. What is true for words is also true of images. For the Stoic origins of much of this see Heinrich von Staden, "The Stoic Theory of Perception and its 'Platonic' Critics," in Studies in Perception: Interrelations in the History 0/ Philosophy and Science, ed. Peter K. Machamer and Robert G. Turnbull (Columbus, Ohio, 1978), esp. p. 102. See also Catherine Atherton, The Stoics on Ambiguity (Cambridge, 1993), pp. 39-130, and Franc;ois Refoule, "Reves et vie spirituelle d'apres Evagre le Pontique," La Vie Spirituelle 14 (1961): 47°-516; Susanna Elm, "Evagrius Ponticus' Sententiae ad Virginem," Dumbarton Oaks Papers 45 (199 1): 26 5-95.

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56. A. C. Dionisotti, "From Ausonius' Schooldays? A Schoolbook and Its Relations," Journal 0/ Roman Studies 72 (1982): 83-125; Robert A. Kaster, Guardians 0/ Language: the Grammarian and Society in Late Antiquity (Berkeley, Calif., 1988), pp. 77-78. 57. Doreen Innes and Michael Winterbottom, Sopatros the Rhetor: Studies in the Text 0/ the Diaireseis Zetematon (London, 1988); D. A. Russell, Greek Declamation (Cambridge, 1983). Most of the few studies on declamations are based upon the Latin materials, especially Quintilian. Theabove is primarily derived from the Greek, especially from Sopatros, Libanius, and Himerius, contemporaries and teachers.of Gregory ( ibid., pp. 4-9). Also, Catherine Atherton, ed., Form and Content in Didactic Poetry (Bari, 1998). 58. Pierre Bourdieu's remarks regarding authority are interesting in this context, esp. Language and Symbolic Power, ed. John B. Thompson, tr. Gino Raymond and Matthew Adamson (Cambridge, Mass., 1991), pp. 192, 222, 227. Also helpful is Judith Butler, Excitable Speech: A Politics 0/ the Per/ormative (London, 1997), especially her critique of Bourdieu (and Derrida), pp. 141-59. From a different angle (and with a slightly disingenuous title), George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and fts Challenge to Western Thought (New York, 1999), pp. 337-414. 59. Bloomer, "Schooling," uses the term "mimicry" to describe this process. I think that this term (which in Bloomer's case does not appear to have been informed by the rich notions of postcolonial theorists such as H. Bhabha), does not do justice to this phenomenon: the point is precisely that this is not mimicry or imitation but actually "becoming" the person though mimesis. See also Susanna Elm, "The Diagnostic Gaze: Gregory of Nazianzus' Theory of Orthodox Priesthood in his Orations 6 De Pace and 2 Apologia de Fuga Sua," in Orthodoxie, christianisme, histoirelOrthodoxy, Christianity, History, ed. Susanna Elm, Eric Rebillard, and Antonella Romano (Rome, 2000), pp. 83-100. 60. Again, this is a complex topic with a long and varied history within Greco-Roman philosophy, and its own vast bibliography. Most significant for the following are Eric Junod, ed. and tr., Origene, Philocalie 2I-27: Sur le libre arbitre, Sources Chretiennes 226 (Paris, 1976), pp. 24-65; Alan Scott, Origenes and the Lift 0/ the Stars (Oxford, 1991), pp. 3-62; Leo Koep, Das himmlische Buch in Antike und Christentum, Theophaneia 8 (Bonn, 1952); and more generally, Tamsyn S. Barton, Power and Knowledge: Astrology, Physiognomics, and Medicine zmder the Roman Empire (Ann Arbor, Mich., 1994), pp. 27-94· 61. Carneades made this argument based on the fact that "barbarians" had numerous different customs though they were born under the same astral signs, hence stars were not destiny. Emmanuel Amand de Mendieta,

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Fatalisme et liberte dans Fantiquite grecque: Recherehes sur la survivance de Fargumentation morale anti/ataliste de Carneade chez les philosophes grecs et les theologiens chdtiens des quatre premiers siecles (Louvain, 1945), pp. 55-71; Junod, Origene, pp. 38, 58-59; Scott, Origen, pp. 76-1°3. 62. Plot. Enn. 2.3.7,4-6; 3.1.6, 18-2 4. 63. Orig. Philoc. 23.20; Sei. in ps. 68; Junod, Origene, pp. 54-60. For the widespread notion of the heavenly book, apparently derived from Babylonian sources, see Koep, Das himmlische Buch, 3-49. 64. Gr. Naz. Or. 19.13 and 17, PG 35:1°57 and 1064; Koep, Das himmlische Buch, pp. 54-93. 65. Claudio Moreschini, "Influenze di Origine su Gregorio di Nazianzo," in Atti dell'Academia Toscana di Science e Lettere La Columbaria 44 (1979): 3557· 66. Exod. 3:10; Plato Symp. 210d. 67. Moreschini, Discours 38-4I, pp. 41-42; Karl Holl, Amphilochius von Ikonium in seinem Verhä'ltnis zu den grossen Kappadoziern (Tübingen, 1904; reprint ed., Darmstadt, 1969), pp. 160-70. 68. Gr. Naz. Poem. 1. 1.8, V.100-102; Plato, Rep. 617e. 69. This raises, of course, the thorny issues of sin and the origins of evil, which Gregory, relying on Plato, solved in the tradition of Clement, Protr. I 17. I; Strom. 6.96. I. Gregory's interpretation of the Fall is both pedagogical and "external" : God intended man to be able to contemplate hirn but not without labor. Man needed to prove through the potentiality and then the actuality of sin that he was capable of choosing the good. First Man's disobedience was thus the cause of sin yet suggested by a jealous demon, the "external" aspect. Gr. Naz. Poem. 1.1.7.64-66; Or. 36.5. J. M. Szymusiak, "Gregoire de Nazianze et le peche," Studia Patristica 9 (1966): 2883°5; Alt haus , Die Heilslehre, p. 130; Franz Xaver Portmann, Die gb'ttliche Paidagogia bei Gregor von Nazianz (St. Ottilien, 1954), pp. 68-78. For the ramifications of Gregory's thought on original sin, especially for Augustine, see Berthold Altaner, "Augustinus und Gregor von Nazianz, Gregor von Nyssa," in Kleine Patristische Schriften, ed. Günter Glockmann (Berlin, 1967), pp. 277-85, and Pier Franco Beatrice, Tradux peccati: Alle /onti della dottrina agostiniana deI peccato originale (Milan, 1978), pp. I 15-16, 200-201. 70. Gr. Naz. Or. 2.5. "Terminology of light" is Claudio Moreschini's very apt expression, "Luce e purificazione nella dottrina di Gregorio Nazianzeno," Augustinianum 13 (1973): 535-49· 7 I. Light is also quintessential for Gregory's understanding of the Trinity: "The Trinity sparkies with the splendor of the entire divinity"; Or. 36.5; 39. 1; 40.5; Moreschini, Discours 38-4I, pp. 62-70.

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72 . Plato Rep. 508c; Tim. 45 b-c; also Plotinus Enn. 5.3.8, Origen, and numerous others, Claudio Moreschini, "11 platonismo cristiano di Gregorio Nazianzeno," Annali della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa 3, no. 4 (1974): 1347-92; J ean Danü§lou, Platonisme et theologie mystique: Doctrine spirituelle de Saint Gregoire de Nysse} 2d ed. (Paris, 1954). 73. H. Pinault, Le platonisme de saint Gregoire de Nazianze (La-Roche-surYon, 1925), p. 52. 74. Joseph Ysebaert, Greek Baptismal Terminology: [ts Grigins and Early Development (Nijmegen, 1962 ), pp. 167-74. 75· Gr. Naz. Gr. 2I.l; 28.3 0 ;- 4°.5, 37; 44·3, 9, 17· 76. Gr. Naz. Gr. 2.5; 30.20. 77. Plato Phaidon} 67 b ; Gr. Naz. Gr. 7. 17; 27.3; 40·5; 3I. 1 5, 21; 38.7. 78. Gregory uses approximately twenty-one expressions of baptism; those referring to light and purity predominate, followed by those denoting "marking." Rebirth is used very rarely, see note 81 below. Moreschini, Discours 3 8-4 I } p. 357· 79. For the rarity of delayed baptism, for example in North Africa, see Eric Rebillard, "Le figure du catechumene et le probleme du delai du bapteme dans la pastorale de saint Augustin, " in Augustin predicateur (3954I I)} ed. G. Madec (Paris, 1998), pp. 285-92. 80. Gr. Naz. Gr. 32 .22 ; 40.8, 10, 25-27; 8I. Gr. Naz. Gr. 4°.2, 8; 39.2 and 6 are brief allusions to the widespread notion of baptism as rebirth following J ohn 3: 5-6. This notion plays a truly minimal role in Gregory's conceptualization, pace Saxer, Rites} p. 304. 82. Note also Gregory's use of baptism as purifying fire in Gr. 4°.36. Gr. Naz. Poem. I.2.1, 162S. Lampe, The Seal 0/ the Spirit} pp. 261-96. To cite a remark of Emperor Julian: "The whole sum of Christian philosophy consists in two things, whistling to keep away the demons and making the sign of the cross on their foreheads." (Ep. 79). 83. Moreschini, Discours 38-4I} p. 17; only Gr. 4 "Against Julian" and 43 "In Praise of Basil" are slightly longer. 84. See his explicit recommendation of baptism as essential for those engaged in public office, Gr. 4°.19. 85. For example, by the metropolitan at that time still resident in Heracleia, or by the metropolitan in J erusalem, so Gregory; Gilbert Dagron, N aissance d} une capitale: Constantinople et ses [nstitutions de 330 a 45 I (Paris, 19 8 4), pp. 44 6 , 459· 86. Hermann Dörrie, "Die Epiphanias-Predigt des Gregor von Nazianz (Horn. 39) und ihre geistesgeschichtliche Bedeutung," in Kyriakon: Festschrift Johannes Quasten} vol. I (Münster, 1970), pp. 4°9-23.

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87. Soc. HE 5.7; Soz. HE 7.5.5-7. Matthews, Western AristocraciesJ p. 122. 88. Soz. HE 7.17.7; 7.6.2; cf. Soc. HE 5.20. 89. Soc. HE 5.8; Wolf D. Hauschild, "Die Pneumatomachen: Eine Untersuchung zur Dogmengeschichte des vierten Jahrhunderts" (Diss., Hamburg, 1967), pp. 170-201; Holl, AmphilochiusJ pp. 160-70. Philip Rousseau, Basil 0/ Caesarea (Berkeley, Calif., 1994), pp. 245-69. 90. Daniel Caner, Wandering J Begging Monks: Spiritual Authority and the Promotion 0/ Monasticism in Late Antiquity (Berkeley, Calif., 2002), pp. 19099· 91. Gr. Naz. Gr. 39.18-19; CTh 16.6.2,; Can. Laod. 7; Bas. Ep. 188. Martin Wall raff, "Die Geschichte des Novatianismus seit dem vierten Jahrhundert im Osten," Journal 0/ Ancient Christianity I (1997): 257-63. 92. Bas. De Spirit. 9.22-23. 93. Dörrie, "Die Epiphanias-Predigt," pp. 4°9-11. 94. See Adelphius's "confession" that "there is no benefit from baptism for those who receive it for only continuous prayer can drive out the indwelling demon," at the "anti-Messalian" synod of Antioch in the early 380s; Photius Bib. 52; Theod. HE 4.11.7; Caner, WanderingJ Begging Monks J pp. 83- 1 57. 95. A year earlier, while he was in the process of baptizing, ascetics and "poor" had "stoned" Gregory, Ep. 77. 1-3. 78.1-4. 96. See Richard Lim, "Converting the Unchristianizable: The Baptism 0/ Stage Performers in Late Antiquity," in this volume for the continuing exclusion of actors and other infamous persons. 97. As in Augustine's City 0/ God? Gregory's Orations 38 and 39 were certainly among those used by Augustine, in Rufinus's Latin translation made in 399/400; Claudio Moreschini, "Rufino traduttore di Gregorio di Nazianzeno," in Rufino di Concordia e il SZIO tempoJ vol. I, Antichira altoadriatiche 31 (Udine, 1987), pp. 228-30. Peter Brown, Poverty and Leadership in the Later Roman EmpireJ The Menachem Stern J erusalem Lectures 2000 (Hanover, N.H., 2002), pp. 74-112. 98. Dörrie, "Die Epiphanias-Predigt," pp. 4°9-23; Benoit Pruche, tr., Basile de Cisaree: Traiti du Saint-EspritJ Sources Chretiennes 17 (Paris, 1947), p.88. 99. Philostorgius described this as the practice of his own church in Constantinople, HE 10-4; Soc. HE 6.26.2, Soz. HE 6.26-4; Theod. Haer. 4.3; Bas. De Spirit. 12.28.1-7· 100. Susanna Elm, "Orthodoxy and the True Philosophical Life: Julian and Gregory of Nazianzus," Studia Patristica 37 (2001): 69-85. 101. Arist. Cat. 5 (3.33-37)·

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I02. Eun. Apol. 23-4.-IO. I03. Philost. HE 9.I4. I04. Eun. Expos. Fidei 3.33-42. Bas. Eun. 2.22.27-32; Richard Vaggione, Eunomius of Cyzicus and the Nicene Revolution (Oxford, 2000), pp. 32829; Richard P. C. Hanson, "The Arian Doctrine of the Incarnation," in Arianism: Historical and Theological Reassessments: Papers from the Ninth International Conference on Patristic Studies, September 5-IO, I983, Oxford, England, ed. Robert C. Gregg (Cambridge, Mass., I985), pp. I8I-2 I I. I05. Theurgy and its teachings of heavenly ascent (for example in Iamblichus) was part and parcel of that debate, and here too the language of illumination and inscription was prevalent; Radcliffe G. Edmonds III, "At the Seizure of the Moon: The Absence of the Moon in the Mithras Liturgy" (unpublished paper), pp. I-2 I; Johnston, "Rising to the Occasion," pp. I65-94; and especially eadem, "Piat Lux, fiat ritus." I06. Const. App. 3.I6.20-I7.IO; reflecting the alterations of the fourthcentury editor, cf. Didasc. 3.I2.3. In fact, the "Eunomian" circles appear to have alte red their baptismal ritual in the early 380s, probably around 383/ 384. Maurice Wiles, "Tripie and Single Immersion: Baptism in the Arian Controversy," Studia Patristica 30 (I997): 337-49; Vaggione, Ettnomius, pp. 324-42; Rowan Williams, "Baptism and the Arian Controversy," in Arianism after Arius: Essays on the Development of the Fourth Century Trinitarian Conf/icts, ed. Michel R. Barnes (Edinburgh, I993), pp. I49-80. I07. CTh. I6.5.6.

2 THE POLITICS OF PASSING ]USTIN MARTYR'S CONVERSION AS A PROBLEM OF "HELLENIZATION"

REBECCA

LYMAN

At the end of his book Culture and Imperialism} Edward Said summarized the ironie legacy of European imperialism for the twentieth century: "Imperialism consolidated the mixture of cultures and legacies on a global scale. But its worst and most paradoxical gift was to allow people to believe that they were only, mainly, exclusively, white, Black, or Western, or Oriental."l Recent studies of the history of religion in late antiquity have begun to make similar claims regarding the false clarity of the traditional narrative of emerging "Christianity" in contrast to "Judaism" or "Hellenism."2 While the Roman imperial context is of course not strictly equivalent to the nineteenth century, the ancient era does share social and ideological issues of multiple identities shaped by varied local traditions and centralized political power. As Said went on to say, "Yet just as human beings make their own history, they also make their cultures and ethnic identities. No one can deny the persisting continuities of long traditions ... national languages, and cultural geographies, but there seems no reason except fear and prejudice to keep insisting on the separation and distinctiveness, as if that was all human life was about."3 Sorting out ancient identities is an old historical problem, but unfortunately centuries of scholarship have been based on comparison and opposition, usually linked to the institutional self-identity of a single normative Christianity.4 In this paper I will examine how these oppositions have obscured our understanding of Justin and his "conversion." The contrast between "Christianity" and "Hellenism" is often coded through a contrast of "bishops" and "teachers" who in turn embody "orthodoxy," i.e. normative Christianity, and "heresy," the multiple and often enculturated forms of belief. Figures such as Justin who cross such boundaries appear either muddled or duplicitous. Drawing on the theoretical work of postcolonialism concerning identities and cultures as well as on recent work on

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late antique religion, I want to read the Christian authors of the second century as direcdy addressing issues of multiple authorities and identities in Roman Hellenism. By unraveling strategies of assimilation as weIl as realities of estrangement in the theological writings of Justin, I will recover a difIerent ideological and social context for the emergence of the first Christian literary works of "heresiology" and "apologetics." This shift in historical reconstruction will help us to locate Justin's conversion to Christianity in new conceptual space. Justin was an Asian immigrant to the West as weIl as a convert to a persecuted cult, whose Hellenistic education allowed hirn to "pass" in several worlds. "Passing" as used he re simply refers to the successful participation by individuals in multiple layers of dominant and dominated culture, especially the attempt by "outsiders" to master attributes or tools of "insiders" in order to gain recognition and power through the hegemonic culture itself. This proce~s of mobility, if common, is also highly nuanced and individual according to the ambitions, convictions, and experiences of each person; assimilation in being an acquired state necessarily contains aspects of alienation, but these can be turned in various directions. 5 Given this complex and individual social reality, the simple contrast of "Christianity" to "Hellenism" is not sufficient to unravel the cultural and historical realities of second-century provinciallife. The ancient authors of varying status, who defined themselves and others by relation to local traditions, "barbarian origins," and Roman political dominance, as weIl as the elite literary and philosophical paideia of Hellenism, preserve complex evidence of how multiple choices were negotiated. Educated authors of Christian identification need to be understood within the same cultural context. 6 The persisting historiographical ambivalence concerning Justin as a Christian philosopher therefore reveals the inadequacy of the traditional categories: is Justin merely "passing" in the Hellenic literary culture through the language and form of his Apology, yet do these profoundly philosophical interests prevent hirn from "passing" as orthodox in the later Christian narrative? Drawing on Homi Bhabha's work on mimicry, we note that figures of "doubling" disrupt normatiye structures of authority by their simultaneous resemblance and disavowal: "The ambivalence of colonial authority repeatedly turns from mimicry--the difference which is almost nothing but not quite--to menace--a difference that is almost total, but not quite."7 This description of "mimicry" and "rnenace" echoes the criticisms of ancient Christianityas an inadequate, but ultimately destructive, pseudo-philosophy;8 yet, in "orthodox" discourse philosophy is the "rnenace" which leads to heresy, equally inadequate and destructive. Justin's "double" commitment

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therefore makes hirn suspect as a Christian as well as a philosopher, fitting the definition of neither dialectical philosophy nor orthodox Christianity.9 However, if we restore a reading of Justin as a "coionial" subject as well as a religious one, we may begin to recover an intelligible social space of selection and self-definition among competing ideologies which he inhabited as a second-century teacher. From this perspective his account of conversion and truth may reveal innovation and creativity rather than inadequacy. Postcolonial theorists have noted the "terror" and "instability" which the appearance of "hybridity" creates in the midst of traditional authorities. If traditional oppositions such as "Hellenie" and "barbarian" have been set to stabilize intellectual and social power, authors and discourses which display different cultural relations or readings destabilize existing ideologies: "Hybridity intervenes in the exercise of authority not merely to indicate the impossibility of its identity, but to represent the unpredictability of its presence."lO In the initial appearance hybridity is therefore "subversive" for it transgresses the traditional ideological boundaries, and by its very existence denies, or at least questions, the assumed reality of such contrasting categories: "What is irremediably estranging is the presence of thehybrid . . . the differences in cultures can no longer be identified or evaluated as objects of epistemological or moral contemplation: cultural differences are not simply there to be seen or appropriated."ll If one acknowledges the multiplicity of forms of pre-Nicene Christianity as well as its incessant internal conflict over theological and exegetical authority, this analysis of "hybridity" as problematic and unstable rather than a tertium quid which balances difference is helpful to understanding the emergence of our authors and textsY Justin's mimesis of philosophical forms together with his selfidentification as a philosopher therefore represented both critique and dependence. 13 As an "apologist" he did not translate an existing "religion" into another "culture" for explanation and defense as often assumed, but reflects an attempt within Roman Hellenism as an Asian provincial to address contemporary problems of religious authenticity and cultural multiplicity. Baptism and conversion only began rather than ended a conversation about religious identity.14 The continuing reevaluation of the "Hellenization" of "Christianity," especially in the interpretation of second-century figures such as Justin, refleets therefore an indeterminacy of religion and culture in Roman Hellenism itself. In the second century religious energy focused not on a failure of nerve, but on a necessity of choice among a growing complexity of philosophies and local cults. The political expansion and revitalized Hellenism of Trajan and Hadrian had led to a new order of centralized imperial authority, and therefore the dose juxtaposition of many formerly local traditions of

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piety and thought beneath an uneasy and negotiated Roman tolerance. Given the burst of literary activity which produced new forms of religion and philosophy in the imperial period, we should no longer dismiss this period as merely "syncretistic": it was an era of unique religious opportunity and creativity.15 Ideologically, this context provoked searches for universalism, both in Hellenistic histories of particular peoples as weIl as in scholastic philosophies, each seeking to provide a compelling account of the common traditions which could become a dominant cultural narrative for the political transitions of the empire; for minority peoples or groups this was a bid for religious legitimacy as weIl as political survival under Roman hegemony.16 Within Platonism a lively, if conservative, scholasticism originated in Asia Minor, claiming to recover and res tore the pure teachings of Plato; Numenius of Apamea in the second century, an author popular with Christian intellectuals such as Justin, Origen, and Eusebius, offered a universal philosophy which lay behind Plato and Pythagoras in Egyptian, Persian, and Hebrew wisdom. 17 This age of the genos apology and the scholastic philosopher was therefore simultaneously innovative and conservative as individuals argued the antiquity and universality of their own religion or philosophy and the counterfeit nature of others. Our collective label of "Roman Hellenism" therefore overshadows a lively, often chafing, multiplicity of locative and intellectual traditions which were shaped in turn by the challenges and influences of Roman hegemony and Hellenistic tradition. In fact, "Hellenism . . . represented language, thought, mythology, and images that constituted an extraordinarily flexible medium of both cultural and religious expression. Ir was a medium not necessarily antithetical to local or indigenous traditions."lS As Erich Gruen has noted concerning the writings of first-century Judaism, these were not "permeated" with Hellenism, but were an example of Hellenism itself. 19 These broad cultural generalizations about late antique culture omit the concrete particulars of who was writing on these problems. As Maude Gleason has pointed out, in such an era of political destabilization, there was tremendous pressure for self-invention. Paideia as the traditional, conservative, and to some extent universalized cultural package of manners and education provided legitimate social mobility as some young men used rhetorical competence to gain status and income, yet this was a treacherous and complex negotiation up a steep cultural slope in the age of ambition and Roman dominance. 20 The tensions between the horizontal expansion of the elites through the literary acquisition of a dominant Greek culture and the reality of cultural distinctions of the Roman Empire were visible in different choices of provincial intellectuals, however ambitious; as the identity of being Greek became more universal, it equally became more difficult

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to exhibit and maintain. 21 Competition for patronage was the sharp and very public reality of this new climate of opportunity. Averil Cameron comments that Christians talked themselves into power, but largely everyone did. 22 In the politics of personal ambition which undergirds the production of literary works in this period, the issues of local and universal or innovation and tradition are central factors to be negotiated personally and demonstrated textually. Embarrassing provincial origins or new religious conversionscan in fact provide yet another means to display philotimia in the right hands: Lucian, for example, used parodies of his Syrian background to show his ambition and upward mobility as an educated man; such wit however would not preclude criticism of Roman political and cultural limitations in contrast to Hellenic culture. 23 Bringing together the earlier descriptions of this imperial age such as "anxiety" or "claustrophobia," we now recognize in this period unprecedented social and geographical mobility, ideological and philosophical creativity, and competition as central to the literary construction of the late antique "self."24 Traditionally, normative Christianity has been seen as surviving this plurality--or perhaps, to use a Californian image, surfing over it aIl-by defensive theology, clear spiritual authority in the succession of bishops, a central cultic community, and the priority of a revealed, simple truth. Certain individuals participated in competitive intellectual culture only out of apologetic necessity, and those who embraced it too seriously were in peril, notably Origen, the poster child of overenthusiastic Christi an intellectuais. The defeat of "Gnosticism" in the second century, esoteric and intellectual at once, can be seen as a sort of cultural exorcism of Hellenistic rationalism, and superstition. 25 This traditional narrative creates and sustains Christian uniqueness by selective contrasts to the "inchoate" plurality of paganism, the "rationalism" of philosophy, the "static" forms of Judaism, and the "speculative elitism" of Gnosticism. However, to return to the insights of Edward Said, in the literary conflicts of Roman Hellenism, no one in the end was purely one thing, especially not the socially mobile provincial intelligentsia who wrote the majority of contemporary literature; not even the emperor Marcus Aurelius himself, writing self-consciously in Greek and embracing a philosophy which had been labeled traitorous a century before. 26 The polemical contrast of "Hellenism" to "Christianity" was a product of the fourth century.27 Distinctions both religious and cultural of course existed with regard to authoritative texts, practices of monotheism or polytheism, or use of the dialectic, and provoked not only literary polemic, but physical violence; these conflicts however were occurring within "Christian" and "Jewish" communities as weIl as in relation to those outside. It is not at all clear, therefore, whether converts to Christianity were "defecting"

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from Hellenism in the second century, or rather participating in a cultural shift in which some individuals revised sources of Greek culture in order to embrace diversity and antiquity of traditions. 28 Pythagorean Platonists such as Numenius or Ammonius were willing to embrace forms of philosophy which incorporated local, i.e. "barbarian," sources of ancient wisdom as well as an appeal to transcendent, if not mystically revealed, knowledge. 29 If we must conceive of Hellenism more broadly, then we also need to reevaluate our assumptions concerning Christianity. For example F. Wisse in an important article on diversity in second-century Christianity noted that multiplicity was "tolerated because there was not equipment to refute it."30 Such a statement historicizes a consistent "orthodox" strategy as well as a normative concern for unity. Multiplicity itself, therefore, is adeparture from the existing norm, and dissenters are commonly described in pejorative terms which locate them closer to the "Hellenic" culture around them, such as "scholastic," "teachers," "speculative," or "competitive"; in contrast the mainstream community is described as "communal" and "worship centered" with "episcopal leadership."31 This characterization, most recently maintained by D. Brakke and R. Williams, has a long historiographical trail in which the later definitions of leadership, community, and spirituality have been used to sift the ambiguities and silences of second-century Christianity.32 Most simply, the contrast of "teachers" and "bishops" marks degrees of assimilation "toward" culture and therefore "away" from cult, supposedly identifying primary religious or cultural identity and motivation. However, recent historical studies challenge such categorization in the second century. U. Neymeyr has confirmed a primary Christian self-identity of the many "teachers" of the era. 33 Following the work of P. Lampe on the variety of house churches in Rome, A. Brent has argued that in the early centuries "school and church are simply value judgments applied to what in appearance and organization are very similar organizations."34 Our limited and scattered liturgical and archaeological evidence should also make us extremely cautious about assuming the existence of a normative "church" rather than a group of individual and varied communities; Justin, a teacher, remains the primary source for liturgical acts in Rome in the second century.35 We cannot therefore assume the existence of a normative institutional identity or piety, when it is in fact being created through the literary works and letters of the period. 36 The problem, then, of trying to read Justin as a cultural work in progress, i.e. as a Christian teacher or philosopher, rather than a finished canonical subject, i.e. as an Apologist, is part of our struggle historically and ideologically to read second-century Christianity itself as a work in progress. lronically, due to Justin's, and later Irenaeus's, successful polemics against

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"deviant" teachers, we hesitate to give hirn as a "teacher" a central place in the construction of orthodox Christianity identity.37 However, if we conceive of the creative space of the second century as including the negotiation of various cultural streams as "hybrids," we may be able to give more credence to the multiple identities and mixed genres of the authors themselves. 38 Restoring the cultural necessities as well as the intellectual agency of Justin are essential to unraveling his religion: "The issue here is not whether a local culture is pure or derivative, unitary or contested. Nor is it being proposed that there is a super causality . . . that determines how everybody on the ground must live. I am concerned with how systematicity ... is apprehended, represented and used ras} a mode of human agency, one that conditions other people's lives."39 Justin's literary presentation of "Christianity" as the sum of ancient wisdom preserves the view, the "systematicity" of identity, of one provincial intellectual. Justin's complex colonial background has generally been overshadowed by the universalism of his theology. He hirnself outlines his genealogy in the First Apology: "On behalf of people of every nation who are unjustly hated and grossly abused, I, Justin, son of Priscus and grandson of Bacchius, from Flavia Neapolis in Syria-Palestine, ... myself being one of them:"40 Embodying the contemporary palimpsest of Roman identity in the East, Justin's own name and those of his father, city, and province are Latin; his town in Samaria acquired this name relatively recently, and "Syria-Palestine" of course came into existence after the Bar Kochba war in 132. The social historians Millar and Brown point out Justin's colonial past, noting hirn as one of many uprooted and dislocated men of Asia Minor who came west. 41 Indeed, Millar notes that Justin is unusual in reflecting so much of his local culture and languages in his work. 42 Notably, most theological historians have tended to overlook or minimize this evidence, preferring to focus upon and confirm Justin's Hellenistic pedigree: Grant noted that Justin called hirnself a "Samaritan", though his family names "reflect a family fully tuned to Hellenism."43 Within the overarching hermeneutical contrast of Christianity and Hellenism, Justin's provincial origins usually disappear. The complexity of his relation to Roman hegemony is framed only in religious terms, as a Christian, just as his cultural interests have been flattened into "Hellenism." Framed by anachronistic images of a normative "church," we receive Justin the "Apologist" whose philosophical credentials are essential to protecting the intellectual origins of Christian theology. Historically, this primary ideological identity in fact represents Justin's provincial success. Just as paideia provided another provincial, Favorinus, with a new imperial identity, so for Justin Christianity provides a universalizing identity; the goal of second-century Hellenism, especially for

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certain educated young men, was to unite and transcend local identities through philosophy.44 However, Hellenism also provided the means to challenge Roman dominance, especially in defending local religious practice. 45 Paideia as weIl as conversion therefore allowed a Samaritan to address the emperors critically as fellow philosophers: "For thus both rulers and subjects would reap benefit .... For unless both rulers and ruled love wisdom, it is impossible to make cities prosper."46 If historically and culturally essential to his social mobility and intellectual authority, Justin's philosophical identity, as we have seen, remains problematic within the conventional narrative, and is explicitly personalized in order to preserve the primacy of a baptismal identityY His narrative of conversion from Stoic to Peripatetic to Pythagorean to Platonist to Christian has often been explained as "conventional," like his gown, a literary trapping to make his new Christian discourse palatable in the mainstream or to distinguish hirn from Judaism. 48 Such descriptions reflect the assumpti on that J ustin's work as a teacher was distinct from or ancillary to a normative Christianity of the time: "Such schools were only indirectly subject to the discipline of the church which, at least in second century Rome, was not much concerned with philosophical or theological matters."49 Even Grant's recent attempt at balance maintains the binary ring: "Justin was not simply a philosopher ... he was a churchman."50 Justin's identity in these historical narratives has been split and prioritized in order to fit the conventional opposition of Hellenism and Christianity as weIl as the taxonomy of communal bishops and marginal teachers. Ir is almost impossible to visualize Justin as a free-willed agent of philosophical Christianity when the social or ideological space for such action has been erased: if a philosopher, he must by definition be idiosyncratic and if a Christian, his philosophical interests must be subordinate to his religious identity. The underlying discomfort is the parallel, however triumphant, that Justin, dearly a member of a Roman Christian community, draws between his own philosophical searches and his own, if not others', conversion to Christianity.51 His description of a philosophical search in both his Dialogtte and the Acta of his martyrdom reveal that Christianity in practice and teaching summed up the partial answers he al ready knew: "I have tried to learn from all teachings, but I came to accept the true teachings of the Christians"; "I found this philosophy alone to be safe and profitable. Thus, for this reason, I am a philosopher."52 Do we detect a double truth where Justin, "a serious philosopher," found only one?53 The problem lies perhaps less in Justin's choice of dress after baptism than in our suspicions about "Christianity" and "Hellenism. " When framed by the larger intellectual culture, Justin's literary work is highly conventional,

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if contentious in arguing for Christian superiority as the fullness of divine truth. The Apologies followed the usual forms for defending the cultural antiguity of a people, although emphasizing, in light of Numenian Platonism, that the original and transcendent truth was now revealed in Christianity.54 As Wazink, Mortley, and Droge point out, appeals to universality based on hierarchies of tradition and strategies of assimilation were commonplace in the second century.55 Underlying such arguments about religious hegemony was, however, a profound sense of cultural interconnection as well as distinction and hierarchy common to provincial life of the period: "That Zenobia could be a Roman to the Romans and an Arab to the Arabs can only be explained by the miraculous refracting power of Hellenism."56 Justin's appeal to the ultimate authority of divine revelation in prophetic texts or to Jesus as the Logos, the original truth sought by human philosophers, is confrontational, but it is potentially powerful precisely because of its Hellenistic lineage in establishing truth through antiguity and transcendence. 57 However, the ambivalence or duplicity of Justin for many lies exactly here, as he claimed to remain a philosopher; language of faith or revelation takes us out of philosophical discourse and for some, out of Hellenism entirely.58 Returning to the concept of "hybrid," we see Justin's answer to a "safe" and "profitable" philosophy as reflecting both opposition and assimilation. The traditional authority of philosophy is present, but it has been displaced, if not overshadowed, by a claim of original wisdom, "beyond demonstration," which the philosophers of various schools sought. Yet, it is precisely this one transcendent and revealed truth which continues to confirm the value of Plato or the heroism of Socrates as weIl as the salvation of Christians. Justin's reconciliation of contemporary multiplicity or skepticism is thus shown in his "hybrid." In bringing together revealed texts and the history of philosophy he has shifted cultural categories rather than destroyed them; his critical and creative use of concepts has displaced the authority of philosophy, yet the truth of its concepts such as transcendence and mediation remain essential to his thought. 59 This is coherent culturally only for a Hellenist, who accepts a unity of cultures and literatures, rather than their opposition. Just as Justin's identity was confirmed by his education, dress, and profession as a teacher in Rome, in spite of his provincial background, so his potentially barbaric faith was legitimated by its Platonic analogies and its fulfillment of ancient prophecies. These ontological gualities were essential to authority in contemporary intellectual culture, not mere adornments acguired in order to "pass" undisturbed, the gown of Justin to be shed at will. For Justin, Christianity, if superior, was congruent with philosophy: "Brief and concise speech fell from hirn, for he was no sophist, but his word was the power of God. "60

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The discomfort and ambiguity for Christians and critics alike therefore lie in this hybrid vision of philosophical Christianity. Revealed truth may be readily accessible, but it is remains difficult to discern. Although Justin asserted the absolute authority of his new philosophy based on Hebrew Scripture and the incarnation of the true Logos in Jesus, truth and falsity remain intertwined within the multiplicity of locative religions, texts, stories, and competing philosophies. The contemporary problem with truth as Justin unravels it in his Apologies is less opposition of traditions than deceptive likeness and diabolical imitation. As Justin pointed out, "I confess that I both pray and with all my strehgth strive to be found a Christian, not because the teachings of Plato are different from those of Christ, but because they are not in every respect equal. ... For the seed and imitation of something . . . is one thing, and another is the thing itself."61 Indeed, philosophy had been "passing" as Christianity, that is as "truth," when in fact the complete truth lay only in the Word. Justin ridiculed the traditional cults or myths for their immorality: these in fact were demonie imitations of Christian acts, however transcendent philosophy provided the very means to criticize the cult. 62 The transcendent unity of Pythagorean Platonism therefore allowed Justin to claim the monotheism of philosophy and Hebrew Scripture while criticizing polytheistic practice and Hebrew law. 63 Such distinctions between cult and philosophy of course appeared illegitimate to Celsus, who attacked the menace of Christian mimicry by defending the true Word of ancient Hellenism; Christians had no right to either Jewish wisdom or Hellenie philosophy to defend their recent and superstitious practices, since to be so poody Hellenized was not to be Greek at al1. 64 The unsetding power of Justin's "mimicry" of Hellenism while describing Christianity as a transcendent philosophy--almost the same, but not quite--is further reflected in his description of dissent as "heresy." As Le Boulluec has pointed out, the construction of apologetics was the birth of heresiology, since the same historiographical traditions allowed Justin to marginalize those teachers he considered to be false. 65 Le Boulluec's masterful study of the development of heresiology, upon which I am gratefully dependent, focuses however only on the rhetorical forms of Justin, and attributes these developments to the institutional growth of the "church" which necessitated defense and definition in regard to Hellenism and dissent. 66 Rather than locate the historical agency in a proto-Catholic community whose existence and character are largely assumed, I wish to show how Justin's intellectual argument of mimicry to subvert philosophical authority necessarily led to the subversion of orthodox Christianity itself. Hairesis in Justin was no longer a neutral opinion or sect, but a diabolical error: "heresy."67 Yet", in contrast to his successors such as Irenaeus, Tatian, or Tertullian,

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Justin does not describe philosophy as hairesis, nor is hairesis aseparate school or succession. Hairesis is a wrong opinion or perversion of truth, such as magie or Gnosticism; as in the understanding of Numenius, the existence of multiplicity shows the corruption of the original single truth. 68 By their association with these lower forms of religious belief, heretics are to the orthodox as "Christians' would be to Celsus, reflecting superstition, obstinacy, and ignorance. Hairesis has therefore become the destructive mimicry of orthodoxy. J ust as the pagan sacrifices were demo nie counterfeits of the sacraments, so hairesis was the demonie counterfeit of the truth, characterized by innovation, human ingenuity, and multiplicity: "For those who are called demons strive for nothing else than to take away people from God who made them and from Christ ... they have pinned down by earthly things [idolatry} ... and even trip up those who devote themselves to the contemplation of things divine."69 The authority and attributes of a philosophical transcendence therefore characterized "orthodox" Christianity, which through the authority of Hebrew Scripture claimed the positive attributes of "good" Hellenism in its appeal to antiquity, divine revelation, and simple morality. Heresy is therefore "bad" Hellenism in its association with magie and falsity.70 Given the high stakes of persecution and philosophical truth in the second century, this construction of Christianity as the origin of philosophy itself was a serious play for life and death by a colonial intellectual such as Justin. The attempted task was focusing the spectrum of traditions and identities into a single light through ranking, interpretation, and comparison. Jesus as the "whoie" Logos could summarize ancient wisdom as weIl as universal enlightenment: "For with what reason should we believe of a crucified man that He is the First-begotten of the Unbegotten ... unless we had found testimonies ... and unless we had seen that things had thus happened--the devastation of the land of the J ews and men and women of every race persuaded by the teaching ... ?"71 Christianity could be both a philosophy, and more, just as Justin wears a cloak and is baptized, is both a Roman and a Samaritan. Justin's powerful construction of a Logos Christianity therefore demonstrated infinite possibilities for assimilation and alienation. On one hand he included various traditions since one Word is the source of all knowledge: "Whatever were rightly said among all people are the property of us Christians."72 On the other hand, the same quotation proclaims the authority of origins to discipline diversity in light of one Christian truth. Such a construction of "universal" truth did not in fact provide the dogmatic stability or secure identity which is often assumed in narratives of "orthodoxy." The dynamic argument of "almost the same, but not quite" or "almost totaIly different, but not quite" creates an indeterminacy at the boundary

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which encourages both resistance to and acceptance of surrounding cultures, and most importantly, an acute need for ongoing distinction, discernment, and exegesis within the community of the one logos. Not only an intellectual problem, the demonization of hairesis spiritually did not throw argument and opinion into stark contrast with revealed truth, but rather provoked more intense need for control and definition to maintain authenticity. Justin's adaptation of contemporary philosophical structure to reveal Christian superiority and transcendence therefore encouraged the suspicion of the continuing subversion of truth itself, whether inside or outside of the community. Irenaeus shifted this vision of philosophical incompleteness into a stark confrontation between Christianity and Hellenism, orthodoxy and heresy. Writing about thirty years later after a bitter and well-publicized persecution, he took a distinctly different line than his teacher, associating heresy explicitly with philosophy. As with Justin, le Boulluec reads this rhetorical and theological development in line with an assumed institutional developme nt of Christianity: if Justin had used philosophy to distinguish the "church" from Judaism, Irenaeus must now balance assimilation with "Hellenism."73 Grant, however, provides a more concrete and suggestive interpretation of the attitude of Irenaeus, and even more stridently, Tatian: Justin's apology had failed, he had been killed, and the persecution at lyons had revealed the fragility of Christian everyday existence. 74 Tatian's attack therefore focused on the knowing deception of Romans and Greeks who fail to acknowledge their dependence on ancient "barbarian" wisdom. He extended mimicry to philosophy itself, attacking the lives and successions of the schools, showing Christianity to be the superior philosophy since it acknowledged its ancestry as "barbarian," and allowed a variety of people, genders, and classes to flourish as "philosophers. "75 Irenaeus went beyond both Tatian and Justin to discard philosophy as a representation of Christianity at all. Philosophy no longer contained pieces of truth, but in fact was the inspiration for "heresy." The "heretics" represented therefore the intellectual and religious deceptions of the surrounding society-magicians, Sophists-and were even worse than pagans. 76 If orthodoxy still contains the attributes of good Hellenism (aneient, universal, transcendent, simple), these are no longer named in relation to philosophy, but embodied as the transcendent divine truth of God conveyed exclusively in the "apostolic" succession of Scripture and teaching. Philosophical categories are of course still used and assumed by Irenaeus in his theological arguments, but no longer in overt comparison to Christian revelation. 77 Error both heretical and pagan can now be traced through aseparate succession in contrast to the ancient, public genealogy of Christian apostolic

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truth. This tradition of belief and exegesis was the means to discern jewels from glass or sheep from wolves who were in the community itself. 78 Le Boulluec suggests that the intellectual style of the "Gnostics" may have provoked the form of the refutation of Irenaeus, his appeal to the polemics of the Sophists, the separate diadoche, and a focus on doctrine rather than on issues of common life; Michael Williams in his recent critical revision of "Gnosticism" suggests by analogy to modern sociology that the "Gnostics" may have been more assimilationist in their thought and practice. 79 I am suggesting that problems of assimilation and authority were al ready present in the form of universal Christianity taught by Justin, which could lead to the polemical invention of "Gnosticism" as philosophical and superstitious at once, whatever may have actually been taught by Valentinus or Ptolemy. Irenaeus's concern with identifying valid sacraments, lasting conversions, and legitimate successions reveals the instability of the inherited discourse of Justin, and the necessity of establishing the correct diadoche and belief within the baptized community itself. If we restore a primary teaching identity to Irenaeus as aleader, the controversial rhetoric of his text reflects a continuing debate over identity and authority by competitive intellectuals within the community rather than a defensive protection against outsiders. Ideologically, error as heresy therefore mimics the succession, canonical writings, and cult of the true community, and lies within it. The paradoxical "alterite" and "negativite" of heresiology in Irenaeus therefore evinces the cultural ambivalence of the orthodox discourse: even as baptized Christians within a shared community, "heretics" can be "idolaters" and "Sophists" for these are the corruptions of true philosophy, which is orthodoxy.80 In Lyons the necessity to identify the saving transcendent truth of the persecuted immigrant community therefore provoked sharper philosophical and cultural distinctions inside and outside the community. In the second century Christian "orthodoxy" therefore could replace "philosophy" as a universal system because it could occupy many of the same cognitive and authoritative spaces, even if it explicitly attacked the culture and religion of traditional paideia. This is not a transformation of "Hellenism" by "Christianity," but a reconfiguring within the culture itself as a means of understanding universality and identity. The ideological reception of "Christianity," defined as a universal transcendent truth, in opposition to "Hellenism," defined simply as a pagan tradition outside it, has led to a theological and historical understanding of philosophy as simply a "guise" for Christian truth. Yet, the continuing unease concerning the authority of philosophy or Hellenism within Christianity reveals that Justin's mimicry of Hellenism created an indeterminate hybrid which made Tertullian as uneasy as Celsus: Can orthodoxy itself be simply a guise for Hellenism?

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Justin's presentation of Jesus as the Logos was both subversive and legitimating, resulting in a seeming rejection of the authority of philosophy, yet adopting the central notions of transcendent unity and historical succession. Competition, speculation, and at least overtly, "philosophy" itself were externalized in "orthodoxy" not because of an apriori essential· Christian identity as unified or dogmatic, but rather to construct an "essential" Christianity as the universal truth within and beyond the perceived problems or limits of intellectual culture. This construction depended on contemporary historiographical and philosophical forms for its theological and cultural power and persuasion. By refusing to be a "philosophy," Christianity was able to "pass" as the sole transcendent truth in Justin; by rejecting all dissent as hairesis, that is, demonized human opinion in contrast to revealed truth, Christianity confirmed its singular authority. However, as a "hybrid" the very discourse of orthodoxy disavowed these rhetorical assurances of the security of divine authority and human reception in the apostolic succession. Instead, Christianity as "orthodoxy" provoked endless negotiation of authority and boundary precisely along the lines of assimilation and conflict: Who was the true Word? If transcendent, how immanent? If universal, how locative? Justin himself therefore bequeathed the tension of philosophical conversions within the history of Christianity. A fundamental ambivalence lay within the development of "orthodoxy" as a transcendent, universal truth, which instead of uniting and separating Christians from surrounding cultures and philosophies increased the necessity to discipline diversity and boundaries of assimilation. To parallel Homi Bhabha's analysis of nineteenth-century colonialism, the mimicry of philosophy in Justin attempted to contrast a transcendent, final, and authentic truth to human disorder and error. However, in Irenaeus this "orthodoxy" threw the boundaries, negotiations, and plurality into a harsher and more menacing light, ironically increasing adesire and necessity to discipline and normalize the existence of plurality and dissonance. 81 I have tried to locate the historical agency for this discourse within a group of immigrant Christian teachers rather than in general assumptions of institutional inevitability or a need for coherence based on an essentialized or transhistorical Christianity.82 I am suggesting therefore that the creation of orthodoxy was a philosophical project of the marginalized, not the intellectual expression of an inevitable "dogmatism" of Christianity.83 This adaptation of paideia in Justin was inherently unstable since it was both true "Christianity," but also true "Hellenism" in its declaration of cultural unity, transcendent truth, and universal claims. Therefore, the supposedly decisive elements of revealed truth in ancient texts or public succession had to be constantly monitored in regard to proximity

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both to eulture and to traditions reeeived. Deseriptions of heresy as "philosophy" or "magie" wi thin Christian hegemonie speech ereated yet another level of diseursive mimiery and menaee, as Tertullian, Hippolytus, and Origen offered inereasingly sophistieated, if quite different, arguments eoneerning the relation of eulture, philosophy, and orthodoxy. However, the final sueeess of "orthodoxy" is revealed in how the authority of its historieal arehiteets, the "Apologists," were themselves limited by later developments of their own model of transeendent, revealed truth, and their errors laid at the feet of Hellenie philosophy. Martyrdom perhaps resolved any linge ring ambiguities about ]ustin's eonversion,84 yet even this aet eould disclose the legaey of both ]esus and Socrates.

NOTES

Culture and Imperialism (New York, 1993), p. 336. D. Boyarin suggests a "wave theory" of religion to understand the eonvergenee and divergenee of Christianity and ]udaism in late antiquity, in Dying tor God: Martyrdom and the Making 0/ Christianity and Judaism (Stanford, Calif., 1999), p. 9. The multiplicity of forms of religion, including the diversity of forms of Christianity, and their integration into Roman life are best outlined in the reeent study of M. Beard, ]. North, and S. Priee In Religions 0/ Rome: A History! vol. I (Cambridge, 1998), pp. 211-312. 3. Culture and Imperialism! p. 33 6. 4. On the history of Protestant and Roman Catholie scholarship behind eomparisons of early Christianity and Hellenism, see ]. Smith, Drudgery Divine: On the Comparison 0/ Early Christianities and the Religions 0/ Late Antiquity (Chieago, 1990). The neeessity of understanding religion as discourse within eulture is argued by T. Asad, Genealogies 0/ Religion: Discipline and Reasons 0/ Power in Christianity and Islam (Baltimore, 1993), pp. 9-15. 5. See eomments by G. C. Spivak, A Critique 0/ Postcolonial Reason: Toward a History 0/ the Vanishing Present (Cambridge, Mass., 1999), p. 6; on eontrasting individual politieal and ideologieal responses to a dominant eulture, see A. H. Goldman, "Comparative Identities: Exile in the Writings of Frantz Fanon and W. E. B. Du Bois," in Borders! Bottndaries! and Frames: Essays in Cultural Criticism and Cultural Studies! ed. M. G. Henderson (New York, 1995), pp. 107-32. 6. "For it hardly needs to be said that personal identity is not a homogenous mass .... On the wider politieal plane there is a degree of contradietion between their Greek and Roman identities. This is not surprising. For it is preeisely when a people is under foreign domination that ehoiees have I.

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to be made between acceptance and resistance and about preferences wi thin these alternatives." S. Swain oudines the complexity of literary and political identity for provincial individuals in the second century in his Hellenism and Empire: Language, Classicism, and Power in the Greek World, A.D. 50-250 (Oxford, 1996), p. 7 I. However, he would not extend this negotiation of local identity, Hellenie inheritance, and criticism of Rome to "Christians"; he contrasts Christianity to "Hellenism"; Christianity offers a way to "reject" the "burdens of Greek identity"; see "Defending Hellenism: Philostratus, In Honour 0/ Apollonius," in Apologetics in the Roman Empire: Pagans, Jews, and Christians, ed. M. Edwards, M. Goodman, and S. Price (Oxford, 1999), pp. 157-58, 193; R. Wilken, "Toward a Social Interpretation of Early Christian Apologetics," Church History 39 (1970): 45 6 .. 7. The Location 0/ Culture (London, 1994), p. 86. Du Bois of course discussed the "double consciousness" of the African American in The Souls 0/ Black Folks; Fanon in Black Skin, White Masks explicidy addressed the difficulties of self-definition or authentie freedom when defined and socially controlled through a dominant discourse. Goldman contrasts their strategies of civil disobedience and defensive violence in "Comparative Identities," pp. 125-27. 8. This was the attitude of ancient critics such as Celsus, but modern commentators often echo the implication of a pseudo-philosophy. "Likewise, the more Christianity fancied itself a philosophy, the more Greek philosophy had to respond" (Swain, "Defending Hellenism," p. 185); "Platonism is given the most space in ]ustin's account of his personal quest, but that is pardy because its pretensions were greatest at this period .... ]ustin continues to seduce by means of his philosophical posture" (T. Rajak, "Talking at Trypho: Christi an Apologetic as Anti-]udaism in ]ustin's Dialogue with Trypho the Jew," in Edwards et al. , Apologetics in the Roman Empire, p. 67); "] ustin knew weIl his own arguments were unsatisfactory from a philosophical perspective" (R. Lim, Public Disputation, Power and Sodal Order in Late Antiquity [Berkeley, Calif., 1995}, p. 8). C. Stead offers arguments on whether Christianity could be a philosophy in Philosophy in Christian Antiquity (Cambridge, 1994). E. Os born presents a more optimistic view in The Beginnings 0/ Christian Philosophy (Cambridge, 198I). 9. References to ]ustin's "double" nature are generally critical: A. Hamman finds his "double fidelite" problematic, "Dialogue entre le christianisme et la culture grecque des origines a ]ustin: Genese et etapes," in Les apologistes chritiens et la culture grecque, ed. B. Pouderon and J. Dore, Theologie Historique I05 (Paris, 1998), p. 50; Neymeyr concluded that ]ustin's conversion must include "beide Motive," both religious and philosophieal, in Die christlichen Lehrer im Zweiten Jahrhundert: Ihre Lehrtiitigkeit, ihr

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Sebstverstiindnis und ihre Geschichte (Leiden, 1989), p. 20. T. Rajak describes hirn as follows: "Ir is a reasonable surmise that Justin continued through life to wear two hats, though given a character of such extremism and intensity ... it is dubious whether the balance was perfecdy maintained" ("Talking at Trypho," p. 66). M. Edwards notes that he carried his theology in "two wallets" in "On the Platonic Schooling of Justin Martyr," Journal 0/ Theological Studies 42 (1991): 32; he also notes that most scholars consider Justin to be "two people," the biblical theologian of the Dialogue and the Hellenist of the Apologies, in "Justin's Logos and the Word of God," Journal 0/ Early Christian Studies 3 (1995): 261. Spivak's comments on the interpretation of Sati in India may by analogy be transferred to the problems of recovering the religious agency of Justin: "Between patriarchal subjectformation and imperial object-constitution, it is the place of the free will or agency of the sexed subject as female that is successfully effaced," A Critique 0/ Postcolonial Reason, p. 235. 10. Bhabha, The Location 0/ Culture, p. 114. 11. Ibid., p. 113. 12. Spivak comments on the difficulty of evaluating "hybrids" which can often legitimate our preconceptions of the "pure" and obscure the fact of our continuing ignorance about the past, Critique 0/ Postcolonial Reason, p. 65. Some scholars have interpreted second-century apologetics in this fashion, emphasizing Christianity as a "third race," consciously constructed as distinct from both "Judaism" and "Hellenism." "Hellenism" in this framework is defined as the stable culture against which "Christians" define themselves, as in Frances Young, "Greek Apologists of the Second Century," in Edwards et al., Apologetics in the Roman Empire, p. 8 I. Separate religions and literatures in her definition indicate separate "cultures," so she sees the work of Justin and Tatian as audacious outsiders consciously overthrowing Hellenic tradition by the appeal to biblical authority: "What we are observing, I suggest, is the adoption of a contemporary preoccupation with the history of culture for the purposes of relativising that culture in relation to an alien body of literature offered as a substitute for the established classics . . . . This is scandalous on both counts, namely the appropriation of an alien canon of literature to which these upstarts might be regarded as having no claim and the attempt to subvert the established basis of Hellenistic culture." Biblical Exegesis and the Formation 0/ Christian Culture (Cambridge, 1997), pp. 53-54. This analysis assurnes second-century authors to be out~ side or alien to Hellenism, which is certainly not the case with Justin. Ir fits instead the fourth-century categories of Eusebius and Epiphanius, whom she cites, p. 69. For a similar view, see G. Strousma, Barbarian Philosophy: The Religious Revolution 0/ Early Christianity (Tübingen, 1999). A. Droge

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cautions against overemphasizing the concept of the "third race" in Homer or Moses? Early Christian Interpretation 0/ the History 0/ Culture (Tübingen, 1989), p. 19 6 . 13. G. Dorival discusses the mimesis of the literary genre of the Apologists in ''L'apologetique chretienne et la culture grecque," in Les apologistes chretiens et la culture grecqtte! pp. 462-65; see also C.-F. Geyer, Religion und Diskurs: Die Hellenisierung des Christentums aus der Perspektive der Religionsphilosophie (Stuttgart, 1990), pp. 19-22. 14. Philosophical and Christian conversion are generally contrasted as alternatives with regard to which community joined or belief in a biblical God; see P. Aubin, Le probleme de la IlconversionJ! (Paris, 1962), especially the conclusion, pp. 186-200. H. Remus noted that "in Justin's conversion he should ... annihilate his former social and cultural worlds" to embrace the axioms and practices of the new community, in "Justin Martyr's Argument with Judaism," Anti-Judaism in Early Christianity: Separation and Polemic! ed. S. G. Wilson (Waterloo, Ont., 1986), p. 70. Given the arguments ab out authentie baptism and the status of "lapsed" Christians, in part provoked by the persecutions, which split Christian communities from the second to the fifth century, we should be cautious in assuming too much theological consistency or institutional stability. 15. See Beard, North, and Price on the proliferation of religious choices, Religions 0/ Rome! pp. 245-46. "Syncretism" of course is itself a negative term, implying an illegitimate mixture of cultures; see Smith, Drudgery Divine! pp. 37-42. 16. Droge, Homer or Moses? pp. 9-10. 17. On Numenius see J. Dillon, The Middle Platonists (London, 1977), pp. 361-79; J. Glucker, Antiochus and the Late Academy! Hypomnemata 56 (Göttingen, 1978), pp. 134-45. The links between Christi ans and this form of Platonism are discussed in A. Le Boulluec, La notion d!heresie dans la litterature grecque IIe-IIIe sücles! vol. I (Paris, 1985), pp. 49-5 I; Droge, Homer or Moses? pp. 70-80; E. des Places, "Platonisme moyen et apologetique chretienne au He siede apo J.-C.: Numenius, Atticus, Justin," Studia Patristica 15, no. I (1984): 432-41; M. Edwards, "On the Platonic Schooling of Justin Martyr," pp. 17-34. 18. G. W. Bowersock, Hellenism in Late Antiquity (Ann Arbor, Mich., 199 6 ), p. 7· 19. Heritage and Hellenism. The Reinvention 0/ jewish Tradition (Berkeley, Calif., 1998), p. 292. 20. Making Men: Sophists and Self-Presentation in Ancient Rome (Princeton, N.]., 1995), pp. xii-xxv. On later developments see P. Brown, Power and Persuasion in Late Antiquity: Towards a Christian Empire (Madison, Wis., 1992).

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21. Swain, Hellenism and Empire, pp. 421-22. 22. Christianity and the Rhetoric 0/ Empire: The Development 0/ Christian Discourse (Berkeley, Calif., 1991), p. 14. 23. F. MilIar, The Roman Near East 3IB.C-A.D. 337 (Cambridge, Mass., 1993), p. 246 ; on Lucian's complex, and sometimes critical relation to Rome, see Swain, Hellenism and Empire, pp. 328-29. C. P. Jones, Culture and Society in Lucian (Cambridge, Mass., 1986); G. W. Bowersock, Greek Sophists in the Roman Empire (Oxford, 1969); cf. Gleeson on Favorinus, Making Men, p. 167. 24. P. Brown contrasted Dodd's "anxiety" concerning rootlessness to "claustrophobia" in The Making 0/ Late Antiquity (Berkeley, Calif., 1976), pp. 45. The construction of the "self," therefore, within the diversity of Roman Hellenism continues to provoke analysis, see for example the discussion of philosophical self-mastery in M. Foucault, The Care 0/ the Sel/, vol. 3 of The History 0/ Sexuality (New York, 1988), and the "suffering self' in J. Perkins, The Su/fering Self: Pain and Narrative Representation in the Early Church Era (London, 1995). Does Augustine's Confessions represent the final synthesis of suffering as self-mastery in late antiquity? 25. A typical example of this view is J. T. Burtchaell, From Synagogue to Church: Public Services and Offices in the Earliest Christian Communities (Cambridge, 1992), p. 312: "The communities could not have survived beyond their heady, helter-skelter adolescence without a coherent discipline ... The new overseers were made by the church rather than the other way around." S. Hall describes the second century in a chapter entitled, "Excess and Proliferation," in Doctrine and Practice in the Early Church (London, 1991), pp. 36-48; W. Frend entitled his chapter "Acute Hellenization" in The Rise 0/ Christianity (Philadelphia, 1984), pp. 194f. 26. J. A. Francis, Subversive Virtue: Asceticism and Authority in the Second Century Pagan World (University Park, Pa., 1995), pp. 21-50. On the Greek education of Marcus, see E. Fantham, Roman Literary Culture: From Cicero to Apuleius (Baltimore, 1996), pp. 239-246. 27. G. W. Bowersock discusses the fourth-century origins of "Hellenism" in Hellenism in Late Antiquity, pp. 10-1 I, as does R. Markus, The End 0/ Ancient Christianity (Cambridge, 1990), p. 28. 28. Swain used the term "defect," noting that the disparagement of the barbaroi might be asking too much for more and more provincials; "Defending Hellenism," p. 173. 29. Swain noted that Pythagoreanism made Hellenism "less Greek"; ibid., pp. 17°-73· 30. "The Use of Early Christian Literature as Evidence for Inner Diversity and Conflict," in Nag Hammadi, Gnosticism, and Early Christianity, ed.

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c. W. Hedrick and R. Hodgson (Peabody, N.Y, 1986), pp. 189-90; see further my remarks on "heretical" Christianity and Hellenism in Christology and Cosmology: Models 0/ Divine Activity in OrigenJ EusebiusJ and Athanasius (Oxford, 1993), pp. 1-9· 31. D. K. Buell recendy argued that if Clement is a "teacher", with philosophical interests, he must be a predecessor of Arius, i.e. outside an episcopal community: Making Christians: Clement 0/ Alexandria and the Rhetoric 0/ Legitimacy (Princeton, N.)., 1999), p. 182. Frend described the second century as a time of "the emergence of a Christian orthodoxy representing a coalition of men and ideas almost as varied as it had been in the previous period. But it was identifiably a church, whereas its Gnostic opponents were leaders of schools, whose teaching though centered on Christ, accepted Scripture as only one source .... " Rise 0/ ChristianitYJ p. 194. 32. See R. Williams, Arius: Heresy and Tradition (London, 1987), pp. 8788; D. Brakke, Athanasius and the Politics 0/ Asceticism (Oxford, 1995), pp. 59-68; idem, "Canon Formation and Social Conflict in Fourth Century Egypt: Athanasius of Alexandria's Thirty-ninth Festal Lette~" Harvard Theological Review 87 (1994): 395-419; A. Harnack, The Mission and Expansion 0/ Christianity in the First Three Centuries J tr. ). Moffatt (Gloucester" 1972), pp. 3 54-66; ). Lebreton, "Le desaccord de la foi populaire et de la theologie savante dans l'Eglise chretienne du III siede," Revue dJhistoire ecclesiastique 19 (19 2 3): 4 81 -5 06 , 20 (19 24): 5-37. 33. Die Christlichen Lehrer, pp. 1-8, 236-38. 34. "Diogenes Laertius and the Apostolic Succession," Journal 0/ Ecclesiastical History 44 (1993): 347-75; P. Lampe, Die stadtriimischen Christen in den ersten beiden Jahrhunderten (Tübingen, 1987). 35. See comments of P. Bradshaw, The Search tor the Origins 0/ Christian Worship (Oxford, 1992), pp. 108-9, I I 1-12. 36. R. Williams, "Does Ir Make Sense to Speak of a Pre-Nicene Orthodoxy?" in The Making o/Orthodoxy: Essays in Honour 0/ Henry ChadwickJ ed. R. Williams (Cambridge, 1989), pp. 1-23; on problems of recovering "popular piety" to use as a theological norm, see my "Lex Orandi: Heresy, Orthodoxy, and Popular Religion," in The Making and Remaking 0/ Christian Doctrine: Essays in Honour 0/ Maurice Wiles J ed. S. Coakley and D. Palin (New York, 1993), pp. 13 1-42. However, F. Young represents a common, if traditional, view when she asserts that the "norm" may in fact be found by reading the "Fathers," Biblical ExegesisJ p. 29. 37. On the problems of Irenaeus as a "bishop," a tide he never used for himself, the evidence is summarized in M. A. Donovan, One Right Reading? A Guide to lrenaeus (Collegeville, Md., 1997), p. 9; her comment reflects a common reading: "Irenaeus functioned as abishop, but he was chary of the

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tide. In his day the office seems to have been more clearly developed than the terminology." For a more critical view, see V. Burrus, "Hierarchalization and Genderization of Leadership in the Writings of Irenaeus," Studia Patristica 21 (1989): 42-48. A. Grillmeier noted ab out Irenaeus, "He was not a philosopher as his master Justin was, but above all a biblical theologian," Christ in the Christian Tradition, vol. 1, tr. J. Bowden (Atlanta, 1964), p. 100; W. Frend says of Justin that he was "A Platonist before he became a Christian, he never grasped the essential incompatibilities between Platonism and Christianity. He assimilated Jesus to the Logos of an eclectic Platonic and Stoic philosophy arbitrarily," in The Rise o[ Christianity, p. 237; 1. Barnard more defensively sums up Justin as "no mere academic philosopher but a man with a mission . . . . Today, in a very different world, we need to follow Justin in adhering to, and following the truth, wherever it may lead, with a confidence in its power while remaining loyal to the Church and to Christi an tradition"; introduction to his translation of Justin, The First and Second Apologies, Ancient Christian Writers 56 (New York, 1997), p. 21. Geyer notes Justin's varied labels ("christlicher Platonismus," "christliche Philosophie", "hellenisiertes Christentum") as signaling interpretations of culture, Religion und Diskurs, p. 19; Subordination is generally the error attributed to Platonism in Justin as in Hamman's critical remarks in "Dialogue," p. 50. Stead minimizes the problem by noting that Justin's philosophical skills were not particularly great, and in fact "his attachment to Christianity was in many ways an advantage, as setting hirn new problems outside the traditional agenda of the Platonic schools"; he is most importantly a teacher, "one of our Founding Fathers," Philosophy in Christian Antiquity (Cambridge, 1994), pp. 81-82. 38. Arecent study of apologetic literature concludes that most Christian works are "hybrids" and their "richness" and "diversity" can only be recovered by understanding the particular historical context of the authors. J .-C. Fredouille, ''L'apologetique chretienne antique: Naissance d'un genre litteraire," Revue des Etudes Augustiniennes 38 (1992): 219-34, and ''L'apologetique chretienne antique: Metamorphoses d'un genre polymorphe," ibid., 41 (1995): 201-26. 39. Asad, Genealogies o[ Religion, p. 7· 40. I Apology 1 (tr. Barnard), p. 23. 41. MilIar, The Roman Near East, pp. 227-28; Brown, The Making o[ Late Antiquity, p. 73. 42. MilIar, The Roman Near East, p. 228. 43. The Greek Apologists o[ the Second Century (Philadelphia, 1988), p. 50; see 1. Barnard, Justin Martyr: His Lift and Work (Cambridge, 19 67), p. 5:

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nothing in his writings suggests that he was familiar with Samaritan traditions or religion." 44. See Gleason's comments on Favorinus's paideia as diasporic rather than native, utopian rather than localized; Making lVIen, p. 168. 45. See general comments by Swain in Hellenism and Empire, pp. 7 I, 89, 308. MilIar suggested that ci ti es on the "frontier" were of second rank in the Greek world, but important to military activity and therefore open to an exceptional degree of Romanizing influence; The Roman Near East, pp. 234-35· 46. I Apology 3 (tr. Barnard, altered), p. 24. 47. Barnard, Justin, p. I I: "He only found the truth after much searching. Ir is therefore natural that he should wear the philosopher's cloak, even after his conversion, call himself a philosopher and invite men to enter his school." R. Wilken, The Christians as the Romans Saw Them (New Haven, Conn., 1984), p. 83: "Justin ... presented his conversion to Christianity as a conversion to philosophy." See also Young, Biblical Exegesis, pp. 67, and O. Skarsaune, "The Conversion of Justin Martyr," Theological Studies 30 (1976): 53-73· 48. Dial. 2.3-6. The arguments concerning the historicity of Justin's conversion are summarized in Neymeyr, Die christlichen Lehrer, pp. 17-18; 3 I. Droge discusses these arguments in reference to perceptions of Justin as a philosopher in "Justin Martyr and the Restoration of Philosophy," in Studies in Early Christianity, vol. 7, ed. E. Ferguson, D. Scholer, and P. C. Finney (New York, 1993), pp. 66-68; see also U. Berner, "Die Bekehrung Justins," Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt 17 (1997). On Justin's gown as a "convention," see remarks above by Barnard in note 39; Tessa Rajak, critical of his Platonism, describes the duplicity of his literary genre as weIl as dress: "Like Justin, this tract walks in philosopher's garb. And, in spite of its unsophisticated and unappealing use of the Greek language, it has walked effectively." "Talking at Trypho," p. 67. Richard Lim implies a naive self-deception, "still wearing his philosopher's gown," p. 7; Tertullian, ironicalIy, wrote a tract defending the right of Christians to the pallium. 49. Barnard, Justin Martyr, p. 13. See also Lebreton, "Desaccord de la foi populaire. " 50. Grant, Greek Apologists, p. 56. 51. The character of Justin's language concerning baptism (I Apol. 61; 65; Dial. 14) has also been much discussed, especially as "apologetic" in genre, on account of the terminology of "illumination" and "rebirth." See Bradshaw, Search tor the Origins, pp. 174-75.

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52. Act. Just. 2.3. At the conclusion of his conversation with the teacher in the Dialogue 8, Justin states, "Straightaway a flame was kindled in my soul; a love of the prophets, and one of these men who are friends of Christ possessed me, and while turning his words in my mind, I found this philosophy alone to be safe and profitable. Thus, for this reason, I am a philosopher." In The Ante-Nicene Fathers! vol. I, ed. A. Roberts and J. Donaldson (Grand Rapids, Mich., 1981), p. 198. 53. Mark Edwards has defended Justin's integrity as "an intelligent but sceptical disciple . . . one who on the eve of a great conversion is already beginning to calculate the distance between his master's thoughts and his own ... " in "Platonic Schooling of Justin Martyr," pp. 21, 29-30. He notes that neither J ustin's knowledge of Greek philosophy nor his martyrdom was in doubt, "Justin's Logos," p. 280. 54. See Droge, Homer or Moses? pp. 70-7 I, 198; for Jus tin and Numenius, see Le Boulluec, La notion d!heresie! pp. 50-54; 63; Edwards, "Platonic Schooling of Justin Martyr"; H. Dörrie, "Die Wertung der Barbaren im Urteil der Griechen," in Antike und Universalgeschichte: Festschrift für H. E. Stier (Münster, 1967), pp. 146-75. 55. Droge, Homer or Moses?; J. H. Wazink, "Some Observations on the Appreciation of the 'Philosophy of the Barbarians' in Early Christian Literature," in Melanges offerts a Mademoiselle Christine Mohrmann (Utrecht, 1963), pp. 41-56; R. Mordey, The ldea 0/ Universal History /rom Hellenistic Philosophy to Early Church Historiography (Philadelphia, 1996). 56. Bowersock, Hellenism in Late Antiquity! p. 8. 57. J ustin's definition is found in Dial. 8. I: "I found this philosophy alone to be safe and profitable." Christianity is the original truth which precedes all philosophers: I Apol. 44-46, 60; 2 Apol. 10. On the Pythagorean beliefs about ancient wisdom, see Droge, Homer or Moses? p. 91; Swain, "Defending Hellenism," pp. 170-73. 58. See far example comments by Remus on cultic piety as opposed to philosophy, "Justin Martyr," pp. 63-65; Rajak, "Talking at Trypho," pp. 66-7 1 . 59. Edwards describes Justin's original reflection on the Logos as not derivative from philosophy, but his own construction based on biblical texts and philosophical images; "Platonic Schooling of Justin Martyr," pp. 2425. Bhabha noted in his discussion of "hybridity," using the Hindi Bible as an example, that the "paradigmatic presence of the Word of God" was preserved, but the logical order of the discourse of authority, i.e. the dominance of the English missionaries, was altered, in The Location 0/ Culture! p. 119. 60. I Apology 14 (tr. Barnard), p. 32; Irenaeus preserves an interesting fragment from Justin's now lost work against Marcion: "I would not have

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believed the Lord hirnself if he had announced any other than He who is our framer, maker, and nourisher. But because the only begotten Son came to us from the one God ... my faith's foundation is steadfast and my love for God immovable." Against Heresies 4.6.2. 61. 2 Apology 13 (tr. Barnard), p. 83. 62. Droge, Honzer or Moses? p. 53; see I Apol. 9-10, 54-55: myths imitate Christ incorrecdy, but Plato, if not understanding completely, got some things right. 63. Compare Dial. 47 with I Apol. 24-25, 59-60. 64. See Droge, Honzer or Moses? pp. 72-79; Mordey, Idea 0/ Universal HistorYJ pp. 65-66; see comments by Bhabha on the gulf between being "Anglicanized" and being "English," in The Loeation 0/ CttltureJ p. 154. Some ] ews would of course have the same reaction; see D. Boyarin, "] ustin Martyr Invents ]udaism," Chureh History 70, no. 3 (Spring 2001): 427-61. 65. Le Boulluec, La notion dJheresieJ p. 36. 66. Ibid., pp. 35-36. 67. Arecent review article of the scholarship on the development of the term hairesis is Michel Desjardin, "Bauer and Beyond: On Recent Scholarly Discussions of Hairesis in the Early Christian Era," Seeond Century 8 (1991): 65-82 . 68. Le Boulluec, La notion dJheresieJ pp. 62-63, 49-56; cf. I Apol. 10; Droge, Honzer or Moses? p. 71. 69. I Apology 58 (tr. Barnard), p. 64; cf. 26, 62; Dial. 69, 80. 70. See Francis's comments on "superstition": "The use of the term in antiquity is notoriously slippery. Simply speaking, superstitio seems to be operationally defined as 'a religious expression of which one disapproves' ... any belief or practice foreign to, or exceeding the bounds of, traditional religion, which by implication, is also seen as inimical to or destructive of religion." Subversive VirtueJ p. 149; on magic as the common charge to discredit an opponent socially and religiously, see R. Gordon, "Imagining Greek and Roman Magic," in Witehcraft and Magie in Europe: Ancient Greece and RonzeJ ed. B. Ankarloo and S. Clark (Philadelphia, 1999), p. 217; cf. Droge on second-century Christian discussion of "counterfeit," in Honzer or Moses? p. 98. 71. I Apology 53 (tr. Barnard), p. 60. For the argument on the Christian invention of a nonlocative "religion," see M. Sachot, L'invention du Christ: Genese dJune religion (Paris, 1998). 72. 2 Apology 13 (tr. Barnard), p. 84. 73. Le Boulluec, La notion dJheresieJ p. 118. 74. Grant, The Greek ApologistsJ pp. 112-13. 75. "We reject all that is based on human opinion; and not only the rich philosophize, but the poor also enjoy teaching without charge .... All who

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wish to philosophize are at horne with us; we do not scrutinize appearances or judge those who come to us by their looks .... " Oratio ad Graecos 2, tr. M. Whittaker (Oxford, 1982), pp. 59-61. Christianity as paideia has no divisions (p. 27) and is open to all (pp. 32-33). Greek philosophy is divided against itself (pp. 3, 25-27), denies diversity of origins (p. I), and by allegOry subverts its own religion and gods (p. 2 I). 76. Le Boulluec, La notion d!heresie! p. 124; cf. Against Heresies 2.9.1. 77. Stead summarized the mixed analysis by scholars of Irenaeus, in Philosophy in Christian Antiquity! pp. 90-94. 78. Against Heresies Pref. 2. 79. Le Boulluec, La notion d!heresie! pp. 89, 118; Williams follows R. Stark in Rethinking uGnosticism An Argument for Dismantling a Dubious Category (Princeton, N.J., 1996), pp. 106-7. 80. Le Boulluec discusses these qualities in La notion d!heresie! pp. 18687· 8 I. "Such contradictory articulations of reality and desire-seen in racist stereotypes, statements, jokes, myths-are the effects of a disavowal that denies the differences of the Other but produces in its stead forms of authority and multiple belief that alienate the assumptions of "civiI" discourse .... superstition, spurious authorities, and classifications can be seen as the desperate effort to 'normalize' fornzally the disturbance of the discourse of splitting that violates the rational, enlightened claims of its enunciatory modality." The Location of Culture! p. 91. 82. For further discussion of "essential" Christianity in late antiquity see my "Historical Methodologies and Ancient Theological Conflicts," in The Papers of the Henry Luce III Fellows in Theology! vol. 3, ed. M. Zyniewicz (Atlanta, 199 8 ), pp. 75--'-95. 83. Richard Lim contras ted the essentially "dogmatic" character of Christianity to Hellenistic philosophy, drawing on E. R. Dodds, Tertullian, Gibbon, Celsus, and Porphyry; not surprisingly, intra-Christian debates were caused by "intellectuals," that is, heretics in debate with dogmatic orthodoxy: Public Disputation! pp. 8-16, 20. 84. Hamman suggests the double loyalty of Jus tin is focused in the single lasting name of "Martyr" in "Dialogue," p. 50. On Justin's conscious literary imitation of Socrates, see Fredouille, ''L'apologetique ... naissance d'un genre," p. 203; E. Benz, "Christus und Sokrates in der alten Kirche," Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft und die Kunde des Urchristentums 43 (1950): 195-22 4; C. ]. De Vogel, "Problems concerning Justin Martyr," Mnenzosyne 3 I (1978): 360-88. JJ

;

3 CONVERSION AND BURIAL IN THE LATE ROMAN EMPIRE

ERle

REBILLARD

John North, writing on the various religious groups shaping the evolution of paganism from the second century C.E., re marks that "the most sensitive criterion available to us as to the degree of commitment asked by a cult ... would be the incidence of conflict with the families of members."l The question of the choice of burial place is decisive, therefore, since burial, in that society, was first and foremost a family affair. Statistical studies of funerary inscriptions pertaining to the civilian population in the Western Roman Empire show in fact that, whenever it was thought pertinent to state the relationship to the deceased of the individuals who took care of the burial and the epitaph, 80 percent were spouses, parents, children, or siblings. This percentage increases from the fourth century onwards, but the samples examined from the period are all Christian and thus less representative of the whole. 2 Even if epigraph dedications do not pertain to every stratum of the Roman population, the figures do lead to the conclusion that it was traditionally the family, indeed the nuclear family, that shouldered responsibility for burial of its members in the Roman Empire. The question might be asked whether the emergence of new cults and, in their wake, of new religious groups resulted in tension between the family and the religious group on the subject of burial choice. Did, for example, conversion to a particular religion, that is to say, adherence to a group whose primary purpose was to promote the cult of one or more divinities, mean that the convert had to choose to be buried among his fellow believers rather than amidst his family; in short, in a specific, distinct sepulchre?

"MYSTERY CULTS," "ORIENTAL CULTS," NEW CULTS

For Franz Cumont, it was patently obvious that conversion went hand in hand with the election of a specific burial site. In a discussion of the adepts

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of Mithras, he noted that "In such closed religious groupings, where everyone knew everyone else and each helped his neighbor, the abiding feeling was of being in one big family.... after death, each was probably laid in a collective grave."3 The origin of statements of this kind is a document which, though it dates from the fifth century B.C.E., constitutes the necessary point of departure of all discussions of the funerary practices of such cults: the famous inscription from Cumae that seems to point to a special burial site reserved for the initiates of Bacchus. 4 The text proclaims-and in terms that extend, as they evoke religious sanction, beyond mere sublunary law-that it is forbidden for a noninitiate to be entombed in the place, the necessary condition for burial apparently being conversion to the cult. Following Cumont, a number of scholars have seen this inscription as offering proof that the Dionysian societies possessed their own burial grounds. 5 It is also necessary, however, to examine the archaeological context of the inscription. 6 It does not appear on a stele, but is carved on the inner face of the tufa gravestone that served as a lid. This means that the inscription could never have been read from the exterior. Despite the strict religious prohibition that it records, the function of the Cumae inscription probably differed little from Orphic inscriptions on gold tablets whose primary purpose was to proclaim salvation. Rather than an interdict, the inscription provides a "link between initiation and the world beyond. "7 Moreover, archaeology has unearthed further examples of tombs which demonstrate that separate burial was not in fact the rule: in Calabria, for example, at Vibo Valentia (the antique Hipponion), the tomb of an Orphic initiate has been found among tombs of noninitiates in the same necropolis. 8 It was similarly long believed that in Taranto, an area comprising one hundred tombs laid out very regularly formed aburial site for a Pythagorean community. Archaeologists erroneously thought that what had been unearthed in the middle of the necropolis was the tomb of Archytas, the fourth-century B.C.E. Pythagorean strategius of Taranto. Recently, it was proved that the tomb belongs to a female and dates from the beginning of the second century B.C.E., making it impossible to associate this group of tombs with Pythagoreanism. 9 Ancient data, therefore, do not support the notion of the separation of the dead by religion. From an analysis of epitaphs whose dedicatees belonged to one of the new cults in the Roman Empire, Burkert concludes that "individual distinction prevailed over group identity."l0 Such inscriptions, however, occur very infrequently compared to our other evidence regarding the diffusion of these cults, and the dedicatees are almost exclusively priests. It therefore does not seem to have been especially pertinent in the case of mere adepts to signal

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adherence to the cult on funerary inscriptions. Consequently, we may conclude that the new cults rarely ente red into conflict with the family as regards their members' choice of tomb. There is nothing to indicate that the worshipers, of Mithras had collective graves. At Gross-Krotzenburg, ne ar Hanau in Germany, the tombs discovered near the Mithraeum are not, as was formerly believed, the remains of a Mithraic cemetery, because they reuse blocks from the Mithraeum's wallsY In Italy and Gaul, epitaphs attest to scattered examples of individual sepulchres, but none of these contains stipulations for the form of a Mithraic tomb, and the dedicators are all closely related to the deceased. 12 Thus it seems that the choice of a family tomb would not necessarily conflict with the requirements of conversion to the Mithraic cult. Those who opted to worship the Thracian divinity Sabazios also did not specify their religious affiliation in their epitaphs. 13 They did, however, form associations which financed burial for their members. Evidence for this comes from a firstcentury B.C.E. stele on Rhodes, on which a certain Ariston of Syracuse receives honors for the devotion and the care he lavished on the tombs belonging to the association. The stele was found in the context of a pair of contiguous burial chambers that might well be a monument of the Sabaziast association. 14 The evidence is insufficient, however, for the conclusion to be drawn that a Sabaziast graveyard as such existed. There is no specific indication of the need for separate burial. Another piece of evidence shows that an association of Sabaziasts in Teos in Asia Minor (modern Sigacik, Turkey) endowed tombs for its members' wives although they themselves had no connection with the cult. 15 The cult of Cybele provides more ample material. A public cult that was introduced officially in Rome in 204 B.C.E., the cult of Cybele, closely linked to that of Attis, was organized around a special clergy attached to the sanctuary, known as the ga/li} Roman officials, and associations (the dendrophori and cannophori), the latter officiating at the major annual festivals held in March. The majority of the funerary inscriptions preserved concern galli} priests, or members of official associations, but a number indicate that general worshipers of Cybele and Attis marked their affiliation in epitaphs by calling themselves religiosi. 16 One inscription is particularly interesting. From Puteoli (Pozzuoli) in Campania and likely dating from the second century C.E., it mentions a "field of believers" (ager religiosorum) in which Caius Iulius Aquilinus had a porti co erected and some seats installed at his own expenseY What exactly does this expression ager religiosorum designate? Ir might well signify a "funerary garden," as referred to in various epitaphs, in which there stand, next to one or more mortuary monuments, various constructions intended for the cult of the dead or simply for social

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gatherings. 18 But the term eould just as well refer more generally to a meeting plaee, portieos and seats being mentioned frequently in sueh eontexts. 19 As this inseription was diseovered out of its original eontext, it is impossible to deeide one way or the other. Another inseription from Pozzuoli refers to a field measuring seven jugeri (more than a heetare), whieh is the property of "members of the eorporation of the faithful of Jupiter Heliopolitanus." Onee again, a speeifieally funereal role of the land eoneerned is not explieitly stated; the inseription mentions a eistern and taverns and stresses only the right to enter the field, without mentioning the use to whieh the site might have been put. Ir is therefore not neeessary to see it as a "private eemetery."20 Felix Hettner ventured a hypothesis aeeording to whieh a similar eemetery existed on the Roman Aventine for worshipers of Jupiter Doliehenus (from Doliehe, modern Dülüek, Turkey), where a eonsiderable quantity of material has been unearthed from a temple. The only inseription Hettner advaneed as referring specifieally to the eemetery eannot, however, be explieitly assoeiated with the eult. His argument rests wholly on the parallel drawn with the Pozzuoli inseription. 21 No epitaph pertaining to a regular member of the Jupiter Doliehenus eongregation is known and the three epitaphs belonging to priests that survive bear no indieations as to the plaee of burial. 22 All in all, it would seem that eonversion to one or other of the Oriental eults did not entail the ehoiee of a speeial burial plaee assoeiated with the new religious eommunity.

THE ]EWS

Conversion to Judaism had been illegal in the Roman Empire sinee 198-99 C.E., if evidenee in the Historia Augusta on Septimus Severus is to be believed, and at least sinee the third eentury C.E., sinee Paul's SententiaeJ eompiled around 295, mention legislation that punishes eonverts with exile and eonfiseation of property. The Theodosian Code preserves a number of imperial eonstitutions of the fourth and fifth eenturies that forbid eonversion to J udaism, legal aets whieh demonstrate that eonversions did indeed oeeur. 23 However, the number of attested proselytes remains relatively low. The only inseriptions relating to eonverts to Judaism eome from Rome. 24 Harry J. Leon lists seven eases, four of whieh eome from the Jewish eataeombs, two from the Vigna Randanini Cataeomb on the Via Appia and two from eataeombs in the Villa Torlonia on the Via Nomentana. No inseription belonging to a sympathizer, however, has ever been found in the eataeombs, a faet that led Leon to eonclude that whereas proselytes earned the right to a

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]ewish grave, sympathizers were exduded. 25 An exception to the rule would appear to be an inscription from Venosa, in Basilicata. There a certain Marcus, referred to as a theuseues-a Latin transcription of the Greek signifying "God-fearing," an epithet normally reserved for sympathizers-lies in a tomb dug within a sm all hypogeum next to the great J ewish catacomb of La Magdalena, a site known since the mid-nineteenth century.26 Was this sympathizer actually buried, as has often been repeated, in a ]ewish cemetery?27 The ]ewish character of the other inscriptions from the hypogeum has always been accepted, but it is by no means beyond question. In fact, unlike in the inscriptions discovered in the great catacomb, not a single ]ewish symbol or word of Hebrew has ever been found. The titles pater and pater patrum are not in themselves specificalIy]ewish; they might be Mithraic titles, and hence possibly related to the snake and other symbols carved at the entrance to the hypogeum. 28 Moreover, it should be noted that the hilI of La Magdalena is peppered with hypogea, most of which remain to be excavated, and thatJews and Christians were inhumed there side by side for centuries. 29 The whole notion of a "] ewish cemetery" is to be treated in this case with the utmost caution. More subtle forms of separate burial are imaginable, as in the case of one Aurelia Artemeis Ioudea of Termessos. In the epitaph he composed for his daughter, M. Aurelios Hermaios wrote that the sarcophagus was destined for "his daughter Aurelia Artemeis, Jewess, for her alone," and stipulated a fine in the event of violation. 30 The epithet Ioudea may indicate that Aurelia Artemeis was indeed a proselyte, especially since the epitaph of her unde M. Aurelios Moles, buried in a sarcophagus near her in the same tomb, contains no indication of J udaismY The word mone, too, has also been the subject of some comment: 1. Robert notes that it "marks a firm intention,"32 though he does not venture to say what that intention might be; Margaret H. Williams believes that the term implies "the separateness of her burial."33 Aurelia Artemeis had a sarcophagus of her own, whereas, for example, her unde shared his with his wife. The two sarcophagi, however, lay not far apart in the same tomb. 34 Ir is quite impossible to assert with confidence that this separation is linked to Aurelia Artemeis's conversion, especially because it was her own father who was responsible for her burial arrangements. In the past, the very few extant examples of converts' and sympathizers' burials were all discussed from the point of view that ] ews were indeed buried separately. Yet all we know for certain of ] ewish mortuary practices in the Diaspora and of the way their graves were organized points to the fact that this was not necessarily the case. 35 Archaeologists and epigraphists are generally more circumspect than previously in the identification of ]ewish

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graves or inscriptions. 36 Thanks to work in this area, as weH as to the abandonment of the preconceived idea that Jews kept themselves apart,37 it is now accepted that Jewish and non-Jewish tombs often lay in the same funerary areas. In Asia Minor, where Jewish communities are weH documented,38 not a single Jewish cemetery has been identified to date. An inscription discovered at Tlos in Lycia, dated to the first century C.E., records a gift of a funerary monument made to the city's J ewish community by a certain Ptolemaeus, who erected it at his own expense for hirnself and for his son. 39 This type of euergetism, though rare, is nonetheless attested elsewhere and does not necessarily evince a community burial area. The donation simply meant that the Jewish community became the owners of a tomb. 40 Wherever the facts can be ascertained, Jewish graves seem to have been genuinely mixed with those of non-Jews. This is the case, for example, at both Hierapolis and Corycus. 41 The large number of epitaphs containing imprecations against tomb robbers found at Acmonia has been proposed as an argument in favor of the existence of a Jewish cemetery in the cityY The curses refer to texts from Deuteronomy or to divine vengeance, powers that would a priori have been expected to offer scant deterrent to non-Jews. 43 The curses, however, are actually carved for their own performative power, and not for the genuine terror they might have instiHed in the hearts of tomb robbers who might eventually read them. 44 Two Jewish inscriptions from Asia Minor also record funds set up for associations, though nothing indicates that these were exclusively Jewish affairs. In one of them, from Hierapolis, P. Ailios Glykon donates money to two associations to put wreaths on his tomb: purple-dyers for Passover and carpet-weavers for Pentecost and Calends. 45 In the other, this time from Acmonia, Aurelius Aristeas bequeaths some land to a neighborhood association, called the "Neighborhood of the First Gate," in order that they might festoon the tomb of his wife with roses every year. 46 Celebrating the rosalia and crowning tombs with roses were widespread traditional forms of commemoration in the Greco-Roman world. That J ews too adopted such practices again presupposes a greater degree of integration into society than was previously acknowledged by scholars in the past and makes it decidedl y difficult to argue that funerary segregation was actually the ruleY As these examples from Asia Minor ShOW,48 Jews were in the habit of burying their dead in the same areas as pagans and Christians . The situation in the larger cities of the empire may weH have been different. More numerous and more powerful urban Jewish communities are today often credited with having had their own burial grounds. The ancient J ewish necropolis of Alexandria, found at EI Ibrahimiya, however, seems to

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have been a place where both Jews and non-Jews who had some relationship to each other were interred. 49 At Carthage, the necropolis of Gamart has been found to be less extensive than formerly believed. In fact, it is now known to contain only two hundred tombs and cannot therefore be the one and only Jewish necropolis of Carthage, but merely a small agglomeration of hypogea occupied by members of that community.50 The situation in Rome is better documented if also more complex. The six known J ewish catacombs are in burial areas also used by pagans and Christians, but nearly all scholars are of the opinion that each of the separate catacombs was reserved for the exclusive use of the Jewish community.51 Although this assumption is quite impossible to prove, the evidence to the contrary is not sufficiently strong. 52 The implication is that at Rome, from the end of the second century (the period in which these catacombs began to be used), the J ewish population preferred to be buried together. According to Harry J. Leon, the choice of catacomb seems to have depended on an individual's synagogue affiliation. 53 Margaret H. Williams, however, has recendy demonstrated that there exists but one synagogue whose known members are all interred together in a single catacomb, and that the members of at least three synagogues used several different catacombs. 54 Moreover, no inscriptions have been found attributing a role to a synagogue in the selection or assignment of a grave. Most often, they simply indicate in which synagogue the dedicatee exercised an office mentioned in the epitaph. The idea that the choice of a grave's location might be determined by which synagogue the deceased belonged to can thus be dismissed; a form of centralized system is even more difficult to envisage. 55 Margaret H. Williams voices the hypothesis that the J ewish populations, like their contemporary pagan counterparts, might have purchased their graves from "funerary complex developers" who would take on the expense of preparing the underground spaces of the catacombs, divide the space into more or less sizeable funerary chambers or simple tombs, and then seIl them. 56 The catacombs at Beth She' ar im in Palestine may weIl have been managed in this fashion. 57 In Rome, however, and unlike the situation in Christian catacombs,58 Jewish inscriptions mention neither the sale of a tomb nor its tide deeds, facts which might point to the role of these developers. More generally, such consortia unfortunately remain insufficiently researched. At the beginning of the last century, Jean Juster argued for the conception of "the confessional separatism oE corpses" as a specifically Jewish phenomenon. 59 To justify this assertion Juster simply notes a few inscriptions whose wording presents numerous parallels with both pagan and Christian examples in which the subject is certainly ius sepulchri but not

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"confessional separatism."60 As for rabbinical teaching, no rules concerning the separation of lews and non-lews at burial are stipulated. The treatise Semahot, which seems to have been composed in the third century and whose sole subject is death and mourning, includes no such interdicts. At most the treatise prescribes that "in the case of heathens and slaves, no rites should be observed, but one should participate at the lamentation." 61 This means, not that non-lews should be refused interment, but that no ritual displays of mourning should be provided for them. Moreover, the Tosefta (third to fourth centuries) and the ]erusalem Talmud (fifth century) both recommend that in cities in which a ]ewish population lives among a substantial proportion of pagans, the ] ews should do their best to provide graves for the poor whether of the ]ewish faith or not, but neither text gives any indication as to place of buria1. 62 No impurity appears to be attached to Gentile burial places; on the other hand, their dwellings may weIl present a source of contamination in so far as aborted fetuses might be buried in their vicinity.63 As we read in a discussion of the Sabbath, if a Gentile digs a tomb for a lew on the Sabbath day, the latter cannot use it, but if the tomb was dug for a Gentile, then a lew can employ it. A lew should not make a Gentile work for hirn on the Sabbath day, but there is nothing to prevent hirn being interred in a tomb originally intended for a non-]ew. 64 Even though neither the Mishna nor the Tosefta should be interpreted as documents relating directly to the interaction between lews and non-]ews,65 nothing points to a rule of funerary segregation. In short, the choice of grave seems to fall more to the family, in accordance with the instructions of the Old Testament. The founding event is Abraham's purchase of the Tomb of the Patriarchs at Hebron (Gen. 23). Possession of a place where the dead can be buried is a consistently recurring theme. It is ]acob's wish in Gen. 49:29-31 to be interred near his forefathers, in the same place where he hirnself buried his wife, Leah, which was in the field where Abraham and Sarah lay, together with Isaac and Rebecca. ]oseph too makes his family swear they will carry his "bones from hence," and back to the country of Abraham (Gen. 5°:25). Gideon and Samson, too, were interred in the tomb of their fathers (Judg. 8:32, 16:31). David placed the bones of Saul, Jonathan, and those of the seven men hanged in Gibeah in the tomb of Saul's own father, Kish (2 Sam. 2 I: 12-14). It can be concluded, therefore, that there are no hard and fast doctrinal mIes regarding the choice of grave: the model followed is merely that of family burial. Of course, it must be noted that in the case of the ]ewish faith, the distinction between family and community is not as clear as it is with devotees of the cult of Mithras or of Cybele. For the lews, burial with the family or amongst people of the same religion is one and the same thing.

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What is the explanation, then, for the grouping of family graves in the same catacomb in Rome? The idea that it originated in adesire to be clearly differentiated from non-Jews 66 seems to be contradicted by an absence of parallels elsewhere among the Jewish communities of the Diaspora, though perhaps the sheer scale of the Eternal City might account for variants in .social behavior. 67 However that may be, conversion to Judaism seems not to have entailed a priari the abandonment of familial mortuary practices, nor the choice of a specific burial place.

THE CHRISTIANS

Finally, the question of conversion to Christianity and its relation to the choice of aburial place remains to be addressed. H. Delehaye writes in Les origines du culte des martyrs that "the custom, which soon became widespread, of not mixing their graves with those of heathens but of reserving special burial plots for themselves was far from being without precedent. Other associations or groups had introduced similar forms of solidarity after death into their own customs. "68 Like many scholars, he entertains no doubts: Christians were interred together and separately from members of other confessions. A number of texts which are referred to in support of this concept of "funerary separatism" need to be examined first. 69 A phrase from De Idololatria by Tertullian (d. c. 220) has often been lifted out of context in this conn~ction: "We may live with the heathens, die with them we may not."70 Tertullian is commenting on I Cor. 10: 14ff. in which St. Paul explains that, though idolatry must naturally be spurned at all costs, the Christian should also avoid giving offense to the heathen. It is, far instance, permitted to accept a nonbeliever's invitation to dine and to consume whatever is served without scruple, but if the food is offered as part of a sacrificial meal, then it must be refused. Tertullian concludes: "Where there is social intercourse, which is permitted by the apostle, there is also sinning, which is permitted by no one. We may live with the heathens, die with them we may not. "71 The death Tertullian is referring to is that which results from sin: the second phrase is thus arestatement of the first, and is not to be taken as an ordinance prohibiting certain burial places to Christians. Another piece of evidence from Tertullian, this time of an indirect nature, is occasionally put forward. It is the passage in Ad Scapulam J an open letter addressed to Scapula, proconsul of Africa (2 I 1-13), protesting against the persecutions in 2 12. Tertullian alerts the persecutor to divine vengeance and quotes from an episode during the persecutions of 202 in which the

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population of Carthage attacked the Christians by desecrating their graves: "This is what happened, for instance, when Hilarianus was governor. At that time, the populace protested about the areas [areis] in which our graves were situated-'No areas for them!'-but it was they who were deprived of their areas: for they harvested no cropS."72 Tertullian's purpose is to eite a suffieiently gripping example of divine vengeance on pagan oppression of the Christians. He had at his disposal two "actual" events: pagan desecration of Christian burial grounds and the shortages occasioned by the crops fai li ng . He combines the two in a pun on the word area that has both the very common meaning of "threshing floor" and another, weIl attested in epigraphy, of a (funerary) "enclosure." Tertullian thus provides evidence of the existence of funerary enclosures clearl y identified as being Christian, if not by archaeologists, then at least by their owners and contemporaries. 73 The choice of an enclosure is not of itself significant since the pagans possessed them too: on this basis, it is therefore unwarranted to ascribe to Christians adesire to separate their dead from the pagan. 74 It is in this context that a letter written by Cyprian of Carthage (d. 258) should be examined. It may not offer confirmation of the existence of teachings encouraging the separate burial of Christians, but it does furnish a number of details on the implications for mortuary practice of conversion to Christianity. The letter is a response of Cyprian and his African colleagues to the Spanish communities of Astorga-leon and Merida on the subject of the bishops Basilides and Martialis, who had obtained "certificates of idolatry" allowing them to escape the persecutions of Decius (c. 250) without taking part in the sacrifices themselves. Their churches nonetheless judged their conduct unacceptable and had them deposed. 75 Because Basilides had requested and obtained the support of Stephen, the bishop of Rome, the Spanish prelates decided to contact their African colleagues. The two bishops' misdeeds were not, however, confined to obtaining these "certificates." The case of Martialis, in particular,· was aggravated by his belonging to a collegium. Not only had the bishop attended banquets at the collegium, but he had also applied to the same collegium to ensure the burial of his sons. Cyprian's words all too clearly voice his indignation: "He placed his sons in the same college, after the manner of foreign nations, among profane sepulchres, and buried them together with strangers."76 The forceful way in which Cyprian depicts pagan rites as being alien to Christians is noteworthy, but the key to interpreting his indignation is the role played by the collegium. The collegia were particularly sought after for the pompa funebris provided for their members. 77 Martialis did not only apply to the collegium for the funeral of his sons, but also obtained tombs in its locus sepulturae, that is, in the monument or area it owned for the burial

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I

of its members. 78 The choice of such a sepulchre had religious repercussions since the members of a collegium commemorated their dead collectively, and on such occasions performed libations and sacrifices expressly forbidden to Christians. 79 The scandal occasioned by the proximity of tombs belonging to nonbelievers does not reflect a principle of total segregation of Christians and pagans after death. Cyprian's letter does not condemn in general the juxtaposition of pagan and Christian tombs ir: the same necropolis, but censures more specifically the recourse to a pagan collegium for funeral and grave. The letter suggests, therefore, that a convert to Christianity may have been expected to forgo prior arrangements for funeral and burial to which he had a right through a collegium. The first interdict forbidding the mixing of pagan and Christian graves seems to be that of Charlemagne in 782, proclaimed in the Capitulatio de partibus Saxoniae, a collection of measures directed at the recently vanquished Saxons. "We hereby command," he says, "that the bodies of Saxon Christians be inhumed in the cemeteries of the church and not in pagan tumuli."80 As B. Effros has rightly pointed out, the intention behind Charlemagne's edict was not to enforce a Christian practice, but to attack a powerful symbol of the Saxon nobility by outlawing its traditional funerary customs. 81 It is impossible to assert that the exclusive nature of Christian burial places dates back to ancient times. The church seems to have left the question of burial up to the family and not to have sought to interfere with i ts wishes in this area. Since ecclesiastical teaching makes no such recommendations, are there any clues in other sources attesting to a specific Christian preference for burial with fellow believers? Christians did not make any religious stipulation for being buried in a family or hereditary sepulchre. It is as weIl, however, to briefly discuss two apparent exceptions to this tendency. The first is an inscription published by De Rossi in r865 that allows burial for freed slaves and their descendants in the family mausoleum as long as they belong to the same religion as their master. 82 Paleographical analysis dates the inscription to the end of the second century. Insofar as it was discovered among pagan inscriptions or fragments of inscriptions in the Villa Patrizi on the Nomentana, bereft of any exact archeological context, its specifically Christian character is difficult to affirm. For De Rossi, sufficient grounds were provided by the use of the expression religio mea. Yet, as we have seen, adepts of Cybele, as weIl as those of the goddess Isis, also employed the word religio, when referring to their cult, and even styled themselves religiOSi. 83 Whatever the precise situation, subscription to a particular religion is less important than being a freed slave (or one of the descendants of a freed

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slave) of Valerius Mercurius and his wife. The monument thus remains simply a family tomb. The same might be said of the tomb that Marcus Antonius Restitutus recorded as constructing "for hirnself and his own [suis} faithful in the Lord. "84 This epitaph comes from the Catacomb of Domi tilla at Rome, but an accurate account of the discovery is not forthcoming: it might have originated in a me re cubiculum or come from a more extensive group.85 It is difficult to determine whether the expression "faithful in the Lord" is a restrictive phrase meaning "so long as they remain faithful in the Lord," or is simply a declaration of their faith. 86 Mortuary funds dedicated to fellow Christians are not particularly numerous. One example is that of Faltonia Hilaritas, "who built this cemetery (coemeterium) at her own expense and gave it to her religion (huhic religioni)."87 The inscription was reused on another tomb found in the vicinity of the small funerary basilica at Solluna, in the territory of what was ancient Velitrae, not far from Rome, on the Appian Way.88 Since the marble slab showed marks of having been affixed to a hook, its discoverer believes that the inscription was originally hung up at the entrance to the basilica which Faltonia probably donated to her fellow believers. As the context of the inscription cannot be taken for granted, this hypothesis, though appealing, is scarcely demonstrable. Even if it were true, what Faltonia did was simply to open the doors of a funerary basilica that she had paid for to house her own tomb, and did not in fact found a communal burying place. A celebrated inscription from Cherchel in Algeria (ancient Caesarea) records a gift of burial ground to the church made by a pious euergete, the most illustrious Severianus. 89 The original titulus has not been preserved, only a commemorative inscription of the donation carved by order of the Church of Caesarea. Paleographically, the inscription dates from the fourth century, but Severianus's donation might well antedate the Peace of the Church. The circumstances surrounding the find are unknown: 9o any description of the area is therefore entirely dependent on the inscription. Severianus, dubbed, rather poetically, cultor uerbi, selected a plot as a graveyard and built a cella there at his own cost. The whole plot-structure is referred to as a memoria, that is to say a (monumental) tomb. The term cella is rather imprecise. As no martyr is mentioned in the commemorative inscription, we can exclude the possibility that the chapel had been dedicated to martyrs. Cella signifies either the tomb itself or the edifice in which it was housed, a place that would also have been used for the performance of funerary rites. Gifts like those made by Faltonia and Severianus are not expressions of a desire to separate Christians from non-Christians in death, but instead acts

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of euergetism that bear comparison with similar deeds by their pagan contemporaries. The same can be said of a further inscription at Cherchel that originated with a priest, a certain Victor, who had an accubitoriunz made to lodge several tombs, including that of his own mother, Rogata. He donated the accubitoriunz to "all the brothers."91 Another example resembling pagan euergetism comes from a Lydian inscription dated to the fourth century that records how Gennadios purchased a monument "with what God had seen fit to give hirn," endowing it as a "tomb for the Christians of the Catholic Church. "92 The fact that the church was chosen, as it were, to serve as intermediary between the donator and the eventual beneficiaries of his gift is remarkable, but such gifts in no way entail that the Christians are concerned to be buried together and separately from others . . Conversion to Christianity does not appear to involve the choice of a particular place of burial. This is not the place to list all the localities where a mix of pagan, Christian, and J ewish tombs has been attested, nor to address the general question of Roman catacombs. 93 The present investigation, however, ventures to suggest that-since communal burial is not a constitutive condition for the identity of the various religious groups in the late Roman Empire and the teaching of the Christian Church itself had no definable position on the question-there is apriori no reason to suppose a desire on the part of Christians to be buried exclusively among their own. The comparison which has been attempted in this paper is not intended to suggest that conversion to one of the new cults in the Roman EmpireChristianity could be safely included among them, and perhaps even Judaism if one considers its capacity to attract-involves the same pro ces ses and has the same impact on its members as conversion to any other cult. However, with regard to burial practice, one must conclude that conversion to one of these cults has no specific implication. Neither religious teaching, nor the actual practice of worshipers allows for the conclusion that separate burial in a place specific to one's cult is either a common feature of the new cults, or a feature particular to one of them. Such a conclusion has important consequences for our understanding of these religious groups, particularly for the Jews and the Christians. Regarding the Jews, it is an indirect confirrnation of what a whole new trend of scholarship has now proved, namely that Jews were not living in isolation from the Greco-Roman society. Regarding the Christians, it requires that the question of their interaction with non-Christians has to be asked again and on new grounds. The church, even at the beginning of its development, and its converts might not have been as concerned by the separation from their traditional links to the Greco-Roman society as scholars have long been accustomed to believe.

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Moreover, the lack of effect of conversion to a new cult on burial practices also confirms that burial is not primarily a religious concern and that burial rites cannot be explained, at least not only explained, by religious belief.

NOTES

J. North, "The Development of Religious Pluralism," in The Jews among Pagans and Christians in the Roman Worl~ ed. J. Lieu, J. North, and T. Rajak (London, 1992), p. 184. 2. Cf. R. Saller, and B. D. Shaw, "Tombstones and Roman Family Relations in the Principate: Civilians, Soldiers and Slaves," Journal 0/ Roman Studies 74 (1984): 124-56; and B. D. Shaw, "Latin Funerary Epigraphy and Family Life in the Later Roman Empire," Historia 33 (1984): 457-97. 3. F. Cumont, Les mysteres de Mithra J 3d ed. (Brussels, 1913), pp. 18081. 4. This inscription, discovered in 1903 by A. Sogliano (Notizie degli scavi di antichita [1905]: 380), has been published by F. Sokolowski in Lois sacrees des cites grecques: SupplementJ Ecole franc;aise d'Athenes, Travaux et memoires 11, no. 120 (Paris, 1962), pp. 202-3. 5. See, for example, F. Cumont, Lux perpetua (Paris, 1949), pp. 253, 405-6. R. Turcan, "Bacchoi ou bacchants? De la dissidence des vivants a la segregation des morts," in Vassociation dionysiaque dans les societes anciennes Collection de l'Ecole franc;aise de Rome 89 (Rome, 1986), pp. 227-46, has advanced the proposition that the document concerned might be Orphic, whereas J.-M. Pailler has defended the traditional Dionysian hypothesis in '''Sepulture interdite aux non bacchises': Dissidence orphique et veture dionysiaque," in Bacchus: Figures et pouvoirs (Paris, 1995), pp. I I 1-26. 6. A. Bottini, Archeologia della salvezza: Vescatologia greca nelle testimonianze archeologiche Biblioteca di archeologia 17 (Milan, 1992), pp. 58-62. 7. Pailler, '''Sepulture interdite aux non bacchises,'" p. 118. 8. Bottini, Archeologia della salvezzaJ pp. 5 I-58. 9. For the traditional hypothesis, see P. Wuilleumier, Tarente des origines a la conquete romaineJ Bibliotheque des Ecoles franc;aises d'Athenes et de Rome 148 (Paris, 1939), pp. 548-49. P. G. Guzzo, "Altre note tarantine," Taras 12 (1992): 135-41, esp. pp. 135-36, definitively excludes the possibility that the tomb could have ever been that of Archytas. Cf. E. Lippolis, in Catalogo deI Museo nazionale archeologico di Taranto J vol. 3, pt. I: Taranto J la necropoli: Aspetti e problem i della documentazione archeologica tra VII e I sec. A.C. (Taranto, 1994), p. 58. 10. W Burkert, Ancient Mystery Cults (Cambridge, 1987), p. 48. I.

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I I. F. Cumont, Textes et monuments flgures relatifs aux l1zysteres de Mithra, vol. 2: Textes et monuments (Brussels, 1896), p. 353. Cf. M. J. Verrnaseren, Corpus inscriptionum et monumentoyum religionis Mithriacae, 2 vols. (The Hague, 1956-60), vol. 2, no. 1148. 12. See ibid., vol. I, nos. 113-15,206,511,623-624,708,885. 13. See the inscriptions collected in E. N. Lane, ed., Corpus cultus Iovis Sabazii, vol. 2: The Other Monuments and Literary Evidence, Etudes pn§liminaires aux religions orientales dans l'Empire romain 100/2 (hereafter CCIS 2), (Leiden, 1985). 14. lbid., no. 46, p. 22. See especially the exhaustive commentary by V. Kontorini, Inscriptions inedites relatives J, l'histoire et aux cultes de Rhodes au lle et au Ier s. av. J. -C, vol. I: Rhodiaka, Archaeologia transatlantica 6; Publications d'histoire de l'art et d'archeologie de l'Universite catholique de Louvain 42 (Louvain-Ia-Neuve, 1983), pp. 71-79, pIs. X-Xl. 15. CCIS 2, no. 28 for the inscription; and E. N. Lane, Corpus cttltus Iovis Sabazii, vol. 3: Conclusions, Etudes preliminaires aux religions orientales dans l'Empire romain 100/3 (Leiden, 1985), p. 45, for the masculine character of the Sabazios cult. 16. See M. J. Verrnaseren, Corpus cultus Cybelae Attidisque, 7 vols., Etudes preliminaires aux religions orientales dans l'Empire romain, 501I-501] (Leiden, 1977-89), vols. 3, no. 337 (Rome); 4, no. 105 (Larinum); 5, no. 142 (Sitifis). 17. lbid., vol. 4, no. 16. Cf. V. Tarn Tinh Tran, Le culte des divinites orientales en Campanie en dehors de Pompei, de Stabies et d'Herculanum, Etudes preliminaires aux religions orientales dans l'Empire romain 27 (Leiden, 1972), p. 107, no. C 9 (= CIL X, 1894). 18. See the material collected by J. M. C. Toynbee, Death and Burial in the Roman World (197 I; Baltimore, 1996), pp. 94-100. 19. See an inventory of assembly places of the collegia in J.-P. Waltzing, Etttde historiqtte sur les corporations professionnelles chez les Romains depuis les origines jusqu'J, la chttte de I'Empire d'Occident, 4 vols. (Louvain, 1895-1900), 4:447 ff. 20. Contra V. Tarn Tinh Tran, Culte des divinites orientales, p. 133. See pp. 149-50 for the text ofthe inscription (= CIL X, 157). For Waltzing, Etude historique, 4:448, the field was in fact just a meeting-place. 21. F. Hettner, "De love Dolicheno" (Diss., Bonn, 1877), p. 17. The inscription does not appear in M. Hörig's inventory in Corpus Cultus Iovis Dolicheni, Etudes preliminaires aux religions orientales dans l'Empire romain 106 (Leiden, 1987). 22. lbid., nos. 3,67,123. P. Merlat,}upiter Dolichenus: Essai d'interpretation et de synthese, Publications de l'lnstitut d'art et d'archeologie de l'Universite

SEEING AND BELIEVING de Paris 5 (Paris, I960), pp. I90-2 IO, contains no records as to the "Dolichenian communities'" burial rites or sepulchres. 23. See L. H. Feldman, "Proselytism by Jews in the Third, Fourth, and Fifth Centuries," journal for the Study ofjudaism 24, no. I (I993): I-58, see in particular pp. 4-I4 concerning Roman law. Cf. L. H. Feldman, jew and Gentile in the Ancient World: Attitudes and Interactions from Alexander to justinian (Princeton, N.)., I993), pp. 383ff., but see L. V. Rutgers's critique in

"Attitudes to Judaism in the Greco-Roman Period: Reflections on Feldman's 'Jewand Gentile in the Ancient World,'" jewish Quarterly Review 85 (I995): 36I -95, reprinted in L. V. Rutgers, The Hidden Heritage of Diaspora judaism, Contributions to Biblical Exegesis and Theology 20 (Louvain, I998), pp. I99- 2 34· 24. Feldman, "Proselytism by Jews," p. 49. 25. H.). Leon, The jews of Ancient Rome (I960), 2d ed., revised by c. A. Osiek (Peabody, Mass., I995), pp. 253-55· 26. See B. Lifshitz, "Les Juifs de Venosa," Rivista di filologia e di istruzione classica 40 (I9 62 ): 367-71. 27. Ibid., p. 368. Cf. L. H. Kant, "Jewish Inscriptions in Greek and Latin," Aufstieg und Niedergang der riimischen Welt, 2.20.2, p. 688 n. I04; Feldman, jew and Gentile in the Ancient World, p. 358 and n. 52. 28. See D. Noy, jewish Inscriptions of Western Europe, vol. I: Italy (Excluding the City of Rome), Spain, and Gaul (hereafter JIWE I) (Cambridge, I993), pp. I46-47; cf. p. xvii. 29. See E. M. Meyers, "Report on the Excavations at the Venosa Catacombs I98I," Vetera Christianorum 20 (I983): 445-59. Cf. L. V. Rutgers, "Archeological Evidence for the Interaction of Jews and Non-Jews in Late Antiquity," American journal of Archeology 96 (I992): I I2. 30. R. Heberdey, ed., Tituli Asiae minoris, vol. 3: Tituli Pisidiae linguis Graeca et Latina conscripti, pt. I: Tituli Termessi et agri Termessensis (hereafter TAM 3/I) (Vienna, I94I), no. 448. 31. Ibid., no. 6I2. 32. L. Robert, "Epitaphes juives d'Ephese et de Nicomedie," Hellenica I I-I2 (I960), p. 386. 33. M. H. Williams, "The Meaning and Function of Ioudaios in GraecoRoman Inscriptions," Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik I I6 (I997): 262. 34· Cf. TAM 3/ I, no. 44 8 . 35. General introduction in R. Hachili, Ancient jewish Art and Archaeology in the Diaspora, Handbuch der Orientalistik I, Nahe und Mittlere Osten 35 (Leiden, I998), pp. 263-3IO. The whole discussion was opened by M. H. Williams, "The Organisation of J ewish Burials in Ancient Rome in the Light of Evidence from Palestine and the Diaspora," Zeitschrift für Papyrologie

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und Epigraphik 101 (1994): 165-82. Cf. D. Noy, "Where Were the Jews of the Diaspora Buried?" in jews in a Graeeo-Roman World, ed. M. Goodman (Oxford, 199 8 ), pp. 75-89. 36. See Rutgers, "Archeological Evidence," pp. I 10-1 I; R. S. Kraemer, "Jewish Tuna and Christian Fish: Identifying Religious Affiliation in Epigraphie Sourees," Harvard Theologieal Review 84 (1991): 141-62; J. W. van Henten and A. Bij de Vaate, "Jewish or Non-Jewish? Some Remarks on the Identification of Jewish Inscriptions from Asia Minor," Bibliotheea Orientalis 53 (1996): 16-28. 37. J. Lieu, J. North, and T.. Rajak, eds., The jews among Pagans and Christians in the Roman World (London, 1992); Goodman, lews in a GraeeoRoman World; 1. V. Rutgers, The lews in Late Aneient Rome: Evidenee 0/ Culturallnteraction in the Roman Diaspora, Religions in the Graeco-Roman World 12 (Leiden, 1995), specifically chap. I on the historiography of the discovery of the Jewish catacombs. 38. See P. R. Trebilco, jewish Conununities in Asia Minor, Society for New Testament Studies, Monograph Series 69 (Cambridge, 1991). 39. Text and translation in J.-B. Frey, Corpus inseriptionum iudaiearum: Reeueil des inseriptions juives qui vont du IIIe siede avant jesus-Christ au VIIe siede de notre ere (hereafter CIJ), 2 vols., Sussidi allo studio delle antichira cristiane I, 3 (Vatican City, 1936-52) no. 757; =E. Kalinka, ed., Tituli Asiae minoris, vol. 2: Tituli Lyeiae linguis Graeea et Latina eonseripti, pt. 2 (Vienna, 1930) (hereafter TAM 212), no. 612. 40. See below for this type of euergetism. Cf. Trebilco,jewish Communities in Asia Minor, p. 227 n. 71. 41. For Hierapolis, see T. Ritti, "Nuovi dati su una nota epigrafe sepolcrale con stefanotico da Hierapolis di Frigia," Seienze del/'antiehita 6-7 (199293): 4 1-43, and E. Miranda, "La comunira giudaica di Hierapolis di Frigia," Epigraphiea Anatoliea 31 (1999): 109-55, which records but one case where two Jewish tombs lie next to each other whereas the others simply line the road (p. 146). The northern necropolis from which the majority of the Jewish inscriptions come is in the course of publication. Far Corycus, see J. Keil, ed., Monumenta Asiae Minoris antiqua, vol. 3: Denkmäler aus dem rauhen Kilikien (Manchester, 1931), pp. 120-22, for a description of the necropolis that stretches along the coast, including a map (pI. 46). Jewish inscriptions have been discovered in each of the editors' three arbitrarily designated zones, A, B, and C. Cf. M. H. Williams, "The Jews of Corycus: A Neglected Diasporan Community from Roman Times," journal /or the Study 0/ judaism 25 (1994): 27 8 and nn. 23- 24. 42. J. H. M. Strubbe, "Curses against Violation of the Grave in Jewish Epitaphs of Asia Minor," in Studies in Early jewish Epigraphy, ed. J. W. van

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Henten and P. W. van der Horst, Arbeiten zur Geschichte des antiken Judentums und des Urchristentums 21 (Leiden, 1994), pp. 70-128, 1012, contra Trebilco, jewish Communities in Asia Minor, p. 227 n. 71. M. H. Williams, "Meaning and Function of Ioudaios/' p. 256 and n. 69, underscores just how flimsy Strubbe's arguments are; similar comments in D. Noy, "Where Were the Jews of the Diaspora buried?" p. 81 n. 30. 43. Trebilco, jewish Communities in Asia Minor, pp. 67-68, 83, 100, implies that the population in cities such as Acmonia was aware of and acknowledged the Mosaic law. 44. As Strubbe himself knows, "Curses against Violation of the Grave," p. 100. 45. CI] 2, no. 777 (incomplete); new ed. in E. Miranda, "La comunira giudaica di Hierapolis," no. 23, p. 131, with detailed commentary pp. 14045. Cf. Ritti, "Nuovi dati su una nota epigrafe." 46. Text, English translation, and commentary in Trebilco, jewish Communities in Asia Minor, pp. 78-81. 47. According to Trebilco (pp. 78-81), the association of the "Neighborhood of the First Gate" was a Jewish association. As for P. Ailios Glykon himself, he was apparently not Jewish, but simply a "sympathizer." In both cases the arguments proposed are not wholly compelling. 48. The city of Tukrah (ancient Taucheira) in Libya furnishes another interesting example. Ir has thrown up a total of 440 inscriptions, most of which come from burial chambers dug into the walls of abandoned quarries to the west of the city. S. Applebaum has positively identified 109 Jewish inscriptions, to which number he has added 144 others from tombs confidently ascribed to Jews. The implication is that one and the same tomb houses only Jewish burials, and there is indeed nothing to suggest the contrary. On the other hand-and against the opinion formerly held by other scholars-Applebaum has demonstrated that if one of the quarries seems indeed to have served almost exclusively as aburial ground for J ews, others contain no Jewish graves at all , and others again comprise tight-knit areas of Jewish graves among others belonging to non-Jews. S. Applebaum, jews and Greeks in Ancient Cyrene Studies in Judaism in Late Antiquity 28 (Leiden, 1979), pp. 144-60. Cf. idem, "The Jewish Community of Hellenistic and Roman Teucheira in Cyrenaica," Scripta Hierosolymitana 7 (1961): 27-5 2 . 49. W Horbury and D. Noy, eds., jewish Inscriptions 0/ Graeco-Roman Egypt: With an Index 0/ the jewish Inscriptions 0/ Egypt and Cyrenaica (Cambridge, 1992), p. 4 (cf. p. xv); against C. S. Clermont-Ganneau's old hypothesis to be found in ''L'antique necropole juive d'Alexandrie," Comptes rendus de FAcademie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres (1907): 23 6-39, 375-76. J

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50. See A. 1. Delattre, Gamart ou la necropole juive de Carthage (Lyon, 1895), and see the review in S. Gsell, "Chronique archeologique africaine," Melanges dJarcheologie et dJhistoire 15 (1895): 829. See also Y Le Bohec, "Inscriptions juives et juda'isantes de l'Afrique romaine," Antiquites africaines 17 (1981 ): 165-2°7; pp. 168 and 180-89 for the inscriptions. 5 I. For a detailed description of these catacombs, see C. Vismarra, "I cimiteri ebraici di Roma," in Societa romana e impero tardoantico J vol. 2: Le merci; Gli insediamentiJ ed. A. Giardina, Collezione storica (Bari, 1986), pp. 35 1-389; and 1. V. Rutgers, "Überlegungen zu den jüdischen Katakomben Roms," jahrbuch für Antike und Christentum 33 (1990) 140-57 (revised English translation, "Dating the Jewish catacombs of ancient Rome," in Rutgers, The Hidden Heritage of Diaspora judaism J pp. 45-71). T. Rajak, "Inscription and Context: Reading the Jewish Catacombs of Rome," in van Henten and van der Horst, Studies in Early jewish EpigraphYJ rightly sounds a note of warning as regards our highly fragmentary knowledge of these catacombs (pp. 228-30). 52. See 1. V. Rutgers, The jews of Late Ancient RomeJ pp. 53-55, for an examination of chambers I and II of the catacomb at Villa Randanini where the paintings contain motifs which are explicitly pagan but which might originally have belonged to aseparate hypogeum; pp. 77-81, for some sarcophagi which are decorated in a pagan style, but which have not been discovered in their original context; pp. 269-72, where the same reasoning is applied to epitaphs in which the pagan formula Dis Manibus appears. T. Rajak, "Inscription and Context," p. 239, opts to leave the question undecided. 53. Leon, lews of Ancient RomeJ p. 54, and chap. 7 passim. 54. Williams, "Organisation of Jewish Burials," pp. 165-7°. 55. Ibid., pp. 179-81 ; followed by D. Noy, "Where Were the Jews of the Diaspora Buried?" p. 87 . . 56. Williams, "Organisation of Jewish Burials," pp. 181-82. 57. See B. Mazar, ed., Beth SheJarim J vol. 1: Catacombs 1-4 0erusalem, 1973); M. Schwabe and B. Lifschitz, eds., Beth SheJarim J vol. 2: The Greek Inscriptions 0erusalem, 1974); N. Avigad, ed., Beth SheJarim J vol. 3: The Archaeological Excavations during 1953-1958: The Catacombs 12-13 (New Brunswick, N.J., 1976). A guided tour of these catacombs (complete with maps allowing viewers to see the photographs and read the inscriptions) has been compiled by Michael 1. Satlow (U niversity of Virginia) and uploaded onto the Internet at: www.iath.village.virginia.edu/mls4n/genplan.html. The only concrete evidence of the role of funeral consortia is confined to an inscription discovered in the synagogue which indicates the seats occupied by two individuals involved in the preparation and laying out of the bodies: Schwabe-and Lifschitz, Beth SheJarim J vol. 2, no. 202.

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58. See J. Guyon, "La vente des tombes a travers l' epigraphie de la Rome chretienne (IIIe-VIIe siecles): Le rale des /ossores! mansionarii! praepositi et pretres," Melanges de FEcole /ranfaise de Rome! Antiquite 86 (r974): 549-96. 59. J. Juster, Les juijs clans FEmpire romain: Leur condition juridique! economique et sodale! vol. I (Paris, 1914), p. 480. 60. Ibid., n. 4, which cites the following three inscriptions: JIWE 2, no. 378 = CI] I, no. 220, in which a wife reserves a loculus next to that of her spouse; TAM 2/2, no. 612 = CI] 2, no. 757, which makes a gift of an individual grave to the Jewish community of Tlos (see above); CIL VI, 10412, whose Jewish character is not accepted. 61. Semahot I, 9; D. Zlotnick, ed., The Tractate !!Mourning!! (Semahot): Regulations Relating to Death! Burial! and Mourning! Yale J udaica series 17 (New Haven, Conn., 1966), p. 32; for the date, see the introduction. 62. Tosefta! Gittin! 5, 5; Jerusalem Talmud! Demai! I, 4;Jerusalem Talmud, Aboda zara! I, 3. Cf. Babylonian Talmud! Gittin! 61a, where the place of burial is once again not mentioned (contra L. V. Rutgers, "Archaeological Evidence," p. 114). 63. Mishna! Ohalot! 18, 7-8, translation and commentary in J. Neusner, A History 0/ the Mishnaic Law 0/ Purity! vol. 4: Ohalot: Commentary! Studies in Judaism in Late Antiquity 6/4 (Leiden, 1975), pp. 340-41; cf. G. G. Porton, Goyim: Gentiles and Israelites in Mishnah-Tosefta! Brown Judaic Studies 155 (Atlanta, 1988), pp. 16- 17, 274· 64. Mishna! Shabbat! 23, 4, and Tosefta! Shabbat! 17, 14-15; translation and commentary in J. Neusner, A History 0/ the Mishnaic Law 0/ Appointed Times! vol. I: Shabbat: Translation and Explanation! Studies in Judaism in Late Antiquity 34/1 (Leiden, 1981), pp. 200-201; cf. Porton, Goyim! pp. 28-29, 208. 65. See Porton's note of methodological caution, Goyim! pp. 4-5. 66. D. Noy, "Where Were the Jews of the Diaspora Buried?" pp. 88-89, makes mention of such a wish but does not furnish further illustration. Cf. idem, "Writing in Tongues: The Use of Greek, Latin and Hebrew in Jewish Inscriptions from Roman Italy," Journal 0/ Jewish Studies 48 (1997): 3003 I I, where he suggests that the choice of Greek as the language for epitaphs (approximately 74 percent of the total) coincides with the selection of a specific, and hence Jewish, wording, in contradistinction to Latin epitaphs whose phraseology conforms more closely to contemporary pagan inscriptions. 67. On the implications of the status of such a "megalopolis," see the recent Megapoles mediterraneennes: Geographie urbaine retrospective: Actes du colloque organise par FEcole /ranfaise de Rome et la Maison mediterraneenne des sciences de Fhomme (Rome, 8-11 May 1996), a colloquium chaired by C.

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Nicolet, R. Ilbert, and J.-c. Depaule, Collection de l'Ecole franc;aise de Rome 261 (Paris, 2000). A study of the social practices peculiar to large cities remains to be undertaken. 68. H. Delehaye, Les origines du culte des martyrs, Subsidia hagiographica 20 (Brussels, 1933), p. 30. 69. See E. Rebillard, "Eglise et sepulture dans l'Antiquite tardive (Occident latin, 3e-6e siecles)," Annales: Histoire, sciences sodales 54, no. 5 (1999): 1029-32. Cf. M. J. Johnson, "Pagan-Christian Burial Practices of the Fourth Century: Shared Tombs?" Journal 0/ Early Christian Studies 5, no. I (1997): 45-4 6 . 70. Tertullian, De idololatria, 14, 5; critical text, translation, and commentary by J. H. Waszink and J. C. M. Van Winden, Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae I (Leiden, 1987), pp. 50-5 I. 7 I. Ibid. 72. Tertullian, Ad Scapulam, 3, I, ed. E. Dekkers, Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina 2 (Turnhout, 1954), p. 1129. 73. See TertuHian, Apologeticum, 3, 1-4 recording comments made on those who had become Christians, showing that even in a city the size of Carthage, everyone knew who had converted to that faith. 74. For a detailed demonstration, see E. Rebillard, "Les areae carthaginoises (TertuHien, Ad Scapulam 3, I): Cimetieres communautaires ou enclos funeraires de chretiens?" Melanges de I'Ecole /ranfaise de Rome, Antiquite 108, no. I (199 6 ): 175-89. 75. Cyprian, Ep. 67, ed. G. F. Diercks, Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina 3C (Turnhout, 1996), pp. 446-62. See G. W. Clarke, The Letters 0/ Cyprian, vol. 4, Ancient Christian Writers 47 (New York, 1989), pp. 13942, for the circumstances behind the events and a bibliography. 76. Cyprian, Ep. 67, 6, pp. 456-57. 77. See Commodian, Instructiones, 33. Cf. A. Cafissi, "Contributo aHa storia dei collegi romani: I collegia /uneraticia," Studi e ricerche dell'Istituto di Storia, Facolta di Lettere e Filosofia, Universita di Firenze 2 (1983): 89-1 I I. 78. See Cafissi, "Contributo alla storia dei collegi romani," p. 107; and Waltzing, Etude historique, 4:487-95, for a list. 79. Cafissi, "Contributo aHa storia dei collegi romani," pp. 107-8. 80. Capitulatio de partibus Saxoniae, 22, ed. A. Boretius, in Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Legum sectio 2, Capitularia regum Francorum, vol. I (Hanover, 1883), p. 69. 81. B. Effros, "De partibus Saxoniae and the Regulation of Mortuary Custom: A Carolingian Campaign of Christianization or the Suppression of Saxon Identity?" Revue beige de philologie et d'histoire 75, no. 2 (1997): 26786.

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82. CIL VI, 1°412 = ICVR VIII, 20737: "Monumentum Valeri Mercuri et Iulittes Iuliani et Quintilies Verecundes libertis libertabusque posterisque eorum at religionem pertinentes meam hoc amplius in circuitum circa monumentum lati longi per pedes binos quod pertinet at ipsum monument(um)." See G.-B. De Rossi, "Le iscrizioni trovate nei sepolcri all'aperto cielo nella villa Patrizi," Bullettino di archeologia cristiana (1865):

53-54· 83. Cf. G. Boissier, La religion romaine dJAuguste aux AntoninsJ vol. I (Paris, 1878), p. 383 n. 5. 84. ICVR III, 6555: "Marcus Antonius Restitutus fecit ypogeu sibi et suis fidentibus in Domino." 8 5. See the doctoral thesis by P. Pergola, "Les cimetieres chretiens de Rome depuis leurs origines jusqu' au neuvieme siede: Le cas du 'praedium Domitillae' et de la catacombe homonyme sur la 'Via Ardeatina'" (These d'etat, Aix-en-Provence, 1992), pp. 305-6. Cf. G.-B. De Rossi, "Le varie e successive condizioni di legalira. dei cemeteri, il vario grado di liberta dell'arte cristiana, e la legalira della medesima religione nel primo secolo verificate dalle recenti scoperte nel cemetero di Domitilla," Bullettino di archeologia cristiana ( 1865): 89-99. 86. A. Ferrua (ICVR III, 6555) compares this wording to 2 Cor. 1:9: "non simus fidentes in nobis sed in deo qui suscitat mortuos." 87. ILCV 3681 = Supplementa Italica J vol. 2 (Rome, 1983), no. 66. 88. See G. Mancini, "Scoperta di un antico sepolcreto cristiano nel territorio veliterno, in localira Solluna," Notizie degli scavi di antichita (r924): 34 1-53, esp. pp. 345-46. 89. CIL VIII, 958s: text and commentary in Y Duval, Loca Sanctorum Africae: Le culte des martyrs en Afrique du IVe au VIIe siedeJ vol. I, Collection de l'Ecole franc;aise de Rome 58 (Rome, 1982), no. 179, pp. 380-83. 90. Contrary to statements elsewhere: see, for example, S. Gsell, Les monuments antiques de l'AlgerieJ vol. 2 (Paris, 1901), pp. 398-400; and P. Monceaux, Histoire litteraire de l'Afrique chritienne: Depuis les origines jusquJa l'invasion arabeJ 7 vols. (Paris, 19°1-23), 1:14, 2:125-3°. Cardinal Lavigerie did indeed undertake excavations in the zone in which the inscription was actually unearthed, but these did not furnish the results anticipated since the discovery concerned a pagan area; see the publication of these excavations by P. Leveau, "Fouilles anciennes sur les necropoles antiques de Cherchel," Antiquites africaines 12 (197 8): 93-95. 91. ILCV 1179 = CIL VIII, 9586. 92. P. Hermann, Neue Inschriften zur historischen Landeskunde von Lydien und angrenzenden Gebieten J Denkschriften der Österreichischen Akademie der

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Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-Historische Klasse, 77, no. 1 (Vienna, 1959), no. 10, p. 13 (= SEC 19 [1963], no. 719). 93. On mixing of tombs, see Johnson, "Pagan-Christian Burial Practices." For an oudine of the question of Roman catacombs, see E. Rebillard, "KOIMHTHRION et COEMETERIUM: Tombe, tombe sainte, necropole," Milanges de I'Ecole franfaise de RomeJ Antiquiti l0S, no. 2 (1993): 975-1001, and ''L'eglise de Rome et le developpement des catacombes: Apropos de l'origine des cimetieres chretiens," ibid., 1°9, no. 2 (1997): 741-63.

4 CONVERTING THE UN-CHRISTIANIZABLE THE BAPTISM OF STAGE PERFORMERS IN LATE ANTIQUITY

RICHARD

LIM

In the Lift 0/ St. Pelagia (32), the devil appears before Bishop Nonnus to remonstrate with hirn over his most recent deed. The devil accuses the bishop of being aserial miscreant: first he converted thirty thousand Arab tribesmen, then he brought the city of Baalbek/Heliopolis over to Christianity, and now, to top his trouble-making career, he even snatched away his (the devil's) prized disciple, the prima donna of the Antiochene stage. By moving an infamous mime actress to accept baptism, the devil confesses, the bishop has snatched his "last hope" away. Interestingly, the author manages to capture in this one simple comment some of the most notable aspects of conversion and Christianization in late antiquity: the mission to barbarian peoples, the transformation of the ancient city, and the conversion of individuals. The devil's assessment may appear surprising at first. Surely the consequences of the evangelization of thirty thousand Arabs and the population of an entire city outweigh those of the conversion of a single individual. Further, Pelagia was al ready a Christian catechumen in the text, having presumably been signed with the cross while an infant. Nevertheless the author had good reasons for speaking through the devil in this way. The public stage of late antiquity represents one of those conspicuous features of civic life that remained more or less impervious to Christianization, and the conversion of the foremost mime actress of an important city would have been an immense coup indeed. This paper examines select late antique evidence for the baptism of stage performers as weH as Christian narratives of their conversion, without any claims to exhaustiveness but with a focus on the Greek East. The opposition between church and stage remained a live issue weH into the sixth century despite the fact that, by that time, the shows were patronized, attended, and staffed by Chrisrians. Thus while narratives of the baptism of perform-

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ers appear to address the tensions between the pagan and Christian worlds, being in fact addressed to people who al ready participated to varying degrees in a Christian identity, they speak more to the challenge of Christianizing post-Constantinian Christian communities.

CONVERSION, CHRISTIANIZATION, AND SECULARIZATION: THE CASE OF THE LATE ROMAN STAGE

The conversion of Constantine in A.D. 312, the nature of which continues to be debated among scholars, gradually allowed a Christian imprint to be placed on late antique society through the application of imperial authority.l The latter process, which has come to be termed "Christianization," remains one of the central themes in the study of late antiquity. Some scholars regard Christianization as a conflictual process involving mainly pagans and Christians, and proceed to judge its progress according to the ability of Christians to defeat the re ar guards of the old religion in areas such as the status of the public cult, sacrifices, temples, and priesthoods. This by and large conforms to the triumphal narrative of late antique Christians themselves. While certain scholars have revised earlier narratives of decisive change and now emphasize continuity or slow adaptation, the fundamental premise regarding Christianization remains the same. With respect to the Roman spectacles, Ramsay MacMullen has even cited the eventual disappearance of gladiatorial games in the early fifth century as the only decisive impact Christianity had on them. 2 But the survival and disappearance of certain forms of spectacles may not always provide the most meaningful standard by which to measure Christianization, given that it cannot just be equated with the suppression and disappearance of traditional practices or institutions. 3 The attitudes and actions of the emperors and the political elite remained critical to the success of Christianization. The co operation of the Roman state in securing its progress was neither unconditional nor motivated by the same considerations held by ecclesiastical writers or which they attributed to the imperial court. The emperors and the elite at court and in the ci ti es retained an interest in keeping the ancient system going even as elements of it were transformed or adapted to the needs of an increasingly Christianized society: while public sacrifices must go, many other practices and institutions could stay. For emperots and elites, the old was not always bad. 4 The late antique city represents a prime opportunity for scholars to examine the nature and scope of Christianization. Roman urban administration

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grew out of centuries of experience and experimentation from the cooperation between central and civic elites; it remained a cornerstone of the imperial system in political, social, and economic terms. Moreover, the city represented the best that the Greco-Roman world had to offer. Refinements in urban life, lavish amenities, and the provision of large-scale entertainments made the ci ti es desirable pI aces in which to live despite drawbacks such as crowding. Cities were also the showcases of empire and proof that the Romans surpassed barbarians in achievement. Central to the definition and prestige of an ancient city was its provision of public entertainments. The urban spectacles consisted mainly of circus, amphitheatrical, and theatrical games. Among these, the most ubiquitous as well as the most enduring were the theatrical shows. 5 The Roman stage was never effectively Christianized in late antiquity for reasons that still await full investigation. 6 Instead, it remained astapie of civic and imperial entertainments and an ideological challenge to Christianity of the first order. Once public sacrifices had been banned and the link between the games and pagan festivals severed, Roman public spectacles could be and were presented by the political elite as belonging to the saeculum, neither explicitly pagan nor Christian. Rather than being ludi dedicated to the gods, they became voluptates designed to amuse the people. 7 Many ecclesiastical leaders still preferred to brand them as pagan but, when faced with the contrary instinct of the political elite, they could only effect incremental changes such as causing the emperors to ban public shows during important Christian holidays. On the other hand, they could and did work to transform the mores of their own congregations and their documented predilection for the shows. In this respect, Christianization involved the slow molding of attitudes and habits of life through pastoral care, so that the anti thesis between the church and the stage no longer reflects the conflict between Christians and pagans but one among Christians. Historians, even now, often adopt the stance of Christi an writers and preachers who sought to persuade fellow Christians to live wh at they considered a more Christian way of life. These more rigorist preachers advocated a set of behavior and beliefs thought to set the genuine Christian apart from the semi-Christian or crypto-pagan. But increasing attention is also being paid to the outlook of the local Christian communities or the preacher's audiences, recognizing that Christianization involved a process of persuasion and negotiation over the meaning of a Christian identity.8 This paper adopts the position that the baptism of stage performers furnished late antique Christians with an occasion for debating with each other over what Christianization ought to mean.

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THE CONVERSION OF STAGE PERFORMERS: BACKGROUND, EVIDENCE, AND KEY ISSUES

Excepting a few apologists, elite pagan and Christian writers alike regarded the theater as essentiaIly amoral as weIl as a powerful source of corruption for those who attended it. But for some Christians, the stage could also be seen as the embodiment of the hostile, unsympathetic pagan world that stubbornly resisted the Gospel. The antipathy between the Christian church and the civic stagehad become a commonplace by the fourth century.9 Stage performers were the popular heroes of the profane, secular world that was litde affected by Christianization. In Roman law, they long suffered from the penalty of infamia in perpetuity and were seen as personae probosae. lO The age-old practice of assigning public performers the status of infames continued weIl into the Christian empire, as witnessed by the Liber SyroromanusJ a textbook of legal instruction based upon a Greek original from around 475 Y Within the Christian church, performers were refused the sacrament of baptism, the rite of passage through which one passed into the fuIl Christian community, unless they first abandoned their profession. Actors who wished to be counted among the plebs Christiana were required by the ecclesiastical authorities to forsake their life in entertainment. Hippolytus of Rome, in commenting on the screening of candidates for admission to the catechumenate, rejected active stage performers as weIl as those who were currendy involved in the business of prostitution. 12 This rigorist stance did not soften markedly in the post-Constantinian era. In 393, Augustine denied the sacraments to prostitutes, public performers, and "anyone else who promotes public turpitude," alongside gladiators and pimpsY Ecclesiastical canons from church councils also consistendy forbid baptized Christians from practicing the theatrical arts. 14 As the Roman population graduaIly embraced Christianity, the conversion of stage performers became a matter of public interest and discussion. Significant mentions of the actual conversion and baptism of stage personnel first appear in written sources during the late fourth century.15 This type of conversion was anything but straightforward, being subject to negotiations between the secular and ecclesiastical elites. Various references in late Roman law codes and in a letter found among the spuria of Sulpicius Severus reflect evolving official attitudes regarding stage performers, particularly actresses, who wished to receive baptism. By the fourth century, after many collegia had been transformed by the state into involuntary and hereditary associations, the children of parents involved in those public professions were required by law to take up their

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parents' metiers. 16 Stage performers were among those corporibus obligati whose social mobility was circumscribed because their service was deemed vital to the public interest. In this one area, we can find an interesting tension between the official restrietions placed on the social mobility of members of certain professions and the prospect of greater social mobility promised by Christian conversion and baptism. The anonymous author of a pseudepigraphic letter of Sulpicius Severus urges the notables (primates, decuriones) of an African city to excuse a young actor, who had recently been converted and baptized, from the munus, compulsory service, of public stage performanceY The writer of the letter argues that while the boy ente red the acting profession at a very young age, thereby making a blot on his early life (ut annorum suorum initia macularet), he is not culpable for, being an infant, he has done wrong without knowledge. His stage career is also a thing of the past. Now that the enlightened young man has come to see the life of the stage as a perverted one (inte!!exit uitam scenicam consilio meliore damnandam), he ought to be allowed to perform a full purification (plena purgatio) by means of baptism. The writer also states that the young actor, renouatus sacro baptismate, has al ready pledged to avoid the theater and shun the public eye in the future. We do not know the outcome of the story. It is likely that the petition was granted. Already in 290, Diocletian and Maximian had issued a ruling that the minority of young performers constituted a mitigating circumstance that spared them from being branded infames personae for the rest of their lives, the common fate of all public actors. 18 Roman law had long provided for the protection of minors in matters of property and inheritance and this tetrarchie law extended this proteetion to humiliores by allowing young actors who no longer performed to be restored to respectable social standing, inviolatatam existimationem. This reminds us that not all changes in such areas should be attributed to Christianization. A similar situation prompted imperial legislation on several occasions. 19 Throughout the later fourth century, local officials were confronted with the question as to whether actors who had received deathbed baptism but who subsequently lived could be made to return to their former trade. 20 The political elite faced a difficult dilemma. In an imperial rescript, Valentinian, Valens, and Gratian ruled that baptism was a potent sacrament that could not be trifled with and that, once baptized, former actors must not perform in public ever again. 21 However, the emperors were aware that this might give undue encouragement to scaenici to desert their obligatory profession by joining the ranks of the baptized. In order to avoid having no stage performers for the popular shows, they stipulated that baptism could only be granted to ac tors certified by their local bishops and curatores, city supervisors, to be near death.

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This law epitomizes the essential compromise upon which the political elite settled. They dared not deny baptism outright to a dying individual whose salvation depended on receiving the sacrament whilst alive. Neither would they flout the established ecclesiastical teaching forbidding a baptized Christian from participating in public performances. FinaIly, they did not want to provide an easy escape clause that would allow performers to forsake their nzunera to the detriment of the urban entertainments. The latter was a weighty consideration for the emperors. By admitting only dying performers to baptism and in other laws forbidding members of this and other essential professions from deserting into the Christian clergy, the emperors aimed to ensure the proper discharge of the /unctiones publicaeJ foremost among which was the provision of voluptates for the people. 22 The situation on the ground added to the emperors' concern. Many communities experienced difficulty in recruiting and retaining sta.ge performers sufficient for their needs, the shortage of actresses and dancers becoming especially noticeable in Western cities. 23 Around 371, certain individuals in Roman North Africa apparently took to compelling former members of the acting profession to go on stage, in contravention of both ecclesiastical teaching and imperial law. The resulting dispute eventually reached the emperors, who ordered Julianus, proconsul of Africa, to allow only women born into the acting profession "who appear to be living and to have lived a vulgar life in their manner of living and in their morals" to be pressganged back into service. 24 A decade on, in 380, Gratian, Valentinian, and Theodosius issued a law in which they note with displeasure that thynzelicae were being abducted from Rome to perform elsewhere. 25 Imperiallegislation on performers from the Theodosian age onward manifests a concern over their moral as weIl as legal status. In 380, the same emperors instructed Anicius Paulinus, then urban prefect of Rome, that baptized scaenicae from the lower orders (ex viliori sorte) must not be forced to act again provided that they continued to exhibit a reformed way of life (nzelior vivendi USUS).26 Former actresses were also to be released from the praeiudiciunz that had hitherto adhered to them. Yet not every scaenica who left the stage led a life that met with the approval of the emperors. While a law of 381 to Valerianus, urban prefect of Rome, permits every actress who so petitions to be released from her duty, it dweIls insistently on the evil consequences that will result if she fails to follow this commitment through with appropriate actions. 27 As stated in the laws, the authorities must judge whether former actresses could be made to return to stage service on the basis of their postbaptismal moral conduct, specifically whether they offered sexual favors for money. Interestingly, former male actors were reincorporated into society as respectable persons, ut probabiles habeantu",

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without any scrutiny of their behavior after baptism. Such a discriminatory treatment of scaenicae might have had more to do with their perceived scarcity than with elite male views regarding the need of women for tutela. Demands for urban entertainment sometimes caused public officials and emperors to reverse their usual policy of allowing performers to be baptized and hence excused from stage service. In 413, the emperors asked Diogeni anus , the tribunus voluptatum of Carthage, to compel actresses and female mimes freed from their mztnus by former imperial annotations to return to service summa instantia, in order to provide popular voluptates for the celebrati on of festal days.28 I have suggested elsewhere that the background for this law was the peculiar and unsettled situation in Carthage following the Gothic sack of Rome in 4 10. 29 Public officials and masters of slaves who were engaged in the provision of ludi scaenici often applied pressure on individuals to go into or remain in service. In a general law to local governors and bishops, Leo I (457-68) forbids them from allowing a woman, whether slave or free, to be forced into participating in mime shows or dance performances as weIl in acts of prostitution. 30 Justinian reiterates the same principle in a later law: women must not be coerced into becoming or remaining performers; should this happen, they could appeal to local governors and bishops who must, under threat of stiff penalties, see that the law was properly carried out. 31 Given a dose connection between the Roman actress and prostitute, laws on prostitution have a bearing on our present discussion. Both actress and pros ti tute served useful social functions and were essential to the overall welfare of Roman society. They hailed from the lower orders, being the "dregs" of society as one imperial law indelicately puts it; they were often lumped together as disreputable persons (humilis abiectaque persona).32 Yet from the mid-fifth century on, there emerged a growing imperial interest in the fate of these socially and legally marginal women. This change resulted from a certain Christianization of the social mores and discourse of order of late antigue society. A law of 428 forbids fathers and masters from selling daughters and female slaves into prostitution and threatens them with the loss of potestatis ius over the women. 33 Given the entrenched legal right, guaranteed by the Twelve Tables, of the paterfamilias to dispose of family members in his power, even to sell them into slavery, and the extensive rights a master held over a slave, the law marks a signal departure from precedent. 34 Later, a constitution of Justinian from 531 renders it unlawful for a master to prostitute a slave; furthermore, a master would immediately lose his power over the slave through the commission of such an act. 35 In partial summary, substantial obstades stood in the way of stage performers who planned to receive baptism. The imperial rulings in this area

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normally recognize their right to baptism and hence retirement from the stage. These imperial laws regarding the baptism of performers suggest that the extent and limits of Christianization were a complex issue, one that involved the different and often conflicting interests of the imperial and loeal elites, ecdesiastical leaders, and the performers themselves. Ultimately, the imperial authorities allowed everyone who so wished the ability to receive baptism but, as part of the compromise, imposed a doser scrutiny upon the moral conduct of former actresses. The burgeoning elite interest in supervising the morality of women from the humiliores represents a new twist that is an unintended consequence of the historical developments we have deseribed as well as the universalizing tendency of Christian moral discourse, discussed below.

THE CONVERSION OF STAGE PERFORMERS IN THE CHRISTIAN TRADITION

The evidence of imperial and ecdesiastical legislation reviewed above shows that the baptism of stage performers involved certain negotiations among the elite and that, on occasion, an otherwise individual decision might have given rise to a public drama of sorts. Even so, no drama has emerged from this body of evidence that remotely rivals what late antique Christian texts would offer in connection with the baptism of stage performers. There are two main genres in wh ich this theme features prominently: the martyrology of (mostly male) stage performers and the hagiography of (mostly female) penitent actor-saints. In reading these works, we need to take into account the broader context of the church's repeated failure to effect the suppression of the public stage, which continued to be a popular civic institution. Such narratives therefore furnished an opportunity for certain Christians to formulate a response to its perceived challenge. Further, as what eedesiastical leaders had the most direct control over was the terms of entry for those who sought to become (full) members of the Christian community, the rite of baptism became a central feature in defining the relationship between the Christian chureh and the theater and its personnel.

Martyrology

0/ Actor-Saints

The Acta Sanctorum contains a number of martyrologies of stage performers who purportedly lived during late antiquity.36 As these passiones mostly share the same dramatic context-the enactment of the rite of baptism on the public stage-Werner Weismann and others have labeled the martyr

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figure they represent as a Tau/mimus} connecting hirn especially with Syria and Palestine, aland famous for its mime and pantomime shows. The usual context for the conversion and martyrdom of the so-called Tau/mimus is a civic performance in which pagan mimes enact Christian baptism and which then results in the dramatic and miraculous conversion of the stupidus} the mime immersed by his fellows in the baptismal font. In one such passio} a mime called Porphyry receives martyrdom in Cappadocian Caesarea under Aurelian following his public conversion to Christianity.37 The passio of yet another mime, Gelasius or Gelasinus of Baalbek/Heliopolis, set in 297, so resembles that of Porphyry that a common source has been suggested for both of them. 38 The passio of St. Genesius, dated by its editor to the ninth century, also shows a closely parallel structure to that of Porphyry.39 The copious intertextual references and similarities in these passiones} in which one saint easily assimilates the traits of another, suggest the widespread popularity of this story-type. A review of the first two martyrologies cited will suffice to reveal the normal shape of these accounts. The Lift 0/ Porphyry the Mime} which the Greek titulus introduces as the "Witness (/lOP'tUPlOV) of Porphyrius, the Holy and Glorious Martyr of Christ, who was martyred in Cappadocian Caesarea," narrates the story of a secondcentury stage performer from Ephesus. Recruited by a comes named Alexander to entertain the citizens of Caesarea on the civic stage, Porphyry and his troupe stage a skit calculated to bring laughter to that particular audience (2, p. 270).40 The mime troupe dons the garb of the Christian clergy: one appears as abishop; others as presbyters, deacons, psalmists, and lectors. Porphyry hirnself plays the role of the catechumen preparing to receive baptism. The mimes act out the skit in accordance with the rituals of the church, making the "Mystery of the Christians" an object of mockery and laughter before the assembled citizens (2, p. 270). Porphyry, still in jest, go es through the rite of baptism at the hands of his fellow mimes and is thrown into the water in the best slapstick tradition. At that instant, according to our narrator, the Holy Spirit descends upon hirn and he receives a genuine baptism. From that moment onward, the author calls hirn "the Most Blessed Porphyry" (2, p. 271.2). The antiChristian Tau/mimus has become a Christian while acting out a skit designed to mock Christian beliefs! Indeed, the story exhibits God's mercy and power to effect conversions even among the most daring satirists of His church. 41 To stress this point, the narrator refers to the person who acted out the role of the baptizing bishop as "the bishop of actresses and not Christians" (2, p. 271.31-32). In addition, the story speaks to the nature of the baptismal sacrament. That baptism is a valid and efficacious rite even with-

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out the involvement of a properly consecrated priest was a theological issue that was debated and decided upon during the disputes regarding the treatment of the lapsi, particularly in the course of the Donatist controversy.42 In the text, Porphyry's conversion arises from a marvelous vision that he and others in the theater received. The author describes a chorus of angelic voices filling the theater and the city, to the great astonishment of the thronging crowds (3, p. 271. I5-I9). Porphyry prays to the east, toward Christ and the angelic hosts; others in the audience are likewise so impressed by this epiphany that many, having accepted baptism, began to don the white robes of the baptized' within the theater itself. This newly baptized group then proceeds to the Christian church of the city and is only there received by the bishop (4, p. 272.3-I I). The spatial movement from theater to church parallels the symbolic passage from an old form of life to a new one. But more is to come. Urged on by the local priest of Apollo, Count Alexanderhrings Porphyry back into the theater for a test (6, pp. 272.34273.26). A bull having been introduced into the theater, the priest explains that they will stage a contest to see whether the Christian God is more powerful than the traditional deities. The bull will be slain and both parties will then essay to bring it back to life by invoking the names of their respective divine patrons. In the event-this being a Christian narrativethe priest of Apollo utterly fails in the task even after he has called upon not only Apollo, but also Ares, Kron~s, and all the other gods. Porphyry, on the other hand, swiftly raises the bull to life by invoking the Holy Trinity in a lengthy prayer and thereby wins this miracle test (6, pp. 673.27-274.I4). Yet martyrdom follows triumph as the devil moves the comes to deny what he has just witnessed. Inside the theater are statues of the gods, including Apollo, Asclepius, Artemis, and Aphrodite. Porphyry, surveying these statues, invokes the Trinity one more time to destroy the idols by making them fall to the ground (9, p. 274.I5-3I). The stone agalmata promptly fall off their bases and 'are dashed to pieces. The statue of Apollo lands on the head of his hapless priest and kills hirn, on account of which Porphyry receives his crown of martyrdom as punishment. A far briefer story is told regarding Gelasinus of Baalbek/Heliopolis, another Tau/mimus, who was martyred during the reign of a certain Maximus Licinianius. 43 His story is recounted in the sixth century by John Malalas at the end of book I2 of his Chronographia. 44 Gelasinus, the deuteros in a mime troupe, performs a mock baptismal scene before the citizenry of a city famed for its theater and cult. After he has been thrown into the large baptismal font, Gelasinus emerges from the water and is clothed in the white 'garb of the recently baptized. Everyone is still laughing when he

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addresses the entire audience, saying: "I am a Christian. For I have just beheld the fearful power of God in my baptism and I will die a Christian. " Upon this declaration, the entire audience becomes enraged and, having dragged hirn from the theater, stones hirn to death. The parodies of Christian rites would appear to be a natural extension of the traditional practice of mocking the Mysteries on stage, particularly amidst the carnavalesque atmosphere of festivals. The historical veracity of the passiones of actor-saints aside, they belong in terms of narrative genre to the same family as the Acts 0/ the Apostles, the apocryphal acts and accounts of martyrdoms, most of which feature miracles, miraculous conversions, obstinate magistrates, and martyrdom. With the various acta, these martyrologies of actor-saints share the premise that the world remains divided between Christ and the old gods, Christians and pagans, persecuted Christianity and persecuting paganism; and they dramatize these oppositions by pitting the civic stage against the Christian church. The two are thereby represented as irreconcilable communities such that membership in one bars a person from the other. In this manner, these ac counts retain their relevance in a Christianizing society where real pagans, let alone persecuting pagans, were increasingly difficult to come. by. Baptism in these stories serves as the key plot device that moves the individuals along an inexorable and curtailed career from mocking outsider to baptized Christian to martyr. Often one finds litde or no involvement of the Christian clergy and church. Neither are there many discernible traces of pre- or postbaptismal catechesis (a subject that we will take up later on). These narratives are therefore highl y unrealistic in that they depict a kind of eschatological conversion so prominent in early Christian accounts. They reveal litde ab out the complexities of actual conversions, especially of stage performers, in la te antiquity. By killing off the converted performers so quickly and expediendy, the authors of these texts spare themselves the task of oudining the challenges of living out a Christian way of life in the postConstantinian world.

Hagiography

0/ Penitent

Actresses

While the passiones of Tau/mimi highlight and reify the implacable divide between the Christian and pagan worlds, other, hagiographie accounts of converted performers deal with more subtle issues linked to the rite of baptism and the meaning of the sanctified life. One of the most famous lives from this tradition is connected with the figure of St. Pelagia, a former mime-actress of Antioch. 45 lohn Chrysostom, in one of his Homilies on the Gospel 0/ Matthew, describes how a certain unnamed prostitute (1topvrj), who

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also used to perform on the public stage, converted to Christianity and forsook her former way of life: "Did you not hear how that prostitute, the one who excelled all in wantonness, surpassed all in piety?"46 These and other examples show God's ability to work paradoxical miraclesY The unnamed prostitute of this story most likely formed the basis of the later traditions surrounding St. Pelagia, the so-called "harlot-saint. "48 Among the several saint Pelagias known to the tradition, the figure we will be examining was a female mime and/or a prostitute in Antioch. 49 The extensive manuscript traditions of the Vita Pelagiae have been studied with care by Pierre Petitmengin and other scholars, who regard the Syriac manuscript (c. 700) as the earlier extant text, containing many of the most ancient elements. 50 The story in its present multiform state might have arisen as early as the fifth or sixth centuries. In my discussion, I will mainly draw on the Greek manuscripts from the tradition that Petitmengin has labeled "Group y ," as well as on the Syriac text of Bedjan. The Story as Told J acob the Deacon, the fictive narrator of the vita! sets the stage for the encounter between Nonnus and Pelagia in Antioch one week before Easter. 51 Nonnus, together with other bishops, has been summoned by the metropolitan bishop of Antioch, a character never named in the story. It is rather tempting to conjecture that the historical figure behind the latter is the Porphyry described by Palladius as being a lover of luxury.52 This may help explain why a visiting bishop, Nonnus, has been cast in the primary role with respect to the conversion of Pelagia. In any event, on the Saturday of the week before Easter, the bishops and the Antiochene congregation gather at the Martyrium of St. Julian where the visiting bishops also happen to be staying. Quite by chance, the foremost mime actress of the citybejeweled, perfumed, and sumptuously turned out-appears at the scene and overcomes everyone present with the radiance of her beauty.53 This seductress is Margarito, the "Pearl," the most renowned and desired female performer of Antioch. 54 She is also a courtesan, a fact that comes to light later in the narrative. 55 Nonnus, the hero and main protagonist of the Vita Pelagiae! marvels at her also and be comes so saddened by her condition that he begins to pray to God to change her ways. Indeed, this first, otherwise extraneous, encounter enables the author to show how the temptations of the world affect even bishops, the staunch defenders of the morality of Christian communities. N onnus turns to inquire of his fellow bishops whether they have been seduced by her beauty, something to which his colleagues are at first reluctant

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to admit. Nonnus then confesses to having himself been aroused by the sight of Pelagia and then proceeds to preach on the superiority of Christian virtues, rooted in the permanence of Heavenly Jerusalem, to the all ures of earthly temptations that are by nature, being of the world, impermanent. On the following day, a Sunday, Nonnus is asked by the bishop of Antioch to preach to the people in the Great Church of Antioch. As he beg ins a homily on the final judgment and the eternal hope of the saints, Margarito arrives with her retinue of slaves, never having previously entered a church despite the fact that she has long been a catechumen. Nonnus' sermon ad populum moves Margarito to the point that a torrent of tears streams out of her eyes as she listens to the bishop's words. Here the Syriac text significantly diverges from the Group y manuscripts in that it describes Margarito as being instantly transformed and afterward making a public show of her repentance. I quote from Sebastian Brock and Susan Harvey's translation from the Syriac:

. . . she was greatly moved and her conscience was pricked: tears poured down as she sobbed, and amid heavy sighs she recalled all her sins. She was groaning so much over her life as a prostitute that the congregation became aware of her emotions. Everyone recognized her as the city's famous playgirl, for as she groaned out aloud, people were telling each other, "Ir really is the sinful woman, and she's been converted by the teaching of the God-loving and holy bishop Nonnos. She, who had never paid the slightest attention to her sins, has all of a sudden come to penitence; she who never used to come to church, all of a sudden has had her mind turned to religion and to prayer as a result of the divine words she has heard from the mouth of the holy bishop Nonnos."56 In contrast, the Greek MS Group y omits these comments and, as a result, gives a more subtle meaning to Pelagia's spiritual transformation. In the Syriac version, Pelagia then sends her servants to seek the bishop after the homily and herself pleads with Nonnus to baptize her forthwith. 57 Her confession captures the ideological significance of the penitent actress to the Christian tradition: "I beg you, have pity on me a sinner. I am a prostitute, a disgusting stone upon which many people have tripped up and gone to perdition. I am Satan's evil snare: he set me and through me he has caught many people for destrucrion ... "58 Nonnus then seeks permission from the bishop of Antioch to baptize Pelagia. The metropolitan, giving his hearty assent, exclaims that three happy results will ensue: "It will please Christ, and it will edify the entire

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church, as weIl as bring salvation to the life of this prostitute."59 His articulated hopes are exceeded in the Syriac text, for many of Pelagia's former associates also repent and abandon their former careers as prostitutes; this detail is omitted in the Greek. On the other hand, the Greek text of Group 'Y contains a rather lengthy ac count of Pelagia's elaborate preparation for baptism, which she receives a week after her repentance or conversion. Nonnus appoints Romana, chief deaconess of the church of Antioch, as Pelagia's spiritual mother to help her through the catechesis and prepare for baptism. After she has been duly baptized and received into the church, Pelagia makes her way to Jerusalem, to the Mount of Olives, where she lives out her life as an ascetic disguised in male garb. 60 The journey from the public stage to the cloistered community of the monastery is not an apriori implausible event, as it can indeed be attested in early modern Spain, to ci te but one example. 61 But it is the function of this narratival development that concerns us most here. Analysis Comparison between the martyrologies of actor-saints and hagiographies of penitent actresses may be made on several levels. A facile juxtaposition of the two suggests that the martyrologies, which assume the reality of persecution and a sharply dichotomized world featuring a pagan majority and a Christian minority, express Christian concerns from the time of persecutions while the hagiographies of penitent actresses speak to issues relevant to the post-Constantinian age. But since texts of both genres in fact come from the post-Constantinian era, such an analysis cannot be accepted. Indeed, although the two genres differ greatly in their specific emphases, both insist on a strict division between the sanctified or Christianized aspects of life and those that remain secular or unsanctified/unsanctifiable, thereby addressing an important tension within a Christianizing society. Hagiographie accounts of female penitents, including those of actresses, have proved just as fascinating for scholars today as they have been for pious Christian readers through the centuries. A few decades ago, the theme of cross-dressing and gender inversion became a topic of scholarly investigation. 62 More recently, with the rise in interest in late antique female spirituality, scholars have returned to the lives of female penitents, such as Mary the Egyptian and Pelagia of Antioch, with new and interesting questions. Today, the Vita Pelagiae is commonly read alongside the lives of other harlot-saints as a text about female asceticism and spirituality. Yet both the transvestism and the ascetic career of Pelagia are minor, even peripheral and

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incidental, adjuncts of the main story. This becomes apparent when these aspects are placed within the larger context of the work. Whereas in the many biographies of female ascetics, the ascetic life of the heroine serves as the central theme of the story, the Vita Pelagiae treats Pelagia's postbaptismal career in Jerusalem in a perfunctory way, observing it from the distant perspective of the narrator J acob. The work focuses upon the issues related to catechumens and baptism within an urban community rather than the practice of desert asceticism, which indeed informs other works such as the Lift 0/ Mary the Egyptian J63 one of the Vita PelagiaeJs ancient competitors, and the Lift 0/ MarylMarinus. 64 The priorities of the author of the Vita Pelagiae are also clearly revealed in the relative lengths of the sections. In the modern chapter divisions of the work, chapters 1-42 deal with the events that transpire in Antioch (ending with Pelagia's disappearance from the city eight days after her baptism) and only chapters 43-5 I are connected with her career as an ascetic. 65 In contrast, the ascetic career of the heroine becomes the focus of the narrative al ready by chapter 4 (of twenty-one) in the Lift 0/ Maryl Marinus. Nonnus rather than Pelagia features so much as the central protagonist of the Vita Pelagiae that for the sake of accuracy the work ought perhaps to be renamed Acta Nonni. The narrative transformation of Margari to to Pelagia through the agency of Nonnus speaks to what some Christi an leaders with pastoral concerns regarded as the paramount challenge of their day: the sanctification of the large number of catechumens. While the wholesale conversion of barbarian tribes and Roman cities, which the author of the Vita Pelagiae attributes to Nonnus, might be taken for granted in Christian triumphalist narratives, the transformation of an individual sinner holding a nominal Christian identity into a baptized Christian was often a more elusive prize. Placed within this context, the Vita Pelagiae appears as a dramatization of the process whereby a catechumen became a baptized Christian in any late antique city.

CATECHUMENS AND BAPTISM IN LATE ANTIQUITY

During the third century, which for Michel Dujarer represents the "Golden Age" of the catechumenate as an institution, Hippolytus of Rome outlined a program of catechetical instruction and prebaptismal preparation that required some three years to complete. 66 The church of Alexandria appears to have had a similarly elaborate catechetical system at that time. Given the threat of sporadic persecutions and the length of the catechesis, only earnest

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and sincere individuals would have aspired· to seek baptism, or so it was believed. The conversion of Constantine and the establishment of Christianity as a religio licita introduced two new developments. First, many who became "Christians" postponed their baptism as late as possible, sometimes until their deathbeds. This phenomenon became a noted feature of post-Constantinian Christianity until the practice of infant baptism gained in importance. 67 Second, the length of prebaptismal catechesis was shortened significantly. These developments may be seen as the unintended consequences of the increasing influx of converts into a church that was transformed from a persecuted institution to a privileged one that could dispose of legal privileges, patronage, and new career opportunities. Since most of these worldly benefits accrued to baptized Christians and catechumens alike, few nonreligious incentives existed for catechumens to become baptized Christians. A catechumen could avoid the stigma of being a pagan as weH as defer the strenuous demands placed on a baptized Christian. Postponing baptism until the end of one's life also enabled more of one's sins to be wiped clean, an important consideration for elite males who, in their capacity as magistrates, rulers, and military leaders, often had to commit acts regarded as sinful for a baptized Christian to perform. Thus many, most famously Constantine himself, chose to put off baptism as long as possible since, to quote Eric RebiHard, "Le bapteme exige du chretien une telle perfeetion que beaucoup choisiraient de le differer jusqu' au moment OU ils se sentiraient capables de respecter les engagements demandes."68 While the practice of delaying baptism appeared prudent and attractive from the point of view of the catechumens, Christian leaders-who often themselves did precisely that earlier in their lives-opposed it. Notable figures such as Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of N yssa, Ambrose of Milan, and ] ohn Chrysostom exhorted Christians to put themselves up for baptism earlier rather than later. 69 Salient aspects of patristic preaching from this time may be traced to such an attempt at persuasion. The suggestion that deathbed baptisms are highl y risky, an emphasis on the immediacy and terror of the final judgment, and the heightened mystery surrounding the sacrament of the Eucharist, a rite denied to catechumens, may be seen as responses to the phenomenon of delayed baptism. Likewise, when Augustine refused deceased catechumens burial in sanctified burial ground controlled by the church in spite of intense appeals, his decision stemmed from the same concern. 70 Yet neither moral exhortations nor threats produced the full desired effect in the short term.

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Among those who urged catechumens to prepare for baptism as soon as possible was John Chrysostom, whose priestly duty in Antioch from 386 to 398 was to prepare catechumens for baptism. 71 In many of his Antiochene exegetical and catechetical homilies, he tries to make the catechumens in the audience realize that their present status is not tenable for the long term and that indeed they are not true members of the community of Christ. While he rarely discusses the precise nature of the catechumens' theological standing, he unequivocally distinguishes them from the baptized. In one of his Antiochene Homilies on the Gospel 0/ John! he draws the contrast with rather stark language: "The catechumen is for the faithful an alien person. They do not have, indeed, the same master, they do not have the same father, they are not citizens of the same city. Food, clothing, table, the roof of their house-nothing is the same. Everything is of the world for one, everything in heaven for the other. Christ is the king for one, sin and the devil king for the other."72 This theme is repeated in his Homily on the Gospel 0/ Matthew! another Antiochene work, which equates the difference between the baptized and catechumens with that between human beings and animals. 73 It may safely be assumed that many among this preacher's audience would have demurred. A catechumen, after all, was not a pagan. Nor was he even a Jew-and we know that there were plenty of judaizing Christians in Antioch at the time. We may surmise that Chrysostom advanced this doubtless controversial position partly to motivate catechumens to accept baptism as so on as possible. The period of prebaptismal preparation was drasticall y compressed in the fourth century. A duration of two to three years appears to have been the norm in the pre-Constantinian period. 74 In the mid- to later fourth century, catechumens were receiving "crash course" catecheses that lasted only thirty to fifty days. The pilgrim Egeria witnessed a seven-week catechesis in Jerusalem. 75 Cyril (or John) of Jerusalem's Mystagogical Catecheses! delivered to the already baptized as part of the postbaptismal catechesis, describes a forty-day penitential preparation leading up to baptism. 76 John Chrysostom prepared catechumens for baptism in a mere thirty to forty days during February and April. 77 This abridged baptismal preparation became closely associated with the observance of Lent, aperiod of fasting and penitence that emerged in the fourth century. While the (probably Antiochene) Didascalia Apostolorum from c. 200 does not link baptism with Easter, most catechumens in the later fourth century prepared for baptism during the four weeks of Lent (the Quadragesima) and received baptism around Easter. This process was formalized to include the following elements. Candidates first had their names inscribed on a list of those seeking baptism in a solemn ritual at the beginning of Lent. They were then examined by the clergy for their suitability to

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receive baptism. Throughout Lent, the candidates attended sermons and were exorcised by the clergy on a daily basis. After having sworn baptismal vow,s and renounced Satan wirh a formula of abjuration, they were admitted to baptism the day before Easter. In their newly baptized state, they then participated in the Eucharist for the first time. The catechesis continued for one week after Easter, during which the newly baptized returned to church to hear daily expositions on the meaning of the sacrament--these were the so-called mystagogical catecheses. The shortened catechesis coincided with a greater expression of anxiety over the postbaptismal behavior of those who made ready for baptism in just over a month. Since the ecclesiastical authorities expected a high degree of moral transformation of baptized Christians, they sought to introduce into the baptismal rite elements that would reinforce the separation between the ethos of the catechumen and that of the baptized. Central to the baptismal vow is the renunciation of the devil and all his pomp. The Apostolic Constitutions gives the typical formula: "I renounce Satan, and his works, and his pomps, and his service, and his angels, and his inventions, and all things that are under hirn. "78 With its renunciation of Satan and adhesion to Christ, the baptismal rite thereby satisfies one of the demands that Arthur Darby Nock placed on a genuine conversion: that it involve the transformative belief that the old is bad and the new is good. The notion of defection from Satan is emphasized in the Vita Pelagiae when the devil appears to accuse Pelagia of betraying her former master. Ir is noteworthy that the catechumen was, in theological terms, regarded as still living within the domain of Satan and that only the baptized was seen as an adherent of Christ. The baptismal vow defined the ideal outlook of the baptized Christian. One of the consistently emphasized themes is the need to alter one's previous inclination to view the public spectacles. At the very end of the second century, Tertullian associated the pompa Diaboli in the baptismal vow with the spectacula put on in Roman cities. He does so in On Idolatry and Against the Spectacles to establish a legal premise for arguing that the baptized could not claim the right to continue to attend the shows (which he said they were in the habit of claiming) since they had sworn to reject the pompa/ spectacula. Tertullian's lead was followed by many. In the Mystagogical Catecheses, Cyril (or John) of Jerusalem reiterates Tertullian's equation of the pompa Diaboli with the games, addressing the catechumens preparing for baptism as folIows: The pomp of the Devil is the mania for the theater, circus races, anim"al hunts, and all such vanity, from which the holy one prays to

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God to be liberated, saying, "Avert my eyes lest they be hold vanity." Do not become readily addicted to the theater, in which [one finds} the spectacle of the licentiousness, the lewd and unseemly antics of actors and the crazed dancing of degenerate men [he then denounces the amphitheater and the circus as weIl}. Flee the circus games, the mad spectacle that perverts the souls! For all these are the pomp of the Devil. 79 lohn Chrysostom explicitly incorporated admonitions against attendance at the spectacles in his prebaptismal catechesis from Antioch. 80 This was not an idle concern for apparently many Christians chose to attend the races and the theater during the weeks before Easter and, according to Chrysostom, even on the day of Easter itself. 81 He noted that Christians of all types, old and young, went freely to the theater to gaze upon the immoral spectacle put on by seductive actresses. Toward the end of a later Constantinopolitan sermon against the spectacles, Chrysostom threatened those who might still be tempted to attend the theater on Christian holy days: Indeed I predict and pro claim with a clear voice that if someone after this exhortation and teaching should run out to the wicked destruction of the theater, I shall not welcome hirn within these [the church's} walls. I shall not administer the sacraments to hirn nor allow hirn to come into contact with the holy altar. . . . And so let no one out of those who remain in the midst of the same fornication come into the church, but let hirn be reproached by you and be an enemy to all. If anyone does not obey our instruction in this letter, make note of hirn and do not associate with hirn [2 Thess. 3: 14}. 82 Many were the requirements of this new postbaptismal Christian life. For some Christians, the Roman penchant for the public spectacles represented one of the most visible out ward signs of the unsanctified life prior to baptism. Those who were baptized assumed the duty to abide by stricter norms in part so as not to scandalize other Christians and provide outsiders such as lews and polytheists with apretext to criticize the faith. Any one who could not or did not wish to adhere to this moral code, Chrysostom advised, ought to refrain from receiving baptism in the first place. 83 The Vita Pelagiae addresses these concerns about baptism and the status of the catechumens in a memorable way. The renunciation of a highly successful career on the stage would have been seen as a radical and difficult choice, yet Pelagia did not hesitate to renounce the pompa Diaboli with her words and deeds. The concern over the moral conduct of baptized Christians

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also finds expression in the vita. Pelagia instructed her servants to dissipate her wealth by donating it to the church for distribution to the poor. Here the author editorializes to emphasize the need to ensure that donated funds earmarked for the poor actually go to the poor and do not become diverted to other purposes or simply rest within the church. This connection between proper almsgiving to the poor and repentance is a theme repeatedly emphasized by late antique preachers such as ] ohn Chrysostom. 84 After remaining in Antioch for just over a week, Pelagia decamped quiedy for the Mount of Olives, where she took up the ascetic life in the guise of a male monk. From the self-indulgent sinfulness of an acclaimed actressl courtesan to the self-denying sanctity of a "male" ascetic: Pelagia's spiritual transformation could not have been more complete. Many a late antique bishop would have prayed that all his baptized Christians could have been as serious about their baptism even if he might not have wished for too many of his flock to become desert ascetics overnight. The postbaptismal conduct of Pelagia set a high standard that most Christians could not and probably did not want to meer. The reality was more often otherwise. We have already seen how some baptized actresses returned to their careers on stage despite ecclesiastical and imperial regulations forbidding this practice. Concerns over just such backsliding could have prompted the requirement, cited in the Vita PelagiaeJ that no courtesan might enroll as a candidate for baptism unless she had a sponsor (or a godparent) who would vouch for the sincerity of her decision and her commitment to a reformed life. 85 But even ordinary Christians with ordinary lives often failed to live up to the standards expected of the baptized. In this respect, the story of Pelagia's radical transformation may be read as a calculated effort to persuade ordinary Christians of the importance of changing one's behavior after baptism. At issue was the authenticity of the decisions of those who sought baptism, particularly at a time when prebaptismal preparation took litde over a month. The emphasis on the decisive and even miraculous quality of the spiritual transformation that produced actor/actress-saints serves to underscore the authenticity of the individual conversions. The passiones depict the Tau/mimi as pagan illusion-makers who were immediately and truly baptized against their personal wishes, yet their determination to receive martyrdom afterwards speaks to the authenticity of their conversion. While many late antique catechumens must have thought long and hard about whether they should enroll for baptism, weighing in their minds the pros and cons of such a choice, the decision of Pelagia to undergo baptism is not presented as the result of deliberation. There appears no hint of hesitation even though the impact of her decision proves nothing short of life-changing. Pelagia

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is described as having been moved to repent of her former life by the preaching of Nonnus. While not exactly a miracle, the transformation is described as instant and unplanned, and therefore authentie and genuine. Certainly her postbaptismal career serves to confirm this impression. The dramatic tale of the transformation of a secular "pop star" into a Christian heroine offers ample opportunity for extolling ascetic virtues and Christian ideals of social and sexual conduct. 86 It reinforces the attractive notion, for many Christian preachers and writers at least, that the true Christian identity (as embodied in the status of a baptized Christian) involves a radical rupture with the ways of the world and requires a visible change in one's former habits, thoughts, and desires. But such a not ion of conversion must be seen within the context of the late antique debate ab out what being a Christian should mean in terms of participation in public life. From the time of Tertullian to that of Jacob of Sarugh (and beyond), baptized Christians had no trouble justifying how their new identity was compatible with their previous habits and actions, including attending the theater. 87 An imaginary interlocutor in one of J ac ob of Sarugh's sermons denouncing the stage, a baptized Christian, defends himself by saying that his attendance at the theater has nothing to do with idolatry and everything to do with wanting to be made to laugh. 88 The extent to which the theater had become a secular-that is, neither pagan nor Christian-institution in the wider public discourse has to be recognized and taken into consideration when examining Christian narratives about the conversion or baptism of performers. The new Christian attitudes toward the theater and its personnel mark, in certain key respects, adeparture from classical elite attitudes. There came to be an interest in the moral standing not only of the spectators but of the performers themselves, particularly when they quit compulsory stage service by means of baptism. Fascination with the implications of this supposedly very radical shift in these women's moral careers fired the imagination of writers in the fifth and sixth centuries. The solicitude for the fate of the actress cum prostitute in the Vita Pelagiae and the confidence in her ability to redeem herself in the eyes of God and men find echoes in the tone of nearly contemporary imperial legislation.

THE REHABILITATION OF STAGE PERFORMERS IN A CHRISTIAN EMPIRE

In the sixth century, it was popularly accepted that stage performers and courtesans represented the antithesis of Christian holy persons, so that John

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of Ephesus thought it especially noteworthy that a spiritual Antiochene couple masqueraded as a male mime and a female prostitute to hide their saintly way of life. 89 Penitent actresses in particular figured largely in public affairs during the reign of Justinian. Not only was Empress Theodora, whose career is discussed below, a former actress, but former actressesl courtesans also appeared in the retinue of Severus of Antioch, the critic and opponent of J ustinian and Theodora. 90 Yet here I wish to focus on the ideological responses to the rehabilitation of actresses and how these responses embody changes that signal the advent of a Christian empire. I will begin by considering a well-known law that directly addresses these issues. Justin issued a fex generafis to Demosthenes, praetorian prefect of the East from 521 to 522,91 that speIls out how penitent actresses ought ·to be treated. The language is so remarkable that the law is quoted below at some length: Believing that it is a peculiar duty of Imperial beneficence at all times not only to consider the convenience of Our subjects, but also to attempt to supply their needs, We have determined that the errors of women (lapsus mufierum) on ac count of which, through the weakness of their sex (imbeciffitate sexus), they have chosen to be guilty of dishonorable conduct (indignam honore conversationem), should be corrected by a display of proper moderation, and they should by no means be deprived of the hope of an improvement of status, so that, taking this into consideration, they may the more readily abandon the improvident and disgraceful choice of life which they have made. For We believe that the benevolence of God, and His exceeding clemency towards the human race, should be imitated by Us (as far as Our nature will permit), who is always willing to pardon the sins daily committed by man, accept Our repentance, and bring us to a better condition. Hence, We should seem to be unworthy of pardon Ourselves were We to fai! to act in this manner with reference to those subject to our empire. (I) Therefore, as it would be unjust for slaves, to whom their liberty has been given, to be raised by Imperial indulgence to the status of men who are born free, and, by the effect of an Imperial privilege of this kind, be placed in the same position as if they had never been slaves, but were freeborn; and that women who had devoted themselves to theatrical performances (scaenicis fudis immiscuerunt), and afterwards having become disgusted with this degraded status (mafa condicione), abandoned their infamous occupation (inhonestam professionem) and obtairted better repute (mefiorem sententiam), should have no hope of

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obtaining any benefit from the Emperor, who had the power to place them in the condition in which they could have remained, if they had never been guilty of dishonorable acts, We, by the present most merciful law, grant them this Imperial benefit under the condition that where, having deserted their evil and disgraceful condition, they embrace a more proper life, and conduct themselves honorably, they shall be permitted to petition Us to grant them Our Divine permission to contract legal marriage when they are unquestionably worthy of it ... For women of this kind having been purified from all blemishes (macttla) , and, as it were, restored to the condition in which they were born, We desire that no disgraceful epithet (vocabttlttm inhonestam) be applied to them, and that no difference shall exist between them and those who have never committed a similar breach of morality (peccaverttnt).92 There are two main provisions in this enactment that are also found in the section De nttptiis in Justinian's Code. First, a repentant female performer is to be granted full rehabilitation as if she had never been a scaenica; second, she should no longer be referred to as actress or even ex-actress. Historians, taking their cue from Procopius, have tended to read this law as an ad hominem piece of legislation occasioned by Justinian's marriage to a former actress, Theodora. The marriage of Justinian and Theodora took place during the reign of Justin when Justinian was a patrician. According to Procopius, the future empress hailed from a family connected with urban entertainment. 93 After the death of her father, an animal keeper for the Greens, her mother remarried to a bear keeper for the animal shows. In time, the mother put her several children on the stage as they came of age. 94 When it came to her turn, Theodora assumed the roles of mime actress as well as prostitute (E'taipa).95 Allegedly ungifted in music and dancing, she resorted to other means to entertain her audience, including indecent exposure and lewd performances on the stage. According to the Secret History! these performances were linked direcdy with the offer of sexual favors for money.96 Someone with this kind of past was clearly unsuited for the role of empress. But since Procopius's principal aim was to shock and outrage his readers with the sordid past of an empress he loathed, his scandalous description of Theodora's involvement in prostitution has been rightly called into question. 97 Still there is litde doubt regarding Theodora's former career as a mime actress; it is the imputation that she was also a flamboyant prostitute that should attract our suspicion. A far from hostile contemporary author described her as "formerly shameless but later chaste."98

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These speculations went beyond Theodora's reputation to the legitimacy of the dynasty. If she had truly been a stage performer or, less likely, a prostitute, this fact would have entailed grave consequences for the legality and offspring of the union between her and J ustinian. U nder the J ulian legislation of Augustus, persons of senatorial rank were forbidden marriage (iustum matrimonium) with actresses or former actresses. 99 The restrietion on such mixed-status marriages was broadly affirmed in the later empire by Christian emperors such as Marcian in a law of 454. 100 It remains debatable whether the elevation of Theodora to the patriciate would have effectively annulled the legal objection to their marriage. On the whole, this legal consideration forms the basis of certain historians' claim that this law of Justin was designed to make possible a iustum matrimonium between Justinian and Theodora. Yet was a iustum matrimonium necessary to a late Roman dynastie regime?101 Constantine was widely known in antiquity to have been born from the humble concubine of Constantius, Helena, who is referred to in both sympathetic and ho stile sources as a stabularia. 102 Normally, a woman who was associated with tavern keeping would legally have been deemed a humilis et abiecta persona unless she was the landlady and not a hireling or slave engaged in that service. 103 The excellent reputation of Helena as empress would seem to militate against the argument of those who wish to claim that Justinian needed to rehabilitate Theodora for political reasons. Further, given the background of the earlier fourth- and fifth-century laws on penitent performers, the present law may instead be seen as a product of the logical progression of late Roman legal thinking regarding the status of such individuals. And the expressed rationalization of this law shows how Roman legal thinking can be joined to a new Christian imperial rhetoric. 104 The avowed goal of the law of Justin, as expressed in the preamble, was to imitate as much as humanly possible the divine mercy that moved God to forgive penitent sinners by providing a way to remove the blemishes of past transgressions. Just as it was possible under Roman law for certain slaves to regain a pristine freeborn status as if they had never been slaves (quasi numquam deservissent sed ingenui essent), so too should stage women be given the hope of redemption and a better life. David Daube reasonably finds fault with this reasoning: "Slaves are wh at they are without fault, actresses by their own choice."105 But the status of the individual will in assenting to a person's condition is precisely at issue here. As many men and especially women in late antiquity found themselves constrained to serve as stage performers, it can hardly be said that all performers were performers by choice. The law may thus reflect an honest appreciation of the new J

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conditions that attended the careers of such people and therefore as a remedy of the apparent injustice of permanently blacklisting individuals for carrying out duties that they were bound to perform by law. Indeed, Justinian dispatched a law in 536 to John, praetorian prefect of the East, giving leave to scaenicae sworn to perform on stage to abandon the profession without danger of prosecution, saying that pleasing God was more important than observing oaths. 106 But such laws also hint at the diversity and complexity of local situations and the continued demand for performers which at times became so great that officials had to compel retired scaenici to appear on stage. The emperor eventually forbade officials from forcing actresses to swear oaths to the effect that they would continue to perform and threatened offending magistrates with stiff fines. 107 During the fifth and sixth centuries, Christian rulers publicized their firm commitment to the chastity of actresses, circa castitatem stttdittm. 108 In Ostrogothic Italy, Cassiodorus included in the Formttla tribttni volttptatttm a "job description" for a tribttntts volttptatttm, an official who would undertake the moral tute lage and supervision of stage actresses committed to the public shows in Italian cities. 109 Laws that permitted actresses to escape the life of the stage, and prostitutes to cease their acts of venal immorality, now began to express a concern for their "chastity." This word had been largely absent in previous Roman legal usage regarding these classes of women, who occupied a social space that was worlds apart from that of respectable virgins and matronsYo JoHle Beaucamp has noted that when describing the legal rationale for treating women differently from men, the Justinianic laws invariably employ the te.t;m fragilitas where classical jurists would have used the familiar phrase inflrmitas sextts. 111 She further suggests that this may point to a shift in official concern from feminine weakness to the need of females for protection. Even so, she describes this imperial position as aimed at "la protection de la moralite des femmes plus que celle des femmes elles-memes."1l2 The sixth-century laws on performers demonstrate a definite departure from earlier Roman discourses of order that are based on hierarchicall y distributed notions of appropriate action and behavior. These legal formulations now feature instead a discourse of universal moral order, in which the fragilitas httmana that is common to all increasingly became a factor in the rationalization of imperiallegislation. 113 In the law of Justin and Justinian above, it is said that rulers who fail to extend the opportunity for rehabilitation to actresses would themselves fail to merit the indulgence of God (qttod si circa nostro sttbiectos imperio nos etiam facere differamtts, nttlla venia digni videbimttr). Ideologically it was no longer possible to remain concerned only with the welfare and conduct of the great and the good. Even members

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of the httmiliores and personae probosae must now be considered. Thus official edicts voice concern not just with transgression of social boundaries by the respectable classes, as for instance in Augustus' Julian laws, but with the moral condition of all and sundry, including socially marginal performers. Yet this imperial concern for penitent actresses was never fully extended to prostitutes, who could not hope to be fully rehabilitated even after retirement. "Harlots who repented were never relieved of their disabilities even by Justinian-contrary to the prevalent view which credits his great reform Novel with a range it does not have."1l4 Instead of being reintegrated without blemish into society, as penitent actresses were thanks to the new law by Justin, retired prostitutes retained their lifelong in/amia and had to be institutionalized. Thus a convent or monastery named Metanoia, "Repentance," was founded by Theodora to accommodate the former prostitutes of Constantinople; this may be ci ted as a uniquely Christian brand of benefaction in that the classical world had not known such an institutionY5 But we should not see Theodora as a pioneer in this regard, as this would play into the hands of Procopius who wished this detail to lend verisimilitude to his salacious comments about the empress's former career. Earlier, under the guidance of Severus of Antioch, certain former prostitutes had al ready begun to live together and were given protection through being attached to a monasteryY6 The traditions of St. Pelagia, current in early sixth-century Syria, might also have disposed lay and ascetic Christians to favor such a change in attitude towards these public women. It is not clear, however, why official attitudes towards performers and prostitutes should have begun to diverge at this stage. Being an actress became far less reprehensible than being a prostitute; an actress was also regarded as more susceptible to reform.

CONCLUSION

Ir is not easy to draw comprehensive conclusions from the disparate material we have examined. Looking at the circumstances that surround the baptism of stage performers in late antiquity allows us to understand more clearly the often competing interests of the groups that were involved in the process. The ecclesiastical elite favored allowing scaenici/ae to become baptized so long as they then quit the stage. The secular elite was wary that this might enable performers bound to theatrical service to quit the civic stage, but was ultimately unwilling to oppose their baptism. The performers themselves saw' baptism not only as a potent salvific sacrament but as also an avenue of social mobility that might allow them to leave a compul-

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sory hereditary profession. These often riyal claims and interests generated complications for and shape both the nature and the pace of Christianization. The Christian narratives that dramatize these conversions/baptisms reveal somewhat different concerns. In the hagiographical subgenre, as exemplified by the Vita Pelagiae, the presentation of the central baptismal theme highlights a model of conversion or repentance that one can readily describe as "Nockian." Pelagia's metanoia signals a deeply felt spiritual transformation, and such a narrative of religious change became all the more expedient, as a form of religious persuasion, within a context in which conversion and baptism were at risk of becoming munda ne and uneventful. Certain Christians simply did not appear ready to accept the views promoted by other Christians that there was and ought to be a sharp divide between the sanctified Christian life and their long-standing and beloved customs and practices. As many institutions, such as the theater, became secularized, narratives such as the Vita Pelagiae helped to reinforce the notion that the wall between the city (and the stage) and the church was a thick and insurmountable one, not the permeable one that many indeed supposed. To those Christians, unbaptized as well as baptized, who argued back that the spectacles were not of Satan but merely of the world, such narratives trumpeted the uncomfortable view that Satan remained the master of the world and even of unbaptized Christians. Why penitent actresses and not penitent actors? The figure of the actress embodied extreme elements of the devalued and rejected Other; both the female gender and the profession of the actressl prostitute brought horne the idea of an individual's ultimate debasement prior to the grace of baptism. The resulting change seemed that much sharper and more miraculous when the starting position was portrayed as so very low. To take on male identity through transvestism as well as the ascetic life, the highest vocation for a Christian in late antiquity, was to reach the pinnacle of human achievement. The success of this genre must have been due in part to the sheer miraculous nature of this thoroughgoing inversion. Finally, the late antique debate over the meaning of baptism influenced if not produced the Christian narratives of actor/actress-saints. In these texts, the emphasis is not only on the figure of the spiritual overachiever but also on the ambivalent figure of the Christian catechumen. Recently, the history of the catechumen has received much attention due in part to the scholarship that has grown up around the Dolbeau Sermons of St. Augustine; but this literature deals mainly with the Latin West. Yet I hope I have shown that many of the same concerns and contexts are also relevant to the

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study of late antique Christian communities in the East, especially given the abundance of relevant sources connected with Antioch. Pantomimes were last heard of in the sixth century. Mimes did not cease to perform but increasingly appeared only in private entertainmentsY7 No longer compelled to perform on the public stage at a cost to their own salvation and their standing before the law, actors themselves receded from public attention as most permanent stone theaters were put out of operation in the seventh century. This decline of the late Roman public theater was a development that many Christianssuch as Tertullian, J ohn Chrysostom and Severus of Antioch had long hoped for. But the decline of the public stage was not a victory that the church could rightfully claim as due to its own efforts. Political and economic transformations within the cities and the empire-these and other assorted factors caused the cities to give up their entertainments much more than ongoing ecclesiastical critiques. Stage shows continued as dinner entertainment or at certain festivals, but now they took place in domestic settings and not in the grand public places of the late antique city where they had long been enshrined. Even so, while the church was unable to take over or suppress the public stage, which remained to some Christian writers an irremediably pagan and polluted place, it could claim a triumph by making the most of the conversion of individuals from the theatrical profession. By circulating edifying narratives about martyr saints and penitent actresses, Christian leaders could finally claim a moral victory over a secularized institution that they otherwise found ultimately un-Christianizable. But the batde was not wholly or even mainly fought with those who stood outside of the Christian communities. Instead, much of this rhetoric aimed to Christianize Christians, including catechumens, who entertained views about the Christian life that were often at odds with those advocated by many of the ascetically minded preachers of late antiquity.

NOTES

I would like to acknowledge my especial debt to Peter Brown, Susanna Elm, Anthony Grafton , Judith Herrin, Bonnie S. Kim, Samuel Lieu, Michael Maas, Neil McLynn, Kenneth Mills, Eric Rebillard, Charlotte Roueche, Raymond Van Dam, and Ruth Webb for their generous help. See P. Brown, "Conversion and Christianization in Late Antiquity: The Case of I.

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Augustine," in a forthcoming volume in the Bibliotheque de l'Antiquite Tardive series edited by R. Lim and C. Straw. 2. R. MacMullen, "What Difference Did Christianity Make?" Historia 35 (1986): 322-43, reprinted in his Changes in the Roman Empire (Princeton, N.]., 1988). On the fate of munera in particular, see G. Ville, "Les jeux de gladiateurs dans l'empire chretien," MEFRA 72 (1960): 273-335; and T. Wiedemann, "Das Ende der römischen Gladiatorenspiele," Nikephorus 8 (1995): 145-59· 3. See R. A. Markus, The End of Ancient Christianity (Cambridge, 1990) and R. MacMullen, Christianity and Paganism in the Fourth to Eighth Centuries (New Haven, Conn., 1997). 4. On the Christianization and secularization of the public spectacles in late antiquity, see R. Lim, "Consensus and Dissensus on Public Spectacles in Early Byzantium," in Byzantinische Forschungen 34, ed. Thomas Dillon and Linda Garland (Amsterdam, 1997), pp. 159-79. 5. For a general treatment of the Roman stage in English, see R. Beachem, The Roman Theatre and [ts Audience (Cambridge, Mass., 1991). For studies that take the inscriptional evidence seriously into account, see 1. Robert, "Pantomimen im griechischen Orient," Hermes 65 (1930): 106-22, reprinted in idem, Opera Minora Selecta, vol. I (Amsterdam, 1969), pp. 65470; and C. Roueche, Performers and Partisans at Aphrodisias in the Roman and Late Roman Periods (London, 1993). The ancient testimony regarding mimes and pantomimes is collected in M. Bonaria, Romani Mimi (Rome, 1965), which supersedes idem, Mimorum Romanorum Fragmenta, Pubblicazioni dell'Istituto di filologia classica 5 (Genoa, 1955). For a treatment of the literary and performative aspects, see H. Reich, Der Mimus: Ein literarentwicklungsgeschichtlicher Versuch, vol. I, pt. 2 (Berlin, 19°3), pp. 142-56. See R. Webb, "Salome's Sisters: The Rhetoric and Realities of Dance in Late Antiquity and Byzantium," in Women, Men and Eunuchs: Gender in Byzantiuml ed. 1. James (London, 1997), pp. 119-48, for a fine discussion of the social roles and perceptions of stage performers. 6. Whenever the Nachleben of the Roman theater becomes a topic of discussion in learned circles, a question that is commonly raised is whether the shows continued in a Christianized form as the liturgical dramas we know well from the Middle Ages. The poser of such a question reasonably surmises that, as would be the case with just about everything else in the late Roman world, the stage surely also succumbed to the process of Christianization. 7. See Lim, "People as Power: Games, Munificence and Contes ted Topography," in The Transformation of Urbs Roma in Late AntiquitYI ed. W. V.

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Harris, Journal of Roman Archaeology, Supplementary Series 33 (Portsmouth, R.I., 1999), pp. 26 5-8 1. 8. See W. E. Klingshirn, Caesarius of Ar/es: The Making of a Christian Community in Late Antique Gaul (Cambridge, 1994), esp. pp. 171-243. 9. See W. Weissmann, Kirche und Schauspiele: Die Schauspiele im Urteil der lateinischen Kirchenvater unter besonderer Berücksichtigung von Augustin, Cassiacum 27 (Würzburg, 1972), pp. 33-54, 72-77. On Christian polemics against the theater and dancing generally, see C. Andresen, "Altchristliche Kritik am Tanz: Ein Ausschnitt aus dem Kampf der Alten Kirche gegen heidnische Sitte," Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte 72 (1962): 217-62. 10. See, e.g., B. Warnecke, "Die bürgerliche Stellung des Schauspielers in alten Rom," NJA 17 (1914): 95-1°9; T. Frank, "The Status of Actors at Rome," Chiron 26 (193 I): I I-20; J. E. Spruit, Die juridische en sociale positie van de romeinse acteurs (Assen, 1966); M. Ducos, "La condition des acteurs a Rome: Donnees juridiques et sociales," in Theater und Gesellschaft im Imperium Romanum, ed. J. Blänsdorf (Tübingen, 1990); and H. Leppin, Histrionen: Untersuchungen zur sozialen Stellung von Bühnenkünstlern im Westen des römischen Reiches zur Zeit der Republik und des Principats (Bonn, 1992). I I. Liber Syromanus 9 (London MS); German translation in K. G. Bruns and E. Sachau, Syrisch-römisches Rechtbuch aus dem fünften Jahrhundert (Leipzig, 1880), p. 7. On how the work treats the legal status of performers, see Spruit, Romeinse acteurs, pp. 236-38. On this work as used and transmitted within an ecclesiastical context, possibly in connection with' the episcopalis audientia, see W. Selb, "Zur Bedeutung des syrisch-römischen Rechtsbuchs," Münchener Beitrage zur Papyrusforschung und antiken Rechtgeschichte 49-5 I (1964): 262-63. 12. Hippolytus, Traditio Apostolica 16 (Hippolyte de Rome, La Tradition apostolique d'apres les anciennes versions, Sources Chretiennes I I bis, 2d ed. [Paris, 1968], pp. 7°-71): "Inquiretur autem de operibus et occupationibus eorum qui adducuntur ut instruuntur (KUTIlX!=.t0'8at) in quo sinto Si quis est nopvoßoO'KO'; vel qui nutrit meretrices (nopvr,) vel ces set vel reiciatur. . Si quis est scenicus (8Ea1:pt KO';) vel qui faci t demonstrationem (i)1tOÖEt~t';) in theatro (8eu'tpov) vel cesset vel reiciatur." The passage then goes on to say much the same thing about charioteers, gladiators, and anima1 fighters. 13. Aug., De fide et operibus 18.33: "Quia nescio ubi peregrinatur, quando meretrices et histriones et quilibet alii publicae turpitudinis professores, nisi solutis aut disruptis talibus vinculis, ad christiana sacramenta non permittuntur accedere." 14. Decreta Eccl. Africae canon 45: "Ut scenicis histrionibus ceterisque huiusmodi personis vel apostaticis conversis vel reversis ad Dominum, gra-

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tia vel re conciliatio non negetur"; also, Concilium Illiberitanum canon 62: "Si auriga aut pantomimus credere voluerint, placuit ut prius artibus suis renuntient, et tunc demum suscipiantur, ita ut ulterius ad ea non revertantur, qui se facere contra interdictum tentaverint, proiiciantur ab ecclesia." 15. See Aug., De baptismo contra Donatistas, PL 43:1°7-244. 16. The rise of collegia necessaria dedicated to the performance of public functions occurred some time during the later third century but their history is only adequately known with the coming of the fourth, see J.-P. Waltzing, Etude historique sur les corporations professionnelles chez les Romains depuis les origines jusq'a la chute de l'Empire d'Occident, vol. 2 (Louvain, 1896), pp. 298-320; and F. M. de Robertis, Il fenomeno associativo nel mondo romano, dai collegi della repubblica alle corporazioni del Basso Impero (Napies, 1955), pp. 162-85. A fourth-century inscription from Rome is particularly relevant to these collegia in the city: see R. Ambrosino, "Riferimenti all'ordinamento associativo romano," Bulletino della commissione circheologica deI governatorato di Roma (Rome, 1939), pp. 85-94. On the impact of this development on families, see J. Gaudemet, "Tendances nouvelles de la legislation familiale au IVe siecle," in Transformation et conflits au IVe siede apres J.-c., ed. A. Alföldi and J. Straub (Bonn, 1978), pp. 191-92. 17. The text was originally published by the Maurist Dom Luc d'Achery; the more recent redaction appears in C. Lepelley, "Trois documents meconnus sur l'histoire sociale et religieuse de l'Afrique romaine tardive retrouves parmi les spuria de Sulpice Severe," Antiquites africaines 25 (1989): 258: "Licet domnus et germanus meus de uestra petierit honestate ut Tutum uelitis esse tutissimum, tarnen mihi fas fuit eundem litteris commendare, ut conduplicata petitione tutior habeatur. Huic enim nocuerit puerilis culpa est error aetatis incertae, ut annorum suorum initia macularet; sed qui necdum sciret quid bonis moribus deberetur, proprie sine culpa peccauit. Nam se ubi ad bonam mentem considerationemque conuertit, intellexit uitam scenicam consilio meliore damnandam. Huic autem plena non pos set euenire purgatio, nisi diuinitatis accessu delicta dilueret; si quidem catholicae religionis remedio conmutatus, usum si bi loci turpioris negauit seque ab oculis popularibus uindicauit. Domini (ut supra), quomodo itaque et diuinae leges et publicae fidele corpus et sanctificatos animos non permittunt inhonestas exhibere delicias et uulgares edere uoluptates, maxime cum castae deuotionis quodammodo uideatur inuria, si quis sacro baptismate renouatus in ueterem lasciuiam reuocetur, oportet laudabilitatem uestram bonis fauere propositis, ut is qui beneficio Dei pium munus indeptus est, in foueam theatralern cadere non cogatur. Vestrum tarnen omnium iudicium non recusat, si alias iniungatis congruas pro necessitate communis patriae functiones."

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18. Cod. lust. 2.1I.2I. The major classical sources on infamia are: lust. Dig. 3.2 ("De his qui notantur infamia"); Cod lust. 2.12 ("De causis, ex quibus infamia alicui inrogatur"); and Tabula Heracfeensis (= Lex lufia Municipalis). For modern discussions of the implications of infamia, see A. H. J. Greenidge, lnfamia: lts Place in Roman Pubfic and Private Law (Oxford, 1894); 1. Pommeray, Etudes sur l'infamie en droit romain (Paris, 1937); M. Kaser, "lnfamia und ignominia in den römischen Rechtsquellen," Zeitschrift für Rechtsgeschichte 73 (195 6): 220-78; Barbara Levick, "The Senatus consultum from Larinum," Journal of Roman Studies 73 (1983): 97-115, esp. 10810; and Spruit, Romeinse acteurs, p. 116. 19. These laws are preserved in the mid-fifth-century Theodosian Code

and the mid-sixth-century Justinianic Digest and Code. Comparison of these two collections is usually focused on the respective functions of the codes themselves; see B. Sirks, "From the Theodosian to the Justinian Code," in Atti deff'Accademia Romanistica Costantiniana, VI Convegno Internazionale (Napies, 1986), pp. 265-3°2; W. Turpin, "The Purpose of the Roman Law Codes," Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte 104 (1987): 62030. See now the contributions in J. Harries and 1. Wood, eds., The Theodosian Code (Ithaca, N.Y, 1993), especially D. Hunt, "Christianizing the Roman Empire: The Evidence of the Code," pp. 143-60; T. Honore, Law in the Crisis of Empire 379-455 A.D.: The Theodosian Dynasty and lts Quaestors (with a Palingenesia of Laws of the Dynasty) (Oxford, 1998); and J. Matthews, Laying Down the Law: A Study of the Theodosian Code (New Haven, Conn., 2000). 20. See Cod. Theod. 15.7.1. On the Christian fear of death and judgment and the need for baptism prior to this eventuality, see E. Rebillard, In hora mortis: Evolution de la pastorale chretienne de la mort aux IVe et Ve siecfes dans l'Occident latin, BEFAR 284 (Rome, 1984), esp. pp. 129-34. 2 I. Cod. Theod. 15.7. I: "Scaenici et scaenicae, qui in ultimo vitae ac

necessitate cogente interitus inminentis ad dei summi sacramenta properarunt, si fortasse evaserint, nulla posthac in theatralis spectaculi conventione revocentur." Generally on the status of actors in Cod. Theod., see Spruit, Romeinse acteurs, pp. 197-225. 22. See Cod. Theod. 14.3.11; and Waltzing, Etude historique sur les corporations proJessionneffes, 2: 3 I 2- 15. 23. D. R. French, "Christian Emperors and Pagan Spectacles: The Secularization of the ludi, A.D. 382-525" (Ph.D. diss., University of California at Berkeley, 1985), p. 188, notes that most of the laws on the baptism of scaenici originated in the Western court, which is true as regards the earlier laws. It is not clear to me exactly why female performers in particular became the object of such predatory poaching. Their popularity with the

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people as weH as the insufficient numbers of those in post must have contributed to the problem. See now also idem, "Maintaining Boundaries: The Status of Actresses in Early Christian Society," Vigiliae Christianae 52 (1998): 293-3 18 . 24. Cod. Theod. 15.7.2: "Ex scaenicis natas, si ita se gesserint, ut probabiles habeantur, tua sinceritas ab inquietantium fraude direptionibusque submoveat. Eas enim ad scaenam de scaenicis natas aequum est revocari, quas vulgarem vitam conversatione et moribus exercere et exercuisse constabit." 2 5. C od. T heod. I 5 .7.5: "Quisquis thymelicam ex urbe venerabili inmemor honestatis abduxerit eandemque in longinqua transtulerit seu etiam intra domum propriam, ita ut voluptatibus publicis non serviat, retentarit, quinque librarum auri inlatione multetur." On the theft of actors, see Cod. lust. 11.41.5 (409). This law added venatores and scaenici to the list of "protected persons" which had previously included charioteers. On the tribunus voluptatum, whose duty it was to ensure regular theatrical performances in Rome and elsewhere, see Cod. Theod. 15.7.13; and R. Lim, "The tribunus voluptatum in the Later Roman Empire," Memoirs 0/ the American Academy in Rome 4 1 (1996): 163-73. 26. Cod. Theod. 15.704: "Mulieres, quae ex viliori sorte progenitae spectaculorum debentur obsequiis, si scaenica officia declinarint, ludicris ministeriis deputentur, quas necdum tarnen consideratio sacratissimae religionis et Christianae legis reverentia suae fidei mancipavit; eas enim, quas melior vivendi usus vinculo naturalis condicionis evolvit, retrahi vetamus. Illas etiam feminas liberas a contubernio scaenici praeiudicii durare praecipimus, quae mansuetudinis nostrae beneficio expertes muneris turpioris esse meruerunt." An almost identical law containing this provision was addressed by the same emperors to Herasius, proconsul of Africa; see Cod. Theod. 15.7.9: "Quaecumque ex huiusmodi faece progenitae scaenica officia declinarint, ludicris ministeriis deputentur, quas necdum tarnen sanctissimae religionis et in perenne servandae Christianae legis secretorum reverentia suae fidei vindicarit. Illas etiam feminas liberatas contubernio scaenici praeiudicii durare praecipimus, quae mansuetudinis nostrae beneficio expertes muneris turpioris esse meruerunt." The language of this law is considerably more abusive: the women were characterized as originating ex

huiusmodi /aece. 27. Cod. Theod. 15.7.8: "Scaenae mulier si vacationem religionis nomine postularit, obtentu quidem petitionis venia ei non desit, verum si post turpibus volutata conplexibus et religionem quam expetierit prodidisse et gerere quod officio desierat animo tarnen scaenica detegetur, retracta in pulpitum sine spe absolutionis uHius ibi eo usque permaneat, donec anus

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ridicula senectute deformis nec tunc quidem absolutione potiatur, cum aliud quam casta esse non possit." 28. Cod. Theod. 15.7.13: "Mimas diversis adnotationibus liberatas ad proprium officium summa instantia revocari decernimus, ut voluptatibus populi ac festis die bus solitus ornatus deesse non possit." 29. Aug., Civ. Dei 1.3. The theatrical shows were offered daily in Carthage in the period just after the sack of Rome. Augustine notes with great disapproval the zeal that these dislocated Romans exhibited for the shows. See Lim, "Tribunus voluptatum." 30. Cod. lust. I A. 14: Myrte OOUAOV /lyrte €.Aeu8epov crro/lU 'toA/la'tffi 'tt~ ei~ 1tOpveiuv 1tp6uyetv ~ 1tpOl(r'taVat, /ll1OE el 8U/leAtKO~ eLll

Tl

äAAffi~ crKllvtK6~ ... ot~

/leATtO'et 'to /l110e äKOUO'UV YUVUtKU OOUAllV EAeu8epuv O'UVetVat O'uYXopetV /li/lot~

Ti

äAAllV 8euv €.v 'tot~ 8ea'tpot~ €.K'teAetV avuYKaSe0'8at.

3 I. On the legal status of actions performed by individuals under duress and how they could be nullified, see lust. Dig. 4.2.1-23. 32. See lust. Dig. 23.2A4 for different definitions of who should count as a humilis abiectaque persona. 33. Cod. Theod. 15.8.2 (issued in 428): "Lenones patres et dominos, qui suis filiis vel ancillis peccandi necessitatem inponunt, nec iure frui dominii nec tanti criminis patimur libertate gaudere." This principle was repeated in Cod. lust. 1.4.12 and 11.41.6 where it readsjiliabus instead ofjiliis. By the sixth century, the trend of female children being sold into prostitution might have become the dominant one. 34. See Table IV.I-4 on patria potestas. On its application during the Empire, see A. M. Rabello, Effetti personali della ('patria potestas lJ : 1. Dalle origini al periodo degli Antonini (Milan, 1979); and P. Voci, "Storia della patria potestas da Augusto a Diocleziano," lura 31 (1980), 37-100. The absolute authority of the paterfamilias over offsprings was reaffirmed by law in the sixth century, see lust. lnst. 1.9: "Ius autem potestatis, quod in liberos habemus, proprium est civium Romanorun: nulli enim alii sunt homines, qui talern in liberos habeant potestatem, qualern nos habemus. " Indeed arecent study demonstrates how the disciplinary authority of the paterfamilias influenced the development of late antique Christian mores, see T. S. De Bmyn, "Flogging a Son: The Emergence of the pater flagellans in Latin Christian Discourse," Journal of Early Christian Studies 7 (1999): 249--90. 35. Cod. lust. 6A·4· 36. Acta Sanctorum J 15 September and 4 November (1894), pp. 227-32: Porphyrius, the one discussed in the text above; 15 September (1755), p. 37: another Porphyrius (d. 362); 18 April (1675), p. 213: Ardalion; 18 April (1675), p. 213: Glaucus; and J. Link, "Die Geschichte der Schauspieler

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nach einem syrischen Manuscript der königlichen Bibliothek in Berlin" (Diss., Bern, 1904), vol. 1. See B. Von der Lage, Studien zur Genesius Legende (Berlin, 1898), pp. 263-64. 37. C. Van der Vorst, "Une passion inedite de S. Porphyre le mime," Anal. Boll. 29 (1910): 258-75; Greek text, pp. 270-75. 38. See Joh. Mal., Chron. 12 and Chron. Pasch. 297; and W. Weismann, "Gelasinos von Heliopolis, Ein Schauspieler-Märtyrer," Anal. Boll. 93 (1975): 39-66. On their similarity, see Van der Vorst, "Une passion inedite," p. 266. 39. See Van der Vorst, "Une passion inedite," pp. 259-63. A cult of Genesius, supposedly martyred in the early fourth century, already existed in Rome later during that same century. One scholar has conjectured that this actor-saint was originally the same as aSt. Genesius of Ades, whose cu:lt was popular throughout Gaul and Spain. 40. References in the text are to chapters of the Vita Porphyrii, and to pages in Van der Vorst, "Une passion inedite." 41. See French, "Christian Emperors and Pagan Spectacles," pp. 178-84. 42. This position was decided upon at the Council of Ades in 314. For Augustine, this strong sacramental theology worked well as a defense against Donatist charges that sacraments carried out by priests who were also lapsi should not be valid. See Aug., De baptismo contra Donatistas 22, PL 43:121: "Non est baptismum ille schismaticorum vel haereticorum, sed Dei et Ecclesiae, ubicumque fuerit inventus et quocumque translatus." 43. According to Weismamm, "Gelasinus von Heliopolis," p. 44, the author has Valerius Licinianus Licinius in mind here. 44. Chronicon Paschale 269, ed. Niebuhr, p. 513. See A. S. G. von Stauffenberg, Die riimische Kaisergeschichte bei Malalas (Stuttgart, 193 I), p. 78. 45. The body of literature on St. Pelagia of Antioch is a copious one, beginning with the text and critical study published by H. Usener, Legenden der heiligen Pelagia (Bonn, 1879). Important recent works of French scholars on the MS tradition are collected in P. Petitmengin, ed., Pelagie la penitente: Metamorphoses d'une legende, 2 vols. (Paris, 1981), esp. vol. I; and his "La diffusion de la 'Penitence de Pelagie,'" in Hagiographie, cultures et societes: IVe a XIle siecles (Paris, 1981 ), pp. 33-47. 46. John Chrysostom, Hom. 67-68 in Matthaeum (PG 58, 636): "H OUK TtKOUcrO'tE 7tros E.KEivTl 7tOPVTl, T, E7tt OcrEAYEi~ mxv'tos 1tOpEAacrcro, 1tav't0S 01tEKPU\jfEV EV EUAOßEi~; This prostitute hailed from Phoenicia and held 'tu 1tPOHEtO E1tt 't'ils crKTlVlls·

47. Ibid. 48. On vitae of hadot-saints as a distinct hagiographie genre, see B. Ward, Harlots 0/ the Desert: A Study 0/ Repentance in Early Monastic Sources (Oxford, 1987).

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49. The female mime and her seductive ways are contrasted with the virtuous decorum of virgins by lohn Chrysostom: see French, "Christian Emperors and Pagan Spectacles," pp. I92-93. 50. The Syriac text is in 1. Gildemeister, Acta S. Pelagiae Syriacae (Bonn, I879); the text was revised and reissued by P. Bedjan in Acta Martyrum et Sanctorum vo1. 4 (Paris, I896; reprint ed., Hildesheim, I968). An English translation is available in Sebastian Brock and Susan A. Harvey, Holy Women 0/ the Syrian Orient (Berkeley, Calif., I987). For an evaluation of the textual traditions, see Petitmengin, Pilagie la Pinitente I: I7, 290. See also idem, "Diffusion de la 'Penitence de Pelagie,'" pp. 33-47. 5 I. The connection between the baptism of Pelagia and the time around Easter is not explicitly corroborated by the text, as Neil McLynn astutely observes, but is the most likely conjecture based upon existing internal and external evidence. Within the text, bishops from nearby towns have been summoned by the metropolitan bishop of Antioch to come to his city to stay for more than two weeks, an occurrence certainly connected with a major Christian holy day. The time around Easter would appear to be the most fitting occasion for visiting clergy to come to Antioch: see F. Van de Paverd, St. John Chrysostom The Homilies on the Statues (Rome, I99I), pp. 290-9I. Also, in the story the narrator ]acob seeks permission from his bishop Nonnus to visit ]erusalem three years later in order to worship the resurrected Christ in situ (V. Pelag. 43); presumably he re the reader is to understand that ]acob's request comes exactly three years after Pelagia's metanoia and conversion. External evidence consists of the fact that it has become customary in the Greek East for catechumens to be baptized only once a year--during Easter (see discussion in text, pp. IOO-I02). 52. Palladius, Dialogus I6, PG 47:53. On penitence as a "second baptism" and the eucharistie rite as a form of remission for sins in daily life in late antiquity, see Paul De Clerck, Pinitence seconde et conversion quotidienne aux Illeme et IVeme siedes Studia Patristica 20 (Leuven, I989), pp. 352-74. 53. V. Pe/ag. 4, ed. Petitmengin, pp. 94-96,11. I8-25. Female performers are explicitly forbidden from wearing certain kinds of precious stones and gems by an imperial decree of 393, see Cod. Theod. I5.7.II. 54. V. Pelag. 4. ed. Petitmengin, p. 96 ,11. 2I-22, 23-34; iöou napeXE'tat J

J

J

J

Öt' ~,.Hilty ~ nproTII 'tmv I-UIHXÖffiV Av'ttoxEia<; Kat äUTII ÖE ~v nproTII 'tmv XOpEtl'tptmv

Margarito resumes her birth name, Pelagia, following her baptism, suggesting that her former stage persona has died with her stage name. 55. V. Pelag. 4, ed. Bedjan, pp. 6I8-6I8; Latin translation in Petitmengin, Pilagie la Pinitente I:293. The other versions are remarkably similar on this point except that not all versions portray Pelagia as a courtesan as weH as an 'tou OPXllcr'tpou.

J

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actress. Her role as a prostitute is only explicitly stated in the Syriac and Armenian versions. In this regard, the epithet "harlot-saint" may not be entirely justified. On the other hand, her role as a stage performer is a consistent theme. The Syriac text even retains the Greek word mimas in this context 56. V. Pelag. 18, ed. Bedjan, pp. 626-27; Brock and Harvey, Holy Women, pp. 47-4 8 . 57· V. Pelag. 23- 24, ed. Bedjan, pp. 62 9-3 1; Brock and Harvey, Holy Women, pp. 49-50. 58. V. Pelag. 23, ed. Bedjan, p. 629; Brock and Harvey, Holy Women, pp. 49-50. The admission that she hails from a "deep ditch of mire" (V. Pelag. 23, 26) recalls t!fe imperial rhetoric in Cod. T heod. 15.7.9 that brands scaenicae as women ex huiusmodi /aece. 59. V. Pelag. 28, ed. Bedjan, pp. 632-33; Brock and Harvey, Holy Women, p. 51. 60. On Pelagia's place in the tradition of early Byzantine female saints who cross-dressed as male monks, see E. Patlagean, "L'histoire de la femme deguisee en moine et l'evolutionde la saintete feminine a Byzance," Studi Medievali, 3d ser., 17 (1976): 61 I: "Elle [Pelagial represente la feminite charnelle poussee a son extreme, mais elle n'est pas liee a un partenaire masculin qui ait le droit de la retenir." The hagiographie genre of transvestite female saints remained popular up to the ninth century at least. 61. Admittedly, such references are few and in the minority even for actresses. Notable is the career of one Baltasara de los Reyes, who left the performing profession at the height of her farne in the first few years of the seventeenth century and entered a monastery dedicated to John the Baptist near Cartagena. A generation later, Maria Calderon, a married woman, joined the nunnery of Villahermoso in Guadalajara where she later served as abbess and "repenting of her sins, there are those who assure us that she died in the odor of sanctity." See H. A. Rennert, "Spanish Actors and Actresses between 1560 and 168o," Revue Hispanique 16 (1907): 362-63 (Calderon), 476 (Reyes). 62. Patlagean, "L'histoire de la femme deguisee en moine." 63. 1. 1. Coon, Sacred Fictions: Holy Women and Hagiography in Late Antiquity (Philadelphia, 1997), pp. 71-94, builds a chapter around the two vitae and suggests that they share common concerns regarding "desert spirituality." 64. See M. Richard, "La vie ancienne de sainte Marie surnommee Marinos," in Corona Gratiarum: Miscellanea Patristica et Liturgica Eligio Dekkers O.S.B. XII lustra complenti oblata, vol. I (Bruges, 1975), pp. 83-115; Greek text, pp. 87-94. 65. The Greek MSS of Group y of the Acta Pelagiae have as their titulus: ME'tclVOW TIj<; 6aia<; IIEAayia<;. Overall, the moral of the vita has to do with repentance.

i' I

,

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66. M. Dujarer, A History 01 the Catechumenate: The First Six CenturiesJ tr. Edward J. Haasl (New York, 1979), passim. See A. Laurentin and M. Dujarer, Catechumenat; Donnees de l'histoire et perspectives nouvelles (Paris, 1969). 67. See J. Jeremias, Le bapteme des enlants pendant les quatres premiers südes (Lyons, 1967); and E. Ferguson, "Inscriptions and the Origin of Infant Baptism," jTSJ n.s. 30 (1979): 37-46. But even in the fifth century, the baptism of infants was often reserved for those who were at risk of dying, see S. Poque, "Un souci d'Augustin: La perseverance des chretiens baptises dans leur enfance," Bulletin de Litterature Ecdesiastique 88 (1987): 273-86. 68. E. Rebillard, "La figure du catechumene et le probleme du delai du bapteme dans la pastorale d' Augustin: Apropos du post-tractatum Dolbeau 7: De sepultura catehcumenorum J" in Augustin pridicateur (395-4II)JJ ed. G. Madec, Actes du Colloque International de Chantilly (5-7 septembre 1996) (Paris, 1998), p. 285. 69. See A. Piedagnel, ed., jean Chrysostome: Trois catecheses baptismalesJ Sources Chretiennes 366 (Paris, 1990), appendix 3: "Bapteme tardif et bapterne des enfants." 70. On Augustine's De sepultura catechumenorum J see Rebillard, "La figure du catechumene." 7 I. See M. von Bonsdorff, Zur Predigttä'tigkeit des johannes Chrysostomus: Biographisch-chronologische Studien über seine Homilienserien zu neutestamentlichen Büchern (Helsinki, 1922), pp. 3-13. On the liturgical setting of Chrysostom's Antioch, see now Wendy Mayer and Pauline Allen, john Chrysostom (London, 2000), pp. 17-25. 72. John Chrysostom, Homilia 25 in Iohannem J PG 59:151; my translation. Bonsdorff, Zur Predigttä'tigkeit des johannes Chrysostomus J pp. 28-29, dates these sermons· to 391. 73. John Chrysostom, Homilia 4 in Matthaeum 8, PG 58:48-49. Bonsdorff, Zur Predigttä'tigkeit des johannes Chrysostomus J p. 14, dates this sermon to 15 April 390. 74. The work that I have found most useful in parsing the views of the various patristic authors on the baptismal rite is V. Saxer, Les rites de !'initiation chritiennes du IIe au Vle siede: Esquisse historique et signification dJapres leur principaux temoins (Spoleto, 1988). 75. Peregrinatio Silviae (Egeriae) 45. See T. Finn, Early Christian Baptism and the Catechumenate: West and East Syria (Collegeville, Minn., 1992), esp. p. 52; and A. Bludau, "Das Katechumenat in Jerusalem im 4. Jahrhundert," Theologie und Glaube 16 (1924): 225-42. 76. See Saxer, Les rites de !'initiation chritiennesJ pp. 196-98. These sermons are also attributed to John of Jerusalem (387-417), Cyril's successor, see ibid:, p. 195.

I22

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77. John Chrysostom, Catechesis ad illuminandos 2, PG 49:23 I-40. See A. Wenger, ed., lean Chrysostome: Huit catfcheses baptismales inedites} Sources Chretiennes 5012 (Paris, I957), esp. pp. 66-I04; and T. Finn, The Liturgy 0/ Baptism in the Baptismal Instruction 0/lohn Chrysostom (Washington, D.C., I967). Saxer, Les rites de Finitiation chretiennes} p. 248: "la catechese Chrysostomienne est avant tout une exhortation et une initiation a la penitence quadragesimale. " 78. Apostolic Constitution 7 AI (dated c. 360/380 and connected with Antioch). See Finn, Liturgy 0/ Baptism} p. 57. 79. Cyril Uohn} of Jerusalem, Mystagogical Catecheses 1.6, PG 33:I06972); my translation. 80. John Chrysostom, Catechesis ad illuminandos 2.5, PG 49:239; Cat. 1.39-43, ed. Wenger, pp. I28-3 0 . 81. John Chrysostom, Contra ludos et theatra} PG 56:263-70, dated to early July of 399 in Constantinople, not too long after his arrival from Antioch: see now introduction and translation in Mayer and Allen, eds., lohn Chrysostom} pp. I I8-2 5. On Chrysostom's views regarding the theater generally, see O. Pasquato, Gli spettacoli in S. Giovanni Crisostomo: Paganesimo e cristianesimo ad Antiochia e Costantinopoli nel quarto secolo} Orientalia Christiana Analecta 20I (Rome, I976). 82. John Chrysostom, Contra ludos et theatra} PG 56:269; my translation. 83. John Chrysostom, Catechesis ad illuminandos Cat. 2.3, PG 49:234. 84. See John Chrysostom, Homilia de eleemosyna} PG 5I:26I-72; and see now Peter Brown, Poverty and Leadership in the Later Roman Empire} The Menachem Stern Jerusalem Lectures 2000 (Hanover, N.H., 2002). 85. On this institution in the pre-Constantinian period, see M. Dujarer, Le parrainage des adultes aux trois siecles de tEglise: Recherche historique sur t evolution des garanties et des etapes catichumenales avant 3 I3 (Paris, I 962). 86. The popularity of the Acta Pelagiae might have to do with its successful use of the storytelling conventions of the ancient romance, see Z. Pavloskis, "The Life of St. Pelagia the Harlot: Hagiographic Adaptation of Pagan Romance," Classical Folia 30 (I97 6): I38-49. 87. See J. Maxwell, "Preaching to the Converted: John Chrysostom and His Audience in Antioch" (Ph. D. diss., Princeton University, 2000), esp. chap. 5 on the habits and customs of the Christians of Antioch. 88. C. Moss, "Jacob of Sarugh's Homilies on the Spectacles of the Theater," Le Museon 48 (I935): 87-I I2. 89. John of Ephesus, Lives 0/ the Eastern Saints 52, ed. E. W Brooks, vol. I9 of Patrologia Orientalis} ed. R. Graffin and F. Nau (Paris, I926), pp. I 64-79. 90. See Actio apud Praesidem Provinciae; in Acta Conciliorum Oecumenicorttm 3. I, ed. E. Schwartz = Collectio Sabbaitica contra Acephalos et Origenistas Des-

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tinata 5 (Berlin, 1940), pp. 95-96. I wish to thank Peter Brown for bring-

ing this reference to my attention. 91. See PLRE 2:353-54, s.v. "Fl. Theodorus Petrus Demosthenes 4." 92. Cod. lust. 5-4.23; S. P. Scott, tr., The Civil Law, vol. 7 (Cincinnati, 1932), vol. 7, 15 0-51. Omitted from the above is a much longer section treating the status of the children of such women, a topic that though certainly central to the framers of the law, is not immediately germane to our discussion. On the legal issues involved, see D. Daube, "The Marriage of Justinian and Theodora: Legal and Theological Reflections," Catholic University of America Law Review· 16 (1967), 380-99; and Spruit, Romeinse acteurs, 239-50. Generally, see F. M. de Robertis, "La condizione sociale e gli impedimenti al matrimonio nel Basso Impero," Annali della Facolta di Giurisprudenza della Universita di Bari 2 (1939): 45-69. 93. The story is told by Procopius in his Anecdota 9.1-34, ed. Haury, pp. 57-62 . 94. Ibid. 9, p. 58: E1tEt8il 8E 'tclXHJ"ta Ee; 'tE nlV +\ßTJV aiKE'to Kat ropaia ~V 118TJ, Eie; 'tue; E1tt <JKTJvfje; Ka9fjKEv a'\)'tTJv, E'taipa E'USue; EYEyOVEt.

95. John of Ephesus even characterizes Theodora as having originated in a brothel, in Lives of Eastern Saints, vols. 18 and 19 of Patrologia Orientalis, ed. E. W. Brooks (Paris, 1923-25), 18:690ff.; 19: 1 53ff., 228ff. 96. Procop. Anecd. 9. 97. On the literary and political aims behind Procopius's scandalous description of Theodora's early life, see E. A. Fisher, "Theodora and Antonina in the Historia Arcana: History and/or Fiction?" Arethusa 11 (1978): 253-79; and Averil Cameron, Procopius and the Sixth Century (Berkeley, Calif., 1985), pp. 67-83. 98. Parastaseis Syntomai Chronikai 80, in Constantinople in the Early Eighth Century: The Parastaseis Syntomai Chronikai, ed. Averil Cameron and J. Herrin (Leiden, 1984), p. 271. 99. The literature on this subject is vast. For the earlier period, see S. Treggiari, Roman Marriage: lusti Coniunges from the Time of Cicero to the Time of Ulpian (Oxford, 1991), esp. pp. 61-62. 100. See Marcian, Nov. 4 ("De matrimoniis senatorum"). In reacting to a Constantinian law of July 321 (Cod. Theod. 4.6.3), Marcian's law defines who constitute humiles abiectaeque personae and is therefore unfit for legal marriage. The law rules that the freeborn poor are not to be considered as belonging to this category and that only women and the children of actresses, tavern owners, pimps, and arenarii, and all those who offer themselves in public for money, fall into this category. In its basic thrust, this law allows the marriage between members of the senatorial ordo with freeborn humiliores provided that the latter are not the infames personae mentioned above.

12 4

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101. On nonelite women and the practice of matrimonium, see J. Le GaU, "Un critere de differenciation sociale: La situation de la fernrne," in Recherches sur les structures sociales dans I'antiquite classique (Paris, 1970), pp. 27586, esp. pp. 283-84; and Judith Evans Grubbs, Law and Family in Late Antiquity: The Emperor Constantine's Marriage Legislation (Oxford, 1995), pp. 29°-9 1 . 102. On Helena as stabularia, see Ambrose, De obitu Theodosii 42; Philostorgius, Rist. Ecel. 2.16a (= Passio Artemii); Eutropius, Breviarium 10.2; Origo Constantini Imperatoris 2.2 (= Chronica Minora 1.7); and Zosimus, Rist. Nova 2.8.2 and 2.9.2. See discussion of this question in J. W. Drijvers, "Helena Augusta: Waarheid en Legende" (Ph.D. diss., University of Groningen, 1989), pp. 16-20. The work has now been published as Relena Augusta: the Mother 0/ Constantine the Great and the Legend 0/ Rer Finding the True Cross (Leiden, 1991). 103. See Cod. Theod. 9.7.1 (326): "Quae adulterium commisit utrum domina cauponae an ministra fuerit, requiri debebit, et ita obsequio famulata servili, ut plerumque ipsa intemperantiae vina praebuerit; ut, si domina tabernae fuerit, non sit a vinculis iuris, excepta, si vero potantibus ministerium praebuit, pro vilitate eius quae in reatum deducitur accusatione exclusa liberi qui accusantur abscedant, cum ab is feminis pudicitiae ratio requiratur, quae iuris nexibus detineatur, hae autem immunes a iudiciaria severitate praestentur, quas vilitas dignas legum observatione non credidit." 104. See E. Gianturco, ''L'influenza dell'imperatrice Teodora neUa legislazione Giustinianea," in Studi giuridici in onore di Carlo Fadda per XXV anno deI suo insegnamento, vol. 4 (Napies, 1906), pp. 3-12. 105. Daube, "Marriage of Justinian and Theodora," p. 388. 106. lust. Nov. 51: "Scenicas non solum si fidesiussorem praestent, sed etiam si iusiurandum dent, sine periculo discedere." 1°7. Ibid.: "Ne a scaenicis mulieribus aut fideiussio aut iusiurandum perseverantiae exigatur." 108. Ibid., Epilogue: "Quae igitur placuerunt nobis et per praesentem sacram declarata sunt legern, tua celsitudo praeceptionibus propriis omnibus faciat manifesta, ut agnoscant nostri imperii circa castitatem studium." See also Theodosius 11, Nov. 18 (439) on the emperor's concern for those who might be forced into prostitution: "nostrae amore pudicitae castatisque. 109. Cassiod. Variae 7.10 (CCSL 96:27°-71): "Formula Tribuni Voluptatum-Quamuis artes lubricae honestis moribus si nt remotae et histrionum uita uaga uideatur efferri posse licentia, tarnen moderatrix prouidit antiquitas, ut in totum non effluerent, cum et ipsae iudicem sustinerent. Amministranda est enim sub quadam disciplina exhibitio uoluptatum. Teneat scaenicos si non uerus, uel umbratilis ordo iudicii. Temperentur et haec JJ

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legum qualitate negotia, quasi honestas imperet inhonestis, et quibusdam regulis uiuant, qui uiam rectae conuersationis ignorant. Student enim illi non tantum iucunditati suae, quantum alienae laetitiae et condicione peruersa cum dominaturn suis corporibus tradunt, seruire potius animas compulerunt. (2) Dignum fuit ergo moderatorem suscipere, qui se nesciunt iuridica conuersatione tractare. Locus quippe tuus his gregibus hominum ueluti quidam tutor est positus. Nam sicut illi aetates teneras adhibita cautela custodiunt, sic a te uoluptates feruidae impensa maturitate frenandae sunt. Age bonis institutis quod nimia prudentia constat inuenisse maiores. Leue desiderium etsi uerecundia non cohibet, districtio praenuntiata modificat. Agantur spectacula suis consuetudinibus ordinata, quia nec illi possunt inuenire gratiam, nisi imitati fuerint aliquam disciplinam. (3) Quapropter tribunum te uoluptatum per illam indictionem nostra facit electio, ut omnia sic agas, quaeadmodum tibi uota ciuitatis adiungas, ne quod ad laetitiam constat inuentum, tuis temporibus ad culpas uideatur fuisse transmissum. Cum fama diminutis salua tua opinione uersare. Castitatem dilige, cui subiacent prostitutae: ut magna laude dicatur: 'uirtutibus studuit, qui uoluptatibus miscebatur.' Optamus enim ut per ludicram amministrationem ad seriam peruenias." 110. Beaucamp, Statut de la fimmeJ p. 132. I I I. J. Beaucamp, "Le vocabulaire de la faiblesse feminine dans les textes juridiques romains du Ille au Vle siedes," Revue historique de droit franfais et etrange~ 4th ser., 54 (1976): 504-6. See also S. Dixon, "Infirmitas sexus: Womanly Weakness in Roman Law," Tijdschrift voor Rechtsgeschiednis 52 (19 8 4): 343-71. 112. Beaucamp, Statut de la fimmeJ p. 132,. 113. See G. J. M. Bartelink, "Fragilitas humana chez saint Ambroise," Ambro-

sius Episcopus: Atti deI Congresso internazionale di studi ambrosiani nel XVI centenario della elevazione del santJAmbroglio alla Catedra episcopaleJ Milano 2-7 dicembre I974J ed. G. Lazzati, vol. 2 (Milan, 1974), pp. 13°-42; and idem, "Fragilitas (infirmitas) humana chez Augustin," Augustiniana 41 (1991): 815-28. I 14. Daube, "Marriage of J ustinian and Theodora," p. 395. 115. Procop. Anecd. 17.5-6 and Aed. 1.9.5-10; and John Malalas, Chron. 18.173, CHSB 28:440-1 and Nov. Inst. 14 (535). See also A. Sicari, Prostituzione e tutela giuridica della schiavaJ p. 50 n. 43. 116. See Libellus monachorum ApameaeJ 1°7.14-17, in Schwartz, Acta Conciliorum Oecumenicorum 3. I. These women had served a public function and were quite lowly in social status and origins: 811flro811 yuvata ... hatpm yap

~(mv Kat ou8aflo8Ev EUYEVEtS.

117. See A. Vogt, "Le theatre a Byzance et dans l'empire du IVe au XIIle siede, I: Le theatre profane," Revue des Questions Historiques 59 (r93 1): 257-

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96; and Bonaria, Romani Mimi) pp. 16-17. Mime performances and dancing would have continued in more private settings, such as banquets. See now R. Webb, "Female Performers in Late Antiquity," in Creek and Roman Actors: Aspects 0/ an Ancient Profession) ed. P. Easterling and E. Hall (Cambridge, 2002), pp. 282-3°3. On the persistence of the popular culture in which mimes, dancers, and prostitutes featured, see H. Magoulias, "Bathhouse, rnn, Tavern, Prostitution and the Stage as Seen in the Lives of the Saints of the Sixth and Seventh Centuries," Epeteris Hetaireias Byzantinon Spoudon 38 (197 1 ): 233-5 2 .

5 THE MANY CONVERSIONS OF THE EMPEROR CONSTANTINE

RAYMOND VAN DAM

CONSTANTINE'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY

For almost eight hundred years a colossal statue of Constantine would preside over his new capital of Constantinople. The Forum of Constantine was located on the crown of one of the city's seven hills, its vast open circular plaza designed to be areminder of the boundless ocean. This forum was a central focus for the city, and in its center the great bronze statue of the emperor stood on a tall porphyry column. From bottom to top the monument consisted of five steps leading up to a large platform; an enormous, almost cubical pedestal; a square plinth; a circular base; the seven huge drums making up the column shaft; a large decorative capital; and the statue. During the fourth century the new capital was a boom town, and from the top of this column, about 120 feet high, the statue monitored the construction. The statue faced east, and behind it a main street led out of the forum past the Church of the Holy Apostles to the city's massive land walls. Before its gaze the street ran past the Hippodrome to the imperial palace and the Church of Holy Wisdom. Its vista then continued beyond the houses and monasteries and sea walls to the shimmering waves of the Golden Horn, the Bosphorus, and the Sea of Marmara. During the formal inauguration of the new capital in 330 a procession first celebrated the placement of this statue on top of the column, before proceeding to the Hippodrome. This statue of Constantine hence marked the emplacement of a new legendary center for the city. Yet from the beginning the significance of this statue was ambiguous, almost deli berately equivocal in its many meanings. One tradition claimed that the figure had originally been astatue of Apollo in his guise as Helios, the sun god crowned with- rays of light shooting from his head, and that it had been brought to the capital from a provincial city and reworked into astatue of 12

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the emperor. Another tradition daimed that buried in the base of the column was the Palladium, an ancient image of Pallas Athena that had supposedly been conveyed from Troy to Rome as a guarantee of Rome's safety. Constantine had once considered founding his new eastern capital at Troy. Since he was thought to have spirited away this image, its transfer seemed to imply that Constantinople was to be the proper successor to both Troy and Rome. In its right hand the statue held a spear. Since Constantine had appropriated for hirnself the tide of "Victor" after his final victory in the civil wars, this spear was areminder of his military successes. In its left hand the statue carried a globe as a sign of the universality of his imperial rule. In later times, during the annual ceremonies that celebrated the anniversary of the city's foundation, soldiers escorted a gilded statue of Constantine through the Hippodrome. This smaller statue may have been a dose replica of the large statue on the column, and when it finally arrived at the imperial box, the current emperor was supposed to bow in honor. Pagan deity, founder of New Rome, conqueror, ruler, imperial forebear: the colossal statue memorialized not just the foundation of the new capital and its revered founder, but also many of the legendary images and associations that had already grown up around Constantine. 1 For over a year before the inauguration of the capital Constantine had been residing in or near Thrace. Presumably he had inspected the new construction and helped plan the dedication ceremony. If in fact he had imposed his own preferences, then it is possible to think of the statue as a fragment of Constantine's autobiography, a text about hirns elf. The statue was his story ab out his life and reign so far, and at the time he had wanted to memorialize many different images of hirnself. Noticeably missing, however, was any overt indication of his devotion to Christianity. The Constantine of the statue could have been almost any other Roman emperor, flush with his divine support, his victories, his imperial power. This colossal bronze emperor seems not to have been aware of any conversion to Christianity. The absence of overt Christian allusions should not be surprising. Already soon after Constantine's reign historians were judging hirn against other criteria. The emperor J ulian dassified hirn as a revolutionary for having upset old laws and ancient traditions, and criticized hirn as the first emperor to have appointed barbarians as consuls. 2 The historian Ammianus criticized Constantine as the first emperor to condone the greed of his courtiers. 3 The historian Zosimus, drawing upon the earlier historian Eunapius, thought Constantine was responsible for the collapse of the frontiers because he had supposedly removed troops to the cities. 4 According to these interpretations, Constantine had been an innovator all right, but in nonre-

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ligious concerns. Already in late antiquity It was possible to evaluate, and imagine, Constantine apart from his relations hip with Christianity. The study of conversion in late antiquity suffers from being placed so exclusively in a religious context or, more commonly, in a Christian context. "Conversion" almost always implies conversion to Christianity. In fact, religious conversion was an aspect of larger trends and processes. One involved self-representatiob.. Conversion was simultaneously very private and very public. People looked inside themselves, and then made choices. But having made those decisions, they then presented themselves, their new selves, for public scrutiny and public evaluation. Choices about religious preferences were similar to decisions about funding new buildings, constructing monuments, participating in municipal festivals, even getting dressed and putting on make-up: people presented themselves in public. People were always converting themselves, imagining themselves, inventing themselves, and religious conversion was but one manifestation of this process of self-representation. A second important context involved stories and narratives. A conversion experience was a reading of, a response to, a particular situation. As such, the original experience was already an interpretation oE a situation. Stories about the conversion were subsequent readings of the original experience, and historical narratives, both then and now, were additional readings of those stories. "The historian works with the available evidence, the conversion narrative; and that narrative can reveal . . . only the retrospective moment, and the retrospective self."5 We his tori ans should have a special sympathy for all who claimed or described conversions, since the experiences themselves, the stories about them, and the historical narratives built on those stories are so similar. They are all interpretations. The conversion of Constantine was particularly rich in both images and stories, both representations and narratives. Some of Constantine's own letters have survived, and he himself was the source of the famous story ab out his visions in 3 I 2. After the emperor's death, Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea in Palestine, composed a Lift of the emperor in which he not only collected many of Constantine's letters and stories, but also interpreted them. Eusebius provided a context for some of Constantine's texts. While Constantine was contributing fragmentary stories and images to his autobiography, Eusebius constructed a consistent life story. Eusebius' perspective has remained powerfully influential. This is an unfortunately limiting outcome. While the bronze statue of Constantine is allowed to have many meanings, too often the goal among modern historians is to find a single trajectory to Constantine's career. The following sections will discuss Eusebius' model of Constantine's conversion, Constantine's own stories about his life, Eusebius'

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reasons for appreciating one later change in Constantine's representation of hirnself, and the fates of Eusebius' Lift and Constantine's statue.

EUSEBIUS' BIOGRAPHY

As Eusebius wrote his Ecclesiastical History! he barely knew anything about Constantine. The future emperor had started his career in the early 290S as a tribune in the Roman army, where he served under the eastern emperors Diocletian and Galerius. Eusebius first saw Constantine in Palestine during the winter of 30 1-2. 6 Constantine was already almost thirty years old, and a member of Diocletian's entourage. About a year later, starting in February 303, Diocletian and Galerius would revive persecution of Christians by issuing aseries of edicts. Upon the publication of the first edict aprefeet led a band of soldiers and destroyed the church at Nicomedia. Constantine hirnself would later note that he had been at Diocletian's court in Nicomedia at the time, although by describing hirnself as a me re spectator, he seemed to protest too much. 7 The soldiers who destroyed the church had included tribunes. 8 If, at the time he was drafting his History! Eusebius still remembered the young tribune, it would have been easy for hirn to classify Constantine as another eager supporter of a hostile imperial regime. Eusebius completed the first edition of his History in 3 I 3 or soon afterwards. 9 By then he could describe the termination of the persecution through the edicts of toleration issued by Galerius in 3 I land the emperor Maximinus in May 313.10 By then he also knew about Constantine's victories in the Western Empire. Constantine had succeeded his father, Constantius, as emperor in Britain in 306, and in October 312 he had defeated Maxentius, a riyal emperor at Rome. In his description of the batde Eusebius claimed only that Constantine had summoned God and Jesus Christ as his alliesY At the end of this first edition he credited Constantine and Licinius, another emperor in the East, with having forced Maximinus to end the persecution ofChristiansY A few years later, before autumn 316, Eusebius produced an expanded edition of his History. The principal modification was the addition of a tenth book, in which he cited six of the edicts issued by Constantine and Licinius in support of Christianity. During the decades when he was writing and revising his History! Eusebius would have thought of Constantine primarily in terms of persecution, first as a possible supporter of the policies of Diocletian, then as a magnificent patron of toleration. Even though his narrative eventually culminated with the immediate aftermath of Constantine's victory in 312, during all this time that Eusebius spent writing and revising his History he had no

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firsthand contact with Constantine. He certainly did not know about any conversion experience. In 325 Eusebius finally met Constantine for the first time at the Council of Nicaea. less than a year before the emperor had defeated his riyal licinius to establish his control over the entire empire, and Eusebius had already lighdy revised his History yet again to include a few derogatory chapters about licinius. During the remainder of Constantine's reign Eusebius had only intermittent contact with the emperor. They exchanged some letters, they probably met again at a council in late 327, and Eusebius visited the imperial court at Constantinople in 335 and 336. But Eusebius was not an intimate confidant of the emperor. Eusebius nevertheless decided to wrire a biography. His Lift was a combination of a panegyric, a collection of the emperor's letters and edicts, and his own running commentary. Eusebius then combined these disparate elements into a narrative, more or less, of the emperor's life that started with his early years and ended with his funeral. An early highlight in the narrative was Constantine's personal, but still very public, acceptance of Christianity just before the batde of 3 I 2. The account that Eusebius offered in this Lift was much more elaborate than the account in the History, first composed about twenty-five years earlier. Eusebius now turned the events leading up to the batde into ~ clear transition, a conversion, in the emperor's life. . Setting up this transition required a carefully ambiguous narrative. Eusebius in fact knew nothing about Constantine's own religious affiliation during his early years. He did claim, however, that Constantius, Constantine's father, had been a sympathizer of Christianity. Of all the emperors, Constantius alone had had "a friendship wirh God" (I.I3.I, p. 22). Yet Eusebius still preferred not to make Constantine's Christianity a direct legacy of his father's influence. In order to highlight the magnitude of Constantine's conversion in 3 I2, Eusebius had to distance the emperor from the allegedly Christian atmosphere of his father's court. Instead, Eusebius placed the youngish Constantine in a thoroughly pagan context by emphasizing that he had grown up in the entourages of the Eastern emperors, Diocletian and Galerius. A comparison with Moses helped. The young Moses had been raised among "tyrants," until God finally summoned hirn to become "leader of the entire people." In the same manner, according to Eusebius, the young Constantine had been raised among "the tyrants of our time," until his own rectitude led hirn toward "a life of piety and grace in God" (I.I2, p. 2I). In 305 Constantine left Galerius' court and joined his father in northern Gaul. Even though he then campaigned with his father in Britain for over a year, and even though he was then an

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emperor for another six years before his batde at Rome, Eusebius constructed Constantine's background in such a way that he seemed to approach this batde direcdy from his upbringing at these pagan courts. In the Lift Eusebius had Constantius die soon after his son's arrival, and he then had Constantine invade Italy almost immediately. Seven years had vanished from his narrative. By having Constantine go into this batde almost at once from a background of service at the courts of persecuting emperors, Eusebius could imply that he was still not yet a Christian. Eusebius then presented the events of 312 as a dilemma, as Constantine pondered "what sort of god he ought to enroll as his supporrer." Eventually he decided that he should honor "only his father's god" (I.27, p. 29). As he prayed to this god, he had avision of the cross in the sky. Soon afterwards he had another vision, this time of "the Christ of God" who suggested that he construct a military standard modeled on this symbol (I.28-29, pp. 2930). The basic elements in Constantine's conversion included a crisis, a revelation, a sign, adecision, a confirmation, and a positive outcome. Constantine was victorious. Once Eusebius had transformed Constantine into a pious Christi an, he had found a pattern for the rest of the emperor's life. He used it, first, to denigrate Constantine's opponents. If Constantine was now a devout Christian, then his riyal emperors could not have been sympathetic to Christians. At Rome Maxentius had in fact already decided to end the persecution of Christians, and eventually he ordered that they could recover any property confiscated during earlier persecutions. In his earlier account in the History Eusebius had hinted at Maxentius' support for Christianity.13 But in the Lift Eusebius emphasized that Maxentius had been just another tyrant, guilty of all sorts of despicable behavior. After defeating Maxentius, Constantine shared imperial rule with Licinius, emperor in the East. Licinius too had been generally favorable to Christians. In fact, in the History Eusebius had cited some of the edicts he had issued with Constantine. But in the Lift Eusebius instead stressed only his measures against Christians and their bishops. If Constantine was "God's friend," then Licinius could only be "God's enemy" (I.5I.2, p. 42). Eusebius also, secondly, insisted that after his conversion Constantine had been consistent in matching support for Christianity with opposition to paganism. He claimed that the emperor issued an edict forbidding pagan sacrifices (2-45. I, pp. 66-67); modern scholars question whether Constantine did so. The discrepancy between Eusebius' claims and Constantine's actual behavior is also apparent in a document ci ted in the Lift. Although Eusebius introduced one letter (of 324) as a refutation of paganism, in the letter Constantine tolerandy extended the blessings of peace to "those in

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error," and insisted that "the customs of temples" were not to be harmed (2-47.1,56.1,60.2, pp. 68,70-72). Eusebius was clearly trying to interpret this letter to suit his own purposes. Even though Constantine had still been tolerant, in his retrospective judgment Eusebius could not allow the emperor to waver in his opposition to paganism. Eusebius' Lift reflected his later thinking about the significance of Constantine's reign. In the History Constantine had represented the end of persecution; in the Lift he was to represent the beginning of the expansion of Christianity. The events of 312 were the pivot, toward the end of one account and toward the beginnirtg of another. As a result, the Lift has been more influential in setting the pattern for modern interpretations of Constantine's reign too. By the time he wrote the Lift Eusebius seems to have read A. D. Nock's Conversion, which defines conversion as a "deli berate turning ... which implies a consciousness that a great change is involved."14 In the Lift Eusebius distinguished Constantine's early life, which by implication was misguided, from his subsequent life of piety. The transition was a moment of decision, a sudden insight, an unexpected revelation, that led to a spontaneous choice. The consequences of this decision were steadfast resolution and redemption. A new man, and a new empire, had emerged from the revelation. During the past twenty years the most influential book ab out Constantine has been T. D. Barnes' Constantine and Eusebius. Barnes suggested that although Constantine may have been a Christian before 312, the batde against Maxentius marked "the moment of psychological conviction." Thereafter Constantine never wavered. "After 28 October 312 the emperor consistendy thought of himself as God's servant, entrusted with a divine mission to convert the Roman Empire to Christianity." Barnes also found an unwavering consistency in his subsequent decisions. "Constantine's religious policy was coherent and comprehensive."15 Two recent books offer somewhat similar interpretations, despite their other disagreements. T. G. Elliott, in The Christianity 0/ Constantine the Great, argues that Constantine had accepted Christianity already while he was at Diocletian's court, and that Eusebius himself had simply "invented the conversion" in 312. But Elliott still finds a straight line running through Constantine's career. He had accepted his "Christianizing mission" early in life, and he remained consistent. "He was throughout his imperial career a man with a mission."16 H. A. Drake, in Constantine and the Bishops, concedes a transformation in Constantine's policies after 3 12, but he prefers to interpret it in terms of "the context of contemporary power politics and political thought." He nevertheless finds a "surprising consistency" in Constantine's subsequent actions: "he was acting for a church that would be inclusive and flexible."17 Eusebius (and Nock!)

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would have appreciated all these interpretations. Even when they disagree with Eusebius' version of the events in 3 12, they still accept the idea of a singular conversion in Constantine's career, and they still find a single consistent trajectory to his life. Initial uncertainty, insight, decision, redemption, subsequent certainty: this sequence of conversion was powerfully attractive in part because it had an almost liturgical quality. Not only did Constantine's life fall into place in Eusebius' historical interpretation, but it could become an effective paradigm for others contemplating the same decision, or hoping for the same redemption. This sequence was also seductive because it was an interpretive fiction. Eusebius imposed a coherence in his Lift in order to compensate for the messiness and ambiguity in the emperor's career. The most daunting obstacle to seeing Constantine's life in terms of one sudden transition and a subsequent consistency is, in fact, his own life.

CONSTANTINE' S LIFE

Constantine was a visionary. Throughout his life, according to Eusebius, "God often honored hirn with avision" (1.47.3, p. 40). In fact, Constantine even prepared for batde by waiting for avision: as soon as he felt hirns elf "moved by divine inspiration," he attacked (2.12.2, p. 53). In a speech he delivered to the emperor in 335 Eusebius noted that Constantine hirnself, "if there were time," could recount thousands of visions of the Savior. These visions had helped Constantine decide about battles, affairs of state, the army, and legislation. 18 With this flattery Eusebius acknowledged that when Constantine told stories of his life, he used the language of visions. Constantine apparendy did talk about some of these visions. In the earlier years of his reign there had been at least three moments of crisis and uncertainty when he faced clear threats to his rule: in 3 10 when he defeated arevolt by Maximian; in 3 12 when he fought against Maxentius; and in 324 when he fought against Licinius. In each case Constantine hirnself contributed to the subsequent shaping of the stories and narratives, and hence to the shaping of the interpretations. Since, not so surprisingly, each of these three moments of crisis had included avision of a deity, each had the potential to become a moment of religious conversion. In 310 Constantine had a falling-out with Maximian. In the first years of his reign Constantine was rather desperately looking for recognition from other emperors. Maximian was a former imperial colleague of Diocletian who had returned from retirement to support Constantine. A marriage had sealed the alliance, and Maximian was now Constantine's father-in-Iaw. But

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Maximian eventually tried to seduce away some of Constantine's troops. On ce defeated, he killed hirnself. This revolt had exposed a weakness in Constantine's position. A few years later a panegyrist in Gaul provided new justifications for Constantine's rule. This orator noted that Constantine was descended both from Claudius Gothicus, an earlier emperor of the later third century, and from Constantius, now hailed by Jupiter hirnself as "a god in heaven." The orator also mentioned Constantine's re cent visit to a temple of Apollo in Gaul. There the emperor had had a vision in which he essentially identified hirns elf with Apollo. "Constantine, you saw your Apollo, accompanied by Victory, offering you wreaths of laurel. You recognized yourself in the appearance of hirn to whom the poets' divine verses have prophesied that rule over the entire world is owed. "19 With an enhanced pedigree and this vision of divine support, Constantine had found new ideologies of legitimation. Constantine retained this connection with Apollo for years. A gold medallion minted in early 3 I 3 depicted the emperor in profile with Apollo, who was wearing a solar crown, and the sun god Sol remained on Constantine's coins for over a decade. Sol also appeared in a medallion on Constantine's triumphal arch at Rome, neady correlated with a frieze depicting the emperor's arrival at Rome in 312.20 Nor did the emperor terminate his support for pagan priests and practices after he began to patronize Christianity. In 320 he allowed the consultation of soothsayers when buildings were struck by lightning, and after 324 he extended his support to a pagan priest. 21 In the mid-330s he was still permitting the construction of a new temple in Italy.22 Constantine's vision of Apollo should qualify as a conversion experience. The second moment of crisis was, of course, in 3 12. In addition to all his other concerns, Constantine was now facing in Maxentius his own brotherin-law. As Constantine prepared for batde, something happened to bolster his confidence. Different accounts were soon in circulation. In a panegyric delivered in the next year at Trier an orator was rather vague in attributing the motivation for Constantine's recent "liberation of Rome" to a "god," the "divine mind," and a "divine power."23 At about the same time Eusebius was concluding the first edition of his History with an explicitly Christian account of Constantine's victory at Rome. He claimed that Constantine had first prayed to "God in heaven and His Logos, the Savior of all , Jesus Christ," and that he had then been assisted by "the power of God."24 At about the same time the Christian rhetorician Lactantius offered another Christian interpretation, and was the first to mention a dream. In his version Constantine had been advised in a dream to mark his soldiers' shields with "the heavenly sign of God." "Armed with this symbol" his troops had

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been victorious: "the hand of God influenced the batde."25 In 321 a rhetorician at Rome provided a pagan interpretation of the vision. In his version "armies appeared that claimed they had been divinely sent."26 The news that Constantine had enjoyed divine support in his victory over Maxentius obviously traveled quickly throughout the empire. Within a few \ years a panegyrist in Gaul, a Greek bishop in Palestine, a Latin rhetorician at Nicomedia in Bithynia, and a rhetorician at Rome all had vers ions of his victory. Both pagans and Christians were claiming some credit for the emperor's success, and from the beginning the religious meaning of Constantine's victory in 312 was contestable, and clearly contested. Even when the emperor himself commented on his victory, people might suggest an alternative perspective. Constantine's only (surviving) comment at the time was again in his iconography. Apparendy he requested that a giant statue of himself at Rome should hold a cross in its right hand, and that the dedicatory inscription should commemorate his devotion to the Savior: "I have liberated your city by this sign of salvation."27 In contrast, the dedicatory inscription on the huge triumphal arch completed at Rome in 3 I 5 was much more bland and noncommittal. It attributed Constantine's success merely to "the impulse of a divinity."28 The third moment of crisis was in 324, when Constantine defeated Licinius, a riyal emperor in the East. This victory included some of the same characteristics that had distinguished Constantine's victory in 312. Before setting out, the emperor prayed to God and waited for a "revelation" (2.12.2, p. 53). Not only did Constantine receive avision, but so did Licinius' soldiers, who saw Constantine's soldiers marching in their midst, as if already victorious (2.6.1, pp. 50-51). Constantine's troops advanced with the "trophy of salvation," a military standard in the shape of a cross, leading the way (2.6.2, p. 5 I). An uncertain prognosis, prayers, visions, Christian symbols, and a successful outcome: all the elements were in place for this moment to be considered another transformative religious experience. Eusebius of course decided that 312 would be the turning point. He most likely did not even know about the vision of 310, and he simply declined to mention any examples of Constantine's subsequent patronage of pagan cults. As a corollary, some modern scholars apparently wish they did not know about this vision of Apollo either. Barnes dismisses it as "the fiction"; Elliott, who claims that Constantine had been a devout Christian at least since 303, suggests that the ac count reflects only the paganism of the panegyrist. 29 Eusebius also preferred not to consider the victory of 324 as another conversion experience. If Constantine had had one such experience in 312, he could not have had another twelve years later. Neither a vision of a pagan deity nor another commitment to Christianity would be

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allowed to upset the smooth consistency of Eusebius' interpretation of the emperor. In contrast, Constantine hirnself apparendy liked to tell stories ab out his many visions and conversion experiences. Consideration of only these three episodes suggests that Constantine may have had many conversion moments, and that his religious beliefs throughout his reign were not as consistent as Eusebius presented them. Despite his evident patronage of Christianity, his life included changes of mind, uncertainties, contradictions, and ambiguities. In other words, it was anormal life.

CONSTANTINE'S STORY

The events of 312 deserve additional scrutiny in their own right. In the Lift Eusebius located the story of those events in his own peculiar perspective of the emperor's reign. In his interpretation, those events had marked a singular religious experience, a singular moment of conversion. But his account in the Lift was over twenty-five years removed from the events, and there was at least one intermediate account. Since Eusebius noted that he had heard the story direcdy from Constantine, he could not have heard it before meeting the emperor for the first time at the Council of Nicaea. The interpretive context that he supplied in the Lift was hence only his retrospective gloss on the emperor's own retrospective interpretation. Eusebius contextualized Constantine's story to fit the demands of his interpretive perspective. But in his story Constantine had al ready contextualized the original experience to fit the demands of his situation after 325. Eusebius' "biographical" account was an interpretation of Constantine's "autobiographical" story, which was already an interpretation of the original moment. There is no need to accept Eusebius' context of a religious conversion as the exclusively correct interpretation, and it is possible to imagine different contexts for Constantine's story that are as sensible as, if not more sensible than Eusebius' reading. Constantine might weH have raId the story to make a different point, especially when he recounted it over a decade after the batde. In distinction from the context that Eusebius provided for the story, we need to imagine Constantine's possible motives when he raId it. Obvious alternative readings would highlight three of the important participants in the story: the army, the bishops, and ] esus Christ. "Since the victorious emperor raId this story ra me a long time later when I was worthy of his acquaintance and conversation, who would hesitate to believe the account?" (1.28.1, p. 30). Even though Constantine recounted this story at least a decade later, he apparendy made a point of

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insisting that the vision of the cross in the sky had been a shared one: "His entire army wirnessed this miracle" (1.28.2, p. 30). Since Eusebius himself was prepared to minimize the significance of military support (1.27.1, p. 28), this insistence on the participation of the army presumably reflected Constantine's own concern. And with good reason. The civil wars of the third and early fourth centuries had demonstrated the necessity of military support for anyone who wished to remain as emperor. But military support was fickle, and emperors were looking for alternative justifications for their rule. One alternative was an ideology that located the source of imperial power in its association with divine power. Diocletian and his fellow emperors had associated their imperial rule with Jupiter and Hercules, and Constantine himself, precisely when he had faced a potential mutiny among his troops, had al ready linked himself with Apollo. In 3 12 Constantine's primary concern had been, again, the loyalty of his troops. Constantine's story made this connection clear. According to his telling, his army too had seen the cross in the sky. Although his subsequent vision of Jesus Christ had apparendy been a private one, it too had significance for his troops, since Jesus Christ had suggested turning this symbol of the cross into a military standard. Significandy, the standard included, in addition to its religious symbols, a golden icon of the emperor and his sons (1.31.2, p. 31). The religious symbols ensured the loyalty of the troops to the emperor and his dynasty. Eventually Constantine also taught his soldiers to recite a prayer, which included both an expression of gratitude to "the only God" for victories, and a supplication for the safety of Constantine and his sons (4.20, p. 127). The prayer was the liturgical equivalent of the military standard, and both were designed to guarantee the faithfulness of the soldiers. In this reading Constantine's telling of the visions in 312 had been a story ab out the loyalty of his troops. It had certainly marked a turning point, but a military turning point and not necessarily a religious conversion. A second possible context for this story involves the bishops. Constantine was an oddity as a Christian emperor. He presided over councils of bishops, he participated in arguments among bishops, he scolded bishops. But all the while he was not abishop, not even a cleric, but only a layman-and an unbaptized layman at that. At some point Constantine seems to have wanted to resolve the anomaly of himself with a pun by identifying himself as an episkoposJ abishop or (more gene rally) an overseer. During a dinner with Eusebius and other bishops he tried to define himself: "You are bishops of those inside the church, but I might be abishop appointed by God for those outside" (4.24, p. 128). The story about his visions in 312 would link up nicely wirh this comment, since they were proof that he had received

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his consecration as abishop of sorts directly from God. In this context Constantine's story about the events of 3 12 marked the moment of his "episcopal" consecration, and his early transformation into the equivalent of abishop. This story hence justified his subsequent direct meddling in ecclesiastical affairs. Eusebius was one bishop who seems to have accepted this view of Constantine. When he explained the emperor's participation at councils, he used the same terminology to describe hirn as "a common bishop appointed by God" (1.44.2, p. 38). Just as God had selected Constantine as emperor (1.24, p. 27), so He had selected hirn as His "servant" (1.5.2, p. 17). This description again corresponded with Constantine's own conception of himself as he started to interact with eastern Greek bishops. As a result of his unification of the empire in 324 he had inherited (an ongoing controversy over theological orthodoxy. At first Constantine presented hirns elf simply as a "servant" of God. "I am proud to be a servant of God," he wrote when he introduced hirnself to the eastern provincials soon after becoming their emperor (2.31.2, p. 62). But as he became more involved in the theological disputes, Constantine also modified his image of hirns elf. Instead of being merely God's servant, he started associating hirnself with bishops and other churchmen by referring to hirns elf as their fellow servant. In a letter to the priest Arius and Bishop Alexander of Alexandria he identified hirns elf with them as "servants of the great God," and then urged them to accept the advice of "your fellow servant" (2.69.2, 71.2, pp. 76-77). When he described his participation with the bishops in the Council of Nicaea in 325, he again described hirnself as "your fellow servant."30 A few years after the council he tried to convince Bishop Alexander to reconcile with Arius: "I am your. fellow servant who has suffered every anxiety on behalf of our peace and harmony."31 By associating hirnself with the bishops, even identifying hirns elf with them, Constantine became a fellow participant in these doctrinal disputes. The telling of the story of his visions in 3 I 2 might well have provided the warranty of his divine consecration as a fellow bishop. A third possible context for this story involves J esus Christ. This story about the visions of the cross and of J esus Christ implied that the emperor had a special relationship with the Savior. After he acquired control of the Eastern Empire he began increasingly to take this relationship more seriously. A year after the Council of Nicaea Constantine became interested in honoring some of the important sites in Jesus' life in Palestine. Eventually he contributed to the construction of a church at Bethlehem that commemorated J esus' birth and another on the Mount of Olives that commemorated His ascension into heaven. His primary interest was the enhancement of Jerusalem, where he funded the construction of the magnificent Church of the Holy Sepulchre that commemo-

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rated J esus' crucifixion, burial, and resurrection. Constantine might weIl have tald the story ab out his earlier visions in order to justify this patronage. Just as Eusebius would later draw upon his familiarity with Constantine to compose the emperor's biography (1.10.2, pp. 19-20), so Constantine could now draw upon his intimacy with Jesus Christ to commemorate His life's story in the holy land of Palestine. Constantine was an appropriate author for this new narrative of Jesus' life, because he had had direct conversations with Hirn. In one of these visions he had even talked with "the Christ of God" (1.29, p. 30). Just as Constantine's relationship with the bishops had developed over the years, so his relationship wirh Jesus Christ also changed. In some respects he now converted hirns elf again, this time from an adherent of J esus Christ inta a direct analogue. In addition to commemorating His life, Constantine also began increasingly to identify hirnself with Jesus Christ. This association was especially apparent at the new capital. According to later traditions, Constantine placed a relic of the True Cross in the giant statue of himself. 32 Some inhabitants of Constantinople so thoroughly identified the emperor and J esus Christ that they began offering prayers to the statue "as if to a god."33 Over the entrance to the palace Constantine erected a portrait of hirnself and his sons, with a cross over their heads and a serpent beneath their feet. This portrait commemorated the emperor's victary in 324 over Licinius, his imperial riyal whom he had hirns elf once characterized as a serpent. It also presented the emperor as another savior who had defeated evil with the assistance of the cross. Eusebius hirns elf interpreted this portrait in terms of a prophecy from Isaiah that was conventionally applied to the soteriological role of Jesus Christ (2.46 .2, 3.3, pp. 67, 82). Eventually Constantine constructed a shrine, either a separate mausoleum or the Church of the Holy Apostles, to serve as his funerary memorial in the new capital. This shrine contained a niche for his sarcophagus surrounded by twelve cenotaphs that represented, and were possibly inscribed with the names of, the twelve apostles (4.58-60, pp. 144-45). Since the emperor had presented to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem the twelve columns encircling the apse that commemorated the twelve apostles (3.38, p. 100), he was certainly aware of the significance of placing his own tomb in the middle of these twelve symbolic tombs. During his final illness Constantine acknowledged that he had always hoped to imitate the Savior by being baptized in the Jordan (4.62.2, p. 146). Now, even after his death the placement of his sarcophagus would continue to remind people of his standing as the equivalent of Jesus Christ. Eusebius' context of a religious conversion is hence not the only interpretation that can be attached to Constantine's story about his visions in 312. In telling this story Constantine may have also been thinking about the

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loyalty of his troops, his relationship with bishops, and his relationship with ]esus Christ. With so many different interpretive contexts possible for just this one story, it is difficult to insist upon the necessity of finding an unswerving trajectory in our interpretations of Constantine. His own actions and words undermined any image of consistency. He continued to have visions, he continued to support pagan cults despite his patronage of Christianity, and he changed in his relationships with bishops. In the later fourth century the author of abrief historical epitome divided Constantine's reign into representative periods. "For [the first} ten years [of his reign} he was truly extraordinary. For the next twelve years he was a bandit. For the last ten years he was a little boy, because of his unrestrained generosity."34 Even though both the chronology and the characterizations were odd, this historian had sensed that there had been no consistency to Constantine. Throughout his reign he had repeatedly reinvented himself. Since Eusebius was a recipient of imperial letters and an occasional guest at the imperial dining table, he too could presumably sense these changes, even if he did not want to acknowledge them for the sake of maintaining consistency in his historical interpretation. In his Life there could be no deviation after the events of 3I2, and certainly no more conversions. But Constantine's increasing identification of himself with ]esus Christ was a change that Eusebius would have found attractive. Eusebius had his own reasons for liking, and even encouraging, this particular transformation of Constantine.

EUSEBIUS' THEOLOGY

When Eusebius first met Constantine in 325, he was a convicted heretie. In addition to his historical writings Eusebius had long been publishing theological and apologetic treatises in which he had adopted a subordinationist theology ab out the relationship between God the Father and ]esus Christ His Son: "The Son does not coexist with the Father, but the Father existed before the Son"; "The Son of God is a perfect creature of God, but not as one of the other creatures."35 As a result, Eusebius had defended the similar doctrines of Arius, a priest at Alexandria. These doctrines were soon condemned. A council that met at Antioch in early 325 issued a creed that claimed that the Lord ]esus Christ was the only-begotten Son, begotten from the Father, "truly begotten and not created." It also condemned those who argued that the Son was a creature, or that there had been a time when He had not existed. This council clearly directed its statements against the teachings of Arius and his supporters. Only three bishops declined to endorse this council's creed. 36 One of them was Eusebius.

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This Council of Antioch nevertheless held out the possibility of forgiveness at a subsequent council. In ]une 325 Constantine hirnself convened an ecumenical council at Nicaea that eventually produced a statement of beliefs that was meant to repudiate the doctrines of Arius and his supporters. Almost all of the participants subscribed to this creed. This time Eusebius joined them, although not without strong misgivings. He had come to this council with a prepared statement of faith that declared that ]esus Christ, the only-begotten Son, was nevertheless a creature, "firstborn of all creation." According to Eusebius' own account, when he recited this creed in the emperor's presence, Constantine immediately pronounced it "most correct" and suggested that it could be the basis for the council's general creed. He furthermore suggested that the council's creed include the word homoousios} "of the same essence," as a characterization of the Son's relationship to the Father. Sameness of essence should have excluded subordinationist doctrines, such as those promoted by Arius and Eusebius. In an embarrassed letter to his own congregation at Caesarea Eusebius explained why he had nevertheless endorsed the creed with this word. According to his own account, he had convinced the other participants to agree that "of the same essence" meant only that "the Son was from the Father, but did not exist as apart of the Father's essence." Eusebius had hence provided an Arianizing interpretation of the Nicene Creed that reflected his own emphasis on the subordination of the Son to the Father and the clear distinction between Father and Son. Constantine, he claimed, had agreed with his perspective. "The emperor, the most beloved of God, presented [my interpretations} in his oration."37 These controversies over Arianizing and Nicene doctrines lingered throughout the fourth century. After the Council of N icaea Constantine was more interested in reconciliation and harmony than in insisting upon a strict Nicene interpretation. Unrepentant Nicene bishops fell from his favor, while temporizing Arian bishops, like Eusebius, enjoyed his support. Eventually the emperor even reinstated Arius. He invited Arius to enjoy "my goodwill" at the court,38 and he then recommended that yet another council readmit Arius and some of his supporters who had been exiled after the Council of Nicaea. Yet Arius never recanted his doctrines. When he had submitted a statement of his faith for the emperor's consideration, he too, like Eusebius, had proposed a rather strained interpretation of the Nicene creed, and he had avoided any reference to the suggestion that the Son was "of the same essence" as the Father. 39 Eusebius too, especially since Constantine was now favoring hirn, never gave up on his subordinationist theology. At the end of his life he composed two more major works of theology. One, Contra

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Marcellum, was a thrashing of a theological riyal, Bishop Marcellus of Ancyra, who had continued to condemn Arius and his supporters, among them Eusebius, despite Constantine's search for harmony. In a second treatise, De ecclesiastica theologia, Eusebius complemented his rebuttal of Marcellus with a more positive reassertion of his own theology that again highlighted the differences between Father and Son. Eusebius composed these two works after Constantine's death in 337. At the same time he was writing his Lift of Constantine. Eusebius hence composed this Lift with theology, and not necessarily history, predominantly on his mind. His days as ahistorian, the author of an Ecclesiastical History and a Chronicle, were long over, and he was more intent on defending his own theology. In addition to its functions as a biography, a panegyric, and a collection of imperial documents, the Lift could serve as another exposition of Eusebius' theology. The similarity between emperor and Jesus Christ was especially useful as a theological idea that supported his doctrines. In recent orations Eusebius had already associated the two. In 335 he delivered some orations at Jerusalem during the dedication ceremonies for the new Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Later in the year he traveled to Constantinople, where he spoke on "the Savior's memorial" (4.33.1, p. 132) in the emperor's presence. This oration at the capital was presumably a repeat of one of his earlier orations about the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, or apart of an earlier oration, or a composite of ideas from some of them. An extant oration may weIl be the one that Eusebius now delivered at Constantinople, or at least most likely represents its main themes. In it Eusebius explained the successes of "our Savior God" after His death and resurrection. But he also noted the emperor's own role. Since the emperor was God's "good servant and minister of goodness," Eusebius suggested that he should be the one to teach them more about the Savior, especially since he had had so many visions. 40 This compliment was a recollection of the emperor's vision of Christ, an acknowledgment that he had had many more such visions, and a declaration that only Constantine was capable of revealing examples of God's assistance. In 336 Eusebius was again at Constantinople, this time to celebrate the thirtieth jubilee of Constantine's accession as emperor. In honor of this anniversary he delivered another oration. Given the occasion, it is not surprising that he extolled the emperor and his accomplishments. But Eusebius added an intriguing identification. Rather than simply cataloguing the emperor's virtues and achievements, he compared hirn with the Savior Logos, and essentially equated the two. Since God, the great Emperor, was shrouded in his heavenly palace, He needed intermediaries to reveal Himself. arie was the only-begotten Logos, "the governor of the entire universe";

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the other was the emperor, "the friend of God," who directed everything on earth. 41 The Logos commanded the heavenly armies while Constantine led his troops to victory over the barbarians and defeated the demons of the pagan cults. As he celebrated the successes of both mediators, Eusebius described each with the same metaphor: "like aprefeet of the great Emperor. "42 In his estimation, J esus Christ the Logos and the Christian emperor were coordinate rulers, identical because they were both commanders for God. In the Life Eusebius continued the identification. The most notable example was in his description of the proceedings of the Council of Nicaea. Since the creed from this council had insisted that the Father and the Son shared the same essence, at the time Eusebius had struggled to reconcile it with his own subordinationist doctrines. In his later ac count he compared Constantine, upon his arrival at the council, to "a heavenly angel ['messenger') of God" (3.10.3, p. 86). The culmination of his depiction of Constantine as God's special representative was his ecstatic description of the banquet that the emperor hosted for the bishops after the council, and which Eusebius of course attended: "one might think that an image of Christ's kingdom was becoming apparent" (3.15.2, p. 89). The Nicene Creed had associated God the Father with the Son; Eusebius' description of the council instead associated Jesus Christ the Son with the Christian emperor. Constantine was an analogue of J esus Christ, and both were sub ordinate to God the Father. Among many modern scholars Eusebius has a reputation as a political theorist, responsible for introducing Greek political thought into Christian thinking. But as he composed this Life Eusebius may have considered a political philosophy of a Christian emperor only one of his objectives, and perhaps not the most important one. For political philosophy the comparisons with Jesus Christ were important for defining a Christian emperor. But these comparisons would have worked in both directions. From a reverse angle the comparisons with an emperor were important for defining Jesus Christ. By stressing the similarity between the two, Eusebius could more readily argue that both were subordinate to God. As Constantine increasingly associated hirnself with Jesus Christ, Eusebius seems to have become increasingly interested in the emperor as a theological construct, a doctrinal idea. He could use the idea of a Christian emperor who was identified with J esus Christ to help hirn promote his doctrine that J esus Christ was subordinate to God the Father. His vision in the Life of a Constantine who was loyally subordinate to God would reinforce his doctrine that Jesus Christ, too, was always subordinate to God.

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THE STATUE

Eusebius had matched his heterodox theology to a heterodox interpretation of a Christian emperor. In the long run his sort of Arianizing, subordinationist theology was rejected. At the Council of Constantinople in 381 the bishops again endorsed Nicene doctrines, and the emperor Theodosius added his heavy-handed support in aseries of imperial edicts. With this reassertion that the Father and the Son shared the same essence, the identification of the emperor with ]esus Christ became increasingly difficult to sustain. Having rejected Eusebius' theology, churchmen also had to modify his peculiar view of a Christian emperor. In the first half of the fifth century two historians continued Eusebius' History. Socrates explicitly stated that the starting point for his Ecclesiastical History should be an account of "how the emperor Constantine came to Christianity." The very first episode he included was the story ab out Constantine's visions in 312. Socrates had clearly lifted this story from Eusebius' Lift. Sozomen likewise started his Ecclesiastical History by mentioning this story about Constantine's visions, and he explicitly ci ted Eusebius as his source. Using this story as a starting point may have been an effective rhetorical technique, but it completely transformed the story's significance. Since the Constantine of Socrates' and Sozomen's histories first appeared as a middle-aged emperor with no earlier life to present as a contrast, now this was no longer a story about religious conversion. For Socrates and Sozomen it was simply a story about a tactical decision to ensure military success. Even as Socrates and Sozomen retained Eusebius' sense of the importance of the visions in 3 12, they transformed the meaning of the story by making it a beginning, rather than a transition point. They further modified Eusebius' vision by declining to accept the theological agenda than had led hirn to identify the emperor and ]esus Christ. Neither of them repeated Eusebius' analogies that identified emperor and Christ. Their new reading of Constantine's life and Eusebius' Lift was especially apparent in their accounts of the emperor's mausoleum. By the later fourth century the imperial mausoleum was linked with the Church of the Holy Apostles, and the prominence of the church shifted the emphasis from the tombs of the emperors to commemoration of the apostles. According to Socrates' interpretation, Constantine and subsequent emperors had been buried in this mausoleum "so that emperors and clerics might not fall short of the apostolic remains. "43 Not only did Socrates now associate emperors with clerics, but he had subordinated both to the prestige of the apostles. Sozomen more explicitly highlighted the rising status

SEEING AND

BELIEVING

of bishops. "Thereafter Christian emperors who died at Constantinople were buried [in the mausoleum). So were bishops. The dignity of the priesthood is equal to that of the emperor, and even takes precedence in churches."44 By having hirnself interred in the midst of cenotaphs of the twelve apostles Constantine seems to have wanted to imply that he was the equivalent of Jesus Christ. Eusebius had rather liked that identification, since it supported his theology. These later historians, in contrast, pointedly demoted the emperor's standing by suggesting that he had been, at best, the thirteenth apostle. They would use the Lift as a source, but they could not accept its perspective on Constantine. To survive as a source, the Lift had to be read differently. Its fate had to resemble the fate of the statue of Constantine at Constantinople, an apparently indestructible monument that was nevertheless repeatedly reinterpreted, and even sometimes reconstructed. The bronze statue and its porphyry column should seemingly have endured forever. The people of the capital certainly thought so. The monument was their bulwark against heresy. When the heretic Arius once strolled by the column, he was struck with such feelings of guilt that he soon died, hunched over in a latrine behind the forum. 45 The monument was a symbol of the city's eminence. Urban magistrates and senators would welcome emperors there when they returned to the city, and emperors would celebrate their victories at the foot of the column. Most of all, the monument was a symbol of the survival of both the capital and its empire. In one apocalyptic vision about the end of the world the column and its statue were all that would remain of the capital. An immense flood would engulf the city, submerging even the lofty Church of Holy Wisdom. "Only the column in the forum will remain, because it contains the precious nails [from the True Cross). Only this will remain and be saved, so that the ships will come and tie up their ropes to it and weep and wail for this Babylon, saying, 'Woe to us! Our great city has disappeared into the depths of the seal "'46 To the end people believed that invaders would never pass this column. Even when the Ottoman Turks surged through the walls, the inhabitants believed that an angel would help them make their last stand at the columnY Even as the monument retained its considerable prestige, the statue, the column, and their meanings were nevertheless changing constantly. One legend claimed that Constantine had inserted in the statue's head some of the nails from the True Cross. Other traditions claimed that he had placed in the monument the very ax that N oah had used to build the ark, as weIl as baskets filled with the bread left over from Jesus' feeding of the multitude. Despite this pride and devotion, at the same time the statue and the column were literally falling apart. In the early fifth century a piece broke off the base of the column, and the column was then bound in a truss of

THE

MANY CONVERSIONS

OF CONSTANTINE

147

iron hoops. In the later fifth century an earthquake knocked the globe out of the statue's left hand. The globe was replaced, and in the mid-ninth century another earthquake shook it out again. In the mid-sixth century yet another earthquake shook the spear out of the statue's right hand. It crashed to the ground and buried itself five feet deep. This time it was replaced with a scepter. In the later eleventh century lightning struck the column and split three of the iron bands. It was just a matter of time until the entire statue of Constantine fell off the column. In 1106 a stiff gust toppled the statue, and apparendy also the huge capital on which it stood . Many people were killed. The emperor Manuel Comnenus finally repaired the monument in the later twelfth century. To stabilize the base he may have added four supporting arches around the pedestal, and he topped the cölumn with some courses of masonry and a large marble block. But he did not replace the statue of Constantine. Instead, on top of the block he erected a huge cross. From the beginning Constantinople had sometimes been known as "Christoupolis."48 Now Constantine's city seemed to have truly become Christ's city, with a large cross floating over its silhouette. Now everyone could imagine Constantine's vision of a cross in the sky. Today the monument is a stub of its former eminence, its steps buried beneath the current street level, its bottom encased in a bulky sheath of concrete and rough stonework, the drums of its column charred and corseted in metal hoops, its top empty. Eusebius' Lift is meanwhile enjoying a revival, especially with the recent appearance of a fine new translation and commentary.49 That revival offers us the opportunity to rethink Constantine's conversion, and religious conversion in general. We should think about conversion in a much larger sense, as one aspect of all the many ways in which people represented themselves in public. We should approach the stories about visions with greater respect for the many possible interpretations they offer, and not try so quickly to belitde some of them in favor of finding a single consistent trajectory. Constantine's life must first be toppled off the column of Eusebius' Lift. As with Constantine's statue, there will then be many ways of welding his life back together. In the end, the statue did represent a conversion experience. But it was not the conversion preferred by Eusebius, or by modern accounts. Popular gossip claimed that the statue had once depicted Apollo in his guise as Helios the sun god, until it had been reworked into an image of Constantine. The conversion of the statue mimicked the transformation of Constantine, who had early on been an adherent of Apollo. But after the statue had been converted, people did not refer to it as "Constantine" or "Christian emperor;" Instead, they called it Anelios. 50 Apparendy it was easier to think

SEEING AND

BELIEVING

of the emperor in terms of what he had left behind, rather than in terms of what he had become. This statue was, simply, "Not the Sun."

NOTES

I. For references to the column and statue, see M. Karamouzi, "Das Forum und die Säule Constantini in Konstantinopel: Gegebenheiten und Probleme," Balkan Stttdies 27 (r986): 2 I9-36; and C. Mango, "Constantinopolitana," "Constantine's Column," and "Constantine's Porphyry Column and the Chapel of St. Constantine," all reprinted in his Stttdies on Constantinople (Ashgate, I993), chaps. 2-4. 2. Ammianus Marcellinus, Res gestae 2 I. Io.8, ed. and tr. J. C. Rolfe, Ammiantts Marcellintts, Loeb Classical Library, 3 vols. (Cambridge, Mass., I935-I940), 2:I3 8 . 3. Ammianus Marcellinus, Res gestae I6.8.I2, in Rolfe, Ammiantts Marcellintts, I:238. 4. Zosimus, Historia nova 2.34, ed. and tr. F. Paschoud, Zosime: Histoire nottvelle, Collection Bude, 3 vols. (Paris, I97I-89), I:I07. 5. P. Fredriksen, "Paul and Augustine: Conversion Narratives, Orthodox Traditions, and the Retrospective Self," Jottrnal 0/ Theological Stttdies, n.s. 37 (I9 86 ): 3-34· 6. Eusebius, Vita Constantini 1. I9, ed. F. Winkelmann, Ettsebitts Werke I. I: Über das Leben des Kaisers Konstantin, Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten Jahrhunderte, Eusebius LI, 2d ed. (Berlin, I99I), pp. 2526. Subseguent references to the Vita Constantini are in the text; all translations in the text are by the author. 7. Constantine, Oratio ad sanctorttm coetttm 25.2, ed. 1. A. Heikel, Ettsebitts Werke I: Über das Leben Constantins. Constantins Rede an die heilige Versammlttng. Tricennatsrede an Constantin, Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten Jahrhunderte 7 (Leipzig, I902), p. I90. A translation of the Oratio is available by E. C. Richardson, in Ettsebitts: Chttrch History, Lift 0/ Constantine the Great, and Oration in Praise 0/ Constantine, Nicene and PostNicene Fathers of the Christi an Church, 2d ser., I (I890; reprint ed., Grand Rapids, Mich., I99I), pp. 56I-80. 8. Lactantius, De mortibtts persectttorttm I2.2, ed. and tr. J. 1. Creed, Lactantitts: De mortibtts persectttomm, Oxford Early Christian Texts (Oxford, I984), p. 20. 9. R. W Burgess, "The Dates and Editions of Eusebius' Chronici Canones and Historia Ecclesiastica, " Jottrnal 0/ Theological Stttdies, n.s. 48 (r997): 482-86.

THE

MANY CONVERSIONS

OF

CONSTANTINE

I49

IO. Eusebius, Historia ecclesiastica 8.I7, 9.IO.7-II, ed. E. Schwartz, tr. K. Lake, J. E. 1. Oulton, and J. Lawlor, Ettsebitts The Ecclesiastical History, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, Mass., I926-32), 2:3I6-20, 374-78. I I. Eusebius, Historia ecclesiastica 9.9.2, in Schwartz et al., Ettsebitts, 2:358. I2. Eusebius, Historia ecclesiastica 9.II.8, in Schwartz et al., Ettsebitts, 2:386. I3. Eusebius, Historia ecclesiastica, 8.I4.I, in Schwarz et al., Ettsebitts, 2:302. I4. A. D. Nock, Conversion: The Old and the New in Religion /rom Alexander the Great to Attgttstine 0/ Hippo (Oxford, I933), p. 7. I5. T. D. Barnes, Constantine and Ettsebitts (Cambridge, Mass., I98I), pp. 43, 247· I6. T. G. Elliott, The Christianity 0/ Constantine the Great (Scranton, Pa., I99 6 ), pp. 67, 37, 3 28 . I7. H. A. Drake, Constantine and the Bishops: The Politics o/Intolerance (Baitimore, 2000), pp. I9I, 270. I8. Eusebius, De lattdibtts Constantini, in Heikel, Ettsebitts Werke I, p. 259. The De lattdibtts Constantini consists of two orations, a panegyric delivered at Constantinople in July 336 (paras. I-IO), and an oration about the Church of the Holy Sepulchre delivered in 335 (paras. I I - I 8). A translation of both orations is available in H. A. Drake, In Praise 0/ Constantine: A Historical Stttdy and New Translation 0/ Ettsebitts' Tricennial Orations (Berkeley, Calif., I97 6 ) pp. 83- I2 7· I9. Panegyrici latini 6.2 I A-5, ed. R. A. B. Mynors, XII Panegyrici Latini, Oxford Classical Texts (Oxford, I964), pp. 20I-2. A translation of the Latin panegyrics is available in C. E. V. Nixon and B. S. Rodgers, In Praise 0/ Later Roman Emperors: The Panegyrici Latini: Introdttction, Translation, and Historical Commentary with the Latin Text 0/ R. A. B. Mynors (Berkeley, Calif., I994)· 20. J. R. Curran, Pagan City and Christian Capital: Rome in the Fottrth Centttry (Oxford, 2000), p. 89. 2I. Soothsayers: Codex Theodosiantts I6.IO.I, ed. Th. Mommsen, Codex T heodosiantts I. 2: T heodosiani libri XVI ettm Constittttionibtts Sirmondi[a }nis (Berlin, I905), p. 897. A translation of the Theodosian Code is available in C. Pharr et al., The Theodosian Code and Novels and the Sirmondian Constittttions (I952; reprint ed., Westport, Conn., I969), pp. 3-486. Priest: W. Dittenberger, ed., Orientis graeci inscriptiones selectae: Sttppiementttm sylloges inscriptionttm graecarttm, 2 vols. (Leipzig, I903-5), 2:462, no. 72I. . 22. H. Dessau, ed., Inscriptiones latinae selectae, 3 vols. (I892-I9I6; reprint ed., Chicago, I979), I:I58-59, no. 705. 23. Panegyrici latini I2.2A-5, 4.I, in Mynors, XII Panegyrici Latini, pp. 27 2 -73.

SEEING AND

BELIEVING

24. Eusebius, Historia ecclesiastica} 9.9. 2, 5, in Schwartz et al. , EtlSebius} 2:35 8- 60 . 25. Lactantius, De mortibus persecutorum} 44.5-6, 9, in Creed, LactantitlS} pp. 62-64. 26. Pan. Lat.} 4.I4.I, 5, in Mynors, XII Panegyrici Latini} pp. I54-55. 27. Eusebius, Historia ecclesiastica 9.9. IO-I I, in Schwarz et al. , Eusebius} 2:362-64, repeated in Eusebius, Vita Constantini} I.40 .2, pp. 36-37. 28. ILS (n. 22), I: I 56, no. 694. 29. Barnes, Constantine and Eusebius} p. 36; Elliott, Christianity 0/ Constantine} p. 52. 30. Urkunden 25.3, 26.2, ed. H.-G. Opitz, Athanasius Werke} vol. 3, pt. I: Urkunden zur Geschichte des arianischen Streites 3 I8-328 (Berlin, I934-35), pp. 53, 55· Eusebius quoted Urkunde 26 in Vita Constantini 3.I7-20.2, pp. 89-93· 3I. Urkunde 32.2-3, in Opitz, Urkunden} p. 66. 32. Socrates, Historia ecclesiastica} I. I7 .8-9, ed. G. C. Hansen, with M. Sirinian, Sokrates} Kirchengeschichte} Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten Jahrhunderte, n.s. I (Berlin, I995), p. 57. A translation of Socrates' Ecclesiastical History by A. C. Zenos is available in Socrates} Sozomenus: Church Histories} A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, 2d ser., 2 (I890; reprint ed., Grand Rapids, Mich., I973), pp. I-I7 8 . 33. Philostorgius, Historia ecclesiastica} 2. I7, ed. J. Bidez, rev. F. Winkelmann, Philostorgius Kirchengeschichte: Mit dem Leben des Lucian von Antiochien und den Fragmenten eines arianischen Historiographen} Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten Jahrhunderte 2 I, 3d ed. (Berlin, I98I), p. 28. A translation of Philostorgius' Ecclesiastical History is available in E. Watford, The Ecclesiastical History 0/ Sozomen} Comprising a History 0/ the Church} /rom A.D. 324 to A.D. 440. Translated /rom the Greek} with a Memoir 0/ the Author. Also the Ecclesiastical History 0/ Philostorgius} as Epitomised by Photius} Patriarch 0/ Constantinople} Bohn's Ecclesiastiocal Library (London, I855), pp. 429-52 I. 34. Epitome de Caesaribus} 4I. I6, ed. F. Pichlmayr and R. Gruendel, Sexti Aurelii Victoris Liber de CaesaribttS} Bibliotheca scriptorum graecorum et tomanorum Teubneriana (Leipzig, I970), p. I67. 35. Urkunden 3· I , 7. 2, in Opitz, Urkunden} pp. 4, I4· 36. Urkunde I8, in Opitz, Urkunden} pp. 36-4I. 37. Urkunde 22, in Opitz, Urkunden} pp. 42-47. 38. Urkunde 29, in Opitz, Urkunden} p. 63. 39. Urkunde 30, in Opitz, Urkunden} p. 64·

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151

40. Eusebius, De laudibus Constantini} 18.1, in Heikel, Eusebius Werke

I}

P·259· 41. Eusebius, De laudibus Constantini} 1.6, in Heikel, Eusebius Werke I} pp. 19 8-99. 42. Eusebius, De laudibus Constantini} 3.6. 7.13, in Heikel, Eusebius Werke I} pp. 202, 215. 43. Socrates, Historia ecclesiastica} 1.4°, in Hansen and Sirinian, Sokrates} Kirchengeschichte} p. 91. 44. Sozomen, Historia ecclesiastica} 2.34.6, ed. J. Bidez, rev. G. C. Hansen, Sozomenus} Kirchengeschichte} Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten Jahrhunderte, n.s. 4, 2d ed. (Berlin, 1995), p. 100. A translation of Sozomen's Ecclesiastical History by C. D. Hartranft is available in Socrates} Sozomenus: Church Histories (n. 32), pp. 236-427. 45. Socrates, Historia ecclesiastica} 1.38.7-8, in Hansen and Sirinian, Sokrates} Kirchengeschichte} p. 89. 46. Vita Andreae Sa/i} PG I I I :868. 47. Ducas, Historia 39.18, ed. 1. Bekker, Ducae Michaelis Ducae nepotis Historia byzantina} Corpus Scriptorum Historiae Byzantinae (Bonn, 1834), pp. 289-9°. A translation of Ducas' history is available in H. J. Magoulias, Decline and Fall 0/ Byzantium to the Ottoman Turks} by Doukas: An Annotated Translation 0/ ((Historia Turco-Byzantina JJ (Detroit, 1975). 48. Sozomen, Historia ecclesiastica} 2.3.7, in Bidez and Hansen, Sozomentts} Kirchengeschichte} p. 53. 49. A. Cameron and S. G. Hall, Eusebius: Lift 0/ Constantine (Oxford, 1999)· 50. Michael Attaleiates, Historia} ed. 1. Bekker, Michaelis Attaliotae Historial Corpus Scriptorum Historiae Byzantinae (Bonn, 1853), p. 310; Anna Comnena, Alexias 12-4, ed. L. Schopen, Annae Comnenae Alexiadis libri Xv, Corpus Scriptorum Historiae Byzantinae, 2 vols. (Bonn, 1839-78), 2:14951.

6 "DELIVERED FROM THEIR ANCIENT CUSTOMS" CHRISTIANITY AND THE QUESTION OF CULTURAL CHANGE IN EARLY BYZANTINE ETHNOGRAPHY

MICHAEL

MAAS

Ethnography is actively situated between power/ul systems o/llleaning. It poses its questions at the boundaries

0/ civilizations,

cu!tures, classes, races, and genders. Ethnography decodes and recodes,

telling the grounds

0/ collective

order and diversity, inclusion and exclusion.

-James Clifford, in Writing Cu!ture: The Poetics and Politics

0/ Ethnography

(1986)

ISSUES AND HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENTS

When Islamic armies first challenged Byzantium in the middle years of the seventh century, they encountered a Christian state drained by warfare with Persians, Avars, and Slavs, but nevertheless exhibiting a vigorous and hardwon confidence. Roman culture had undergone a significant transformation between the reigns of Justinian (527-65) and Heraclius (610-41), aperiod in which the roots of the resilient medieval Byzantine state tookhold. During this period Byzantines found great strength in their identity as a Christian people, and their perception of domestic populations and foreigners in imperial affairs acquired a completely religious cast. 1 The venerable genre of classical ethnography that was devoted to telling the differences between cultures reflects these developments, not simply through the data it records about Romans and other peoples, but because it, to~, changed in step with the times. Ethnography can be seen as a kind of barometer of how Christianity became identified with imperial authority and how the Byzantine elite imagined a society that was first of all Christian, a society with new "grounds of collective order and diversity, inclusion and exclusion."2 It is well known that Roman ethnographers, drawing on Greek models throughout the imperial period, described in great detail the distance between

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153

uncivilized peoples and their own normative society. We are less aware, however, of their interest in the equally significant issue of how cultural change was possible within the uncivilized communities they wrote about, and consequently how an integrated imperial community might be achieved. The tropes in wh ich they described uncivilized peoples had not changed much since the time of Herodotus, but Romans knew quite well that the uncivilized peoples of the world lived in communities that were anything but static. They understood that human communities constantly change. Romans' view of their empire required such an attitude, for the ruling elite had long believed that lesser cultures might change their way of life under Roman tutelage. The governing classes of the empire felt sure that by imposing imperial rule upon uncivilized peoples they would transform barbarians into Romans. 3 That is why none of Rome's subjects, regardless of how savage and barbaric some of their habits might have been, were ever described as "barbarians." "Barbarians" were people not yet under Roman rule and so assumed to be hostile and uncivilized. Notions of civilization and cultural change were intimately linked to Roman rule. During the period between Justinian and Heraclius, Christianity permeated all aspects of Roman society more deeply than ever before, and so served as the catalyst for the emergence of medieval Byzantine society. This paper is concerned with the turn to Christianity within different sorts of ethnographie writing during this formative period. The Christianization of ethnography profoundly altered understanding of how and why non-Roman communities both within and beyond imperial borders might change their character. As a result of this perception of the empire as a community of Christians, the terms of inclusion within the empire and the nature of Rome's "civilizing mission" changed. As a taxonomie exercise, ethnography helped map out a new vision of the world and its communities through Byzantine eyes.

Three Varieties

0/ Ethnographie

Writing

Three main bodies of ethnographie description coexisted in the late Roman empire that distinguished Romans from non-Romans in different ways.4 It is not merely that they had distinct criteria for distinguishing civilized from noncivilized peoples; the different ethnographie traditions based their interpretations of culture on different value judgments, different kinds of knowledge about non-Romans, and different principles of accommodation with non-Romans. These traditions were not necessarily incompatible, but they did not derive from one another. While they did not live entirely separate lives, it was not until they converged that a genuinely Byzantine attitude toward

154

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eultural inclusion and differentiation took shape. For this to be eomplete, among other things, eultural differenees had to be rethought in Christian terms. The first, and most important body of imperial ethnographie thought lay in Roman law. It pertained to people living within the empire and gave a total definition of society. When Romans organized their subject peoples for the purpose of ruling them they imposed objeetive identifieations upon them. Through such means as levying taxes, mapping and naming provinces, and espeeially through granting eitizenship, Romans gave the inhabitants of the empire reeognized status in eategories of Roman law. 5 Beeause they were eonsistently applied, eitizenship, status, and other offieial markers of Roman identity may be understood as a set of ethnographie eategories. Subordinate peoples within the empire, however, maintained their own subjeetive identities that had his tori es independent of Roman rule. For example, Isaurians, Jews, and many other groups of all sorts did not surrender their sense of eommunal identity under Roman domination even though they had a reeognized plaee in the Roman system. 6 Rome had always permitted its subjeet peoples who were not eitizens to maintain their own eustomary laws in an urban eontext. 7 Cities stood as the embodiment of independent, "loeal" traditions of law and eustom. 8 And so, when in 212 an imperial grant of citizenship to virtually all free people in the empire eliminated the various gradations of eitizenship that had aeeumulated sinee the Republie, the subjeetive identities of provincial populations slowly began to ehange. 9 Loeal legal traditions faded away, and during late antiquity eities declined as important markers of legal identifieation. By the end of the sixth eentury, for example, no eities maintained any signifieant independent laws of their own. 10 As Christianity eame to predominate in city and eountryside in this long proeess of eommunal redefinition, legal differenees between eitizen and subjeet populations lost resonaneeY New regional identities defined by language and religious beliefs emerged: Greek, Coptie, Syriae, and Latin beeame the tongues of new eommunities of faith that adhered to variant interpretations of the nature of Christ and his relation to God the Father. Roman law, whieh found a plaee within a Christian firmament, beeame an instrument to pursue eonformist religious goals. 12 The dialogue between imperial and loeal, expressed in law, was at heart an ethnographie enterprise beeause it objeetified, evaluated, and systematieally differentiated the domestie eommunities of the realm. The seeond main corpus of ethnographie thought was the classieal literary genre of ethnography.13 Classieal ethnography dealt with issues of eultural deseription, inclusion, and differentiation in literary texts, espeeially

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155

history. At its best, literary ethnography could offer nuanced interpretations of cultural differences, though its descriptions of foreign social structures lacked the precision found in Roman law that dealt with domestic populations and their moral and political significance, with Roman identity the constant referent. Literary ethnography provided a systematic approach to separating Roman from barbarian by positioning uncivilized peoples primarily in relation to Roman power and authority. Definitions of civilization and judgments of non-Romans derived from time-honored patterns of urban life. Barbarians appeared in ethnographie writin.g in two general guises. Sometimes they were idealized for purposes of moral contrast with decadent Romans,14 but in their more familiar role barbarians embodied the opposite of Roman virtuesY Always inferior, barbarians displayed either indolence and weakness or ferocity and violence, with primitive urges to destroy civilization. Perhaps unaware of their own past and incapable of rational thought, they were often described as living in astate of permanent impermanence and instability, both materially and morally.16 Christianity offered a third range of ethnographie identifications based on principles of faith that were compatible with developments within the Roman state, but not dependent on them. Building on Paul's foundation, clerics cast the relation of the Gentiles to the church in ways that challenged the opposition of Roman and barbarian, the keystone of legal identifications of community and a fundamental principle of literary ethnography. They developed a sophisticated set of ideas ab out the relation of the Gentiles to the church that offered the possibility of building a bridge between the Roman and the barbarian worlds. Unlike Roman law, Christianity did not require the state to be the arbiter of civilization and was not limited to the empire's inhabitants. The introduction of providential history into the narrative of imperial history fostered a new kind of teleological ethnography. Eusebius of Caesarea, for example, described in the early fourth century a divine plan for humanity that required conversion to Christianity through Rome's agency. Outsiders were people not yet saved, and when civilization came to be understood as redemptive, heresiology became a new kind of ethnography.17 Orthodoxy and heresy arose as important diagnostic categories in the fifth century; they delineated communities of faith that coexisted with imperial administration. Because the emperor was God's prime earthly agent in a providential plan for all humanity, it became his obligation to enable the redemption of pagans, and missions of conversion at horne and abroad became imperial objectives. Theories of the emperor's role in God's providential plan for humanity developed. As we will see, in the sixth

15 6

SEEING AND

BELIEVING

eentury, the emperor briefly entered ethnography as a Christian agent of eultural transformation. Chureh writers did not pay attention to the seeular genre of ethnography,18 and while eonversion of individuals and eommunities beeame an imperial goal and missionary aetivity an imperial eoneern, ethnographie deseription was not part of Christian imperial propaganda before Justinian. In the Christian tradition barbarian eommunities were seen first of all in terms of preparation for Christianity. By providing the emperor with new reasons for intervening in the eommunities of his subjects and negotiating with his neighbors, and by offering new eriteria for deseribing and judging non-Roman eommunities, Christianity played a signifieant role in shaping the imperial ideology of eultural transformation in a Byzantine eontext, and quite naturally ithad a profound effeet on ethnographie writing as well. We will see that und er the influenee of Christianity, classieal ethnography was "eonverted"-out of existenee. By the time of the rise of Islam in the early deeades of the seventh eentury, classieal ethnography had lost its force as an independent agent of social analysis. In later eenturies, when classieal ethnography was eited by Byzantine authors, it was always from a Christian perspeetive and gene rally with an antiquarian flavor. The ethnography of medieval Byzantium would display new prineiples of "eolleetive order and diversity, inclusion and exclusion." Above all else, Byzantium was a eommunity of faith.

Some Aspects

0/ Roman

Ethnography be/ore Justinian

Ethnography began with the Greeks as a medium of seientifie investigation, and following the lead of Herodotus it soon beeame an integral part of historieal eomposition and other literary forms. 19 Thus there was in plaee from an early period a repertoire of tropes and images that were employed again and again. Perhaps the most familiar example is the name "Seythian," given by Herodotus to steppe nomads and then in later eenturies applied to Huns, Avars, Chazars, Turks, and eventually Mongois. Greek models would influenee the genre for more than a millennium as it eame into Roman hands. But while Roman writers savored arehaizing eonventions, ethnography remained a plastie medium in their hands, responding to different politieal eoneerns and personal talents. The experienee of eonquest and government of many peoples, including the reports that aeeompanied international diplomaey, ensured that ethnographie writing would flourish in the Roman empire. 20 Rome assumed a dominant position in the ethnographie pieture and displaeed other models of eultural eentrality.21 Exeur-

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suses, the often lengthy asides found especially in the writing of history, were the traditional vehicle for ethnographie descriptions. They are now understood to have been integral parts of the works in which they appeared, not simply learned and decorative afterthoughts. 22 Ethnography brought the unknown and unfamiliar to the attention of its readers, trying to "amuse and edify,"23 but at the same time it supported the larger political or literary goals of the document in which it appeared. Romans assumed that every people had a particular way of life marked by distinguishing characteristics and capable of change. Thus, sexual habits, military organization, laws andinstitutions, and a host of other topics occupied the attention of ethnographers. 24 Romans also took for granted that there were intimate connections between geography, the arrangement of the stars, and the formation of the character of peoples. 25 For this reason they had a wide curiosity and looked forward to finding out about the physical geography, climate, agriculture, natural resources, and exotic flora and fauna of a region in which a people dwelled. What did foreigners look like? Lying behind this question were astrological and physiognomie theories. 26 Romans understood that different peoples had different "belief systems" that included religion, cultic practice, and philosophical speculation of different sorts. These were also susceptible to change. Roman ethnographers generally kept "ways of life" and "religion" separate in their discussion; religious beliefs were part of a way of life but did not define that way of life. The range of topics discussed was quite broad. The origins of foreign peoples were important, especially if they could be linked to classical myth, because historical lineage gave a strong identity to a people. Little interest was displayed in the languages of non-Romans though it was recognized that language was an important marker of identity.27 Authors developed such themes in different ways, but one element recurred throughout: the opposition of Roman and barbarian. As inheritors of Greek literary culture, the Roman governing elite took on board a well-developed contrast between civilized and barbarian society which they developed to suit Roman needs. 28 The opposition lay at the heart of Roman reflections about their imperial power and contained the possibility of cultural transformation, thereby enabling assimilation. Romans made the contrast between civilization and barbarism their own in two somewhat contradictory ways. First, they had adynamie and quite important belief in the transformative power of Roman law and society, and they linked this possibility of cultural transformation, that is of a barbarian becoming a Roman, to the function and ideology of the state: Rome had a civilizing mission. 29 Yet at the same time that universalist beliefs embraced

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the possibility of remaking the world in their image, Romans continued to rely on the contrast between civilization and barbarian life to justify their imperialism, and they maintained a deep-seated antagonism to the barbarian as a type. That is to say, Roman self-definition required the barbarian. 30 In the early empire, for example, Stoic psychology developed the opposition into a potent metaphor that linked internal self-control to mastery of the world. 31 The contradictory needs to incorporate conquered peoples and to distinguish oneself from them created a basic tension of great significance in Roman ethnographie thought. It must be emphasized that resolving the conflict between inclusion and exclusion was the heart of Roman daily experience. In real life people did assimilate to Roman culture to different degrees. The terms of their transformation had to be negotiated and renegotiated on every level of society. How much cultural baggage had to be abandoned? How much-or how little-did Rome require to become a Roman? In every city and on every military post, Romans watched other people becoming Romans. Romanization was always an unfinished business, and it occurred at different rates in different locales. Greg Woolf points out that nothing was more characteristic of life in the Roman empire than to be "eulturally peripheralized."32 Even after the Constitutio Antoniniana granted Roman citizenship to all free people in the empire in 212, the continuing presence of local laws with their own centrifugal force kept the question of becoming Roman alive. 33 On a literary plane, determining the distance between the familiar and the exotic was at the base of value judgments within ethnography. While acknowledging the debt to its classical Greek origins, we may legitimately speak of a Roman ethnography shaped by the problematics of conquest and assimilation.

Writing about Cultural Change The idea that cultures might change had a considerable history in Roman literature. Rome's imperial mission, as articulated ·in Vergil's Aeneid, for example, presumed that conquered peoples might be civilized by living under the rule of Roman law, even while local customs were also respected. 34 Roman writers could be cynical ab out the cost to indigenous populations of becoming Roman. Tacitus, for example, is well known for his remark that by taking baths and learning Latin conquered Britons thought they were becoming civilized but instead were becoming slaves. 35 Many authors put speeches in the mouths of soon-to-be-defeated enemies of Rome that described the consequences of defeat at Roman hands. The intellectual movement known as the Second Sophistic, which flourished in the first two centuries of the Pax Romana, offers the most articu-

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late and self-conscious reflection on the possibilities of personal transformation. Writers who drew on the conventional contrast of civilized Greek versus uncivilized barbarian distinguished between ethnic identity and cultural identity. By accepting Greek paideia intellectuals of Roman, Celtic, Syrian, or any other background might transcend their culture of origin and enter into an international elite fraternity of prestigious learning and above all facility with Attic Greek. 36 (It should be noted, however, that the transformation of an elite individual through paideia was not the same as the transformation of an entire community, nor was it associated with the Roman Empire.) Lucian of Samosata.in Syria, for example, presented himself as the model of a "barbarian" who had become civilized through the force of paideia. 37 More than individual transformation was possible. Plutarch presented Alexander the Great as a man who spread Greek civilization and imposed Greek culture on passive barbarians, and Lucian, who understood his own Hellenization as an active engagement with Greek ideas, believed that his paideia could in turn influence Greeks themselves. 38 These ideas of the Second Sophistic influenced the Cappadocian Fathers, whose work was weIl known to Justinian and his circle. 39 And, of course, as the other essays in this volume show, Christianity offered new paradigms of change through conversion. J

From Jttstinian to Heraclitts A new attitude toward outsiders had been growing at Constantinople since the loss of the Western Empire in the fifth century, and during Justinian's reign there is evidence of a fresh specificity in Byzantine perceptions and treatment of foreigners in Constantinople's orbit. 40 The old Roman willingness to bring foreigners into the Roman world by force or attraction still was clearly visible in J ustinian's foreign policy, but now the emperor appears in the written sources more forthrightly in Christian terms as the facilitator of that inclusiveness. We will see quite clearly the entry of ethnography into Christian imperial rhetoric, and the entry of the figure of the Christian emperor into ethnographie description. In some legal contexts law and ethnography become intertwined in a fresh way. These developments fell in step with the reemphasis under Justinian of the emperor as the ideological and institutional center of society, the ever fuller integration of Christianity with programmatic state ideology, and the rapid development of Constantinople as the symbolic center of the Christian imperial community. Under Justinian Christianity and Roman culture were so closely identified that imperial Chalcedonian belief was necessary for participation in public life. 41 As the relation between city and countryside

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ehanged, as some loeal languages gradually beeame obsolete, and as paganism was eradieated in huge swaths in the eountryside, old poles of identity fell away, and an imperial Christianity met areal need to artieulate new onesY In Byzantium people of all ethne were welcome to partieipate, but only if they were orthodox. Enforeement of belief was harsh. 43 A Byzantine sense of identity erystallized around the Greek language, the emperor, a reartieulated view of the Roman tradition, and above all , Christianity. It was the making of Greek Byzantium in a fashion analogous to the development of Coptie and Syriae eultures. The religion set clear terms for a Byzantine view of the peoples of the world and politieal interaction with them. Aeeordingly, under Justinian missionary and diplomatie aetivity reeeived a joint emphasis. 44 There was less and less room in this Byzantine world for an ethnography in whieh Christianity had no role. For this reason the reign of Heraclius will provide a good stopping point for our diseussion. One eharaeteristie of Heraclius's empire at mid-seventh eentury was the full integration of Christianity into imperial theory, and at the same time classieal historiography, the usual vehicle for extended ethnographie deseriptions, eeased to be written. 45 Byzantine pereeption of the role of foreigners in imperial affairs aequired a fundamentally Christian eharaeter. 46 The following examples illustrate important preoeeupations of ethnographie writers between Justinian and Heraclius. The reign of Justinian was far rieher in different kinds of ethnographie writing than those of his sueeessors, and the passages chosen for diseussion here illustrate some of that variety.

THE CASE OF THE TZANI

In the year 528 the armies of Justinian eonquered the Tzani, a bellicose people living in the foothills of the Taurus mountain range ne ar Armenia with whom imperial forees had clashed many times in previous reignsY This military action was a small part of a grander strategy of reorganizing and stabilizing the eastern frontier to inerease politieal influenee and to maintain peaee with Persia. 48 Justinian fortified the region in order to eontrol the interior as weIl as the Blaek Sea eoast, and he built several towns in Tzaniea. 49 The Tzani were foreed to eonvert to Christianity and to eontribute troops to the Roman army. Their land was ineorporated into the empire though it was not made into a provinee. After an abortive rebellion by some groups of Tzani in 558, Justinian imposed punitive payments upon them, whieh are diseussed in more detail below.

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The story of the Tzani is an interesting illustration of J ustinianic ethnography because their sad history is discussed in three different sorts of contemporary writing: panegyric, history, and law. Thus we can see particularly weIl how each genre influenced the description of the Tzani and posed different sorts of questions within a Justinianic framework. Each of the various sources makes a different sort of value judgment about the Tzani and locates the reader in relation to them in a different way. Each involves a different sort of knowledge ab out them. This produces in the end three rather different ethnographie statements. My purpose is not to sift these versions and produce a "correct" historical account, but to point out the ways the sources articulate questions of the Tzani's cultural transformation, political inclusion within the empire, and the influence of Christianity upon them.

The Tzani in ProcopiusJs Wars In his account of Justinian's wars Procopius describes the conquest of the Tzani in some detail, taking care that his readers understand his historiographical concerns. It is worth reproducing his description at length. At this point in my narrative it has seemed to me not inappropriate to pause a moment, in order that the geography of Lazica may be clear to those who read this history and that they may know what races of men inhabit that region, so that they may not be compelled to discuss matters which are obscure to them, like men fighting shadows; I shall therefore give an account of the distribution of the peoples who live about the Euxine Sea, as it is called, not that I am ignorant that these things have been written down by some of the men of earlier times, but also that I believe that not all of their statements are accurate. Some of these writers, for example have stated that the territory of the Trapezuntines adjoined either by the Sani, who at the present day are called Tzani . . . And yet neither of these statements is true. For in the first place, the Tzani live at a very great distance from the coast as neighbors of the Armenians in the interior, and many mountains stand between which are thoroughly impassable and altogether precipitous, and there is an extensive area always devoid of human habitation, cafions from which it is impossible to climb out, forested heights, and impassable chasms-all these prevent the Tzani from being on the sea. . . . But apart from this, a long period of time has elapsed since these accounts were" written, and has brought about constant changes along with the

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march of events, with the result that many of the conditions which formerly obtained have been replaced by new conditions, because of the migrations of nations and successive changes of rulers and of names. These things it has seemed to me very necessary to investigate, not relating mythological tales about them nor other antiquated material ... but stating accurately and in order both the names of each of those places and the facts that apply to them at the present day.50 Here Procopius adopts the pose of an empirical historian. He endeavors to present correct information to his readers so that they might understand better the militaryactions that are his chief concern at this point in his narrative. More important for the purposes of this paper than any accuracy that he may have achieved, however, is the very fact that he pursues it while describing people and geography That is to say an attempt at historical accuracy controls his presentation. He explains the need for scrutiny and skepticism by stating rather baldly that "circumstances change" causing people to move about and names to be altered. He considers ethnographic knowledge as something that a historian must renew because of the passage of time. EIsewhere, Procopius describes the Tzani when introducing the subject of war on the Persian frontier: It happened also that a short time before this they had reduced to subjection the Tzanic nation, who had been settled from of old in Roman territory, as an autonomous people; and to these things, the manner in which they were accomplished will be related here and now. As one go es from the land of Armenia into Persarmenia the Taurus lies on the right, extending into Iberia and the peoples there .... In this place from the beginning lived barbarians, the Tzanic nation, subject to no one, called Sani in early times; they made plundering expeditions among the Romans who ·lived round about, maintaining a most difficult existence, and always living upon what they stole; for their land produced for them nothing good to eat. Wherefore also the Roman emperor sent them each year a fixed amount of gold, with the condition that they should never plunder the country thereabout. And the barbarians had sworn to observe this agreement with the oaths peculiar to their nation, and then, disregarding what they had sworn, they had been accustomed for a long time to make unexpected attacks and to injure not only the Armenians, but also the Romans who lived next to them as far as the sea; then, after completing their inroad in a short space of time, they would immediately betake themselves again

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to their hornes. And whenever they encountered a Roman army they were always defeated in batde, but they proved to be absolutely beyond capture owing to the strength of their fastnesses. In this way Sittas had defeated them in batde before this war and then by many manifestations of kindness in word and deed he had been able to win them over completely. For they changed their manner of life to one of a more civilized sort ('ti]v 'tE yap öiat 'tuv E,1tl 't0 T1I1EPol'tEpov IlE'taßUt.,OV'tES) and enrolled themselves among the Roman troops, and from that time they have gone forth against the enemy with the rest of the Roman army. They also abandoned their own religion for a more righteous faith ('ti]v 'tE ö6~uv E,1tl 't0 EucmßEO''tEpOV IlE'tESEV'tO), and all of them became Christians. Such then was the his tory of the Tzani. 51 In the tradition of dassical ethnography Procopius specifies the Tzani's political condition of self rule, their mode of subsistence (raiding and plundering) and the reasons for it, and their political relation to Rome as recipients of subsidies. Though his sketch is full of diches (elsewhere he describes the conversion and setdement of the Heruls in nearly the same terms),52 it is also a good account of life in the mountains of Pontus. The historical picture that emerges is not one of the Tzani living in primitive and timeless isolation as will be the case in his panegyric, Buildings, but of their having been an extremely problematical people for a very long time. He employs familiar contrasts of Romans and hostile barbarians. Procopius also places the Tzani in a literary context, and invites his readers to appreciate them in terms of what other writers of earlier times have said. The Tzani are presented as people about whom accurate things might be known, as the objects of knowledge and the subjects of research. Description of the Tzani in the Wars is determined by the requirements of the historical narrative for accurate information. His picture reflects imperial ideology of the day by emphasizing the importance of the Tzani's conversion to Christianity and consequent adoption of civilized life, and by his recognition of Justinian as the ultimate agent of their transformation. Christianity has entered the picture to compete with law and urbanism as a marker of civilized life. These themes are further developed in Buildings.

Panegyric: Procopius's Buildings Procopius described the defeat of the Tzani in a lengthy passage in Buildings, a panegyrical work on the emperor's building policy probably written late in Justinian's reign. 53 His account combines ethnographie data ab out

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the Tzani with formal observations about the activity of the emperor and the goals of imperial power. The material is presumably derived from the passage in the Wars just discussed. And it has seemed to me not inappropriate to record at this point in my account what he did for the Tzani, for they are neighbors of the Armenians. From ancient times the Tzani have lived as an independent people, without rulers, following a savage-like manner of life, regarding as gods the trees and birds and sundry creatures besides, and worshipping them, and spending their whole lives among mountains reaching to the sky and covered wirh forests, and cultivating no land whatever, but robbing and living always on their plunder.... For this reason the Tzani in ancient times used to live in independence, but during the reign of J ustinian they were defeated in batde . . . and abandoning the struggle they straightway yielded to hirn, preferring toilless servitude to dangerous liberty. And they immediately changed their belief (TItv 86~ov) to piety, all of them becoming Christian, and they altered their manner of life ('t11v Otat 'tov) to a milder way, giving up all brigandage and always marching with the Romans whenever they went against their enemies. And the emperor Justinian, fearing that the Tzani at some time might alter their way of life ('t11V Otat'tov) and change their habits ('tu 118r1> back to the wilder sort, devised the following measures. Tzanica was a very inaccessible country. . .. As a result of this it was impossible for the Tzani to mingle with their neighbors, living as they did a life of solitude among themselves in the manner of wild beasts. Accordingly he cut down all the trees by which the routes chanced to be obstructed, and transforming the rough places and making them smooth and passable for horses,54 he brought it ab out that they mingled with other peoples in the manner of men in general and consented to have dealings (E7ttlltyvucr8m) with their neighbors. After this he built a church for them . . . and caused them to conduct services and to partake of the sacraments and propitiate God with prayers and perform other acts of worship, so that they should know they were human beings. And he built forts in all parts of the land, assigned to them very strong garrisons of Roman soldiers, and gave the Tzani unhampered dealings ('tu<; E1tllll~tO<;) with other peoples. I shall now tell where ... he built these forts .... And at a place two days journey from Horonon, where the territory of the Tzani who are called Ocenitae commences (for the Tzani are divided into many tribes) there was a sott of stronghold built of men of former times ... which long before had become a ruin through neglect. This the Emperor Justinian restored ... 55

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Six elements in this deseription des erve eomment. First, the opposition of barbarian to Roman must be eonsidered as a form of politieal and soeial self-definition. Proeopius judges the Tzani harshly. The terms in whieh he deseribes them provide an exeellent statement of Romanitas-in reverse: we learn what was eonsidered un-Roman and therefore bad. He establishes distanee from Roman eivilization on different planes: the Tzani have no rulers and no law; they are beyond the Roman state and its influenee; they have no arts of agrieulture; they worship animals and trees; they live in forests like beasts; they gain their livelihood from plunder; they live in the solitude of high mountains, separated from other peoples. As in his aeeount in the Wars, Proeopius imposes on the Tzani eertain cliched attributes of barbarism that have a very long history in the Greeo-Roman ethnographie tradition and must not be aeeepted as the literal truth, though in some exaggerated ways they may be appropriate to the eondition of the Tzani. The next fundamental element in Proeopius's deseription of the Tzani is the possibility of eultural transformation. Several lines of thought are in play here. We find a view of progress based on a rise to urbanism in keeping with the Roman view of the primaey of city life and also with the Buildings' emphasis on the rehabilitation of urban life. Eneouraging the growth of eities had long been a prop of the Roman imperial order though not a deli berate goal of empire. We also see Christianity presented as the final and proper expression of belief. This attitude was embodied in Justinian's sponsorship of foreed eonversions and missionary aetivity.56 When Proeopius explains aeeurately that the emperor built forts to include the Tzani and proteet them, and to separate them from surrounding enemies of Rome, he ties the deseription of a people and their eulture to an elaborate theory of empire at the he art 'of Buildings. This theory held that the Christian emperor would restore the grandeur of Roman antiquity and thereby ensure divine favor for himself and his people. 57 Buildings emphasizes Justinian's energy and produees "the impression that a sudden and overwhelming ehange was brought about by Justinian's building polieies, as though the empire was restored and revitalized solely through his efforts and within a short spaee of time."58 That Proeopius singles out Christianity as the eatalyst for making the Tzani entirely human is not at all surprising. Buildings, a fundamentally Christi an text, takes it for granted that Justinian's building poliey was partly direeted to bringing pagans to the Chureh,59 but it should be emphasized that Christianity does not determine all of the deseription of the Tzani. The methods by whieh these barbarie cireumstanees are ehanged to make the Tzani civilized are partieularly evocative of Roman attitudes. Justinian takes them from isolation so that they may have relations with surrounding

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peoples. He not only raises them from the level of animals, he welcomes them into a community of nations dominated by the Roman Empire; in other words, civilization is presented as a political condition of cultural interchange and osmosis. 60 Regrettably, Procopius does not have anything more to say about how this interaction is to work. The cultural transformation described by Procopius has a more abstract aspect as weH that goes beyond habits of life. Ir is the custom of imperial writers of many historical periods to categorize their subjects as primitive and stuck in a rut of permanent routine. In Procopius's description, Justinian takes the Tzani from a timeless, unchanging life of savagery in aland of eternal winter. 61 to the wodd of history in which change may occur and in which history may be written. 62 Pulling them into a world susceptible to change brings the Tzani into not only the range of imperial law and government, but also the arena of contemporary philosophical speculation about the nature of change. 63 Procopius's remark that Justinian took these steps because he feared "that the Tzani at some time might alter their way of life and change their habits back to the wilder sort" contains historical as weH as propagandistic information. The possibility of cultural regression (rarely expressed in Roman imperial ethnography) may be understood as a polite reference to the revolt of some tribes of the Tzani in 558.64 This notion of backsliding, which belies the conceit that culture may be changed by Bat, brings us directly to a central tenet of Justinian's view of legislation: since the wodd was in astate of constant flux the emperar must constantly enact new laws to earn and keep the favor of GOd. 65 The third element to emphasize in this ethnographie passage is the special status of the emperar as the facilitator of social change. Justinian habituaHy presented hirnself as a restorer of the state in official statements, and Buildings praises the emperar in these time-honored terms. 66 Note particulady how the language of this passage, entirely appropriately for a panegyric, focuses on the person of the emperor as he changes the ways of life of the Tzani. Ir is Justinian who cuts away obstructions; he transforms the rough places; he brings it about that the Tzani mix with their neighbors; he causes the Tzani to worship as Christians. In short, the panegyric gives hirn here and elsewhere a monumental role as Christian artifex in cultural transformation; in eadier periods the Roman state in a general sense, not the emperor hirnself, had been understood to be the artisan. 67 There mayaiso be a connection to the culture heroes of the Second Sophistic, like Alexander the Great and Herades, who brought Greek culture to a barbarous warld. A long history of the development of the emperor's central position lies behind this emergence of the emperor at center stage, and Justinian's reign was noteworthy for new coalescence of Christian legitimization of imperial power in law and art and in the formulation of religious doctrine. 68 Here, in

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the description of the Tzani's transformation, we see one more aggrandizement: the intrusion of the emperor into ethnographie description. Imperial arrogance marks the fourth element: Procopius is utterly blind to what this forced conversion and cultural transformation actually entailed for the Tzani themselves, and this of course alters his description of them. In the panegyric, the Tzani exist simply as players in an old imperial drama of conquest and assimilation. The changes imposed on the Tzani are of interest to hirn only because they illustrate assumptions about Rome as a civilizing power. The fact of imperial violation of Tzanic culture is immaterial, hidden behind the glorification of Romanization. Charles Pazdernik correcdy explains Procopius's mention of the Tzani's replacing a "dangerous liberty" with a "servitude free from care" as a reference to Justinian's beneficent shouldering of the weight of all their troubles. 69 Servitude to the emperor did not mean slavery but a natural dependence upon a wise and helpful ruler who would guide them to the true liberation of Christianity. The fifth point pertains to the authority of the passage. With Procopius, the description of the Tzani gains its authority because of how it reinforces beliefs about the emperor's mission of restoration and conversion. In his History 0/ the Wars, Procopius describes the conquest of the Tzani in more empirical terms, and claims to have conducted research on them. 70 In the historical discussion he explains that the Tzani do not live in isolation but have had a long history of relations with the Romans, marked by broken agreements, subsidies, and frequent defeat in batde. He would have known as well from classical authors other episodes in the Tzani's long history. All of this information is not relevant in the panegyric. Finally, we note the presence of Christianity, Justinian's "system of belief' which gives a coherence to the entire passage and afEects nearly every aspect of Procopius's treatment. Ir is clear that the chief characteristics oE the Tzani in the panegyric, namely their isolation and consequent barbarism, and the accompanying description of their transformation into Roman subjects, are determined by the imperial ideological concerns on which the panegyric rests. Christianity animates these concerns. The description of the Tzani reinEorces beliefs about the emperor's mission of restoration and conversion and celebrates Justinian's power over them through the medium of the cultural progress that he enables. The description oE the Tzani is in the service of the panegyric. Just as it made itself felt in art, law, and politics, the totalitarian presence of the emperor Justinian appears here in ethnographie description. The rhetoric oE authority, not a science of humanity, animates the ethnography. One thing is certain: Justinian's power over the Tzani, as celebrated in Buildings, leads them to fundamental social change.

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The Tzani in the Law Justinian's first Novel, issued in 535, mentions the Tzani in the same breath as the military reconquest of some of the old western provinces of the Roman empire: While we were formerly occupied with the cares of the entire government and could think of nothing of inferior importance, now that the Persians are quiet, the Vandals and Moors obedient, the Carthaginians have recovered their former freedom, and the Tzani have, for the first time, been subjected to the Roman domination which is something that God has not permitted to take place up to this time and until our reign, numerous demands have been presented to us by our subjects, to each of which we shall pay attention in the most suitable manner ... In this passage, the significant fact about the Tzani is their subjugation, now emblematic of Justinian's far-ranging achievements. This is apreface to a law and not literary ethnography, but it does place them in the context of a carefully thought-out imperial theory of law, conquest, and restoration that was in place in the first decade of Justinian's reign, and in which the description of foreigners had a role. What this Novel does not make clear, however, is the precise nature of their subjugation. What was the official status of the Tzani and what place were they actually given in the imperial system after their defeat? Unlike the highly Romanized populations of North Africa, Italy, and Spain, which most likely resumed full citizenship after being reconquered by Justinian's armies, and unlike the federate Heruls who settled within the empire by treaty, the Tzani were newly conquered. They had never been Romanized or been part of a Roman province, and a new province of Tzania was not created for them. 71 Before their conquest in 528 the Tzani were "autonomous" within the empire and received subsidies. After that they were affiliated with Rome through a treaty.72 This state of affairs lasted until 558 when arevolt was crushed and a tribute was imposed on them, presumably as part of direct Roman administration. 73 Having thus forcibl y subdued the entire nation, Theodorus sent a report of what had happened to the emperor and asked what further measures he wished hirn to take. Whereupon Justinian bade hirn impose upon them a fixed annual tribute to be paid in perpetuity. It was his purpose that in this way they should become aware of their posi-

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tion as his obedient subjects, paying tribute and totally under his power. Accordingly their names were all inscribed in a register, and they were subjected to the payment of a tribute which to this very day they are still paying. 74 But was this tribute the same as the taxes that all citizens in the empire paid? It is difficult to identify their status. In none of these circumstances were the Tzani dealt wirh as normal provincial citizens who did not receive subsidies or pay tribute. The difference between subjects and citizens had effectively been eliminated by the Constitutio Antoniniana75 and the word subiecti (subjects) was in fact the word for citizens most frequently used in Justinian's laws. 76 If anything the Tzani seem to have been in the condition of dediticii (though this term is not mentioned), that is, recently conquered subjects who remained in a "condition of suspended political existence until arrangements are made for their permanent organization as Roman allies or provincial subjects."77 J ustinian, however, seems to have abolished at least some aspects of this status in 530.78 Perhaps J ustinian felt that the law would contribute to the Romanization of the Tzani. 79 Yet, for all of the peculiarity of their subjection to the empire, Procopius and Agathias refer to them as citizens. Roman law clearly applied to them. 80 The conclusion must be drawn that the Roman community as imagined in the law embraced people who were subject to the state in very different ways. Citizenship in effect had come to mean simply recognizing the authority of the emperor, a beneficent father.

BARBARISM AND LEGAL REFORM IN ARMENIA

How a subject people became assimilated into the empire through the agency of law is well illustrated by Justinian's law of 536 regarding inheritance practices in Armenia. The contrast between Roman civilization and barbarism is an important issue in the legislation: The Emperor J ustinian to Acacius, Proconsul of Armenia: Desiring that the country of Armenia should be governed by good laws, and in no respect differ from the rest of our empire, We have conferred upon it a Roman administration; have delivered it from irs ancient customs 81 and have familiarized it with those of the Romans, ordering that it shall have no other laws than theirs. We think, however, that it is necessary, by means of a special enactment, to abolish a barbarous practice which the Armenians have preserved; for among

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them women are excluded not only from succession to the estates of their ascendants, but also from those of their own brothers and or blood relatives; they are married without a dowry; and are purchased by their future husbands. These barbarous customs they have observed up to the present time, and they are not the only ones who act in this cruel manner, for there are other races that dishonor nature in the same way, and injure the female sex just as if it were not created by God, and took part in the propagation of the human race, and finally, as if it was utterly vile, contemptible, and not entitled to any honor. Ch. 1. Therefore we decree by this imperial enactment that the laws in force in our Empire, which have reference to the right of women to succeed to estates, shall be observed in Armenia, and that no difference shall hereafter exist between the sexes in this respect. . . . Hence the Armenians shall no longer be subject to laws different from those of the Empire; and if they form part of our subjects, and are under our government like many other peoples, and enjoy the benefits conferred by Us, their women shall not be the only ones deprived of our justice; and they shall all enjoy the benefit of our laws, whether they have come down to Us from former ages and have been inserted into Our Institutes and Digest, or whether they are called upon to obey the Imperial Constitutions, Promulgated by Ourself, or by Our predecessors. 82 Because the Armenians were Roman subjects, Justinian could not call them barbarians, but he does call them barbarous in one regard: they do not live by Roman inheritance law. Precise knowledge of Armenian customs allows J ustinian to legislate in this matter. 83 There is at the same time no doubt that J ustinian will fully civilize them with his legislation, which makes a clear claim to cultural transformation ("having delivered it from its ancient customs"). The law's stated purpose is to integrate Armenia completely into the Roman administrative system so that it will be the same as all the other provinces, a universalizing act that transcends (or levels) cultural difEerences among imperial subjects. While the novel recognizes differences among peoples, it desires to treat them all equally by establishing certain legal norms. Thus, from a legal point of view the significant things that the Armenians now have in common wirh the rest oE Justinian's subjects are law and Christianity, that is, a combination oE "way oE life" and "belief system" (oat'tu and 06~u). This is Justinianic imperialism at its most high-handed, imposing the imperial fantasy of bringing civilization and God's order. As receivers oE civilization, the Armenians take a place in an imperial Christian world view, as framed by the emperor's laws. They are neither fully Roman nor fuHy barbarian. With its blend oE Christianity and

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imperial agency, the law provides areal specificity to cultural difference-an example of a Byzantine ethnography. It points to a hierarchy of civilized and uncivilized peoples based on criteria that are both Christian and Roman.

AFTER

JUSTINIAN

Cultural Interaction and Cultural Relativisnz: Agathias Agathias of Myrina (C.532-C. 580), whose history began where Procopius's ended, worked as a lawyer in Constantinople and had associations dose to the palace, though he should not be considered an official or "court" historian. He was certainly a Christian. Agathias discussed at considerable length the Persians, the Franks, and the Alamanni, within the traditional format of the ethnographie excursus. 84 The historical accuracy of these long descriptions was thoroughly studied some years ago by Averil Cameron,85 but several points may still be made about Agathias's treatment of cultural transformation and the related issue of cultural relativism. He also makes a few remarks about loss of cultural identity. Agathias wishes to describe cultural change accurately.86 Like earlier writers, he emphasizes that contact with Rome, even at second hand, may have a civilizing effect. 87 The best example of this comes in his description of the Lazi, a fierce people that lived on the eastern shore of the Black Sea: The Lazi are a great and a proud people and they rule over other very considerable peoples. They pride themselves on their connection with the ancient name of the Colchians and have an exaggeratedly, though perhaps understandably, high opinion of themselves. I certainly know of no other subject race with such ample resources of manpower at its command or which is blessed with such a superfluity of wealth, with such an ideal geographical position, with such an abundance of all the necessaries of life and with such a high standard of civilization and refinement . . . Nor are they barbarians in any other respect, long association with the Romans having led them to adopt a civilized and law abiding style of life. So that ... conditions are now very much better than they were in the past. 88 Agathias understood Roman civilization to work as weH through intermediaries, as seen in his discussion of the influence of the orthodox Christi an Franks on the pagan Alamanni. 89 He distinguishes three aspects of

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Alamannic society: traditional mode of living, government and administration, and religious observance, with the last of these receiving the greatest attention: [The Alamanni) worship certain trees, the waters of rivers, hills and mountain valleys, in whose honor they sacrifice horses, cattle, and countless other animals by beheading them, and imagine that they are performing an act of piety thereby. But contact with the Franks is having a beneficial effect and is reforming them in this respect too; al ready it is influencing the more rational among them and it will not be long, I think, before a saner view wins universal acceptance. 90 The Franks, for political reasons, are in turn described as being very nearly Roman: ... the Franks are not nomads, as indeed some of the barbarian peoples are, but their system of government, administration and laws are modeled more or less on the Roman pattern, apart from which they uphold similar standards with regard to contracts, marriage and religious observance. They are in fact all Christians and adhere to the strictest orthodoxy. They also have magistrates in their cities and priests and celebrate the feasts in the same wayas we do, and, for a barbarian people, strike me as extremely well-bred and civilized and as practically the same as ourselves except for their uncouth style of dress and peculiar language .... I admire them for their other attributes and especially for the spirit of justice and harmony which prevails amongst them. 91 The patent inaccuracies of this description are less important than the terms in which similarity is stated, namely orthodoxy and Roman customs, that is, terms involving "system of belief' and "way of life." His rosy picture of the Franks is an almost total projection of Roman views. 92 Similarly, dose contact might have negative consequences. Agathias believed that the Persians had been corrupted by Zoroastrianism: But the present day Persians have almost completely abandoned their old ways ('tu npo'tEpa E81l), an upheaval which has been marked by the wholesale adoption of alien and degenerate manners, ever since they have come under the spell of the doctrines of Zoroaster the son of Horamasdes. . . . Indeed I know of no other society which has been subjected to such a bewildering variety of transformations or which through its submis-

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sion to an endless succession of foreign dominations has failed so signally to achieve any degree of continuity. Small wonder then that it still bears the stamp of many different forms and conventions. . . . For the irrationality and foUy of their beliefs can hardly fail, I think, to strike even those who practise them, unless they happen to be complete fools, and as such can be easily eradicated. All those who do not attain to the truth merit pity rather than censure and fully deserve to be forgiven. lt is not after all of their own accord that they fall into error, but in their search for moral goodness they form a wrong judgment, and thereafter ding tenaciously to what ever condusions they have arrived at. 93 According to Agathias, then, religion, and not urbanism or law, shape behavior and the character of society. He feels that choice of religion 1S susceptible to reason, which all people have, but reason may mislead: lt is quite obvious, of course, that each of the various nations of mankind considers that any custom whatsoever which is both universally accepted in their society and deepl y rooted in their past cannot fail to be perfect and sacrosanct, whereas whatever runs counter to it is deemed deplorable, contemptible and unworthy of serious consideration. Nevertheless people have always managed to find and enlist the support of reasoned arguments from all quarters when their own conventions are involved. Such arguments may indeed be true, but they mayaiso very weIl be specious fabrications .... so it does not strike me as particulady surprising that the Persians too should try to prove, when accounting for their own customs, that these are superior to anyone else's.94

In two further passages Agathias remarks on cultural change and loss of cultural identity. First, in recounting a political quarrel among the Lazi about whether allegiance to Rome or Persia would be better, he seems to imply that political subordination would lead directly to great cultural change. He is aware of the consequences of Roman imperialism: One of the most distinguished people present was a man called Aeetes. His anger and indignation at what had happened was greater than anyone else's for he had always hated the Romans and been sympathetically indined towards Persia. On this occasion he took full advantage of the greater conviction his arguments seemed to carry and tried to magnify the affair out of all proportion, daiming that in view of the

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situation there was no need for diseussion but that it was a ease for immediately embracing the eause of Persia. When the others said that it was not advisable to proeeed to ehange their whole way of life ('tov ÖAOV ßiov ~E'tEO"KE'UaO"eat) on the spur of the moment,95 but that they should first embark on a eareful and lengthy diseussion of the issues involved, he leapt up angrily, rushed into their midst and began to harangue them like an orator in a popular assembly.96 Agathias reveals he re through the words of the Lazi how he imagines the dilemma of politieal affiliation and its terrible eonsequenees. In a more extreme ease a group of Huns have lost even their names: "The seattered remnant of these Hunnie tribes has in faet been redueed to servitude in the lands of other peoples whose names they have assumed; so severe has been the penalty whieh they have paid for their earlier misdeeds."97 In sum, Agathias quite naturally presumes that being Roman is being civilized and that being orthodox is being Roman-but "Roman" is no longer deseribed in the old terms. Agathias's attitudes are more frankly and openly Christian than Proeopius's. Furthermore, what distinguishes the Franks from other barbarians is the way in whieh they are like the Romans. 98 Politieal reasons may have determined his deeision to write a positive pieture of the Franks (and a negative one of the Alamanni) but not the terms in whieh he did so. Agathias has imposed his notion of Romanness on the Franks. His knowledge about them is clearly limited. 99 The possibility of transformation is fundamental to his view of eulture, though the examples are from beyond Rome's borders. No Roman dreamed of including the Franks within the empire. However, their Chalcedonian orthodoxy made them eivilized and helped them enter a larger world of Christian belief. Agathias is prepared to include them within a Christian oikoumene dominated by Constantinople. They have a plaee in a Byzantine eultural hierarehy.

Decline of Ethnographie Writing after Agathias In the writers of history who follow Agathias the evidenee of extended ethnographie diseussion dries up fast. The fragments of lohn of Epiphania do not eontain ethnographie material. 100 Menander Proteetor was so redueed by Constantine Porphyrogenitus's editors that no extended exeursus on the classieal model is left, though he does provide ample and preeise information about the Turks, Persians, and Huns in his narration of diplomatie aetivity.101 Two examples illustrate the keenness of his presentation. If the aneedotes may be taken as reliable aeeounts of diplomatie exehanges, it

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would seem that the diplomats themselves (as weIl as Menander) gave some thought to issues of cultural definition. In one incident during negotiations over disputed territory the Persian ambassador mocks his Roman counterpart on the question of civilization and barbarism: When he had listened to this, the Zikh [the ambassador}, who was an extremely intelligent man and able to speak briefly and to the point in his native tongue, said the following in reply: "Who, Romans, is so uncivilized and savage as to say your mission is not appropriate and just? All men agree in regarding Peace as a blessing. I should have been taken in by your fine words, were you not Romans and we Persians. Do not imagine that your convoluted arguments hide from us what kind of men you are who have come here, seeking your own advantage ... "102 When Menander discusses negotiations between Justinian and a Hunnic king, he reveals, through the speech he attributes to the Hun, certain categories in which he understands ethnic identity to rest:

Justinian

added in his messages to Sandilkh that if he destroyed the Kutrigurs the Emperor would transfer to hirn all the yeady tributemonies that were paid by the Roman Empire to Zabergan. Therefore, Sandilkh, who wished to be on friendly terms with the Romans, replied that utterly to destroy one's fellow tribesmen was unholy and altogether improper, "For they not only speak our language, dweIl in tents like us, dress like us and live like us, but they are our kin, even if they follow other leaders. Nevertheless, we shall deprive the Kutrigurs of their horses and take possession of them ourselves, so that without their mounts they will be unable to pillage the Romans." This Justinian asked hirn to dO. 103 In short, the fragments suggest that Menander's narrative contained substantial discussion of the factors that unify humanity and the means by which individuals and groups can change. The Strategikon 0/ Maurice, a military treatise on tactics and strategy probably written in the first decades of the seventh century, devotes a long chapter to the attributes of foreign peoples and their military habits. 104 Its author, obviously an experienced general, wanted to share with other officers his experience gained fighting on many fronts. The book considers Persians, Scythians (by whom he means all steppe nomads, including Turks

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and Avars), "the light-haired races" of western Europe, and Slavs and Antae. He does not mention Arabs. Because this is a manual about warfare, it shows interest only in defeating foreigners, not changing or assimilating them. The author's treatment of foreigners indicates that he has been influenced by classical ethnography. He takes pains, for example, to associate the character of each group of people with the terrain they inhabit as weIl as wirh the sort of government they possess, thus conforming to classical ethnography's interest in the effect of climate on human character and institutions. 105 Certain ethnic stereotypes appear as well. Persians, for example, are "wicked, dissembling and servile, but at the same time patriotic and obedient," while Avars are "scoundrels and devious."106 Most of his comments on techniques of warfare, however, have the ring of direct observation: "The nations of the Slavs and the Antae live in the same way and have the same customs. They are both independent, absolutely refusing to be enslaved or governed, least of all in their own land. They are populous and hardy, bearing readily heat, cold, rain, nakedness and scarcity of provisions . . . . owing to their lack of government and their ill feeling toward one another, they are not acquainted with an order of batde. "107 Because he was not trying to write a set piece within the historiographical genre, the author of the Strategikon is particularly valuable as a source for everyday attitudes. 108 The author did not artificially disguise his Christianity as did Procopius and other writers in earlier periods. He began his treatise with a prayer to the Trinity which also asked for the intercession of Mary and the saints. His world was ringed by enemies (except on the empire's southern flank) but protected by the Christi an deity. Theophylact Simocatta, who recorded the wars of the emperor Maurice at the turn of the seventh century, was the last historian in the classicizing tradition. He was also the last historian in the seventh century to attempt extended ethnographic description, but the absence of classicizing elements is marked, notably in his confused presentation of the Avars and their origins. 109 His treatment of the Persians is somewhat more trustworthyYo His approach to barbarians in the rest of the narrative, however, is forthrighdy Christian, as seen for example, in this passage describing an incident in 598: Accordingly, in these days, our Jesus, in whom we trust, whose power extends over aIl the nations, who received from the Father as his inheritance the inhabired world and the ends of the earth as his possessions, by no means aIlowed his kingdom to be unwitnessed by the Chagan [of the Avars}. For the barbarian hordes were stricken by a

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sudden visitation of plague, and their trouble was inexorable and would not admit any artifiee. Aeeordingly, memorable penalties were exaeted from the Chagan for his dishonour of the martyr Alexander. . . . And so in this way the Chagan had ill-fated good fortune in vietory eelebrations: for in the plaee of paeans, songs, hymns, clapping of hands, harmonious ehoirs, and waves of laughter, he had dirges, te ars , ineonsolable griefs and intolerable punishment. For he was assailed by angelie hosts, whose blows were manifest but whose array was invisible. l l l That his overtly religious opinions are similar to those expressed by eeclesiastieal writers 1l2 and, more partieularly, also similar to those developed by George of Pisidia in his panegyries to Heraclius, 113 indieates simply the degree to whieh classicizing deseriptions had been pushed aside. Like George, who deseribed a divinely protected empire in whieh godless barbarians punish Romans or are themselves injured as God desires, Theophylaet sees barbarians not merely as the enemies of Rome but as the enemies of God. He does not address the possibility of changing the eharaeter of their soeiety.

CONCLUSIONS

This paper has suggested that the remnants of the Roman ethnographie tradition between Justinian and Heraclius may to some small degree be a measure of the transformation of Byzantine soeiety in that period. I have limited myself to only one sort of evidenee, knowing that it ean be only part of a larger story of changing attitudes. There is not enough ethnographie material to permit too mueh generalization, but by the eve of the rise of Islam it seems as though ethnography, one traditional means of reeording observations and attitudes, had been displaeed by more explieitly Christian deseriptions. How new attitudes developed in other media remains to be seen. In the Justinianie period extended ethnographie deseription on the Roman model appeared in panegyrie, law, and historiography, with eaeh kind of text putting its own appropriate spin on the deseriptions, and we saw in eaeh the old contrast of Roman and barbarian reeast in a Christian seheme of empire. In eaeh example from the time of Justinian it was assumed that the barbarians might beeome receivers of Christian Roman eulture. Justinian appeared as a faeilitator of eultural change as a law-giver, road-builder, and bringer of Christianity. His actions identified "way of life" and "system of belief." Christianity shaped his view of eivilization. There were other

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I

signs of the possibilities of a life for a Christianized traditional ethnography in imperial service, but these did not develop. The picture is far less complete in the post-Justinianic period, but it is clear that questions of cultural difference and transformation continued to be discussed, though to a diminishing degree. Where Procopius and his successor Agathias were rich and subtle in their use of ethnographie material, Theophylact was quite impoverished and awkward. By the time of Heraclius the classicizing pretensions of writers like Procopius and Agathias had crumbled; classical ethnography was displaced by Christianity as an independent medium of observation. ll3 Roman ethnography had always reflected contemporary attitudes and politics; if in its classical guise it found little place in a Byzantine state where Christianity and "way of life" were equivalent, its demise was at least appropriate to its character.

NOTES I. Geoffrey Greatrex, "Roman Identity in the Sixth Century," in Ethnicity and Cldture in Late Antiquity, ed. Stephen Mitchell and Geoffrey Greatrex (London, 2000), pp. 267-92, provides insightful introduction and current bibliography; Mary Whitby, "A New Image for a New Age: George of Pisidia on the Emperor Heraclius," in The Roman and Byzantine Army in the East, ed. E. Dabrowa (Cracow, 1994), pp. 197-225. 2. It is conventional to call the Roman empire that continued in the eastern Mediterranean until 1453 the "Byzantine Empire" and its inhabitants "Byzantines." The inhabitants of that empire called themselves "Romans," and thought of themselves as "Byzantines" only inasmuch as they lived in the city of Constantinople, formerly known as Byzantion. In this paper I consider the period between J ustinian and Heraclius as a time when "Romans" turned into "Byzantines," and I use the term "Roman" rather loosely to refer to the empire and its inhabitants through the age of Justinian up to Heraclius. After that I use "Byzantine." Complete consistency is impossible, but meaning should be clear from context. 3. See the remarks of Patrick Geary, "Barbarians and Ethnicity," in Late Antiquity: A Guide to the Postclassical World, ed. G. W. Bowersock, Peter Brown, and Oleg Grabar (Cambridge, Mass., 1999), pp. 107-29. Geary suggests that "the concept of ethnogenesis was alien to the Roman understanding of their neighbors" (p. 106). 4. For a preliminary discussion see M. Maas, "Ethnography," in Bowersock et al., Late Antiquity, pp. 435-36. The material will be discussed more fully in my book, The Conqueror's Gift: Ethnography, Identity, and Imperial Power at the End of Antiquity (Princeton, N.J., in preparation).

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5. The problem has been much studied in other polyethnic empires, but Rome has received litde attention. Ray Laurence, "Territory," in Culture and Identity in the Roman Empire, ed. Ray Laurence and Joanne Berry (London, 1998), pp. 95-1 :(0, offers a case study from the early Roman Empire that shows how "the naming of Italy by geographers fixed the populations of regions with an ethnicity that would continue to be associated with the individual regions" (p. 108). 6. Hugh Elton, "The Nature of the Sixth Century Isaurians," in Mitchell and Greatrex, Ethnicity and Culture, pp. 293-308; Alfredo Rabello, "Civil Jewish Jurisdiction in the Days of Emperor Justinian (527-565): Codex Justinianus 1.9.8," Israel Law Review 33 (1999): 51-66, reprinted in Rabello, TheJews in the Roman Empire: Legal Problems from Herod to Justinian (Aldershot, 2000). 7. For discussion and the considerable bibliography see Patricia Crone, Roman, Provincial and Islamic Law: The Origins of the Islamic Patronate (Cambridge, 1987), pp. 1-17, and Hartrnut Galsterer, "Roman Law in the Provinces: Some Problems of Transmission," in L'impero Romano e le strutture economiche e sociafi delle province, ed. M. H. Crawford, Biblioteca di Athenaeum 4 (Corno: 1986), pp. 13-2 7. 8. M. Maas, "Mores et Moenia: Ethnography and the Decline of Urban Constitutional Autonomy in Late Antiquity," in Integration und Herrschaft: Ethnische Identitiiten und kulturelle Muster im frühen Mittelafter, ed. Walter Pohl and Max Diesenberger, Forschungen zur Geschichte des Mittelalters 3 (Vienna, 2002), pp. 25-35. 9. Christoph Sasse, Die Constitutio Antoniniana (Wiesbaden, 1958), and idem, "Literaturübersicht zur Constitutio Antoniniana," Journal of Juristic Papyrology 14 (1962): 109-49, 15 (1965): 329-66, for basic discussion and bibliography. 10. Peter Schreiner, "Bürger, Bürgertum: Byzantinisches Reich," Lexikon des Mittelafters, vol 2 (Munich, 1983), pp. 1039-40; J. H. W. G. Liebeschuetz, "Administration and Politics in the Cities of the Fifth to the MidSeventh Century: 425-640," in The Cambridge Ancient History, vol. 14: Late Antiquity: Empire and Successors, A.D. 425-600, ed. Averil Cameron et. al. (Cambridge, 2000), pp. 207-37, for an overview with recent literature. Liebeschuetz's The Decfine and Fall of the Roman City (Oxford, 2001) provides a more detailed interpretation. Ir. For changes in the countryside, see Philippe Pergola with Palmira Maria Barbini, ed., Alle origini della parrocchia rurale (IV-VIII sec.): Atti della giornata tematica dei Seminafi di Archeologia Cristiana (Ecole Francaise de RomeI9 marzo I988) (Vatican City, 1999); Maas, "Mores et Moenia." 12. Michael Maas with Edward Mathews, Exegesis and Empire in the Early Byzantine Mediterranean: Junellus Africantls and the Instituta Regularia Divinae

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Legis (Tübingen, 2003), explores these developments during the Three Chap-

ters Controversy. 13. Important studies include: Karl Trüdinger, "Studien zur Geschichte der griechisch-römischen Ethnographie" (Diss., Basel, 1918); Alfred Schroeder, "De ethnographiae antiquae locis quibusdam communibus observationes" (Diss., Halle, 1921); Eduard Norden, Die Germanische Urgeschichte in Tacitus Germania (Leipzig, 1922; 5th ed., Stuttgart, 1959); Kilian Lechner; "Byzanz und die Barbaren," Saeculum 6 (1955): 292-306; D. B. Saddington, "Roman Attitudes to the 'Externae Gentes' of the North," Acta Classica 4 (1961): 90-102; Klaus E. Müller, Geschichte der antiken Ethnographie und ethnologischen Theoriebildung, 2 vols. (Wiesbaden, 1972-80); 1. Kapitanffy, "Griechische Geschichtsschreibung und Ethnographie in der Spätantike," Annales Universitatis Scientiarum Budapestinensis de Rolando Eö"tviis Nominatae: sectio classica 56 (r977-78): 130-43; Yves Dauge, Le Barbare: Recherches sur la conception romaine de la barbarie et de la civilisation (Brussels, 1981); Maria Cesa, "Etnografia e geografia nella visione storica di Procopio di Cesarea," Studi Classici e Orientali 31 (1982): 189-215; Richard F. Thomas, Lands and PeopIes in Roman Poetry: The Ethnographical Tradition, Philological Society Supplementary Volume no. 7 (Cambridge 1982), pp. 1-7; Alexander C. Murray, Germanic Kinship Structure: Studies in Law and Society in Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages (Toronto, 1983), pp. 39-65; Arthur J. Droge, Homer or Moses? Early Christian Interpretations of the History of Culture (Tübingen, 1989); A. D. Lee, Information and Frontiers: Roman Foreign Relations in Late Antiquity (Cambridge, 1993), pp. 101-5; Patrick Amory, People and Identity in Ostrogothic Italy, 489-554 (Cambridge, 1997); Walter Pohl, Kingdoms of the Empire: The Integration of the Barbarians in Late Antiquity (Leiden, 1997); Graeme Clarke, ed., Identities in the Eastern Mediterranean in Antiquity, Mediterranean Archaeology I I (1998); Laurence and Berry, Cultural Identity in the Roman Empire; Walter Pohl wirh Helmut Reimetz, eds., Strategies of Distinction: The Construction of Ethnic Communities, 300-800 (Leiden, 1998); Richard Miles, Constructing Identities in Late Antiquity (London, 1999); Mitchell and Greatrex, Ethnicity and Culture in Late Antiquity. 14. James B. Rives, Tacitus, Germania: Translated with Introduction and Commentary (Oxford, 1999), pp. 11-2 I, on the ethnographie tradition, esp.

p. 16 on moralizing; Ernst Meyer, "Das antike Idealbild von den Naturvölkern und die Nachrichten des Caesar und Tacitus," Zeitschrift für deutsches Altertum und deutsche Literatur 62 (1925): 226-32; Schroeder, "De ethnographiae antiquae locis communibus," pp. 30-35; Müller, Geschichte der antiken Ethnographie, index, s.v. "Idealisierung," 2:560. Many of the sources are usefully collected in Arthur O. Lovejoy and George Boas, Primitivism and Related Ideas in Antiquity (New York, 1965), pp. 315-45.

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15. Dauge, Le barbare! p. 424; Lee, Information and Frontiers! p. 101. 16. Saddington, "Roman Attitudes," p. 98; Dauge, Le barbare! pp. 34143, 424. Roman writers recognized different degrees of barbarism, and treatment could be nuanced: Saddington, "Roman Attitudes," pp. 90-102; for example, the ferocia of the Burgundians is not that of the Franks or the Alamanni: Dauge, Le barbare! p. 341. 17. See the Panarion of Ephiphanius of Salamis, the first systematic handbook of heresy written near the end of the fourth century, which brings ethnography and heresy together. Ephiphanius, Opera! ed. Karl Holl, Hans Leitzmann, and Walter Eltester,' 2 vols. (Leipzig, 1915-33), 2d ed., ed. Jürgen Dummer, 2 vols. (Berlin, 1980-85); The Panarion of Epiphanius of Salamis! tr. Frank Williams, 2 vols. (Leiden, 1987-94). 18. On attitudes to historiography in general, see Arnaldo Momigliano, "Paganism and Christianity in the Fourth Century A.D.," in The Conf/ict Between Paganism and Christianity in the Fourth Century! ed. Arnaldo Momigliano (Oxford, 1963), p. 88. 19. The best short summary in English of the Greco-Roman ethnographie tradition through Tacitus is to be found in Thomas, Lands and Peoples in Roman Poetry! pp. 1-7. 20. For example, on diplomatie reports and ethnography, see Michael Maas, "Fugitives and Ethnography in Priscus of Panium," Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 19 (1995): 146-60. 2 I. For discussion and overview of literature, see Simon Swain, Hellenism and Empire: Language! Classicism! and Power in the Greek World! A.D. 50-250 (Oxford, 1996); Daniel Richter, "Ethnography, Archaism, and 1dentity in the Early Roman Empire" (Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago, 2000); Simon Goldhill, ed., Being Greek under Rome: Cultural Identity! the Second Sophistic! and the Development of Empire (Cambridge, 2001). 22. A clear demonstration in Cesa, "Etnografia e geografia nella visione storica di Procopio di Cesarea." 23. Agathias, History! 3.1. 24. Travel books contained accounts of the laws of different countries: see Aelius Aristides, The Ruling Power, ed. James H. Oliver, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, n.s. 43, pt. 4 (Philadelphia, 1953), p. 102. Oliver cites J. Schnayder, De periegetarum graecorum reliquiis! Societas Scientarum Lodziensis, sectio 1.8, (Lodz, 1950), as a survey of the literature. 25. J acques J ouanna, ed., H ippocrate! Airs! Eaux! Lieux! vol. 2.2 (Paris, 1996) for introduction and current bibliography to this widely influential text. Ptolemy, Tetrabiblos! ed. and tr. F. E. Robbins, e.g. 11.2 (trans., pp. 121-27). 26. Elizabeth C. Evans, Physiognomics in the Ancient World! Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, n.s., vol. 59, pt. 5 (Philadelphia, 1969);

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Ernst Honigmann, Die Sieben Klimata und die IIOAEIL EIIILHMOI: Eine Untersuchung zur Geschichte der Geographie und Astrologie im Altertum und Mittelalter (Heidelberg, 1929). 27. P. A. Brunt, "The Romanization of the Local Ruling Classes in the Roman Empire," in Assimilation et resistance a la cttlture greco-romaine dans le monde ancien: Travaux du VIe Congres International d'Etudes Classiques (Madrid, Sept. I974), ed. D. M. Pippidi (Paris, 1976), p. 170; on the importance of interpreters, see Lee, Information and Frontiers, esp. pp. 66-67; see Maas, "Fugitives and Ethnography in Priscus of Panium." 28. A very useful discussion is Karl Christ, "Römer und Barbaren in der hohen Kaiserzeit," Saecttlum 10 (1959): 273-88; for an anthropological treatment, see John and Jean Comaroff, Ethnography and the Historical Imagination (Boulder, Colo., 1992), pp. 49-67, esp. pp. 50-52. 29. Vergil, Aeneid 6.851-853. Flavius Cresconius Corippus, In laudem Iustini Augusti minoris Libri IV, ed. and tr. Averil Cameron (London, 1976), 11. 310-65, written in the first years of Justin II's reign, paraphrase this passage with a Christian interpretation. 30. " ... it is the marking of relations-of identities in opposition to one another-that is 'primordial,' not the substance of those identities." Comaroff and Comaroff, Ethnography and the Historical Imagination, p. 5 I. 3 I. Dauge, Le barbare, pp. 690-9 I . 32. Woolf, Becoming Roman, p. 241. 33. Joseph Meleze Modrzejewski, "Diritto romano e diritti locali," in Storia di Roma, vol 3.2: [jEta tardoantica: I luoghi e le culture, ed. Andrea Carandini, Lellia Cracco Ruggini, and Andrea Giardina (Turin, 1993), pp. 985-1°°9. 34. Vergil, Aeneid 6,11. 851-53; 12,11. 19°-91; Pierre Courcelle, Lecteurs pai'ens et lecteurs chretiens de l'Eneide, vo1. I: Les temoignages litteraires (Paris, 1984) = Institut de France, Memoires de [jAcadimie des Inscriptions et BellesLettres, n.s., vo1. 4, gathers references to the most important Vergilian passages found in later authors. 35 . Taci tus, Agricola, 21. 36. Swain, Hellenism and Empire; Richter, "Ethnography, Archaism, and Identity in the Early Roman Empire," p. 18. 37. See ibid., pp. 2 off. , for discussion. 38. Ibid., p. 25; cf. Aelius Aristides: "... the pillars ofHeracles do not limit this power, nor is it bounded by the hills of Libya or by either Bosphorus or by the gates of Syria and Cilicia, but over the whole earth, by some divine fortune, there comes a yearning for your wisdom and YOUf way of life and this one idiom all have ordained to be the common language of the human race. And so through you the whole civilized world had come to be united by a common tongue.... I call this the great dominion of the Athenians." Panathenaicus 26-27.

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39. Susanna Elm, Sons of Hellenism and Fathers 0/ the Church (forthcoming) diseusses in detail the shaping of paideia among the Greek Fathers of the late fourth century; the precise links to the circle of ] ustinian remain to be traced. 40. See the recent studies of R. C. Blockley, East Roman Foreign Policy: Formation and Conduct /rom Diocletian to Anastasius (Leeds, 1992); Garth Fowden, Empire to Commonwealth: Consequences of Monotheism in Late Antiquity (Princeton, N.J., 1993); Lee, Information and Frontiers (Cambridge, 1993). 41. Except for curiales, who might be lews, Samaritans, or heretics, Novel 45(537); see also Novel 8, iusiurandum (535). I have used the text of the Novels prepared by R. Schoell and G. Kroll, Corpus Iuris Civilis, vol. 3. ed. stereotypa, vol. 5 (Berlin, 1928). Translations are based on S. P. Scott, The Civil Law, vols. 16-17: The New Constitutions ofJustinian (Cincinnati, 1932). 42. Compare the contemporary development of Syriac and Coptic cultures that combined language, writing, and a strong sense of local tradition, real or imagined, within a Christian matrix. On city and countryside, see the essays in lohn Rich, ed., The City in Late Antiquity (London, 1992); Liebeschuetz, The Decline and Fall of the Roman City; on the disappearance of local languages, Peter Charanis, "Ethnic Changes in the Byzantine Empire in the Seventh Century," Dumbarton Oaks Papers 13 (1959): 25-26; and on the disappearance of paganism, Frank R. Trombley, Hellenic Religion and Christianization c. 37°-529, 2 vols. (Leiden, 1993-94). 43. Michael Maas, John Lydus and the Roman Past: Antiquarianism and Politics in the Reign 0/Justinian (London, 1992), pp. 7°-72, for bibliography. 44. Isrun Engelhardt, Mission und Politik in Byzanz: Ein Beitrag zur Strukturanalyse byzantinischer Mission zur Zeit Justins undJ ustinians (Munieh, 1974); Hans-Georg Beck, "Christliche Mission und politische Propaganda im byzantinischen Reich," Settimane di studio dei Centro italiano di studi sull'alto medioevo, 14 (1967): 649-74, reprinted in Ideen und Realitäten in Byzanz (London, 1972); Averil Cameron, Procopius (Berkeley, Calif., 1988), pp. 12025; Ihor Sevcenko, "Religious Missions Seen from Byzantium," Harvard Ukrainian Studies 12-13 (1988-89): 7-27. The loss of the account of Nonnosus, who undertook missions to Ethiopia and south Arabia, is particularly regrettable in this regard. See Photius, Bibliotheca, ed. R. Henry, vol. I (Paris, 1959), cod. 3.; Herbert Hunger, Die hochsprachliche profane Literatur der Byzantiner, vol. I (Munieh, 1978), p. 303; Lee, Information and Frontiers, pp. 39, 47, 102-5, 168. 45. Michael Whitby, "Greek Historical Writing after Procopius: Variety and Vitality," in The Byzantine and Early Islamic Near East, Col. I: Problems in the Literary Source Material, ed. Averil Cameron and Lawrence 1. Conrad (Princeton, N.]., 1992), pp. 66-74; John F. Haldon, Byzantium in the Seventh Centitry: The Transformation of a Culture (Cambridge, 1990), pp. 425-35.

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46. Mary Whitby, "A New Image for a New Age: George of Pisidia on the Emperor Heraclius," in Dabrowa, The Roman and Byzantine Army in the East, pp. 197-225. 47. David Braund, Georgia in Antiquity: A History 0/ Colchis and Transcaucasian Iberia, 550 B.c'-A.D. 526 (Oxford, 1994) for the most recent study of the region; Ernest Stein, Histoire du Bas Empire, vol. 2 (Amsterdam, 1968), pp. 105, 291, 516. Most recently, the Tzani had invaded the Pontic provinces in 506 during the reign of Anastasius, who paid them an annual tribute, perhaps continuing earlier practice. 48. A. H. M. Jones, The Later Roman Empire 284-602: A Soda I, Economic and Administrative Survey (Oxford, 1964), p. 27 I; for a list of ancient sources that discuss the Tzani: "Makrones," Real-Encyklopa'die der klassischen Altertumswissenschaft 14.1 (1928), col. 815; for background on Byzantine policy in the Pontic region, see Constantine Zuckerman, "The Early Byzantine Strongholds in Eastern Pontus," Travaux et Memoires (Centre de recherche d'histoire et civilisation de Byzance) I I (1991): 527-53, and Michel Kazanski, "Contribution a l'histoire de la defense de la frontiere pontique au Bas Empire," ibid., pp. 487-526. 49. Stein, Histoire du Bas Empire, 2:303; Novel 28 (535). 50. Wars, 8.1.7-9, tr. H. B. Dewing and G. Downey (1928; reprint ed., Cambridge, Mass., 1992), 5:59-61. All translations of Procopius below are theirs, with slight alterations. 51. Wars 1.15.18-25, ed. Dewing and Downey, 1:135-37. 52. Wars 6.14.33-34, ed. Dewing and Downey, 3=411-13. 53. Michael Whitby, "Justinian's Bridge over the Sangarius and the Date of Procopius' de Aedificiis," Journal 0/ Hellenic Studies 105 (1985): 129-48, esp. pp. 141-48. 54. Perhaps a reference to Isaiah 10:33-34. I thank Hagith Sivan for the suggestion. 55. Buildings IIr.6.1-14, 19, ed. Dewing and Downey, 7:205-11. 56. See note 44. 57. Cameron, Procopius, p. 112; see also Maas,John Lydus, pp. 14-18,4548 . 58. Cameron, Procopius, p. 109. 59. Ibid., pp. 89-90. 60. See Buildings 4.1.6, which discusses the inroads of Slavs into the Balkans: "And in his determination to resist these barbarians who were endlessly making war, the emperor Justinian . . . was obliged to throw innumerable fortresses about the country ... and to set up all other possible obstacles to an enemy who attacked without warning and who permitted no dealings with others" (ed. Dewing and Downey, 7:22 I).

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61. Buildings 3.6.5. 62. In Gothic War 4.1.9 he explains that a discussion of the Tzani is necessary because of the many changes that have occurred over the years. An analogue may be found in Justinian's explanation of the need for new legislation: Michael Maas, "Roman History and Christian Ideology in Justinianic Reform Legislation," Dumbarton Oaks Papers 40 (1986): 29-31. 63. Maas, John Lydus} pp. 97-1°4. 64. Agathias, Historiarum Libri Quinque} ed. R. Keydell (Berlin, 1967), V.2.3; The Histories} tr. J. D. Frendo (Berlin, 1975). This would be another argument for a late date of composition of Buildings} on which see Michael Whitby, "The Sangarius Bridge and Procopius," Journal 0/ Hellenic Studies 105 (19 8 5): 14 1-47. 65. Maas, "Roman History and Christian Ideology," pp. 30-3 I. 66. Ibid., pp. 28-29 67. Dauge, Le barbare} pp. 682-86 for citations. 68. Maas, John Lydus} pp. 45-48, 83-96; idem, "Roman History and Christian Ideology," pp. 25-3 I. 69. Charles Pazdernik, "A Dangerous Liberty and a Servitude Free From Care: Political Eleutheria and Douleia in Procopius of Caesarea and Thucydides of Athens" (Ph.D. diss., Princeton University, 1997), p. 233; idem, "A Dangerous Liberty and a Servitude Free from Care: The Case of Victorinus," Byzantine Studies Conference Abstracts} 1999. Procopius is not echoing the older Roman sentiment that liberty and empire were incompatible. For this idea see A. N. Sherwin-White, Racial Prejudice in Ancient Rome (Cambridge, 1967), pp. 23-25. Servitude was commonly understood to be a natural condition of barbarians: Aristotle, Politics 1.2. 70. Wars 1.15.18-25; VIII. 1.7-13: " ... not that I am ignorant that these things have been written down by some of the men of earlier times, but also that I believe that not all of their statements are accurate . . . . But apart from this, a long period of time has elapsed since these accounts were written, and has brought ab out constant changes along with the march of events, with the result that many of the conditions which formerly obtained have been replaced by new conditions, because of the migrations qf nations and successive changes of rulers and of names. These things it has seemed to me very necessary to investigate, not relating mythological tales about them nor other antiquated material ... but stating accurately and in order both the names of each of those places and the facts that apply to them at the present day" (ed. Dewing and Downey, pp. 59-61). 7 I. Fausto Goria, "Romani} cittadinanza ed estensione deUa legislazione imperiale neUe Costituzioni di Giustiniano," in La nozione di !!Romano'} tra cittadinanza e universalita} ed. Pierangelo Catalano and Paulo Siniscalo (Napies,

I86

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I982), pp. 309-I7. On the resumption of citizenship in reconquered Romanized territories, see ibid., p. 307; on the Heruls, see Procopius, Gothic War 2.I4.33; Jones, The Later Roman Empire! p. 663. 72. Procopius, Wars 1.I5.I8, 22-23. As part of a sequential account, the latter passage does not indicate that they received the subsidies after their defeat by Sittas. 73. Goria, "Romani! cittadinanza," p. 3IO . 74. Agathias, The Histories V2.3, tr. Frendo, p. I36, with some changes. 75. Attilio Mastino, "Antonino Magno, la cittadinanza, e l'Impero universale," in Catalano and Siniscalo, La nozione di !lRomano/' p. 563. On the different specialized meanings of romantts and civis romantts! see Goria, "Romani! cittadinanza," pp. 28I-85. Justinian's laws concerning the Constittttio Antoniniana: Novel 78.5, Digest I.5.; see also Basilica 46.I.I4 (I3)· 76. Wm. S. Thurman, "The Application of Sttbiecti to Roman Citizens in the Imperial Laws of the Later Roman Empire," Klio 52 (I970): 457; Schreiner, "Bürger, Bürgertum," pp. I039-40, on the survival of the status of civis Romantts in Byzantium for free inhabitants. 77. A. N. Sherwin-White, "The Roman Citizenship: A Survey of Its Development into a World Franchise," Attfstieg ttnd Niedergang der römischen Welt! ed. H. Temporini, vol. I.2 (Berlin, I972), p. 57; Jones, Later Roman Empire! pp. 200, 6I4, 620, 665; Jean Gaudemet, "Les Romains et les 'autres,'" in Catalano and Siniscalo, La nozione di !IRomano! " pp. 2I-22. 78. Code 7.5; Stein, Histoire dtt Bas Empire! 2:4I3; Thurman, "The Application of Sttbiecti!" p. 456; Goria, "Romani! cittadinanza," p. 285. 79. Goria, "Romani! cittadinanza," p. 3 I 3. 80. Ibid., pp. 30I-2; Schreiner, "Bürger, Bürgertum," pp. I039-40. 8I. Novel 2I, proern. 82. In Novel I54 (535-86), which forbids incestuous marriages in Mesopotamia and Osrhoene, an investigative panel is created to determine the truth of charges of this crime; c.f. Novel I2 (535) forbidding incestuous marriages within the empire. See A. D. Lee, "Close-Kin Marriage in Late Antique Mesopotamia," Greek! Roman and Byzantine Stttdies 29 (I988): 403I3; Gillian Clark, Women in Late Antiqttity: Pagan and Christian Lifestyles (Oxford, I993), pp. I6-I 7, 44-45, on Osrhoene. 83. Agathias, Histories II.22, 1V23-30 (Persians); 1.2-7, 1.I9, 11.5, II.I4 (Franks and Alamanni). 84. Averil Cameron, "How Did the Merovingian Kings Wear Their Hair?" Revtte BeIge de philologie et d!histoire 48 (I965): I203-I6; eadem, "Agathias on the Early Merovingians," Annali della Smola Normale Sttperiore di Pisa! 2d

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187

ser., 37 (1968): 95-14°; eadem, "Agathias on the Sassanians," Dumbarton Oaks Papers 23 (1969): 69-183. On Agathias in general, see her Agathias. 85. Agathias, Histories lI.27.8. 86. A law of Justin II assumes that it is human nature to imitate one's neighbors: Novel 3, in C. E. Zachariae von Lingenthal, ed.,Jus graeco-romanum, vol. 3 (Leipzig, 1857), p. 3; reprinted in P. Zepos and 1. Zepos, eds., Ius graecoromanum (Athens, 193 I), p. 5; discussed by Lee, "Close-Kin Marriage," pp. 4 0 4-5. 87. Agathias, Hist. lI1.5.1, tr. Frendo, p. 72. 88. Agathias, Hist. 11. 1.6-7, tr. Frendo, p. 32: "Those among the invaders who were Franks showed restraint and respect towards the churches, as was to be expected since, as I have already pointed out, they held orthodox views in matters of religion, and were of more or less the same persuasion as the Romans. But the Alamanni, whose beliefs were quite different, pillaged the churches with complete abandon and robbed them of their precious ornaments." 89. Agathias, Hist. 1.7.1; tr. Frendo, p. 15. 90. Agathias, Hist. 1.2; tr. Frendo, p. 10. 91. Cameron, "Merovingians," pp. 114-16; eadem, Agathias, p. 50. 92 . Agathias, Hist. lI.24.5, lI.25.3, 1.7·3; tr. Frendo pp. 58, 59, 15· 93. Agathias, Hist. lI.23· 8-9; tr. Frendo, p. 57.; Henry Chadwick, "Relativity of Moral Codes: Rome and Persia in Late Antiquity," in Early Christian Literature and the C lassical I ntellectual Tradition in honorem Robert M. Grant, ed. William R. Schoedel and Robert 1. Wilken, Theologie Historique 53 (1979): 135-53, esp. pp. 150-5 I on Agathias. 94. Ir is perhaps worth pointing out that the verb used here, flEWO"KEUasO), could refer to the transformation brought through baptism, to the transformation of the elements in the Eucharist, or to changes in names such as that of Byzantium to Constantinople. 95. Agathias, Hist. lI1.8.7; tr. Frendo. p. 76. 96. Agathias, Hist. V.25.5; tr. Frendo, p. 162. 97. The continuation of sub-Roman culture under the Franks makes this a complex historical issue. 98. Cameron, "Merovingians," p. 137 99. Whitby, "Greek Historical Writing," pp. 38-39. 100. Ibid., p. 39, estimates that 90 percent of Menander is lost; R. C. Blockley, The History 0/ Menander the Guardsman: Introductory Essay, Text, Translation, and Historiographical Notes (Liverpool, 1985), pp. 6 and 13 on his classicism and formal digressions; Barry Baldwin, "Menander Protector," Dumbarton Oaks Papers 32 (1978): 1°9-10. Menander was regarded as a reliable source on the Persians in antiquity, as indicated by a scholiast on

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Strabo (Paris, B.N. gr. 1393) cited by B. Baldwin, Ox/ord Dictionary 0/ Byzantium, vol. 2 (Oxford, 1991), p. 1338; on his interest in diplomacy: Whitby, "Greek Historical Writing," p. 40; Maas, "Fugitives and Ethnography in Priscus of Panium," pp. 146-49. 101. Menander Protector, frag. 2; tr. Blockley, pp. 43-45. On these negotiations see Kazanski, "Contribution a l'histoire de la defense de la frontiere pontique," pp. 540-44. 102. Ibid. 103. Book 11 of Das Strategikon des Maurikios, ed. G. T. Dennis and E. Gamillscheg, Corpus fontium historiae byzantinae 17 (Vienna, 1981); G. Dennis, tr., Maurice's Strategikon: Handbook 0/ Byzantine Military Strategy (Philadelphia, 1984); the attribution to Maurice is uncertain. On book I I, see lohn Wiita, "The Ethnika in Byzantine Military Treatises" (Ph.D. diss., University of Minnesota, 1977). 104. Honigmann, Die Sieben Klimata und die IIOAEI~ EIII~HMOI; Rives, Tacitus, Germania, pp. 16-17, for references. 105. Strategikon, XLI, 2, tr. Dennis, p. 116. 106. Ibid., XIA, tr. Dennis, pp. 120-2 I. 107. Dennis, Maurice's Strategikon, p. xv. 108. Historiae, ed. C. de Boor, rev. P. Wirth (Stuttgart, 1972), VII.7.69.12; trans. 1. M. Whitby and Michael Whitby, The History 0/ Theophylact Simocatta (Oxford, 1986); Michael Whitby, The Emperor Maurice and His Historian (Oxford, 1988); B. Baldwin, "Simokattes, Theophylaktos," Ox/ord Dictionary 0/ Byzantium, vol. 3 (Oxford, 1991), pp. 1900-1901; on his ethnographie writing: Whitby, Emperor Maurice, pp. 314-2 I. 109. Theophylact Simocatta, Hist. IIL9.1-18A. 110. Theophylact Simocatta, Hist. VII.15.1-3; tr. Whitby and Whitby, p.200. I I I. E.g. E. W. Brooks, trans., John 0/ Ephesus, Lives 0/ the Eastern Saints, Patrologia Orientalis, ed. R. Graffin and F. Nau, vol 17 (Paris, 1923), pp. 19 (Life of Zura), 78 (Lives of Abraham and Maro). I 12. Giorgio di Pisidia, Poemi, vol. I: Panegyrici Epici, ed. A. Pertusi (Ettal, 1959); see S. S. Alexander, "Heraclius, Byzantine Imperial Ideology, and the David Plates," Speculum 552, no. 2 (r977): 217-37, esp. p. 221; Whitby, "A New Image fora New Age." I 13. Though it did not disappear; see Müller, Geschichte der antiken Ethnographie, 2:481-520, for some material; antiquarian excerpting of classical ethnographers in the de Administrando Imperio of Constantine Porphyrgenitus, itself founded on a developed Byzantine vision of empire, deserves closer examination.

7 "EMENDING EVIL WAYS AND PRAISING GOD'S OMNIPOTENCE" EINHARD AND THE USES OF ROMAN MARTYRS

]ULIA

M. H.

SMITH

In the closing weeks of 828, a messenger arrived at the imperial court at Aaehen and sought out Einhard, one of the most senior and trusted eounselors of the emperor Louis the Pious (814-40). At Mulinheim! his estate on the banks of the River Main, Einhard had built a ehureh to house the relies of two early Christian martyrs whose remains had reeendy been brought from Rome, Mareellinus and Peter. The servant brought his master a libellus! a litde parehment book eontaining an aeeount of an exoreism whieh had just been performed at Mulinheim in the presenee of many witnesses. In front of the altar where the saints' relies lay, a priest had eondueted the ritual over a sixteen-year-old German-speaking peasant girl. This was no ordinary exoreism, however, for the girl had been possessed by Wiggo, an eloquent Latin-speaking demon, who allowed himself to be interrogated by the priest. In the booklet, Einhard read an aeeount of the eonversation between demon and priest: Wiggo declared that he was the former doorkeeper of hell, a courtier of Satan, and that with his retinue he had been ravaging the Frankish empire, spreading famine, death and disease for several years. Wiggo went on to offer an explanation, to the effeet that this was punishment for the wiekedness of the Frankish people, the iniquity of their rulers, the hatred whieh divided friends and brothers, and disobedienee to God's eommands. "Alas!" exclaimed Einhard when he had finished reading, "to what miseries our age has sunk, in whieh our teaehers are not good men but evil demons, and those who incite people to viee and persuade them to sin also warn us about how to eorreet our behavior (de nostra nos correctione commonent). "1 Correctio-the adjustment of Christians' behavior to bring it into line with the teaehing of Seripture and the ehureh fathers-was a major preoeeupation of Louis the Pious, as of his father Charlemagne (768-814). By 18 9

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Einhard's time, the word implied both an ideology and a program in which ruler and bishops together strove to enhance Christian observance, foster Christian ethics, and overhaul Christian institutions. Correctio resonated with authority, whether that of imperial legislation, canon law, or bishops acting together in council. Along with the virtually synonymous emendatio} it established normative practice, just as the emendation of a text brought it into line with grammatical and orthographical rules and upheld a tradition rooted in textual authorities. Emendation was "the correction of errors which are made in writing or actions."2 Correction and emendation thus lead us direcdy to the heart of the Carolingian push for what we might loosely call "Christianization," that ongoing effort to redefine behavior and mores which was the long, slow aftermath of baptism and conversion to Christianity. Ir was, indeed, the task Charlemagne took upon himself in his widely circulated Admonitio generalis of 789 when, modeling himself upon the way the biblical King Josiah had urged his subjects to turn to God by "traveling around his kingdom, correcting and admonishing," the Frankish king set out to "correct the erroneous, excise the inappropriate, and encourage the right." In short, his bishops and secular officials should "correct that which must be corrected."3 Differently put, Charlemagne and his ecclesiastical advisors found their own way to conduct that "unrelieved batde with the past" which Augustine and his contemporaries had launched, the batde to change the habits (whether tradition or habitus) of Christians. 4 The zealous Carolingian drive to implement what we may call "correct Christianity" has been much studied in recent years. Yet these discussions usually ignore the role of saints' cults in promulgating this vision of a Christian society, confining themselves instead to royal and conciliar legislative activity, preaching, prayer, education, and pastoral provision. 5 AIthough early medieval saints' cults are a burgeoning field of analysis, these more commonly locate cults within their institutional context than within any political or pastoral one. By contrast, this paper seeks out the connections between "emending evil ways" and relic cults. Ir takes the shrine of Marcellinus and Peter at Mulinheim as the focus of a case study which asks several interrelated questions. Why was Einhard, a scholar upheld as the epitome of the Carolingians' renewed interest in classical culture on the basis of the brilliant erudition of his Vita Karoli} also interested in prophetic demons, rustic religion, and saints' bones? How was Rome's early Christian past recovered and reinterpreted in ninth-century Germany? How was a balance between local religion and newfound imperial norms negotiated? What part did the lay elite play in the promulgation of correct Christianity? What can Wiggo's tale tell us ab out the politics of emendation in both court and country?

EMENDING EVIL

WAYS

Answering these questions requires awareness of historiographical tangles and conceptual quagmires. Although historians concur in acknowledging the importance of the Carolingian age (C.750-900) within the master narratives of Europe's religious and cultural history, they cannot agree how to evaluate it. Did it witness "the birth of medieval Christianity" or "the rise of magic"?6 Should it be characterized as "archaic Christianity" or "the bases for the subsequent development of the western church"?7 In a culture notable for both the transmission of rare dassical texts and the belief in the mirade-working power of the dust of long-dead bodies, should we stress "the invasion of the miraculous" or a "renaissance before the Renaissance"?8 One reason for such conflicting assessments is that medievalists are liable to be trapped in powerful historiographical discourses not oftheir own making. Ir is not simply that riyal efforts of sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century confessional historians to appropriate or repudiate Christendom's medieval past continued to reverberate until recently (and, arguably, still do). There is also that pervasive Enlightenment episteme which reinforced an established preference for the dassical: by ranking religious beliefs and practices from "less" to "more" rational, Enlightenment thinkers located real religion in the abstract, ethical, and interiorized, thereby condemning everything else to the twilight of folk belief and superstirion. 9 One might add the reinforcement brought by nineteenth- and twentieth-century social sciences, whether Weberian demystification ("Entzauberung") of the modernizing world, Durkheimian anthropology with its identification of the elementary wirh the collective, or Marxian structuralism positing a conflict of popular and elite religious cultures. 10 Finally, the challenge of rapidly changing Christian churches in the late twentieth century has brought revised approaches to the study of the Christian past but at the same time shattered any coherent understandingY These ways of thinking all require that early medieval relic culJs be evaluated, but they differ in what that evaluation should be. Other pitfalls lurk in the very terms which commonly structure narratives of religious change: "conversion" and its dose cousins "Christianization" and "reform." All three words imply a "before" and an "after" that are in some way discernibly different. Two of them, "conversion" and "reform," have long histories in their own right within the re alm of the history of ideas, involving changing meanings, polemical contexts, and ambivalent connotations. 12 They nevertheless remain key concepts within all the different master narratives of European religious history, inevitably encoding value judgments and imposing interpretations. The portmanteau term "reform" is particularly problematic for an early medievalist. 13 For patristic writers, reformatiolreformare was the vocabulary of

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the spiritual renewal of the human soul through the operation of divine grace, or sometimes for the restitution of the property rights of individual churches; only in the late eleventh century did its usage extend to include a generalized renewal of the entire church, whether juridical, administrative, or spiritual. 14 This latter institutional meaning has become normative, but is profoundly anachronistic for the Carolingian period. Like their patristic predecessors, Carolingian writers confined the vocabulary of reformare and renovare to inner spiritual regeneration or, more rarely, specific situations requiring the restoration of buildings, property, bridges, and the like. They used instead the vocabulary of correctio for the royal and episcopal task of disciplining morals, behavior, and ecclesiastical organization. 15 Moreover, the notion of correctio itself lacks the cyclical, iterative implications of "reform" or "re-newal." Ir acknowledged the inadequacy of current Christian practices, yet implied that they might be successfully altered by enforcement of the authoritative decrees of bishops in council and the edicts of rulers. 16 When Einhard came to write about the miracle-working activities of Marcellinus and Peter, he did so within the framework of correctio and emendatio. His avowed aim was "to arouse the minds of all, through examples of the lives and deeds of the just, to emending evil ways and praising God's omnipotence."17 In this way, he associated hirnself and his saints with the program of imperial and episcopal correction, orchestrating the emergence of their shrine at Mulinheim as a new center of correct Christianity, a place of exemplary holiness for empire and locality alike. 18 His project was simultaneously intensely personal and pointedly political: to make it succeed, Einhard deployed to the full his exceptional literary talents and architectural interests. The project also relied upon its instigator's familiarity with the programmatic ideology of the Carolingian rulers. Indeed, few would have been more familiar with the imperial goals of Christian action and correction than Einhard. Born c. 770, he first showed intellectual abilities whilst a pupil at the prestigious monastery of Fulda. At some point before 796, Abbot Baugulf sent the outstanding young scholar to the royal court, where he became a friend and confidant of Charlemagne. Einhard recorded his debts to the emperor in the preface to his Lift 0/ Charlemagne without, however, being specific about his role at court. 19 From the testimony of others, we know hirn to have been "a man greatly praised among all the courtiers of the day not only for his learning but also for his completely honorable behavior."20 His integrity made hirn a valued political counselor: in 806, Charlemagne entrusted hirn with a mission to Pope Leo III, and in 813 it appears to have

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been Einhard who persuaded the aged emperor to make firm provisions for the succession. 21 "He was prudent by nature, upright in action, eloquent in speech, and adept in the art of many things. Emperor Charles raised hirn in his own court and through hirn the emperor carried out many great works."22 Thus his epitaph would read: Einhard had an insider's knowledge of Charlemagne's court and its policy of correctio. Moreover, he was one of the few courtiers who managed to retain influence after Charlemagne's death in 814. About ten years older than the new emperor, Einhard was evidently something of a senior advisor to Louis the Pious, who entrusted his eldest. son ancl) co-emperor Lothar to his guidance. 23 Despite advancing years, Einhard continued to attend Louis's court until at least 830.24 Thereafter, he certainly remained in dose contact, even though his personal presence cannot be proven. 25 The years from 827 until 840 were dominated on the one hand by Einhard's promotion of the cult of Marcellinus and Peter, and on the other by crisis at the imperial court, as . corruption and aristocratic factionalism fueled succession disputes between Louis's sons. Einhard seems to have managed to avoid taking sides during the revolts of 830 and 833-34; he died on 14 March 840, three months before the emperor's demise triggered civil war. 26 Early in his reign, Louis the Pious had rewarded Einhard for his loyalty and good counsel with several choice lay abbacies and a grant of property.27 The latter consisted of two estates, Michelstadt and Mulinheim J gifted to Einhard and his wife Imma on 11 January 815.28 The couple passed on the former to the monastery of Lorsch in 819 whilst reserving rights to it for the remainder of their own lives;29 Einhard probably retained pos session of the latter until his death, for he buried Imma he re in 835 and was hirns elf laid to rest beside her. Once established as a man of property he took up his pen: all Einhard's extant literary output dates from Louis's reign. Indeed, it is the last thirteen years of Einhard's life which are the best documented, for both his letter collection and the Translation and Miracles 0/ Sts. Marcellinus and Peter reveal much of the man hirns elf, in contrast to his self-effacing role as the emperor's biographer. 30 Internal evidence suggests that the latter was composed in the dosing months of 830, but the tale he told began a few years earlier. 31 Since acquiring Michelstadt, he had built a church on the estate, and by 827 was pondering which saint to choose as its dedicatee. The Translation and Miracles opens with a conversation in the imperial palace at Aachen between Einhard and a visiting deacon from Rome during which the possibility of acquiring martyr relics from the holy city was raised. Einhard relates the upshot vividly: he sent to Rome his personal notary Ratleic who, with breathtaking audacity, managed to plunder a catacomb on the Via· Labicana and return north with the relics of the third-century martyrs

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Marcellinus and Peter. In November 827, Ratleic and his holy baggagereached Michelstadt. Einhard rushed to join them, but in January 828 transferred the relics to lVIttlinheim} where he shortly afterwards began constructing the purposebuilt church which became their permanent home. 32 The establishment of a new shrine for imported saints required effort and resources, as weIl as relics. To be successful, a new cult had to have an impact on the locality and its inhabitants. The growth of this church's property and its role as the central point of a substantial estate, with all its tenurial, fiscal, and jurisdictional implications, forms the institutional and economic backdrop against which to focus on the ways in which the relics' arrival changed the local religious landscape, inspired new devotions, and inaugurated correctio. 33 A sketch of the political and religious landscape of the region before the martyrs' arrival provides the context. For centuries, the Roman Empire had met the Germanic world along the Rhine, with a temporary extension of the limes as far east as the Main valley until c. 250. However much the frontier was a zone of cultural interaction and accommodation, it marked the limit of an organized imperial church, with its bishoprics and martyrial shrines. There had been Christians since the late fourth century in the eities and settlements of the middle Rhine valley, most espeeially in and around Mainz. 34 When Frankish kings asserted control over their area, the surviving Christian ·communities fell within their purview too. Although the approximate chronology of the extension of Frankish hegemony east of the Rhine is clear, the ways in which this was linked to cultural change, local aristocratic landholding, and the spread of Christianity remain disputed. 35 We are concerned with one subregion in particular, wedged between the duchies of Alemannia to the south and Thuringia to the northeast and the region of Hesse to the northwest (figure I). Here the River Main twisted arid turned its way through sparsely inhabited wooded uplands: Mttlinheim lay on the western bank ab out thirty kilometers upstream from Frankfurt, Michelstadt in the woodlands to the west. This area lacked any political or ethnic identity before the late eighth century; from then on, its inhabitants were simply, if vaguely, referred to as the orientales Franci} or osterliztdi} the "eastern folk."36 Although it is almost impossible to map the spread of Christianity east of the Rhine before the central decades of the eighth century, it does seem to have seeped in unobtrusively in various ways.37 That there was an easy acculturation to local customs is suggested by various grave finds: seventhcentury women's girdle hangings incorporating the symbol of the cross, flat bronze crosses themselves worn as girdle pendants, and eighth-century crueiform brooches. 38 Local churches were certainly being built here and there

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by the early eighth century-such as the one constructed by the priest Adalhuno at Nilkheim (ne ar Aschaffenburg) and consecrated in 7I I/7I6 by Rigibert, bishop of Mainz. 39 By and large, however, the bishops of Mainz or Worms (such as there were) kept to themselves in their more urban milieux. Irish and Anglo-Saxon monks-cum-missionaries also founded the occasional church, as for example that built at Hammelberg on the Saale by WiHibrord in 7I7, on land given to hirn by Heden, duke of Thuringia. 40 iocal rulers thus supported the holy men who came and went through the region, and through them may even have had occasional contact with Rome. But for the most part, Christianity here seems to have been a homegrown affair, weH meshed with familial and political patterns, and lacking an infrastructure of bishoprics and of saints' shrines. Christianity remained informal and familial, not organized or institutional, until the Anglo-Saxon monk-missionary-bishop Boniface took it upon hirnself to preach in the region in 723. He arrived with an uncompromising vision and a papal mandate; in time he also acquired decisive political backing from the Carolingian mayors of the palace Pippin and Carloman. On the ground, this translated into adetermination to organize ecclesiastical life into formal monastic and episcopal institutions and to eradicate whatever worship he deemed debased, superstitious, hardly even Christian. iocal priests who serviced the customary religious life of the localities were turned into "false priests," heretics, and harbingers of Antichrist. 41 This was correctio and emendatio in action. 42 Boniface's activities were closely associated with the assertion of Carolingian control over the region-the Duchy of Alemannia definitively in 746 at the batde of Canstatt, Thuringia apparendy in rather more gradual and piecemeal fashion in the mid-eighth century-and resulted in the establishment of a network of bishoprics in the area, dependent now on the Frankish church. 43 Boniface, his heirs and successors further imposed themselves by overwriting the history of the region, claiming the historiographical and hagiographical limelight in much the same way as they rode roughshod over local Christian communities and their practices. 44 Boniface had been martyred in Frisia and buried at his Thuringian monastery of Fulda in 754, just three-quarters of a century before Einhard brought Marcellinus and Peter to Mulinheim. The Anglo-Saxon missionary's legacy was powerful, for his ideals fed straight into the determination of the Carolingian kings Pippin III (75 I -68) and his son Charlemagne to alter the religious life of their subjects. With it came struggle over what constituted appropriate Christianity-whose terms should be regarded as normative, how to enforce them. Perhaps nowhere were the disparities and dichotomies sharper than in the diocese of Mainz, Boniface's own see and, from 780, an

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archbishopric with far-flung jurisdiction. Stretching as it did from Mainz southwards into the Alps and northwards almost to the base of the Danish peninsula, the archdiocese embraced the huge spectrum of religious life that characterized the eighth- and ninth-century Carolingian lands, from the outright paganism of regions along and beyond the Slav fron tier, to the disciplined life of Christian prayer of the many hundreds of monks at Fulda, or the late antique martyrial shrine of Alban in the city of Mainz itself. 4S In between these poles lay many shades of ordinary Christianity; in essence the Carolingian pursuit of correctio interpreted this gray-scale in stark blackand-white terms and then sought to eliminate the black. The practical realities of this challenge were not so simple, however, as Einhard's younger contemporary and admirer Hrabanus Maurus knew. First as abbot of Fulda (822-42) and latterly as archbishop of Mainz (847-56), Hrabanus had intimate familiarity with the full range of Carolingian Christianities and their attendant problems, from the courtly to the backwoods, the monastic to the missionary.46 Within the ecclesiastical province of Mainz, the Carolingian rhetoric of reform was sharpened, applied, and chaUenged. On the borders of the bishoprics of Mainz and Würz burg , Mulinheim lay at the geographical center of this sprawling archdiocese. In the second half of the eighth and the early ninth centuries Hesse, Thuringia, and the length of the Main vaUey had been transformed by a massive growth in monastic landowning, both that of aristocratic familial foundations and-of even greater importance-that of two royal monasteries, Fulda to the north (founded 744) and Lorsch to the southwest (founded 764). Through the exceptionaUy rich charter coUections of both monasteries, we not only glimpse the impact of ecclesiastical landlordship on a huge scale but also witness the local Christianity of the region in a process of reorganization. Both monasteries housed important saints' shrines-Boniface's grave at Fulda attracted large crowds to the annual commemoration of his martyrdom; at Lorsch imported relics of the Milanese martyr Nazarius worked miracles of healingY These saints' patronage exerted a powerful centripetal puU not only on patterns of worship but also in tenurial and political terms. Many tiny family monasteries, often no more than a few pious women-a widow and her daughters and a servant or two-passed into the lordship of one or other of these powerful monasteries. These rural churches would gradually develop into the nodes of a protoparochial network of ecclesiastical organization and jurisdiction. 48 And local religious practices fell under the scrutiny of the agents of the ambitious program of religious correctio which Charlemag ne and Louis the Pious were striving to implement. With his Fulda education and intimate knowledge of the imperial court, Einhard shared this perspective. His disdain for the local, small religious

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commulllties of the region is evident, and he dismissed them for their inadequate observances ("propter rudern in his locis eius conversationis institutionem") and lack of inhabitants of any holiness whatsoever. 49 But this was the milieu in which he built his churches at Michelstadt and Mttlinheim: in part, their significance derives from their local context, set among the local proprietary churches of the region, in the interstices of the prestigious imperial monasteries of Fulda and Lorsch. The wooded uplands of the Odenwald-the "forest of Germany" as Einhard called i t 50-seem to have had very thin, scattered settlement prior to the expansion of monastic landowning in the second half of the eighth century.51 Apparently a royal forest, there is no documentary reference to the area before 755/6, but the Lorsch charters reveal how, under the aegis of royal patronage, the monks moved in as colonizers. 52 Lay landholders also participated in opening the area up: in the four years between Louis the Pious granting Michelstadt to Einhard in 8 I 5 and his passing ownership on to Lorsch in 8I9, new buildings had been erected and the population increased significantly.53 Einhard's activities here were thus a direct and vigorous contribution to "the humanisation of the landscape."54 They also contributed to its Christianization. When Einhard received Michelstadt, it had only a single church, a small wooden one. 55 Four years later it had at least two churches,56 and then in the early to mid-82oS he built the magnificent stone church which still stands, although now mutilated. This is the church for which the Roman relics were intended, and which was intended to be their permanent resting place (figure 2).57 But Einhard soon realized that his relics were not simply inert tokens of Rome's early Christian heritage. 58 First oneof Ratleic's servants had avision in which he was told that Ratleic had brought the saints to the wrong place and that they had decided to move. 59 Next blood was discovered oozing from their reliquary: Einhard and his priests found themselves confronting an "astonishing miracle, worthy of our complete admiration."60 Then one of the youths in Einhard's own retinue had avision of the saints who "menaced hirn in frightening ways," demanding that Einhard be told to move them to a different home. 61 More visions followed: Einhard was learning that Marcellinus and Peter were terrifying wonder-workers, with personalities and wills of their own. He responded by acceding to their demands, transferring them to Mttlinheim in the manner the saints themselves stipulated. 62 Einhard's narrative at this point can be read in several ways. One of the saints had asked a member of his clerical staff in avision: "Why is Einhard so hard-hearted and so obstinate that he does not believe so many visions and warnings and thinks he may spurn messages sent to hirn from heaven?"63 But he did finally obey: and at one level this is a conversion narrative.

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On the other hand, we may view the oozing blood and the visions as the mirades neeessary to authentieate the eult that followed. N ext to the altar at Michelstadt Mareellinus and Peter shed their blood in a seeond martyrdom; their appearanees in angelie form affirmed their heavenly existenee. These were the foundation stories of the basiliea at Mttlinheim. We should also read the text against the standing arehiteeture of Einhard's two ehurehes, Michelstadt and Mttlinheim. Miehelstadt's ground plana central nave with side aisles, separated by a sereen from a trieellular, triple-apsed rectangular ehoir-was dosely in line with the ehurehes reeently built to house showease monastie eommunities for Benediet of Aniane, the chief proponent of a revised Benedietine monastieism and dose eounselor of Louis the Pious. Like the model eommunities at Maursmünster and Inden (Kornelimünster), the design of Michelstadt sharply separated priests from laity and also aeeommodated the multiple altars neeessary for a liturgy in whieh private eommemorative masses played a prominent role. 64 Unlike these ehurehes, however, it had a erypt, entered only from the side aisles in the lay part of the ehureh. Einhard designed this with a unique eruciform plan. Could he have intended to install the saints' ashes here, beneath the ehoir but not aeeessible to the priests who served at the altar? Or were they to be enshrined in the eastern, liturgieal, end of the ehureh? We do not know. Either way, Michelstadt would have eoped with diffieulty with the erowds whieh the relies would eome to attraet. Moreover, it was an out-of-the-way loeation, if not quite the "place apart, far from the madding erowd" as Einhard deseribed it. 65 Mttlinheim, by eontrast, had two nudei, upper and lower, and was an old Roman fort and eivilian settlement right on the banks of the River Main, an arterial waterway linking Bavaria with the middle Rhineland, and also aeeessible along old Roman roads. 66 The ehureh at Mttlinheim to whieh the relies moved would seem to have been substantial; the large one whieh Einhard would go on to build there was speeifieally designed for a relie eult and its pilgrims. 67 The decision to transfer the relies may thus have marked a major change in Einhard's plans as the deeision to launeh a major new eult site formed in his mind. In presenting hirnself as the obedient servant of the martyrs' demands, he was masking hirnself with the persona of the saints in good late antique tradition. 68 On r6 January 828, Einhard turned his back on Michelstadt, effeetively abandoning it. 69 Mareellinus and Peter had told hirn where to take them; the overnight journey from Michelstadt to Mttlinheim marked their "eoming out" as mirade-working saints of great appeal. Ir seems that, in the years sinee 8 r 5, Einhard had turned Michelstadt into something of a regional center for the distribution of alms: as the proeession bearing the relies left Miehelstadt under heavy winter skies, it was aeeompanied by a group of

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poor folk who had floeked there to reeeive eharity. Those earrying the relies made an overnight stop at Ostheim (near Aschaffenburg) whilst Einhard hirns elf rode ahead to Mulinheim; that January night marked the inauguration of a publie eult whieh was to have huge repereussions. In the litde ehureh at Ostheim, the saints worked their first healing miracle; meanwhile at Mulinheim, Einhard made the neeessary preparations for reeeiving the saints. Doubdess he arranged their liturgieal reeeption. But he also passed around the word: the saints who had left Michelstadt without the loeal population realizing what was going were greeted en route the next morning by "a huge multitude of neighbors" who had traveled out from Mulinheim, exeited by the news of the saints' arrival. 70 By the time the proeession reaehed there, the throng was so large that any attempt to take the relies into the ehureh had to be abandoned; instead an open-air Mass was eelebrated in a nearby field. Only then eould the clergy enter the ehureh and eelebrate another Mass indoors. On 17 January, a day as warm, bright, and balmy as if it were spring, aeeording to Einhard, the relies announeed their arrival at Mulinheim with many miraeulous eures. 71 Mareellinus and Peter had eome horne. Einhard did not know why these powerful saints had deigned to take up residenee with hirn. But he rose to the challenge, determined that they should reeeive "fitting honors."72 His understanding of what that implied ehanged in step with his growing aeeeptanee of the martyrs' own will. Plans for a splendid new reliquary at Michelstadt had al ready been overtaken by the deeision to move to Mulinheim, but that deeision was not in itself suffieient, for a sueeessful eult site requires "a moment um of miraeulousness."73 It demands an audienee-miracutes, witnesses, and gossipers-and presupposes that its devotees are reeeptive to divine power working in this manner. The move had initiated this. But if the veneration was not to remain a flash in the pan, it needed energetie maintenanee. Hagiographieal narratives are normally more eoneerned to represent saindy virtus in action than to demonstrate how it was inaugurated and sustained; but at Mulinheim, we may glimpse in some detail the ways in whieh the eult of the relies of Mareellinus and Peter aequired and maintained its momentum. Einhard's strategies were politieal, textual, and arehiteetural. All three indieate the eonneetion between relies and correctio. The first of these will detain us for a while. Immediately after the relies' move to Mulinheim, Einhard returned to the imperial court at Aaehen. 74 By this date a rapidly growing market town, Aaehen was replete with the mixed population attraeted to any plaee of power-eareerist courtiers, administrators whether effieient or lazy, Christian and Jewish merehants, litigants and eriminals,

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builders and beggars, pimps and prostitutes. Built as the exemplary center of an exemplary empire, the palace was the primary stage on which Carolingian rituals of rulership were enacted, but away from the limelight, shady characters lurked. Ir was even the place where, according to Notker the Stammerer, the devil lay in wait for unwary kings. 75 In the corridors of power Einhard, too, found the devil at work. On arrival in late January 828, he was appalled to learn the latest gossip, the "execrable story spread about by the cunning of the devil": 76 that a priest in the service of the imperial arch-chaplain, Hilduin abbot of Saint-Denis (Paris) and Saint-Medard (Soissons), had accompanied Einhard's men to Rome, and had stolen part of the relics during the return journey. Einhard's political finesse enabled hirn to extract one version of truth from Hilduin; his own men provided a variant but conceded that the Roman cleric who had been helping them in Rome had been bribed by Hilduin's man to rob Ratleic of part of the relics. 77 Einhard was able to negotiate the return of the missing portions, but not until after the octave of Easter 828 did he actually take the box containing the relics into his own hands. He installed them in a makeshift chapel within his own townhouse at Aachen. The court had celebrated Easter in the palatine chapel dedicated to Christ and the Virgin. No miracle-working relics had been interred or enshrined there-doubtless in fear lest the drama of thaumaturgy disrupt the splendor of imperial liturgy. Marcellinus and Peter were, it seems, the first potent saints to arrive at court: and once safe in Einhard's possession, they immediately started working miracles. Their beautiful fragrance perfumed the town, crowds flocked to Einhard's house from the town and its hinterland, the sick were healed. 78 Louis the Pious and the empress Judith gave gifts. 79 Jews witnessed the miracles of the Christian God and gave thanks. 80 On one occasion, an itinerant builder working on the palace who had been crippled was carried in by his friends and placed in front of the saints' altar. Watched by all bystanders, he became straightened-"corrected"-and walked away unaided, albeit limping. The remaining lameness Einhard interpreted as an outer sign that the man still needed to continue to work towards his inner, spiritual healing. 81 Miracles of physical correction were thus the tokens of interior correction. Aachen had become a place of almsgiving, healing, and reconciliation: veneration of Marcellinus and Peter inspired correct Christianity in )the midst of courtly corruption. Einhard's courtly skills had won the return of the missing portions; now he used them to promote their cult far and wide. His web of court contacts turned into a network for dissemination as he distributed small portions of the relics to other churches in the region, at Valenciennes, Ghent, Maastricht, and Trier. 82 By the end of that summer, each except Trier had sent on

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to Einhard a libeflus containing a formal wrltten memorandum of the mirades which had occurred there. 83 By then, Einhard had hirnself returned to Mulinheim, where mirades were continuing in his absence. Having established the saints' reputation at court, his journey with the recovered portions of the bodies was a triumphal sixday procession through the countryside. 84 The devotion of the villagers was manifest everywhere-and commemorated in a way which left a permanent mark on the landscape. lust outside Wiesbaden, the townsfolk erected a cross at the spot where they met the relic-bearing procession: this too created a new sire of divine power. Eighteen months later (December 829), when Einhard's baggage train got lost in a dense, dark fog in the forests there, his servants stumbled upon the wayside cross. They invoked the martyrs, and extended shimmers of lightning showed them the path they had lost and dispelled the frosty douds. 85 Marcellinus and Peter's transformative effect on both lands cape and weather had again been demonstrated. Those who trusted themselves to the curative power of Marcellinus and Peter shared a belief that shrines were places where they might become whole again. They shared too apredisposition to try out the new shrine at Mulinheim. 86 There is little surprise in this, for men and women often traveled far and wide in the ninth century in search of healing at saints' shrines. 87 In this case, the information which Einhard and his notaries took care to record enables us to gauge something of the spread of the shrine's reputation. Approximately half of the people cured there came from within the Maingau, attracted by the presence of saints' relics in their midst for the first time. 88 But the rest came from much further away. These were people who made real choices about which shrines to visit. From their places of origin, or the reports of the circumstances which brought them to Mulinheim, it is evident that the Rhine was as much the conduit of gossip about new shrines as ir was of people, grain, and merchandise. 89 These visitors induded landowners and peasants, the infirm and the mad, women and men, priests and pilgrims: Einhard took care to stress the universality of his saints' appeal. But we should not be duped into mistaking this for consensus. The opening salutation of the Translation and Miracles, to "The true worshipers and the not false lovers of the true God, ]esus Christ our lord, and his saints," hints that Einhard was arguing a case. 90 Not until his dosing words is it evident just how polemical he knew he was being: he urged "the unbelievers and those who disparage the glory of the saints" not to bot her to read his words lest they respond with "blasphemy and spite."91 In those parts of Francia where Christianity had been strongly rooted from the fourth century· onwards (and in some places, even earlier), a new shrine had to

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establish itself alongside preexisting ones, and the recording and publicizing of miracles was a means of achieving this. 92 But this was hardly the case on the banks of the Main. In view of this, the atmosphere of contestation within which Marcellinus and Peter flourished requires a different explanation. We find it by returning to the imperial court. In the spring of 828, just as Marcellinus and Peter were settling down at Mulinheim, Louis the Pious's empire was sliding into crisis. There were military problems along all the frontiers, exceptional weather conditions, failed harvests and cattle disease, accusations of malpractice and corruption. Aristocratic factionalism and riyal imperial ideologies were beginning to fuse with a succession crisis. In November 828, Louis and Lothar convened an assembly at Aachen to deliberate. Here Wala, Louis's senior surviving male relative (he was Charlemagne's cousin, formerly a count but now abbot of Corbie), circulated a memorandum setting out all the vices, corruptions, and sins which he considered beset the Franks. 93 After lengthy discussions, the emperors sent out missi (imperial officials), to inquire into the behavior of royal officials and clergy alike. 94 They also issued a general letter calling for regional church councils to meet the following spring. There the archbishops and their suffragans would "discover by inquiry [what should be done} about their own correctio and emendatio and that of all of us, in accordance with divine authority." The emperors went on to acknowledge that they themselves ought to be the forma salutatis, the "model of salvation," in all things and to be the ones "to correct depraved deeds by imperial authority," but that they had nevertheless sinned: for this they desired God's pardon. 95 The synods' agenda included the huge issues of the appropriate relationship of royal and ecclesiastical authority together with problems of church property and the conduct of prelates and priests. 96 Of the four regional synods summoned to formulate the route to correctio, only the text of that which met in Paris in June 829 has survived. 97 Einhard demonstrably had access to its dossier, including the emperors' general letter, when he wrote the Translation and Miracles. 98 By lifting words and phrases from it he crafted a savage, if veiled, attack on the arch-chaplain, Hilduin. 99 Hilduin, architect of the theft of parts of Marcellinus and Peter, was the "false lover of the true God" whose evil ways must be corrected, the object of Einhard's attack. The conflict between Einhard and Hilduin ran deeper than that, however. Hilduin was also central to the political tensions swirling around Louis the Pious: in 830 he would be found among the rebellion's ringleaders, which would result in his banishment from court. Einhard, by contrast, would apparently remain loyal to both the aging emperor and his rebellious sons. In this highly charged political atmosphere, both men exploited the relics

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of martyrs. As abbot of Saint-Denis and Saint-Medard, Hilduin had much experience of this, and was hirns elf a skilIed hagiographer and promoter of saints' cults. 100 In 826, he had importuned Pope Eugenius III to let hirn have the body of St. Sebastian; this was the first translation of corporeal relics from Rome in almost fifty years. 101 Einhard's determination in 827 to get relics from Rome must have been a direct riposte to this much-acdaimed coup, and in 830 he informed Louis the Pious that Marcellinus and Peter had arrived in Francia for "the raising up and protection" of the troubled empire. 102 Retrospectively writing of the accumulating signs of imminent disaster in 830, Pascasius Radbettus noted the sudden outpouring of mirades by saints "long since asleep in Christ." "Everywhere the saints brought into this realm from hither and yon", he wrote "have aroused each other in symphony of song as at cockcroW."103 But cocks crow in competition as well as unison, and both Hilduin and Einhard knew that martyrs' bones were "good to argue with." Carolingian churchmen did not tolerate living thaumaturges, and so long-dead saints became apt holy mouthpieces for political rivalries. If Hilduin thought he had acquired the trump card by obtaining Sebastian, Einhard outmaneuvered hirn. As he sat in that difficult winter assembly of 828, two envoys came from Mulinheim. The first was Ratleic, bringing a booklet which Alberic, a blind man resident at the shrine, had dictated to hirn. It contained an agenda of twelve bullet-points (capitula) which the Archangel Gabriel, disguised as St. Marcellinus, had dictated to Alberic, with the firm instruction to pass it on to the emperor, which Einhard did. 104 We know that Louis read it but ignored its contents-and a later generation believed hirn to burn in hell as a result. 105 Shortly afterwards, the second messenger arrived: he brought the account of the exorcism of Wiggo. As summarized by Einhard, Wiggo's words very dosely resembled the general letter circulated in the winter of 828 and then attached to the text of the 829 Paris reform counci1. 106 God's most potent messenger (disguised as a martyr speaking to a blind man who dictated the message to Ratleic to give to Einhard to give to Louis) and a devil (whose name looks suspiciously like a pun on the emperor's name) combined to bring to court the same message of the urgent need to deanse the empire of evil at all levels of society.107 The call for correctio emanating from the shrine at Mulinheim was unambiguous. Written at the end of 830, the Translation and Miracles was thus a renewed call for penance and correction in the aftermath of that spring's revolt against Louis the Pious. Einhard had already demonstrated his saints' curative powers and political importance; now he turned to his literary skills to further the development of their cult. He crafted it from a wide range of sources: his own recollections, Ratleic's detailed information ab out

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his trip to Rome, the many stories circulating as rumor and gossip which he had strained his ears to catch, the records of mirades kept by his staff at Mttlinhei17z, material from the crisis deliberations of 828-29, and libelli submitted by the dergy of the shrines to which relics had been distributed. These he blended with panache, exercising as much creative literary talent as in his invention of the genre of royal biography, and with comparable influence on subsequent writers. 108 As he presented it, the tale also told of his own conversion from the courtier skeptical of unusual mirades to the enthusiastic proponent of the saints' cult, from the saints' patron to their dient. Like the Lift 0/ Charlemagne, the Translation and lvIiracles combined surface panegyric and covert polemic. 109 Its survival in more manuscript copies than is usual for ninth-century accounts of relic translations strongly suggests that Einhard had copies distributed. His intended audience was, it. seems, a far larger textual community than merely the staff of his church at lvIttlinheim and the pilgrims who flocked there: it induded all proponents of correctio, whether bishops, abbots, or laity.llo The martyrs' literary farne ensured, Einhard's final move to maintain the momentum of the miraculous was to build another church at Mttlinheim, expressly designed for pilgrims to venerate the relics. The decision to build it had been taken in principle by the spring of 830,111 and his letters testify to the great effort involved in summoning the necessary political will, labor force, and material resources necessary to undertake it,u2 Its design reveals much about the long-term role which Einhard intended Marcellinus and Peter to play (figure 3). Still standing, its central feature is an extended continuous transept with an apsidal east end opening off it, and a crypt for the relics located exactly under the high altar. The grave chamber for Einhard and Imma lies immediately to the west of the relic crypt. Accessible via a semicircular passage around the interior of the apse, this layout reflected that of the most important shrine of the Latin West, St. Peter's in Rome, where an annular crypt had been inserted c. 600 to improve access for pilgrims (figure 4). Whilst NIttlinheim was not the first Carolingian church to copy St. Peter's in this respect (both Saint-Denis and Fulda preceded it), it had an even more precise referent in one of the new churches which Ratleic would have seen being completed in Rome in 827. No pope of the Carolingian period was more dosely connected to the revival of early Christian forms of church architecture in Rome than Paschal I (817-24). An energetic restorer of old churches and builder of new ones, his finest extant achievement is the church of Sta Prassede (figure 5).113 Its plan is a reduced version of St. Peter's: a nave with side aisles (albeit single not double), a continuous transept off which opens a semicircular western

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A = Ring crypt beneath apse B = Confessio behind altar C = ReHes of Saints Marcellinus and Peter D =Tomb of Einhard and Imma E =Steps down to crypt F = Steps up to choir

10 m,etres 30 feet !

2,0 60I

Fig. 3. Einhard's church at lvIttlinheilll. Adapted from A. Schubert, "La basilica dei SS. Marcellino e Pietro a Mulinheim sul Meno secondo recenti scavi," Rivista di Archeologia Cristiana 15 (1938): fig. 4.

25 m,etres

75 ~eet

5,0 1~0

Fig. 4. St. Peter's, Rome. Adapted from Roger Stalley, Earl)' lVIedieval Architectttre (Oxford, 1999), fig. 6.

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.. . .. . . . .. . . . . _:________ _

~1IIIIiIIIIiIIII1iIIIIIIIIIIIII==-:_:

Fig. 5. Sta Prassede, Rome. Adapted from Rotraut Wisskirchen, Das ivlosaikprogralllJJl von S. Prassede in Rom: Ikonographie lind Ikonologie, Jahrbuch für Antike und Christentum Ergänzungsband 17 (Münster, 1990), appendix 1.

apse, a relic confessio direcdy under the high altar accessible from a ring crypt underneath the apse (figure 6).11 4 In the crypt, Paschal interred the relics of twenty-three hundred saints whose relics he had translated from Rome's catacombs.11 5 He also decorated the church's triumphal arch and apse with mosaics harking direcdy back to the sixth-century ones in SS Cosma e Damiano: the triumphal arch depicts the entry of martyrs and saints into the heavenly Jerusalem; the apse depicts Paschal himself in the company of St. Praxedis herself being presented to Christ by Sts. Pet er and Paul. 1l6 He deviated from the plan of St. Peter's to add three side chapels, only one of which is still standing. This, the Zeno chapel, was a funerary chapel for his mother Theodora; it too is decorated

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lLlJ

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Fig. 6. Comparative plans of (from left to right) St Peter's, Sta Prassede, lHltlinheilll, drawn to same scale. Adapted from Richard Krautheimer, "The Carolingian Revival of Early Christian Architecture," in his StIldies in Earl)' Christiall, lVledieval, and Renaissance Alt (New York, 1969), fig. 14a.

with a sophisticated iconographical program in sparkling mosaic. 117 Conceivably Paschal hirns elf was buried here: whatever the case, he associated hirnself more intimately with this church than with any other. Sta Prassede rapidly established itself as a template for churches housing translated Roman relics. Within a few years of its completion, it was being emulated both to the south of Rome, at Farfa, and far to the north, at lvIttlinheim. 118 Einhard's church was not, however, a slavish copy. For astart, it was oriented to the east, whereas Sta Prassede followed St. Peter's in having the liturgical east at the geographical west end. And its nave arcades are made of round arches set upon square pillars, yet Sta Prassede has architraves resting upon columns. Unlike Sta Prassede, it lacked an atrium. Yet in other respects, the parallels between Sta Prassede and lvIttlinheim are dose and precise. Both employ brick as a major building material; both were purpose-built to house the relics of saints translated from the catacombs; both were simultaneously pilgrimage and funerary churchesY9 Sad-

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ly, all trace of Einhard's original interior decorations has vanished, and we can he only speculate whether he also echoed in fresco Pascal's distinctive mosaic ecclesiology. Einhard's new church was, then, an architecturally self-conscious statement of contemporary Romanness. It was built to accommodate the pilgrims who came to seek divine grace at the shrine of Marcellinus and Peter. It might also have been designed with an eye to close observance of Roman liturgical practices. 120 By enabling the laity to enter the transepts en route to the crypt via the stairs beside the altar, it uni ted clergy and laity in the veneration of Marcellinus and Peter. In this, it was quite unlike the church at Michelstadt, whose layout was intended to keep clergy and laity apart. Not only relics but also brick-and-stone ecclesiology had been translated from the Tiber to the Main. Marcellinus and Peter's presence transformed Mulinheim into an echo of Rome in Germany. They made it a holy city: within seven years of Einhard's death we find it referred to as Saligunstat, the holy place. The change of name took hold: it is now the town of Seligenstadt. 121 Had Einhard hirnself chosen the new name? He certainly enjoined exemplary behavior on its clerical staff: they were to be a forma salutis, a model of salvation to younger people. 122 Perhaps he despaired of the emperor ever being able to fulfill that role. Mulinheim-Seligenstadt was the model of correct Christianity in a devout, united congregation. U nlike Aachen, Seligenstadt was a place of true faith in Christ and his saints, where God's omnipotence was praised, where there was no room for evil ways. Also at Seligenstadt, an area previously devoid of saint's shrines had now acquired its own focus of devotion, to which people flocked from ne ar and far. Here the message of correctio was broadcast in many ways: through the messages which archangels and demons entrusted to blind men and peasant girls, through the miracles which made men and women whole both spiritually and physically, through the model life of the religious community. The momentum of the miraculous which had been unleashed at Michelstadt had been institutionalized, promulgated, defended, celebrated. A cult had been instituted that would endure for centuries: the feet of· generations of pilgrims abraded the steps leading down into the martyrs' crypt until it was blocked off c. 1250, and the most recent pilgrimage there was in 1993. 123 In 1911, Max Manitius commented on the Translation and Miracles that "its highly gifted author fully shared the superstitions of his age."124 Although in keeping with the attitudes of his own day, his condemnation of the miraculous activities of Marcellinus and Peter as "superstitions" could not

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have been more misconceived. Rather, their cult shows how the miraculous and tangible was in no way antithetical to ethical and educated religion. For Einhard used the Roman martyr relics he acquired to argue the case for correctio. In an age when paganism persisted only around western Europe's northern and eastern periphery, the beliefs and practices of many of Europe's Christians left much scope for improvement, at least in the verdict of those who subscribed to the ideals of correct Christianity. Throughout the Carolingian empire-at its very heart, at Aachen, even-the task was not conversion, in the sense of the baptism of pagans, but rather the upgrading of Christian observance, the elimination of inappropriate customs, and the substitution of authorized forms of devotion and morality. Einhard showed what the veneration of martyrs could contribute to this goal. More than this, Einhard's account reminds us that the definition and fostering of correct Christianity was a matter of political negotiation and was by no means consensual. Certainly, correctio was at the heart of the Carolingian royal vision of society, but early medieval religious politics did not neatly divide elite from popular, clerical from lay, or court from country. Rather, correctio provided a vocabulary, a repertoire of norms, and an array of procedures from which a wide range of individuals and institutions could appropriate whichever elements each cared to select. Those individuals included married laity as weH as bishops, peasants as weH as aristocrats, serving boys as weH as kings. Their personal religious enthusiasms and hopes varied, embracing personal commemoration, physical and spiritual health, institutional advantage, a devout audience receptive to preaching whether in word or in deed. Religious change in the Carolingian empire was multiple in motifs, preoccupations and proponents. It emerges from this analysis as a many-stranded endeavor; as competitive, at least within the elite; as something which congealed around specific nodes-here and there an aristocratic residence, a relic shrine, an imperial monastery. Underneath the rhetoric of religious uniformity, the mandate for change reinforced the plurality of Carolingian Christianities-imperial and local, lay and monastic, urban and rural, traditional and corrected. The uses to which Einhard put MarceHinus and Peter included personal devotion, conjugal commemoration, and political argument. At the core of this paper, however, is the argument that he promoted their cult as a localization of the teaching of a universalizing church. 125 In his townhouse at Aachen, the relics offered correction and salvation in the presence of a corrupt court. At Mulinheim, the exemplary became the particular in written text, built brick, and ritual cult: it thereby changed the landscape of the Maingau and the behavior of its inhabitants. Mulinheim became a new holy place-ao Seligenstadt-from wh ich evils could be denounced and where a

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holy way of life could be fostered. Here, Einhard could "warn [others} ab out how to correct [their} behavior,"126 for relic cult and emendation were inseparable.

NOTES

I am greatly indebted to the Davis Center for electing me to the fellowship which enabled me to carry out this research, and to all the participants in the Davis Center seminar whose responses to the first version of this paper did much to improve it. Donald Bullough, John Contreni, David Ganz, Mayke de Jong, and Larry Nees all subsequently provided specialist Carolingian expertise for which I am extremely grateful. I am of course responsible for any remaining mistakes. I. Einhard, Translatio et Miracttla Sanetorum Mareellini et Petri, III.14, ed. G. Waitz, MGH SS XV, pt. 1, pp. 253-4. All translations are my own; cf. the translation in Paul Edward Dutton, ed. and trans., Charlemagne's Courtier: The Complete Einhard (Peterborough, Ont., 1998), pp. 69-130. 2. Hildemar, Expositio regulae S. Benedieti, ed. R. Mittermüller (Regensburg, 1880), as quoted by David Ganz, "The Preconditions for Caroline Minuscule," Viator 18 (1987): 39. For important comments on the relationship between emendation and authority in the early Middle Ages see Martin Irvine, The Making 0/ Textual Culture: Grammatiea and Literary Theory, 350-I IOO (Cambridge, 1994), esp. pp. 74-7 8, 280-87, 298-313. 3. Prologue to Admonitio generalis, MGH Capit. I, no. 22, p. 53, 1. 41, p. 54, 11. I, 3. 4. Peter Brown, "Conversion and Christianization in Late Antiquity: The Case of Augustine," in The World 0/ Late Antiquity: The Challenge 0/ New Historiographies, ed. Richard Lim and Carole Straw (Berkeley, Calif., forthcoming); Davis Center seminar paper, p. 35. Also William Klingshirn, Caesarius 0/ Arles: The Making 0/ a Christian Commttnity in Late Antique Gaul (Cambridge, 1994), chap. 10 on the important reception of Caesarius in the Carolingian era. 5. The lack of attention to saints' cults in this context reflects the ways in which studies of religious change in the Carolingian era still confine their scope to those issues on which kings and bishops legislated insistently. Since the regulation of saints' cults was a very modest topic of legislative attention, saints and relics have remained marginal to studies of "correct Christianity." For regulation of relic cults, see Eugene A. Dooley, Chureh Law on Saered Relies (Washington, D.C., 1931); Nicole Hermann-Mascard, Les reliqttes des saints: Formation coutumiere d'un droit (Paris, 1975).

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6. Jean Chelini, Valtbe du moyen age: Naissance de la chretiente medirfvale (Paris, 1991); Valerie Flint, The Rise of Magic in Early Medieval Eltrope (Princeton, N.]., 1991). 7. Arnold Angenendt, Das Frithmittelalter: Die abendlä'ndische Christenheit von 400 bis 900 (Stuttgart, 1990), pp. 43-45; Rosamond McKitterick, "Conclusion," New Cambridge Medieval History, vol. 2: c. 700-c. 900 (Cambridge, 1995), p. 847· 8. Jacques Le Goff as cited by Marc van Uytfanghe, "La controverse biblique et patristique autour du miracle, et ses repercussions sur l'hagiographie dans l'Antiquite tardive et le haut moyen age latin," Hagiographie, cultures, societes IVe-XIIe siecles (Paris, 1981), p. 205; John Contreni, "The Carolingian Renaissance," in Renaissances Be/ore the Renaissance: Cultural Revivals of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, ed. Warren Treadgold (Stanford, Calif., 1984), pp. 59-74. 9. Cf. David Murray, "Object Lessons: Fetishism and Hierarchies of Religion and Race," in Conversion: Old Worlds and New, ed. Kenneth Mills and Anthony Grafton (Rochester, N.Y., forthcoming). 10. Arnold Angenendt, Heilige und Reliquien: Die Geschichte ihres Kultes vom frühen Christentum bis zur Gegenwart (Munich, 1994) conveniently surveys shifting responses and growing tensions in attitudes towards saints and relics from the sixteenth century onwards. I I. For recent reflections on historiographical trends and tensions by high-Iate medieval historians, see John Van Engen, "The Christian Middle Ages as an Historiographical Problem," American Historical Review 91 (1986): 5 19-52 ; Peter Biller, "Popular Religion in the Central and Later Middle Ages," in Companion to Historiography, ed. Michael Bentley (London, 1997), pp. 221-46. Early medievalists have gene rally avoided these wide-ranging controversies; the only contribution known to me is the Fragestellung of Arnold Angenendt, Geschichte der Religiosität im Mittelalter (Darmstadt, 1997), pp. I-3°· 12. For "conversion" see the papers in this volume and its companion volume, Mills and Grafton , Conversion: Old Worlds and New; on "reform" see the essay "Reform, Reformation," in Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe: Historisches Lexikon zur politisch-sozialen Sprache in Deutschland, ed. Otto Brunner, Werner Conze, and Reinhart Koselleck, 8 vols, (Stuttgart, 1972-97), 5:313-60, and bibliography there cited. The English word "Christianization" is a nineteenth-century neologism. 13. See the pointed remarks of Gerd Tellenbach, The Church in Western Europe from the Tenth to the Early Twelfth Century, tr. Timothy Reuter (Cambridge, 1993), pp. 157-62; Timothy Reuter, '''Kirchenreform' und 'Kirchenpolitik" im Zeitalter Karl Martells: Begriffe und Wirklichkeit," in Karl

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Martell in seiner Zeit, ed Jörg Jarnut, Ulrich Nonn, and Michael Richter, Beihefte der Francia 37 (Sigmaringen, 1994), pp. 35-59, esp. pp. 40-42. 14. Gerhart B. Ladner, "Gregory the Great and Gregory VII: A Comparison of Their Concepts of Renewal," Viator 4 (1973): 1-31; idem, "Terms and Ideas of Renewal," in Renaissance and Renewal in the Twe/fth Century, ed. Robert 1. Benson and Giles Constable (Oxford, 1982), pp. 1-33; Giles Constable, "Renewal and Reform in Religious Life: Concepts and Realities," ibid., pp. 37-67. I 5. These generalizations rest on two lexical anal yses. (I) The indices to MGH Capit. and MGH Conc. s.vv. correctio, corrigere, emendatio, emendare, reformare, renovare, make clear the heavy preponderance of the vocabulary of correction and emendation. U sage of re/ormare is confined to two instances referring to the monastic office and one to polluted holy places (MGH Capit. I, no. 30, p. 81,1. I; no. 141, cl. 10, p. 290; no. 179, cl. 13, p. 369). (2) Alcuin's letters (MGH Epp. IV) are full of the language of correctiol corrigere (but rarely emendatiolemendare) in his letters of advice to kings and bishops. His correspondence occasionally uses re/ormatio in a spiritual sense; in addition to spiritual regeneration, reformare mayaiso refer to the resumption of ecclesiastical order, a renewed correspondence, or the recovery of a person's physical energy; renovare applies to bridges, relationships, etc. 16. The grounding of the notion of correctio in late Roman legislative tradition is pointed out by Ladner, "Gregory the Great and Gregory VII," p. 24; and by Janet 1. Nelson, "On the Limits of the Carolingian Renaissance," in her Politics and Ritual in Early Medieval Europe (London, 1986), pp. 53-4 (first published in Studies in Church History 14 [1977): 51-67). On the connection between correction and ruling (corrigere-regere), see Hans Hubert Anton, Fürstenspiegel und Herrscherethos in der Karolingerzeit, Bonner Historische Forschungen 32 (Bonn, 1968), pp. 57-58, 95---96; Marc Reydellet, La Royaute clans la litterature latine de Sidoine Apollinaire a Isidore de Seville, Bibliotheque des Ecoles Franc;aises d'Athenes et de Rome 243 (Rome, 1981), pp. 575-58; Thomas Martin Buck, Admonitio und Praedicatio: Zur religiös-pastoralen Dimension von Kapitularien und kapitulariennahen Texten (507-8I4), Freiburger Beiträge zur Mittelalterlichen Geschichte 9 (Frankfurt, 1997)· Correctio was also the vocabulary of sixth-century canon law. It is used occasionally in Visigothic church councils, for example 7th Council of Toledo, cl. I; Council of Merida, cl. 18; and 11th Council of Toledo, cls. 78, Concilios visig6ticos e hispano-romanos, ed. Jose Vives (Barcelona, 1963), pp. 249, 338, 360-61; and more frequently in Merovingian councils together with emendatio (for example Ist Council of Orleans, cl. 5; Council of Clermont, cl. 2; 4th Council of Orleans, cls. 15-16; Council of Tours, epistola ad plebem; Council of Chalon, cls. I I, 14, 18, 19, Concilia Galliae, A. 5 I I-A.

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695, ed. Charles de Clercg, Corpus Christianorum series latina, vo1. I48A (Turnhout, 1963), pp. 6, 106, 136 , 197, 3°5-7. 17. Translatio et miracula, praef., p. 239. 18. Einhard's vocabulary of change is typical of his day. He never uses re/ormatiolreformare; his single usage of renovare comes in the context of human emotions; letter to Lupus of Ferrieres: Servati Lupi epistolae, no. 3, ed. Peter K. Marshall (Leipzig, 1984), p. 5,1. 21. Correctio/corrigere occurs in the typically legislative context of Charlemagne's intention to revise the ethnic law codes of his peoples, Vita Karoli 29, ed. O. Holder-Egger, MGH SSRG (Hanover, 1911; reprint ed., 1965), p. 33,1. 7; and of his own responsibilities towards Lothar: "[Hludowicus] meaegue parvitati praecepit, ut vestri curam gere rem, ac vos de moribus corrigendis et honestis atgue utilibus sectandis, sedulo commonerem," Einhardi epistolae I I, ed. K. Hampe, MGH Epp. V, p. 114. His usage of emendare is more wide-ranging, extending from Charlemagne's overhaul of the liturgy (Vita Karoli 26, p. 3 I 1. 14), through a penitential turn towards God (Ep. 2, p. 109) to the repair of buildings (Ep. 5, p. 111) and the correction of a written document (Translatio et miracula II.I3, p. 25 2 , 1. 46). See also Epp. 9, 44, 49, pp. 113, 13 2 , 134, and Translatio et miracula 1. 10, p. 243, 1. 43. 19. Vita Karoli, praef., ed. Holder-Egger, pp. 1-2. For the vast bibliography on Einhard and the vita Karoli, see Max Manitius, Geschichte der lateinischen Literatur des Mittelalters, vol. I (Munich, 191 I; reprint ed., 1974), pp. 639-46; J. Fleckenstein, "Einhard," in Lexicon des Mittelalters, 3: cols. 173739; Philippe Depreux, "Eginhard," Prosopographie de l'entourage de Louis le Pieux (781-84°) (Sigmaringen, 1997), pp. 177-85. There is an excellent summary of re cent thinking on the vita Karoli, and the intense controversy surrounding its date, in Dutton, Charlemagne's Courti~ pp. xviii-xxiv. 20. Walahfrid Strabo, prologue to the vita Karoli, ed. Holder-Egger, p. xxviii. 21. Annales Regni Francorum, a. 806, ed. Friedrich Kurze, MGH SSRG (Hanover: Hahn, 1895), p. 121; Ermoldus Nigellus, In Honorem Hludowici, 11.682-97, ed. Edmond Faral, Ermold le noir, Poeme sur Louis le Pieux et epitres au roi Pepin (Paris, 1964), p. 54. 22. Hrabanus Maurus, Epitaphium Einhardi, MGH PLAC II, pp. 237-38. 23. Einhard, Ep. 11, pp. 114-15. 24. Severe illness prevented hirn attending in the spring of 830 (Einhard, Epp. 13, 14, 15, pp. I 16-18); the evidence does not permit us to say when or whether he returned to Aachen. 25. Ep. 40, pp. 12 9-3°. 26. On the reign of Louis the Pious, see Egon Boshof, Ludwig der Fromme (Darmstadt, 1996) and Peter Godman and Roger Collins, eds., Charle-

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magne's Heir: New Perspectives on the Reign of Louis the Pious (Oxford, I990). 27. Franz J. Felten, Äbte und Laienenä'bte im Frankenreich (Stuttgart, I980), pp. 283-86, for details of the lay abbacies. 28. Codex Laureshamensis I9, ed. Karl Glöckner, 3 vols. (Darmstadt, I92936), I :299-300. 29. Ibid., 20, I:30I-2. 30. For a discussion of MarceHinus and Peter in the context of Einhard's domestic and personallife, see my "Einhard: The Sinner and the Saints," in Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 6th ser., I3 (forthcoming, 2003). 3 I. Martin Heinzelmann, "Einhards Translatio Marcellini et Petri: Eine hagiographische Reformschrift von 830," in Einhard: Studien zu Leben und Werk, ed, Hermann Schefers (Darmstadt, I997), p. 278. See also Marguerite Bondois, La Translation des Saints Marcellin et Pierre: Etude sur Einhard et sa vie politique de 827 a 834 (Paris, I907); J Fleckenstein, "Einhard, seine Gründung und sein Vermächtnis in Seligenstadt, " in his Ordnungen und formende Kräfte des Mittelalters (Göttingen, I989), pp. 84-I II; Dutton, Charlemagne's Courtier, pp. xxiv-xxxi. 32. Translatio et miracula I.I- I 5, pp. 239-45. 33. Cf. Josef Koch, 'Die Wirtschafts- und Rechtsverhältnisse der Abtei Seligenstadt im Mittelalter," Archiv für hessische Geschichte und Altertumskunde, n.s. 22 (I94I): I-53; Waldemar Küther, "Seligenstadt, Mainz und das Reich," Archiv für mittelrheinische Kirchengeschichte 30 (I97 8): 9-57; Ingrid Firner, Regesten zur Geschichte von Seligenstadt am Main: Kloster und Stadt vom 9. Jahrhundert bis zum Ende der Kurmainzer Herrschaft (Darmstadt, I999). 34. Franz Staab, "Heidentum und Christentum in der Germania prima zwischen Antike und Mittelalter," in Zur Kontinuität zwischen Antike und Mittelalter im Oberrhein, ed. idem (Sigmaringen, I994), pp. I I7-52, with fuH references to earlier literature. 35. Paul Fouracre, The Age of Charles Martel (Harlow, 2000), esp. pp. I02-I4, I26-34 gives the political outline; H. Schulze, "Ostfranken und Alemannien in der Politik des fränkischen Reiches," in Alemannien und Ost/ranken im frühen Mittelalter, ed. F. Quarthai, Veröffentlichungen des Alemannischen Instituts Freiburg 48 (Bühl, I984), pp. I3-38, surveys theories about the development of political organization; Robert Koch and Ursula Koch, "Die fränkische Expansion ins Main- und Neckargebiet," in Die Franken: Wegbereiter Europas, Exhibition catalogue for the exhibition held at the Reiss-Museum, Mannheim, I996-97, 2 vols. (Mainz, I996), I :270-84, reviews the archaeological evidence for Frankish influence. 36. Koch and Koch, "Die fränkische Expansion," p. 273; Matthew Innes, State and Society in the Early Middle Ages: The Middle Rhine valley, 400-IOOO (Cambridge, 2000), pp. I57-59.

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37. Matthias Werner, "Iren und Angelsachsen in Mitteldeutschland. Zur vorbonifatianischen Mission in Hessen und Thüringen," in Die Iren und Europa im früheren Mittelalte", ed. Heinz Löwe, 2 vols. (Stuttgart, 1982), 1:239~318; Karl Heinemeyer, "Die Ausbreitung des Christentums und der heilige Bonifatius," in Die Geschichte Hessens} ed. Uwe Schultz (Stuttgart, 1983), pp. 38-48 and the collected essays of Heinrich Büttner, Zur frühmittelalterlichen Reichsgeschichte an Rhein} Main und Necka", ed. Alois Gerlich (Darmstadt, 1975). 38. Illustrated in Helmut Roth and Egon Wamers, Hessen im Frühmittelalter: Archäologie und Kunst (Sigmaringen, 1984), nos. 182-83, 192-93, 200201, pp. 272-73, 279, 284-85, and see commentary pp. 31-3 2 , 47-54. 39. The inscription recording this is preserved in a transcript of 1582; for the text see MGH SSRM V, p. 7 I I n. 4. Also Büttner, Zur frühmittelalterlichen Reichsgeschichte} p. 116. 40. Liber aureus Epternacensis 8, 26, ed. Camille Wampach, Geschichte der Grundherrschaft Echternach im Frühmittelalter, 2 vols (Luxembourg, 195 I-52), 1:63-6 5. 41. WeIl emphasized by Nicole Zeddies, "Bonifatius und zwei nützliche Rebellen: Die Häretiker Aldebert und Clemens," in Ordnung und Aufruhr im Mittelalter: Historische und juristische Studien zur Rebellion} ed. Marie Theres Fögen (Frankfurt, 1995), pp. 217-63. 42. Reuter, '''Kirchenreform' und 'Kirchenpolitik,'" p. 41. 43. J. M. Wallace-Hadrill, The Frankish Church (Oxford, 1983), pp. 14361. 44. Ian Wood, The Missionary Lift: Saints and the Evangelisation of Europe} 400-I050 (Harlow, 2001). 45. Ibid., pp. 2-4 and passim, on a spectrum of paganisms and forms of Christianization. 46. All aspects of this spectrum are deal' in Hrabanus's letters, MGH Epp V, pp. 379-516. 47. Petra Kehl, Kult und Nachleben des heiligen Bonifatius im Mittelalter (754-I200) (Fulda, 1993), pp. 43-47. Lorsch's liber miraculorum has been lost: see the reference to it in the Lorsch fiber vitae (Codex Laureshamensis 1:282 n. 4) and fragmentary extracts in fifteenth-century legendaries from Lorsch; Clemens Köttelwesch, Kataloge der Stadt- und Universitä'tsbibliothek Frankfurt am Main} 6 vols in 10 parts (Frankfurt, 1974-94), vol. 3, pt. 2, pp. 9, 15 1 -5 2 . 48. Franz Staab, Untersuchungen zur Gesellschaft am Mittelrhein in der Karolingerzeit (Wiesbaden, 1975); Alfred Friese, Studien zur Herrschaftsgeschichte des frä'nkishen Adels: Der mainlä'ndisch-thüringische Raum vom 7. bis I I. Jahrhundert (Stuttgart, 1979) pp. 51-83; Matthew Innes, "People, Places and Power in

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Carolingian Society," in Topographies 0/ Power in the Early Middle Ages} ed. Mayke de Jong and Frans Theuws (Leiden, 200I), pp. 396-437; Innes, State and Society} pp. I3-50. 49. Translatio et miracula I. I I, p. 244. 50. Ibid., LI, p. 239. 5 I. Although they were criss-crossed with roads, not least to reach the quarries whose stone had built the Roman cities of the Rhine valley. Thomas Ludwig, Otto Müller, and Irmgard Widdra-Spiess, Die Einhards-Basilika in Steinbach bei Michelstadt im Odenwald} 2 vols. (Mainz, I996), I :2-4. 52. Büttner, Zur /rühmittelalterlichen Reichsgeschichte} p. I59, comments on the earliest charter for the Odenwald. For Lorsch and internal colonization, see Staab, Untersuchungen} pp. 3I4-3I; Hans-Jürgen Nitz, "The Church as Colonist: The Benedictine Abbey of Lorsch and Planned Waldhufen Colonization in the Odenwald," Journal 0/ Historical Geography 9 (I983): I0526. Chris Wickham, "European Forests in the Early Middle Ages: Landscape and Land Clearance," Settimane di Studio sultAlto Medioevo 37 (I989): 5I62 I, argues that the entire area was Carolingian /oresta. 53. In 8 I 5 Michelstadt had I4 servi plus wives and children and another 40 mancipia; in 8I9, IOO mancipia diversi sexus et aetatis (Codex Laureshamensis I9, 20, I:300, 30I). The rapid population growth may well have been the result of imported labor: cf. Einhard's Ep. 50 (MGH Epp. V, p. I34) on acquiring mancipia from other landlords to work on his own estates. 54. Wickham, "European Forests," p. 520. 55. Codex Laureshamensis I9, I:300 . 56. Codex Laureshamesnsis 20, I :30I: " ... cum omnibus appenditiis et terminis suis, et cum omnibus ad se pertinentibus, id est, basilicis, domibus, ceterisque edificiis, terris, pratis, siluis . . . . " Which churches this refers to is unclear. A further uncertainty is the reference in the Annales Fuldenses antiquissimi a. 82 I to the "dedicatio ecclesiae Michlinstat in Otonwald"; Annales Fuldenses} ed. Friedrich Kurze, MGH SSRG (Hanover, I89I), p. I38. This cannot have been the existing church, which was not yet dedicated in 827, but might be the small singlecelled church of apparently early ninth-century date which underlay the present parish church in Michelstadt, as described by Friedrich Oswald, Leo Schaefer, and Hans Rudolf Sennhauser, Vorromanische Kirchenbauten: Katalog der Denkmäler bis zum Ausgang der Ottonen} 2 vols and suppl. (Munich, I966-7I), 2:2I5-I6. 57. Dendrochronological dating of the timbers gives a date of 822-25 for the building of this basilica. Ludwig, Müller and Widdra-Spiess, Die Einhards-Basilika} pp. I4-I6. When the relics arrived at the new basilica,

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their bearers "velut ibi perpetuo permansuros deposuerunt." Translatio et miracula, 1.8, p. 243. 58. Cf. my "Old Saints, New Cults: Roman Relics in Carolingian Francia," in Early Medieval Rome and the Christian West: Essays in Honour 0/ Donald Buffough, ed. Julia M. H. Smith (leiden, 2000), pp. 317-39. 59. Translatio et miracula 1.9, p. 243. 60. Ibid., 1.10, p. 243. 61. Ibid., 1. I I, p. 244. 62. Ibid., 1.12, p. 244. 63. Ibid., 1.11, p. 244. 64. On the architectural dimension of Benedict of Aniane's monastic reforms, see Werner Jacobsen, "Benedikt von Aniane und die Architektur unter ludwig dem Frommen zwischen 814 und 830," in Ri/orma religiosa e arti neff'epoca carolingia, ed. Alfred A. Schmid (Bologna, 1983), pp. 15-22; idem, Der Klosterplan von St. Gaffen und die karolingische Architektur: Entwicklung und Wandel von Form und Bedeutung im frä'nkischen Kirchenbau zwischen 75 I und 840 (Berlin, 199 2 ), pp. 265-318. 65. Translatio et miracula LI, p. 239: "quendam locum secretum, a populari frequentia valde remotum." This is a reworking of a common hagiographie al topos. 66. Innes, "People, Places and Power," pp. 421-22. 67. The sequence of churches at Seligenstadt and their dating is unclear. There was already a small stone church there when Einhard acquired Mulinheim in 815 ("basilicam parvo muro factarn": Codex Laureshamensis 19, 1:3°0), and by 828 he had built a nova basilica a litde to the east (Translatio et miracula IlI.7, p. 250), which was substantial enough to have included a westwork (ibid., lIlA, p. 249: "contigit, ut quadam die, cum divina res ageretur, et nos in superioribus eiusdem ecclesiae locis constituti super subjectum atque in inferioribus constitutum populum intenderemus"). Neither of these is extant. They may underlie the sites of the other medieval churches in the town but archaeological orthodoxy on their location has recendy been overturned by fresh excavations. See the summary report of Markus Grossbach, '''Habet basilica parva muro factam ... ': Ein Vorbericht zu den Grabungen 1994/95 am Alten Friedhof in Seligenstadt," Denkmalpflege in Hessen I (1997): 36-38. 68. On the importance of visions throughout the Translatio et miracula, and on the late antique precedents for saints' decisions about whither to be moved, see Heinzelmann, "Einhards Translatio," pp. 280-8 I. 69. Twelfth-century lorsch tradition certainly regarded Einhard as having abandoned it even though he retained usufruct until his death. Codex Laureshamensis 141, I: 415.

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70. Translatio et miraettla, 1.12-14, pp. 244-45. 7 I. Ibid" I. 14, p. 245· 72. Ep. 10, p. 113. 73. William A. Christian Jr., Loeal Religion zn Sixteenth-Century Spain (Prineeton, N.J., 1981), p. 102. 74. Translatio et miraeula I. 15, p. 245. 75. Janet 1. Nelson, "Aaehen as a Plaee of Power," in de Jong and Theuws, Topographies 0/ Power, pp. 217-41, quoting Notker on p. 241 and with translation of a eapitulary on the diseipline of the palaee, pp. 238-39. On the oeeupations of Aaehen's inhabitants see also Translatio et miraeula IV.I-4, pp. 256-57. 76. Translatio et miraeula II. I, p. 246. 77. Ibid., II.I-2, pp. 245-6. Cf. Patriek J. Geary, Furta Saera: Relie The/ts in the Central Middle Ages, 2d ed. (Prineeton, N.J., 1990), pp. 44-49. 78. Translatio et miraeula IIA-5, p. 247. Mirades at Aaehen are also reeounted at II'7 and IV.I-7, pp. 247, 256-58. 79. Ibid., II.6, p. 247· 80. Ibid., IV.3, p. 257. 81. Ibid., IV.2, pp. 256-57: "ita eorreetus est ut qui manibus alienis subveetus in oratorium venerat, propriis pedibus de oratorio proeederet." 82. Relies were sent to Valeneiennes at the request of George, abbot of Saint-Saulve and also a eourt ehaplain. Ibid., IV.8-10, pp. 258-59. St. Baaf's, Ghent, and St. Servaas, Maastrieht, were both abbeys of whieh Einhard was lay abbot. At the latter, the relies of Mareellinus and Peter remain on display in the treasury. Einhard also responded to arequest for reHes of Mareellinus and Peter from Hetti, arehbishop of Trier; Einhard, Ep. 45, pp. 13 2-33. 83. Translatio et miraeula IV.8-14, pp. 258-62. On the sixth-eentury evidenee for notarial reeords of mi rades , see Martin Heinzelmann, "Une souree de base de la litterature hagiographique latine: Le reeueil de mirades," in Hagiographie, eultures et societes, pp. 235-59; see p. 240 on sixtheentury reeords at Tours with "le earaetere de proees-verbal." 84. Translatio et miraeula II.8-9, p. 247. 85. Ibid., III.19, p. 255. 86. As, for example, the deaf-mute girl from Bourges (eentral-southwest Franee) whose father and brother led her from shrine to shrine in seareh of a eure. Ibid., III. 5, p. 249. 87. Bat-Sheva Albert, Le peterinage a l'epoque earolingienne, Bibliotheque de la Revue d'Histoire Eedesiastique 82 (Brussels, 1999); Hedwig Röekelein, "Mirades and Horizontal Mobility in the Early Middle Ages: Some

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Methodological Reflections," in The Community, the Family and the Saint: Patterns 0/ Power in Early Medieval Europe, ed. Joyce HilI and Mary Swan (Turnhout, 1998), pp. 181-97. 88. Translatio et miracula III.3, 15, 16,20, IV16, pp. 249,254,255-56,263. 89. Explicitly so in the case of Alberic, a native of Aquitaine, who was brought to Mulinheim by grain merchants from Mainz; presumably so in the case of the pilgrim from England en route for Rome who stopped off there. Translatio et miracula IIIA, 6, pp. 249-50. Other miracules from the Rhineland area can be found in III.l, 9, 10, IV. 17, pp. 249, 25 1, 263. 90. Ibid., praef., p. 239. For the allusions to both Augustine and Gregory of Tours in this, see Heinzelmann, "Einhards Translatio," pp. 293-94 nn. 137-3 8 . 91. Translatio et miracula IV.18, p. 264. 92. As for example in western Gaul. J ulia M. H. Smith, "Aedificatio sancti loei: The Making of a Ninth-Century Holy Place," in de Jong and Theuws, Topographies 0/ Power, pp. 361-96. 93. Pascasius Radbertus, Epitaphium Arsenii, II. I, ed. Ernst Dümmler, Abhandlungen der königlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, philosophische und historische Klasse 2 (1900): 61. On the date, sourees, and purpose of this difficult text, see David Ganz, "The Epitaphium Arsenii and Opposition to Louis the Pious," in Godman and Collins, Charlemagne's Heir, pp. 537-5 0 . 94. MGH Capit. II, nos. 187-88, pp. 7-10. 95. Epistola Generalis, MGH Conc. II, no. 50b, pp. 599-601. Quotations, at pp. 599 and 600, are from the longer of the two versions of this letter, the one included in the dossier of the Council of Paris. I am grateful to Mayke de J ong for giving me access to her unpublished work on this and related texts, from which I have profited. 96. For a succinct account see Wilfried Hartmann, Die Synoden der Karolingerzeit im Frankenreich und in Italien (Paderborn, 1989), pp. 179-87. 97. MGH Conc. II, no. 50d, pp. 6°5-80. 98. As demonstrated by Bondois, La Translation, pp. 93-97, and Heinzelmann, "Einhards Translatio," pp. 289-90, 295-96. Since Wala's scedula of 828 is not extant, it is also possible that both the Paris version of the epistola generalis and Einhard depend on it as their common source. 99. Heinzelmann, "Einhards Translatio," esp. pp. 289-97. 100. On Hilduin's career and writings, see W. Wattenbach and W. Levison, Deutschlands Geschichtsquellen im Mittelalter: Vorzeit und Karolinger, vol. 3: Die Karolinger vom Tode Karls des Grossen bis zum Vertrag von Verdun, rev. ed. by Heinz Löwe (Weimar, 1957), pp. 319-21; Josef Fleckenstein, Die

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Hofkapelle der deutschen Kijnige! pt. I: Grundlegung: Die karolingische Hofkapelle! MGH Schriften 16/1 (Stuttgart, 1959), pp. 52-56; Depreux, Prosopographie! no. 157, pp. 25 0- 6. 101. Smith, "Old Saints, New Cults," p. 323 and n. 70. 102. Einhard, Ep. 10, p. 113. 103. Epitaphium Arsenii! lI.I, ed. Dümmler, pp. 61-62, in the translation of Allen Cabannis, Charlemagne!s Cousins: Contemporary Lives of Adalard and Wala (Syracuse, N.Y, 1967), p. 150. 104. Translatio et miracula 1lI.13, pp. 252-53. 105. Annales Fuldenses! a. 874, p. 82. 106. Above, p. 204. 107. The word play Wiggo-Hludowicus is pointed out by Boshof, Ludwig der Fromme! p. 174. On Einhard's place within the Carolingian literature of political dreams and visions, see Paul Edward Dutton, The Politics of Dreaming in the Carolingian Empire (Lincoln, Neb., 1994), pp. 91-100. 108. On Einhard's role in launching this new genre, see Heinzelmann, "Une source de base," pp. 244-45. 109. For the vita Karoli as polemic see, on very different grounds, Matthew Kempshall, "Some Ciceronian Models for Einhard's Life of Charlemagne," Viator 26 (1995): 11-37, and Dutton, Politics of Dreaming! pp. 55-57· 110. Heinzelmann, "Einhards Translatio," pp. 273-77, 297. I I 1. This is the implication of Ep. 10, dated by Hampe to April 830. 112. Epp. 10, 33, 36. Dendrochronological dates of 833 and 835 confirm that building work continued into the later 830s. Gunther Binding, Der früh- und hoch mittelalterliche Bauherr als usapiens architectus!" 2d ed. (Darmstadt, 1998), p. 59. I 13. For details, see Rotraut Wisskirchen, Das Mosaikprogramm von S. Prassede in Rom: Ikonographie und Ikonologie! Jahrbuch für Antike und Christentum, Ergängzungsband 17 (Münster, 1990), pp. I 1-13; for the political and cultural context of Paschal's building activities, see Thomas F. X. Noble, "Topography, Celebration and Power: The Making of a Papal Rome in the Eighth and Ninth Centuries," in de Jong and Theuws, Topographies of Power, pp. 45-91. 114. R. Krautheimer, W. Frankl, and S. Corbett, Corpus Basilicarum Christianarum Romae! 5 vols. (Vatican City, 1937-77), 3:235-62. I 15. Ursula Nilgen, "Die grosse Reliquieninschrift von Santa Prassede: Eine quellenkritische Untersuchung zur Zeno-Kapelle," Römische Quartalschrift für christliche Altertumskunde und Kirchengeschichte 69 (1974): 7-29. I 16. Discussed in detail by Wisskirchen, Mosaikprogramm.

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I I7. Marianne Wirenfeldt Asmussen, "The Chapel of St Zeno in S. Prassede in Rome: New Aspects on the Iconography," Analecta Romana Instituti Danici I5 (I988): 67-86; Gillian Mackie, "The Zeno Chapel: A Prayer for Salvation," Papers 0/ the British School at Rome 57 (I989): I72-99. I I8. Charles McClendon, The Imperial Abbey 0/ Far/a: Architectural Currents 0/ the Early Middle Ages (New Haven, Conn., I987), pp. 57-62. I I9. In his seminal discussion of "The Carolingian Revival of Early Christian Architecture," in his Studies in Early Christian, Medieval and Renaissance Art (New York, I969), pp. 203-56 (first published in Art Bulletin, 24 [I942}), Richard Krautheimer instead drew attention to the parallels between Mulinheim and another ninth-century church in Rome, S. Stefano degli Abessini. Textual evidence assigns this to the pontificate of Leo Irr (795-8I6) but recent archaeological evidence attributes it instead to Leo IV (847-55): Krautheimer et al. , Corpus Basilicarum, 4:I70-90. Whether or not Ratleic could have seen this church remains unclear; I have therefore omitted it from this discussion. I20. On architecture as liturgical imitatio, see Werner Jacobsen, "Saints' Tombs in Frankish Architecture," Speculum 72 (I997): I I42. I2I. Lupus of Ferrieres, Ep. 60, ed. Marshall, pp. 66-67; Rudolf of Fulda, Miracula Sanctorum in Fuldensis ecclesia translatorum, MGH SS XV/I, p. 329. J. Schopp, Der Name Seligenstadt (Speyer, I964), pp. I I-34. I22. Ep. 53, p. I3 6 . I23. Otto Müller, "Kurze Beschreibung der Einhardsbasilika in Seligenstadt," Archiv für hessische Geschichte und Altertumskunde, n.s. 36 (1978): 87II6. The new high altar was consecrated in I253 after remodeling of the entire east end of the church. The wo rn steps which were sealed off then are noted by Hermann Schefers, "Einhards römische Reliquien," ibid., n.s. 48 (I990): 288. I24. Geschichte der lateinischen Literatur, I :644. I25. Cf. Simon Ditchfield, "'In Search of Local Knowledge": Rewriting Early Modern Italian Religious History," Cristianesimo nella Storia I9 (I998): 255-9 6 . I26. Cf. note I.

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8 SEEING AND BELIEVING ASPECTS OF CONVERSION FROM ANTONINUS PlUS TO LOUIS THE PIOUS

NEIL

McLYNN

To the distress of their duly anointed shepherds, the Christian congregations of late antiquity remained stubbornly reluctant to be domesticated. When a preacher like Gregory Nazianzen invoked his "resplendent and unblemished flock, worthy of the fold above," he knew that in fact he faced an intractably diverse assemblage: "a beast made out of many creatures, with many forms and shapes, large and small, tarne and wild."l However frequently Christian spokesmen might invoke the solidarity of the faithful, their lyrical appeals were as misleading as the brief appearance, each Easter, of a fresh phalanx of white-robed neophytes. The people of God could be instantiated only fleetingly. Susanna Elm offers a glimpse of pastoral reality when she shows Gregory hectoring the Christians of Constantinople to receive baptism, and to do so without regard to the distinction of those either administering the sacrament or sharing the font (pp. 21-22): his plaintive tone betrays how far he, or any other church leader of late antiquity, was from being able to impose his own view of what it meant to become a Christian. In this volume, moreover, Elm's Gregory meets as diverse an assemblage as ever crowded the nave of Holy Wisdom. Here an emperor rubs shoulders with ordinary (and obstinately heterogeneous) family groups on the lookout for prime burial plots; ambitious intellectuals inhale the perfumes of actresses; peasants from the banks of the Main stand beside volatile tribesmen from eastern Anatolia. The commentator, therefore, can no more hope to impose uniformity on his texts than could the bishop on his congregation; here, as in the cathedral, any uniformity that might be discovered will be the fruit more of wishful rhetorical artifice than of direct engagement. What emerges above all from these papers is instead a sense of the limits of any prescriptive Christianity. 224

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In the seven hundred years between Justin's teaching career and the composition of The Translation 0/ Peter and Marcellinus J the framework within which Christians expressed their commitment to the faith changed dramatically. Where Rebecca Lyman shows Justin's Rome crackling with the multiple interactions of charged particles, for Julia Smith's equally competitive Einhard Christian authority congeals around specific nodes. But despite all the changes to the rules, the game remains recognizably the same. Converts (or those effecting conversions) retain their room for maneuver: there is no monolithic "church" (still less a monolithic Christian state) able to dictate to its new members the exact terms of their faith. Conversion continued to me an different things to different converts, just as it does to our contributors, who have sought their indices of Christianization everywhere from imperial statutes to imperial statues, from theories of baptism to burial practices, from ancient ethnographie vocabulary to modern postcolonial discourse. When A. D. Nock published his classic study of conversi on in 1933, he could treat "Christianity" as a given: here it sits squarely at the center of the problem. A question central to this volume thus concerns religious authority, the degree to which conversions could be controlled. Elm's Gregory is merely the most obvious case of a Christian leader proclaiming normative statements without any realistic means of enforcing them. When Eric Rebillard discusses Cyprian's outraged denunciation of the party-going habits of a Spanish churchman, or Richard Lim the legislation designed to restriet the baptism of stage performers, they raise similar questions; even Michael Maas's Justinian, in legislating for Armenia, is merely "imposing the imperial fantasy of bringing civilization and God's order" (p. 170). The buccaneering free market in which Smith's Einhard acquires and disposes of his relics shows how far either papal Rome or the court of Aachen were from being controlled environments. Time and again in these essays, the solid structures of Christian church and Christian state dissolve beneath detailed scrutiny. We have here seven different experiments conceived along seven rather different lines, conducted at various points along the grand narrative (which, although routinely disavowed by modern scholars, has still not been definitively displaced in the scholarly, let alone the popular imagination) of the "Rise of Christianity." Each time, a piece of familiar territory is rendered somehow strange, and possible new trajectories begin to emerge. For if the only constant among our converts is their incorrigible diversity, the principal similarity between the conversions on offer he re is that they are analyzed not as mental events-the decisive inner reorientations at the he art of Nock's classic treatment-but as social processes. Whether it involves Justin measuring hirnself against the other intellectuals, Christian

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and otherwise, of Rome, or Einhard's discreet hardball at the Carolingian ' court, Christian commitment is something to be negotiated. And two aspects of these negotiations in particular seem to merit fuller investigation. First, the alertness of the contributors to the nuances of the texts in which conversions are either described (whether in Jacob's account of Pelagia, or Procopius's of the Tzani) or solicited (directly in Gregory's sermons, indirectly in Einhard's treatise) invite further questions about the respective authorial strategies and audience responses; we might also pursue the questi on of how these "conversion texts" might have changed their meaning once in circulation, as they were detached from their original contexts. The second key point is the extent to which the encounters under discussion were publicly observable. In these papers our attention is constantly drawn to the impact of such things as graveside commemorations or the clattering pomp of an actress's retinue, to the commissioning of sculpture or the framing of legislation; even the mystery of baptism is made physical. And this focus upon the concrete, I believe, helps make newly intelligible the bridges that our converts were able to create, for themselves and for others, from the secular to the spiritual. . Late antique society, rather than any ecclesiastical institution, structures the conversion processes discussed here. Our texts are the property not of the church but of readers who bring diverse concerns to bear on them, and our converts remain under the scrutiny of their peers: graveside mourners conduct their observances under the gaze of different communities, while retired actresses effectively remain on stage, obliged to act out their commitment to Christianity. My own contribution, in what follows, will be to carry this scrutiny one stage further, by exploring in more detail both the relevant "texts" (which include inscribed tombstones, statues, and church buildings), and the social-and political-tensions that were operative in the background. To establish a sense of perspective I have arranged our diverse contributors (much as Gregory sought to do with his baptismal candidates) into unmatched pairs, and in each case shall play one against the other. The aim is not to conjure an implausible synthesis, but to identify common themes; to bring into the open ideas and arguments that have been left implicit; and to sketch some further lines of inquiry.

THE DEVIL'S POMP: FUNERALS AND GAMES

Richard Lim and Eric Rebillard both remind us that we are still very much in the ancient city. The Christian congregation in the cathedral was but one of several overlapping assemblages: many of the same individuals would

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come together again, seated differendy and with an admixture of different company, at the circus and theater; they would reconvene, ordered differently yet again, in death (and at the commemoration of one another's deaths) in the cemetery. Both these papers illustrate starkly the limited reach of the ancient church, and bring horne just how much of the life of the late antique city remained beyond its grasp-and for how long. Entertainment and death, perhaps, were simply too important to be entrusted to the church: so the former remained the preserve of the state, the latter of the family. And this must affect our understanding of what it meant to become a Christian: the convert's experience was still, even in the fourth and fifth centuries, defined as much by the lack of resources of the organization he was joining as by the facilities it provided. Pompa scaenica and pompa /unebris both provided especially visible challenges for a religion which made universal claims but could not replace the structures of everyday life-or everyday death. And what emerges with particular clarity from Rebillard's and Lim's accounts is the mixture of bluster and patient tact with which Christian leaders responded to the challenge. The cemetery, like the household, remained beyond institutional control; and Rebillard's survey invites us to contemplate the succession of individual deals between families and /ossores through which the burial grounds were filled. In doing so we can make sense of the jumbled iconography of, for example, the Via Latina catacomb: here is a scene of vigorous private enterprise, where market forces triumph over ideology.2 But perhaps we should go further, building upon Rebillard's paper to scrutinize more closely the daunting impression of posthumous solidarity that the Christian catacombs of Rome still present. We might usefully ask how much weight should be put upon the blander formulae of Christian epigraphy or the conventions of "Christian" art: there is litde to suggest that the conditions for admission to a Christian loculus were as stringent as were those to the Christian font. Rebillard's emphasis on the family (or /amilia) deserves particular attention here. For whatever the intentions of an individual, any initial clarity ab out his funerary dispositions could quickly bl ur as the survivors asserted their interests. The dead hand of a M. Antonius Restitutus, for example, could only extend so far: the inscription discussed by Rebillard (p. 72) may well have created the same problems of interpretation for immediate posterity as it has for modern scholars, but with more practical issues at stake, as dependents seeking burial at the site pressed for a more restrictive or a looser reading of the Latin. Rebillard's examples introduce the crucial distinction between the act of burial and the subsequent use of the same burial site: the inscription of Severianus at Cherchel thus seems to show the local church putting its stamp upon what had originally

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been a private venture (p. 72). We are confronted here with the fluctuations of the funerary market. Rebillard's previous work has brought horne the unsystematic and uneven process by which the rituals of death were brought within the scope of Christian pastoral care;3 his present paper invites us to take the measure of those parts of the Christian cemetery where these competing clerical voices did not reach. The prospects for such an investigation might best be illustrated by adding a further case study to Rebillard's list, from the catacombs of Rome. A convenient subject for such an analysis is the Via Labicana cemetery three miles southeast of the city: a complex site, but one to which modern archaeological techniques have been applied by ] ean Guyon in his exemplary survey.4 But where Guyon continues to frame his historical analysis within Christianizing assumptions, we might seek less rigid categorization. Rather than looking for a specific "community" within the Roman church that the cemetery might have served, for example, we might think more gene rally of a service being provided to interested parties within a catchment area. 5 Rebillard's interpretation of the case of Bishop Martialis, in terms of the returns available from a long-term investment in a funerary collegium (p. 70), invites us to consider the converse attractions, for families thinking ahead, of the facilities provided by Christians. No more commitment need be implied in such a preference than in Martialis's choice on behalf of his son. At Via Labicana, the persistence of informal arrangements is apparent in the tradition concerning the interment of the martyrs Peter and Marcellinus, two clergymen who secured their berths through the good offices of a pious sponsor, Lucilla. 6 The more that "Christian" burials depended upon such private initiatives, the more the facilities will have appealed to pious non -Chris tians. Such a perspective will allow reconsideration of the two successive fourthcentury "conversions" of the city of Rome, by a Christian emperor and by the Roman popes, as these are reflected at the Via Labicana cemetery. So on after the Christian God had granted hirn his victory over Maxentius, Constantine authorized the construction of a huge basilica on an adjacent plot, the graveyard for his defeated rival's troop of bodyguards. 7 This basilica (like Constantine's other grand extramural projects) is in fact a vast enclosed burial site, offering simple but presumably prestigious grave plots, and attractive facilities for family members who would come to tend these. 8 Rather than serving the existing catacomb complex, however, this lavish structure would completely redefine it. There was no attempt to incorporate Peter and Marcellinus's remains into the basilica, and graves within the building were more obviously aligned with the great imperial mausoleum attached to the east end, which would house the empress Helena. But the

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magnificent pomp with which Helena's remains were installed would last but a single day; and the lavish provision of liturgical vessels for the basilica implies occasional spectacle rather than a constant routine. 9 The function of this basilica (and the others which Constantine built around Rome) would be determined, during the fourth century, neither by the emperor's intentions nor by the rituals conducted at the site by Roman clergymen, but by the aggregate of the funeral arrangements, and the arrangements for posthumous commemoration, made for the hundreds of individuals interred there. No doubt most (and perhaps all) users of the basilica would have called themselves Christians, but they remained free to choose the most appropriate means of relating their religious faith to their family piety. Inside the basilica a familiar collective conversion narrative thus breaks down into a multiplicity of elusive microhistories; only when the basilica was no longer a focus for family business (and as children gave way to grandchildren, the ties of graveside duty would doubtless weaken) could officiating clergy claim it definitively for the church of Rome. Beneath Constantine's basilica, meanwhile, the catacombs remained in use;lO one can only wonder about the effect of the new building upon the price of underground loculi. But Rebillard's paper also suggests the basis for areinterpretation of the key fourth-century development in this part of the site, the creation of a martyr sanctuary at the tombs of Peter and Marcellinus. Recent excavation allows a detailed reconstruction of the successive enlargements of the cubiculttm where the martyrs were housed: it might nevertheless be premature to describe the effect as a straightforward conversion from a private space to a public place, or to explain the change by reference to the pressure from increased pilgrim trafficY Other users of the facilities, he re as at other catacombs, will instead have seen a (probably gradual) extension of the martyrs' families. Prominent among their adoptive children were groups of students from abroad, pious young men separated from their own kin and therefore free to create their own imaginative lineages; they made the places their own, reveling in the (to them) sinister anonymity of the dark tunnels. 12 The remodeling of the catacomb, so that by the mid-fourth century all major routes led to the martyrs, leaves little room for doubt that such attentions were encouraged. Nevertheless, even if those tending family graves also began to include the martyrs in their commemorative visits, they remained free to use them as they wished-and to subordinate them to their own business. 13 Nor would the si te and its function be changed fundamentally by the most celebrated impresario of the martyr cult in fourth-century Rome, Pope Damasus. 14 The sheer scope of Damasus's interventions-he left his imprint upon eighteen separate extramural sites, and contributed four memorial

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tablets to the Via Labicana catacomb alone 15 -has seemed to imply a grand, coherent vision: Damasus has thus been given credit for an intention "to physically uni te the sites beyond the walls into an almost unirary Christian hinterland of Rome."16 But it is misleading simply to plot the pope's initiatives upon a blank map; to appreciate their impact at ground level, we need to think in terms of individual sites, and take into account their other users. At Via Labicana, as elsewhere, Damasus's main contribution was decorative. He faced the crypt with marble, crowning it (as was his trademark) wirh a beautifully carved verse inscription, which both advertised the martyrs and explained his own personal connection with themY Once again, we must draw a distinction between an initial impact and subsequent use. The ceremony when this renovated chamber was opened, presumably in the papal presence, would have had much of the solemniry of an inventio} a formal discovery of martyrs' relics. But there is no reason to suppose that the whole cemetery was immediately and irrevocably reoriented around the martyrs. Our prevailing view of the cult of the martyrs is unabashedly impressionistic: but only on a few days each year did the Christian city "move from its address," and then only to a few especially favored shrines. 18 Nor were Peter and Marcellinus of this select company. While their anniversaries will doubtless have received increased emphasis and more formal commemoration through the mensa that Damasus had (probably) installed adjacent to the two graves, this only brought them into line with the better-appointed chambers elsewhere in the cemetery, where such tables were a long-established part of the furniture. 19 Once the papal cavalcade had moved on, that is, familiar routines would reassert themselves. Damasus could no more impose his martyrs than could Constantine his mother: the pace for the eventual transformation of the complex was set not by popes or emperors, but by the fossores. If martyr cults are to be measured by the density of burials ad sanctos} Peter and Marcellinus must be counted as late developers. Although few of the two dozen burials crammed into the chamber are dated, all these (which cannot by their placement have been the latest) are dated to the fifth century; it was then, too, that burial elsewhere in the catacomb seems to have ceased. 20 Such considerations suggest that we might modify Peter Brown's famous characterization of the rise of the cult of the martyrs in the West as an exuberant response to a crisis of ecclesiastical surplus which compelled the Western bishops "to invent new ways of spending money."21 Instead, we might see the bishops juggling scarce resources to maintain apresence, treading gingerly through territories that they knew they could neither afford to disown nor hope fully to control. In doing so we might also reconsider such famous episodes as the fourth-century incident at Milan,

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when a porter in the service of the church prevented an African widow from following her usual custom of taking grave offerings to the local martyrsY This is conventionally interpreted as the routine application of a powerful bishop's decree. But out-of-towners would be particularly susceptible to episcopal direction-especially in cases like this, where the bishop offered them a place instead in his own, approved services. Local matrons will have taken much less readily to any interruption of their accustomed rounds of the cemeteries, which combined observances at family graves with attentions to others among the deserving departed. So although Ambrose's attentions towards Monica would surprise her son, the bi shop had asound appreciation of her value. Certainly, those with no personal stake in Milan's sacred history would be most likely to accept Ambtose's sanitized version of it. We should in any case envisage the episcopal takeover of the cemeteries, at both Rome and Milan-and at places like Cherchel as well-as an incremental process. The churches established their ascendancy as the collegia had once established theirs, by combining a perceived ability to provide an appropriate send-off for. the departed and a proven record of posthumous aftercare. Demography was on the bishops' side. The tombs they identified as authentically sanctified inevitably became more conspicuous, as fewer family members were left to tend the adjacent ones. The Lift 0/ Pelagial as discussed by Richard Lim, shows the eventual impact upon the suburbs of episcopal initiatives to celebrate the saints. For this story begins in a cemetery: the bishop of Antioch had lodged Nonnus and his colleagues in a tomb complex, three miles from the city, which had become a monumental mansio with accommodation suitable not only for eight bishops and their retinues but also (as a later source shows) for imperial ambassadors. 23 The gates provided a grandstand view of passersby: a group of bishops could hardly have hoped otherwise for a legitimate opportunity to inspect an actress and her entourage in all their pomp. The Lift 0/ Pelagia is a text best read as a wish-fulfillment fantasy. Having found material for an impromptu sermon (and a bout of paradoxical selfcriticism) even in a passing show of sinful beauty, abishop then preaches in a more formal setting and inspires a spontaneous and spectacular conversion. But the story allows us to sense the constraints of fantasy. While Lim's interest is in Pelagia as an actress, the text is insistent upon reducing her to a prostit,ute. Even when the good citizens of Antioch (in the Syriac version of the tale) fall to gossiping about the groaning sinner they think of her misdeeds in the boudoir, not upon the stage. 24 In other words, this is not presented as a "civic" episode at all. Nonnus does not rob the city of its legitimate pleasures, but merely frees its debauchees from temptation. And

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even so, initiative is taken by an outsider, not the local bishop-such was the instinctive resistance, perhaps, to episcopal interference in the entertainment industry. Moreover, Nonnus's initial homily is purely for the edification of his fellow dergymen; and even in the cathedral, there is no direct appeal to the actress to abandon her profession. Nor again is Pelagia's' baptism integrated into the liturgical rhythms of the cathedral: nothing suggests that it occurred in parallel with the customary Easter initiations, and unlike other famous converts like Augustine at Milan or Marius Victorinus at Rome she is never presented to the local community. And after the customary seven days in her baptismal robes, she disappears from view entirely. While the reader sees her in three different costumes in the story, the people of Antioch witnessed only her sinful splendor. The only aspect of Pelagia's story that relates to the workaday world of theatrical conversions so expertly analyzed by Lim is the recruitment of a deaconess to stand surety for her: 25 but here again, this sponsorship is explained as a requirement not of imperial legislation but of canon law. The church instinctively saved face; the dergy were so accustomed to living by the state's rules that they could pretend that they had made them themselves. lohn Chrysostom, in his sermon Against the Games and Theater (p. 102), likewise knew better than to stake his prestige on a prohibition that he could not enforce. Instead, he quietly shifts tack during the speech. Having addressed himself initially to a particular offender- "When you sit high up [in the theater] where there is so much inducement to unseemliness, and see a whore make her entrance bareheaded, with much shamelessness, dressed in golden garments . . . do you dare to say that you feel no human response?"-by the dose (in the passage quoted by Lim) he has moved from the miscreants to their enablers. When banning theatergoers from the sacraments he leaves the enforcement of the ban to their hapless neighbors, who are to pass censure and snub them socially until they me nd their ways. lohn thus applied moral pressure upon a congregation already committed to his cause, visibly "groaning and cast down" by his severity. He made all his own supporters accomplices after the fact in the crimes of the wicked. Ir was thus the former who wilted beneath his famously searching gaze. 26 The technique worked brilliantly as long as the villains themselves remained safely out of reach: while lohn could not remove the Christians from the Antiochene theater, he could bring the theater compellingly into his church. Only rarely would real-life bishops come into direct contact with the real-life stage. The legislation on the rights and duties of "converted" actresses (pp. 88-90) indicates that the dergy were occasionally called upon to give testimonials, implicating themselves in difficult and delicate decisions. Cod. Theod 15.7. I (addressed to a prefect of Rome during the episco-

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pate of Damasus) provides for a complex procedure whereby episcopal approval is the first step, to be followed by an inspection by the state; the bishop must also have been involved in carrying out the inspections provided for in the subsequent laws which link the authenticity of conversion to satisfactory conduct: the actress must prove herself "respectable" (15.7.2), maintain her "better way of living" (15.7 -4), and avoid being caught "betraying the religion which she had sought" (15.7.8). A striking feature of these laws is the imprecision of their terms: as Lim notes, not even baptism put an actress safely beyond reach of her past, and the combined authority of governor and bishop would suffice to seal her fate. Pelagia was perhaps well advised to remain out of sight during her conversion. That collusion between bishops and magistrates might readily be suspected is clear from the provision, in cases of wrongful conscription to the stage, that bishops as well as magistrates should be liable for fines (p. 90). One can perhaps sympathize, however, with abishop who was faced with such a convert. He earned great renown by conquering such conspicuous sin, but in claiming his victory he was saddling hirnself with an anxious responsibility for a vessel whose frailty was a given. Like Nonnus's Pelagia, the ideal case would therefore be where the momentary glory of conversion was followed by convenient disappearance. Chrysostom's treatment, in his sermons on Matthew, of Pelagia's (probable) real-life exemplar, further illustrates the point. 27 He says much ab out her sin and little about her later sanctity. He also recalls that in this case the state did make an attempt to prevent her retirement; she was defended from the governor and his soldiers not by the bishop and people, but "the virgins who had received her." Only after the secular authorities had acknowledged defeat did she receive baptism, her cue for disappearance into ascetic obscurity. Another law mentioned by Lim brings horne another important point: the state was also seriously underresourced. A prefect of Rome was charged with preventing the abduction of actresses for performance "either in hornes or in other cities."28 For this magistrate was responsible for maintaining the city's dauntingly complex entertainment industry: the scale of his task is indicated by the intervention of another urban prefect, only three years after this law, to protect "even the attendants of female mimes, as well as three thousand dancers and their choreographers," from deportation during a famine. 29 The most obvious culprits for the kidnappings, moreover, are the prefect's fellow senators, who were locked into a cycle of permanent competition that encouraged them to advertise their exclusive claims upon celebrities. In the same way that they would scour the empire for racehorses and barbarian combatants for their sons' games, they would be on the lookout for glamorous women; and it would serve them well even in "off" years,

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when not sponsoring shows themselves, to demonstrate their ability to match the clout of the current magistrates by offering performances to their clients in other Italian cities, or to their guests in their own homes-which were of course not "private" in any easily recognizable sense. This competition would prompt scenes that disgusted the sober historian Ammianus Marcellinus, as senators fawned eagerly upon newly arrived courtesanseven the most leathery old bawds; given the ready identification between the two professions, this should be explained in terms of their competition to secure the favor of new theatrical talent. 30 Senators' associations with actresses might thus recall their dealings with charioteers, which Ammianus also took to symbolize the moral failure of the aristocracy. However, senators in more modern republics have also found themselves debased by the company that the demands of permanent campaigning compel them to keep. Lim's case studies might therefore help to illustrate what might be described as the "seamy side" of that much-discussed phenomenon, the Conversion of the Roman Aristocracy.31 For although the motives that led actresses-and charioteers, for that matter 32-to seek refuge in the Christian church were in many cases different from the motives bringing senators to Christianity, conversions at one level will surely have conditioned those at others; and in this complex social relations hip , religious change was not necessarily driven entirely from the top. And in any case, a church looking to accommodate aristocratic adherents had also to accommodate their clients. This created ample scope for innuendo, ranging from Gregory Nazianzen's satirical swipe at a well-born bishop who "only yesterday" had been "in the midst of mimes and theaters," to Palladius's blistering portrait of Porphyry of Antioch, the boon companion of magicians, charioteers, and mime artists. 33 Some of the most lurid associations on re cord cluster around the great impresario of the Christian saints, Pope Damasus. Friends and enemies alike show hirn at horne among the aristocracy, the master of easy banter with pagan grandees, and the plausible "ear-tickler of the matrons";34 but he also appears in less savory company. Where Ammianus saw merely an eruption of inherent Christian savagery in the bloody episodes that attended the pope's installation in 366, the supporters of his defeated riyal Ursinus-in a pamphlet more valuable for its skillfully organized polemic than as a source of objective information-identified a more sinister coalition. 35 They report three separate attacks launched by Damasus during the election campaign and in its immediate aftermath, each time in slightly different company. First he stirs up "all the charioteers" and the multitude, and enjoys a three-day rampage in the Basilica of Julius; a week later with "all the oath-

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breakers and the gladiators," whom he corrupted "for a huge price," he seizes the Lateran (clubs again being the weapon of choice); finally, with his desperado clique he invites the gladiators, charioteers, and /ossores-and all the clergy-to launch an assault "with axes, swords and clubs" on the Basilica of Liberius. 36 Here, as in the Life 0/ Pelagial we see the workings of the Christian imagination. This is a "Black Damasus": an all-powerful antipope (who as the grammatical subject is put squarely at the scene of each successive crime) using his enormous wealth to mobilize gravediggers and entertainers to enforce the "conversion" of an innocent but ignorant city; the narrative meanwhile celebrates the obstinate deafness to his message (even when this was driven horne by the combined musculature of the funerary and entertainment industries) of the genuine Christian people. The text ends with a further massacre, in a suburban cemetery: the U rsinians had gathered, wi thout any presiding clergy, at the tomb of Saint Agnes (in a complex that had been equipped, like that at Via Labicana, with a vast basilica and an imperial mausoleum) when the pope again unleashed his hoodlums. 37 Damasus would eventually honor Agnes, like Peter and Marcellinus, with a beautifully carved versified plaque. 38 But the impression this gives of serene papal preeminence at the site is almost certainly mistaken. There is no reason to suppose that the Ursinians ceased their assemblies there; instead, their prayers would merge with those of the countless small groups conducting their own pious observances at family graves. We need to take seriously the quiet hum of such devotions: few bishops in late antiquity had the means to amplify their voices sufficiently to be sure of being heard above it.

]USTIN MARTYR AND GREGORY NAZIANZEN: Two PHILOSOPHICAL EVANGELISTS AND THEIR CONSTITUENCIES

Our second pair, Rebecca Lyman's Justin and Susanna Elm's Gregory, both left accounts of their own "conversion" experiences; and both again suggest the limited reach of the formal ecclesiastical structures of the Christian church. Justin's celebrated description of his seaside encounter with a mysterious sage concludes with a newfound "passion for the prophets and for the friends of Christ," not with the baptismal font;39 similarly, baptism is the most conspicuous lacuna in Gregory's otherwise comprehensive recording of his Christian career in his verse autobiography, De Vita Sua. 40 In neither case, perhaps, is the omission accidental. For both these men were intellectuals, their conception of their Christian identity individual rather

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than institutional. And although much had changed in the two centuries between them, the approach that Lyman employs to analyze Justin can usefully be applied to Gregory also. The latter's younger contemporary Augustine has provided a model of conversion that is, perhaps, doubly misleading: so captivating are the idiosyncrasies of the Confessions that we easily forget that this is the work of abishop. The direct path that Augustine follows, from acceptance of Christianity to the baptismal font and the embrace of the Catholic church, reflects the author's own perspective at the time of writing; a quite different trajectory is suggested by the works that the newly converted rhetorician had produced the autumn before his baptism, at Cassiciacum. 41 Gregory, on the other hand, constructed his own autobiography partly to argue that he was not abishop (not the bishop of Nazianzus, at any rate), and partly also to suggest that most of the current episcopate were impostors. In his account of his decisive commitment to a Christian life he is therefore much doser to the Augustine of Cassiciacum than to the Augustine of the Confessions. At the critical moment he summons a council of friends, to weigh up in their company the respective benefits of practical e9gagement and contemplative withdrawa1. 42 This is a frankly homemade Christianity, a recipe devised publidy and specifically designed to maintain a safe distance from the church. Gregory attributes the initial modification, and ultimate frustration, of this plan to the constraints of filial obligations43-it was not only in funerary arrangements that family ties counted. Gregory's autobiography also reinforces another point raised earlier. The arresting image with which he doses, of the false bishops strutting vaingloriously to celebrate their victory over hirn, is typical of the rhetoric that has encouraged modern scholars, as Elm remarks, to write hirn off as an ineffectual victim. But it was dearly in Gregory's interest to play up the strength and cohesion of his enemies: like Damasus for the Ursinians, the bishops made a convenient collection of monsters. Our heavily episcopocentric view of late antique Christianity has been shaped by an accidental conspiracy between the bishops' own propaganda and their demonization by their enemies. But Justin and Gregory are important less as converts than for the convers ions that they themselves effected. Once again, comparison reveals some unexpected similarities between their working conditions. Lyman's presentation of Justin as a combative colonial intellectual applies also to Gregory, who was also (for two crucial years) an immigrant freelancer in the fiercely competitive environment of an imperial capita1. 44 Even doser to Justin's model, down to his philosopher's robes, was Gregory's sometime ally Maximus of Alexandria, the Christian Cynic: and Maximus's alleged treachery (in putting hirnself forward for promotion at Gregory's expense) in turn

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recalls the blame for Justin's arrest heaped by posterity upon Crescens the Cynic philosopher. 45 Much ab out the Maximus episode becomes clear if we follow Lyman's lead and treat Gregory during his career at Constantinople as a "cultural work in progress"; although there was now a cathedral and a state apparatus to lend shape and substance to ideas of orthodoxy, we underestimate both Gregory and the cultural complexity of his environment if we reduce hirn to these points of reference. For he successfully created his own world. Much like Justin in his bathhouse lodgings, Gregory operated in a private house, and relied on his own charisma to endow the site with religiosity; he too was held accountable before the city authorities for his behavior there. 46 Nor was this just an interlude. As we shall see, Gregory seems to have maintained the same tone even after he was installed in the cathedral. In gauging the impact of Justin and Gregory-and both Lyman and Elm raise the question of their "success" or "failure" (pp. 5, 4I)-we must distinguish between the direct impact of the men and the more diffuse influence of their books. Justin's teaching is especially difficult to assess. Anyone who wished, he professed, could come to his horne and hear hirn speak the "words of truth"; but the Acts of his martyrdom do not see m to reveal a body of disciples. Only one of the six co-defendants, one Euelpistus, speaks of his relations hip with Justin: and Euelpistus says that he gladly listened to Justin's words, but had received his Christianity from his parents in CappadociaY Justin's most famous (alleged) pupil, Tatian, in fact claims to have been converted solely by books. 48 The sole direct evidence for Tatian's relationship with Justin, moreover, is a single passage of the Oration to the GreeksJ where he recalls how the false philosopher Crescens betrayed his fear of death by scheming to entrap "Justin just as he did me."49 Although scholars have treated this merely as happy confirrnation of Justin's own enigmatic reference to Crescens, Tatian inserts the passage only a few lines after he has appealed to Justin's authority (his only other reference to hirn): in doing this, Tatian-who like Justin was an ambitious freelance writer, launehing a book into a narrow circle-was arguably using information familiar to readers of the Apology in order to claim an association with its sainted author. Justin, that is, was already defined by his texts. And when Irenaeus subsequently distinguishes an "orthodox" Tatian, writing under Justin's tutelage, from the swollen-headed heretic who emerged after his teacher's death, he is applying much the same schematism that Lyman sees in modern scholarship.50 Eusebius, in turn, would read Justin through Irenaeus. 51 And despite his claim that these citations from Irenaeus should send readers back to Justin's original text, Eusebius's presentation shows that the process Lyman identifies in second-century Christian writing was still operational in the föurth: each successive hybrid is absorbed, to help produce another.

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While Gregory, at least during the six .r;>0nths when he had the cathedral of Constantinople at his disposal, had a more direct impact upon a much larger audience than Justin could ever have imagined, his abiding influence again depended upon the circulation of his texts in circumstances remote from their original contexts. There is, moreover, very litde evidence about his success in changing minds among his own immediate listeners. Our sole witness to his preaching (who is quoting hirn, as Tatian did Justin, to establish his own pedigree) claims that Gregory could effordessly evoke unthinking applause;52 the more profound impact of which Elm speaks, upon the framework of theological thought, seems to begin only in the fifth century, and is to be connected with Gregory's absorption into a "classical" patristic canon. Like Justin, Gregory would be transformed by the context within which he was read. A good example is the treatment of his oration On Epiphany by the sixth-century commentator "Pseudo-Nonnus," where the attention to the mythological allusions in the text makes this hardly recognizable as the same work that Elm discusses. 53 And while we can assurne that most readers were more interested in Gregory's theological co re than in the mythological asides, we must not forget the connection between his remarkable prominence in Byzantine libraries and his posthumous penetration of the schoolbook market. Like Justin, again, Gregory became the pillar of an orthodox mentality that he would scarcely have recognized, and with which he may well have had scant sympathy. True Christian belief, for both Justin and Gregory, involved dramatic confrontation with false belief: for both, Christianity is defined by reference to heresy rather than to paganism. Their respective rhetorics of engagement suggest the room that was available, at the conceptuallevel, for conversion. In his Apology! J ustin's response to the calumnies against Christianity fomented by evil demons is at first dispassionate: there is a routine, formulaic tone to the contrast he draws between Christian and pagan cult practices, and the character of their respective deities. 54 Only when he discusses the Romans' readiness to believe in the divinity of Simon Magus, a Samaritan "from a village called Gitta," does he begin to argue his point, famously adducing epigraphic evidence from "the statue on the Tiber between the two bridges" to make his case. 55 Whether Justin had imagined or discovered this "Roman" cult of Simon, his sudden insistence he re graphically delineates his imaginative horizons. From the Tiber bridge the famous temple of Asclepius was visible direcdy before hirn, and the great temple of Jupiter on the Capitol towered above: but Justin preferred to pick his fight with a worn inscription, which he needed to explain before he could denounce it. The passage thus shows one colonial teacher setting out to expose, for the benefit of a metropolitan audience, the false claims of another.

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Something similar could be said about Gregory's Constantinople. Until he was installed in his cathedral, he appears to have given its congregation-the established representatives of the Christian church-litde thought. Only a few of the enemies on Elm's formidable list (p. 2 r) seem actually to have engaged his attention. Uppermost in his thoughts were undoubtedly the Eunomians, the targets of his celebrated "Theological Orations"-and themselves the followers of another inspirational Cappadocian theologian operating in the capital on a freelance basis. 56 The Pneumatomachoi, too, will have reminded Gregory vividly of home. 57 When coming to the capital-whether second-century Rome or fourth-century Constantinople-the provincial would thus bring his province with hirn. To Gregory, groups like the Eunomians were more important as enemies than as potential converts. The brilliant speeches with which he refuted their positions were not in fact calculated to impress them, or anyone else who began from their premises. 58 Once again comparison with Justin is helpful. For next on the apologist's list at Rome, after Simon and his Samaritan disciple Menander of Capparetia, was a certain "Marcion of Pontus, who is still alive, teaching those who believe hirn to believe in a god greater than the demiurge."59 Justin "knows" that Marcionites are not persecuted or executed (at least for their beliefs); noting that he has written a book "Against All the Heresies," he announces that copies are available to the interested reader. The implied situation merits reflection. Rival groupings seem to maintain a watchful relationship; but one regards the other not as a source of potential converts, but as an exhibit to be deployed in argument with sympathetic interlocutors. Justin's Marcion, prompted by demons, remains firmly beyond the re ach of any possible debate. 60 Precisely because such litde provision was made to reach out to actual heretics, moreover, heresies could exist independendy of any professed representatives. Gregory Nazianzen, for example, can count Justin's enemies, the "Sons of Simon Magus" and their Marcionist spawn, among the long catalogue of "strangers to the faith" whom he delighted by his preaching at Constantinople. 61 When he asks which member of these sects was so unmoved as not to bend over before his words,62 the question is intended to be rhetorical. However, we are entided to doubt whether any Marcionists were ever present to concede themselves persuaded. While a determined heresiologist like Epiphanius might note the existence of Marcionist conventicles, he evidendy had to go out of his way to find these, and when he encountered them his aim was not to covert but to confute; debate with Marcion's disciples was entirely subordinate to demolition of the heresiarch's books. 63 The same applies to Gregory, who cannot in fact be proved to have exercised his persuasive powers on any actual doctrinal enemies. Heretics might rather

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be seen as boundary markers. For all his claims to have "tamed" his opponents by his gentleness of speech, Gregory (as has been well said of Justin and his famous dialogue with Trypho)64 seems to have talked not to them but at them. We might go further. Gregory arguably needed his heretics to be irredeemable-for this spared hirn the need for converts. His preaching style was not calculated to persuade . In each of the three sermons Elm discusses Gregory finds occasion to pick a fight, and these arguments grow more involved as the series progresses. In Or. 38 his interlocutor is a "feast-Iover" who might object to the preacher's austerity; in Or. 39 he embarks upon a spirited debate with a Novatian schismatic; much of Or. 40 consists of a one-sided dialogue with a reluctant baptismal candidate. This was Gregory's preferred technique, but here his prickly approach jars strikingly with his celebratory theme. The point noted by Elm, that we cannot be entirely sure whether these sermons belong to the season of 379/80 or 380/1, deserves particular emphasis in this connection. 6S Far whereas in December 379 Gregory had still been confined to his partisan base in the Anastasia, a year later he was freshly installed in the very different environment of Holy Wisdom, preaching to the Theodosian establishment. Yet such was the consistency of his rhetoric that there is no conclusive evidence either way. On balance, the evidence suggests the later date-when his pugnacity would become more stridently discordant. For inside his cathedral, the late antique bishop could afford a tone of lofty disdain; as if to compensate hirn for his inability to project hirns elf into the cemeteries and theaters, incumbency guaranteed preeminence within his own walls. Yet Gregory continued to speak, as it were, from the campaign trail. The explanation for this is closely connected to a fundamental contradiction in his situation. While his government sponsors were looking for abishop who would bring the many lost sheep of Constantinople into the fold of a genuinely "catholic" church, Gregory had no intention of making the compromises necessary to achieve such a goal. The combative brilliance of Gregory's rhetoric should be seen as a substitute for conversions, not a me ans of effecting them. The presence of the Theodosian court in Gregory's audience would also explain another feature of these orations. For the feasts of Theophany and Epiphany bracketed, with near-perfect symmetry, the greatest festival of the secular year. The New Year celebrations revolved around the formal inauguration of the consuls, and in 381 the people of Constantinople would see Theodosius present the consular robe to his uncle, the first such ceremony there in over a decade; meanwhile, presents were exchanged and the populace treated to three days of games. 66 There is no previous evidence, moreover, for the celebration of the Theophany in late December: so Gregory

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might even have been innovating here, creating a major Christian feast in the run-up to the Kalends. 67 He could not compete with the New Year festival, so much more compelling than any theatrical display, nor could he denounce so important astate occasion in the presence of the imperial court; instead, he simply ignored it. The seamlessness with which Elm moves from the argument of Or. 38 to that of Or. 39 (pp. 15-16) reflects exactly Gregory's own approach. Bleary-eyed courtiers who reappeared dutifully for the Epiphany service thus had to cope with the abrupt resumpti on of a train of thought that had begun a forrnight previously. This is not the otherworldly self-absorption of a professor who begins his lecture by completing a sentence which had faded into a pregnant pause the previous week. Elm's Gregory creates a corpus that is "programmatic, political, and influential" (p. 5): if Gregory's real influence came only later, when his works became the set texts of Byzantine orthodoxy, with this quiet restructuring of the calendar he presented to the new Theodosian regime a program that wasindeed highly political. But Gregory ignores more than the holiday his audience has just enjoyed: the most remarkable political aspect of these orations is his obliviousness to the most distinguished member of his congregation. For Theodosius would certainly have been present for Epiphany, and probably for Theophany also. Although in other sermons of this period Gregory is happy to acknowledge the emperor's presence, he re he says nothing. 68 Theodosius had been baptized by a Nicene bishop the previous spring: yet during his Epiphany speech, when Gregory mentions "Caesar" he means only "the world-rulers of those who whirl below."69 More srrangely still, the following day (when the emperor may weH have been absent) his question to a man "soiled by public affairs" what he had to do with Caesar is intended to prompt a selfevidently negative response;1° and although this harangue was intended to persuade secular officials to accept baptism, Gregory fails to exploit Theodosius's epoch-making reconciliation of the purple and the font. To und erstand Gregory's behavior here we might again compare hirn with Justin. For both men, in their different ways, were of necessity sophisticated emperor-watchers. When Justin wrote his ApologYJ as Lyman points out, emperors spoke Greek and comported themselves philosophically: and he duly addressed his first Apology not only to the emperor Antoninus Pius but also to his two adoptive sons Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus, styling each a "philosopher";71 posterity would improve upon this to devise a special relationship between the Apologist and the most appropriate of his interlocutors. 72 This was a dialogue (whether real or fictive) appropriate for the times, where Justin's addressees help define the work for his readers. Just so, Gregory's- refusal to catch the emperor's eye as he re-creates for his audience

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the progression from Incarnation through Illumination to Baptism-a refusal that we can be sure made a much more profound impression on his original audience than it has on later readers-marks a distinct moment in the developing relationship between Christian emperors and Christian bishops, as they continued to experiment in finding ways of sharing liturgical space. 73 Gregory's orations provide an example of the complications that the conversion of Constantine bequeathed the church: a fourth-century philosophical Christian preacher seems to have found it more difficult to face a baptized Christian emperor in the flesh than did his second-century predecessor to imagine an encounter with a pagan philosophical Caesar. Although Gregory could preach to the converted, he could do so only in general terms. There was one further important difference. The prefect Rusticus found ] ustin frustratingly elusive when he tried to assign hirn a particular base and a specific body of disciples. 74 Ir was much easier to take the measure of Gregory. He hirnself records the rumor put about by his enemies, that (even with the imperial court newly arrived in the city) his congregation "would not even fi11 the doorways" of the cathedral;75 his success as abishop could therefore be quantified by his ability to confound such predictions. The crucial test of his Epiphany preaching would come a few weeks later at the beginning of Lent, when catechumens put their names forward for baptism at Easter. And close attention, we can confidently expect, would be paid to the number of white-robed neophytes that Gregory led to Holy Wisdom that Easter, in the formal inauguration of the new orthodox dispensation after (as he would have it) forty years of heretical misrule. The size of the baptismal cohort would be an obvious measure of Gregory's success in sowing his harvest among an expectant populace; it also had a personal significance for Gregory, whose previous experience at Constantinople included the disruption of a baptism service by a gang of stone-throwing monks. 76 But the magnificent Easter sermon to be found among Gregory's( works was not part of the cycle he delivered in Constantinople. 01. 45 belongs two years later, as his swan-song in Nazianzus; moreover, it incorporates two substantial portions (amounting to almost a third of the whole) taken verbatim from the Theophany sermon. 77 In thus bringing his rhetoric horne, from Constantinople to Nazianzus, Gregory would demonstrate, once again, his talent for reinventing hirns elf. However, the "missing" Easter sermon of 38r is also emblematic of a conversion program that seems never to have been consummated. Gregory's subsequent correspondence with Constantinople shows hirn eager to exploit whatever links he could claim with the great men of the new regime: but nowhere does he claim to have baptized a correspondent. Instead, for example, he would in 383 remind the

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Praetorian Prefect Postumianus of their personal bond: "previously you had been initiated into piety, then you claimed it as your own. "78 The modesty of the claim here (which despite assertions to the contrary cannot mean that Gregory had baptized Postumianus) is instructive, and adds force to the silence elsewhere. For all the undoubted piety of the new Theodosian elite, it was no easy matter for any bishop to domesticate them. 79 In fact there is only one contemporary evocation of Gregory's performance at the font in 381. That same Easter, at Milan, Bishop Ambrose conjured up all the baptisms being conducted elsewhere that day, at Rome and Alexandria and finally, triumphantly, at Constantinople, newly cleansed of heresy.80 However, Ambrose insisted, the baptisms at Rome were not Damasus's work, nor those at Constantinople Gregory's. The Holy Spirit was responsible-and was also at work nearer to horne. For Ambrose was speaking before Theodosius's colleague Gratian, and he was seeking to claim hirn for his own agenda by thus presenting a truly global context for his own baptisms. 81 Here again, therefore, we see abishop effecting his conversions with one eye on an attendant emperor.

FROM CONSTANTINE AND EUSEBIUS TO ]USTINIAN AND PROCOPIUS: CHRISTIAN EMPERORS AND CHRISTIAN COMMENTATORS

We can better understand the effort it must have required for Gregory to ignore the emperor after reading Raymond Van Dam and Michael Maas. Van Dam's Constantine imposes himself physically upon the attention of his subjects, who in turn clamor to impose their own interpretations of the emperor; Maas then takes us to a time when the emperor is much more overtly the driving force. These two emperors are separated by over two hundred years, the same gap as between Justin's Apology and Gregory's baptismal orations; once again the two papers allow us an opportunity to observe continuities and changes-and to apply the themes and approaches of the one to the subject-matter of the other. We might, for example, envisage a paper on "The Many Conversions of the Emperor Justinian." Maas's use of Bttildings reminds us that Justinian pinned his identity to his architectural initiatives (or had his identity pinned to his building programs) even more explicitly than had Constantine; we might add that he enjoyed as hyperactive a spirituallife as Constantine and faced as daunting aseries of crises, and late in life would baffle posterity by announcing, by imperial edict, a conversion to Apthartodocetism. 82 Justinian's image, religious and otherwise, nevertheless seems much more

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determinedly monolithic than Constantine's. Van Dam invites us to expect self-reinvention as normal or even necessary for late antique leaders faced with changing situations-so it would be a fruitful further step to test his chameleonic Constantine against the sixth century. Conversely, Maas's use of Procopius to tackle "The Question of Cultural Change in Late Antique Ethnography" might invite us back to the age of Constantine to consider, as a point of comparison, "Eusebius the Ethnographer. " For Eusebius of Caesarea deserves more detailed attention in this respect than the scope of Maas's paper allows. The bishop's principal formal contribution to the conceptual Christianization of the Roman world is notably austere: his biblical gazetteer, the Onomasticon, pertains more to the pages of the Old Testament than to the footprints of Christ, and makes no obvious concessions to the increasing numbers of pilgrims who were seeking to make sense of the Holy Land. 83 The important question, however, concerns the ethnographic mind-set that can be inferred from Eusebius's writings. The view we take, for example, of his attentiveness in the Onomasticon to the niceties of provincial nomenclature will determine our beliefs about the date of his Ecclesiastical History, and is therefore crucial to our understanding of "Eusebius's intellectual development and literary career"and so to the pace of conversion in the third century.84 We might also look for clues, in his geographical vocabulary elsewhere in his writings, to his perspectives on the issues that concern Maas, such as mission and conver- (sion beyond the frontiers of the empire. There is an implicit ethnography, for example, in Eusebius's ac count of the "floral garland" of bishops who reenacted Pentecost at the Council of Nicaea. 85 For a whole imaginative oikoumene is reflected in the way Eusebius organizes his catalogue of participants. A list of Eastern provinces is interrupted after Mesopotamia- "Even a Persian Bishop was present; nor was a Scythian lacking from the choir"before resuming with a slightly zigzag path across Asia Minor, Pontus and Galatia, Cappadocia and Asia, and so westwards to Epirus with its hinterland and finally, in splendid isolation, "even a Spaniard." The pairing of Persian and Scyth, which quite destroys the geographical principle that otherwise governs. the passage, serves to re-create a juxtaposition that Eusebius had used elsewhere to express the paradoxical contrasts between barbarian customs;86 the Spaniards, too, had been put to work previously (along with the Indians, the Ethiopians, the Britons and the Moors) to evoke the ends of the earth. 87 In using Constantine's public self-representation to explore the meaning of his commitment to Christianity, Van Dam returns us forcefully to the distinction which we have encountered several times before, between initial impact and subsequent use. Like our previous examples of Constantine's

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own basilica at the Via Labicana, or the sermons that Gregory would preach half a kilometer from the column in Constantinople, this was a "text" that was unveiled with considerable care (and Van Dam is surely correct to allow Constantine hirns elf a key role in planning so significant a ceremony-p. I28), but which then inevitably slipped from its author's hands. And in assessing the immediate effect of the statue we might usefully examine the context in which it would first be viewed. For (irrespective of the doubts that still attend the precise character of the lost statue) none of the Eastern notables who converged upon Constantinople for the great ceremony of 330 could have failed to notice the difference between this idealized, semidivine image and the fat smile which had grinned down upon their public spaces previously from statues of the emperor Licinius. 88 The contrast with the Licinian look is doubly important, for with Constantine the Eastern Empire was only just emerging from a golden age of danznatio memoriae. Licinius's statues had been systematically overturned in 325: the better-preserved of the two surviving examples, from the theater in Ephesus, is preserved precisely because it fell behind the stage. 89 And Licinius's predecessor Maximinus had suffered a similar fate in 3 I I: Eusebius describes how his toppled statues became "the object of laughter and jokes from anyone who wanted to insult hirn," and Gregory Nazianzen tells us that his defaced statues were still visible in provincial towns of Asia Minor fifty years later. 90 This burst of licensed iconoclasm was arecent one: Eusebius, who had lived through many reigns, could claim, wrongly but significantly, that Maximian (another who was consigned to the same treatment, just one year before Maximinus) was the "first" emperor to receive it. 91 So in making the erection of a statue the centerpiece of his foundation ritual Constantine was defying a recent trend: his decision to invest so much in the statue might therefore be even more charged than Van Dam suggests. As Van Dam notes (p. I36), when Constantine inaugurated his new capital he had already had occasion to experiment in monumentalizing conversion. His initiatives at Rome, following his victory over Maxentius in 3 I2, have endured rather better than those in Constantinople: the fragments of his colossal marble statue, and his triumphal arch, continue to compel both admiration and a wide variety of conflicting interpretations. 92 Although Van Dam stresses the difference between the inscription reported by Eusebius (which may or may not have belonged to the statue preserved in the Palazzo dei Conservatori) and the noncommittal phraseology inscribed on the arch, we need not doubt either that Eusebius would have been capable of giving the strongest possible reading to "the divinity" mentioned on the arch, or that non-Christians could have found the statue sufficientfy hedged with traditional divinity to outweigh such novel

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accessories as the labarum. Neither Christians nor pagans, however, will have been able to ignore the political implications of the two monuments when they first saw them: the statue appropriated a basilica that had originally been labeled "Maxentian," while the arch straddled the route along which the emperor marched to celebrate the overthrow of the "tyrant." Only as historians have come to appreciate Maxentius's originality and energy in promoting his image, have they begun to allow for the challenge that Constantine faced in imposing his own. 93 While he may or may not have been thought to intend the overthrow of false gods, there could be no doubt that he intended to obliterate the false emperor. The monuments with which he celebrated his divinely assisted victory thus put more obvi- ( ous emphasis upon identifying the victor than on the specific character of his divine assistance. Constantine's most urgent task after 312 was to convert Rome from Maxentius, not from Capitoline Jupiter. We should note, too, what Constantine left unconverted at Rome. One monument that (as far as we know) smiled down undisturbed on the new emperor is especially relevant to Van Dam's theme. The most dramatic tetrarchie contribution to the cityscape of Rome had been at the heart of the ancient Forum, the central plaza of which was now dominated by a tall column. This has fared rather better physically than Constantine's in Constantinople, but obtrudes from the present-day Forum as the "Column of Phocas," an inglorious postclassical anomaly. Only recently has scholarship recognized the impact it will have made in its original setting; the highly attractive suggestion that it was crowned by astatue of Diocletian would provide a direct model for Constantine's initiative at Constantinople. 94 The persecuting emperor Diocletian, unlike Maxentius, belonged to an already usable past; even when he turned to Christ, Constantine remained a true child of the tetrarchie order. In inviting us to look at Constantine's public images rather than at the texts that sought to explain the emperor's motives, Van Dam keeps the emphasis firmlyon the outward markers of religious commitment, rather than its invisible workings. The reading of Constantine's statue as a conversion text might recall J ustin's hope of bringing the deluded Simonians of Rome to their senses, if he could secure authority to destroy the statue which, he alleged, Claudius had mistakenly erected to their false god. 95 But conversions could be marked (or even effected) by statuesque gestures as weIl as by sculpture. Justin's contemporary Apuleius would make his hero Lucius announce his conversion to Isis in the final book of the Golden Ass not through his initiation (about which he is properly reticent) but through his unveiling on a podium before the crowds, where he stood, he tells us, dressed up "like the sun, and in the likeness of a statue."96 Gregory Nazianzen would in turn recall, ten years after the event, how Basil of Caesarea had

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tamed a heretical emperor by striking a pose of heroic immobility at an Epiphany service. 97 Significantly, both Justin and Gregory appear to have been mistaken. The former, as mentioned earlier, seems to have misread an inscription; Gregory, whether willfully or not, has probably misconstrued the ceremonial formali ti es of astate occasion. 98 The two mistakes bring horne once again the extent to which monuments and gest ures alike are liable, with the passage of time, to reinterpretation. For Christi an converts, the public ceremonies of baptism provided an opportunity to exhibit their faith, much as Apuleius's lucius had exhibited his after his initiation. Here we again confront the social ambiguity of the baptismal rites. On the one hand, the bishop was fully in control as he led the neophytes from the font, like a father his children, and presented them to their new brethren, the faithful. On the other hand, these brethren will have recognized, beneath the white robes, family members and friendsand also, we need not doubt, markers of social status. For despite Gregory Nazianzen's claim to the power to "inscribe" the newly baptized, there would have been some new Christians who reserved that right for themselves. Another famaus passage from Augustine's Confessions describes how the celebrated rhetor of Rome, Marius Victorinus, was offered the opportunity to give his baptismal pledge privately, and so protect his verecundia, his modesty; but Victorinus (who had already had astatue raised in his honor) preferred to take his place with the other converts and, not unlike Apuleius's lucius, proclaim his faith "from a raised platform."99 The anecdote makes it clear that when he appeared among the neophytes Victorinus was not lost in the crowd. Such pious immodesty might not always be comfortable for the churchmen trying to impose their own meanings on the ceremony. Jacob knew what he was doing when, in the Lift 0/ Pelagia, he kept his heroine invisible while in her neophyte's robe. On the other hand, when Constantine, in the last of the many conversions he would undergo during his long career, put aside his imperial purple for the baptismal gown, he remained (even in Eusebius's account) beyond the reach of episcopal catechists. The emperor comes to his God at his own speed, and in his new costume he pursues an idiosyncratic pastoral program. 100 By privileging plastic art over text as evidence for Constantine's own presentation of his religious identity, Van Dam thus brings internal processes into the public domain. He also brings out the public aspects of other experiences that we tend to regard as private-such as dreaming. Dreams enter history only when they are shared. In the Lift 0/ Pelagia Bishop Nonnus thus confides his to the narrator, on a Sunday morning-"after the nighttime prayers"-somewhat redundantly, since despite his expressed puzzlement the bishop's tone remains serene, and he does not invite an

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opinion. 101 But it is Eusebius's account of Constantine's famous VlSlOn in 3 12 that brings horne most clearly the extent to which such matters were played out before an audience. The army had been perplexed by a celestial phenomenon; Constantine awoke the next morning with a dream, and reported its import to a committee of expert exegetes, whose findings were duly announced to the expectant soldiers. 102 This episode (not to mention the "countless personal visions" that Constantine could allegedly describe if he wished)103 helps suggest the expectations that might press upon a man in public life, whose followers might begin to count, during times of crisis, upon his having avision to report to them in the morning. And like all political activity in the fourth century, dreaming had its dangers. One of the most sinister figures described by Ammianus is Mercurius, the "Count of Dreams"; several cases of the dire consequences of inappropriate oneiric activity are on record. 104 The sophisticated analysis now available of late antique dreams could usefully be supplemented by a study of such aspects of the social and political context. 105 Gregory Nazianzen, for example, several times reports his dream experiences-but the two most powerful such reports both occur in prominent parts of formal public orations, and need to be interpreted accordingly. A reported encounter with his dead brother Caesarius provides dramatic punctuation for a funeral speech, marking the point when he turns from lamentation to moral exhortation; the dreamconversations he claims to enjoy with Basil mark the climax of his long, magnificent commemoration of his old friend-and arguably provide the final, decisive move in a long and subtle act of appropriation. 106 Ammianus, too, would note almost formulaically how Julian would report his successive dreams to "his closer intimates."107 Like Eusebius with Constantine, the historian is careful to hint at his own privileged access to imperial visionary experience. The dream life of the late antique emperor, indeed, would make the subject for a paper in itself: for here we might trace one of the specific cultural consequences of conversion to Christianity. This is aperiod when we see an extension of the visionary franchise. Not only do members of the imperial family, from Constantine's mother Helena onwards, contribute their own converging visions, but emperors also begin to feature in their subjects' dreams. Julian is the best-known case, as anxieties about the emperor's paganism spilled over into the Christian subconscious (and those denied persecution found outlets for their frustration).108 But it is Theodosius, he re as in so many other areas, who most faithfully relives Constantine's experience. Before his confrontation with paganism at the battle of the Frigidus he too (at least according to Theodoret)109 would have a dream in which he was promised divine assistance, albeit by an apostolic delegation rather than by Christ hirns elf; the promise was then authenticated

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by the testimony of a common soldier who had also had the same dream, and duly reported it to his centurion, who passed it up through the chain of command until it reached Theodosius hirnself. Thus, once again, the whole army was implicated in the emperor's experience. If this example shows that Theodosius could on occasion enjoy direct access to the divine, albeit on a less elevated level than Constantine, two further reported dreams reveal a more fundamental change. Theodosius was much more closely involved with-and personally committed to-individual churchmen and factions inside the church than Constantine had ever been. Ir was reported that on his arrival in Constantinople he recognized the venerable Meletius, bishop of Antioch, on the basis of a dreamYo whatever the origins of the story, it is significant that the emperor's dreams could be thought to be populated by specific churchmen. Still more remarkable is the dream which Ambrose of Milan, on a famous occasion, would claim to have had involving Theodosius himself. ll1 In reporting this dream to the emperor (and gendy suggesting that he might give it wider publicity) Ambrose was able to stake a certain authoritative claim upon hirn. With ] ustinian we have an emperor more dreamed about than dreaming. Indeed, he was famously able to do with a bare minimum of sleepY2 while this asceticism on the one hand indicates a further development in the points of contact men could have (and be seen to have) with the divine, his nocturnal roaming of the palace could also be held to supply proof positive of his demonic natureY3 In Maas's period as much as in Van Dam's, the emperor was under close scrutiny from his Christian subjects, and imperial initiatives to express a distinctive Christian identity continued to prompt responses. We can trace one such "dialogue" in the evolution of a monument in Constantinople which Van Dam mentions (p. 145) as a counterpoint to Constantine's statue, the emperor's mausoleum at Holy Aposdes. Eusebius describes this, in a famously convoluted passage which nevertheless brings out the tension between the two aspects of the monument. 1l4 On the one hand it was a highly individual and idiosyncratic expression of the emperor's own conception of his Christian identity; on the other the inclusion of an altar and provisions for services meant that whatever symbolism he had intended, Constantine was entrusting to the clergy who would preach there the task of interpreting the structure-and his own posthumous memory. This development, which can be seen as a consequence of the dismanding of the traditional imperial cult, seems to have caused uneasiness both for Constantine's son (who must have feared losing control of the tools of legitimacy) and for the ecclesiastical establishment, which faced the awkward responsibility of upholding an imperial ideology: the consequences were misuhderstandings, rioting, and repressionY5 A provincial bishop helped

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solve the impasse by announcing that apostolic relics had revealed themselves to hirn, allowing Constantius to transform Holy Apostles into a more intelligible (and more clearly demarcated) spaceY6 Procopius in his Buildings then describes a further transformation of the siteY7 The central episode in his account of Justinian's rebuilding is the miraculous reappearance of the relics, now clearly operating on an imperial rather than an episcopal frequency: "For when the emperor is pious, divinity does not walk apart from humanity but mingles with men and delights in their company." As Maas reminds us throughout his paper, we are now in aperiod when attention is focused upon the emperor with a new intensity. Dreams also organize themselves around Justinian's projects. The most carefully structured of Procopius's campaign narratives describes the ambitious invasion of Vandal Africa, which Justinian was on the brink of canceling: Procopius shows a Christian bishop stiffening the emperor's resolve by reporting a visionary message from God, and the historian receives his own separate, private reassurance; the orthodox Christians of Africa are meanwhile being inspired by visions of Saint CyprianYs The interlocking dreams will recall the visions of Constantine and Theodosius before the defining triumphs of their respective careers; at the same time, however, Procopius's report is presented within a framework that requires analysis in terms of his own distinctive discourse. 119 Maas's case study of the Tzani (p. 160) indicates how much the student of conversion might learn from detailed attention to Procopius's language. For here, in a cluster of converging passages, we see hints of how the Byzantine missionary program was conditioned by imaginative horizons, as well as by material resources and political priorities. Procopius's vocabulary and style-the more valuable for its formulaic character-shows how a conception of Christian conversion is related to traditional classical ideas of acculturation. For example, the passage from the Wars which shows conversion to Christianity to mark the end of Tzani history- " ... such then was the history of the Tzani" (2.25; above, p. 163)-is built around a single long sentence which aligns the two transformations, the cultural and the religious, in an elegant conceit: having changed their diaita for the gentler they also changed their doxa for the more pious. That the two categories diaita and doxa are exactly parallel is clear from their recurrence in the Buildings passage (Buildings 3.6; above, p. 164), but in reverse order. But whereas the former term had been part of the staple conceptual diet of ethnographers from Thucydides onwards, doxa (which is not quite "religion") strikes a markedly unclassical note: it sees likely that Procopius has here imported his vocabulary from the Christian scheme, where orthodoxy faced the varieties of heterodoxy.120

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In the Buildings passage Procopius begins his account where the Wars had left off, with the Tzani now converted but with Justinian concerned about the danger of backsliding. The feared regression concerns their diaita and ethe (the logical dependence of habits upon diaita again follows the classical tradition)-not their doxa-and is solved by the classic Roman expedient of road-building. But the instinctive parallelism remains, for as weIl as thus taming their diaita J ustinian also builds the Tzani a church, causing them (and the panegyrist credits hirn with as sweeping a range of initiatives as did the Ursinian vituperators Damasus) to hold services so that, on my interpretation of the puzzling Greek, "they might be human beings with sense." And then, just as in the Wars passage where gentler diaita had meant joining the Roman army and more pious doxa joining the Christian church, Procopius appends to J ustinian's contributions a list of forts, one of which is located at Schamalinichoi, the same place as the church. Significantly, although the Tzani are Christians they do not build their own churches, nor likewise are these forts garrisoned by Tzani recruits. We are far from Justin's city of Flavia Neapolis, where the priests who would anchor the newly Romanized Samaritans in the Roman order were recruited from the local elite. Roman priests are now expatriates, agents of the imperial power working in the shadow of its military presence. EIsewhere in Bttildings Procopius shows Justinian effecting similar transformations by similar means in two places in outer Libya. First we find hirn "making provision for" the twin ci ti es of Augila, previously still "diseased with polytheism": he taught them the doxa of piety, having made them Christians and transforming their wicked ancestral ethe. As with the Tzani, the process is sealed with the construction of a church, to preserve their safety and their "truth in respect of the doxa. "121 The Jews of nearby Boreium receive similar treatment: Justinian "brought it about" that they changed their ancestral ethe and became Christian, and converted their ancient temple (built by Solomon!) into a church. l22 From such examples we can reconstruct a Procopian typology of conversion, where doxa manifests itself in ethe, which in turn amount to a cluster of specific practices. In Wars, likewise, the expressions that Procopius uses to describe the Tzani recur in parallel cases. Closest to the model we have seen in Buildings are the Beruli: Justinian again takes the initiative, purchasing their friendship and persuading them to become Christian. "As a result," they change their diaita "for the gentler" (epi to hemeröteron: the phrasing is identical to the account of the Tzani) and decide to adopt Christian conventions (nomoi) "for the most part"-but continue to practice their bestial customs. 123 Less domesticated still are the Franks, barbarians who despite "having become Christian!' still preserve most of their ancient doxa, which finds expression

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in human sacrifice and unholy rites, on the basis of which they practice divination. 124 In this example we discover that Christianity is not necessarily identical with the doxa maintained by a Christian people. But the most imeresting paralleis to the Tzani concern aseries of their near neighbors on the Eastern Black Sea coast. The Abasgi, traditionally pagan and blighted by the trade in eunuchs, have changed "for the gender" (the same expression again: epi to hemeröteron) in Justinian's day. They (the people, rather than their mlers) chose the Christian dogma and responded enthusiastically when Justinian sem a eunuch to command the abolition of the practice of castration. The emperor then provided a church and priests to teach them "all the ühe of Christianity." The church's task is thus conceived as the inculcation of proper habits rather than correct belief. At the same time, conversion is direcdy related to (and serves to legitimize) a fundamental political realignment, as the now Christian people eject their kings and "live in freedom"which means (unlike with the Tzani) subordinate to Roman rule. 125 The political implications of conversion are much more dramatic in our final two examples from the region. The first is an attempted conversion from Christianity. The whole sequence of Procopius's Wars is triggered when the Persian king Khavad wished to compel the Iberians, Persian subjects but Christians, who indeed "preserve the customs of the doxa most of all the men that we know,"126 to follow the customs of his own doxa J and ordered their king to expose the dead to be eaten by birds: which outrage provoked the latter to declare for Rome. Here the solidly Christian populace becomes a causal agent, when one of their central rituals is threatened: yet Procopius's account shifts swiftly and silently to the activities of the king, and no more is heard of Iberian Christianity after the Persians arrive; other sources meanwhile suggest that the historian has (at the very least) overstated the preeminence of Christian culture. l27 We see much the same structure (and several of the same difficulties) in the account of the revolt of the Lazi from Persia. Persian rule was oppressive because the Persians were harsh in their diaita and in their customs and ordinances; they especially differed from the Lazi in their thinking and diaita because the Lazi were Christians "most of all men," while the Persians were their direct opposites as regards to theion. 128 Again Procopius establishes a fundamental cultural division, which (with economic factors relegated to a footnote)129 helps to explain a vital political event, but again the explanation fails to convince in the face of the abundant evidence for Persian cultural influence in sixth-century Lazica. 130 Ir is also suspiciously convenient: where Persian failure in Lazica could be explained as the inevitable result of cultural incompatibility, the Romans' own previous alienation of the populace could be attributed to the failings of a few individuals. 131 J

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Procopius's ethnographical vision thus not only involves a conceptual scheme that could be applied to three different continents; it is also entangled with political considerations. This might sum up one important change in the two centuries since Constantine, and Eusebius's Scyths and Persians. While Constantine had perhaps had so many different meanings pinned upon hirn because he had passed through so many places, Justinian spent half a century rooted in Constantinople. Whereas in the fourth century a provincial like Eusebius could spend most of his career at horne and still make a plausible claim to be the emperor's authentic interpreter, therefore, his sixth-century Caesarean compatriot Procopius sees the world through a Constantinopolitan prism. Justinian remains central to the panegyric of Buildings} to the invective of the Secret History} and to the narrative of the Wars; events in the provinces tend to be pale reflections of those in the capital, from where the whole empire (and the world beyond its borders) seems within the emperor's reach. Consider Procopius's effusive description of the large bronze equestrian statue of J ustinian (in reality a reused image of Theodosius) that crowned a column in the Augusteum. 132 Here again, imperial iconography attracted interpretation: like Constantine on his pillar, Justinian faced the east, but Procopius discovered symbolic meaning in his thus directing his course towards the Persians, raising a cross and an outstretched hand at them. The Christian emperor has become a crusader, albeit a strangely defensive one, whose vigorous movements are designed solely to ensure that the enemy stays at horne. From atop his own column, the bronze Constantine would thus look across, by the mid-sixth century, to the rump of Justinian/Theodosius's horse. As the skyline of Constantinople changed, so too did the significance of its monuments. Ir is therefore probably no coincidence that the most dramatic event associated with the column of Constantine occurred when the founder's statue could look down at an empty wasteland, after the Nika riots of 531 had left everything in ruins as far as Constantine's Forum. During the riots the monument was pressed into service by the crowd who acclaimed Hypatius as emperor: they brought hirn to the top step of the plinth, under the column itself, and dressed hirn in makeshift regalia. 133 Constantine's statue provided a touchstone of imperiallegitimacy. Like Holy Apostles, this was aspace potentially available for appropriation; and as at Holy Apostles, politics and religion remained intertwined. The crowd duly returned to the statue two years later, after an earthquake, occupying the forum and intoning prayers; there is no record that the clergy took the lead. 134 By the ninth century, a partnership between emperor and bishops had imposed ceremonial order. The Book 01 Ceremonies introduces a further "Conversion"

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of Constantine. It describes how on the Feast of Mary the imperial party would leave Holy Wisdom and take its place on the steps at the base of the column; the patriarch would then arrive, and formal greetings would be exchanged. The patriarch with his attendants would then enter "the chapel of the same column, or of Saint Constantine." The first Christian emperor was now a saint, receiving the formal ministrations of the clergy in a tiny church attached to the base of the column; the ceremonies were so organized as to offer a potent display of church and state in harmony.135

FROM EINHARD TO AUGUSTINE

Julia Smith takes us to the ninth-century West, where the Constantinian past was undergoing different transformations and being put to other uses. A few generations previously, the "Donation of Constantine" had emerged, baptizing the emperor-in perhaps the most spectacular of all his many posthumous conversions-into a church that he could not conceivably have imagined;136 the popes would duly appropriate the fragments of his great marble statue to adorn their Lateran palace. The great basilicas with which Constantine had surrounded Rome were meanwhile undergoing their own transformations, having long outlasted their original funerary function. While some-notably Peter and Paul-were protected by their importance in papal liturgy, others had become oversized (and therefore untenable) relics of a no longer relevant past. The great basilicas on the Via Nomentana and the Via Tiburtana had given way to the adjacent churches directly attached to the graves of the resident martyrs Agnes and Laurence, the small but spectacular creations of popes Honorius and Pelagius. 137 The relics which Einhard procured from Rome return us to the scene of our first section, the cemetery of Peter and Marcellinus on the Via Labicana. Here too, Constantine's vast basilica had been displaced and may well already have been semiderelict; the ac,:tion is confined to the tiny basilica ad corpus that now stood adjacent, the outgrowth of the crypt that Damasus had provided for the martyrs. 138 Or rather, it occurred in a literary approximation to this, for (despite his vivid description) it has proved impossible to reconcile Einhard's account with the physical remains. 139 In incorporating into his account the remains of Tiburtius, one of the other saints in the cemetery to whom (as noted earlier) Damasus had extended his patronage, Einhard creates an archaeological impossibility. It seems likely enough that adetermination to subordinate these relics (which had gone to his riyal Hilduin) to his own was he re driving his imagination; however, it remains much less clear whether he was seeking to "cast doubt" on the authenticity

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of Tiburtius's relics, or to use their unquestioned authenticity to support the disputed credentials of his own. 140 Whatever the case, such considerations bring horne the competitive pressures that complicated the Carolingian enterprise of appropriating Rome's sacred past to legitimize a program of correctio. A further example of the tensions involved is Einhard's portrait of Deusdona, the entrepreneurial deacon who brokered the acquisition. We here see Einhard being pulled in different directions. By introducing Deusdona as a casual traveler, asking only the gift of a mule in return for his services, he counters any suspicions that the transaction was merely commercial; the repeated insistence thereafter on the deacon's unhelpfulness, on the other hand, suggests adetermination to quash any suggestion that the credit for the acquisition in fact belonged to Deusdona. 141 There had been arecent occasion for the ventilation of such suggestions, for Deusdona was back in Francia in early summer 830, just before the publication of the Translation} supplying new relics to Einhard and other customers-and supplying a provenance for the previous arrivals. 142 The Translation thus reflects a fine balance. The evident concern to provide Einhard's saints with an autonomous genealogy suggests that the cultural influence of Rome, as represented by freelancers like Deusdona, was still keenly felt in Francia; the delicate hints in which any insinuations about Hilduin's relics are veiled indicates awareness of the self-destructiveness of overt polemic; the casting of the invention account as a vindication of pious Frankish self-reliance seems calculated to appeal to the readers' selfimage. The authority of Pope Gregory IV is nowhere apparent in Einhard's Rome; only on the road horne does a party of papal envoys add a frisson of danger. 143 Instead, the Franks look for guidance to a group of Greek monks installed on the Palatine;144 this is the Rome of the pilgrims, where parties of foreigners (much like Jerome and his friends in the fourth century) find space in the numinous cemeteries to create their own Christianities. Smith's Einhard is also another emperor-watching convert, whose commitment to Christianity is plotted against the changing configurations of the Carolingian court at Aachen-where, once again, new generations of viewers would attach fresh meanings to ancient monumental statuary.145 And as Justin responded to the cultural cues offered by Antonine Rome, and Gregory to the political opportunity presented by the arrival in Constantinople of the Theodosian court, so Einhard's texts were shaped both by the prevailing cultural climate and by their immediate political context. Smith's date of 830 for the publication of the Translation (p. I93) requires us to read the work against the background of great crisis faced that year by louis the Pious. The portrait of Hilduin, certainly, seems to reflect the latter's temporary disgrace; the coded nature of Einhard's criticisms (p. 204)

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suggests, however, a calculation that the resilient arch-chaplain would not be left to shiver in Paderborn indefinitely. Einhard shows equal care in establishing his leverage over his emperor. The martyrs' preferred method of communication is through dreams: and here we see the culmination of the process that had begun with Constantine, where Christian rulers lose control of political dreams. 146 Having hirnself validated the martyrs at Easter 828, Louis could hardly repudiate the messages that came from them that autumn. Moreover, Einhard, at Aachen, was ideally placed to deliver these messages, since he was sufficiently far from Seligenstadt not to be implicated in their composition, while at the same time he was able to command the emperor's ear. But in publishing his Translation two years later he was able to reiterate the martyrs' message, for the benefit of a wider audience: and to suggest the prospect of further revelations to come. 147 We cannot tell, at this distance, whether publication was intended to prompt action from Louis, or to comment on his inaction. However, the prominence given to the two visions directed at the monarch suggests strongly that this was a fundamental element in Einhard's complex apologia: and although the painstaking proof of the martyrs' authenticity in the first two books might seem to lay the foundation for the political critique in the third, it is also possible to read the argument in reverse. A further element also deserves emphasis. As far as we know, the winter of 830 was the first that Einhard spent away from the court. The newly composed text would thus have served there as a substitute for his presence. And in sending it he not only rerninded the king of the martyrs' wise counsel, but also showed hirnself to be more than an ordinary counselor. Through the Translation Einhard obtains a hinterland. Not only do we find hirn rooted beside his rnartyrs at Seligenstadt, where the local Maingau color is combined with hints of more cosmopolitan horizons (the possibility, for example, that a Rorne-bound Englishman could meet a party of entrepreneurial German merchants there); the three monasteries from which the saints echoed their chorus-at Valenciennes, Ghent, and Maastricht-were his own possessions, and had each provided hirn sanctuary during his painful and inglorious journeying earlier in 830.148 As Einhard's world assurnes physical shape and spiritual meaning, he too takes on a new identity. He might have disappeared from court, but he was no Hilduin helplessly stranded arnong the Saxons. The text thus brings horne, yet again, the physical dimension of conversion: it reaffirms the link between court and countryside created by the relays of crowds who escorted the martyrs horne from Aachen in 828. 149 We should not take for granted Einhard's achievement here. Just six months after Gregory Nazianzen's dazzling Theophany and Epiphany

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sermons, for example, he would petition Theodosius for release from Constantinople-so that he could live a li fe wholly dedicated to God back in his native Cappadocia. However, on his return Gregory would find it very difficult to win recognition for his new role, as the bishops of his province tried to pressgang hirn and the clergy of his city mutinied, while critics asked pointed questions ab out his lifestyle and his literary ventures. 150 His recently dead friend Basil was perhaps Gregory's nearest equivalent to Einhard's martyrs, but since the Hilduins of Caesarea retained physical possession of the body he had less scope to reconfigure the local spiritual landscape. 151 Gregory struggled, too, to control interpretations of his retirement at Constantinople: hence (among other things) the combatively jagged edge of his verse auto biog rap hy. Gregory's "conversion" from court bishop to recluse created a sense of distance that is entirely lacking from Einhard. Indeed, Louis the Pious hirnself would come to visit Einhard and his martyrs, quite possibly (as Smith has attractively and plausibly suggested) to celebrate the dedication of their church. If so, his devotions can be compared to Damasus's before the same martyrs at Rome nearly four centuries previously, astate visit intended both to enhance a nascent cult and to establish a proprietorial claim. But where the pope had left his own story about the martyrs inscribed on their tomb, the king would find that Peter and Marcellinus had their own stories to tell about hirn. His son Louis the German, at any rate, would in 874 see hirn in a dream suffering torments in hell, after hearing reports that his own son had been in conference "in the presence of the martyrs" at Seligenstadt: and the cause of the king's agony, it was confidently stated, was his failure to comply with the book of instructions that the saints had forwarded via Einhardt long ago. 152 But perhaps the most useful counterpart to Einhard is another earnest intellectual who forged a court career (and recounted an emperor's great deeds) before returning to provincial obscurity and a life of piety and renunciation. Augustine of Hippo has figured obliquely in each of the previous seetions of this paper, just as his presence is implicit in several of the papers in this volume-and a test of the utility of this collection of case studies would be to measure the fresh light they throw upon the most famous conversion experience of late antiquity. We might, for example, follow Lyman and attempt a postcolonial reading of Augustine, whose early career could be construed as a politic exercise in "passing"; or we could take our lead from Van Dam and once again take seriously the idea of Augustine as aserial convert-with each new conversion the subject of earnest discussion (and formal exhibition) before a group of intimates. Or else we might follow Lim and Elm, and consider (against the thrust of his own narrative) Augustine's baptism as a defining moment in his

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conversion. The party which entered Ambrose's font in 387 seems to come direcdy from one of Rebillard's cemeteries, for Augustine led a family group consisting of his son and a fellow townsman from Africa. 153 It is worth recalling all that we do not know about the context: whether the three represented an isolated clique or part of a harmonious constellation of similar groups; whether they counted for a significant proportion of the year's baptismal intake, or were three among hundreds; whether the rhetor stood out as one of the bishop's prize "catches" that year (a modest local counterpart, perhaps, to Victorinus of Rome) or was merely a face in a crowd. Such questions are important, since their answers are too often assumed in modern studies of Augustine. We need also to imagine, moreover, Augustine's first encounter, direcdy after his baptism, with the Milanese faithful (when he would have recognized his mother-and how many other familiar faces?);154 and also the welcome that the faithful in turn accorded the new recruit. Augustine would famously emphasize sounds rather than sights: in the days after Easter, while he continued to wear the neophyte's gown, he was haunted by "the music of the sweet chants of your Church."155 Modern scholarship has tended to underplay Augustine's reminder that the music which was here incorporated into the liturgy had been improvised under very different circumstances just one year previously.156 Yet we can be sure that the singers themselves will have been keenly aware of the difference the past year had made. In 386 the bishop's prebaptismal instruction had been interrupted by the clangor of weaponry in the streets outside, and urgent reports of escalating crisis: there could be no question about the commitment of the neophytes who emerged on Easter morning. Again, one can only wonder how many there had been: and how the numbers the following year compared. But this new intake of 387 might weIl have seemed, to uncharitable onlookers, to be passengers belatedly leaping aboard a bandwagon. It is not necessarily straightforward to join a church of justified near-martyrs. Was the bishop of Milan's undoubted readiness to reach out to the formerly frigid offset by a reluctance, among some at least among the faithful, to see their heroic purity diluted? All we know is that Augustine's conversion would lead to an abrupt departure from metropolitan Milan, back across the Mediterranean to smalltown Africa. Perhaps the formidable unanimity expressed by Ambrose's batde hymns had served to exclude as weIl as to unite. Finally, we might consider the baptisms that Augustine himself administered, year after year, as bishop of Hippo, and his sensitivity to the many levels of "conversion" that attached to the sacrament. 157 Baptism featured in several of the martyr-related miracles recorded in City 0/ God (one of Charlemagne's favorite books, as Einhard reminds US),158 which bring out with

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particular vividness the concrete, physical dimensions that have been central to this paper. Innocentia of Carthage, for example, suffered from breast cancer-until "on the approach of Easter" she was advised in a dream (which in turn responded to her doctor's orders) "to wait for the first woman that came out from the baptistery after being baptized, and to ask her to make the sign of Christ upon her sore."159 The story, which ends with a successful eure, brings horne the quasi-magical significance that attached to the convert who could be seen to be converted: and this in turn will have had a pow~rful effect in sustaining a conception of the conversion process that was essentially physical. We also see; once more, the need to take into ac count the role of the audience even at such formalized events as baptism, and the way that their agendas will have helped shape the occasion for participants too. Abishop like Gregory Nazianzen might have insisted to his baptismal candidates that it made no difference in what order they emerged from the font, but the ladies of Carthage clearly knew better. Our final episode-which also provides the final climax to Augustine's list of miracles-concerns a palsied brother and sister ftom Gregory's Cappadocia, whom a mother's curse had driven to wander the Mediterranean. Two weeks before Easter they arrived at Hippo, "and they came daily to church, and in it specially to the relics of the most glorious Stephen, praying that God might now be appeased, and restore their former health. There, and wherever they went, they turned to themselves the gaze of the city." On Easter morning, "when there was nowa large crowd present," the young man dramatically collapsed beside the relics and then arose to stand, significantly immobile, "looking upon those who were looking at hirn." The news reached Augustine as he prepared to come to the cathedral, causing hirn to cut short his Easter sermon so that the people might see, rather than hear, God's message. 160 Augustine thus shows the two strangers "converting" the town of Hippo during the fortnight before Easter, by turning its attention upon themselves while they prayed to the martyrs: 161 "convertebant in se civitatis aspectum." We underestimate at our perit the enduring connotations of what became the language of Christian commitment: for such semantic overlaps will also have done much to shape popular interpretation. This is where the contributions of Maas and Van Dam might most usefully come together. For there remains much room for further exploration of the late antique vocabulary of "conversion," in such a way as to do justice to the broad spectrum of phenomena that were included in contemporary understanding of the term. Every sermon that Augustine preached would end, indeed, with a mass "conversion," as his parishioners obeyed his call to "Turn to the Lord" and give thanks; conversio in the Confessions is also a matter of faces being

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physically turned, to God or to man-or indeed to the spectacle of a dog chasing a hare .162 The miracle in Hippo involved abishop struggling to cope with a situation that was beyond his direct control, and so brings us back to the scene evoked at the very beginning of this paper. This time, however, there is an unusual wealth of circumstantial detail, allowing us to explore Augustine's predicament more fuIly. For the excitement would continue, until the boy's sister was also cured two days later during the middle of the bishop's sermon, occasioning another "conversion" among the congregation. 163 Moreover, we can test Augustine's retelling of the episode in City 0/ God against the transeripts of four sermons he preached during the actual event. 164 And while in the later account Augustine brings the story to a resounding finish with the deafening roar of the exultant people, their hearts full of faith in Christ, the transcript shows hirn breaking an eventual silence on an almost apologetic note, with an ingenious play upon the sequence of tenses in a biblical nugget that looks like the improvisation of a preacher who has suddenly found hirns elf caught one step behind the faithful,l65 Nor is this the end of the episode. Augustine doggedly resumed his original train of thought the following day, returning to the exact point where the miracle had interrupted his sermon. We thus end not with the people's cheers at the extraordinary power of their own relics of Stephen, but with the bishop's plodding reaffirmation of the efficacy of those kept in the nearby town of Uzalis. 166 Augustine constructs the episode as a dialogue between hirnself and the congregation; but to understand the rhythm of events we must consider one particular group whose presence the bishop studiously ignores. When the first miracle occurred on Easter morning, Augustine (we can assurne) was preparing to lead the newly baptized neophytes back to the cathedral for their first full Eucharistie service. This probably explains why he finds it necessary to plead exhaustion to excuse hirnself from preaching .167 For the neophytes would have expected a sermon-and would have expected to figure prominently in it themselves, the focus of the congregation's gaze as they sat with the clergy in the sanctuary.168 Some may weIl have feIt disappointed to be so thoroughly upstaged. Augustine's Tuesday sermon, moreover, which had begun with attention directed on the two Cappadocians standing in the apse, can be read as an attempt to shift the rhetorical spotlight back to the in/antes by the altar, for it was leading towards a story of a baptism-related miracle; any such plans were thwarted when he was interrupted by the second miracle. Only on Wednesday did Augustine finally bring his story as far as the font; he had four more days in the Octave to res tore coherence to Easter.

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The miracle at Hippo brings together several key themes of this paper. Augustine's successive sermons invite us to consider the shifting locus of authoriry inside the basilica, as he sought an appropriate response to the drama; and although few bishops can have seen their dealings wirh their newly baptized converts so spectacularly disrupted, the episode reminds us of the intense and diverse expectations that attached to the Easter ceremony. Few Easters, we might suspect, were ever entirely "ordinary"; this critical culmination of the conversion process was correspondingly hard to choreograph. The relationship between Augustine's homiletic texts and his subsequent commentary on the affair also brings into sharp focus the significance, emphasized several times earlier, of the reshaping of conversion narratives in their retelling. But above all, we should note Augustine's stubborn determination to maintain his train of thought. For much of this volume is concerned ultimately wirh the resources available to individuals (and to institutions) that might enable them to command attention, whether as converts or instigators of conversion; and, no less important, to the limits of these resources and the constraints affecting their application. All of the figures discussed in this collection, whether a fourth-century emperor imposing a Christian vision upon a capital or his sixth-century successor imposing his upon distant provinces, whether bishops or apologists, whether unrepentant theatergoers or defiant mourners of the unpopular dead, were in some sense required to make a public commitment before, and win a hearing from, an audience that might be enthusiastic, indifferent, or hostile. The study of late antique conversion therefore has much to do with a study of late antique modes of attention; which also requires-as each of the papers in this volume demonstrates-a particular quality of attentiveness from ourselves. If we are to identify the forces that acted upon the men and women who stood up to declare a commitment, we need to heighten our sensitivity to the nuances of the language-and to the contextual details of the settings-in which they announced, demanded, or described such declarations.

NOTES

Greg. Naz. Gr. 2-44 (the monster); 117 (the shining flock). M. J. Johnson, "Pagan-Christian Burial Practices of the Fourth Century: Shared Tombs?" JEeS 5 (1997): 56-58. 3. E. Rebillard, In Hora Mortis: Evolution de la pastorale chretienne de la rnort aux IVe et Ve südes dans I'Gccident latin, BEFAR 284 (Rome, 1994). 4. J. Guyon, Le cirneti'ere aux deux lauriers: Recherehes sur les catacornbes rornaines, BEFAR 264 (Rome, 1987). There is also now a comprehensive 1.

2.

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account of the paintings in the catacomb, in J. G. Deckers, H. R. Seeliger, and G. Mietke, Die Katakombe {{Santi Marcellino e Pietro": Repertorium der Malereien, Roma sotteranea christiana 6 (Vatican City, 1987). 5. The discussion in Guyon, Le cimetiere, pp. 100-10 3, remains heavil y influenced by the traditional model. 6. The circumstances are recorded only in the fourth-century poem by Pope Damasus: A. Ferrua, Epigrammata Damasi (Rome, 1942), no. 28. Guyon, Le cimeti'ere, pp. 104-2 I, discusses the physical setting. 7. For Constantine's basilica, see Guyon, Le cimetiere, pp. 2°7-63; also J. Curran, Pagan City and Christian Capital: Rome in the Fourth Century (Oxford, 2000), 99-102. 8. For analysis of burials inside the basilica, see Guyon, Le cimetiere, pp. 268-7 1. 9. For the honor guard and royal trappings at the funeral of Helena, see Eus. VC 3.47. I; for the provision of liturgical equipment, as recorded in the Liber Pontificalis, see Guyon, Le cimetiere, p. 242. 10. Guyon, Le cimetiere, pp. 317-29. Ir. For fourth-century developments see ibid., pp., 361-81, summarizing the transformation at p. 36s: "de simple aire privee ... il devient un lieu public." Much of this discussion is based on material associated with the tomb of Lawrence, where--unlike at Peter and MarceHinus--there is independent evidence of fourth-century devotional activity. 12. Jerome Comm. In Ezech. 40.5-13 (CCL 7S:556-67). 13. Particularly apposite here is Ramsay MacMuHen's lively evocation of how "members of one group, assembling for their recoHections and celebrations of an evening and under the genial influence of a fuH stomach and a glass or more of wine, might look to their neighbors of another faith ... ": Christianity and Paganism in the Fourth to Eighth Centuries (New Haven, Conn., 1997), pp. 117- 18 . 14. For Damasus's interventions, see C. Pietri, Roma Christiana: Recherches sur l'eglise de Rome, son organisation, sa politique, son ideologie, de Miltiade a Sixte III (JI I-440), BEFAR 284 (Rome, 1976), pp. 595-624; cf. Pietri, "Damase, eveque de Rome," in Saecularia Damasiana: Atti deI Convegno Internazionale per il XVI Centenario della morte di papa Damaso I, Studi di Antichita Cristiana 39 (Vatican City, 1986), pp. 29-58. 15. Guyon, Le cimetiere, pp. 4°6-10, for Damasus's commemoration of the martyrs Tiburtius and Gorgonius. 16. Curran, Pagan City and Christian Capital, p. 146. 17. For Damasus's inscription, see above, note 6; the pope's contribution is fuHy discussed in Guyon, Le cimetiere, pp. 381-415.

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18. Jerame's famous comment (Ep. 107.1: "movetur urbs sua sede") need not, in its context, refer more broadly than to the contrast between the papally led procession on the annual Feast of the Apostles, and the solemn pagan rituals formerly conducted on the Capitol at the New Year. Another canonical text-Prudentius Pe. 11.195-235 on the natale of Hippolytusdescribes an occasion closely linked with the annual feast of Lawrence, and perhaps (in my view probably) conducted in the same basilica. 19. Guyon, Le cimeti'ere, pp. 381-82. MacMullen discusses the mensae in Christianity and Paganism, pp. 63, I I 1. 20. Guyon, Le cimetiere, pp. 499-509, presents the evidence. 21. Peter Brown, The Cult 0/ the Saints (Chicago, 1981), p. 40. 22. Aug. Con! 6.2.2. 23. Procop. Wars 2.10.8. 24. VP 18: S. P. Brack and S. Ashbrook Harvey, Holy Women 0/ the Syrian Orient (Berkeley, Calif., 1987), p. 47. 25· VP 24-3 0 . 26. For the testimony of Ps.-Martyrius on the effect of this technique upon a different audience, at Constantinople, see F. Van Ommeslaeghe, "Jean Chrysostome er le peuple de Constantinople," Analeeta Bollandiana 99 (19 81 ): 32 9-49. 27. J. Chr. Hom. 67 in Matth. 3 (PG 58:636-37). 28. Cod. Theod. 15.7.5; see above, p. 116 n. 25. 29. Amm. Mare. 14.6.19. 30. Ibid., 28-4.9. The sole manuscript is here defective. Where W. Seyfarth follows the original editor Gelenius to read "meretricem"-Ammianus Marcellinus: Res Gestae, vol. 2 (Leipzig, 1978), p. 78-the lacuna of four letters after "m" also admits the conjecture "mimam." 3 I. I borrow the phrase, and the implied model of Roman social relations, from J. Matthews, The Roman Empire 0/ Ammianus (London, 1988), 419-420. 32. Amm. Mare. 26.3.3. 33. Greg. Naz. Carm. 2.1.12-402-3. Palladius portrays Porphyry in Dialogus de Vita Iohann. Chrys. 16. 34. Jer. Contra Iohann. Hierolym. 8; Coll. Av. 1.9. 35. Amm. Mare. 27.3.12-13; Coll. Av. 1. For arecent analysis of the episode, wirh bibliography, see Curran, Pagan City and Christian Capital, pp. 137-4 2 . 36. Coll. Av. 1.5-7. 37. Ibid., 1.12. For the basilica/mausoleum complex at the site, see Pietri, Roma Christiana, pp. 47-51; cf. Curran, Pagan City and Christian Capital, pp. 128-29.

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38. Ferrua, Epigrammata Damasi, no. 37. 39. Justin Dial. Tryph. 2-7· 40. Gregory notes only that he was not yet baptized when he sailed for Athens to study: DVS 164-66. 41. Various relevant aspects are explored in G. Reale et al., eds., L'opera letteraria di Agostino tra Cassiciacum e Milano: Agostino nelle terre di Ambrogio (Palermo, 1987). 42. DVS 277-311. 43. Ibid., 312-44; cf. his explanation to Basil, Ep. 1. 44. P. Gallay, La vie de saint Gregoire de Nazianze (lyons, 1943), pp. 13286; J. Bernardi, Saint Gregoire de Nazianze: Le theologien et son temps (33°390) (Paris, 1995), pp. 175-97· 45. For Maximus see J. Mossay, "Note sur Heron-Maximus, ecrivain ecclesiastique," Analecta Bollandiana 100 (1982): 229-36; for Justin and Crescens (Justin 2 Apo!. 3) see A. 1. Malherbe, "Justin and Crescens," in Christian Teaching: Studies in Honor 0/ LeMoine Lewis, ed. E. Ferguson (Abilene, Kansas, 19 81 ), pp. 3 12 - 2 7. 46. For Gregory and the Anastasia, see now R. Snee, "Gregory Nazianzen's Anastasia Church: Arianism, the Goths, and Hagiography," Dumbarton Oaks Papers 52 (1998): 157-96. Justin's lodgings are identified (and muddled in transmission) in Acta Just. 3.3: H. Musurillo, The Acts 0/ the Christian Martyrs (Oxford, 1972), pp. xix, 44, 48. Gregory reports his mysterious brush with the authorities at Constantinople in DVS 668-78. 47· Acta Just. 4·7 48. Tatian Oratio ad Graecos 29. 49. Ibid., 19· 50. Irenaeus Adv. Haer. 1.28.1. 51. Eus. HE 4.18. 52. Jerome Ep. 52.8. 53. Pseudo-Nonnus Comm. in Greg. Naz. or. 39. For a useful introduction to this work see now J. Nimmo Smith, A Christian's Guide to Greek Culture: T he P seudo- N onnus Commentaries on Sermons 4, 5, 39 and 43 0/ Gregory 0/ Nazianzus, Translated Texts for Historians 37 (liverpool, 2001). 54. Justin I Apol. 24-2 5. 55. Ibid., 26; A. Wartelle, Saint Justin: Apologies (Paris, 1987), pp. 26465· 56. For this chapter in Eunomius's career see R. P. Vaggione, Eunomius 0/ Cyzicus and the Nicene Revolution (Oxford, 2000), pp. 312-26. 57. For complementary assessments of the impact on Cappadocia of Eustathius of Sebaste, see S. Elm, {{Virgins 0/ God": The Making 0/ Asceticism

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in Late Antiquity (Oxford, 1994), pp. 106-36; P. Rousseau, Basil of Caesarea (Berkeley, Calif., 1994), pp. 73-7 6, 99-102. 58. There are some shrewd re marks in F. Norris, Faith Gives Fullness to Reasoning: The Five Theological Grations of Gregory Nazianzen (Leiden, 1991), pp. 90-92, 146, 156, 163, 188,201: the implications deserve fuller exploration. 59. I Apol. 26. 60. Ibid., 58. 61. DVS 1144-45, 1167-7°. 62. Ibid., 1188-89, 63. Epiph. Sal. Panarion 42.1.2 (fourth-century Marcionists); 42.11 (treatise against Marcion's books; reference to debate with Marcionists at 4 2 . 1 1.17). 64. T. Rajak, "Talking at Trypho: Christian Apologetic as Anti-Judaism in Justin's Dialogue with Trypho the Jew," in Apologetics in the Roman Empire: Pagans, lews, and Christians, ed. M. Edwards, M. Goodman, and S. Price (Oxford, 1999). 65. For the chronological difficulties, see above, p. 25 n. 5. 66. M. Meslin, La fete des kalendes de janvier dans l'empire romain: Etude d'un rituel de Nouvel An, Collection Latomus I 15 (Brussels, 1970). 67. J. Mossay, Les fetes de Noet et d'Epiphanie d'apres les sources litteraires cappadocienes du IVe siede, Abbaye du Mont Cesar, Textes et etudes liturgiques 3 (Louvain, 1965), offers a prudent discussion of the possibilities. 68. The emperor is apostrophized in two surviving sermons: Gr. 36. I I, 37. 2 3. 69· Gr. 39·9. 70. Ibid., 40.19. 71. Just. I Apol. I; for textual difficulties here see Wartelle, Saint lustin, pp. 3 0 -3 2 . 72. Eusebius HE 4.12 alters I Apol. I so that only Marcus is styled "philosopher"; at 4.18.2 he claims that 2 Apol. was addressed not to the senate but to Marcus Aurelius. An ingenious solution to the problem is proposed by P. Parvis, "The Textual Tradition of Justin's Apologies: A Modest Proposal," Studia Patristica 36 (2001): 54-60. 73. See my paper, "The Transformations of Imperial Churchgoing in the Fourth Century," in Transformations in Late Antiquity, ed. M. Edwards and S. Swain (Oxford, forthcoming). 74· Acta lust. 3-4· 75· DVS 1495-9 6 . 76. Greg. Naz. Ep. 78-79.

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77. The identical passages are Or. 45.3-9,26-27, matching Or. 38.7,-13, 14-15. For the circumstances of delivery see J. Bernardi, La pridication des Peres Cappadociens: Le predicateur et son auditoire (Paris, 1968), pp. 246-5°. 78. Greg. Naz. Ep. 173. 79. J. Matthews, Western Aristocracies and Imperial Court (Oxford, 1975), pp. 127-45, beautifully evokes the headstrong religiosity of the Theodosian court. 80. Amb. De Spir. Sanct. I. 17-18. 8I. For the context see McLynn, Ambrose 0/ Milan: Church and Court in a Christian Capital (Berkeley, Calif., 1994), pp. I20-2I. 82. There are several useful recent discussions of Justinian's Apthartodocetism: K. Adshead, "Justinian and Apthartodocetism," in Ethnicity and Culture in Late Antiquity} ed. S. Mitchell and G. Greatrex (London, 2000), pp. 331-36; M. van Esbroek, "The Apthartodocetic Edict of Justinian and the Armenian Background," Studia Patristica 33 (1997): 578-85. 83. For recent discussion see P. W. 1. Walker, Holy City} Holy Places? (Oxford, 1990), pp. 42-43; J. E. Taylor, Christians and the Holy Places: The Myth 0/ Jewish-Christian Origins (Oxford, 1993), p. 31 I. 84. T. D. Barnes, Constantine and Eusebius (Cambridge, Mass., 1981), pp. 110-11; for a different reading, A. Louth, "The Date of Eusebius' Historia Ecclesiastica} " JThS 41 (1990): 118-20. 85· Eus. VC 3.7. 86. Eus. De laud. Const. 13.7.2; Dem. Evang. 3.6.32.8. 87. Eus. Comm. In Ps. 23. I IOI.7 88. R. R. R. Smith, "The Public Image of the Emperor Licinius," JRS 87 (1997): 170- 202 , esp. pp. 19 1-94. 89. Ibid., pp. 17 1-73. 90. Eus. HE 9. I I; Greg. Naz. Or. 4.96. 9I. Eus. HE 8.13. 92. Two recent discussions (with reference to previous controversies) are, respectively, O. Nicholson, "Gaelum potius intuens: Lactantius and aStatue of Constantine," Studia Patristica 34 (2001): 177-96; and J. Elsner, "From the Culture of Spolia to the Cult of Saints: The Arch of Constantine and the Genesis of Late Antique Forms," PBSR} n.s. 55 (2000): 149-84. See also Curran, Pagan City and Christian Capital} pp. 76-9°. 93. M. Culhed, Conservator Urbis Suae: Studies in the Politics and Propaganda 0/ the Emperor Maxentius (Stockholm, 1994); H. A. Drake, Constantine and the Bishops: The Politics o/Intolerance (Baltimore, 2000), p. 170, aptly notes Maxenti us's resourcefulness "in reaching out to new consti tuencies. " 94. P. Verduchi, "Columna Phocae," in Lexicon Topographicum Urbis Romae} ed. M. Steinby, vol. I (Rome, 1993) p. 307.

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95. Just. I Apol. 56. 96. Apul. Met. I I .24: "ad instar Solis ... et in vieem simulaeri." 97. Greg. Naz. Gr. 43.52. 98. MeLynn, "Gregory Nazianzen's Basil: The Literary Construetion of a Christian Friendship," Studia Patristica 37 (2001): I8I. 99. Aug. Conf 8.2.5; the rite is deseribed in more detail by Rufinus, Comm. in symb. Apost. 3. 100. Eus. VC 4. 62-6 3. 10 I. VP 14-15 . 102. Eus. VC I.28-32. 103. Eus. SC 18.1-3. 104. Mereurius: Amm. Mare. 15.3.7. For an example of a fatally empurpled dream, see Socrates HE 4.31. 105. P. Cox Miller, Dreams in Late Antiquity: Studies in the Imagination 0/ a Culture (Prineeton, N.)., 1994). 106. Greg. Naz. Gr. 7.2 I, 43.80; for the latter passage see MeLynn, "Gregory Nazianzen's Basil," p. 183. 107. Amm. Mare. 20.5.10, 2I.I4.2, 25.2.3-4. 108. For some examples see Sozomen HE 6.2; for the intensity of the noeturnal offensive waged by Christi an leaders (a likely stimulus to visionary experienee), cf. Greg. Naz. Gr. 18.32. 109. Theodoret HE 5.24. 110. Ibid., 5.6. I I I. Ambrose Ep. extra coll. 10 [5 I}. 14: after the massacre of Thessaloniea, Ambrose claimed to have been warned in avision against admitting Theodosius to the Eueharist. 112. Proeop. Buildings I.7.6. I I 3 . P roeop. Secret History 12.22. 114. Eus. VC 4.58-60. I 15. For the moving of Constantine's body, the ensuing riot, and the downfall of the bishop responsible, see Socrates HE 2.38.35-43, with diseussion by G. Dagron, Constantinople: La naissance d'zme capitale: ConstantinopIe et ses institutions de 330 a 45 I (Paris, 1974), pp. 404-5. 116. Passio Artemii 17; see D. Woods, 'The Date of the Translation of the Relies of SS. Luke and Andrew to Constantinople,' Vigiliae Christianae 45 (1991), 286-92. 117. Proeop. Buildings I.4.IO. 118. Proeop. Wars 3.10.19-20, 12.3; 2I.I7-25. 119. Averil Cameron, Procopius and the Sixth Century (London, 1985), pp. 33-46, diseusses "The Diseourse of Proeopius"; cf. pp. 114-15, for the Vandal- expedition and its assoeiated dreams.

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I20. Doxa is applied to Christian orthodoxy in e.g. Wars 3. 2I , 5.5.9, to heresy in 3.2.5, 3.6. I, 8 -4. I I; the grammar of conversion from true to heretical doxa at 3.8-IO and 6.6.I8 exhibits parallels to the pagan/Christian equivalent. For classical usage of diaita see, for example, Thuc. I.6, 2.I6. I2I. Procop. Buildings 6.2.I9. I22. Ibid., 6.2.23. I23. Procop. Wars 6.I4.33. I24. Ibid., 6.25.IO. I25. Ibid., 8.3.I9. Procopius reveals the subordination only when the Abasgi revolt: ibid., 8.9.6. I26. Ibid., I.I2.3. I 27. For the complexities of Iberian religion see D. Braund, Georgia in Antiquity: A History 0/ Colchis and Transeaueasian Iberia 550 B.C.-A.D. 562 (Oxford, I994), pp. 26I, 282-84. I28. Procop. Wars 2.28.26. I29. See ibid., 2.28.27-28 on Lazi-Roman trade. The incoherence of Procopius's analysis overall is emphasized by Braund, Georgia in Antiquity! pp. 296-9 8 . I30. Braund, Georgia in Antiquity! pp. 292-93, emphasizes Zoroastrianism's "deep roots in the his tory of the region, no doubt strengthened under recent Persian suzerainty." I3I. Procop. Wars 2.I5.6-IO, blaming the generals Peter and lohn Tzibus, with Braund, Georgia in Antiquity! pp. 293-95. I32. Procop. Buildings I.2.I-I2, with C. Mango, "The Columns of ]ustinian and his Successors," in Mango, Studies on Constantinople (Aldershot, I993), chap. IO, pp. I-20. I33. Chron. Pase. s.a. 53I. I34. Ibid., s.a. 533; R. Krautheimer, Three Christian Capitals (Berkeley, Calif., I983), p. 62, envisages "a gathering of the faithful without benefit of clergy." I35. Constant. Porphyr. De Caerim. Aulae Byzant. I.I 23-24; cf. I.Io.3 (Easter Monday), I.30.3 (Annunciation Day), 2.I9 (Triumphal Celebrations). C. Mango, "Constantine's Porphyry Column and the Chapel of St. Constantine," Deltion tes ehristianikes arehaiologikes IO (I980-8I): pp. I03-IO; reprinted in Mango, Studies on Constantinople! chap. 4. I36. T. F. X. Noble, The Republie 0/ Saint Peter: The Birth 0/ the Papal State 680-825 (Philadelphia, I984), pp. I34-37. I37. R. Krautheimer, Rome: Profile 0/ a City! 312-13°8 (Princeton, N.]., I980), pp. 83-87. By the eighth century Constantine's basilica on the Via Tiburtana had acquired an association with Mary; Pope Leo IV's decision in the mid-ninth century to host the newly introduced Feast of the Assumption

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there can be seen as an attempt to find a use for a redundant building. Cf. R. Davis, The Lives 0/ the Ninth-Century Popes, Translated Texts for Historians 20 (Liverpool, 1995), p. 121 and n. 42. 138. Guyon, Le cimeti'ere, pp. 439-55, arguing (at pp. 452-54) for construction by the same Pope Honorius who redesigned St. Agnes. 139. Ibid., pp. 47 8- 82 . 140. Suggested respectively by P. E. Dutton, Charlemagne's Courtier: The Complete Einhard (Peterborough, Ont., 1998), p. xxiv, and Guyon, Le cimetiere, pp. 480-81. 141. Translatio et miracula 1.I, 2-6. 142. For Deusdona's operations, see P. J. Geary, Furta Sacra: Thefts 0/ Relics in the Central Middle Ages (Princeton, N.]., 1978), pp. 45-49. 143. Cf. ibid., pp. 119-20; Geary suggests elsewhere that Deusdona was in fact acting with papal approval: Living with the Dead in the Middle Ages (Ithaca, N.Y, 1994), p. 190. It is probably not coincidence that the pope's appearance in Translatio et miracula, at 4.16, reduces hirn to a fellow beneficiary with Einhard of Deusdona's largesse. The papal envoys are reported in Translatio et miracula 1.7. 144. Translatio et miracula 1.5. 145. For Walahfrid Strabo's remarkable poem on the equestrian statue of Theoderic (with Einhard still harmoniously paired-in 829-with his riyal Hilduin), see M. W. Herren, "The 'De imagine Tetrici' of Walahfrid Strabo: Edition and Translation," Journal 0/ Medieval Latin I (1991): 118-39. 146. P. E. Dutton, The Politics 0/ Dreaming in the Carolingian Empire (Lincoln, Neb., 1994), with useful discussion of Einhard's saints at pp. 9197· 147. Translatio et miracula 3.13: the contents ofRatleic's booklet "should be told in another place than here." 148. Ep. 13-15. 149. Translatio et miracula 2.8. IS0. See in general McLynn, "The Other Olympias: Gregory Nazianzen and the Family of Vitalianus," Zeitschrift für Antikes Christentum 2 (1998): 227-4 6 . I 5 I. For this interpretation see McLynn, "Gregory Nazianzen's Basil," p. 18 3. 152. Annals 0/ Pulda s.a. 874; Dutton, Politics 0/ Dreaming, pp. 219-22. 153. Aug. Conf 9. 6 . 1 4. 154. It remains unclear how many of Augustine's "Platonist" friends at Milan were baptized. At least one fellow Thagastean would attach hirns elf to Augustine after the latter's baptism: ibid., 9.8.17. ISS. -Ibid., 9. 6 . 14.

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15 6 . Ibid., 9.7.15. 157. An excellent study is now available: W. Harmless, Augustine and the Catechumenate (Collegeville, Minn., 1995). A useful introduction to Augustine's theology of baptism in its historical context is P. Cramer, Baptism and Change in the Early Middfe Ages c. 200-C. I I50 (Cambridge, 1993), pp. 8712 9. 158. Einhard, Lift 0/ Charlemagne, 24. 159. Aug. Civ. Dei 22.8-4. 160. Ibid. 161. On the question of topography raised by this passage, see V Saxer, Morts, martyrs, reliques en A/rique chretienne aux premiers si'ecles: Les temoinages de Tertullien, Cyprien et Augustin a fa fumiere de l'archeofogie a/ricaine (Paris, 1980), pp. 179-8 1. 162. "Conversi ad dominum": see F. Dolbeau, "Sermons inedits de saint Augustin preches en 397 (5ieme serie)," RevBen 10 4 (1994): 72-76; Con! 9.2.3 (faces being turned towards Augustine); 10.35.35 ("ad se convertit illa venatio"). 163. Aug. Civ. Dei 22.8.23: "conversi sunt eo." 164. Serm. 320-24, of which Serm. 322 is the fibellus read out in church two days after the miracle. 165. Serm. 323-4: '''Dixi, proloquar': nondum prolocutus sum." Augustine had made but a perfunctory plea for prayers for the sister, before the reading of the fibellus (Serm. 322, ad init.); but part at least of the audience were evidently stirred by her visible suffering to accompany her to the martyrium. 166. Ibid., 324. 167. Ibid., 320: "Date veniam, quia diuturnum non reddo sermonem: nostis etenim meam fatigationem." 168. For discussion and references, see Harmless, Augustine and the Catechumenate, pp. 3 I 3- 15 .

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

Susanna Elm is Professor of History at the University of California at Berkeley. She is the author of Virgins 0/ God. T he Making 0/ Asceticisms in Late Antiquity (1994, 1996) and, with Eric Rebillard, the editor of Orthodoxyl History (2000). Anthony Grafton teaches European his tory at Princeton University. His books includeJoseph Scaliger (1983-93), The Footnote: A Curious History (1997), and Bring Out Your Dead (2001). Richard Lim is Associate Professor of History at Smith College. He is the author of Public Disputation, Power, and Social Order in Late Antiquity (1995) and is currently writing a book on public spectacles and civic transformation in late antiquity. Rebecca Lyman is the Samuel Garrett Professor of Church History at The Church Divinity School of the Pacific in The Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. She is the author of Christology and Cosmology: Models 0/ Divine Aaivity in Origen, Eusebius, and Athanasius (1993) and Early Christian Traditions (1999). Michael Maas is Associate Professor of History at Rice U niversity. He is the author of John Lydus and the Roman Past: Antiquarianism and Politics in the Age 0/Justinian (1992), Readings in Late Antiquity: A Sourcebook (2000), and Exegesis and Empire in the Early Byzantine Mediterranean: J unillus Africanus and the Instituta Regularia Divinae Legis (2002). Neil McLynn is Professor in the Faculty of Law at Keio University, Japan. He is the author of Ambrose 0/ Milan: Church and Court in a Christian Capital (1994)·

Kenneth Mills is a historian of colonial Latin America and the early modern Spanish world at Princeton University, where he is the Director of the Program in Latin American Studies. His recent work includes Idolatry and

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Its Enemies: Colonial Andean Religion and Extirpation, 1640-1750 (1997) and, with William B. Taylor and Sandra Lauderdale Graham, Colonial Latin America: A Documentary History (2002).

Eric Rebillard is a researcher at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in Paris. He is the author of In hora mortis: Evolution de la pastorale chretienne de la mort aux IVe et Ve südes dans f'Occident latin (1994) and Religion et sepulture: L'iglise, les vivants et les morts dans l'Antiquiti tardive (forthcoming, 20°3)·

Julia M. H. Smith is Reader in Mediaeval History at the University of St. Andrews. She is the author of Province and Empire: Brittany and the Carolingians (r992) and of many articles on saints' cults and hagiography in late antiquity and the early Middle Ages. Her After Rome: Western Europe, c. 5001000 will shortly be published by Oxford University Press. Raymond Van Dam is Professor of History at the University of Michigan. His books include Leadership and Community in Late Antique Gaul (1985), Saints and Their Mirades in Late Antique Gaul (1993), and Kingdom 0/ Snow: Roman Rule and Greek Culture in Cappadocia (2002). Families and Friends in Late Roman Cappadocia and Becoming Christian: The Conversion 0/ Roman Cappadocia will be published in 2003.

INDEX

Abraham, 68 Acacius, 169 Acta 0ustin Martyr), 43 Acta Pelagiae, 122n86 Acta Sanctorum, 91 Acts 0/ the Apostles, 94 Adalhuno of Nilkheim, 196 Adelphius, 34n94 Admonitio generalis (Charlemagne), 190 Ad Scapulam, 69 Aeneid (Virgil), 158 Aeschylus, 4 "Against All the Heresies" 0ustin Martyr), 239 Against the Spectacles (Tertullian), 101 Agathias of Myrina, 169, 171-74, 178, 187n88 Alamanni people, 171, 187n88; aspects of society, 171-72 Alberic, 205 Alexander of Alexandria (Bishop), 139 Alexander the Great, 159, 166 Alienation, 37 Amand de Mendieta, Emmanuel, 31n61 Ambrose (Bishop), 99, 243, 258 Ammianus Marcellinus, 128, 234, 248 Ammonius, 41 Antoninus Pius, 241 Apollo, 127, 135 Apologetics, 37 Apology 0ustin Martyr), 37, 39, 45, 238, 241 Apostles, 7 Apostolic Constitutions, 24, 101 Apthartodocetism, 243 Apuleius, 246, 247 Archytas, 62 Aristeas, Aurelius, 66 Ariston of Syracuse, 63 Aristotle, 185n69 Arius, 55n31, 139, 141, 142

Armenia, 169-71 Artemeis, Aurelia, 65 Asclepius, 238 Assimilation, 44; away from cuits, 41; cultural transformation and, 157; degrees of, 41; early presence of problems with, 48; strategies of, 37; of subject peoples, 169; toward culture, 41 Asrrology, 13, 14 Attis, 63; cult of, 7 Augustine, 7, 34n97, 236, 247, 254-61; conversion of, 1, 27n20; denial of sacraments to prostitutes, 87; Dolbeau Sermons of, 110; effort to change the habits of Christians, 190; model of conversion by, 236 Augustus (Emperor), 109 Authority: biblical, 52n12; centralized, 38; Christian, 225; conflicts over, 38; disruption of normative structures of, 37; early presence of problems with, 48; exegetical, 38; imperial, 38, 85; negotiation of, 49; philosophieal, 45; religious, 225; spiritual, 40; subversion of, 45; theologieal, 38 Bacchus, 62 Baptism: actualization of moments of fusion in, 17; administration of, 17; authentie, 53n14; benefits of, 34n94; of blood, 18; child, 18; confirmation and, 6; cosmology and, 2; death bed, 88, 89, 99; delayed, 33n79, 99; denial of, 89; differing notions of, 22, 23; as elite event, 2-3, 20-21; as equivalent of heavenly citizenship, 14; figurative, 17; Gregory of Nazianzus and, 1-24; illumination and, 17; incarnation and, 16, 17; into incarnation of ]esus Christ, 6; incentives for, 99; as initiation into

273

274

INDEX

Baptism (continued) mystery, 24; interpretations of meaning of, 21; of ]esus Christ, 5, 25n8; language of, 27n22; late antiquity catechumens and, 98-104; Lent and, 100, 101; light and, 33n78; markers of, 20; of the martyrs, 18; by metropolitans, 21; as moment, 20; new faith and, 18; as opportunity to exhibit faith, 247; order of celebration of, 6; of pagans, 211; of the poor, 18, 34n95; preparation for, 18, 98-99, 100; as process, 6, 20; programs of correction after, x; purification and, 3, 17, 18, 20, 21, 33n78, 33n82; as rebirth, 18, 27n22, 33n81; religious conversion and, 1-24; renunciation of the devil and, 10 1; rivalries of, 20-24; salvation and, 17; of scaenici, 115n23; shortening of preparation for, 99; social status and, 247; spiritual, 17, 18; sponsorship for, 103; of stage performers, x, 84-111, 225; subsequent conduct and, 102, 103; of tears, 18; for those in public office, 33n84; transformation through, 187n94; writing and, 19 Barbarians: change and, 153; communal identities of, 154; in ethnographie writing, 155; exclusion of women from succession, 169-70; given citizenship by Romans, 154; imperial rule and, 153; legal reform and, 169-71; Romanization of, 157, 158 Barnes, T. D., 133 Basilides (Bishop), 70 Basil of Caesarea, 2, 99, 246 Baugulf (Ab bot), 192 Beaucamp, ]oelle, 108 Being: formation of, 16; possession by God, 15 Benedict of Aniane, 200 Bhabha, Homi, 37, 58n59 Black Damasus, 235 Boniface, 196 Brakke, D., 41 Brent, A., 41 Brown, Peter, 27n20, 230 Buildings (Procopius), 163-67, 184n60, 243, 250, 251, 253 Burial: Christian, 69-71; collective graves and, 62, 63; conversion and, 61-74;

crowning tombs with roses, 66; as family affair, 61, 62, 63, 68, 72, 227, 228; for freed slaves, 71; funerary gardens, 63; Greco-Roman, 66; hypogea and, 65, 67; individual distinction and, 62; individual sepulchres and, 63; inscriptions and, 61; ]ewish/Non]ewish, 64-69; in late Roman Empire, 61-74; mortuary funds for, 72, 73; necessity of conversion to cult and, 62; role of synagogue in, 67; separate, 65; site selection, 61, 62; sites for, 227 Byzantium: Christi an identity of, 152; as continuation of Roman empire, 178n2; resiliency of, 152; sense of identity, 160; social transformation of, 177; treatment of foreigners, 159 Calderon, Maria, 120n61 Calendars, Roman, 6 Cameron, Averil, 40, 171 Capitulatio de partibus Saxoniae (Charlemagne), 71 Cappadocian Fathers, 5, 159, 259, 260 Carneades, 13-14, 31n61 Carolingian era, 191-212 Cassiodorus, 108 Catacombs, 229; Beth She'arim, 67; Domitilla, 72; ]ewish, 67; La Magdalena, 65; pagan motifs in, 79n52; Via Labicana, 230; Via Latina, 227; Villa Randanini, 64, 79n52 Catechumens: baptism in late antiquity, 98-104; baptism of tears for, 18; instruction of, 6; Pelagia, 84 Celsus, 45, 46, 48, 51n8 Cemeteries, 64. See also Catacombs; EI Ibrahimiya, 66; Gamart, 67; "]ewish," 65; lack of control of, 227; private, 64; Via Labicana, 228 Change: capability for, 6; cultural, 15278; religious, 191, 211, 212n5 Charlemagne, 71, 190, 193, 196, 215n18, 258 Christianity: acculturation to local custom by, 194; appropriate, 1%; archaie, 191; assumptions on, 41; baptism and, 17; burial and, 69-71; conflict within, 38; confrontation with false belief in, 238; contrast with Hellenism, 36, 37, 43, 47, 48, 52n12; convergence/divergence

INDEX with Judaism, 50n2; conversion of Tzani people, 163-69; correct, 190, 192, 211, 212n5; cultural change and, 152-78; diversity of forms of, :;On2; emperors and, 243-54; establishment of as religio licita, 99; ethnography and, 152-78; expansion of, 133; forced conversion to, 160, 167; funerary separatism and, 69; homemade, 236; imperial, 160; integration with state ideology, 159, 160-69; intellectual origins of, 42; limited reach of formal ecclesiastical structures of, 235-43; medieval, 191; mimicry and, 45; multiplicity in, 38, 41; ordinary, 197; orthodox, 46, 49; paradigms of change through conversion in, 159; persecution of, 53n14, 130; philosophy and, 44; pluralities in, 211; predominance of, 154; prescriptive, 224; Roman, 153; self-identity of, 36; slow adaptation to, 85-86; spread of, 194; as sum of ancient wisdom, 42; survival of Roman plurality by, 40; as third race, 52n12; traditional narrative of, 36, 40; as truth, 58n57; as work in progress, 41 Christianization: correction and, 190; emendation and, 190; ethnographie writing and, x; in late antiquity, 85-86; limits of, 91; nature of, 85-86; process of persuasion in, 86; scope of, 85-86; stage performers, imperviousness to, 84 Chronicle (Eusebius), 143 Chronographia (Malalas), 93 Chrysostom, John, 11, 94, 99, 100, 102, 103, 111, 119n49, 232, 233 Church of the Holy Sepulchre, 139, 140, 143 Citizenship: gradations of, 154; granted to all in Roman empire, 158; heavenly, 14, 24; inscription and, 10; Roman, 154; for Tzani people, 169 City 0/ God (Augustine), 258 Claudius Gothicus (Emperor), 135 Clement, 32n69, 55n31 Clifford, James, 152 Column of Phocas, 246 Community: barbarian, 156; Christian imperial, 159; cult of, 48; defining, 41; episcopal, 55n31; of faith, 154, 156; under Erankish kings, 194; imperial,

275

153;· integrated, 153; mainstream, 41; non-Roman, 156; Pythagorean, 62; true, 48 Confessions (Augustine), 7, 236, 247, 259 Confirrnation: baptism and, 6 Constantine and Ettsebius (Barnes), 133 Constantine (Emperor): absence of Christian allusion in statue of, 128; association with bishops, 139; autobiography of, 127-30; batde with Licinius, 134, 135, 136; in Bethlehem, 139; Christian persecution and, 131; commitment to Christianity, 244-45; comparison with father, 131, 132; concern with loyalty of troops, 138; conversion of, 85, 98-99, 127-48; divine support for, 136; ideologies of legitimation of, 135; in Jerusalem, 139, 140, 143; life of, 134-37; links with Apollo, 138; meaning of bronze statue of, x, 145-48; meeting with Eusebius, 131; moments of crisis for, 134, 135, 136, 13 7; personal acceptance of Christianity, 131; relationship with Jesus Christ, 139, 140; sequence of conversion, 134; significance of reign of, 133; statue of, 127, 128, 145-48, 246; story of, 137-41; in tetrarchie order, 246; triumphal arch at Rome and, 136; universality of imperial rule of, 128; views on paganism, 132, 133, 135, 136; visionary status of, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138 Constantinople: Church of Holy Wisdom, 127; Church of the Holy Aposdes, 127, 145; development as center of Christian community, 159; Forum of, 127; Hippodrome, 127, 128; statue of Constantine in, 127, 128, 145-48 Constantius (Emperor), 107, 130, 131, 132 Constitutio Antoniniana, 158, 169 Contra lvIarcellum (Eusebius), 142-43 Conversion: baptism and, 1-24; burial and, 61-74; to Christianity, 53n14, 6971, 73; community knowledge of, 81n73; complete, IX; conscious choice and, 26n17; control of, 225; defining, 4, 7; differing meanings of, 225; as illumination, 1; of individuals, 84; inscriptions and, 1-24; internal change

INDEX

Conversion (continued) and, 26n17; to Judaism, 64; as metanoia, 6; narratives, 198-99; negotiations over, 87; of Paul, 7; as personal event, ix; philosophieal, 5 3n14; private/public aspects of, 129; as problem of Hellenization, 36-50; as process, 2, 6, 7, 8; as reorientation of the soul, 7; as response to particular situations, 129; as salvation through continuous adherence, 1; self-representation and, 129; sequence of, 134; of stage performers, 84-111; texts of, 226; tranquil process of, 27n20 Correctio. See Correction Correction, 189, 190; Christianization and, 190; discipline of morals and, 192; Einhard and, 192; grounding in Roman legislative tradition, 214n16; interior, 202; relics and, 201; religious practice and, 197; route to, 204; vocabulary of, 214n15, 214n16

Cosmology: Apollinarist, 22; Arian, 2, 21, 22, 24; competing, 2; differing personalizations of Christ in, 23; Eunomian, 2, 24; Messalian, 2; moments of change in, 6; Neo-Platonic, 23; Novatian, 2, 21, 24; Platonic, 3, 6, 15, 23; rivalries of, 20-24; Sabellian, 22; understanding of, 23 Cosmos: interaction with divinity, 15 Council of Antioch, 141, 142 Council of Nicaea, 131, 137, 139, 142, 144, 244 Crescens the Cynic, 237 Cults: of Attis, 7; burial requirements of, 61-64; commitment asked by, 61; conflict with families of members and, 61; of Cybele, 7, 68, 71; diffusion of, 62; funerary inscriptions and, x; funerary practices of, 62; of Genesius, 118n39; immorality of, 45; of Isis, 7, 71, 246; local, 38; of martyrs, 230; of Mithras, 7, 68; mystery, 7, 61-64; new, 61-64; Oriental, 61-64; perseeuted, 37; public, 63, 201; relic, 190; saints', 190, 205, 212n5

Cultural: ambivalence, 48; centrality, 156; change, 152-78; definition, 175; description, 154; differentiation, 154, 155; expression, 39; generalizations, 39; his tory, 191; identity, 159, 171, 17 3;

inclusion, 154; interaction, 171-74; interconnections, 44; multiplicity, 38; necessities, 42; osmosis, 166; regression, 166; relativism, 171-74; transformation, 156, 157, 161, 165, 166, 171 Culture: classical, 190; Coptic, 183n42; generalizations about, 39; Greek, 39, 41, 166; Greek li terary, 157; Hellenie , 41; of origin, 159; religious, 191; Roman, 152; Syriac, 183n42 Cumont, Franz, 61 Cybele, 63, 68, 71; cult of, 7 Cyprian of Carthage, 70, 71, 225, 250 Cyril of Alexandria, 4 Cyril of Jerusalem, 100, 101 Damasus (Pope), 229, 230, 234, 235, 254, 262n6

Daube, David, 107 Declamations, 13, 31n57; advocacy training in, 13 De Idololatria (Tertullian), 69 Delehaye, H., 69 Demophilus (Bishop), 5, 21, 23 Demosthenes, 105 De Vita Sua (Gregory of Nazianzus), 235 Dialogtle (Justin Martyr), 43 Diocletian (Emperor), 88, 130, 131, 138, 246 Discourse: civil, 60n81; cultural ambivalence of orthodox, 48; dominant, 51n7; moral, 91; of order, 108; public, 104; of splitting, 60n81 Disobedience: salvation and, 16 Divinity: calculators of, 21; of Holy Spirit, 22; interaction with cosmos, 15; interpretation of, 14-16; light and, 17; material and, 23; nature of, 14-16 Dolbeau Sermons (Augustine), 110 "Donation of Constantine," 254 Drake, H. A., 133 Dujarer, Michel, 98 Durkheim, Emile, 191 Ecclesiastical History (Eusebius), 130, 143

Education: bilingual memorization exercises in, 12; competitive displays in, 12; legacy of, 12; mimicry and, 31n59; representation of character and, 13; Roman, 12; speech and, 13

INDEX

277

Einhard, 225, 226, 254-61; abandonment of Michelstadt by, 200; at Charlemagne's court, 193; conflict with Hilduin, 202, 204; grants from Louis the Pious, 193; influence of, 193; integrity of, 192; Roman martyrs and, 189-212; strategies of, 201 Elliott, T. G., 133, 136 Elm, Susanna, IX, 1-24, 224, 225, 235, 238, 240, 241, 257 Elllendatio. See Emendation Emendation, 190; Christianization and,. 190; Einhard and, 192; of evil ways, 190; politics of, 189-212; vocabulary of, 214n15 Enlightenment, 191 Entzattberttng, 191 Ephiphanius of Salamis, 181n17 Epiphany, 25n8, 240 Epitaphs, 8; Greek as language of, 80n66 Essence: divine, 23; implication of difference in, 23 Ethnographic writing, x; Christianization and, x Ethnography: Christianity and, 152-78; classical, 152, 154, 156, 176, 188nl13; cultural change and, 152-78; descriptions in, 157; early Byzantine, 152-78; heresy and, 181n17; law and, 159; literary, 154, 155; range of topics in, 157; Roman, 152-53, 156-58; secular genre of, 156 Euelpistus, 237 Eugenius III (Pope), 205 Eunapius, 128 Eunomius, 21, 23, 24 Eusebius, 39, 129, 139, 140, 155, 24354; biographical sketch, 130-34; heretical status of, 141; knowledge of Justin Martyr, 237; meeting with Constantine, 131; theology of, 141-44; thinks of Constantine in terms of persecution, 130, 131

Fredriksen, Paula, 7 Fulda monastery, 196, 197; location, 197; saints' shrines at, 197 Funerary garden, 63

the Fall, 16; Gregory of Nazianzus on, 32n69 Feast of the Apostles, 263n18 Feast of the Assumption, 268n137 First Apology Gustin Martyr), 38, 42 Frankish people, 171, 187n88, 189, 255; continuation of sub-Roman culture of, 187n97;' descriptions, 172

Hadrian (Emperor), 38 Hairesis, 46, 49; demonization of, 47 Heaven: as divine sphere, 16; as state of being, 16 Hebrew law: polytheistic practice and, 45 Hebrew Scripture: authority of, 46; monotheism of, 45

Galerius (Emperor), 130, 131; edicts of toleration by, 130 Genesis: adaptation of, 3; Gregory of Nazianzus on, 15; illumination and, 16 George of Pisidia, 177 Germany: early Christianity in, 196-212; paganism in, 197; relics in, x, 189-212; Roman Empire and, 194 Gideon, 68 Gleason, Maude, 39 Glykon, P. Ailios, 66, 78n47 Gnosticism, 40, 48 God: creation of universe by, 15; demand for purity by, 17; links to man, 17; possession of being by, 15; as supreme light, 16; as three limitless beings, 15; timelessness of, 15 Graffiti, 9 Grafton, Anthony, ix-x Gratian (Emperor), 88, 89 Gregory IV (Pope), 255 Gregory of Nazianzus, IX, 224, 226, 234, 235-43, 259; on baptism, 14-24; as bishop of Constantinople, 4, 25n5; classical canon of, 238; on divinity, 1416; on Emperor Julian, 12; on the Fall, 32n69; on heaven, 16; idiosyncratic nature of, 5; on illumination, 16-17; impact of, 237; on incarnation, 14-16; minority views of, 2-3, 5, 20; orations of, 4-7, 14-24; seen as philosopher, 5; stridency of, 240; terminology of light of, 16; as "The Theologian," 4; understanding of illumination, 6; use of imprinting, 6; use of inscription, 6 Gregory of Nyssa, 99 Gruen, Erich, 39 Guyon, Jean, 228

INDEX Heden (Duke), 196 Helena (Empress), 107, 228-29, 248 Helios, 127 Hellenism, x, 36; ehallenge to Roman dominanee by, 43; eontrast with Christianity, 36, 37,43,47,48, 52n12; goals of, 42-43; mimicry of, 45; morality and, 46; politieal expansion of, 38; positive attributes of, 46; rationalism of, 40; refraeting power of, 44; Roman, 39 Herades, 166 Heradius (Emperor), 28n28, 152, 153, 160, 177, 178n2 Hereules, 138 Heresiology, 37, 48; eonstruetion of apologeties and, 45 Heresy: assoeiation with falsity of, 46; as diagnostie eategory, 155; dissent as, 45; error as, 48; ethnography and, 181n17; magie and, 46, 50; philosophy and, 37, 47,50 Hermaios, M. Aurelios, 65 Hermeneumata, 12 Herosotus, 156 Hetener, Felix, 64 Hilarianus, 70 Hilaritas, Faltonia, 72 Hilduin (Abbot), 202, 204, 205, 254, 255 Himerius, 31n57 Hippolytus, 50, 87, 98, 263n18 Historia Augusta, 64 History (Eusebius), 132, 133 Homilies on the Gospel 0/ John (Chrysostom), 100 Homilies on the Gospel 0/ Matthew (Chrysostom), 94 Homily on the Gospel 0/ Matthew (Chrysostom), 100 Hrabanus Maurus, 197 Hume, David, 7 Hybridity, 38, 58n59; diffieulty of evaluating, 52n12; in philosophical Christianity, 45; subversive nature of, 38 Hypogea, 65 Iambliehus, 35n105 Identity: baptismal, 43; Christian, 85, 86, 104, 152, 249; communal, 154; eultural, 159, 171, 173; ethnie, 36, 159, 194; Greek, 50n6; group, 62;

loeal, 43, 51; male, 95-98, 110; multiple, 36, 37, 42; personal, 50n6; politieal, 194; provineial, 154; regional, 154; religious, 38; Roman, 38, 42, 50n6, 154; self, 41; shaping, 36; subjeetive, 154; systematieity of, 42; universalizing, 42 Illumination, 16-17, 242; baptism and, 17; Genesis and, 16; language of, 6, 35n105; oeeurrenee of, 8; proeess of, ix; as purifieation, 17; terminology of, 1; true transformation and, 2 Imperialism: legaeies of, 36 Inearnation, 5, 14-16, 242; baptism and, 7, 16, 17; as eentral event, 16; of Jesus Christ, 6-7; of the Logos, 16, 45; as proof of Son's inferiority, 23 Inseriptions: on bronze tablets, 9, 10; citizenship and, 10; on eoins, 27n25; eonversion and, 1-24; eult adherenee and, 63; epitaphs, 8; funerary, x, 61, 63; graffiti, 9; interior, 62; Jewish, 78n48; language of, 35n105; life hierarehies and, 10; as means of eommunication, 8; misreading of, 247; offieial aets and doeuments as, 9, 10; olltward appearanee and, 10; pamphlets, 11; preservation of, 8; on publie buildings, 9; purposes of, 8; signifieanee of, 3; soeial status and, 10; as sourees of study, 8; tattoos, 10; as transformations, 7-14; true transformation and, 2; voeabulary of, 1, 2; as writings co gods, 9 Irenaeus, 41, 45, 47, 48, 58n60; as biblieal theologian, 5 5n3 7; as bishop, 55n37; refutation of, 48 Isaae, 21 Isis, 71, 246; eult of, 7 Islam: rise of, 177 Jaeob, 68 Jacob of Sarugh, 104 James, William, 7 Jerome, 255, 263n18 Jesus Christ: baptism of, 3, 5, 18, 25n8; birth of, 25n8; erueifixion/resurreetion, 139-40; inearnation of, 5, 6; interpretations of nature of, 154; as the Logos, 49; relationship to God, 141, 154 John of Ephesus, 104-5, 123n95

INDEX lohn of Epiphania, 174 lohn of ]erusalem, 100, 101 lohn the Baptist, 17, 120n61 lohn the Evangelist, 4 Jonathan, 68 ]o~eph, 68 ]ovian (Emperor), 11 ]udaism, 36; burial practices, 64-69; convergence/divergence with Christianity, 50n2; conversion to, 64; lack of rules on choice of grave, 68; punishment for conversion, 64; role ~f synagogue in burial site, 67 ]ulian (Emperor), 11, 12, 33n82 ]ulianus, 89 ]upiter, 135, 138, 238 ]upiter Doliehenus, 64 ]upiter Heliopolitanus, 64 luster, ]ean, 67 ]ustinian (Emperor), 105, 106, 107, 108, 152,153,159,175, 178n2, 243,251, 252, 253; conquest of the Tzani, 16069; ethnography of, 161; as facilitator of cultural change, 177; law of 536, 169; marriage to Theodora, 106; system of belief of, 167, 177 ]ustin Martyr, x, 225, 235-43; choice of dress after baptism, 43-44, 57n48; as colonial subject/religious subject, 38, 42; conversion of, 36-50; defined by texts, 237; "doubling" and, 37, 38, 51n9; impact of, 237; literary presentation of Christianity, 42; mimesis of philosophical forms, 38; mimicry and, 45, 48; as philosopher, 38, 58n52; reflections on logos, 58n59; universalism of theology of, 38, 42; as work in progress, 41; writings of, 37 Kish, 68 Knowledge: ethnographie, 162; transcendent, 41; of truth, 17 lactantius, 135 lampe, P., 41 language: of illumination, 1, 6, 35nl05; in inscription, 35n105; local, 160; nonRoman, 157; of visions, 134 laws and edicts: as agents of change, 1011; Constantinian, 29n37; inscribed on

279

bronze tablets, 9, 10, 29n37; tearing down, 11; Valentinian, 29n37 lazi people, 171-74 leah, 68 le Boulluec, Alain, 45, 47, 48 lent, 100, 101 leo I (Pope), 90 leo In (Pope), 192 leo IV (Pope), 268n137 leon, Harry, 64, 67 libanius, 31 n5 7 Liber Syroromantls, 87 lieinius (Emperor), 130, 140, 245; batde with Constantine, 134, 135, 136; support for Christianity, 132 Lift 0/ Charlemagne (Einhard), 192, 206 Li/e 0/ Constantine (Eusebius), 131, 132, 133, 137, 143, 144, 147 Lift 0/ Maryl Marinus, 98 Lift 0/ Porphryr the Mime, 92-94 Lift 0/ St. Pelagia, 84, 231, 235, 247 light: baptism and, 33n78; divinity and, 17; God as, 16; Trinity and, 32n71 lim, Richard, x, 84-111, 225, 226, 231, 233, 257 logos: command of heavenly armies by, 144; incarnation of, 16, 45; ]esus Christ as, 49; saving man from consequences of disobedience, 6 lorsch monastery: Nazarius relics at, 197 lothar, 193, 204 louis the Pious, 189, 193, 200, 202, 204, 205; correctio and, 189 lucian of Samosata, 40, 159 lucius, 246, 247 lyman, Rebecca, x, 36-50, 225, 235 Maas, Michael, x, 152-78, 225, 243-54 Macedonius (Bishop), 21 MacMullen, Ramsay, 85-86 Magi, 5, 25n8 Magie: heresy and, 46, 50; rise of, 191 Malalas, lohn, 93 Manitius, Max, 210 Marcellinus and Peter, 189, 190, 192, 194, 196, 205, 210, 228, 229, 235, 254, 257; cult of, 193; curative powers of, 203, 205; display of relics of, 220n82; miracles by, 198, 200, 201, 202; trans formative effect of, 203

280

INDEX

Mareellus of Aneyra (Bishop), 143 Mareian (Emperor), 107, 123nlOO Marcion of Pontus, 58n60, 239 Mareus Aurelius (Emperor), 40, 241, 265n72 Martialis (Bishop), 70 Marx, Karl, 191 Mary the Egyptian, 97, 98 Matter: aseension of, 3; inferiority of, 23; as opposite of divine, 23; physieal, 3; saving, 3 Maxentius (Emperor), 130, 135, 136, 228, 245, 246; battle with Constantine, 133, 135; despieable behavior of, 132; support for Christianity, 132 Maximian (Emperor), 88, 134, 135 Maximinus (Emperor), 130 Maximus of Alexandria, 236, 237 Mazarius, 197 MeLynn, Neil, ix, x, 119n51, 224-61 Meletius, 249 Memory: theories of, 30n55; writing and, 12 Menander Protector, 174, 175, 187nlOO, 239 Mereurius, 72, 248 Metanoia, 6 Michelstadt, 193, 194; abandonment of, 200; ground plan, 199/ig, 200; loeation, 194, 195/ig; relies at, 200; settlement around, 198 Mills, Kenneth, ix-x Mimesis, 13, 31n59 Mimiery, 31n59, 37; of Christianity, 45; destruetive, 46; of Hellenism, 45, 48; Justin Martyr and, 45; of orthodoxy, 46 Mithras, 63, 68; adepts of, 61, 62; eult of, 7 Moles, M. Aurelios, 65 Monotheism, 40, 45 Moral: judgment, 14; order, 108 Morality: Hellenism and, 46; simple, 46 Moreschini, Claudio, 5 Morrison, Karl, 7 Moses, 131; baptism of, 17 Mulinheim, 189, 190, 192, 193, 211, 223nl19; eopying St. Peter's Cathedral, 206, 207fig; eorreetion and, 205; foundation stories of, 200; loeation, 194, 195/ig, 197, 219n67; movement of martyrs to, 200, 201; relies at, 194, 200, 201, 203; seeond ehureh at, 206, 207/ig; settlement around, 198

Mystagogical Catecheses (John of Jerusalem), 100, 101 Nachleben, 112n6 Narratives: conversion, 198-99; hagiographieal, 201; traditional Christian, 36, 40 Nature: divine, 15 "Neighborhood of the First Gate," 66, 78n47 Neymeyr, U., 41 Nieene Creed, 142 Nock, Arthur Derby, 7, 26n17, 101, 225 North, John, 61 Novel (Justinian), 168, 186n82 Numenius of Apamea, 39, 41 On Baptism (Gregory of Nazianzus), 4 On Epiphany (Gregory of Nazianzus), 238 On ldolatry (Tertullian), 101 On the Nativity (Gregory of Nazianzus ), 4 Origen, 14, 39, 50 the Other: differenees of, 60n81

Paganism, 3, 17; eradieation of, 160; evolution of, 61; in Germany, 197; oppression of Christians and, 70; plurality of, 40; rites of, 70 Paideia, 42, 43, 48, 49, 159 Palladius, 234 Pallas Athena, 128 Paradise, 16 Paseasius Radbertus, 205 Pasehal I (Pope), 206, 208 Paterfamilias, 13; absolute authority of, 117n34; rules on disposition of family members, 90 Patronage: competition for, 40 Paulinus, Anieius, 89 Pax Romana, 158 Pedagogy: writing and, 12 Penitenee, 6, 21 Persecution: of Christians, 53n14 Philosophy: Christianity and, 44; dialeetieal, 38; discourse, 37; heresy and, 37, 47, 50; incorporating loeal soure es of wisdom, 41; monotheism and, 45; Platonic, 55n37; rationalism of, 40; as representation of Christianity, 47; seholastie, 39; Stoie, 55n37; traditional authority of, 44;

INDEX

transeendent, 44, 45; transeending loeal identity through, 43 Pippin III (King), 196 Plato, 39, 44; cosmology of, 15 Platonism, 39, 51n8; Numenian, 44; Pythagorean, 41, 45 Plotinus, 14 Plutareh, 159 Pneumatikoi, 22, 24 Polities: of personal ambition, 40 Polytheism, 40 Porphyrogenitus, Constantine, 174 Porphyry of Antioeh, 234 Posteolonialism, 36, 38 Power: eentralized, 36; eurative, 203, 205; divine, 138; imperial, 138, 166; politieal, 36; transformative, 24; of writing, 13, 19 Proeess: baptism as, 6; of eonversion, 2; fusion of moment with, 16; of illumination, IX; of purifieation, 20; supernatural, 7 Procopius, 106, 109, 123n93, 161-63, 178, 185n69, 226, 244, 250, 252, 253; panegyrie writing, 163-67 Prostitution, 87; ehildren in, 117n33; prohibition against selling daughters into, 90; slaves and, 90 Ptolemaeus, 66 Ptolemy, 48 Publie stage: admonitions against attendanee at speetacles of, 102; antipathy to ehureh, 87; as antithesis of ehureh, 86; conversion and, 84-111; disappearanee of eertain forms of speetacle and, 85-86; entertainments offered, 86; imperviousness to Christianization, 84; Nachleben and, 112n6; opposition of ehureh to, 84; pantomimes, 111; parodies of Christian rites on, 94; regarded as amoral, 87; seeular nature of, 104; as souree of corruption, 87; transvestism and, 95-98, 110 Purifieation: baptism and, 18, 19, 20, 21, 33n78, 33n82; lifelong, 24; as lifelong proeess, 21; proeess of, 20 Pythagoras, 39 Quadragesima, 100 Quintilian,. 31n57

28r

Radeie, 193, 194, 198, 205, 206, 223n119 Rebeeea, 68 Rebillard, Erie, x, 61-74, 99, 225, 226, 227 Reform, 191; inner spiritual regeneration and, 192 Relies: eorreetion and, 201; cults of, 190; distribution of, 202; in Germany, x, 189-212; at Michelstadt, 200; miracles surrounding, 198, 200, 201, 203; proeessions with, 203; Roman, x, 209, 211; shifting attitudes toward, 213nlO Religion: arguments over universality of, 39; authentieity in, 38; behavior shaping and, 173; in imperial period, 39; indeterminaey of, 38; loeative, 45; multiplieity of forms of, 50n2; reason and, 173; traditional eategories of, 37; wave theory of, 50n2 Restitutus, Mareus Antonius, 72 Rigibert (Bishop), 196 Robert, 1., 65 Roman: burial, 61-74; Christianity, 153; citizenship, 154; culture, 152; dominanee ehallenged by Hellenism, 43; edueation, 6, 12, 39; entertainments, 86; ethnography, 152-53, 156-58; hegemony, 42; identity, 50n6, 154; imperialism, 173; justifieation of imperialism, 158; law, 154; love of publie speetacles, 102; martyrs, 189-212; relies, x; self-definition, 158; urban administration, 85-86 Rusticus, 242 Sabazios, 63 Saerifiees, publie, 85-86, 86 Said, Edward, 36, 40 Sta Prassede ehureh, 206, 208fig, 209, 209fig St. Agnes, 235 St. Cosma, 208 St. Damiano, 208 St. Genesius of Ades, 118n39 St. Luke, 7 St. Paul, 14, 64, 155, 208; on giving offense to the heathen, 69; on idolatry, 69; Lukan eonversion of, 7 St. Pelagia, 94-98, 103, 109, 118n45, 119n55, 120n60, 226, 231, 232 St. Peter, 208

INDEX

St. Praxedis, 208 St. Sebastian, 205 Salvation, 16; achieving, 3; baptism and, 17; interpretations of, 2 Samson, 68 Sandilkh, 175 Satan, 189; baptism and, 84; renunciation of, 101 Saturni us, 21 Saul, 68 Scripture: adaptation of, 3 Scythians, 156 Second Sophistic, 158, 159, 166 Secret History (Procopius), 106, 253 Self: formation of, 12; late antique, 40 Semahot, 68 Sententiae (Paul) , 64 Severianus, 72 Severus, Sulpicius, 87, 88 Severus of Antioch, 105, 109, 111 Simon Magus, 238 Sin: actuality of, 32n69; causes of, 16; impossibility of, 3; interpretation of, 32n69 Sitz im Leben (Nock), 7 Smith, Julia, x, 189-212, 225, 254 Social: analysis, 156; change, 166; mobility, 39, 40, 43, 88; order, 12, 13; processes, 225; self-definition, 165; status, 247 Socrates, 44 Sol, 135 Sopatros, 31n57 Sophists, 48 Soul: free will and, 14; illumination of, 17; purification of, 17; renewal of, 192 Speech: Christian, 50; education and, 13; hegemonie, 50; performative acts, 13 Stage performers, 232, 233, 234; baptism of, x, 84-111, 225; chastity and, 108; children of, 87-88; conversion of, 84111; difficulty in recruitment of, 89; forced back into service, 89, 90; hagiography of penitent actresses, 9498; marriage to, 107; martyrologies of, 91-94; mimes, 119n49, 126nl17; obstacles for in receiving baptism, 90, 91; penitent, 105-9; performing after baptism, 88; refusal of sacraments to, 87; rehabilitation of, 104-9; social mobility of, 88

Status: hereditary, 10; social, 10 Stephen (Bishop of Rome), 70 Stereotypes: ethnic, 176; racist, 60n81 Strategikon 0/ Maurice, 175, 176 Structuralism, 191 Superstition, 59n70, 191, 210 Tacitus, 158 Talmud: on burial, 68 Tatian (Emperor), 45, 47, 52n12, 237 Tau/mimus, 92, 103 Tertullian, 45, 50, 69, 70, 101, 104, 111 Theodora (Empress), 106, 107, 123n95, 208; elevation of, 107; former stage actress, 106, 107; founding of convent by, 109 Theodosian Code, 64 Theodosius (Emperor), 3, 5, 24, 89, 240, 241, 249, 257 Theology: defensive, 40; of Eusebius, 14144; intellectual origins of Christian, 42; of Justin Martyr, 38, 42 Theophany, 5, 240, 241 Theophylact Simocatta, 176, 178 Theurgy, 35n105 Tiburtius, 254, 255 Tomb of the Patriarchs, 68 Tosefta, 68 Tradition, hierarchies of, 44 Trajan (Emperor), 38 Translation and Miracles 0/ Sts. Marcellinus and Peter (Einhard), 193, 203-4, 206, 210, 255, 256 Transvestism, 95-98, 110 Trinity: light and, 32n71 Truth: accessibility of, 45; apostolic, 4748; Christianity as, 5 8n5 7; establishing, 44; knowledge of, 17; original, 44, 46, 58n57; revealed, 40, 45, 49; search for, 57n47; simple, 40; subversion of, 47; transcendent, 44, 48, 49; universal, 48 Twelve Tables, 90 Tzani people, 160-69, 184n47, 185n62, 226, 250-54; characteristics of, 167; as citizens, 169; conversion to Christianity, 163; cultural transformation of, 16169, 165, 166; in the law, 168-69; literary context of, 163; political condition of self-rule of, 163; in Procopius's Wars, 161-63; revolt by, 166; subjugation of, 168

INDEX

Universalism, 39 Ursinus, 234 Valens (Emperor), 88 Valentinian (Emperor), 88, 89 Valentinus, 48 Van Dam, Raymond, x, 127-48, 243-54 Verus, Lucius, 241 Vietor, 21 Virgil, 158 Vita Karoli (Einhard), 190 Vita Pelagiae, 95-98, 101, 102, 104, 110 Wala, 204 Wars (Procopius), 161-63, 251, 252 Weber, Max, 191 Weismann, Werner, 91 Wiggo, 189-212, 205 Will: erisis of, 27n20; ftee, 14, 16 Williams, Margaret, 65, 67 Williams, Michael, 48 Williams, R., 41 Willibrord, 196

Wisse, F., 41 Writing: about cultural change, 158-59; astrology and, 13, 14; baptism and, 19; eanonieal, 48; formation of self through, 12; formative power of, 13; inseriptions as, 12; meanings assoeiated with, 12; memory and, 12; panegyrie, 163-67; pedagogy and, 12; philosophiealpedagogieal aspeets of, 13; social order and, 12; teehnieal aspeets of, 30n55; as trans formative aet, 12; transformative powers of, 19 Writing, ethnographie, 153; Christianity and, 155; decline in, 174-77; ethnographie thought and, 154, 155; in Roman empire, 156-58; in Roman law, 154; varieties of, 153-56 Zenobia, 44 Zoroastrianism, 172 Zosimus, 128